Like canaries in a coal mine [OPEN]

[tidesnpc]

Characters: Anyone in Tulgim
Content: One of the mines in Tulgim has collapsed a second time, trapping some of the rescuers inside!
Setting: Mine 2b
Time: From late morning onwards
Warnings: Possibility of bloody or violent descriptions
Notes: Please note in the thread subject whether your threads take place either pre- or post- the second collapse

Comments

[fatherofcute]

He should have known that there was nothing good that could come out of caves. Didn't his mother use to tell him not to go into caves? Terrible things they were, she said, with their gaping maws and weird teeth and fickle tendency to fall all over people's heads for no reason. Course, he used to think that it was because his uncle had died in a cave-in, but he was figuring out now that they really were terribly dangerous things.

But his sons and daughters were in there, and despite his good sense, he wasn't going to sit back and let his (temporary) comrades die while he stood aside and watched. What had he worked this hard the past months for, clearing up the Winding Way's name, only to let his kids die? Nah-uh, no way! This daddy was going to jump in and take those rocks down.

After some quick coordinating and taking a minute to put on his thickest coat, Hughes set off with the rest of the crew to get to work. He had left most of them outside to regroup and quickly went in -- rescue missions were something he had grown somewhat used to from Ishval, and it was going to help him in this one. Or so he hoped.

"Tarzan! Where are you?" he hissed out as he made his way in, armed with a pickaxe.

[treesurfer]

Tarzan heard Hughes's voice and turned his head. He turned his body around and climbed down the rocks, jumped to the wall and looking around. He spotted the pickaxe first.

"Hughes!" He called out. "Here! Tarzan here!"

[fatherofcute]

He quickly padded over, relieved that Tarzan more or less looked like he was in one piece. It was too dark here. He knelt down and struck a match to an oil lamp and held it up. "Who's in there?"

[treesurfer]

"Do not know," Tarzan said simply. He jumped back onto the rock slide, careful to not dislodge any and climbed to the top. "No one answer yet."

[fatherofcute]

That was bad. That was very bad.

"Then let's get to work," he said grimly, climbing halfway up (not as athletic as jungle boy there) and starting on the pickaxe. Anything to dislodge the rocks so Tarzan can shove them off.

[treesurfer]

Tarzan nodded and waited until the rocks were easy enough to move, picking them up with a grunt and throwing them away.

He felt the rocks slide and tugged Hughes away when the rocks shifted. "Wait. Rocks are unsettled."

[fatherofcute]

Hughes blinked, and the first thought in his head was wonderment that Tarzan even knew what the word meant. But he allowed Tarzan to tug him off -- the guy was more attuned to the environment than he was, at least, and Hughes was very fond of staying alive. "Thanks, buddy," he whispered.

[treesurfer]

Tarzan was slowly still learning, he found listening to people to be much more effecient in figuring out what words meant since he couldn't read a dictionary. Once the rocks stopped moving, he nodded to Hughes. "Safe now."

He climbed back up and called out over the rock pile, this time shifted a few rocks and throwing them away into the sides of the cave. He managed to get a few inches of clearing. "Hello!" He shouted. "Tarzan here! Hughes here! We help! People here?"

/asked the other team

[fatherofcute]

Hughes had just been about to thank Tarzan and get back to work when he felt the ground tremble for a moment. What in the world? He ran out of the entrance that they had been working on and peered out into the other parts of the cave mouth, frowning at the redheads destroying a wall. With a fancy sledgehammer.

"And I thought we were weirdoes," he muttered to himself as he returned to his post.

[treesurfer]

Tarzan perked up when he heard Hughes come back. He had been about to ask what had been up (and what 'weirdoes' meant) when he heard voices call through the rocks. "Voices!" He said, going back to shifting the rocks above, getting the hole big enough for his head to slip through.

A worker looked back at him, unhurt, dirty, but relieved. "Oh thank goodness! I thought I had been hearing things!"

Tarzan didn't say anything, simply stretched a hand to the worker to pull him up. He could see a few others behind him, though he couldn't tell if they were injured or not. "You first. Hughes below. He make hole bigger for rest."

The worker seemed small enough anyway, so he took Tarzan's calloused hand, cried out a bit in surprise when he was pulled up fairly easily and pulled through the opening. Once he was out, he passed him off to Hughes and then set to make the opening a bit larger.

/lmfao your appropriate icons

[fatherofcute]

Hughes caught the man quickly, as it seems that the poor chap had lost his nerves. The boatswain rubbed the man's hands together until the dirty-faced miner was doing it on his own, and clapped him on the back. "All right there? Are you hurt? If not, I'll ask you to wait for some more people and you guys can make your way back, yeah?"

Hopefully, they'd be back on their feet soon enough to help. The rescued person nodded furiously as he tried to return warmth to his limbs, even as Hughes went back to pick at the rocks, using the handle more than the blade in case he hit someone. That'd suck.

<33

[treesurfer]

Tarzan waited until the hole was made bigger before he practically leapt through the opening, climbing down the rocks as if they were trees. He found the others and quickly led or helped them up the rocks and to Hughes.

[fatherofcute]

When the hole was bigger, Hughes immediately tapped the first person they rescued and climbed up to the holed, making sure his footing was firm on the rocks as he received the men Tarzan was practically throwing up at him. From there, it was an easy enough thing to pass them down to the man below. "Good work, Tarzan!" he said after a moment, pleased by their success.

[treesurfer]

Tarzan just continued his work until ever last man was out. He never got used to the humans always staring at him in awe at the way he walked, climbing on the walls and rock slide, he never understood it because he had no idea that his body moved in a way that no other human's did. Growing up around gorillas, he learned to adapt quickly to his surroundings. He was different, after all, but he never really understood why. Not only that, but he copied other animals, mimicking how they moved and reacted to things.

Tarzan never really realized it was showing right now.

Once all was said and done, he leapt through the hole and landed next to Hughes. "second entrance. There is one?" He asked, he heard the other explosion, the rumbling that told him of not another rock slide or collapse but someone else working. He wanted to get to it.

[fatherofcute]

"I think so, buddy," Hughes said with renewed cheer at the first success. Maybe the damage hadn't been that bad. Maybe none of his kids were hurt. He could rely on Luffy to survive, given the kid's abilities, but what about everyone else?

He scrambled for a foothold and hoisted himself through the hole Tarzan had been picking people up from just seconds before. "Do you think there are people inside?" he asked as he gestured at the pile of rocks in their way. He would listen to it himself, but no matter how keen his ears were, he knew that it was nothing compared to what Tarzan could do. Man was like an animal, and despite his reservations on the guy before, Hughes was very glad to have Tarzan at his side.