Adapt Or Be Crushed (The Exceptional S. Beaufont Book 9)

by Sarah Noffke

  She rolled to the side, moving fast to avoid the sparks that flew in all directions from Herbert’s attack. The tree where she’d been stationed was now on fire, which sent more sparks around as the flames licked up to the branches. The whole mountain would be on fire soon unless they got this monster and volcano under control.

  But it was hard to do that while on the defensive. The fire from the first tree was spreading up the mountain and taking away her shelter. Sophia tried to create another snowball but was too busy dodging the burning branches falling from the trees. She would have to go without coverage.

  “Hey, Ugly Lava Blob!” Liv yelled from the other side. “Yahoo! Over here. I was hoping you’d share how you can spit so far? I’m pretty bad at it, especially with lava.”

  This seemed to get Herbert’s attention. The monster spun to face Liv as its tentacles dug around in the lake for more lava. With its back to her, Sophia was frustrated to see that her snowball attack hadn’t made a mark. All it seemed to do was anger him, which made it so he took away her coverage and set the mountain on fire more than before.

  May I make a suggestion? Lunis asked in her head.

  As long as it has to do with my current situation and not some new gadget you want me to order off Instant Amazon, she answered.

  Oh, well, never mind. Good luck with staying alive.

  Sophia shook her head and watched as Herbert retrieved some lava bits from the bottom of the lake. It was time to act, but she didn’t know if throwing another snowball was the right approach. It might deplete her, and she could use that energy to put out the fire taking over their path up the mountain.

  My thoughts exactly, Lunis chimed in her head again.

  I thought you were leaving me to die alone, she remarked with a laugh.

  Nah, I just like to make you think I’ve abandoned you, he stated.

  So cute, Sophia replied with no humor.

  I don’t think you should try the snowballs again either, he said, obviously having read her thoughts on the matter.

  You don’t?

  No. Instead, put out the fire and also go for the bigger water source, Lunis advised. My suggestion is that you fight lava with water.

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Five

  The lake, Sophia exclaimed. That’s genius, Lunis.

  That’s why I get paid the big bucks. Can I get a raise on my allowance, by the way?

  You don’t get an allowance, Sophia stated.

  The dragon mumbled something in her head. About that…

  Liv was doing her best to avoid getting impaled by a lava ball on the other side of the lake. She had Bellator out and was playing a batting game that Sophia had played with fireballs before. It’s how they improved their baseball game. No better way not to miss the ball than wanting to avoid catching on fire if one struck out.

  “Batter, batter, batter, up,” Liv yelled in a taunt. She connected with one of the lava balls and fired it back at Herbert. As they expected, it didn’t damage the monster. It made him angry that the attack didn’t work though, and it splattered the top of the lake with its tentacles to send boiling water raining down.

  “What a baby you are when you don’t get your way,” Liv goaded.

  Sophia held out both her hands and directed them over the water. She hadn’t tried freezing a body of water this big before, but when would she ever have had an opportunity? It stood to reason that it was easier to turn existing water to ice rather than create it from scratch.

  And I heard that it was easier to freeze hot water because the composition had already changed once, Lunis offered in her head.

  Your time watching Bill Nye the Science Guy is paying off finally, Sophia joked while directing as much of her attention as she could to the lake.

  Liv caught a glance at what she was doing but to Sophia’s horror, so did Herbert. The monster spun around and dug furiously for more lava.

  “Hey Bulbous Head!” Liv yelled and waved her hands over her head. “Over here! Let’s go back to working on your pitching skills, which are horrible. I’ve had Brownies throw a ball at me harder than you, Herbert.”

  Apparently, the beast was done with being taunted. He saw what Sophia was doing and wasn’t going to have it. He might have felt his tank of boiling water getting cooler. From Sophia’s perspective, it seemed to be working—the simmer subsided, along with her magical reserves.

  Liv had abandoned the insults and instead had run back around the lake, picking up stones as she ran. Sophia had no idea what she was doing, but knew that she had to stay focused on the task of cooling the lake. Otherwise, they were out of options. Mount Castiglione would erupt, and Paul would be gone. There was way too much riding on this for Sophia to fail. This thought was the motivation she needed to up the ante and make progress.

  To her amazement, frost began to form around the water’s edge.

  “You hungry, boy?” Liv asked with one arm full of large stones. She pulled back her other arm, threw a stone at Herbert, and nearly landed it in his wide mouth.

  The creature was busy searching for lava in the lake. Its face contorted with anger, which increased when the rock ricocheted off his head and plopped into the water.

  To Sophia’s relief, it appeared that Herbert was having trouble finding any lava. She hoped that meant her freezing spell had solidified much of what was in the lake. She no longer saw orange magnum streaking through the water.

  “Okay, I bought a bunch of tickets for this carnival game. Open up so I can try and get the bean bag in the clown’s mouth,” Liv joked while throwing another round of rocks, this time faster than before. Two landed in the monster’s mouth and made its green eyes bulge.

  “Oh, shoot!” Liv exclaimed.

  Sophia’s head jerked up. Concern nearly made her halt the spell.

  “I got some in Herbert’s mouth, but then I remembered something.” Liv continued scavenging for stones.

  “What’s that?” Sophia dared to ask.

  “What goes into the lava monster, most likely will come out!”

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Six

  Liv dove through the air and rolled head over feet as the lava monster shot stones that were now bright orange at her. She tumbled to the side and nearly went into the lake.

  “Watch out!” Sophia warned, trying to stop her sister before she was in the water.

  “No worries,” Liv sang while popping back up to her feet victoriously. “Everything is going to plan…more or less.”

  “This is your plan?” Sophia had to ask, feeling a huge drain and thinking she might fall down from exhaustion at any point.

  “Oh, yeah.” Liv ran around the opposite side of the lake. “Piss off a lava monster while you freeze its habitat.”

  The ground rumbled underfoot and reminded Sophia that she was fighting a losing battle. She was trying to freeze a lake on a volcano that was trying to explode. Surely Paul was aware of the commotion by this point. Maybe he’d come down soon and save them the effort of having to hike up the mountain.

  The trees along the path were still on fire, although freezing the lake had slowed the progress as frost reached up them from the ground and took over. It was a battle of the elements at this point.

  “Hot potato!” Liv exclaimed and dropped a steaming rock. She wagged a finger at Herbert, narrowed her eyes, and gave him a punishing glare. “Seriously, you’re not fighting fair. I give you lovely rocks to eat, and you turn them burnie hot. This isn’t a hot stone massage, dude. And if it were, you’d be the worst masseuse in the world.”

  To Sophia’s relief, Herbert didn’t seem to be moving as fast, as if the absence of heat slowed him.

  “Hey, Soph,” Liv called. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” She nodded in Herbert’s direction to indicate its slower speed. Freezing the monster was working to a certain extent, although Herbert hadn’t given up looking for more lava somewhere in the lake.

  If only Sophia could get it to freeze enough that the monster was stuck. Then
they could deliver the finishing blow.

  Sophia and Liv’s eyes met, and they seemed to share the same thought. Sophia dropped to her knees and put her hands on the lake’s surface, hoping that closer contact made the spell stronger. Sometimes that was the case.

  She bowed her head, unable to focus on staying vigilant or defending herself. Sophia would have to rely on Liv for that now. All her effort had to go into freezing the lake before Herbert got another advantage and came back from near defeat.

  The lake surface felt like a burn under Sophia’s fingers and palms as she pressed them into the newly formed ice. Her head lolled to the side, and in the distant corners of her mind, she heard Liv laughing and taunting the lava monster. She hoped with all the strength she had left that this was enough for her sister to defeat Herbert—because Sophia didn’t have much left to give.

  Don’t you dare give up, Soph, Lunis urged in her mind. Don’t you dare let go now.

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Seven

  Watching Sophia slump, nearly passed out from the effort of trying to freeze the small body of water, was almost too much for Liv. It distracted her from what she needed to do next. However, she couldn’t allow that to happen.

  Sophia had done her part. Now it was Liv’s opportunity to rise to the challenge. She wasn’t going to waste her sister’s efforts.

  Herbert was slowing down, but the monster was smart enough to keep its distance from Liv. She could have shot a fireball at the creature, but as they had assumed, it would probably only fuel Herbert. Her other options weren’t devastating enough to firmly end the beast. She needed to get close, but the ice that had formed over the surface didn’t seem thick enough to support her weight, especially after the huge dinner they’d had in Santa Monica.

  Liv’s eyes connected with the area around where Sophia was lying pretty much passed out. Her hands rested on the ice-covered lake, and the frost spread out around her, covering everything. Sophia wasn’t conscious, then. Which was huge, because she’d passed out while expending the spell. Usually, fainting would cut off the effort to preserve her last bit of strength, but in full Sophia fashion, she’d figured out how to keep the spell going after she’d lost consciousness.

  “Big Tex the dragon is probably behind this,” Liv said bitterly while noticing the one good thing about Sophia passing out and still expending the energy to spread the cold and ice around the lake.

  The frost crept over the trees lining the side of the lake, and had blotted out the fire completely.

  But that’s not what lifted Liv’s spirit. Needing to distract Herbert while she got the next part of her plan into place, Liv launched the rest of the rocks she’d collected at the lava monster, along with a few more insults.

  “Your momma is so ugly that she gives Freddy Krueger nightmares!” Liv spat and hit Herbert in one of his three eyes.

  He roared, but was unable to pull his tentacles from where they were stuck in the ice. Liv considered grabbing Sophia at that point and hauling her up the mountain to retrieve Paul. However, her concern was that the lava monster would generate heat and come back to life if not disposed of fully.

  “You’re so ugly that when you were born, your momma said, what a treasure,” Liv began, and threw more rocks at the lava monster as she progressed around the other side of the small lake. “And your father agreed and said, yeah, let’s bury it.”

  With great effort, Herbert turned to follow Liv streaking around the almost frozen lake. This gave Liv enough time to take off in a full sprint. When she was almost upon the first frozen tree, she leapt into the air and kicked hard at the structure, pairing the effort with a spell. Her foot collided with the trunk, and there was a loud crack.

  The tree split in half as if sawed down by a lumberjack, and the top portion fell into the lake, creating a bridge of sorts.

  Liv didn’t waste any time as she jumped onto the frozen trunk, then nearly slipped off it onto the ice where it rested. She caught her balance as Herbert turned all the way around. Its eyes widened as he realized what she was about to do. How close she was. How it was completely out of options.

  Liv yanked out Bellator and shot down the length of the trunk. She didn’t stop until she reached the end and plunged her sword into the bulbous creature, feeling like she was stabbing a giant pumpkin. The assault made Herbert explode, sent lava everywhere, and launched Liv into the air and straight back onto the banks of the lake where she landed hard on her back.

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Eight

  The wind was knocked out of Liv when she landed, but she didn’t let that slow her down. She rolled over while shielding her face from the lava that rained down. Thankfully, it had exploded up and out like a roman candle and fountained around the lake. So far, Sophia wasn’t being hit by the spray but as the fountain of lava lessened, so did its trajectory.

  Liv jumped to her feet, pulled up her cloak, and was grateful to see that the protective spell she’d put on them was still working. However, Sophia was passed out and completely exposed.

  She ran through the raining lava and felt it burn through her cloak. Still, she moved fast enough that the droplets of lava didn’t get to much of her.

  The monster had exploded into the ice bath, which sent steam into the air, blanketed the area with smoke, and made it hard to see.

  Liv darted the wrong direction at first, her bearings off after being thrown through the air.

  She ran around the edge of the pond the wrong way for a good distance before spying Sophia on the opposite side. Liv kicked it into high gear and sped back to where her sister was close to being hit by the fountain of lava, which thankfully wasn’t on the warrior anymore. However, she’d rather that than have it rain down on Sophia.

  The concentration of lava droplets grew thicker as Herbert’s innards rained down on them.

  Liv would have to be fast while running through the lava shower. But coming back through it seemed like a horrible idea. She could recast the protective spell to get her through the now almost wall, but that would only work for one pass. That’s when she realized that the shore wasn’t being hit, and they had only one option to get out of this unburned.

  Liv pulled in a deep breath, said a prayer, and sheathed her sword.

  It was go time. Hopefully, she’d weighed her options well enough and wasn’t about to kill her sister, but rather save her.

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Nine

  Liv darted forward and kept her head low as she passed through the falling lava, which was now like sparks radiating off a welding torch. Thankfully, they rained down uniformly, making it easier to pass through.

  They burned Liv’s head and shoulders as she crossed, but the spell had done its job and she believed she was unharmed. She could assess her injuries later. Right now, she had to finish what she started.

  Liv sped forward, not losing any momentum as she scooped up her sister’s passed-out form and slapped her hard across the face as she did.

  “Stop the spell!” she yelled as the strange orange magma fountain arched over their heads.

  Sophia’s eyes fluttered, and she opened her mouth with a gasp before falling limp again. However, to Liv’s relief, the spell spilling from Sophia’s hands had stopped and her heart was still beating.

  With Sophia no longer trying to freeze the lake, the lava from the monster had neutralized the water and melted some of the ice.

  Liv glanced back over her shoulder as she cradled Sophia in her arms. The arch of raining lava was nearing her. She couldn’t chance passing through it again, especially because it wasn’t a shower anymore but rather a torrential downpour.

  That’s why Liv didn’t hesitate, but instead, lumbered forward with Sophia in her arms and jumped into the lake, hoping that it was neither too hot from the lava nor too cold from the spell, but rather their protection from the magma fountain until they could get away.

  Chapter One Hundred Forty

  The water was like swimming in a hot tub. It made it hard fo
r Liv to hold her breath, but she was grateful that it wasn’t scorching her or Sophia.

  Bubbles flew away from her mouth as she submerged, her sister in her arms. Liv found the bottom right away and kicked for the middle of the lake. She wasn’t planning on crossing it, but she did need to clear the lava fountain. The hope was that she and Sophia had enough oxygen to survive that.

  The biggest concern was that Sophia was passed out and breathing in the hot water. But taking her back through the cascading flow wasn’t an option. Liv had to be fast.

  She kicked hard, swimming with her sister in her arms. When the orange of the raining lava was overhead Liv pushed harder, knowing they were almost there. All she had to do was get to the other side of it and they could come up for air. Hopefully, the biggest of the dangers would be behind them.

  Liv’s strength was waning, but she didn’t give up. Instead, when she was sure that she was past the lava fountain, she reached down with her feet, touched the bottom of the lake, and kicked up as hard as she could manage, shooting to the surface of the water.

  Steam and hissing greeted her ears from the lava meeting the water. The air Liv pulled into her lungs was thick but a welcomed relief. However, the sight of her sister’s pale face lolled to the side as she cradled her was cause for concern.

  Liv swam as fast as she could to the lakeside where she’d try to revive her sister—hoping against all hope that it wasn’t too late and Sophia hadn’t depleted the last of her strength with the spell or drowned during Liv’s attempt to get them out of the lake safely.

  Chapter One Hundred Forty-One

  With a great effort, Liv shoved Sophia’s limp body onto the shore as carefully as she could manage. That was harder than it would have been in the water that was increasing in temperature by the moment. If Sophia hadn’t cooled the lake so much, it would have been boiling, especially with the lava raining into it on the other side. But thankfully, it was only like a hot tub quickly getting to an unmanageable temperature.