Chapter 31- Search Preparation

The flight took a little over ten hours. Drake slept through most of it, tired and exhausted from the day's events as he was. He woke up to see snow-capped mountains passing below them. It was rather bright outside. Drake guessed that it might be about 8:00 in the evening, but he couldn't be sure. He didn't know the time zone differences.

"Okay!" Mr. Stizen shouted from the front. "We're passing over Switzerland as we speak. It shouldn't take long to land, so get ready to disembark then. I don't want to stay down too long."

"Why not?" Julie asked.

"Because I don't want to get attacked!"

"You won't get attacked." Keith said. "I've been watching the news broadcast, subtitled, of course, and it turns out that Switzerland is the only place that is not under fiend control. That and the UN headquarters…but you should be able to land safely in Switzerland, as usual, it's neutral in this whole affair, and the fiends couldn't be bothered to touch it. Though it does make good chocolate…"

"Oh, that's good. We're rather low on fuel, I'm surprised that we made it this far on this gas. We'll be able to refuel… and you can take your time and get some warmer stuff. If you don't already know, it's cold in the Alps."

"Uh, Dad, we don't have any money." Drake said. "How are we going to buy stuff?"

"Good point…" Mr. Stizen ran his hand through his hair. "Here, have twenty bucks. That's all I've got… I doubt it will get each of you something."

"That's fine." Flynn said. "I've got some cash in an international bank account, on account that I traveled quite a bit. I might have about $400 stored up in that account… that should cover us."

"Right then." Mr. Stizen slipped his twenty back into his pocket. "I'll keep this in case we can't get to that account later."

"Good idea." Flynn said. Five minutes later they had landed and Drake, Helen, Julie, Flynn, and Keith had all gotten off the plane. The Swiss air control began to refill the plane and the Swiss medical crew started to tend to Mr. Stizen. They wanted to help everyone else too, but Flynn wouldn't allow it.

"We don't have time." Flynn said. "We need to get moving."

"But sir, you are in terrible condition!" said one of the Swiss.

"It's not important. Do you know where we could get some hiking gear?"

"You don't plan on hiking, do you?!? You can't possibly do it in that condition!"

"Man, I knew someone who was in far worse condition and he kept on fighting and protecting us." Drake said.

"Then he was a fool!"

Julie's eyes flared and she gave the medic a good gut shot. "No he wasn't." Apparently this display of strength convinced the medic that they were in good enough condition to go hiking. He pointed them to the nearest hiking store and walked away, massaging his stomach. Without further obstruction, they entered the hiking store.

"So, you a-goin' to da Alps?" said the storeowner in poor English. "Let's see here…"

"We don't really need a whole lot of stuff, just some heavier coats. Warm stuff." Flynn said.

"Yeah, alright, let's-a see here…" The owner walked to the back of the shop. "Yeah, we got some nice-a jackets here-a. What would you like?"

"Pick something." Flynn said. "We might need these for a while."

"Don't take too long, though." Keith said, looking pointedly at Helen and Julie.

"Hey, I don't like to shop that much." Julie said. "Except for cards…"

"Same here." Helen said, looking at a rather thick white coat. "This should do."

Drake grabbed a thick red coat, almost at random. "Here. This'll be fine." Everyone grabbed a thick coat. Flynn also got a length of rope with a grappling hook on the end.

"We might need it." He said.

"Is-a that all?" said the storeowner.

"Yeah." Flynn said.

"How will you-a pay?"

"Here. Charge it to this account." Flynn handed him a card.

"That's-a good. See you later, maybe." And with that, he saw them out of his shop. Drake pulled on his coat but left it hanging open.

"Okay, now where are we going?" Julie asked.

Keith pointed to the huge mountains silhouetted against the sky. "Walk toward those mountains. We can use this GPS I have to find the Point in the mountains."

"Sounds good, but we still have to walk a long way to get there." Flynn said. "It's almost six miles to this Point of Solitude, according to the coordinates in Matt's PDA. And since it's unlikely that we'll be able to walk in a completely straight line, it'll be even longer."

"Very true, especially since we'll need to go up and down as well." Helen said.

"Well then, let's stop talking and start moving!" Drake said.

"Yeah!" Julie said. Flynn smiled a little.

"Don't get too excited, now." He said. "You'd waste all your energy and then it would be hard to hike."

"Right. Sorry." Julie said. They set off toward the mountains. The wind was whipping about and it might have been below twenty, but the thick coat kept Drake warm. After about ten minutes of moving the terrain started to get a little rougher as they left the city limits. The temperature continued to drop as they got farther in. More than once they were forced to stop for a little while because the wind was too strong.

"This is lousy!" Keith said. "It's so freaking windy!"

"Yeah, it is." Flynn said. "If this doesn't calm down a little, we're going to have problems." The wind let up a little and they continued on. Fortunately the wind and the snow were the only obstacles they had to deal with- there were no fiends.

"This way…oh crap." Keith said, looking up from the GPS to see the sheer rock face he had just run into. "This isn't good."

"Move." Flynn said. "Everyone back away." Everyone got out of Flynn's way. He pulled out his length of rope, set it on the ground, and began to swing the hook around in a vertical circle. It seemed as if he had done it several times before, because when he threw it, it latched on perfectly. "Okay, only one at a time. I'm not sure how strong this rope is, but fortunately the cliff isn't too high." One by one, they shimmied up the rope and onto the cliff above. Flynn pulled the hook off and wrapped the rope up again. "Let's go."

"By the GPS, we should be within a mile of the Point…" Keith said. "The problem is, our visibility is far less than one mile…" Some of the snow by his feet was kicked up in a sudden explosion. Drake squinted, trying to see through the snow.

"Fiends!" He said, noticing several large shapes moving toward them. He whipped out his rifle and took aim. The others did the same. It seemed, however, that the wind was altering the path of their shots, or the fiends really didn't care, because they kept coming, not slowing up at all.

"Run!" Flynn said.

"Where?!?" Helen said. "We're on the edge of the cliff!"

"That way!" Flynn said, pointing over to his right, away from both fiends and cliff.

"But that goes away from the Point!" Keith said.

"Damn it Keith, we don't have time to argue! If we do, we'll get steamrolled!" Keith agreed instantly, as the fiends were becoming easier to see by the second. Everyone dashed to the right, across a sheet of ice that Drake nearly slipped on. They ran into another cliff.

"Crap!" Drake said. "We've got nowhere to go!"

"We don't need to go anywhere." Flynn said.

"What are you…?" Before Drake could finish, he heard the telltale sound of cracking ice. The fiends were too large! The sheet was cracking and the fiends fell though and into the massive snowdrift that the ice had been covering. The fiends were instantly buried in the heavy snow. "Wow. That was cool."

"Yeah, not bad Flynn." Keith said.

"Let's go. We need to get back on course." Flynn said.

"You're not going anywhere!"

"Oh great. Just what we needed." Helen said. "It sounds like one of those dueling fiends."

"Yep." Drake said. "I'll take care of this." He stepped towards the fiend, who had avoided the fates of his compatriots. "You ready to lose?"

"Ha! You will lose everything in this duel!"

"That doesn't sound good." Julie said.

"It doesn't matter." Drake said. "Come on, you stupid fiend!"

"You are the stupid one!"

"Let's duel!"