CRASH
A bunch of ice froze through as thugs with rifles shot warning shots in the air while others yelled 'Marry Fucking Christmas, people!'. A cryogenic weapon shot ice everywhere as the weapon wielder spoke.
"Bring me, Ferris Boyle!" His robotic human voice said.
Most of the crowd scattered as they all tried to escape. But they were all frozen up by the mysterious criminal. Arnold and the others gathered as they secretly snuck off.
Thugs surrounded Ferris. "Wha- What do you want?! Money? You got it! Just let me go already!"
"You and I, have business to settle. You will pay for what you have done…!"
The ceiling windows crashed as the five heroes came down. "Not so fast… wait, who even are you?" Spinelli soon asked.
"Call me… Mr. Freeze!" Mr. Freeze shot an ice beam at them. They avoided the ice beam but the thugs were already taking away Ferris Boyle.
"Kidnapping the head man of Boyle industries… something must've happened between the two!" Gerald said as he fired shots at Mr. Freeze. They were mere rubber bullets to his armor.
"Whoever this creep is, let's take him down!"
Spinelli then got her legs frozen. "Next thing that freezes will be your lungs!" Mr. Freeze threatened.
Mr. Freeze then created an ice wall separating him from them. "So long, Super-Zeroes!"
"DAMMIT...!" Arnold facepalmed. "We can't take him head-on, we have to find another way to fight him!"
"Noted." Spinelli finally got her legs unstuck. "Good thing I wear boots, my legs are freezing. Who even is this guy?"
"There's no ID on city records." Impulse replied. "Which means… something or someone transformed him…" Arnold had a hand on his chin.
"Transformed him into a walking refrigerator. Whatever he is, we can't let him get away!" Nadine replied.
"You guys, I have record-setting low temperatures across the city. By the hour, a snowstorm is due to hit, and I don't think by coincidence either." Phoebe radioed in. "It's already snowing, more snow?"
"Has to be that Mr. Freeze fellow, he must be behind this!" Rhonda replied.
"I don't think we'll hold up in these cold temperatures, we have to get back to HQ, Phoebe and I have been prepping exactly for this situation." Police sirens were then heard.
"Quick! We gotta go, now!"
As the five of them grappled up to the Hyperjet, police immediately tried to fire at the jet but it had already flown off.
"Lemme guess, they got away?" Commissioner Goodell asked. The officers only nodded.
At HQ
"Alright Arnold, you have our attention, now what gives?" Spinelli asked as she crossed her arms.
"Glad you asked. Phoebe, let's show them?" Phoebe nodded as she smiled. "If you'll gladly follow us, we have a little surprise… we intended to save it until Christmas tomorrow but… guess this is how things work out." Phoebe shrugged.
The four of them looked at each other in confusion.
"Introducing… the Thermo XP suits!" Phoebe unveiled the five suits. The four of them looked in awe.
"Wait, isn't this essentially our armor only… bulkier?"
"Well more or less. We added on a special honeycomb structure, it may look slow, but there's absolutely no added weight. And it also insulates against extreme cold temperatures, along with the insides having specially built-in heaters, it fights against the cold." Phoebe explained. "And we also added thermal repulsors, which can fight against that ice beam or any ice structure we come across. Along with the addition of thermal missiles, in case we can't melt the ice with the thermal repulsors or out of reach." Arnold finished.
"I think I'm gonna love this." Spinelli smirked.
"Come on, we don't have a second to waste!"
As the five of them suited up, their faces were all covered with their usual face masks, only a little more bulky but more menacing looking. Orange heat lines ran through the armors, providing the necessary heat to their bodies. They all had spikes at the sides of their gloves and the back of their necks were all covered as well. The bottom of their boots all had snow spikes if they ever encountered extremely deep or slippery snow.
The crime wave then sounded. "Sir, we have a stolen equipment truck down at the docks. We also have multiple reports of gunfire at the place."
"Spinelli, Nadine, you deal with that equipment van and shooting down at the docks, we'll go after Mr. Freeze and Ferris Boyle." Arnold said. Spinelli and Nadine nodded as they immediately headed to the Quinjet.
The others took the Hyperjet and the two jets soon flew out.
"Impulse, keep tabs on the two teams. I have a bit of a feeling this'll be a long night." Phoebe said. "When is it not, Ms. Hyerdhal?"
"Eh, well I don't really know.
"Care for coffee, Ms. Hyerdhal?"
"Why thanks! I think I'll need it otherwise." Phoebe sat down. "I think I'll need some warmer clothing as well."
"Let's give 'em a little surprise?" Spinelli looked at Nadine. She smirked as she nodded.
Spinelli flew from the Quinjet and onto the roof of the van. "Wow, they really built this suit extremely well! I don't even feel the cold!"
She punched through the driver's side window and pulled out the driver from the window. "That's one…"
Spinelli then hopped onto the hood of the van and punched through the windshield, pulling out the other thug. "That's two." She immediately jumped from the van as it crashed into a street light.
The driver was knocked out, while the passenger was still conscious. "Maybe I can get some answers from him…"
Spinelli walked up to the thug and realized it wasn't a normal street thug. "Who the hell…" She then grabbed him by the collar and held him up in the air. "Who are you working for?!"
"Go to hell!" The army-wearing thug tried to inject some sort of chemical into her, but she immediately countered it and slammed him against the pavement of snow. Spinelli grabbed the needle from his hand and briefly examined it as she held the thug's wrist.
"I'm not asking again… WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR?!"
"I- I got nothing to say to you!"
"TALK! Or I'll crush every bone in your body!" Spinelli demanded.
"Ok, OK. I work for Mr. Freeze! I was sent down to the docks to steal an equipment shipment for an associate he's currently partnered with! I swear that's all I know!"
"Anything else?!" She moved his wrist at an awkward angle.
"OK! I know Mr. Freeze is taking Ferris to his own company! Boyle Industries! I swear that's all I know!"
"If you're lying… I'm breaking the other one."
"The other wh- AAHH!" Spinelli broke his wrist and immediately knocked him out. "That should do."
"You are one helluva interrogator." Nadine said as she watched from the Quinjet. "Why thanks. Get me back up there, I have something interesting you'll wanna see. Phoebe, send an anonymous tip to the HPD, they'll wanna take a look at this."
"Sending now."
"Oh, and I'm also sending over some data about a weird chemical compound I found on one of these thugs." Spinelli said as she grappled up into the Quinjet.
She uploaded the analysis, and Phoebe was rather surprised. "I don't think I've ever seen this kind of chemical mix before… But how?"
"I'm guessing it's not good… is it." Nadine said as she looked over the analysis.
"Team one, we got some info on where Mr. Freeze and Boyle could be!" Spinelli said over the radio.
"Uh, I think that won't be necessary… We found a giant building covered in ice." Gerald replied. "Let's pay this Mr. Freeze guy, a visit."
The Hyperjet landed close to the building. Arnold, Rhonda, and Gerald saw the entrance blocked off with ice.
"I think I'll handle this." Rhonda's thermal gloves heated up as she soon punched through the ice. "Let's go!"
"I'd suggest watching your tone when you talk to her… She's the man of the relationship."
"Gerald…" Arnold lowered his eyelids.
The inside of the place was all covered in ice and chilly wind in the air. Arnold then saw giant footsteps.
"I think we know where they are…"
"Hold it! Hands in the air!" Thugs from above held rifles and pointed at the three.
"On my signal…" Arnold whispered. "One….Two… Three!" The three dropped smoke bombs and the thugs immediately fired.
Arnold took the left, Rhonda took the right side as Gerald took the way Boyle was taken in.
They all used their fear takedowns to quickly take out the thugs. Gerald broke the ice wall where Ferris Boyle was taken.
After the thugs were dealt with, they soon went ahead to find Boyle.
"One thing that's puzzling me right now is, why take the CEO of Boyle Industries to his own company?" Rhonda asked. "Who knows? All we know is we have to stop this walking freezer. And something tells me he's been behind this cold weather."
"You guys, check this out!" Gerald told the two as he saw a destroyed lab.
The lab was destroyed by what looked to be an explosion. There was a frozen cop there and a scientist who was killed. The room was completely covered in cryogenic ice.
"This guard is dead…" Arnold examined the dead security guard. "A scientist was also killed." Rhonda added.
"Looks like this must be the place where Mr. Freeze was transformed into what he is now." Arnold also added. He then started scanning for evidence with his detective vision as he started compiling data.
Meanwhile…
"Anything?" Nadine asked Phoebe. "Well this is rather interesting… the chemicals used in this combination to one thing, to fear."
"What?" Spinelli and Nadine asked at the same time.
"I know it's hard to believe but look, these are the rarest chemical compounds across the country, they're only found in specific places. A combination of this and that… and I managed to pull up some info on this, records are scarce but should suffice. A report of people missing, and they haven't been found ever since. This is also around the same time we got those missing people reports… coincidentally enough.
"Wait, so that van is filled with those rare chemical compounds?" Spinelli asked. "I believe so." Phoebe answered. "Say, any chance there's an army that wears red and gray?"
"Huh?"
"I know it sounds stupid but that guy I interrogated was wearing an army-like uniform. And had more gear on him than a normal military guy."
"Huh. Let me see what I can pull up. . . . Ah, here we are. A small-time black-ops team that operates down Venezuela. They have been off the radar for some time until as of late, which probably explains the missing van shipments. They haven't had a leader so that explains how quiet they were until as of late, no name or ID on their leader. No specifications on the person either."
"Well whoever it is, they have a new leader and are most likely to try something here in the city. Any name of this army?"
"There's nothing on file."
"There's more than meets the eye. The same skin color on the guard is like Freeze. Data analysis shows he died from a heat stroke, but in the control room, it's completely frozen." Arnold examined the dead guard. "Heat stroke?! But how? His body froze to death and you're gonna say he's dead from a heat stroke?" Rhonda asked.
"There are chemical traces from back in the lab, there'll be more answers there." Arnold said as he heated the frozen wall and punched through it.
Arnold scanned more evidence from the floor. "Based on the collected data, two men struggled in here. One ran out of here, which was the dead security guard, while the other laid his hands on this window, why?"
"These fingerprints are a match for Victor Fries. He must've seen what happened to that security guard. Looks like he NEEDS to be kept in subzero temperatures in order to survive." Rhonda replied.
"That's not all, look." Gerald found more evidence on a desk. "He must've gathered the necessary to build himself a prototype suit to keep himself in subzero temperatures. A supercooled survival suit, the one we saw him with."
Rhonda then found a frozen exploded tank. "What's this?" She then scanned for evidence. "Interesting… An extreme amount of pressure built up inside the tank when the ice covered its outtakes."
"Could that explain this frozen guard here?" Arnold looked over the guard. Gerald scanned its body. "First off, I'm not getting any readings for body temperature or any vital signs, he must've frozen to death. Secondly, it appears he was frozen BEFORE the tank exploded. Perhaps Freeze did this with his cryocannon."
Arnold then saw something red on the frozen floor. "Look, splattered blood on the floor." Arnold examined the blood. "This also matches for Freeze, looks like someone assaulted him with a blunt weapon, perhaps a handgun. He was knocked over towards this ray here, which was knocked over and fired."
"So THAT explains the dead guard here, along with the transformation of Freeze and the other guard. It released a shockwave that enveloped the two, but knocked the assailant all the way over here." Rhonda pointed at a broken piece of wall. "And that's where the assailant must've left behind his weapon, it may hold more evidence." Arnold added.
Gerald soon found it. "You guys, I found it!"
"Great! Any fingerprints on it."
"It's a handgun, which Arnold was right about." Gerald went wide-eyed for a moment. "Uh, guys? You won't believe this but, fingerprints are a positive match for… Ferris Boyle!"
"What?!" Arnold and Rhonda questioned.
"Ferris is behind all this! He must be responsible for the way Victor is now!" Gerald said, shocked. "What could this be all about? And are these wheel tracks?" Rhonda found frozen tracks.
Arnold scanned over it. "Something must've been wheeled in this fluid - possibly a gurney. Looks like the fluids here froze almost immediately for the tracks to be preserved."
"Hey, there's something on this computer, it contains an ID here." Gerald looked over the computer where the gurney was at. "Looks like Freeze was researching Huntington's Chorea, but why here? In a cryogenic weapons lab. The test subject is… Nora Fries, his wife."
"So that explains everything that transpired in here." Rhonda started. A Data Recovered screen showed the three. "Victor was hired to help advance the secret cryoweapons program with Boyle Industries. And in exchange, Boyle agreed to help with the disease of his dying wife."
"And Boyle was more interested on how Freeze put Nora in a cryostasis. And it looks like it's one of those deals where one person doesn't hold up on their end. So Freeze decided to do the research himself. Boyle found out soon enough and looks like he wanted to shut down his operations. With the tank rupture, it altered the metabolism of Freeze and the guards." Arnold added. Gerald then continued. "Boyle escaped ahead of the plume and immediately quarantined the lab. Victor managed to survive, but if he left the lab, he'd die instantly. Which led to him building the supercooled survival suit, and he also used an organic supercoolant to keep his core temperatures at sub-zero."
"All this violence… And all just to save his dying wife…" Rhonda then pulled Arnold into a hug. "You'd do the same for me, would you?"
Arnold blushed behind his facemask. "Uh, now's not the best time, to put it in short, yes but possibly without the violence he's unleashed."
Gerald merely rolled his eyes as he chuckled. "Alright love birds, there'll be plenty of time later, we have a case to close here."
"Let's go and find Freeze. We know what's gone on, and we need to find a way to make it right. And we know how." Arnold started. "Impulse, Phoebe, you there?"
"Sure am!" Phoebe chirpily said. "At your service, sir." Impulse replied.
"Send over the evidence we have on Ferris Boyle and Mr. Freeze to the police."
"Ouch." Phoebe saw the amount of evidence. "Sorry to hear about this, I know you had high expectations for that company."
"That doesn't matter anymore, Freeze's intentions were never to kill Ferris - he needed security access to get his wife out of Boyle Industries. That's all he wanted to save his wife."
"And you three will stop him?"
"Unfortunately, we have to."
"And how about the hospital gurney you mentioned earlier before the investigation?"
"Oh, we'll need it. But not for Victor once we're done here." An alarm started sounding. "Phoebe, what's going on?"
"The Hyperjet. The core temperatures are starting to freeze, along with the entire engine, I have to get it running or it won't start, especially with the snowstorm coming in."
"We'll contact you later, we have some business to take care of." The radio then cut out.
"Impulse, get the engine running, I'll handle the rest."
Olivia then came down to the lair since she was old enough to comprehend where it was. "Hey, Ms. Hyerdhal." Olivia chirpily greeted. Phoebe looked back as she smiled and welcomed her with open arms. "Hey there, Olivia! What brings you down here?"
"Well, it's not often I get to visit down here so I thought, why not come down here every once in a while?"
Phoebe chuckled. "It's always great to see you, but try not to mess around with anything, it's all sensitive equipment after all."
"Oh, don't worry. I have that careful personality from my Dad, I'll be fine." Olivia smiled. Phoebe smiled back as she let go of Olivia and turned her attention back to the Hyperjet. The jet's alarm sounded again.
"What now?" The weather radar from the Hyperjet's location popped up. Displaying a snowstorm hitting at any second. "Uh oh. Impulse, keep core temperatures warm, I have a feeling this won't be good until they can't stop Mr. Freeze."
As the streets were getting hit with bunches of snow, the city's only hope was laying on three heroes.
An extra long chapter today. I haven't been feeling myself these past couple days, not sure why so that's why I'm lacking in posting chapters... Also, I know Mr. Freeze is part of the Batman universe, but I figured why the f*ck not? I honestly figured why not... Anyways, hope you've enjoyed this chapter!