Chapter 111.
As luck would have it, Alan had managed to (literally) claw his way to the upper terminal by the time his brothers disembarked.
Swear words were exchanged and the phrase 'child abandonment' trotted out. Fearing what legal implications such a statement could have, Virgil surrendered and promised to buy the youngest a brand new gaming console when they got back to the cabin later.
But first, they had a brother to hang, draw, and quarter.
"I don't see him," John muttered, passing his digital binoculars over to Gordon and squinting accusingly at the horizon, "EOS, run another thermal scan and triangulate the coordinates of any profiles that match Scott and Kayo."
"Understood," the AI chirped, "Scan complete. I have two thermograms about three hundred feet from your current location that match the records of Mr Tracy and Ms Kyrano. I'm sending you the coordinates now."
John gave a hiss of triumph as his comm gauntlet beeped in acknowledgement. Without offering his brothers any indication of where they were supposed to 'aim' for, he strapped the skis he'd been carrying onto his feet, anchored his poles in place, and pushed off in a spray of white powder.
A beat of silence passed before Virgil followed, though whether this was out of brotherly loyalty or a shared desire to gut Scott and use his blood as salad garnish, no one knew. All Gordon and Alan did know was that they were the only ones capable of saving their eldest brother's beautiful face.
It took less a minute for brothers four and five to secure their snowboards to their feet, hop to a decent-looking incline, and commence their own downward journeys.
The winter holidays the older boys had taken with their mother and grandmother when they were kids meant that they were all competent snowboarders and skiers. Scott and John favoured skiing (speed in Scott's case and formality in John's), while Virgil, Gordon, and Alan preferred the rough and tumble-ness of snowboarding. Gordon's proficiency on a surfboard and Alan's on a skateboard meant that both blonds had taken to the sport like a duck to water, while Virgil simply preferred the aesthetic of a board over skis.
Gordon peeked over his shoulder and gestured for Alan to follow him through a small copse of trees, yanking his snow goggles down as he did so. Skiing afforded both John and Scott the advantage of being quicker on the straights, but boarding enabled Gordon and Alan to make up time on the turns. Their premature start meant that they had a fair way to go before they caught up with their ginger brother, but the distance they had to cover wasn't worrying Gordon half as much as the twinge in his lower back was.
And he'd left his protective brace back at the cabin.
-x-
Scott was having a merry old time.
The sun was shining, the birds were singing, Brains was blowing shit up back at Tracy Island, and he was fairly certain he'd just broken his most recent downhill speed record.
The class Kayo had expressed an interest in 'joining' had in fact been a ruse to get them priority access to Eaglecrest's black slopes. Safety protocol dictated that all newcomers had to have the approval of an on-site instructor before tackling any of the infamous black pistes. Five minutes in, and both Scott and Kayo had been deemed 'more than competent' and left to their own devices.
Bingo.
Previous experience should have forewarned Scott that any enjoyment on his part was sure to be met with retribution from his brothers, but alas, the urge to frolic in the snow and go really fast was just too tempting for him to pass up.
Alas, retribution of the Tracy kind waited for no one.
-x-
Virgil felt his pulse quicken as he spied Scott and Kayo's figures on the horizon.
He was too far away to make out any identifying details, but it had to be them. No one else would be thick enough to attempt a black slope without bothering to warm up on a red or a blue first.
John had no such reservations, and was zooming towards the same two figures as if his very life depended on it. Heck, for all Virgil knew, maybe it did.
He'd gained significantly on his ginger brother and the pair of them were covering the ground at an insane rate. Windburn had numbed every part of their faces not covered by goggles, scarves, or bandanas, and they'd come dangerously close to running over several children in their haste to make it to their eldest brother and the bitch who was 'supposedly' intent on stealing him away.
"VIRG! JOHN! STOP!"
A frantic cry from behind interrupted Virgil's train of thought long enough for him to throw his weight into an unplanned carve, his board cutting into the snow as he fought against gravity to apply the brakes. Unfortunately, as with most things in his life, it was all in vain.
Something travelling at the speed of light (that also happened to sound and feel suspiciously like Gordon) smashed into Virgil from behind, knocking all the air out of him. Half a second later, it was joined by something equally as forceful, albeit several pounds lighter. The one corner of the engineer's brain that wasn't in full-blown survival mode told him that he'd just acquired an Alan to go with his Gordon.
Partners were torn apart and parents forced to abandon children as the natural disaster that was the Tracy snowball plunged down the mountainside, it's creators letting loose screams of varying volumes as their combined mass began to pick up momentum.
John was emitted into the ranks less than a minute later after failing to evacuate from the path of his tumbling brothers in time, no doubt as a result of his Scott-themed tunnel vision. The admittance of another body into the newly dubbed 'ball of death' was sufficient to evict Gordon, much to the shock of several onlookers who scurried to the aquanaut's aid when he was violently ejected into a snowdrift.
At least the soft landing worked in his back's favour.
-x-
Scott Tracy had seen it all.
Oh, yes.
He hadn't lived for that long, but he'd still seen it all.
You name it, he'd probably seen it.
He would however, be the first to admit that he'd never laid eyes on a human snowball before.
Made up of his brothers no less.
Watching the rapid descent of the aforementioned monstrosity was like gazing at one of the old-fashioned spinning prize wheels. John. Gordon. Alan. Virgil. John. Gordon. Alan. Virgil. John. Gordon. Alan. Virgil. John. Gordon. Alan. Virgil.
Oh, wait. They'd lost Gordon.
John. Alan. Virgil. John. Alan. Virgil. John. Alan. Virgil.
Scott was always quick to curse his heroic instincts, but alas, they had saved many a life…
Selfless heroism, as Gordon would say.
Kayo gave a yelp of surprise as she was boldly picked up and flung clear of the impact zone, her sudden relocation offering her an uninterrupted view as Scott was swallowed by the rapidly descending, completely out of control organic mass that was his siblings.
It looked as if Thunderbird Uno would be coming up on the inheritance list sooner than expected.
-x-
Paramedics were already on site by the time Kayo made it to the scene of the splatter.
Overall, it could have been much worse. Only two out of five Tracys were unconscious, which in her opinion, was a solid win.
In a bid to make herself useful, she volunteered to assist the two medics who'd been tasked with trekking a quarter of a mile up the mountain to retrieve Gordon. The aquanaut was in the exact same position his brothers had left him in: legs sticking vertically out of a snowdrift.
"K-Kayo…" Gordon slurred a few moments later, his eyes fluttering as he was gently loaded into the ambulance alongside Virgil, "The forks are in the attic, but d-don't look at me…I wasn't the one d-driving…"
Kayo sighed and bent to retrieve the aquanaut's soggy bobble hat, "You've bumped your head, Gordon. Again. I'll meet you at the hospital, okay?"
"W-Wait!" Gordon yelped, twisting onto his side and thrusting a finger dramatically at the comatose Scott, "That right there…that is marriage material. Pure husband potential, I say! In f-fact, if you don't marry him, I'll take him off the m-market for you. Does Juneau have a church?"
The paramedic who was busy tending to a semi-conscious Alan looked up and beamed. Clearly, she hadn't realised that all five of her patients were related.
"It most certainly does. Let me know if you need a witness!"