Episode 8:

Our heroes are too excited to sleep. They chat long into the night. Iris keeps tutting at how late it is.

“I once went to bed at eleven thirty-six.” She says. The others gasp in shock, horror and admiration.

Lincoln is feeling rather drained. “I think we should move the camp up the aisle, and put it on the mosaic that helps us recharge.” He suggests. – However he has little energy to do so. The others come up with a plan. – They pelt Autumn with stones until he gets big and bad and mad. Then they give him some pepper and stand back.

“I’m gonna…...A….Aaaa…..Aaaaataaaa…..Atishoo!”

The camp is neatly relocated three-quarters of the way down the cathedral. Bee whizzes forward and places some things under Sienna’s sleeping bag. They build a fire with the two oily boy-scouts. When a certain person glares at them, they toast marshmallows over the fire- which isn’t as efficient as the ‘antagonise Sienna’ method, but does give them a nice smoky flavour.

They turn in. Some of them sleep peacefully, but  Bee sleeps for about fifteen minutes before getting a bit restless. Cerise dreams of the future. Sienna dreams about looking for a lost pig. The dawn comes around soon enough. – Even though it is winter, the sun is up at stupid-o’clock.

“This Atlas time is really dumb!” Mal says, “I mean, whoever heard of fifteen hundred?”

“Fifteen hundred hours…That’s three o’clock where we come from.”

“Oh I get the twenty-four-hour-clock, but not fifteen hundred hours between bedtime and dawn.”

“Hmm….I thought it was a long lie-in!”

Lincoln objects. “We’re teenagers! A two month lie-in is normal!”

“I had a funny dream last night….” Sienna says in the morning, stretching and trying to ease the kinks out of her back – which somewhat resembles a mountain range drawn by a five-year-old hyped up on E-numbers. “….I dreamed that we had a pet pig, but it got lost and however much we looked we couldn’t find it….Then at the last moment when we thought it was gone forever, -there is was right under our noses….Then I dreamed of a princess who could pee through fifty mattresses.” The others all exchange glances.

“Talking of noses, something smells really nice this morning….”

Little Bee points at something. “Look over there!” By the time Sienna has done so, Bee has whipped out all the things from under Sienna’s mattress and placed them neatly on eight plates.

Sienna turns around. “I can’t see anything….Ooooh bacon!” She picks up a spoon. Instead of exchanging it for something else, she melts the metal until it becomes a fork.

“Mmmmm….Yummy bacon!” She says tucking in. “Say Bee, where did you get this…?”

Bee is halfway through her breakfast. What she says sounds like. “That’s my Uncle Crow.”

“What?” Cerise asks.

“Um…..From a pig.” Bee says, looking sideways at the others.

“Lovely. All I need now is a cup of tea.” Sienna says, shifting position to see the dawn. A cup if piping hot tea  instantly appears in her hand. She tries again. “And hash-browns….?” Some appear on her plate. “Tomatoes….Mushrooms….A sausage….Fried egg…..?” All these things appear instantly.

Sienna squeals in delight. “It’s like having your own magic fairy, granting five wishes at once.”

“Careful what you wish about a sausage.” Mal warns. Lincoln almost spatters tea all over Autumn.

After a filling and indeed piping-hot breakfast, they pack up their camp. Autumn is making noises about scouting around. The rest start packing up. Bee is done in 0.0002 seconds. – A new personal best.

Sienna picks up her sleeping bag. On the back we can see the imprints of sixteen rashers of bacon, several tomatoes, hash-browns, seven sausages – (and one veggie sausage); a supermarket trolley; a policeman’s helmet; a traffic cone and a large tea-urn.

Autumn and Bee are keen to do some scouting. They take pictures on their scrolls of the imprints in the snow where various Grimm creatures met their demise last night. – The sequence with the Anslag bird spattered over the camp with Iris and Mal crushed beneath it comes out particularly well.

Cerise is washing up, humming what sounds like the song, “We’re going on a Bear Hunt.” Thinking no-one will hear her, she starts to sing.

“We’re going on a …..” Bee interrupts her. “There’s a bear here.”

“Wait! What? –that was quick!”

“Yup!” Bee beams at her.

“Did you go through the big dark forest?”

“Yup. Twice.”

“And the snow?”

“Yup. Three times.”

“The swishy-swashy-grass and the thick oozy mud?”

“We’re on the top of a mountain, in winter, where the temperature doesn’t get above freezing for six-months or more.” Lincoln points out.

“Okay, skip that bit.” Cerise says, following the others.

They all trek out down the mountain until they come to the trees again. “Weren’t we supposed to be picked up?” Mal asks.

“Can’t remember. – Stay night. – Tick! Kill Grimm! –Tick!” Autumn says, mentally checking everything that he was supposed to do. Under his breath he mutters, “Clean underwear. –Tick!”

“I think we were. – But it’s only just gone dawn, so it might be any time between three in the morning and lunchtime.” Marigold says, appearing as if from nowhere.

She takes Lincoln by surprise. “Sorry, didn’t see you in your camouflage gear. -And where have you been?”

“Um….In the trees. – and NO ‘non-stick-fur’ jokes. – Please!”

“Where in the trees?”

“Over there. By that Ursa.”

“What Ursa.”

“That one.”

“That’s not an Ursa. It’s a bear.”

Autumn does another mental checklist. – But this time with his lips moving and making speech noises.

“Once shiny wet nose. –Check!”

“Two big furry ears. –Check!”

“Two big goggly eyes. –Check!”

“ANOTHER two big goggly eyes. –Check!”

“IT’S A BEAR!” Marigold squeals, and promptly disappears.

“It’s an URSA!” The others say in unison.

“But I thought Ursa were black, with white bony plates…And only seven feet tall.” Mal says, “This one’s white and about twenty feet if it’s an inch!”

A very small voice says “Clean underwear...Check. -phew!”

“H.…H…How can you tell how tall it is?” Marigold’s teeth chatter, not with the cold but from fear.

“Well, it can easily reach the lowest branches, which were higher than my head by a good ten or twelve feet when we came up here. I doubt the trees have shrunk or I’ve grown that much overnight.”

“Ulp!”

The Ursa looks around. It spies our group and snarls a little, before turning and lumbering into the forest.

“Gotcha!” Autumn says.

“Yup!” Bee says, turning to him. They bump fists. “In the can!”

“Result!”

“Wait? What? The bear was on the can….In the woods….?” Cerise asks, not quite believing it herself.

“No, stupid! We snapped its picture – several times!” Bee and Autumn hold up their scrolls, showing several good shots of the beast. –Bee also has several selfies with it.

“After it!” Iris calls, but when they get to the spot where it was, it has disappeared from view. “Don’t panic!” Bee tells them, “I can track it by ….Um….It’s tracks!”

She goes off like a bloodhound, but fifty feet later, all she can see is the wood and the trees. –In the forest. She stands in a hollow depression in the snow looking all around.

“Dang! Lost it!” The others come over. –Lincoln reckons that the paw prints are about five feet long.

“Quick! Take a picture!” Cerise urges. They take a few. They then put Bee beside the footprint in order for some scale comparison.

“We can say that Bee is six-feet-six tall. –That way everyone will be even more impressed. Autumn says, trying to forward the picture to his family. “Dang! No signal.”

“Wait until we get back to Angel base.” Iris advises. “But don’t wander off, or you’ll get lost.”

They look around. There is nothing but trees and snow and snow and trees and even snow and snow and trees and trees all around.

“Oh no!” Cerise cries. “We’re lost in the woods and there are bears!” She starts shaking.

“-Ursa, actually.”

“Well at least I don’t have to look where I’m treading!”

Cerise continues, with panic rising in her voice. “And once the bears….I mean Ursa get us, we’re toast.”

“Or in Sienna’s case, well-burned toast.”

Cerise turns on Mal. “Will you stop interrupting! – This is serious. – Really, really serious!” Mal spies her bottom lip trembling and her eyes filling with desperate tears. He shuts up – finally.

“Besides,” Cerise says, returning to her air of hopelessness, it’ll be dark soon, and they mostly come at night.” She pauses. “Mostly….”

The others look at one another. Marigold’s teeth start chattering alarmingly.

“But….” Autumn says. “It’ll be dusk in several minutes, -or maybe even…. days.”

“But nothing!” Cerise rounds on him. “Don’t any of you know that a white Ursa is a portent of doom?”

All but Bee shake their heads.

“DOOM!” She says, even louder and in a deeper tone.

“DOOM!” Autumn echoes, remembering a folk-tale from….His folks.

Eventually the situation sinks in. Marigold’s chattering teeth is the only sound in the forest.

“Pfft!” Autumn scoffs. “We can’t get lost- we can walk downhill and back to the base- or uphill to the summit.”

He and Cerise bump fists. Cerise cracks a massive grin, “Yeah…I knew that! –I’m smart, me!”

“Besides, we could always follow these really obvious five-foot Ursa tracks.” Iris says. “Look, they join up with other smaller tracks here….And here….And disappear off into the forest.”

They hear a long, deep roar echo through the trees. It gets louder.

“That sounds like a big cat!”

“Lynxis?”

“Um….More like a puma!”

“Oh my god! It gets worse and worse!” Sienna says, trying not to giggle.

“A Lynxis, a Puma, a white Ursa…..” Mal says, “And our lift is here.”

“A lift? What manner of beast is a lift….? Oh! I see!”

They climb a few meters out of the forest and leave the woods for open ground. This leaves them scratching their heads. They almost call the copse.

“Enough timber jokes!” Bee warns. They wave at the sergeant who trundles to a halt in their transport.

“Hero in a half track!” Autumn jokes.

“You’ll be in a half nelson if you keep that up.” Sienna warns him.

Autumn blows a raspberry. They all punch him for his rudeness, but then load him up with a ton and a half of gear to carry to the sergeant.

“Good night.” He says, before correcting both his intonation and punctuation. “Good night?”

They all nod. “Good. Though we were getting worried at one point.”

“Were you spying on us?” Iris asks.

“In a manner….”

Marigold puts a hand to her wrist. “Zorb bracelets….Are also….Bio monitors?”

“You got it!” The sergeant grins at her. “Now are you going to hop in, or put your skis on or Zorb down?”

Sienna and Autumn are already halfway down the mountain in / on their Zorbs by the end of the question.

Marigold and Mal want to ski down – and try out the assault course with Mal’s robot one more time.

“If he scores more than me though, there are extra points for shooting him.” – Though this isn’t likely with a Beowolf target having been completely trashed the other day.

Once back at Angel base, our heroes gather round to unload their stuff. They casually mention one or two Grimm they took on and killed. – And a couple more. – And the dozen or so that Bee killed.

“Don’t forget the one that got away!” Iris reminds them.

Lincoln starts to say, “Oh yes! There was a white Ursa. It got away though….” Autumn interrupts, “– But we got some pictures- which reminds me to send them to my folks back home. – I might have to Photoshop me with my foot on its neck.”

At the mention of a white Ursa, the sergeant goes as pale as a…..As a…..As a white Ursa!

“I’ll have to call that in.” He says, matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, whatever – still can’t get a signal.”

“Try in the centre – signal’s better there – you can eat at the Calendar Grill. – Best food this side of Atlas- well at least best food this side of the base….”  The sergeant  yells at them over the revving half-track. Cerise grabs a ski pole and as the vehicle shoots off, manages to pull all their equipment out onto the road.

Autumn is messing with his scroll. They drag the rest of their kit back to the ski shop. They are delighted to find that they can keep most of it.

“My first new coat…..Ever!” Marigold squeals in delight.

“Shame some old bunny rabbit has slept in it.” She adds, holding it up, and shaking fur out of the inside.

“Maybe you should use your tail to line the collar and cuffs.” Lincoln suggests. – Had they been older they would have sniggered at the innuendo.

Mal is deep in thought. “If she’s a bunny, how come she has a five-foot long prehensile tail?”
“Dunno. Maybe evolution is on the blink as well as time –speaking of which,  it’s time for lunch already.”

They go into the centre of the base. They order something form the calendar Grill that is neither time-based nor grilled – and thankfully not brown and tasting of sawdust/sand/ fag ash/ dead woodlice.

“Eight beers please.” Iris asks the girl behind the bar, whose name badge reads ‘Scarlett.’

“Sorry, but you’re under age.” Scarlett tells her.

“Um….Do you have a root beer – without the roots….?”

“Nope.” Scarlett says, “We have non-alcoholic cocktails, juices, smoothies, milkshakes, teas, and forty-seven different types of coffee. Including a cross between latte and Java.”

“Is it called….Lava?” Cerise asks.

“Nope. It’s called….um….Teeva. –Stupid!”

“Do…. Any have whiskey in them?” Autumn asks.

“Not the ones I’m willing to give you.” The girls smiles sweetly at him.

Autumn thinks. He tries to make the girl blush when he asks, “Do you have sex on the beach?”

“No I don’t.” She says without blushing.

“Oh.” Autumn is somewhat disappointed.

 Scarlett continues, “I do have a dirty shag in the snow, though.”

It’s Autumns turn to blush. He stutters, “Y-you –c-can-we –we-do, can we…do you , can I? Um….”

“-And no. Before you ask, you can’t have one.”

“What about one….Without the alcohol?” Cerise asks.

“That’ll be snow then.” Scarlett hands her an unwashed glass. “Go outside. – free unlimited refills!”

They order a jug of water and eight glasses. Autumn produces a hip-flask of whiskey. Instead of watering down the whiskey, he whiskeys up the water.

“Can you use whiskey as a verb?” Mal asks.

“Nope. But by the taste of this stuff….” Sienna says with a wheezing intake of breath, and watering eyes. “You can use it as antifreeze…..Well below….( deep intake of breath) ….Absolute zero.” She takes another gulp. “…..Smooth!”

“To us!” Mal toasts. – They order some food. Iris is keen to try some beer. “I’ve got a plan!” she says.

A moment later, Iris disappears and  the sergeant appears wearing Iris’ clothes. The others cough and point at him. In an instant his original clothes appear on his body. Iris’ disguise is working a treat!

“Eight beers please!” He says in a fourteen-year-old girl’s voice.

“What?” Scarlett turns around.

(Now in deeper more manly voice) “Sorry, got a bit of a cold – eight beers please.”

“Hmmmm….Okay!”

The girl hands over a big pitcher and eight steins. Luckily Iris has enough pocket money to cover the price.

“I’ll run a tab, shall I?” Scarlett asks.

“Ah..okay. We…My mates and I will…. Be outside.”

“I’ll bring them right out!” Scarlett says sweetly. Before Iris can reply, Marigold sneaks invisibly into the kitchen and knocks over a big pile of pots and pans with an almighty crash.

“Okay. I’ll see to the drinks. You go see what that was!” Iris offers. Scarlett departs somewhat relieved. Iris picks up the try with the pitcher and the eight heavy steins, and carefully shuffles off to a booth.

“I had a nasty turn in a booth.” Mal says. Cerise knew he was going to say that. Outside, the base seems to be on a higher state of alert for some reason.

<Deleted scene> Iris with beers passes the actual sergeant coming the other way.

IRIS: “Hello sergeant.”

SERGEANT: “Hello sergeant........Hmm.......Hey! Um….Wait a minute....! Nah!”

<End deleted scene>

Once in the booth, they down the whiskey spiked with beer and scoff their burgers. Lincoln descends on the gherkins.

Feeling slightly woozy and fearful that Scarlett will return they are somewhat relieved when a bunch of cadets come in and start devouring all the food and trying to drown in booze. After a while they approach the cadets and chat. -They are here for birthday drinks.  A Corporal called Olive Veer is celebrating her twenty first birthday today.

They leave the cadets to their party and go back to the guesthouse. They are to return home tomorrow, so there is some packing to do. -It would appear that the base’s state of alert has been downgraded, and things are returning to normal - including Mister Goode’s blatant racism.  “I blame it on the furries.” He says as an opener.

“What?”

“The Faunus. Making trouble. predicting the end of the world, seeing visions of doom and all that. –It’s all a conspiracy. Dirty animals!”

There is a heated exchange of words. In the end Goode storms off in a huff. Our heroes manage to bury his skidoo in the snow, so he trudges off into the centre - it takes an hour and a huff.

– The youngsters have the place pretty much to themselves. They stay up even later this evening- almost eleven-forty!

They have a splash in the hot tub. Bee takes her guitar.

“Can you play your guitar in the hot tub?” Mal asks.

“You hum it Mal, - and I’ll play it!”

They eventually turn in. Cerise and Autumn vow to be up early to meet the dawn. – But as no-one has any idea when that might be, they decide to rise at six.

When they do there is a kind of hush all over the hotel. More than that there is a strange diffused light coming in through the windows. Autumn is about to open the doors and step out onto the balcony when he sees why the hotel is so quiet and bathed in such light. –The snow has fallen overnight up to their balcony and above.

Between the two of them, Sienna and Autumn start digging away at the snow, using bare hands and Autumn’s shield. Their efforts bring forth so much grunting and giggling, the others are awakened thinking that the two of them are wrestling. In the end they manage to dig away enough snow to see out. The rest of the base seems to be fairly untouched by the overnight deluge.

“Strange….” Says Marigold, trying to get another few minutes shut-eye. “Snow doesn’t usually localise around one building.”

Sienna and Autumn look out of their snow-tunnel. “No. You’re right. It does however pile up considerably when there are four snow cannons working overtime outside though.”

Outside the hotel, on the road opposite are four army trucks. On the back of each is a snow-cannon. – And they are still piling up snow at a steady trickle.

“Now that’s just rude!”

Autumn and Sienna grab the shield and manage to slide on it down the banked up snow. The others are a little more cautious, and peek out from the tunnel the others have made.

At the bottom of the snow, corporal Olive ( her from last night) and her cadet cronies are still piling snow on the hotel. -And trying not to laugh too loud. This enrages Autumn and he scoops up a snowball to hurl. Sienna goes one better and with Mal, Lincoln and Cerise’s help, manages to topple all the snow on the front of the building onto two of the trucks. There is a pitched battle for the other two. Sienna wrestles for control of one snow cannon, while Mal and Marigold try to wrestle the drivers out of the vehicles. Every time someone misses their shot, Little Bee gets covered in snow.

Marigold is playing cat-and-mouse with Olive, but is thwarted somewhat when a large area of utter blackness descends on the last two vehicles. There is absolute silence within the area too. Marigold gets a lucky strike on the corporal, and manages to cut off her belt, leaving her trousers around her ankles. - However in making a getaway, the tables are turned and Olive does the same to Marigold.

Lincoln and Cerise are placing their attacks as best they can until Lincoln manages to underestimate his powers. In the resulting explosion, he fears that he might have killed the cadets and the corporal, an indeed taken out half of Angel base. –However, all is well. Mal manages to manoeuvre  his robot to administer a shock to Olive’s exposed cheek. In the melee that follows, several more tons of snow get thrown around. Sienna manages to wrestle  a snow cannon from its operator and blast the guy off the other truck. - And spray Little Bee in the process. Cerise gets buried, but at least she saw it coming – it came out of a snow cannon.

In the end the cadets are vanquished once more. Autumn has manages to stack two of the truck atop one another. Bee goes to find a bleary-eyed sergeant and try to explain what has happened. - However, Cerise counters Bee’s story with an epic tale of mountain rescue avalanche protocol exercises and Olive has to take the rap.

Something tells the team they haven’t heard the last of this. But for now, the score is:

Team: 2,

Cadets: Nil.