Author's note: The last chapter was a little devoid of content, so I made two in a row to make up for it. Nothing more to say.
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Chapter 8: Trail of Winter
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Everything was very calm on the Trail of Winter. At least, it WAS calm, until Juan and Shi came down the trail, wearing the winter clothes that Sam had lent to them.
Shi loved playing in snow, and before long she was romping all over while Juan continued walking without seeming to notice a thing. WHAP! Shi hit Juan with a snowball, knocking his hat off.
"Shi, would you quit fooling around?" Juan complained as he went to fetch his hat. "We've got a Chaos Emerald to find!"
Sighing, Shi calmed down. "I never get to have any fun," she muttered. "Oh, well. Maybe I can play later."
For a moment, the area grew silent, except for the crunching footsteps Juan and Shi made as they walked through the snow. Then, some of Dr. Eggman's robots attacked. One of them was made to look like a penguin, and two others looked like snowmen.
Juan and Shi prepared for battle almost instantly. Shi united with Cream and leaped forward to ear-whip the snowman robots while Juan took care of the penguin.
The threat was quickly taken care of. Shi reverted to normal after the robots were done with. For some reason, Shi's transforming didn't disturb her winter clothes.
A short distance down the trail from that, the weather regulator came into view. A side path led up to it, but it was blocked by a gate in a big fence.
Juan tried the gate; it was locked. A sign on the gate said:
WEATHER REGULATOR
This area is off limits to visitors.
Staff, see me for the key.
-S. Noel
"Guess we can't go in there," Shi commented. "It's a shame. I wanted to see what it was like in there. Maybe we should come back later."
Not too far after that, Juan and Shi noticed that someone had built a snowman. It proved to be a real snowman, not a robot like the others. Just for a little practice, Juan karate-kicked the snowman's head off, causing it to topple over.
Before Shi could say a thing, she noticed something where the snowman had been. The snowman had been built over a large X on the ground. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to deduce that something was buried there. It was a pity that Juan and Shi had no method of digging.
After a while of walking, the siblings reached a large pit in the ground. On the other side of the pit, a Chaos Emerald glimmered on its pedestal.
The size of the pit made it out of the question to cross without any kind of bridge, or to jump down and climb up the other side. Time seemed to stop for a moment.
Then, Juan noticed that the snow was beginning to melt. The temperature was rising, and fast. Juan and Shi dashed back to Sam's information booth to find out what was going on.
Sam greeted them enthusiastically. "Am I glad to see you two! You know Dr. Eggman, right? He's sabotaged the weather regulator, and stationed robots all over the place! I can't do anything with all the robots around, but do you think you do better?"
"No problem," Shi responded. "Can we have the key?"
Sam reached behind the desk and tossed the key to Juan. "Take it, and do something, or this Trail of Winter's going to be a Trail of Summer!"
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Turn of events, eh? Well, stay tuned!