As soon as Scott broke past the surface of black, igneous rock mound, a burst of fire and heat rushed out from the surface. Jamie winced and took a step back from the heat as Scott let out a yelp and dashed away. After retreating a safe distance, Jamie looked at the mound in curiosity. The other mounds that were uncovered had not made that much of a commotion.
After a couple of seconds had passed, Scoot cautiously approached the mound, sniffing at the air as he approached. Eventually, he made his way to the the area he dug out before he slowly, gingerly, placed his paw on the area he had dug out in the mound. Feeling no extreme heat from the touch, he started digging into the mound, showing more caution this time as he proceeded, stopping and sniffing the mound at intervals.
The sound of Scott scraping away at the rock could be heard filling the air as Scott started to pick up speed the further he dug. Emily stared at the mound with glittering eyes while Jamie looked on with mild curiosity as they waited in silence, patiently waiting for Scott to uncover his find.
After a minute had passed a massive burst of energy and increase in heat could be felt and sensed as the object was half way uncovered, and Scott yelped and jumped away. Half uncovered in the lava rock, was a glowing red ball, the size of a tennis ball, that was radiating heatwaves and large amounts of fire energy.
Emily squealed in excitement and delight as she hastily removed her bag from her back dropping it onto the ground. After unzipping it, she took out a square shaped black container, opening it slowly took a couple of steps forward, towards the glowing red ball in the lava rock.
Scott circled around the glowing red ball, and his claws started to glow red and he pounced towards the rock covering the glowing red ball, digging furiously for ten seconds, before darting away as the glow on his claws started to fade. A minute passed before he once again dug furiously at the rock, and backing away when the heat was too much for him to stand.
The cycle of digging furiously, and running away when the heat was too much for him, was continued four more times before Scott fully uncovered the ball and darted away. As the ball was fully uncovered from the rock, it started rolling towards Emily. Emily tossed the container over the rolling, glowing, red ball, and and the heat radiating from the ball and the large spike in fire energy could no longer be felt.
Emily swiftly shut the container lid, flicking the ball inside as she did while Jamie looked at the container with envy.
"Congratulations on finding a Fire Evolution Stone. Those things sell for at least one hundred thousand Mystic Credits."
Emily hastily locked the container and put the container in her pink bag as she answered back. "Thanks. Once I put this away, we need to get out of here quickly. It's better to be safe."
Jamie eyes glazed as he sent a transmission through the bond to Blackwing. "Can you see any humans nearby."
"No."
"Let me know if you see anyone."
After Emily slung her bag onto her back, she turned to Jamie and asked "Does Blackwing see anyone coming?"
"No"
"Good. Let's get away from here."
"Which way?"
Emily pointed randomly to the side, towards the outskirts of the lava pit with two lava rock mounds behind her.
"That way."
They looked around, and started running side by side, towards the two black mounds, heading in the direction that lead back towards the outskirts of the lava pit, with Emily setting the pace, and Jamie, Scott and Eve easily keeping pace. As they reached the foot of the black mounds, with the thuds of their footsteps echoing in the air, Blackwing sent a mental image of three groups of humans approaching their general location, with one of the groups approaching from ahead. Jamie glanced sideways at Emily briefly and projected the image to her.
She started slowing down, and stopped slightly past the mounds, breathing lightly. Jamie stopped along with Eve and Scott, looking at her in confusion.
"It looks too suspicious if we are seen running away from the large energy fluctuation. Most people would be curious and head towards it."
"So what do we do? Should we contact Nicholas?"
Emily frowned, looking around. Eventually, she sighed. "I wanted to explore a bit more."
Emily reached to her side, and grabbed a red flare gun with a black grip hanging at her waist in a black holster. After inserting a cartridge from the pouch at her waist, she pointed it upwards, while injecting her Astral Energy into it. After she spent five seconds injecting her energy into it, she fired it into the air. As they watched the red flare shoot into the air, tinged with a dark blue flickering glow, sticking out in the yellow light, Jamie frowned as he followed it's progress with his Astral Senses.
"I can barely notice the Energy attached to the flare. Will Nicholas notice?"
"I'm sure he will. Astral Energy is not a natural occurrence in this environment. We just have to wait. His sense are much keener then ours."
Blackwing sent a mental image of their location. Jamie frowned, looking at a mound now to his right, that was in their previous escape route.
"Their just behind that mound."
"Okay. Don't look at their direction. Hiding will just look suspicious, we will pretend that were were just nearby. Let's walk in that direction. Nicholas will be able to locate us easily when he gets here easily."
Emily pointed towards the side of the mound they were previously running towards. Jamie nodded, and they started walking forwards.
Jamie looked around nervously, trying to keep his eyes off the mound. Eventually, his eyes settled on Scott, walking by Emily's side, and he could not help but ask.
"Are you going to use the Fire Evolution Stone on Scott?"
"Huh?"
"One of the 2 Tailed Tiger's known evolution chains involves the Fire Evolution Stone. You need to use a Basic Fire Evolution Stone at stage 3, and the Fire Evolution at stage 5. It's known limit is stage 8 taking that route."
"How do you know that?"
"Battlepet Master Zoe mentioned it during an interview after she won the tournament held in Brouis last year. It was one of her regrets, that she didn't take that evolution route for her Two Tailed Tiger, "
Emily looked at Scott contemplatively. "Maybe. He's at the right stage right now. I just need to get a Basic Evolution Stone. What is his evolution chains energy types?"
Jamie shrugged. "Dunno. Zoe mentioned it during an interview, so I just thought that the Evolution chain would have to be pretty powerful."
"Great. I think I will do my research before deciding. Did you see the information about the tournament that they are holding next year?"
Jamie thought about it, before recalling reading about it on the news feed shortly after bonding with Eve. At the time, he didn't even qualify as a Battlepet Master Trainee.
"I did. Why?"
"Are you planning to participate?"
"Maybe. Are you?"
"If I can find a good beast to bond with, sure."
As Emily finished her sentence, Jamie's Mystic Sense could feel three energy signatures from the mound, of a pure fire type energy, it's size marking the person at stage 3, an ice type energy, with the fluctuation marking the person at stage 3, and a dual earth and fire type energy, it's combined size marking the person at stage 3 leading at the front.
Jamie looked to his left, towards the mound, to see a blonde haired male leading a girl with her black hair in a ponytail, and a male with brown hair, wearing a pair of sunglasses. Emily smiled, and waved her hand towards them.
"Hey"
The blonde haired male in the lead shot her a smile, and waved back. "Hey. We felt a massive burst of fire energy around this area before it was cut off."
Emily smiled. "Yea, we felt it too. It came from over there."
As she spoke, she pointed towards the direction that she and Jamie had ran from, behind them, where Emily had uncovered the Fire Evolution Stone.
"Aren't you going to check it out?"
"Nah. Don't want any trouble, the energy signature cut off too fast. Someone probably uncovered whatever it was."
"Okay. Were going to check it out."
The blonde haired male continued forward with the other two following, making their way down the mound, heading slightly in their direction, seemingly heading off to their previous location, and they started whispering among themselves. Jamie and Emily tried to hide their tension as Jamie sent to Eve a transmission through the bond.
"Eve, be prepared to fight if they make a move on us."