The Adventures of the "Four Muskytears"

🌸 Antarctic Bloom [3/5] 🌸

Polar's POV:

I breached the other side of Jester's rift, landing neatly on all four paws.

Looking up, I noticed that it was dark outside, heavy fog forming a misty barrier that even the moonlight couldn't penetrate.

The lightlessness was suffocating, forcing me to buckle onto my knees and press myself against the cold ice.

Wait... Ice?

I clawed at the floor, shocked to feel the frigid water of the Antarctic on my paws.

We were in the Southern Ocean, that was for sure.

Tentatively stepping closer to the edge of the hole, I pawed at the ice, peering down into the depths.

As soon as I dipped my snout, I was promptly shoved into the water, clumsily fumbling and dropping in.

"Woah!" I swiftly resurfaced, sneezing water out of my nose. "What was that for?!"

"Sorry, I didn't know you were there!" 69 called out where he was, spread-eagle on the ice. "I just came in through the rift and you were right in front of me, I couldn't catch myself in time."

Pulling myself up, I shivered as my being came in contact with the freezing air. "It's fine, I know you're not built for these conditions."

Awkwardly pushing himself onto his knees, 69 faltered for a moment, struggling to adjust to the new environment. "This is going to take me a bit."

Stick came up from behind him, pulling him by his shoulders and onto his feet. "C'mon Optimus Prime, I'm gonna lead you all to my temporary research center."

I turned my attention toward 69, clearly worried for him. "Do you need some help?"

"I'm fine," he grunted, shifting his weight on the ice. "As I said, I just need to adjust. The terrain here is ridiculously slippery and I hate it."

Jester levitated over to us, hovering a few inches off the ice. "Can't you use your thrusters and float from there?"

The mercenary robot sighed. "No, those are used for supersonic flight. Even on my lowest setting, it could send me a couple yards."

"Maybe just fly straight there?" I suggested, shaking out more seawater from my pelt.

Stick's heavy Canadian accent came from the front of the group. "You can't fly. Where we are, there's danger all around us. This is a different dimension, there's obviously going to be some sort of abomination ready to tear us to shreds."

"You're paranoid, but you're right." 69 replied, glancing at the now-closing portal. "But how do you know there's danger in the sky?"

As if on cue, a raucous series of blood-curdling shrieks came from the sky, primal and relentless with ferocity.

I flicked my ears back, putting my paws over my ears to try to drown out the noise. "What sort of Australian creature is that, a banshee?"

"Much worse," Stick muttered, opening up his laptop. "By the sounds of it, it's probably some sort of prehistoric atrocity that went too long without eating. Oh, and it has wings."

Once I assumed the cacophony was over, I slowly flicked one ear to the sky, swiveling it around and aiming for the source.

With a quiet squeak, I let the sound waves map out my surroundings, providing me with an internal glimpse of the terrain around me.

Echolocation was a gift from my orca side, and it was quite useful considering how poorly our conditions were at this time.

Closing my eyes, I examined my mental map.