OOC: This thread is picking up directly from this thread. I'll write something new here, but I'll also actually just reproduce part of the last post from that thread to help start this one up and give a sense of continuity and all that. (I'm actually just lazy.)

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It was cool and dark. Dim lamps and orangish street lights cast a calm, warm glow on the quaint town square of Yellow Desert, oh so aptly named as it was pretty much the only town in the Yellow Desert. It may have been a bit of a Mayberry, but it was peaceful and neat—Something that could not be said of some other places at the moment, thanks to Eggman.

So quiet. A few cars passed by on the blacktop pavement. The statue of some old, important-looking guy stood proudly, gazing skyward. The park benches and gazebo sat empty and unused for the moment, as it was a small town, and it was getting late. Business as usual—Nothing wrong.

Of course, Eggman's troublemaking had a habit of spilling over even into places he may not have originally intended; he was at least mostly to blame for the gigantic, swirling, vortex-like hole in the sky that appeared suddenly and without warning some distance above the small park. Glowing embers and orange-hot molten rock began to drop out, while a number of silhouetted figures dropped in with a great deal of clatter and clamor. Among them was Rock, who particularly made a mess of his arrival by landing on that dainty little gazebo, and nearly crushing its roof in. A glowing glob of lava meanwhile landed smack on the statue's head and immediately blackened and began to solidify on the wilting, drooping metal effigy. The dry, sparse grass similarly began to get spattered and catch fire, while a small fender bender caused by driver shock at the scene turned into a several car pile-up. The temperature in the area immediately skyrocketed, but it was still way better than where the group came from.

The monkey hopped down from his crunched perch with a solid thud, and headed for the safety of the sidewalk.

"Everybody with us?" he mumbled to no one in particular as he began to count heads.


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As if in answer to Mako's immediate question, a dull groan rumbled through the air. It started out as merely deep, but as it went on and on it got lower and louder until it was only an undulating shockwave that pulsated through the air.

Then the spell broke, with a sharp crack and an array of incredibly foreboding splintering noises.

Air of eyeball-shrivelling heat breathed down harshly through the tunnel above. A rushing, scorching wind began blasting down through the portal, stirring up debris and throwing dust across the square that the unfortunate group of adventurers had arrived at.

Tails had, temporarily halted before by the presence of the Law, broken from the police group and begun running around from car to car.

"Go!" he yelled frantically, "Get upstairs, get up away from the ground! You have to—have... to—"

Then the wind blew down through the hole, and his eyes had dilated, and he had turned a stunned face up at the hole in the sky through which could be seen…

Gallons and gallons of incandescent, liquid rock.

Anyone who had not immediately scurried for the nearest escape would have witnessed a singular sight.

A frothing, searing, black and white and red all over torrent arced over the rim of the massive shaft that cut into the bottom of the geode, and splashed into the opposite side, exploding into a shower of sparks which rained down across the ground in the city below. The sparks had quickly turned into droplets, which quickly turned into pellets, and then streams of lava, and then, a huge churning column of fire and brimstone, in all its fury, plunged down out of the sky, hitting, punching through, and then exploding the hapless gazebo that had lived so innocently and free of strife until that night. The lava that hit the ground bunched up in huge, piling rolls, and began to spread out as the incoming river of lava grew and grew—

and then stopped.

There was a terrible noise, like the shriek of fingernails on a chalk-board—an electric, spine-scraping hiss—accompanied with a rather peculiar sizzle, like bacon frying. The noise grew for a few painful seconds, and then there was a thunderclap, and the portal vanished, leaving a faint, luminescent after-image in the air that lingered for a few seconds before flickering off like a bad light.

The mass of lava, now deprived of any fresh source, immediately became several times less threatening. The huge pile of semi-cooled lava burbled and sucked and made strange flatulent noises as, now cooling in the night air, it began to spread out slowly, like a big blob of pancake batter expanding on a griddle.

In the ensuing peace, the pavement turned gently into boiling jelly as lava crept across it. Grass blackened and wilted as the heat of the rock shone out. Car alarms sounded off in the distance.

Nearby, a park bench burst into flames.