After Amethyst, Page, Spinel and Steven warped off to get the Heaven Beetle, Bismuth and the twins set off to the Lava Lakes to get the Earth Beetle. The warp they landed at was right by Bismuth's forge. They stopped in for a minute on their way up the winding path around the volcano it was in the side of. Bismuth had something she wanted to give the kids. For Robbie, a bracer, to extend his boxing glove down his forearm. He was shown that when he flexed his wrist while the glove and bracer were on, spikes came out the side of the leather on his arm. Sophie, was harder to make a gift for, since Sapphire never had a weapon of her own, but that did not deter Bismuth. She created a set of four rings of different steel blends, all to be worn on her gem hand. The result was a rainbow effect. When activated with her cold powers the metals would temporarily fuse together to create a set of steel knuckles. Bismuth combined the spikes she had intended to give Garnet into Sophie's rings, so that when the twins fused, they would be on the gauntlets in the end. The three of them took a slight break just to get the kids used to their new additions, then continued on their way to the top.

About halfway up, Sophie froze. Literally, iced to the spot. Despite the very hot temperatures this close to the caldera, a thick layer of ice was wrapped around her feet. Robbie tried to get her to move and realized what was going on. She was having a vision, and a bad one too if the reaction was anything to go on. He tried coaxing her to share it but she was too far into the vision to hear her, they'd just have to wait for it to end. Pretty soon it did, the thick ice melting and steaming off the hot ground. Sophie looked around wild eyed "Robbie, we're going to need to get our hands dirty up there. There's something up there that's too much for Bismuth to handle on her own, and we, not Robbie and Sophie, but Ruby and Sapphire, are going to need to be on our A game. It's that bad." Robbie nodded. There wasn't anything he could say after that. He held his sister's hand and walked behind his guardian, trying to prepare himself for whatever was up there.

They made it to the top, the caldera, of the volcano. Though no longer active, Bismuth explained, the Gems had fashioned a lava lake inside the collapsed mouth of the mountain as a spa and kindergarten combined for heat based gems, like Obsidians and Rubies, though they never got as far as actually incubating anyone in here before leaving, as far as she knew. Besides Obsidians took way too long to incubate, so even if they did, they wouldn't have emerged yet. Bismuth finished her explanation and directed the kids to an outcropping of rock that jutted into the lake. At the end of the outcropping, there was a pillar with a temple model on top, where the beetle should be. But it was empty. Everyone looked at Sophie for any clues.

"The Earth Beetle has hidden itself at the bottom of the lake. Bismuth, you could swim down, and retrieve the beetle, but in the time it would take you to locate and capture it, that big danger I mentioned before, would show up and defeat me and my brother without you to help. On the other hand, with that in mind, I looked again and the Beetle will surface in roughly an hour, but the beast, that danger, will only be here in 40.6 minutes. This is where it gets fuzzy, I see us defeating the beast together, but I can't exactly see how. And after, it gets clear again, and we warp home with the beetle and meet the others, who have a surprise for us. So I suggest we wait it out, and see what the beast is, and we'll defeat it one way or another." Sophie explained. The other two nodded and when Sophie created a few ice chairs, thick enough to melt right before the beast showed up.

Sure enough, 39 minutes later the chairs were no longer strong enough to supports their occupants, and the three of them prepared for battle. Out of the lava, rose a large dark monster, black as night with hair literally made of molten rock. Bismuth thought it looked like a corrupted Quartz soldier standing upright, but there wasn't a Quartz that was black like that. With no time to debate what the gem was, she turned her hands into hammers. The kids activated their weapons, Robbie not even wobbling this time, even with the new additions. The knuckle spikes on Sophie's rings activated just fine, ice crystallizing on the edges. With all three prepared, they leapt in, and attacked the beast. Sophie had to immediately back off, and try ranged attacks, because anytime the beast was scratched lava would flow out of the wound like blood, and being cold based, the girl could not handle raw heat like that. She settled for creating spiked ice balls and throwing them. Robbie was handling himself better, thankful for the bit of Rose used to make him since even if he got burned it would heal quickly. Bismuth still took the brunt of the beast's attacks though. just because she knew there was a limit to what the boy could handle.

After fighting for some time, the beast, in a rare moment of clarity, grabbed Sophie off the rocky shore of the lake. As the girl was brought closer to the fighting and the heat, Robbie jumped on the fist that held his twin, desperately trying to free her. Failing to do so, he grabbed her hand through the cage-like fingers of the beast and a bright light shown around the kids. As the light died down, the beast's hand had been reduced to a stump, and both kids stood on top of it. Sophie grabbed a bead out of her pocket, and built up a very large spike ball that grew to half her size. With her super human strength, and a bit of help from her brother, she shoved the massive weapon into the face of her would be captor. Lava engulfed the ice, but then the beast dissipated and Bismuth caught the free falling children and the gem, before landing on the stone and bubbling their foe away. just as the gem had been sent off, the beetle was seen crawling up the pillar to the temple, where Sophie picked it up with a cool hand and left the area with her family, heading back to the warp.

Once home, Robbie grabbed a terrarium he had laying around for an old pet frog, and the green and black beetle was placed inside. The three gems sat down and tried to determine what the gem they fought was. They hadn't come to a consensus when the others warped in.