Supervillain Idol System: My Sidekick Is A Yandere-Chapter 512: The Havenridge Incident (Part 4)

They ran.

The tunnel blurred around them as they tore through it at full speed, boots hammering, air screaming past. The walls buckled as they went—not collapsing—but reacting.

Vines ripped free without warning.

Thick cords tore out of stone and flesh alike, snapping forward in whipping arcs, trying to coil, to drag, to slow them down.

Don hit first.

He moved like a blur, flashing past the first strike so fast the vine didn't even finish extending before it came apart in his wake.

His shoulder clipped another, the force shearing it clean through. A third wrapped for his leg and was ripped loose, fibers snapping as he tore onward without breaking stride.

Starboy followed, just as brutal.

Anything that reached for him detonated on contact, blasted apart by raw force as he passed through. The tunnel shook with every step he took, pressure waves slamming vines back into the walls, leaving nothing behind but shredded growth and dust.

Pyro brought up the rear.

He ignited fully this time.

Flames rolled over his body in a living shell as he kicked off the ground and lifted into the air, slower than Starboy but relentless.

Fire washed outward as he passed, crawling across walls and ceiling alike. Vines shriveled instantly, collapsing into blackened streaks. Even after he cleared them, the stone behind him stayed red-hot, glowing dull.

They didn't stop.

They burst into the junction.

Don hit first—and stopped dead.

Starboy slammed in a second later. "Why the hell did you—"

He cut off as he saw it.

He came to a halt with violent force, boots digging in as a shockwave burst outward—BOOM~—dust and debris blasting away from him in a wide ring.

Pyro barreled in behind them. "Hurry up you tw—"

He landed hard, knees buckling as the heat around him bled off in waves. His gear steamed. Sections of his suit glowed red before dimming.

In front of them—

There was no tunnel.

Where the passage leading back to the entrance should have been, there was only a wall. Solid. Fresh. Seamless. No fracture lines. No collapse debris.

The junction itself was a slaughterhouse.

Bodies lay scattered across the ground—Elites in gear like theirs, armor cracked open, limbs twisted wrong, faces frozen mid-reaction. Some were half-buried. Others were pressed into the floor as if crushed there.

Pyro stared, chest rising fast. "Dude… what the hell happened here?" He turned in place, frantic now. "Where's the tunnel? Where's the way out?"

Starboy scanned the walls. "There was only one way back. We didn't take any turns." His jaw tightened. "And this doesn't look like a cave-in."

He looked at Don. "Did this happen when you faced these things before?"

Don opened his mouth—

Every communicator crackled at once.

—krrrsshh~—

"I repeat," a distorted voice cut through, strained but urgent. "Does any team read me? What's the status down there?"

None of them recognized it.

Pyro didn't hesitate. He slapped his comm. "This is Pyro, Team One, SHQ group!" His voice pitched higher than usual, urgency bleeding through his tone. "We're at the junction where the tunnels split, but the tunnel leading back to the entrance is gone. Multiple casualties present—cause of death unknown. We need backup down here now! There's some weird giant—"

Starboy grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. "There's no time—look!"

He pointed back down the tunnel they'd just come from.

Nothing was visible.

But the sound—

A wet sizzle rolled toward them—szzzzhh~—followed by faint screaming, distant and warped, carried through the stone to ears, loud enough to catch it.

Don's stomach dropped. "If that gas reaches us," he said, "we're done."

Starboy clicked his tongue and shoved Pyro aside. "Move. I'll make us a way out."

His eyes burned bright as he brought his hands together and fired.

The beam slammed into the wall where the tunnel once stood—BRAAAAAAM~—rock and earth disintegrating near instantly, carving a deep channel forward.

For a split second, it worked.

But then… the vines answered.

They tore out of the exposed stone as fast as it vanished, layering over one another, rebuilding the obstruction even as the beam chewed through them. The passage fought back, sealing itself faster than Starboy could burn it open.

Starboy growled, sweat beading at his brow. "What the hell—hah!"

The beam intensified, pushing deeper—

Still the vines kept coming.

Don grabbed his shoulder. "Enough! That won't work—and we're out of time!"

Pyro glanced back toward the tunnel behind them.

The sizzling grew louder.

The screams followed.

He raised his hands and formed a ball of fire between them, compact and dense, roughly the size of a football. The air around it warped, heat rolling off in brutal waves.

"Maybe this'll slow them down," he said.

Don and Starboy both snapped toward him.

"Wait—!" Don shouted.

Too late.

Pyro threw it.

Starboy swore. "You idiot! That gas could be flammable!"

Don had already felt it. Every instinct screamed move.

"Other tunnels!" Don yelled. "Now! Get into the other tunnels!"

He burst forward toward the route Elliot had taken.

Starboy reacted instantly, launching after him.

Pyro hesitated.

Just for a second.

Long enough to watch.

The fireball met the approaching gas.

There was no explosion at first.

The gas ignited all at once.

The tunnel became a furnace.

Flame tore backward in a roaring wave—FOOOOOM~—the gas combusting in layered sheets, pressure slamming into the junction as walls flash-burned and vines detonated into ash. Heat surged outward, violent and consuming, the blast chasing after Pyro with screaming force.

The explosion didn't stop at the junction.

It chased them.

Fire and pressure tore through the branching tunnels behind them, the ignition racing outward with terrifying speed.

The sound followed first—an expanding roar that folded over itself—then the heat, surging hard enough to bite through stone.

Starboy felt it before he saw it.

A wall of heat slammed into his back, his flight path shimmering as the tunnel behind him lit up in a violent wash of orange and white.

The darkness vanished in an instant, replaced by rolling fire that consumed everything it touched.

He glanced back, just long enough to see it closing.

Concern flashed across his face—but he didn't slow.

He turned forward and pushed harder, golden light flaring brighter as he forced more power into his movement. The air screamed around him—WHOOOOM~—as he accelerated, chasing Don's shadow ahead.

Don didn't need to look back.

The temperature spike hit him like a warning siren, heat bleeding through his suit and into his skin. Beastshift fed him the details whether he wanted them or not—pressure behind, oxygen burning off, walls superheating.

A smaller part of him recognized it too.

Training. Conditioning. Endless hours in that sealed cell with Redstar, heat pushed past what should have been survivable until pain stopped mattering.

He ran faster.

Each step launched him meters ahead, boots barely touching ground before he was airborne again. His heart hammered like an engine at full throttle, blood roaring in his ears as his body climbed toward dangerous heat.

It felt like running through a furnace.

He could handle that.

What he couldn't ignore was the distance.

The tunnel kept going.

Vines still tried to stop them—thick growths bursting from the walls, snapping forward in blind desperation—but at this speed they were nothing.

Don tore through them without slowing, vines shredding apart in his wake. Starboy punched holes through the rest, shockwaves blasting growth back into the walls before it could even wrap.

The fire behind them chewed through everything slower.

As they tore ahead, the fuel vanished.

Fresh vines ripped apart by their passage left behind only wet streaks of green fluid, charred smears baked into the stone, and scattered debris where the walls had tried—and failed—to rebuild. With nothing left to burn, the inferno finally weakened, its roar fading into a distant echo.

Eventually, the light died.

They were swallowed by darkness again.

The only illumination came from them.

Don's body radiated heat in a dull shimmer, sweat evaporating almost instantly as it formed. Starboy's glow cast long, warped shadows across the tunnel, golden light pulsing with every breath he took.

The ground leveled out.

Then—

"Slow down!"

Don shouted it the instant he saw the end.

The tunnel opened suddenly into a wide space at ground level, stone dropping away into an expansive chamber. Don dug his heels in and stopped just meters inside, boots carving shallow trenches as momentum bled off—SKRRRSH~.

Starboy slammed to a halt behind him, the air detonating outward as his speed collapsed. A burst of wind ripped through the chamber, whipping loose earth into spirals and splitting the ground in jagged lines—BOOOOM~.

Dust surged, then fell.

They stood there, chests heaving, heat rolling off them in waves.

Then a voice cut through the settling air.

"Who's there?!"

Both of them turned at once.

They didn't need to see him to know.

Elliot.