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Somewhere north of the North sea, the Stan O' War II is lost in the fog. It is a thick fog, preternaturally thick, almost tangible. Pea-soup doesn't begin to describe it, clam chowder might be closer. It is like being surrounded by cotton wool, if cotton wool were moist and chill and unpleasant. Somehow, a chill wind is blowing, a lazy wind, a wind that can't be troubled to blow around you and somehow blows right through you. You would think such a wind would blow the fog to tatters, but the fog just gets thicker. Sailing through the night, in a fog, Ford Pines called from the wheel, "See anything, Stanley?"
"Fog." Responded Stan Pines from the bows. "Is this natural, Sixer?"
"Fog certainly isn't unheard of at these latitudes, but it does seem a trifle strange. It appeared suddenly, and seems to be surrounding our destination. Instrumentation indicates that the anomaly we're seeking is just off the port bow. Oddly, if I steer to port, it remains just off the port bow." Ford replied.
"So it's moving, then?" Asked Stan.
"Well, the instruments imply that it is remaining at the same latitude and longitude. Latitude: 77.228574, longitude : -1.758091. We just can't seem to get there in a straight line. It would appear that we are in an ever diminishing spiral."
"Let me get this straight, Ford. We're lost in a fog, in the middle of the night, we're getting nearer to some kind of weirdness. And we can only reach it in some kind of death spiral? That about sum it up?" Stan said.
"We're not lost, I know exactly where we are, it's only October 28th, it won't be the middle of the night until December 21st, yes, and death spiral? That seems poetic coming from you, Stanley. Why such fanciful language?"
"It's a figure skating term. Seemed right. Whoop! I see something! Ice. Lots of ice. Iceberg, big one! Oh, and a mysterious color, unlike any seen on earth." Stan explained.
"Color doesn't work that way, Stanley! Every color slots neatly into a specific wavelength. The electromagnetic spectrum reaches from microwaves all the way to radio waves. There's no ROOM for a mysterious color, unlike any seen on earth! Certain people, like Mabel, may be able to see into the ultraviolet, but that doesn't make what she sees a mysterious color, unlike any seen on earth. It makes it ultraviolet!"
"Wanna come out here and tell me what color this is, Sixer?"
"Gladly!" Ford said. He killed the engines and stormed out on deck. There, he saw the iceberg, about fifty feet away, barely visible in the fog. Except the ice wasn't white exactly. Or blue or even bluish. No, it was..."A mysterious color, unlike any seen on earth." Ford muttered.
"Told ya!" Stanley crowed. "Ya know, I've seen this movie. If we had native bearers they'd have deserted us by now. I don't like the way this ends." The boat rocked. "What was that?"
Ford looked over the side. Something large and green and scaly was in the water. "It appears to be a large squamous fish." Ford reported.
"Squamous?"
"Scaly, if you prefer. It's a Dunkleosteus! They've been extinct since the Devonian! Let me get my camera!" Ford ran back into the cabin.
"Seemed pretty lively to me, Poindexter! What's a Dunklewhatsamus eat, anyway?"
"Various Devonian fishes. Sharks, mostly. This one's probably getting by on whale sharks and orcas." Came Ford's voice from inside the pilot's cabin. The sounds of various objects being tossed around in the search for the camera could be heard.
"We're in the water, close to an iceburg, that's a color that can't exist, a fish that EATS sharks and killer whales is swimming around and you want your CAMERA?!"
"No better time, right?" Ford said, returning on deck. He managed to get pictures of the Dunkleosteus and the otherworldly iceburg. He returned to the cabin, engaged the engines and they made fast to the iceberg.
"Here Stanley." Said Ford, handing his brother a trichotomous pistol. "It's a quantum destabilizer. It should punch a hole in anything made of matter, or antimatter for that matter and seriously disrupt any energy being. I know you prefer direct physical action, but sometimes a punch isn't enough."
"I know that, Poindexter! I have ten guns, you know."
"Really? Did not know that. Good! So you know how to shoot!"
"Damn straight! Probably better'n you! So, what's the plan?"
"We investigate!" Ford said, attaching crampons to his boots. Stan put the pistol in his pocket and put his crampons on. Seven three inch spikes on the bottom of each foot. They put on carabiners and threaded a nylon rope through. Linked, they took up ice axes and lowered themselves over the side of the boat and stood on the otherworldly iceburg. Well, perched is probably a better description. They were hanging by the ice axes and crampons on an incline of about 70°. They slowly climbed up, ice making alarming noises every time an ice axe was driven home. The ice groaned. Ford's axe slipped and he slid down the face of the incline, fortunately being caught by the rope before he plunged into the frigid Arctic ocean. Stanley held fast while Ford slowly climbed back up to rest next to his brother. "That was close!" He said.
The brothers made their way onto a face that was nearly horizontal and stood, catching their breath. There was, improbably, a building in front of them, made of stone. It was.... unpleasant to look at. The angles were right angles, except...they weren't. The straight lines curved. "It's as if someone took the Parthenon and projected it on a four dimensional curve. Fascinating. Non-Euclidean geometry." Ford said.
"It's giving me a headache". Stan replied. Ford was busy examining bas-reliefs in the building. Starfish headed creatures, larger than apatosours if the scale of the sculptures could be trusted. A tenticle faced monstrosity, not unlike the one that wandered around Gravity Falls during the Weirdpocolypse. A conglomeration of spheres that was somehow worse than the others. "I recognize some of these from the necronomicon!" Ford exclaimed. "We may have another extradimensional incursion."
Stan was looking at the iceberg behind the building. He couldn't look at the building, it made him want to puke. The ice behind was an almost vertical face and there was... Something inside the ice. A large something hidden somewhat behind the impossible color. "Ford! I think you'd better have a look at this!" Stan called.
"In a moment, Stanley! This is very interesting!"
"Poindexter, don't be a Poindexter! This is IMPORTANT!"
Ford emerged from the building. "All right, Stanley! What is it?"
"I think I found your anomoly! Look!"
Ford did so. He looked again. He approached the face and held a flashlight against it, the ice glowing with the impossible color. A mysterious color, unlike any seen on earth. Inside the ice was a being, an entity, a thing.....a baby forty feet tall, with a stylized hourglass made of two congruent triangles on his forehead. "Hoo, boy!" Ford said. "I thought you guys were extinct. Well, that explains the Dunkleosteus!" Ford heard a strange sound behind him and turned to find his brother, frozen in a block of ice, right hand holding the quantum destabilizer pointed straight down. Ford pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. "Really, Stanley?" He muttered.
Ford immediately began hacking the ice containing his brother away from the rest of the iceberg with his axe. He maneuvered the block over to the edge of the face they were on, found a likely looking crevasse and rode the block containing his brother down to the deck of the Stan O' War II, where it smashed to pieces, freeing Stan. Ford somersaulted off, just as is crashed and kipped up to his feet. Stan looked around, rubbing the back of his neck, asking "What the hell happened?"
"Just what I wanted to ask you! What were you doing with the quantum destabilizer? What were you THINKING!"
"My feet were cold." Stan said.
"Your feet were cold! So your plan was to use a weapon that annihilates matter to warm them?! What happened was you broke many of the ice molecules under your feet into their component quarks. Since quarks are unstable in this particular universe, they quickly reformed into protons and neutrons. The protons picked up electrons, forming hydrogen! The hydrogen combined with free oxygen in the air, forming water. Due to the ambient temperature the water naturally formed a crystalline matrix, ie, ice. You froze yourself in a block of ice, dummy! Don't you THINK?!"
"Thinking's your department, Poindexter! I'm the no-good con-man, remember?"
"You're the no-good con-man who conned Bill Cipher, one of the most dangerous beings in the Multiverse! You're the hero! Remember that! Honestly, Stanley! I don't know whether to hug you or punch your lights out!" Ford fussed.
"So, was I right? Did I find your anomoly?"
"You absolutely did, knucklehead! It's a time giant. I've heard of them, but I thought they were extinct."
"Seems to be a lot of that going around. You thought the dunklewhosis was extinct, too!"
"Ah, but I was right! The reason for the Dunkleosteus is the presence of the time giant! Temporal fluctuations, you see! It's probably radiating chronons at an alarming rate. And if it thaws we're in big trouble! Time giants tend to be ruthless overlords to lesser beings. Like us! And that's the adults! I hesitate to imagine what a time baby might be capable of! Fortunately, I've learned my lesson! I'm not trying to go this one alone."
Ford went into the cabin and found his satellite phone. He dialed a series of numbers and said into the phone "Stanford F. Pines. Six, five, fourteen, eighteen, niner, nineteen. Code whiskey tango foxtrot. Hunter? Stanford Pines.....right, the Oregon mess. We have another extradimensional incursion. .......right........... I'm afraid it's time to bring Project Ragnarok on-line. .........Yes......... Arctic ocean.........Latitude: 77.228574, longitude : -1.758091.....right, a dive team. .......we need a large mass transported to the polar ice cap.... helicopters in Reykjavik? ....................five Sikorsky CH-53K's..... perfect!........ I'm sorry that the Iranians are playing with uranium again, but it's not my department!........... Extradimensional incursions and divine intervention..................yes, I have a plan in place..........depends on which god........ perfect! Pines, out! Stanley, we're going back to Iceland! We'll meet a team there and take care of this!"
So the Pines twins returned to Iceland. On the way the boat was attacked by an Architeuthis. Stan, pleased to have something to punch, punched it right in its basketball sized eye. They met the helicopters and the dive team, secured the iceberg, flew it well into the icecap, excavated a hole with the quantum destabilizers, which wound up freezing it in in much the same way that Stanley was. The world was saved again! At least until the icecap melts. Maybe a thousand years. Plenty of time to come up with plan B, right?