Chapter 11: Dark Water
The world didn’t fall away so much as it disintegrated.
One second, Fred’s boots were on solid, baking rock. The next, there was nothing but a roar of shattered stone and a blistering updraft from below. He was falling, Eli’s shout swallowed by the chaos, Kord’s bellow of rage cut short. The orange glow from below rushed up to meet them—not just light, but liquid, hungry heat.
His brain, trained in the split-second calculus of duels, didn’t think. It reacted. His left hand, already moving as he fell, snatched Webs’ tube from his bandolier, loaded it into his blaster, and fired straight down.
The purple Arachnet shot out, velocimorphing before it even hit the open air. Six spindly legs splayed, its spinneret whirring. Thick, steel-gray webbing erupted, crisscrossing the shaft in a frantic, widening mesh. It anchored with brittle thwocks into the crumbling walls around them.
They hit the net not with a crash, but a sickening, elastic groan. The weave sagged violently, dropping them another heart-stopping meter toward the lava pit that churned and bubbled ten feet below their dangling boots. The heat was an immediate, suffocating blanket. Fred’s vision swam. The air scorched his lungs.
“Don’t move!” he rasped, his voice shredded by the sulfurous fumes. The net creaked, individual strands singing with tension.
Below him, Eli had one hand tangled in the webbing, the other clamped around Pronto’s ankle. The Molenoid was shrieking, swinging like a pendulum over the molten rock. Kord was a massive, blue knot off to the side, his weight straining the anchors. A low, pained grunt came from him.
“The anchors… are pullin’ loose,” Kord growled, pointing a thick finger. Fred followed his gaze. The stone where Webs’ threads had embedded was glassy, superheated. It was fracturing, tiny cracks spreading like spiderwebs.
“Climb!” Eli shouted, already hauling himself and a sobbing Pronto upward, hand over hand.
Fred didn’t need telling twice. He climbed, the sticky, resilient threads clinging to his gloves. Every muscle burned. Sweat dripped from his nose, sizzling as it fell into the pit. He heard a soft, pained chirp from his chest. Webs, still maintaining the net from his transformed state, was straining.
They scrambled over the lip of the shaft and onto solid ground, collapsing into a heap of coughing, heat-blasted bodies. The moment the last of them was clear, Webs released his form, zipping back into his tube on Fred’s bandolier, weak and trembling.
For a long minute, there was only the sound of ragged breathing and the distant roar of lava. The chamber was empty. Blakk and his men were gone, the drill rig quiet. They’d left, confident the trap had finished its work.
“Son of a…” Eli spat, pushing himself to his knees. His face was smudged with soot, his eyes burning with a fury hotter than the pit behind them.
Pronto was curled in a fetal position, muttering about “ungentlemanly deception” and “the end of glorious Pronto.” Kord checked his gear, his movements slow and deliberate, the only sign of his anger the way his massive jaw muscles bunched and rolled.
Fred forced air into his seared lungs. He touched the camera on his shoulder. The green light was off. The feed was dead. Probably smashed in the fall. Trixie had seen Blakk, heard his plan, and then… static. A pit that wasn’t made of lava opened in his stomach.
“He thinks we’re slag,” Fred said, his voice rough. “That buys us a minute.”
“To do what?” Eli asked, checking Burpy’s tube. The Infernus slug was agitated, pulsing with a protective, angry heat.
“To wreck his new toy,” Fred said, standing up. He felt a sharp twinge in his ankle but ignored it. “He said it was down here. The source. The refinery. We find it. We break it.”
There were no objections. The conversation was over. They moved, a silent, grim unit, leaving the treacherous chamber behind. Pronto led, his earlier terror channeled into a silent, ninja-like scouting that was, for once, completely genuine. The tunnel Blakk had used was obvious—a wide, bored-out passage with fresh tool marks and discarded power cells littering the floor.
The air changed as they descended. The dry, scorching heat became wet and heavy, laced with a new, foul smell. It was like rotting metal and spoiled eggs, a chemical stink that clawed at the back of the throat. The omnipresent red glow of the labyrinth began to be pierced by unnatural, buzzing crimson lights mounted on the walls.
Then the tunnel opened, and they saw it.
The Scorched Sparks cavern was a cathedral of devastation. A massive, ragged tear in the world. Jagged obsidian spines thrust up from seething lava pools like blackened teeth. Rivers of molten rock cascaded down distant cliffs in deafening, orange-white waterfalls. But that wasn’t the focus.
In the center of the cavern, a monstrous metal tower, all girders and grinding machinery, had been built directly over a deep, raw wound in the cavern floor. From the heart of the tower, a thick, crimson laser beam pulsed rhythmically down into the pit, illuminating what churned within.
Dark Water.
A violent, blood-red maelstrom, frothing and churning as if boiling from within. The laser seemed to be agitating it, exciting it. The very air around the pit shimmered with a corrupt, violet haze.
“The source,” Eli whispered, horror stripping his voice bare.
Attached to the tower was a refinery—a series of bloated tanks, twisting pipes, and distilling columns that glistened with condensation. From the base of the Dark Water pit, a thick, insulated pipe sucked the churning liquid up into the machinery. The sound was a low, digestive gurgle.
And it was operational. Figures moved in the harsh light. Henchmen in sealed, yellow hazmat suits, their faces hidden behind fogged visors, wrestled with large, barrel-shaped containers. The barrels were being filled from a spigot on the refinery’s side. The liquid that flowed out was denser, darker, almost a shimmering black. Refined.
As one of the henchmen heaved a full barrel onto a transport sled, a drop splashed onto the rocky ground. The stone didn’t just darken. It rotted, crumbling into a fine, grey ash with a faint hiss.
A collective flinch went through the slugs on Fred’s bandolier. Voltage, on his shoulder, let out a low, distressed buzz, his blue body dimming. Fred felt a shudder run through Grime, Thorn, and Zero. Scorch’s usual warmth felt sickly. These slugs, bred for element and earth, recoiled from the sheer anti-life resonance of the stuff.
“They’re packaging it,” Kord rumbled, his voice thick with disgust. “Like cavern cider.”
“Not just packaging,” Fred said, his eyes scanning the refinery. He pointed to a separate, smaller structure linked to the main tanks. It was sealed, windowless, with a series of heavy valves and a large, reinforced hatch. A warning symbol—a skull being engulfed by tendrils of gas—was stenciled on the side in flaking red paint. “That’s the gas chamber. Where he exposes them.”
Eli followed his gaze. His knuckles were white on his blaster. “We have to destroy it. All of it.”
“Tactical problem,” Fred said, his mind clicking through variables. “Four of us. At least eight visible guards. Sealed suits mean blunt force or cutting attacks. Sonic or electrical might not penetrate. They’re also carrying what I’d guess is highly explosive, highly corruptive material.”
“So we’re careful,” Eli said, as if it were that simple.
“Careful ain’t a strategy,” Kord muttered, hefting his cannon. “We need a diversion. Something big and loud that ain’t us.”
Pronto, peering from behind a rock, pointed a shaking finger toward the cavern’s ceiling. “The… the lava falls! The main flow is diverted through that metal culvert to power the machinery! If Pronto’s legendary observational skills are correct—and they always are—a well-placed explosive interruption could cause a catastrophic thermal redistribution!”
They all looked. Pronto was right. A huge, cast-iron channel directed a portion of a lava waterfall into the side of the refinery tower, presumably to power generators. If that flow was disrupted…
Fred looked at Shrapnel’s tube. The Hop Rock slug was a living breach charge. He looked at the delicate-looking support struts holding up the heavy lava channel.
“Kord,” Fred said. “You’re the best shot with a heavy launcher. You see the primary load-bearing junction on that culvert? The one that looks like a rusty elbow?”
Kord squinted, then a slow, savage grin spread across his face. “Yeah. I see it.”
“Hit that with everything you’ve got. The moment it goes, their lights, their pumps, their laser—it all goes haywire. That’s our window.” Fred turned to Eli and Pronto. “We use the chaos. Eli, you and Burpy make a beeline for that gas chamber. Melt the hatch, wreck the interior. Pronto, you stick with him, watch his back. I’ll go for the main tanks and the pipe sucking from the pit.”
“What’s the goal? Just blow the tanks?” Eli asked.
Fred looked at the pulsating laser, at the violently churning Dark Water. An idea, cold and brutal, formed. “Better. We redirect the plumbing. We let the lava flow into the source. Cook it from the inside out.”
Eli stared at him, then nodded. It was a vicious, final solution. It felt right.
They shared a look, a final confirmation. No speeches. Fred unclipped Shrapnel’s tube and tossed it to Kord. The Cave Troll took it, hefting the weight with ease.
“On your call, Vanguard,” Kord said.
Fred nodded. He loaded Scorch into his own blaster. Hammer was next on his mental list. He took a final breath of the foul, chemical air.
“Do it.”
Kord caught the tube, his massive fingers deftly loading the rugged Hop Rock into the wide bore of his launcher. He took a knee, the metal of his cannon cool against his cheek. The distant, grinding roar of the refinery, the hiss of the lava flow, the frantic shouts of hazmat-suited men—it all faded into a muffled background hum. There was only the sight picture: the rust-weep junction where the colossal lava culvert met the support pylon.
He exhaled, slow and steady. “C’mon, little guy. Make a big entrance.”
He pulled the trigger.
The blaster coughed. Shrapnel rocketed across the cavern, a yellow-and-orange streak spiraling through the geothermic haze. For a heartbeat, it was just a slug in flight. Then it metamorphosed, its form expanding, crystallizing, becoming a spiked, kinetic geode the size of a barrel.
It struck the junction dead center.
The explosion wasn’t fire. It was a catastrophic release of kinetic energy and heat. A deafening CRACK-WHUMP shattered the cavern’s constant roar. The junction disintegrated in a starburst of shattered metal and molten rock. The heavy iron culvert, deprived of its main support, groaned like a dying beast. It sheared sideways.
A furious river of orange-white lava, suddenly liberated, vomited from the severed channel. It wasn’t a spill; it was a tidal wave of liquid stone, cascading down the side of the refinery tower, eating through girders, and flooding across the cavern floor in a relentless, glowing tide. It headed straight for the secondary processing tanks.
The crimson laser stuttered and died. The buzzing industrial lights flickered, plunging sections of the cavern into violent, strobing shadows. Alarms, shrill and mechanical, began to whoop. The henchmen stopped, silhouetted against the sudden, apocalyptic glow, their movements confused and panicked.
Fred didn’t watch the chaos. He was already moving, Zero’s cool tube in his blaster. He had to guide the flow. He aimed not at the lava itself, but at the path in front of its leading edge. He fired.
Zero shot forth, velocimorphing mid-air into a sleek, icy ram trailing a blizzard’s breath. The slug opened its mouth, and a thick, blue-white beam of absolute cold screamed out. It didn’t extinguish the lava—nothing could. Instead, it sculpted it.
The beam hit the rocky floor, flash-freezing a towering, curved berm of solid ice directly in the lava’s path. The molten rock hit the frozen barrier with a tsunami’s force and a horrific, continuous shriek of vaporizing ice. Deflected, the main flow turned, following the icy channel Fred had envisioned. It roared, steaming and spitting, on a new trajectory—straight for the raw, open pit of churning Dark Water.
The two primal forces met.
The reaction was silent for a microsecond, a stunning pause as incandescent rock poured into the blood-red maelstrom. Then the pit erupted. Not in flame, but in a violent, upward plume of superheated, corrupted steam—a screaming geyser of black and purple vapor. The smell was indescribable, a toxic cocktail of burned chemicals and rotting ozone that made their eyes water instantly.
Fred nodded, once, at the others. No words were needed. Eli grabbed Pronto’s shoulder and they vanished into the steam and shadows, sprinting for the sealed gas chamber. Its warning symbol glowed in the erratic light.
Fred jerked his head at Kord. “Inside. Before they lock it down.”
They broke cover, weaving through the panic. Two henchmen stumbled out of a smoking service door, fumbling with their respirators. Kord didn’t break stride. He caught the first with a backhand swipe that crumpled the man’s helmet into his face. Fred drove his shoulder into the second, slamming him into the wall before a precise jab to the throat dropped him gasping.
They dragged the limp bodies behind a ruptured pipe. The yellow hazmat suits were slick with condensation and reeked of sweat and chemical fear. Fred wrestled one on over his gear; it was tight across his shoulders, the visor fogging immediately. Kord’s suit was a comical stretch over his mountainous frame, the arms ending well above his wrists.
“Feel like a giant septic tank,” Kord grumbled, his voice muffled.
“Just keep the helmet down,” Fred said, pushing the service door open.
The interior of the refinery was a shock of sterile, pressurized coolness after the cavern’s hellish heat. The sudden silence was relative, filled now with the hum of pumps, the gurgle of pipes, and the new, blaring alarm. Harsh white light reflected off polished steel walkways and complex tangles of instrumentation. The smell of cold metal and ozone replaced the sulfur.
They moved with purpose, heads down, trying to look like two more panicked workers. Other yellow-suited figures rushed past, shouting about a “primary coolant breach” and “containment failure.” None gave them a second glance.
A thunderous BOOM echoed through the structure, vibrating the gridded floor under their feet. Distant shouts were followed by the distinct, roaring whoosh of an Infernus in full fury. A smile touched Fred’s lips behind the visor. Eli and Burpy were on task. The gas chamber was getting a remodel.
“Central control should be this way,” Fred muttered, following the largest conduit pipes. They found it behind a reinforced glass wall: a room dominated by a massive panel of blinking lights, spinning pressure dials, and inactive monitor screens. Two technicians, not in suits, were frantically hitting switches, their faces pale under the static.
Fred and Kord looked at each other through their fogged visors. Neither was a computer slicer. Fred’s expertise was in the physical, the mechanical. Kord’s was in hitting things until they worked—or stopped working.
“Simplest solution,” Fred said, unsealing his helmet clasp for a moment to get a clear shot.
He loaded Voltage. Kord pulled a fresh tube from his own belt—a Rammstone, not his usual, but one he kept for emergencies. They didn’t bother with the door. They raised their blasters in unison, sighted through the glass, and fired.
Voltage became a living arc of blue-yellow lightning, crackling across the room. He didn’t hit the technicians; he snaked directly into the main console, his body flooding the circuitry with a devastating electromagnetic pulse. Every screen went black. Every light died.
A microsecond later, Kord’s Rammstone hit. It didn’t velocimorph so much as embody force, a battering ram of pure kinetic energy wrapped in maroon flesh. It smashed through the already-dead console, obliterating switches, crushing housings, and folding the entire panel in on itself with a shriek of tearing metal.
The technicians dove for cover as sparks and shrapnel filled the room. The heart of the refinery was now a smoldering, sparking corpse.
“Now for the funeral,” Fred said, resealing his helmet.
They planted the explosive charges at key structural points—the base of the main distillation column, the support legs of the largest holding tank, the manifold where the Dark Water pipe entered the building. Fred’s hands were steady, the timers set for a short, generous window. The sticky-backed pads clung to the cold metal with finality.
They met Eli and Pronto at the designated service airlock. Eli’s face was smudged with soot, his eyes bright with triumphant fury. Pronto was clutching a handful of shredded wiring like a trophy. “The chamber is unfit for even a germ!” Pronto announced. “Pronto personally severed its primary neural conduits!”
“The whole place is gonna be unfit for anything,” Kord said, handing Eli the detonator. It was a small, black box with a single, guarded toggle switch.
Eli didn’t hesitate. He looked at Fred, who gave a single, grim nod. He looked at Kord, who shrugged his massive shoulders in their ridiculous suit. He looked at Pronto, who, for once, was silent.
Eli flipped the switch.
The first charge went off with a deep, gut-thumping THUD that they felt through their boots. Then another. A chain reaction of concussive booms tore through the refinery’s belly. Lights exploded along the ceiling. The gurgle of pipes became screams of rupturing metal.
A secondary, deeper explosion erupted—the main tank, its refined Dark Water finding an ignition source. A fireball of unnatural, purplish-black flame billowed from a rupture, consuming the walkways they’d just crossed.
“Time to go!” Fred yelled, shoving them toward the airlock.
They stumbled out into the cavern, now a vision of industrial demise. The refinery tower leaned precariously, sheathed in flame and gouting strange, colored smoke. The lava, having flooded the Dark Water pit, had created a grotesque, hardening slag mountain over the source, sealing it under a crust of black and orange rock. The air was a toxic soup.
They ran, shedding the clumsy hazmat suits, heading for the tunnel that led back to the labyrinth, to the surface, to home. Behind them, the monument to Blakk’s ambition consumed itself in a glorious, terrible inferno, its dark heart finally scorched and still.