//------------------------------// // Arrival // Story: Forgotten: The Frozen North // by milesprower06 //------------------------------// Sunny rolled over in her sleeping bag, and finished waking up with a yawn and a stretch. She took a look around, and saw that she was the last one to wake up. Izzy and Sprout were splitting a hot chocolate. "Morning, Sunny," Izzy greeted as the earth mare pulled herself out of her sleeping bag. "Everyone else is outside. It's quite the sight." Izzy got to her hooves and walked up to the front window. "Oh my stars..." Sunny said, her eyes widening as she made her way back to her equipment compartment to the driver's side door, opening it and climbing down into the snow, and simply stood next to the truck, staring dumbfounded at the gargantuan, twisting wall of wind and snow several miles ahead. It rose up to the clouds, and blocked a portion of the Crystal Mountains. "I've never seen anything like this, and with any luck, that's right where we're headed, to see what's inside, Pipsqueaks." She heard Pipp narrate as she held her phone, recording the storm. "This is just about as close as I got with my aerial recon team," Zipp said as she walked up to Sunny's side. "We have no idea what it's like inside?" Sunny asked. Zipp shook her head. "So, what's the plan?" Sunny asked, turning back to Hitch, who was currently refueling the truck. "Well," Hitch began as he righted the fuel canister, twisting the cap back on as he dragged it back to the rear of the truck. "I see two plans, and neither is completely one hundred percent solid. Option one; one of us, in fully clad winter gear, camping supplies, and rations, waits outside the storm with an emergency beacon, in case something happens to the rest of us or the truck. Problem is, if something does happen, the pony waiting outside is largely left to the mercy of the elements until help can arrive, and there's no promises that they'd bring anything that can make it through the storm." "Alright, that one is pretty iffy, what's the other option?" Zipp asked. "Option two is, we're all in the truck, and we crank the heat to full, and hope nothing happens when we go pass through the storm. We go in perfectly straight, so if we need to, we can hit reverse and get out. If we can't get out, there's no guarantee that those transponders will transmit through the storm all the way back to Zephyr Heights." "I'm a lot more comfortable with all of us in the same vehicle," Sunny stated. Zipp immediately agreed, as did Pipp. "I thought so too. If the worst happens, and we don't get a signal out, we'll be together, we can share body heat, and that truck has enough ready-to-eat rations to last us weeks; more than long enough for someone at Zephyr Heights or Maretime Bay to figure out we should have been back by now." Hitch was absolutely right in that regard. Neither Queen Haven nor Phyllis was going to let more than a week pass by without word from them. "Alright, I think we have our decision. Let's all get back inside and get ready to head in there," Hitch told them. One by one, they all got back into the Scouticus Maximus, where Izzy had warmed up four more cups of hot chocolate, which the pair of pegasi and earth ponies happily took to warm up while Hitch made some last minute adjustments, cranking the window defrosters to full and engaging the vehicle's all-wheel-drive and differential. "Alright, everypony. Are we ready?" Hitch asked. He got nods from each and every one. "Sprout, you're up," he replied. "Me?" The red stallion asked. "She's your vehicle. You know what to press and hit in emergencies quicker than we do," Hitch reasoned, motioning him to the driver's seat. Giving a smile of determination, Sprout got into the driver's seat, Sunny buckled into the passenger seat, and Pipp risked standing in between then to give her phone camera a good view out of the windshield. "Alright, here we go," Sprout announced, turning the wipers on and putting the truck into gear. It started forward, and Sunny's gaze went from the immense cyclone of white in front of them to the thermostat on the dashboard, which was currently reading -9°C. A couple minutes later, the Crystal Mountains were obscured entirely due to their proximity to the storm. Ever so gently, Sprout opened the throttle more. -15°C. "You're speeding up?" Hitch asked. Sprout nodded. "If the blowing snow accumulates too quickly on the windshield, it's going to turn to slush, and will quickly overwhelm the wipers. Better to try and get through it quickly and hope this wall isn't too thick." Sunny glanced down at the industrial ice scraper mounted to the passenger side door, hoping they could make it through the blowing snow without having to get out and use that. -20°C. Thirty seconds later, visibility was reduced to zero, and Sprout kept his speed steady, keeping his eyes peeled for any hazards on the field of snow. "What about headlights?" Zipp asked as the ambient lighting in the cab was reduced due to the lack of sunlight. "That would make things twice as bad," Sprout commented. "If you say so," Zipp replied. "He's right. The lights would just shine off of the snow and fog," Hitch added. Luckily, the visibility was the only problem; the ride remained smooth for the next minute. "Whoa!" Sprout exclaimed slowing down, veering to the right to avoid a very large crystal formation protruding from the snow. "Well, there goes our straight path," Hitch remarked. Sprout slowed his speed to steer around two more blue and magenta crystals that jutted out of the fields of white. Getting out of here was not going to be easy if they had to swerve around obstacles, and would likely be very hard to do in reverse. Thankfully, after another thirty seconds, visibility started to clear up, and the thermostat began to slowly tick up. They had lost the sun, but as the started to come to the crest of the hill they had been climbing, Sunny started to make out the other end of the storm, as well as the south face of the central Crystal Mountain range several miles away. "Alright slow down and stop at the top, Sprout," Hitch told him. The stallion did so, and they surveyed the scene before them. It had the appearance of a snowy valley, a jarring change from the flat arctic tundra they had been driving over all of yesterday, and it no doubt was caused by the storm, putting the half-buried city into a giant, wide bowl of snow. There, in the middle, was the tallest structure, half covered in snow and ice, and smaller crystal structures dotting the snowscape all around it, ranging from one to three stories tall. Seeing that the thermostat had risen again to -15°C, Sunny dug out her book containing the images of the memory gems, and opened it to the page she had bookmarked, confirming what waited for them down the snow drifts. "We're here. The Crystal Empire."