Freezing Point
I only own the Alamantians and the plot of this story. Everything else belongs to Hasbro. Enjoy!
The Adventures of the Elementals
Chapter 29: Freezing Point
*Blizzard day 2; Mount Blackmane; 5:00 PM*
Being able to see his hoof in front of his face would have been the clearest thing Cryo was able to see all day. But even that was hard to manage as the snowfall only got worse and worse with every step he took farther up the mountain. He was also going through the clouds that zapped Pyro and Rainbow Dash before so fog was also getting to him.
He wished right now he could be back in Sugarcube Corner enjoying some frozen treats with his friends. Dancing with Pinkie Pie, playing with the twins, he would take any of that over this dreadful mission. He mentally cursed himself every time he thought those kinds of things because he knew he took it upon himself to do this. He volunteered.
He halted when he came to a wall of frozen rock too steep to walk up. It wasn't exactly smooth. Both sharp and dull rock formations made the surface quite course. That was perfect for Cryo because that meant he could climb it easy. He stood bipedal preparing to move.
Using his powers, he formed to giant hooks made of ice starting from the middle of his front looks outward. He then threw one hook forward and started to increase in altitude. He stopped short though when a noise was heard. It was quite odd that he was able to hear anything with all the snow and wind blowing into his face. But he definitely heard a rustle in the trees. He jumped off the wall and took a look around the nearby area.
"Hello? Is anypony there?"
The icy stallion turned around in all directions. There was nothing but white wherever he turned. With a heavy sigh, he rolled his eyes and looked back the way he was heading climbing a bit more.
"What am I saying? Of course there's nopony up here. There's probably nothing even alive up here. Hell I'd give anything to have some company up here with me. It sure beats talking to myself like I'm going crazy. My own voice is getting kind of boring."
The rustle came again. But this time, after it subsided, a growl came in the same direction as the rustle making Cryo stop once more.
"Okay.....that wasn't my voice."
Needing to know what it was, and seeing as how he wasn't very far up the wall, he jumped down and tried his best to use his powers to redirect the snow around so he could see the least bit better. It seemed to work but not all that much due to the fog. The growling came to his ears again and he tried to find the direction it came from.
"Show yourself!" he shouted.
He soon wished he hadn't made that request. In the direction the growl came from. Two red glowing eyes shone. And as they got closer, a shape was seen in the form of a wolf. But it was entirely white and three times larger than a normal sized wolf. Cryo couldn't tell what it truly was so he assumed it was just a coat of fur. Slowly, he began to back away from the creature as it growled some more.
"Um.....easy there."
He was not yet aware of what was fully happening down in Ponyville so he didn't know about the snow creatures. The growling from the wolf became louder and more fierce as a full roar came from it. Cryo armed himself with a blade of ice on his right front hoof.
"I don't like doing things like this. But I have a schedule to keep."
With no hesitation, he charged for the wolf with his blade ready to strike. The wolf lunged for Cryo as well and the pony was the first to act. He jumped up high enough to evade the wolf's attack and landed on its back driving his blade into it. Usually, a howl of pain was heard whenever something like that happened. Nothing came from the wolf.
While Cryo stayed there confused as to why that thing wasn't in pain, it gave the wolf time to buck the stallion off his back. Quickly, he got back up and prepared another blade on the same arm as the wolf charged him again. Jumping to the left, Cryo readied his hind legs and bucked the creature into a nearby tree. Then he turned back around and looked at it as it began to get back up.
"What gives? Why wouldn't Twilight tell me what to expect when coming up here?" After he asked himself that, his brain began to do the math.
He felt the impact on his hooves when he bucked it and it felt just like snow. Not fur and skin. Which meant one obvious thing.
"That thing isn't natural. Somepony REALLY doesn't want me to reach the top of this mountain."
His attention was now paid fully to the wolf as it regained its pose and got ready to lunge at the white and cyan stallion once again.
"I've had just about enough of you!"
The wolf went for him again and this time, Cryo didn't have a blade but a hammer made of thick solid ice. As soon as the wolf leaped at him with its mouth open, the stallion took a strong swing. It was a direct hit and the wolf shattered into bits. Now done with his work, he began to head for the wall. Right before he formed his hooks again, he heard something. It sounded like a roar similar to the one the snow wolf gave off. But it was far in the distance down the mountain. There seemed to be a few of them emanating at the same time.
Cryo knew that they were too far away to be concerned about. That only just raised another question. What were they doing down there and not farther up the mountain where he was trying to kill him.
Unless......he wasn't alone. And there was only one pony he knew crazy enough to follow him. As his eyes widened with horror, he began to slide down the mountain on a path of ice.
" Please don't let it be her. Please don't let it be her. Please don't let it be her!"
His wish was something that couldn't be granted. Less than a minute later, he arrived to where the source of those roars came from. There were three snow wolves and they were all closing in on somepony covered in thick clothing to shield herself from the cold. The visible curly tail gave it away.
It was Pinkie Pie.
"No....no no no!"
He landed in front of Pinkie armed with another ice hammer and the wolves momentarily ceased their advanced.
"Pinkie, what in Skaldi's name are you doing here?!" he shouted angrily.
He didn't receive an answer. He turned his head around slightly to catch a glimpse of her and saw that she wasn't standing up. Pinkie was lying down on her front side and through her snow goggles it was seen that her eyes were closed.
"Pinkie?" he muttered now more afraid than mad.
His attention was turned back to the wolves when all three of the jumped for him. He had to think smart here. Swiftly, he grabbed Pinkie and jumped out of the way of the wolves. He rushed to the tree line and set Pinkie down by a thick trunk of a tree then rushed back to the wolves ice blade ready to go. One of the wolves made a leap and Cryo ducked down and slid underneath the wolf and sliced it in half while sliding. The second one was taken care of via decapitation and the third one was torn apart with an array of spikes thrown at it.
After seeing that the beasts were gone, Cryo rushed to his weakened partner who was now officially shivering like crazy. He picked the mare up in his arms and held her close scared out of his mind.
"C'mon, Pinkie. Stay with me."
Saying that wasn't going to do any good. He had to get Pinkie Pie warm and fast. Looking around frantically, he searched for anything that could act as a shelter from all of this cold. His prayers were answered when he looked and found a small cave in the side of the mountain. He rushed for it carrying Pinkie along with him and used his magic to check for any life inside the cave. It was empty to his luck. He set the shivering Pinkie down and quickly went outside the cave again to go fetch some wood to start a fire with. He came back swiftly with a pile good enough to last through the night.
Using his magic to spark the pile he stacked up, the fire roared to life and he set Pinkie near it to warm her up. He then searched through her bags and found a blanket that was a little wit but still good enough to wrap the mare up in. After she was bundled up, He sat next to her in and watched the flames come off the wood popping every so often.
It took a good while but Pinkie finally woke up still shivering but much less than before. It was obvious though that the all the cold she was exposed to had given her a fever. The first thing she saw brought a smile to her face recognizing the white stallion that she called her partner.
"Cryo.....you're alright." She weakly said.
With a sigh, Cryo looked down at her.
"I wish I could say the same about you." He sadly replied. "Had you been out there for a second longer, you probably would have died."
He walked to the entrance of the cave and created a wall of ice blocking any snow and any more cold from getting in. Afterwards, he walked back to Pinkie and sat down with his back turned to her.
"Why did you have to follow me, Pinkie?" He asked begging for an answer. "Why couldn't you have just stayed home where it's safe?"
She coughed a few times before answering.
"I had to find you. We're...partners."
"That doesn't you mean you had to risk your life like this." He snapped trying to sound less angry than he actually was. "What you did was unnecessary, reckless, and.....just plain stupid. I thought you had more sense than that."
Pinkie Pie felt both hurt and stupid and the same time. She knew she shouldn't have gone after him but she just couldn't help herself. She wanted to be near him all the time. It was almost unhealthy. But this didn't sound like the fun Cryo she knew. It's like part of him wasn't there anymore.
"Why did you have to be just like her?"
Confused was something Pinkie hardly ever was. That line was one of the few things that ever got her all the way confused. She thought she had Cryo figured out by this point but it turns out she was wrong. There were things he never told her.
"Like who?" she asked.
His fate was sealed as soon as he spoke that comment. Something he had wished to not tell until later was now about to be forced out of him because of one screw up. Regretfully, he turned around looked into the eyes of his partner.
"Remember what Discord said about me having a little sister?"
Pinkie nodded.
"I thought he just said that to just mess with your head like he did with me and the others before." She replied.
Cryo shook his head.
"No. He was telling the truth." He began. "I DO have a sister. Her name is Sierra just like he said."
It was here where Cryo began to talk in a way where Pinkie couldn't determine if he was happy or sad.
"When I first learned I was going to be a brother, I wasn't sure how I would like it. But then she was born....and I couldn't stop smiling every time I looked at her. She was like this little light that never stopped shining no matter how dark things got for me. Even when my family was in trouble with low food or something else, she would always make us smile. It was like her gift to the world or something. Nopony could explain it.
"As she started to get bigger, she and I grew closer. So close in fact that whenever I went somewhere, she always tried to follow me. It was so cute. No matter where I went she wanted to be near me. That meant the world to me. To know what it feels like to have somepony look up to you on such a large scale. It's one of the most rewarding things in the world."
A chuckle escaped his mouth before it turned into a frown.
"Then one day........she pulled the same stunt you did." His voice sounded full of regret. "I was taking a hike up a nearby mountain one day with some of my friends because we were going to race down it. But almost halfway up, I turned back and saw that Sierra was following me. And it wasn't safe for a foal her age. That's when the unthinkable happened. An avalanche out of nowhere. Had I been a second late in reaching her, she would have died. She almost lost her life because she couldn't stand to be apart from me."
Pinkie could see now what her partner was talking about. There was indeed a similarity between her and Cryo's sister by what his explanation brought to light.
""Pinkie, you're an awesome friend to me and I am happy for that. But there are times when you remind me so much of my sister, it hurts. It hurts so bad. And now you pulled this stunt. The same one she did that almost cost her own life. It......it's just too much sometimes."
That right there was when Pinkie fully realized why Cryo was in pain. It had been over three years since he last saw Sierra. She was trapped in a war-zone along with his mother. His father was killed in action when the war first broke out and that made it even harder for him to leave.
The sound of something deflating was heard. Cryo turned his head back to Pinkie and saw that her mane had lost all of its curls and gone perfectly straight. And her bright pink coat had lost some of its brightness it seemed.
"Cryo..." She coughed a few more times. "I'm sorry I remind you of her. I....I never wanted to hurt you."
The sniffles that followed were what Cryo thought to be just her sickness setting in more. Then his brain thought differently when he heard a whimper. He turned around and what he saw broke his heart.
Pinkie was crying.
Seeing her face hidden away in her arms and her eyes leaking tears was enough to make Cryo curse himself for using the words he did. He blatantly told one of his best friends that she hurts him constantly by acting like his sister. Now he had done it to her. Pinkie Pie was hurt. On top of all the cold and the illness, she was now hurt emotionally as well. And it was all his fault.
He raised a hoof gently in her direction. Before he set it down on her back, he heard a deep inhale and then a soft exhale. She had fallen asleep. Great. Before he could apologize she had gone dead to the world. With a sigh and a step in her direction, he rested his hoof on her warm forehead and ran it through her mane a bit.
"Pinkie..............I'm so sorry."
His muzzle lowered down and he gently tapped his lips to her pink forehead. After that, he looked to the entrance he had frozen shut and sat down staring at it. Just because Pinkie was there with him now didn't mean his mission had changed. He didn't have a choice. Whether or not she was sick, she was going to have to leave in the morning if they were ever going to have any hope of reaching the top of the mountain.
Hours passed and Pinkie was still out. Cryo began to feel his eyes grow heavy as well. He couldn't keep it up any longer. He threw a few more logs into the fire pit and then fetched a blanket from Pinkie's saddle bags. At first he was just going to put it over her own body and go sleep on his own. But he thought differently right before he did. He laid down beside her and threw the blanket over both of them with his magic. It wasn't necessary for him to keep warm but he figured the least he could do for hurting her was stay by her side all through the night. Sure enough, that's what he did. As soon as he closed his eyes, he was off to dream land just like she was.
*Blizzard day 2; Ponyville; Town Hall; 9:30 PM*
Things weren't exactly on the right side for the elements. Since the morning, their situation had escalated from bad to worse. Cadence was officially down for the count with a nasty cold and she had to give up her share of power in the force field making Pyro sub for her. She was confined to the mayor's office so nopony else would risk catching her cold. Even with that precaution taken, that wasn't fully stopping it. The freezing temperature was starting to effect on a few others as well. A few coughs here some sneezes there, it wouldn't be long before all of them were sick. Pyro was doing the best he could to keep everyone warm but having to do that and sustain the force field with Twilight and Gem was a difficult task.
The health was just one issue. The other was the big one happening outside. The level of snow was rising and was now one fourth of the way up the force field. If it kept up, then it wouldn't be long before the whole building was underneath snow. Also, the higher the snow rose up, the harder it got for the three unicorns to hold up the shield because more and more snow AND ponies made of snow were pounding down on it.
Gem herself seemed busy with her own thing. Most of the time, she was sitting at the window looking up at the clouds and it appeared that she was doing some sort of math equations. For whatever reason she was doing them, nopony knew. Twilight went over to look at the math, but after looking at it, her brain began to ache. The equations Gem had written up were very advanced. Much more advanced then she had ever seen before. And that was saying something. Yet Gem and her fourteen year old brain were deducing them and more without a hitch. That impressed Twilight very much so.
"Where did you learn how to do this?" she asked the young unicorn. "This stuff is very advanced. Even for me."
Gem did answer but she didn't mover her eyesight away from her work to do it.
"Fourteen years I've been alive. And during most of them I spent every second of free time I had reading textbooks and learning parchments. When you're forced to be shunned by everypony around you, you tend to have a lot of free time on your hooves."
Twilight was all too familiar with that. The only difference in her case was that she chose to not interact with other ponies herself instead of the other way around.
"I wasn't aware Alamante taught mathematics this advanced." Twilight said as she looked to the equations again.
"They don't." Gem answered. "When we first came here, I didn't have a lot of stuff to read." She then smiled as she looked over to Pyro who was at the time talking with Applejack and Terra. "The guys though, whenever they went out and made money, they always set some aside to get me more up to date books."
"Just for you?" Twilight murmured as she looked over to Pyro now sporting the same smile as Gem. "That's so sweet."
"They're all good guys." Gem nodded and got back to her work.
Twilight agreed and watched as Gem created a small purple glowing screen with her plasma power and formed numbers on it like it was a chalkboard of pure plasma and magic. With waves of her hooves, Gem made the numbers and symbols switch positions. Twilight was astounded. Gem was seeing the math in her head and making it actually solve itself in front of her eyes. It was amazing seeing that get done.
"Good golly." Applebloom walked over and stood next to Twilight. "Look at 'er go."
She was soon joined by Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle.
"She's like some sort of machine." Scootaloo joked. "You think maybe her brain is like all mechanized like in some of those books we read in school?"
"Oh don't be silly." Sweetie Belle responded. "She's just way smarter than us. Think maybe she can help you with math?"
That question was directed to Scootaloo who seemed to take some bit of offense.
"Are you saying I'm bad at math?" she snapped at Sweetie Belle.
Applebloom answered before Sweetie Belle could.
"Have you SEEN you grade in math?"
"Um...girls?" Twilight stopped it before it could get louder. "I think Gem really needs to concentrate right now."
"Actually, not anymore. Because I'm done." Gem turned around as the numbers of plasma all vanished and everything was on paper now. "Twilight would you mind getting everyone over here please?"
That was done very quickly. The present elements grouped together for Gem to speak to them and the crusaders were sent away.
"So what's up, Gem?" Rainbow Dash asked her partner.
"To put it simply, I've been keeping an eye on the storm and I've noticed that while the clouds begin to pour out more snow by the hour, they are also starting to spread and in a certain direction."
"Oh.....my." Fluttershy did not like the sound of that.
"I've been doing the math for a while now and I have come to the conclusion that it won't be long before this storm reaches Canterlot. After that it will get to Manehattan, Fillydelphia, and so on."
The fear and dread was obvious in her voice. Similar feelings went into all the others as soon as they heard what was happening.
"So....how long should it be before Canterlot gets hit?" Pyro asked not sure if he wanted to hear the answer or not.
It was however too late for that now. Gem opened her mouth to give the information as her papers floated around her head via magic grip.
"If my calculations are correct, the storm should reach the borders of Canterlot...............by tomorrow morning."
That wasn't a lot of time. And none of them had any idea about the delay Cryo now had to deal with. This was going to be very close. Pyro's head turned when he felt a hoof on his shoulder. It belonged to Rose.
"Are you okay? You all seem stressed." She said.
Pyro nodded despite the information he just heard.
"Yeah. Everything's fine." He told her.
The florist invited him to share dinner with her and he decided to say yes to it. The others dispersed as well shortly after. Twilight headed upstairs to go check on Cadence but on her way up, her mind was on Canterlot. The princesses, Agua, Rarity, Shining Armor, and Spike. They were all in danger and whether or not they knew it was a mystery. Either way, fearing for their safety over her own was all she could do. Fearing for safety was all anyone could do at this point. And not only their own.
"Do you think Pinkie Pie caught up to Cryo?" Applejack wondered.
"I sure hope so. If she hasn't by now......well I don't think I need to go on." Terra put it flat and simple.
She indeed didn't have to go on. Of all the things Pinkie could have done this was probably the most foolish act any of them had ever seen her do. Well they didn't see her do it to be technical but they knew what she had done. Typhoon tried searching for her with her telepathy but her range was highly disturbed by the storm.
Cryo and Pinkie Pie were now their only chance for survival. If only the others knew they were both alive, it would have maybe put their minds at ease some. For what little worth it was at the moment.
Tomorrow was going to be the day of reckoning. And just like the previous night, it was going to be a long one.
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I was going to sleep then this popped up.
Oh well. Sleep is for the weak.
2642358yes my brother sleep is for the week how long has it been since you slept last im on day three
wow...this thing is more stretched out than an episode of Dragonball. it keeps you tense, wondering what's gonna happen next, and when! and, no, that's not a bad thing.
335947
That's Rainbow Dash...