Chapter Text
Barnacles and Kwazii have been driving in the Gup A through the Antarctic ocean for almost half an hour now. They decided it's best to stop and make a new plan. Barnacles stops the Gup next to a large iceberg floating halfway out of the water. "Let's take a break here Kwazii, we might have better luck finding that cave Professor Inkling mentioned after a snack."
The pirate jumps over to the basket of kelp cakes and carrots tweak and Inking made for them hours earlier.
"Yeah guess so, you know?” He flips one of the cakes in his paw. “You'd think that Tweak and the Professor would be better at cooking with all the practice they've had." He coughs up the bite of the cake he took and drinks a bottle of water to wash it down.
"Cheer up Kwazii, when we get back to the octopod you can make your own food". He grabs some kelp cakes and takes out some sauce from another basket.
"Here, try the cakes with this sauce. Tweak made it last night”.
Kwazii shakes his paws, "Yarr, think I'll be eating carrots, they're fine enough."
They sit in silence for a while and eat some of the carrots and cakes. Kwazii swallows the last of his carrot.
"So what's this ice that we're looking for? Does it have any mysterious qualities, can it attract sea monsters, is it dangerous? I'm always looking for some excitement"
Barnacles laughs at his hyperactive Lieutenants imagination.
"Haha no Kwazii, nothing like that. Professor Inkling says it's a rare type of ice that hasn't been discovered yet. During our last mission when we explained it to him he said it sounded unique, so that's why we're getting him a sample of the ice and bringing it back so he can examine it."
Kwazii sighs. "Yar, I was hoping for some adventure, me whiskers won’t stop shivering in this cold ocean of ice”.
Barnacles puts the snacks into the basket and puts it on a chair. They go back to the steering wheel.
"It's not that cold here, we'll get that ice and be out quickly. Besides you have that special made coat Tweak gave you for extra warmth. You'll last till the mission is over."
The Gup A dives back down in the water. Kwazzi pulls out his spyglass and hunts for any caves or clues leading to the cave with the mysterious ice.
After another hour of searching he spots a small hole almost hidden by a mountain of snow covering the entrance. Barnacles drives the Gup up to the surface. Above the water the entrance was bigger, they only had to shovel away a bit of snow to get in.
"Now Kwazii, this mountain is full of snow and ice, if we make too much noise it'll cause an avalanche and we could end up buried in it, so let's keep as quiet as we can and quickly get the ice."
He turns around to look where Kwazii used to be. He hears a loud Yeow! And sees him running into the cave fast and yelling Yeow!
"Kwazii hang on!" He finally catches up to him and grabs his shoulder to stop him before he does anything else stupid. "Kwazii, I told you we have to stay quiet so we don't cause an avalanche."
The cat pirate shivers and rubs his paws together for warmth. "You didn't tell me anything about an avalanche, or waiting for you for that matter. I'm just trying to keep warm, Professor Inkling said to stay warm, always keep moving. Luckily I'm the best at constant movement".
Barnacles sighs and lets go of his shoulder.
“Yes I know Kwazii, but in a Cave like this it’s not good to be moving around that much, it’ll cause an avalanche.”
Kwazii keeps moving but like the Captain said, he does so, more carefully. The Captain looks back realizing that he moved much farther into the cave than he wanted to. He looked down at his foot, it was shaking. But he didn’t want Kwazii to know that. He stomped down on it to force it still.
"Common Captain, I didn't find any ice by the entrance, there's probably more deeper in, let's keep moving."
He turns around to face his Captain when he doesn't hear his footsteps following him.
"What's wrong, do you see something?"
Barnacles nervously looks around him, the pure white walls, icicles hanging from the ice, the narrowness of the cave.
"Uh you know Kwazii, you probably didn't look well enough by the entrance, I'll stay here and look while you go a little deeper and see if you can find any."
Sensing his nervousness Kwaz takes a step toward him. "Are you sure Captain? This isn't like you."
He ignores the question by starting to look for some of the ice by the entrance.
"Don't worry about me Kwazii, I'll look here more thoroughly and you carefully and quietly look further in the cave. We'll meet up in 10 minutes here okay?"
Kwazii gives him the look Barnacles has learned recently, along with his many other faces. The yeah okay, if that's what you want, but I'm watching you kind of look.
"Sure thing Captain, I'll be back soon."