The Phantom Ruby Tracker hummed softly on Viper's workbench.
Its round metal shell glowed faintly as the two Phantom Rubies in its centre chamber pulsed red. Thin lines spread across the screen in every direction before finally locking onto three blinking signals.
One in the far north.
One deep in the desert.
One in the middle of the sea.
Nico leaned over the table, staring at the map.
"Well. That's convenient."
Rex folded his arms.
"Not really. They are all in annoying places."
Viper adjusted a few dials on the machine and zoomed in on the northern signal.
"This is the closest. It is situated in a frozen area far beyond the north's mountains."
Rex frowned immediately.
"I already hate it."
Nico grinned.
"Good. Then let's go there first."
A few hours later the three of them stood at the edge of a frozen wasteland.
Everything was white.
Snow stretched out across the horizon, and strong winds gushed over the land, blowing loose powder into the air. Jagged ice shapes rose from the ground like giant crystal teeth, towering above the valley ahead, with frozen cliffs surrounding them on both sides.
Nico looked around.
"Okay. Now, this place is kind of cool."
Rex glared at him.
"No. It's freezing."
Viper held up the tracker. The device beeped faster than before.
"The signal is getting stronger. The Ruby should be somewhere inside this glacier valley."
They moved deeper into the frozen region.
Nico ran ahead, checking the path before circling around again. Rex marched through the snow with visible annoyance, cursing under his breath at the ice, wind and frozen rocks. Viper stayed close to the center, eyes on the tracker.
As they went on, the place grew stranger.
Huge metal tracks had been carved into the snow.
There were drill marks in the ice.
Then Nico stopped dead.
"Uh. Guys."
Ahead of them, half concealed behind a wall of frozen stone, was an industrial site.
Metal towers were built into the glacier. Conveyor belts moved blocks of ice from one platform to another, hammered into the frozen walls by giant drills the size of trucks. Robots manned the area, red sensors shining through the snowstorm.
Rex narrowed his eyes.
"Dr. E leftovers?"
Viper crouched behind an icy ridge and peered over it.
"Looks like it. And they must be mining for the Ruby."
Nico smirked.
"Then we just beat them there."
He was about to sprint forward when Viper grabbed his arm.
"Wait. There's more."
At the center of the site stood the biggest machine in the whole operation. It was shaped like a gigantic drilling unit with eight steel legs and a rotating diamond-like drill head on the front. Black cables ran through the frame into smaller generators around it.
Rex stared.
"That's ugly."
The tracker beeped loudly.
Viper's eyes widened.
"The Ruby's inside that machine."
Nico cracked his knuckles.
"Perfect."
Without warning he erupted into motion.
The snow behind him burst outward as he shot toward the mining site at blinding speed.
One robot barely had time to turn before Nico hit it in the chest. Sparks burst across the snow. He dropped down and flipped over another robot, then drove both feet straight into its head, sending it spinning into a control panel.
Alarms blared instantly.
The whole site lit up with red warning lights.
Rex charged in from the left with a roar. He slammed both hands into a huge drilling robot's head and folded its torso inward like cardboard. Another robot fired a cannon at him. Rex seized the barrel, leaned forward, and forced it back toward the robot as it fired.
BOOM.
Viper ran to cover behind frozen machine housing and checked the tracker.
"Keep them off me! I need to figure out how to open that main drill without cracking the Ruby inside!"
Nico dodged a burst of laser fire and shouted back, "Just do smart guy stuff!"
More robots poured out of the snow.
They were larger than the standard patrol units, built for extreme weather. Thick treads replaced their feet and heavy steel claws extended from their arms. Nico ran circles around them, breaking heads, tearing out limbs and sending broken metal crashing into the ice.
Then the big drilling unit moved.
Its huge body rose up on its eight legs and turned toward them with a loud metallic shriek.
The rotating drill at the front began spinning faster and faster.
"Yeah, that's not ideal," Viper muttered.
The machine lunged.
It ripped through the snow and ice like a predator swimming through water. Nico jumped aside just before the drill carved a trench through the ground where he had been standing.
Rex stepped in front of it.
"You want a fight?"
He grabbed one of the machine's steel legs as it stomped down and roared as he forced it sideways. The giant drill mech tipped for a moment, but its rear generators flared bright blue and it steadied itself before firing a side-mounted cannon at Rex.
BOOM.
The blast sent Rex through a pile of frozen debris.
Nico's eyes widened.
"Rex!"
"I'm fine!" the goat yelled from under a chunk of ice. "But now I'm mad!"
Nico sprinted forward, running up one of the drill mech's legs. He dodged a spinning antenna arm, ducked under a burst of steam and saw a sealed chamber in the center of the machine frame.
A red glow pulsed inside it.
"There!"
He punched the hatch.
Nothing.
He punched it again, harder.
It dented, but did not break.
The drill mech suddenly jerked, throwing Nico off. He twisted midair and crashed into the snow below just as the machine tried to hit him with its main drill.
Rex came back in from the side and tackled one of the machine's rear legs. Metal screamed as the leg bent outward.
Viper, still crouched behind cover, yelled, "The core housing is pressure sealed! If you smash it recklessly, the containment field might rupture!"
Nico looked at him blankly while dodging lasers.
"English!"
Viper groaned.
"To open the center chamber, break the leg joints first! That will force the machine to unlock it!"
"That I understood!"
Nico vanished.
He reappeared at the front of the mech, then the side, then the rear, moving too fast for its sensors to keep track. Each hit landed on a leg joint. Metal buckled. Rex grabbed the damaged limbs and ripped them apart with brute force.
One leg snapped.
Then another.
The giant machine staggered.
Its systems started flashing red.
At the center of its body, the locked chamber slowly opened.
A Phantom Ruby floated inside a magnetic cradle.
Nico grinned.
"Mine."
The machine screamed and lunged one more time.
Rex slammed both fists into its front section, halting it for a second.
That was all Nico needed.
He shot up, grabbed the Ruby from the cradle and jumped away just as the entire drilling unit collapsed face-first into the snow and exploded into sparks and shattered ice.
For a moment everything was quiet except for the wind.
Nico landed beside the others and held up the Ruby.
Its red light glowed over the white snow.
"Three."
Viper let out a relieved breath.
"Good."
Then the ground beneath them cracked.
The explosion had destabilized the glacier wall.
The valley shook.
Rex slowly looked up.
"Oh no."
Massive sections of ice began breaking away from the cliffs above.
Snow poured into the valley like a tsunami.
Nico blinked once.
Then he grabbed Viper under one arm and Rex under the other.
"Hold on."
"What are you doing?" Rex shouted.
Nico smirked.
"Winning."
He took off. The avalanche roared behind them as Nico darted through the valley at super-speed. Ice chunks crashed into the ground all around them. Snow swallowed the mining site. Ice pillars fell like trees. Nico jumped over a collapsing ridge, ran along the side of a wall of ice for a few moments, then burst out of the valley just as the glacier behind them collapsed.
He skidded to a stop on safer ground.
Viper stumbled out of his grip, dizzy.
Rex planted his feet and exhaled.
The three of them turned back.
The valley was gone.
Buried under snow.
Nico looked at the new Ruby in his hand and grinned.
"Okay. That was awesome."
Rex glared.
"No. It wasn't."
Viper held out the tracker.
"One down. Two more to go."