The march toward the Borderlands was a grueling trek through a landscape that seemed to reject their presence. The Great Forest gave way to the Jagged Flats a wasteland of obsidian shards and sulfur vents. Fogo led the way, the Celestial Stone in his satchel glowing a sickly, agitated orange. He was no longer the charming leader; he was a man possessed by the weight of his own greed.
Lighter walked at the rear, his eyes scanning the horizon for the search parties Daddy John had surely sent. Between them, Scooby and Ada walked in a trance-like state, their hands still linked by the invisible tether of the Accidental Bond. Every step Scooby took felt like he was walking on Ada's heartbeat. When she stumbled, his legs buckled; when he sighed, her chest tightened.
"You're falling behind, bulldog!" Fogo barked at Lighter.
Lighter stopped, He wiped a smudge of soot from his forehead and looked at Scooby with a strange, heavy expression. "The boy is flagging, Fogo. And the girl... she's barely standing. If we don't rest, the bond will snap, and that Stone will level this entire valley."
"Then let it level the valley!" Fogo snapped, his eyes wild. "I'm not dying in Oruko. We reach the city by dawn."
As Fogo and the others moved ahead to scout a path through a sulfur vent, Lighter lingered back. He grabbed Scooby's shoulder, his grip uncharacteristically gentle.
"Listen to me, goofy," Lighter grunted, his voice low. "Fogo isn't selling that stone. I found his journals. He's planning to use the bond between you two as a 'battery.' Once we reach the city, he's going to perform a ritual to drain the life out of both of you to permanently awaken the stone's power. He doesn't need brothers. He needs fuel."
Scooby felt a cold dread wash over him. The "intoxicating" dream of being a hero was officially dead. "Why are you telling me this, Lighter? You're his right hand."
Lighter looked at the ground. "I'm a bulldog, kid. I fight for the pack. But Fogo... he's not the pack anymore. He's just a man with a stone." He shoved a small, rusted iron key into Scooby's hand. "This is for the heavy shackles in the wagon when we reach the city gates. If you can break her free, run. Don't look back for me."
Before Scooby could respond, Mama called out from the ridge. "Movement on the horizon! Torches! They've found us!"
"Go!" Lighter shouted, shoving them toward the group.
The atmosphere shifted instantly. The "calm" was gone. Behind them, a line of fire was snaking across the flats Daddy John's mercenaries, led by Luke and Olamide, the village's fiercest trackers.
In the chaos of the retreat, the bond between Scooby and Ada surged. They didn't need words. As they ran, their movements became perfectly synchronized. They moved as one entity, dodging shards of glass and leaping over vents with a grace that was not their own.
"Fogo!" Scorpion yelled, his bells jingling frantically as he pointed toward a narrow canyon. "If we go in there, we're trapped!"
"It's our only choice!" Fogo screamed. "Kanpe, seal the entrance once we're through!"
They plunged into the shadows of the canyon, the "catastrophic" end approaching with every heartbeat. Scooby looked at Ada as they ran. In the pulsing light of the Stone, she looked like a goddess of the dawn.
"Whatever happens," she whispered through their shared mind, "we don't let him have the light."