Mobius: The Final Stand Ch. 56
Tails' house
5:05 am
Very early the next morning, Tails and the rest were already up, packing for their long "expedition" through the ice cavern. Raymond had suggested that they start as early as possible so that they could save and rescue people more quickly now when the ice would be starting to weaken and melt in the afternoon rather than start later and risk working at night when the ice hardened and made it tough to drill through. Small lanterns were placed in random places around the house, shining dimly, giving off an eerie glow the reflected off of the white painted walls. As Tails walked downstairs to where Raymond, Cosmo, and Galaxina were, he shivered slightly and wrapped his coat tighter around himself, his breath visible as a vapor in the in the early hours of the morning. Tails dragged a large suitcase behind him down the stairs, stopping to glance at the thermostat on the wall: -2 degrees Fahrenheit.
"Brr…." Tails' teeth audibly chattered. It was extremely strange and rare that a phenomenon like this blizzard would occur this early in fall, not to mention the bizarrely cold temperatures…
As he approached the living room, he hefted the suitcase on top of the table in the middle with a loud slam. On the couch, Cosmo and Galaxina were sleepily cuddling together for warmth, Raymond sitting a ways off to the side, tiredly resting his head on one hand. As Tails made his presence known, Raymond slowly got up and walked over to the middle table, where an array of other bags and luggage were laying under the table.
"Everything set?" Tails softly asked, breaking the silence.
Raymond slowly nodded. "You have the map and compass?"
"Yep." Tails replied. He unlocked the suitcase and pulled it open, yanking out an old map, dust flying everywhere. Tails also proceeded to whip out a high-tech looking device from his coat pocket, carefully brushing the dust off of the surface with his thumb. "Looks like we're all ready…"
Raymond sighed and looked at the clock by the kitchen counter: 5:08 am. "Well we have everything packed and ready to go in case anything happens while we're away drilling through the ice.."
"Do we have food? Clothes? Money?" Tails piped up questioningly.
Raymond smirked lopsidedly. "Why would we need money?" He stopped to think for a while, as if trying to figure something out. "Yeah… we have all our clothes.. and I remembered to pack enough food to last us for a while…"
"..I always feel like I'm missing something whenever I go out somewhere on a vacation.." Tails quietly muttered to Raymond, who laughed in response.
"I know how you feel.." Raymond stifled a yawn and stretched his shoulders and arms as Tails slowly ambled to where Galaxina and Cosmo were cuddling up with each other on the sofa and gently shook them awake.
"Cosmo… Galaxina…" Tails softly whispered. "It's time to go…"
Slowly, Cosmo yawned and woke up, Tails silently giggling at how cute she looked when she did that. "Hmm..? Tails..?" She sleepily asked, rubbing her eyes.
"It's time to go…" Tails repeated kindly. "That is, unless you're too tired, we don't have to go now…" He looked back over his shoulder at Raymond questioningly, who shrugged in response.
"I don't care, I'll go whenever everyone's all ready," Raymond answered back.
"No no, don't worry about me, I'm fine! I promise!" Cosmo suddenly replied, now wide awake. She quickly sat up straight, listening and paying attention intently.
"..Galaxina..?" Tails asked, but received no response as she was soundly sleeping.
Raymond laughed for the second time today, seeming pretty tired as well. "It's okay, I can carry her to the Ice-Twister and both of them can sleep in there while we drill through the ice."
Tails nodded. "Okay, that seems like a better idea. Besides.. I really don't want to wake her up when she's sleeping…"
As Raymond walked over to the sofa and gently picked up Galaxina in his arms, Tails picked up a couple of small bags and held hands with Cosmo as the four of them carefully made their way to the Ice-Twister that was parked right inside Tails' workshop, courtesy of Tails earlier this morning. As Raymond climbed up the side and opened the hatch on the top of the machine, he found the interior to be basically what one would normally except the inside of a van to look like. There was a driver's seat in the very front, a passenger's seat next to it, and a couch behind the two front seats. Behind the couch was a medium sized space that could be used to deposit any luggage or other stuff. As Raymond gently placed Galaxina in the back couch, sliding her over so that Cosmo could have room to sit and drift off to sleep again, and went back inside to get the luggage and place it in the trunk, he suddenly had a thought.
"Tails?" Raymond spoke up as he was hefting a few heavy bags towards the Ice-Twister.
"Yeah..?" Tails responded, clambering up the side of the Ice-Twister, Raymond heaving the bags up to where Tails could grab it and also pull it up over the side.
"Just wondering: How long do you think it'll take to drill through all of Mobius?" Raymond threw the last of the bags up to Tails, and as Tails dropped it in the trunk, Raymond scaled up the side of the Ice-Twister.
Tails slowly lowered himself into the driver's seat, Raymond doing the same in the passenger's seat by his side. "Uhh.. you know Mobius is a huge place!" He exclaimed matter-of-factly.
Raymond slowly nodded. "I know…"
"It could take weeks.. MONTHS for all we know!" Tails made a few quick calculations in his head as Raymond drummed his fingers on the side of the armrest.
Raymond nonchalantly shrugged. "It's okay, it's not like I have anything else better to do… Besides, since we have the only known machine that can drill through the ice, it's kinda our duty to use that to help free other people…"
Tails laughed and scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, you're right.." He agreed lightly.
Tails flicked the power switch on, and as the engine started up with a low hum, he grabbed the joysticks and thrust them forward as the engines revved up and the drill started to rotate faster and faster until it was a shining blur of stainless steel. Tails then expertly maneuvered the Ice-Twister down the narrow corridor of ice he had created the evening before, being careful not to bump into the side walls. As they continued at a mediocre pace down the thin stretch, the frozen scenery of the landscape slowly passing by, Tails suddenly turned around to face Raymond and spoke up.
"Raymond..?"
"Yeah?" This time it was Raymond's turn to reply to Tails' question.
"Just thought you might want to know, I found this while I was backing up the Ice-Twister into my workshop earlier this morning.." Tails reached in his coat pocket and pulled out the green chaos emerald, sparkling brilliantly, even in the dark morning.
"Where di—" Raymond was suddenly cut off as the drill made contact with the ice, signaling they has passed the point where they had stopped drilling yesterday. As the air was once again filled with the loud, unbearable screech, Tails immediately reached out to the dashboard and flicked a switch as the noise instantly disappeared.
"How-?" Raymond started to ask in bewilderment.
"Sound-proof. Thought it would be smart to add it this morning.." Tails curtly replied.
"Ahh…" Raymond trailed off. "Do you have a stereo system too?" He asked, half sarcastically.
Tails shook his head and laughed. "Actually I didn't think about that… That would have been really nice though…"
Tails and Raymond sat there in silence for a couple of minutes while the Ice-Twister vibrated slightly as it drilled through the ice, making their teeth audibly chatter from the cold as well as the trembling of the mechanism. Raymond sighed, his breath gently wafting about as a translucent vapor in the dim light of the cockpit as he wrapped his coat tighter around himself and yawned. Finally, after a while, he spoke up.
"Yeah… that woulda been nice…" Raymond trailed off, his voice slightly echoing in the confined space of the Ice-Twister. He glanced back over his shoulder at the sleeping figures of Cosmo and Galaxina. "Where did you find that chaos emerald by the way?"
Tails shrugged. "I found it stuck in the ice near the back of the Ice-Twister when I went to retrieve it this about an hour earlier.." He held out the palm of his hand and rested the chaos emerald on there, carefully balancing it as it wobbled around due to the continuous trembling of the Ice-Twister.
"So you say there are seven of them, right? I mean as well as the Master Emerald.." Raymond curiously asked.
"Yep," Tails nodded, closing his hand, clenching the chaos emerald tightly before slipping it into his coat pocket again. "Strange how I found it near my house after the blizzard happened, but I didn't before…"
Raymond shrugged. "Could be because there might have been strong winds or something that caused it to move locations.."
"Yeah.." Tails trailed off. "Wonder where the rest of them are though... I mean I thought they were all lost after our final conflict against the Meterex, but somehow I find one showing up at my doorstep!" Tails lightly joked, trying his best to lighten the tired, dull mood in the hull of the Ice-Twister.
"I don't know… Maybe the rest are still out somewhere in space then.. Could just be a coincidence that one happened to land right here.." Raymond pondered, leaning to the right and resting his head halfway on the headrest and the other half on the window. He casually shifted his eyes to use peripheral vision to watch the shards of ice and blurry forestry and grass pass by out of the corner of his eyes. Up ahead, the drill was still going at full speed, cleaving right through the ice like a hot knife would through butter.
"Can I see the map for a second, Tails..?" Tails nodded in response, and Raymond leaned over in his seat and carefully pulled out the map from the small bag lying near Tails' feet. He gently unfolded it, smoothening it out while trying to decipher it at the same time. "..I can't make heads or tails of this… Where's the closest house going to be?"
Tails laughed. "That would be Cream's house, but seeing as no one is home, it seems pointless to try to go in that direction."
"Oh.. What about Amy's house then?" Raymond asked, the hum of the Ice-Twister's engines barely audible in the background. Tails had turned the heater on, so the temperature inside the mechanism was about 50 degrees Fahrenheit, easily more bearable than the -5 degrees outside…
"Hmm…" Tails gently pulled the joysticks he was holding and pushed them downwards, hearing a sharp "click". He then let go as the Ice-Twister kept on moving and drilling forwards as if nothing had happened.
"Autopilot? Really?" Raymond laughed. "Not to say that I'm incredibly surprised though…"
Tails grinned. "Why not? If we're going to be doing this for a while, then I don't see any reason not to install an autopilot…" He trailed off, scratching the back of his head in deep thought. "Can I see that map for a second, Raymond?"
"Sure.." Raymond passed possession of the map over to Tails, who leaned back in his chair and closely examined it.
"Hmm.." Tails pointed at a part on the map, very near the bottom-right corner. "See right there, that's about where my house should be located…" He carefully traced his finger northeast until he stopped at about 2 centimeters away from where he had indicated his house to be, still very close to the bottom-right corner, nowhere near the center. "That's Creams' house.."
"Uhuh.." Raymond slowly nodded, comprehending.
"That's about 4 miles away…" Tails slowly dragged his finger westwards to the direct left until he stopped, some ways away. Now his finger was pointing at a location about a several centimeters away from Cream's house, a few centimeters above the bottom edge of the map. "That's Amy's house I think… Which would mean they're about a good 15 miles away…" Tails made a few quick calculations in his head. "So if we're driving at about 5 miles an hour, we should reach there in 3 hours then!"
Raymond slowly nodded again, grinning. "'Miles' and 'Directions' I can't understand very well, but 'Hours' I can! 3 hours it is then!" He quickly checked the time that displayed on the dashboard: 5:39 am. "So I take it we'll reach there at…"
"About 8:39 am!" Tails finished cheerfully. "Right about when they're waking up, we can just ring the doorbell and—"
THUD!
"Wha—?" Tails started, startled.
Suddenly, the Ice-Twister collided with something as its drill stopped and the power shut off, enveloping everyone inside in a pitch black darkness…