A snowy wind whistled wildly as floating shards of ice were blown around the place.
The vehicle traveled across the snow like a snowmobile.
"I really wish that we would've gone to a more tropical place in this world," Jake said, shivering. "Where are we?"
"We're on the continent near the top of the map in a polar region." Hayley said, looking at the map.
"Are there any other ways to warm us up other than just this vehicle's heater?" Cadence asked as she wrapped herself in a blanket.
"I actually came prepared for something like this," said Kirby. He came with five mugs. "Anyone want some hot chocolate?"
"Thank you," Hayley said gratefully.
"And why did you bring some hot chocolate?" Cadence asked as she sat up to grab a mug.
"It's a tradition to give friends a nice, hot drink," Kirby said. "Especially if you're sitting around a campfire while having s'mores."
"It is a good thing that you thought about that, or we would be freezing to death here." Jake said before he took a sip.
Right after they had their drinks and licked the chocolate off their lips, the engine began to rumble and clang.
The vehicle then came to a stop.
"Why did we stop?" Jake asked.
"I don't know," Zeon replied as he tried to push down on the acceleration pedal. "I'll go out to take a look." He walked to the door but didn't put on any snow gear.
"You're going out there without any snow gear," Jake said.
"I'm an immortal, supernatural being," Zeon said. "A blizzard like this would just be like a small gust of wind to me."
Zeon opened the door a wee bit; the wind then fiercely flung it open. He strode through the snow to find the issue.
He peered into one of the wheels and saw the problem.
The others came out with heavy snow gear.
"Did you find out what's happened?" Kirby asked.
"Some of the gears became frozen over," Zeon said.
Just then, the wind changed direction, and the door slammed shut.
Kirby tried to get it open, but it was stuck.
"I think it's frozen shut," Kirby said.
"Well, thaw it out," Jake said, teeth chattering.
"We can't in this storm," Zeon said. "We'll just have to wait it out."
"We can't wait it out here," Hayley said. "We need to seek shelter."
"There's a cave over there," Cadence said. "We can wait there."
The five of them strode across the snow, forcing their way through the storm, and towards the cave.
Before they reached the cave, large lumps of snow were being pushed up like something was moving underneath.
"What's that?" Kirby asked.
"I don't know," said Zeon. "But nobody move; it might be drawn to vibrations."
Everyone stopped moving, and whatever was burrowing under the snow moved away from them.
After a few seconds, they ran like the wind.
The burrowing creature came back and chased after them.
They made it to the cave, and the creature stopped.
"Why did it stop?" Jake asked.
"It probably can't bore through solid rock," Zeon said.
"Do know what it might?" Kirby asked.
"I'm not really sure," Zeon said. "I've made a lot of monsters that can burrow in the snow so it's hard to tell."
"It could be monster 239, a Polar Ice Snake, or monster 311, a Remorhaz."
"Whatever it was, it can't burrow after us now," Cadence said.
Kirby then yelled with fright from down the cave.
The others came rushing over to see what was wrong.
"What happened?" Hayley asked.
"That just gave me quite a fright," Kirby said, pointing to something.
It looked like a monster in an attack pose.
"Don't worry, it's frozen," Cadence said.
"I know where we are," Zeon said. He flipped a switch on a wall, and these lights came on revealing about 21 more of these monsters frozen in ice.
"What is this place?" Jake asked. "And all of these frozen monsters look a bit like…"
"Yes, these are monster 434, Doulos'," Zeon said.
"Why are they all frozen?" Hayley asked.
"You see, I needed some help around the lab, so I decided to create a monster that would do what you say," Zeon explained. "I gave the doulos a low level of intelligence so that it can't think on its own and would choose the first person it sees as its master."
"After I bestowed life upon all of them, they focused on me as their master right away."
"And I gave them the power of invisibility just for bonus."
"And how did it go for you?" Kirby asked, taking photos.
"They helped around the place for about thirteen years, but something went wrong; they began to rampage around the lab," said Zeon. "It was probably some form of a primal hormone that caused them to be destructive."
"They became too dangerous and elusive, so I had to capture them, bring them to this cave, and imprison them all in these freeze craters putting them in a state of suspended animation."
"But if you imprisoned all of them in these craters," Hayley said. "How did some of them end up in the human world?"
"This cave has a unique magnetic field that helps these craters stay active, but they keep on getting disrupted by portals that opened here which allowed three of the doulos' to thaw out and escape to the human world," Zeon said. "I learned that in Troop history, the three doulos' ended up for the first time in Greece back in 2,000 BCE and chose a Greek king as their new master."
"They helped the king with conquering and pillaging enemy territory and were also put into slave and servant work for their master, hence the name doulos'."
"I don't get it," Jake said.
"Doulos means slave or servant in Greek," Hayley said.
"Millenniums later, two of the doulos' were killed by the French Troop back in 1623, but one managed to escape and was later captured by the Lakewood Troop back in 1952," said Zeon. "And I recently learned that it escaped and was killed by Jake."
"Yep, squished like a bug," said Jake. "And wait a minute, those three doulos' lived for that long?"
"The doulos has an infinite lifespan," said Zeon.
"But won't they still escape if more portals open here?" Asked Kirby.
"I made sure that wouldn't happen by creating a unique frequency coming from an antenna I built at the far end of the cave to prevent more portals from opening here," said Zeon.
All of a sudden, the lights went out.
An evil laughter was then heard at the end of the cave.
"That laughter sounds kind of familiar," said Hayley. Just then, a blue light shone where the laughter was coming from. It looked like a car wash sponge floating in a tank.
"Dr. Cranius," Zeon angrily said. "We meet again."
"Indeed, we do, papa," Dr. Cranius said.
"How did you escape?" asked Jake.
"You should never underestimate a genius like me," said Dr. Cranius.
"And did he call you papa?" Cadence asked Zeon.
"Yes, I was the one who created him," Zeon admitted. "But I can explain."
"After I froze the doulos', I still need some help around the lab, so I stole a sponge from a car wash and brought it to life with monster essence."
"Why a sponge?" Jake asked. "Why not another monster that would be more loyal."
"I tried choosing something other than a monster because I was hoping to choose something that looked completely harmless and wouldn't turn on me," Zeon said.
"But you thought wrong," said Dr. Cranius. "I thought that the monsters should have more than just living in this world, so after Zeon decided that he was finished with creating monsters, I created a hacking device, placed it on the dimension mite machine, and escaped to the human world in 1963 and secretly studied at Harvard."
"So, you were the one who caused that machine to malfunction," Kirby said.
"Yes," the evil sponge answered. "I felt like Zeon never thought of me as a close assistant or even a friend because like everything else he created; I was just a monster."
"So, I decided to give him and all humans a taste of their own medicine."
"And now with you here, my old Lakewood chums; I have big plans to get my revenge."
He stepped out of the darkness to reveal a robot suit with him in a tank of water on the head.
He pushed a button on the chest with his robot arm; a big blast sounded at the far end of the cave.
"What was that?" asked Kirby.
"I've destroyed the antenna," Cranius said. "And now for phase two." He pushed another button which sent out a strange frequency from his hand.
The ice in the craters began to melt; the doulos' came out, shaking off the extra ice.
They all then looked at Dr. Cranius and called him master.
"This can't be good," said Jake.
"Now that I'm in control; you will do exactly as I tell you to do," Cranius said to the doulos'. "And I command you to capture them."
The doulos' turned, looked at the Troop, and turned invisible.
The Troop looked around for the doulos' but couldn't see them.
Suddenly, they flew backwards from being hit by something.
"Okay, wasn't expecting that." Kirby said with pain as he stood up.
All five of them were then picked up.
Cadence then transformed, thrashing around, and struggling to get free, but she was then smashed against the wall, knocking her out cold.
"What are you planning to do with us?" Jake asked trying to struggle free from the doulos's grasp.
"I first thought about destroying you," Dr. Cranius said. "But I'm now thinking of giving you a feeling that I felt for a long time."
"You're going away to prison for a long time."
"Place them in the craters."
The doulos' took them to separate craters and was about to set them down.
"This isn't over yet," Hayley said. She pulled out here mini blaster and fired it at the snow-covered ground outside the cave.
It began to shake and rumble; the doulos' turned to see a giant, blue millipede-like monster erupting out of the ground with jagged teeth and two giant eyes.
"So, it was a remorhaz," Zeon faintly said to himself.
The remorhaz flared out its wing-like fins and let out a howling screech that echoed through the cave.
The doulos' dropped the Troop giving them the chance to escape.
They then turned invisible while Dr. Cranius took cover.
The remorhaz suddenly swung its head close to the ground that looked empty, but there actually was something there.
Six of the doulos became visible again and flew back into the craters; the craters blasted upward ice freezing the doulos'.
"How did it know where to attack?" Jake asked Zeon.
"The remorhaz can sense vibrations, so it knew where the doulos' were," Zeon said.
The remorhaz grabbed three of them with its jaws, shook them like dog shaking a toy, and threw them against the wall.
The three doulos' then fell into the craters and were immediately frozen.
"Attack that monster, you fools." Dr. Cranius shouted.
The rest of the doulos' turned visible and piled onto the giant.
The red line down the remorhaz's back began to glow, and the doulos' jumped off with steam rising from their bodies.
"What happened now," Kirby asked as he took photos of the battle.
"Because the remorhaz live in a cold environment, they can super-heat their bodies to make themselves warm," explained Zeon.
The remorhaz then swung its tail at the rest of the doulos', killing most of them and causing most of them to fall frozen in the craters.
It scanned around the place to search for more vibrations, but no one was moving so it couldn't sense them.
It turned and burrowed back into the snow.
"Glad that's over," Kirby said, walking out from hiding.
"Not yet it isn't," said Dr. Cranius with two guns coming out of his arms. "You may have foiled my plans now, but I will free the remaining doulos' again and then you won't have a monster to save you this…"
Before he could finish, his suit powered down and fell forward.
His tank then smashed, and he washed out with the water.
The Troop then saw that Cadence was holding what must've been the power source for Cranius' suit.
"Guess you didn't see that coming," said Zeon picking up the sponge.
"No matter what you are willing to try, you can never keep me contained," Cranius said.
"We'll see about that," Zeon said, giving him a grin. "Since you're the doulos' master, you can join them."
He threw the sponge into one of the craters.
The crater blasted up ice and began to freeze him.
"This isn't over," Cranius said as he was being corroded with ice. "I will be back." He was then completely frozen over.
"That should keep him imprisoned for a long time," said Zeon. "Now, I better go and fix the antenna before a portal opens up in this cave."
An hour later, Zeon came back rubbing his hands showing that he was done with fixing the antenna.
"So, the antenna is done, and the storm's lifted," Cadence said. "But how will we get past the remorhaz; it's still out there waiting for us."
"I think I have an idea," said Jake. "Since the remorhaz is drawn to vibrations, let's make some for it."
"Okay, you lost me there," Hayley said.
"Watch and learn," Jake said. He pulled out this little device, activated it, and it pulled out little spider-like legs.
The device then crawled across the snow and began to vibrate.
A massive lump in the snow began to chase after it. "Now's our chance."
The team quickly ran across the snow to the vehicle; it was still frozen shut, so Hayley pulled out a mini ray gun and blasted the laser with minimum power.
The ice melted over the door, and she did the same with the frozen gears.
They quickly ran inside, started up the engines, and flew out of the snow.
"Guess I've had enough snow days for a long time." Said Kirby.