Coldsnap: Harbinger of Ice

Chapter 7: The Nation's Oldest City

The newly-formed trio loaded themselves into Coldsnap's car once again; all three of them had saved their Mage Aspect outfits to their scanners and were now ready to switch into them at a moment's notice, should anyone need their help.

After parking their vehicle at a lot, they bought three tickets to the Old Town Trolley Tour and rode around, spending the afternoon seeing everything that the famous city had to offer. They sampled several drinks at the San Sebastian Winery; Coldsnap had only pretended to be 18---Mage Aspects were incapable of getting a hangover, anyway.

Firebird almost threw up while walking through the spinning tunnel in Ripley's Believe It or Not, Leo enjoyed learning about several of Earth's most well-known figures in the Potter's Wax Museum, and Coldsnap was pretty sure she had single-handedly numbered the Castillo de San Marcos's days on accident by touching one of her cold fingertips to the building material and beginning a very slow---but absolute---process of erosion along its walls.

But by far and away the centerpiece of their trip's festivities was their visit to the St. Augustine Aquarium, populated by various undersea flora and fauna species as far as the eye could see.

"I'm sure Keena would have loved this. She'd probably know more about everything than the actual tour guide," Coldsnap snarked. "Doesn't the Tidal Throne have plants and animals of their own back in their region?"

Firebird shrugged. "I've barely been there; most of my interactions with Keena took place at the Grand Terminus. Plus, I'm pretty sure Hydraxus's habit of speaking in rhymes would eventually get to me. Soon, I'd start rhyming, too, and I doubt you'd want to hear that...."

Coldsnap turned to Leo in hopes of getting information from him, but his response was mostly similar to Firebird's. "I'm no stranger to Hydraxus's.....quirks....and I haven't had many opportunities to visit the Tidal Throne, either, but one thing I will say is this; that run-in with Keena during the food court fire? First time I've ever met her. Maybe Hydraxus only took her on recently.....? Either that, or she's been around the whole time and I've just been unobservant."

"You are pretty unobservant," the ice mage agreed disdainfully.

Just then, they saw a group of five rambunctious little boys entering the main room, running around noisily and throwing several bouncing balls back and forth, causing small but frequent bouts of wanton destruction like a very chaotic and raucous game of catch. Pursuing them were two security guards---one male and one female---trying to get them to stop.

"Hey, STOP!" the male officer cried. "This is a public area! If you're going to play rough, take it outside!"

"And what if we don't?!" one of the boys shot back.

"Yeah! We don't play by YOUR rules, old man!" another one said.

"Okay, well, I don't see why you had to go and bring my age into this....." the policeman muttered. "Come on, dudes, just knock it off!"

Coldsnap tried moving forward to help, but Firebird stopped her. "Just let them handle it. It's none of our concern."

The female officer managed to corner one of the boys against a wall, but he threw the ball away to one of his teammates before being apprehended. Their teammate, however, failed to catch the ball, and it instead slammed into the glass of one of the large aquarium tanks that spanned the entire outer wall, causing a rapidly-growing crack to begin forming in it.

Everyone immediately began panicking and making a run for the doors, steeling themselves for the potentially-lethal incoming surge of water.

Thinking quickly, Coldsnap briefly left the scene, ducked behind an isolated corridor, took out Leo's scanner gun, and pressed the button on the back.