Unfortunately, Zero wouldn't get the chance to actually cover his ears, or hear Wildcat's orders for that matter. When his attack seemed to do nothing at all, he finally dropped. All that exertion on top of the blood he lost was not a good combination. Frankly, by the time Wildcat showed up he was ready to drop at any moment. It was adrenaline and a miracle that kept him going up til that point. But all that seemed to dissolve away when he saw the gambit he'd risked his life for be of absolutely no help. It was amazing how quickly one's determination could fade away in the face of such demoralizing failure.

"Can't keep... up... useless......." the last couple of words he rasped out wasn't even a complete sentence. And now, there he was, slumped over over on the water covered floor and without any consciousness. And with his going down, all his icy handy work broke and dissolved away as well. Not that that actually mattered, since the damn birds weren't so much as slowed down even by being [b]soaking wet[/b] in [b]sub-arctic[/b] temperature. How was that even possible? Only penguins and polar bears were supposed to be able to survive that kind of environment, but these dumb owls just shrugged it off like nothing? Apparently owls were tougher creatures than Zero gave them credit for, and now he was paying for that mistake. Oh well, better luck next time, if he even survived this time that is.