Welcome to Gaia! ::

The music didn't seem to appeal to her cute little gerbils, however! Kolako watched them twirl around the ring in fear, unfortunately not hearing their panic so she could actually do something about it. She watched them twirl in circles, eyes following them with their every movement until she got confused herself and ended up having to hold onto something so as to not fall down herself! Thankfully Papion was there for her, lightly booping her back and keeping her balance straight. Koko breathed. Okay, all was well-- Wait a sec, what was that?!?! Her attention was instantly captivated by a creature under the lake, and Kolako's eyes widened considerably at the sight of her poor gerbils freaking out like that. She was tempted to jump into the fray to save them, but it didn't seem to be allowed, unfortunately. NummCorp did give them some awesome items to cheer them on, though... She wasn't sure if any of them would even work! What even were half these things? She grabbed the pompoms wearily before staring at them peculiarly. Maybe they went in her hair? She tucked them into either side of her mess of hair before beginning to try and cheer them on with worried but cheerful glances. Everything'd be fine!! She hoped.

Interesting data was on the other side, keeping the young kid interested and piqued for a bit as she strolled along on another path, hearing the telltale signs of her clobbering lusus follow behind her. She sighed and rolled her eyes, realizing that no matter how tense or angry she was toward her guardian, he was as chill as the B.E.E.R. he gulped down by the night. She was bitter and angry, and it was for a reason-- Just the mere act of being alone suddenly made her crave attention from the others around her, and Staglebro wasn't eager to give it. Lost in thought, the kid ended up stepping on something... Not entirely snow. She squinted, then gagged at the sight of it being fish heads-- Hey, hey, maybe the Winterbeast left them there deliberately?? He wanted to be found, right? She wasn't going to come back empty handed, at least. She quickly stomped the ground, trying to use her air pressurization to single out all the fish heads-- but they all flew up, up, up, then all fell down-- Straight on her. Austri then began to whine. "Ugghhh today has been the worst~ Day~ EVER!" She exclaimed, storming away from Staglebro and sitting on a rock nearby and deciding a new spot on the map. As he approached her, Austri squinted. "Let's just go here~!" She murmured, pointing at a spot in the map.

Lorata had pushed on the music expecting it to urge her gerbils on to further greatness. And when the great, victorious tones of an Alternian war tune began blasting out of the speakers, her expectations had only grown instead of changing. If this didn't lead them to victory, nothing would! Except...maybe her gerbils didn't know what victory was because it wasn't helping them along at all! What did they think they were doing out there, screeching and carrying on instead of being beautiful skaters. Didn't they know anything? If only they would get back into synch, maybe there was something to salvage, but at this rate...!

After a long while, they finally started to get it together, as far as she could tell, but then just as suddenly they were off kilter again, kicking up a fuss again. The gerbils were trying to run in opposite directions! Frustrated, she looked around, and there was a loud speaker right there! She grabbed a nearby microphone and turned, switching it on. "Euryale! Stheno! Come on, you can do this! Work together!"

Was it working? They would do whatever she said, right? Were they even listening?







Etsali's smile turned sympathetic as he mentioned the tourist trap he'd ended up in, and she shook her head after a moment. "I haven't seen anything like that out here so far, so hopefully that was the only place like it. Though I guess I really haven't seen much at all, unless snow counts." She cast a glance across the ground and then up. "There's always plenty of that." Her attention drifted back to the map and Ephias gave his opinions on the spot she'd chosen and she nodded agreeably. "A raft really would help a lot, if the water hasn't frozen over much. When I was through there earlier, I didn't look it had."

Delighted with the idea, she started them off towards it and soon enough they'd found the raft he'd mentioned. She glanced doubtfully at the water again, then set to work helping to fix up the raft itself a little. Falling into the river would be...well, more than bad, really, in these temperatures, but it seemed like it would be able to hold up. And thankfully, once they were ready to try it, it did. More on the unfortunate side was the fact that the further they went, the colder it seemed to get. The snow was really starting to pick up.

She was shuddering long before she even saw the cave up ahead. "H-hey, Ephias? Do you see that? Think we can build a fire in there or- or something?"

Lutrin noticed the shadow under the ice after the gerbils did. Several minutes after in fact. Suddenly it made a lot more sense why they had gone berserk. She knew tail biting had not been in the choreography! Still, she thought that maybe they had decided to try some improvisation. It had been odd, but... whatever kept their energy going!

Back to the shadow. For a moment, Lutrin debated. How could she encourage her friends to go on with the performance? They had a life of fame and glamour ahead of them! They only needed to ignore their instincts and buckle down to show business. Her eyes wandered to the loudspeaker sitting on a stool nearby. It was for official business only, but... she had been a pretty good commentator during the Grand Snail Race. No one would mind. Besides, this was important.

Careful not to draw any attention, Lutrin crept over to the stool. She picked out the loudspeaker and cringed, realising that it was already on. As she picked it up, the speakers squealed. Nevermind that. Important things!

Hopping on the stool, Lutrin took a deep breath. The time to saver her gerbils was now.

"THE MILKMAN AND TWINKIE HEART! GET OUT OFF THE LAKE NOW, BEFORE WHATEVER THAT THING IS EATS YOU! YOU'VE GOT TO WORK TOGETHER! YOU'VE GOT TO WORK AS ONE. IT'S JUST LIKE WE PRACTISED. I CHOSE YOU BECAUSE OF YOUR UNSHAKEABLE FRIENDSHIP. YOU WERE THE GREATEST GERBILS OF THE BATCH. NOW YOU'VE GOT TO MAKE THE GREATEST ESCAPE. DO IT! USE THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP!"

The music could have not been better! Leeroi felt so proud of himself for being able to orchestrate the crowd like he did. Except, the gerbils didn't seem to follow their cues to the beat very well. Maybe it was a bit too much for them, he wondered, trying to think of ways to improve his perfect robot gerbil performance piece.

Leeroi snapped his fingers, smiling with the delight of inspiration. Of course! He knew just how to dazzle the crowd. He ran off, and in a flash returned with a remote controller. He was originally saving this as a last ditch effort, but he might as well use it while he could, otherwise he might forget about it. Flipping on the switch, he ignited the rockets on Rocket's jetpack, causing the small gerbil to spin dangerously on the ice.

A dazzling sight, a spectacle for the ages, Leeroi thought, posing proudly. Wait, it could be better, he realized. It could always be better. Leeroi left and returned, this time with more explosives in hand, to shoot off from the sidelines. Some complimentary fireworks were sure to similarly dazzle the audience, he decided, lighting each one off with a proud grin.




Stemma pulled her lusus along, breathing heavy as she tried to move him to bring him to the fresh evidence. "Look, look!" She whisper-shouted, jumping up and down to emphasize the excitement of the find. "I think the winterbeast was fishing here!" Stemma explained, pointing out the fishing hole from a few feet away. She was careful not to get too close.

Oh, dear...

Stemma's eyes narrowed. She loathed being patronized, even if her lusus meant well.

I think this is just a regular fishing hole... Anytroll could have made it...

"Oh," Stemma harrumphed, tucking her chin into her scarf, closing herself off. She folded her arms, though her thick jacket made it difficult.

Do not fret dear, you are just very eager to find the beast. It is understandable. But we are to be calm and reasonable, correct? We will outthink the winter beast with patience.

Stemma opened up again. Krampa was right. She felt a little bad for her tiny tantrum. She waddled over to her lusus, hugging him, wanting to be picked up. The large beast kindly took up the offer, rocking his charge in his hugging arms. She could be patient in finding the winterbeast... But perhaps she could convince Krampa otherwise for the other, more dangerous events.

It was cold, it was wet, well once it melted, and it was hard to see in all this precipitation. Chiara was not a fan of precipitation, be it snow, rain, even fog. It was all just in the way and annoying. The blueblood trudged through the snow, even tho she didn't like it, didn't believe in the stupid winter beast, AND had much better thing she could be doing she entered this darn contest and she was darned if she was going to miss out on there being an actual winterbeast. Chiara stooped down, inspecting an indent in the snow. Well, since no one was REALLY sure what the winterbeast looked like, these could very well be its prints. Chiara decided to give it a go and fallow the things wherever they went. The blueblood was soon rewarded with a pitfall. The snow had packed itself just so that it had concealed a massive hole in the earth. The very hole Chiara fell into here and now. It was sad, seeing the blueblood try and struggle for help as she cursed the snow.



Chiara laughed as the gerbils ran to and fro in their fear. That was a show in her opinion. Apparently the judges were not in the same mindset as Chiara. The blueblood glared at them. This was entertainment. It figured that they would choose trolls with terrible taste to be the judges. They all looked like booting, pathetic trolls anyway. Chiara tried using some pyromania power and setting one of their coats on fire, but she was, sadly, not a powered troll. It was how things were. There was only so much she could do about it. If only she had a camera on her, then she could savor this moment longer. Watching the stupid beasts react in their stupid beast ways. It was great. With a sigh Chiara decided she had probably tortured the small rodents enough for now. Might as well give them something to snack on. Other contestants were calling them accessories or some such, Chiara knew them as snacks. She pelted fistfuls of the pink greenery at her gerbils, hoping their hunger would get them up and moving again.

Tevini had no idea the gerbils would perform so well to her music selection. Stunned, she started to wonder if maybe she wasn't as far from pop culture as she'd thought she was. Perhaps she would start a trend and others would learn to appreciate electronic music. It was a weird thought, she supposed. In any case, she was proud to see Steamtrain Express express himself through dance and pleased that The Milkman was truly milking it for all he had. Her gerbils would make it through this performance and then she could free them! It was just a little longer after the crowning ceremony or whatever would happen. She had no plans on her gerbils winning so no one would notice when they disappeared later, right?

Or now apparently! Gasping as the ice began to flick with shadows of movement underneath, Tevini nearly bolted herself. She didn't blame her gerbils for getting spooked and truthfully wanted to snack them up and run. She hadn't signed Steamtrain Express up for him to get killed out there in a freak icefish accident!

"Give me that that!" Tevini yelped and snatched a loudspeaker from the nearby announcer. Scanning the area for the weird movement she began to call over to her gerbils.

"Evacuate! Evacuate! This is not a drill!" Accidentally, her words went with the music.



"Yeah, it'll be cold now but better than nothing!" Nucleo grinned as Amonee pulled out some of the soup he'd packaged earlier. Having clones to help assemble such big quantities had been super useful and made him feel like he'd done something good. It'd eaten at his savings a bit to pass out so much soup for free but he was hoping that it would cause some trolls to come back for more and maybe even buy some actual coffee! From a business standpoint it was still stupid but he didn't know what else to do. He wasn't going to give away his actual coffee for free and then have customers come back later and be disappointed. But that was neither here or now.

"'It was no trouble, Amonee. I'm having fun!" The greenblood smiled at his friend. He didn't have the same problems of loneliness due to his power but had different ones related. His clones could've helped him do this tracking event but they would've had the same ideas as him and maybe they wouldn't have ended up here with this spectacular view. There was something special about working together with another troll besides himself. He was getting a little sentimental now oops!

"'Next time we should bring Xavier. I bet he would've loved this." It was true. The trek had been full with lots of challenges but there was also beauty in the scenery. It was something he hoped all trolls could experience at some point! There was just something grand about these travels through nature!

"Oh hey, what's that over there?"