CHAPTER#155

Yuki pulled a card from her pocket and held it up. The Sun card was warm in her hand, the energy of over a decade's worth of direct sunlight stored inside. It was one of the first cards she had made, but one of the last she had finished. Each line of art had been painstakingly drawn at night beneath Daisy's magical glow, the only light that was safe to draw it by. Hungry for heat, it had gobbled up the sun's light so quickly that an unnatural winter had settled in to the mountain for several months until she could control its intake.

She slid her hand across the face of the card and tossed it over the edge. It shimmered and turned into an angry ball of light that rapidly expanded to the size of a small sedan before it vanished from view.

"Are you ready?" she asked Mike, pulling the sunstone from her pocket.

"Do it," he told her.

Yuki cocked her arm back and winced, grabbing her side in agony. Her arm dropped to her side, so she handed the sunstone over to Mike.

"You need to," she told him, already feeling the temperature rise. "Hurry!"

"Yeah, sure." He scooped up the sunstone and cocked his arm back. He threw it over the edge of the garden and then they both turned and ran.

The sky turned an eerie red above them as the giant ball of fire beneath the island met up with the falling stone. A blast of heat rocked the island from beneath, sending giant cracks through the ground and the garden walls. Mike and Yuki both fell to the ground as the combined might of the stone and her tarot card combined to create what likely looked like a small sun beneath them.

Another wave of heat blasted the island, and Yuki looked back in time to see a chunk of it break off and fall.

"Go," she hissed, clutching her sides. Mike yanked her to her feet and ran, pulling her. A second wave of energy rocked the island, and they both got tossed through the air and crashed into one of the nearby statues. It tilted on top of them, but she was yanked out of the way at the last second by Mike.

"C'mon," he shouted, then pulled her up once more. A low musical note filled the air as hot wind rushed across the island, followed by several more tones as each portal acted like the open end of a bottle. The sound raised the hairs on Yuki's neck, causing her to shiver.

The temperature was increasing exponentially now. The rats had cleverly created a closed system with their dimension hopping, and as the heat increased, so would the pressure. Oliver's world had become a massive pressure cooker that was starting to heat up.

They passed the pavilion and then Oliver. Yuki stumbled again, her legs giving out as fire spread through her lungs, but Mike helped her again, lifting her off the ground and slinging her over his shoulder. The ground rocked dangerously beneath them, giant cracks appearing in the garden, but he casually sidestepped them and even dodged a few falling statues. The going was slower than she would have liked, and she gasped at the sight of a shimmering wall of heat blasting away at the edges of the garden.

They were at the reflecting pool. Mike held on tightly to Yuki, stepping into the water.

"Ixiar Tobish Anuit," they both said, and the pool shimmered beneath them. Their bodies floated up into the sky slowly at first, and Yuki looked down in horror as the water beneath them began to bubble. Gathering her magic, she blasted the pool with frost, attempting to cool it down long enough for them to escape.

They rose together into the sky, slowly gaining speed as Oliver's island grew smaller beneath them. The light from below was so intense that it was like looking into the sun itself, so they both closed their eyes as they gained speed, the air growing impossibly hot around them. Yuki summoned her magic, her icy shields bursting and turning to steam just as fast as they formed.

It was now hard to breath. Neither of them had expected the garden to become so unstable, and the air was hot enough now that it hurt to breathe. Flames licked at their feet, the world beneath them ablaze with power.

When they exited the reflecting pool of the Labyrinth, the heat that chased them out had caused steam to rise from its surface, turning the pool into a hot spring. Together, they quickly scrambled out of the water and fell on the cool stone of the Labyrinth floor, gasping for air.

"Well," Yuki began, wheezing now. "Now that we've made a bomb roughly the size of a small planet, what would you like to do tomorrow, Caretaker?"

Mike let out a hard laugh, squeezing Yuki's hand with his own.

--

Beth opened her eyes, taking a deep breath. Her vision was blurry for a few moments, and she saw some shapes moving around in front of her.

"Easy," a voice told her, as if from a great distance. "It takes a few minutes to acclimate to being flesh and bone again, so just relax."

"Ra... Ratu?" her voice was barely a whisper. The figures slowly gained definition, turning from amorphous blobs into humanoids that moved in front of her. The fuzzy edges of their bodies came into focus, and she found herself lying on a cot that had been built in front of the Labyrinth.

Off to her side, she saw Ratu nod with a satisfied smile. She was holding a strange scepter with a stony eyeball built into the top. "Looks like we're good here. Don't get up for a bit, your balance is non-existent and your muscles are going to hurt pretty badly. You aren't dying or anything, so just relax until the feeling passes."

"I... where..." her brain fought to put the pieces together. A warm hand took hers and squeezed. She turned her head to see Mike at her side.

"Welcome home," he told her, then leaned in to give her a hug.

"You... came for... me..." the smile that crossed her face hurt like hell, but she didn't care.

She was saved.