It was dark and snowy in the Himalayan mountains, but the darkness was broken by the light of the portal.
"Jeez, it's cold out here," said Fred.
"Don't worry," said Sam. "I came prepared."
She pulled out five pairs of winter gear and coats; she gave each of everyone a coat.
"It's too cold and dark out," said Zeon. "We should get some rest and start fresh in the morning."
"That we should do," said Cadence.
Four hours later, the Troop was asleep in their tents which were set up correctly to prevent being blown away by the wind; Fred, Jacob, and Zeon were sleeping in one tent while Cadence and Sam were in the other one.
Fred was then woken up by some strange sounds that were coming from outside the tent; they sounded like the sounds of someone walking in the snow.
"Hey, do you guys hear that?" he said, waking the others up.
"What is it?" asked Jacob.
"Someone is walking around outside," said Zeon.
"Could it be Sam or Cadence?" said Jacob.
"I'll go take a look," said Zeon. "I can survive in harsh conditions like these."
He stepped outside the tent to take a look; there was no one around, just layers of stone and snow.
"Were you the one making those sounds, Zeon?" said Cadence coming out of her tent.
"No, but it doesn't look like anyone's around," he replied.
"I don't think they might've come from a human," she said. "Whatever it was sounded big."
"I think I see some prints in the snow over there," said Zeon.
They walked towards a boulder where there was a trail of footprints that weren't covered by the snow yet; they looked human but were bigger and wider.
Suddenly, they heard roars coming from behind them; they turned to see three monsters thrashing at the tents.
The monsters had human-like bodies but bigger and bulkier with pointed ears, horns, fangs, and white fur.
"Yetis," said Zeon.
"They smell humans," said Cadence. "We got to get them out."
They were about to rush in to help Fred, Sam, and Jacob before the yetis could get to them, but one of the yetis knocked them out of the way.
The yetis pulled the teens out of the tents but before they could kill them, a bunch of what looked like laser beams were fired at them.
The yetis dropped the teens and ran off into the snow where they disappeared out of sight.
The Troop turned around to see a number of four robots walking towards them; the robots then stepped aside and a couple of men wearing snow gear came walking in.
"Follow us," one of them said.
The Troop followed the men and robots up the mountain slope to a rocky wall; one of the men pushed in a rock, a retinal scanner slid out, scanned the eye of one of the men, and the wall opened.
Inside the mountain was a secret base; on one of the walls was the Troop triangle.
"Wait here," one of the men said. "Our chief operator will meet with you shortly."
After waiting in place for two minutes, the chief operator arrived; he had brownish hair and a beard.
"Hey there, Cadence and Zeon," he said.
"Kirby," they both said.
"Long time no see," he said.
"What are you doing here?" asked Zeon.
"I work here," he said. "This is a Troop facility where we design and build weapons for Troops across the globe."
"Thanks to much of my designs for some of the tech I developed when I worked in the Troop; I was recruited here after I graduated from college."
"So, I understand that you need a vial of dragon's blood."
"That's right," said Zeon. "We need it to stop Typhon and Echidna."
"All right, come this way," said Kirby.
They walked through a hallway where there were windows revealing labs where weapons were being produced.
"So, Zeon?" asked Jacob. "Why do we need some dragon's blood?"
"In 1685, it was discovered that dragon's blood acts as a power source for various potions that were made as poisons for monsters," he explained. "Since Troops only protected dragons, they only collected the blood of a dragon if it was injured with any opened wounds."
As Zeon continued to explain, they walked through a long-ranged room where the weapons were being tested on targets.
"Kind of like how dragon scales grow brighter and warmer when they get closer to a portal, dragon's blood has different levels of power depending on the dragon's age."
"We have multiple vials containing amounts of dragons blood that come from dragons of various ages," said Kirby. "We use them to charge up various chemicals in various weapons so that they can take out various monsters."
"The most powerful one we have here was collected from an injured dragon that was believed to be over 384 years old, and dragons usually live up to 380 years old."
"That's the kind of blood we need for the ray to take out two monsters like Typhon and Echidna," said Zeon.
"But, if that blood is that powerful, won't you need it for something powerful here?" Sam asked.
"We actually tested the blood with a plasma cannon, but the cannon immediately blew up," said Kirby. "That shows just how powerful the blood is; too powerful for any of our standard weapons."
Kirby took them to a vault door where he scanned a key card, did a retinal scan, and a hand scan.
The door opened to a vault where there were shelves with vials of dragon's blood.
Each vial contained various kinds of blood that were all different colored.
"Why are they all different colored?" asked Fred.
"Dragon's blood has a certain kind of coloration depending on their age," explained Zeon. "Those between zero and fifty have red blood, orange blood between fifty-one and ninety-seven, yellow blood between ninety-eight and 145, green blood between 146 and 234, blue blood between 235 and 308, and purple blood between 309 and 380."
"But there's only one vial with dragon's blood that has no coloration," said Kirby. "The theory is if a dragon is over 380 years old, its blood loses its color."
They came to the end of the vault where there was a safe in the wall; Kirby typed in a code and the safe opened.
The blood in the vial was all gray.
"I only need a small amount of this blood, so could you open it, please?" Zeon asked Kirby.
Kirby opened the vial, Zeon took out a liquid dropper and sucked a small amount of it up.
"That's not a lot," said Fred.
"This kind of blood is so powerful it can crumble sixty behemoths," said Zeon. "Meaning it will definitely defeat Typhon and Echidna."
He then took out the matter transport pod and sent the dropper into the pod.
"That'll be all for now," said Zeon. "On to our final location."
Just then, an alarm went off all over the base; everyone was running towards the exits.
"We need to evacuate!" shouted Kirby.
Halfway through the hall, the whole facility started to shake like there was an earthquake.
"Weren't there already earthquakes?" asked Fred.
"This isn't an earthquake," said Zeon.
Everyone ran out of the facility and one of the mountains was rumbling and sinking in the distance.
"The fourth sign," said Zeon.
As two other mountains were sinking into the Earth, the mountain where the facility was located was starting to rumble.
Part of the mountain started to sink, and everyone was still on top of it.
"We need to get everyone off the mountain, now," said Cadence.
"Leave that to me," said Zeon.
He took out his dimension mite device, typed in some coordinates, and pressed the button on top.
The mites flew out the bottom and opened a portal.
"Everyone, run through to the other side!" Zeon shouted.
Everyone ran through and ended up near a village at the bottom of the mountains.
They all saw the mountain sinking leaving a massive sinkhole.
"Well, there goes much of our work and weapons," said Kirby.
"Not to mention all that dragon's blood and the most powerful one," said Jacob.
"Not quite," said Fred. He reached into his pocket and pulled the colorless blood out.
"You saved it, Fred," said Sam.
"I knew that the fourth sign was to happen around here, so I took it to make sure it didn't get destroyed," he said.
"Though the alarm could've been for anything," said Cadence.
"You got to be prepared for anything," he said.
"Well, thanks anyway," said Kirby. "I'll have this vial transferred to one of the other weapons designing and testing facilities; one that isn't located in any mountains."
"Okay, we got what we came for," said Zeon. "We better get the last item before things get really serious."
He opened a portal, and the Troop crossed through.
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