Briggs snorted, and Shiv looked up with a concerned expression. He got up and walked to the edge of the stalagmite to watch as the last of the supports holding the castle in place came apart, and it fell.
It fell straight down, but sent giant boulders and other pieces of debris flying everywhere. Stalagmites and houses were destroyed, and they too fell down toward the city.
Where Blaze was at.
He felt powerless. All he could do was watch as the city below was ruined by the falling debris of the castle that was brought down for the sole purpose of killing him. He didn't even know who wanted him dead, but now Blaze was suffering because of it.
"Whoever did this is going to die." Shiv growled fiercely, his tone alerting both of the prone men to his poor mental state.
Duncan was the first to figure out what had Shiv all riled up, and walked over to watch the destruction below with a somber expression. "My Mirrors are probably dead now. Your Revengers too, Briggs."
Briggs over, putting his back to them, and didn't respond.
"I'm going down." Shiv announced, and began searching for the nearest bridge to do just that.
"If you wait until the last of the debris falls all the way down, I can get you down there. Just lower your weight by a lot."
Shiv stared at him, about to demand that Duncan take him down there immediately, but an idea made itself known in his mind, and before he could even begin to wonder at the plausibility of it, he enacted it.
By jumping off of the stalagmite.
He did as Duncan had suggested, and lowered his weight with his only Air-related skill to almost nothing, and began to float down like a leaf in a gentle Fall breeze. Except there was no Fall on this planet, and he didn't think anything other than strong, biting winds existed here, either.
He gently glided down for several seconds, but was sent flying, twisting, flipping in a random direction when a massive stalactite fell almost close enough to touch him. The force of its passage sent waves of wind outward that caused Shiv's abrupt change of direction.
Completely disoriented and desperate to reach Blaze as soon as possible, Shiv increased his weight slightly. The effect was immediate. His course changed to head downward at a steep angle. He was still twirling around and quite disoriented, but he at least knew he was headed in the right direction.
He continued like this for several hectic seconds in which he was finally able to reorient himself just in time to push off a boulder falling past him. He was sent spinning again, and upon getting a glimpse of how close he was to the ground, made himself weightless. The momentum carried him downward, but half a second before he was going to hit the ground, a building raced past him to slam into the ground and send shockwaves in every direction, sending him flying back upward. He increased his weight again, and began to gently glide back and forth until he at last landed on the warm, shaking ground.
Without wasting a moment to even catch his breath, he reverted his weight to normal and ignored the growling of his stomach to begin dashing toward the edge of the city where Blaze had last been, as far as he was aware.
As he sprinted, he dodged screaming, crying people and falling debris along with collapsing buildings and lava bubbling out of cracks developing throughout the city streets. He saw none of this, however, even when people begged him for help. He had one thing and one thing alone on his mind: 'Where. Is. Blaze?'
At some point, he found other people to be running in the same direction as him. Momentarily confused, he quickly figured out that they were headed toward the main exit of the Underground City. He spared a moment to look at the desperately running people and families, knowing that most of them wouldn't make it. And those that did… they wouldn't make it much longer after that.
His focus was brought back into a sharp point when he reached the buildings that Mirror and Revenge had been inhabiting… or what was left of the buildings, at least. One of the towering Stalagmites had collapsed directly onto them, crushing most of the people inside. Desperate, he shoved some rubble out of the way with his inhuman strength and Earth Manipulation Ability, and was rewarded for his efforts in the form of a few living souls. The men were part of Revenge. One of the Earth-affinity squads. They had used their powers to brace the roof above them and barely managed to survive the onslaught. Most importantly in Shiv's eyes, Farhad was there and alive as well. Not wasting anymore time, Shiv manipulated all of the rubble off of the group and grabbed the foreign Second-In-Command of Revenge to shake him by his shoulders.
"Tell Blaze to shoot up fire so I can find her!" Shiv yelled in the disoriented man's face.
Farhad only stared at him with a blank look that Shiv promptly slapped off of his face. He shook his head and looked around with narrowed eyes only to snap his focus back onto Shiv's face when he was yelled at again. "OK." Farhad closed his eyes for several tense seconds in which Shiv almost slapped him again, then opened them and nodded. "If she's alive, she got the message."
Shiv threw the man to the ground and rushed into the open and turned a full circle, desperately searching for any signs of fire. The surrounding buildings and debris were blocking his view, so he lowered his weight and flexed his divinely blessed legs to jump onto a half-collapsed building, then to the top of a boulder of gargantuan proportions, thus granting him an incredible view of the surrounding destruction.
He only had to search for a few seconds before he was able to spot a plume of yellow fire reaching upward only to disappear half a second later.
Locking the location in his mind, Shiv jumped.
His charge across the city was reckless and brash, but he didn't care. All he cared about was reaching his adopted daughter as soon as possible.
And he did.
Barring teleportation and other obscure methods of transportation, Shiv made it to where he had seen the fire reach for the sky as fast as was possible for him.
The sight that met his eyes when he reached it was not a welcome one. For one, the girl was nowhere to be seen, even though he was certain he had come to the right place. All he could see was rubble, lava, and the remains of what looked to be an armory.
"Blaze! Where are you?" Shiv yelled, and was rewarded with silence for his efforts. Silence, and the sound of bubbling lava and shifting rubble.
Growling in frustration, he threw himself forward and began lifting debris from the lava to throw it onto the solid ground behind him. After one such boulder was thrown, it caused a small avalanche of debris that opened a path to a cave-like area that he promptly entered. Inside, a faint wolf made of flame illuminated a little one-legged girl, and a dark, doll-sized wolf.
"Father!" Blaze coughed and lunged at Shiv, wrapping her arms around his neck and heaving with suppressed sobs. He too, gulped audibly, trying to keep his tears from escaping.
He took a deep breath and waited for her to do the same before speaking with a cracked, strained voice. "A-are you OK?"
She coughed again and scrubbed at her eyes while nodding. "I… I wasn't scared. I knew I'd be fine. I wasn't scared."
"I know. I know you weren't. You're brave. Braver than even I am." Shiv hugged her again and took another deep, shaking breath. He met Uriel's eyes and nodded in thanks. "Let's get out of here, alright?"
Blaze nodded again, still scrubbing tears out of her eyes, so he picked her up, waited for Uriel to hop onto his shoulder and left the cave with the flaming wolf following behind.
Outside once again, he looked up at the sky through the gaping hole that had replaced the castle. "From now on, I want you to stick with me." He said.
Blaze looked up at him with a concerned expression. "Always?"
"Always." He affirmed, still looking at the cloudy sky.
"Even when I go to the bathroom?"
He looked at her incredulously. "Huh? No, not then. Just the rest of the time. Especially when we're around other people."
She seemed to think about it for several long moments, then nodded. "That way, I can help you destroy all the things that aren't plants."
Shiv laughed. "That's right. Can I put you down now? You're super heavy."
She stuck her tongue out. "You're just weak."