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"submission_left_thumb_medium_y": "120", "submission_right_submission_id": "1558417", "submission_right_file_name": "2212064_GrayscaleRain_on_a_razor_s_edge_-_sc.3_meeting_minutes.rtf", "submission_right_thumbnail_url_huge": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/huge/2212/2212064_GrayscaleRain_on_a_razor_s_edge_-_sc.3_meeting_minutes.jpg", "submission_right_thumbnail_url_large": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/2212/2212064_GrayscaleRain_on_a_razor_s_edge_-_sc.3_meeting_minutes.jpg", "submission_right_thumbnail_url_medium": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/2212/2212064_GrayscaleRain_on_a_razor_s_edge_-_sc.3_meeting_minutes.jpg", "submission_right_thumb_huge_x": "300", "submission_right_thumb_huge_y": "300", "submission_right_thumb_large_x": "200", "submission_right_thumb_large_y": "200", "submission_right_thumb_medium_x": "120", "submission_right_thumb_medium_y": "120" } ], "description": "[i]What's the alert code for THIS?[/i]\n\n---\n\nHey!\n\nThis fanfic takes place in @Norithics ' fantastic Partners:2541 universe, that I've been gushing about to everyone I'm sure for the last couple of weeks.\n\nIt kind of assumes that you've read a good bit of the way through it, taking place sometime after the events of Vol.1\n\nIf you want to check out Partners, go here!\n[mediumpool]7049[/mediumpool]\n\nI highly recommend it!", "description_bbcode_parsed": "What's the alert code for THIS?

---

Hey!

This fanfic takes place in \r\n\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
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\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNorithics\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t		\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNorithics\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
' fantastic Partners:2541 universe, that I've been gushing about to everyone I'm sure for the last couple of weeks.

It kind of assumes that you've read a good bit of the way through it, taking place sometime after the events of Vol.1

If you want to check out Partners, go here!
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\r\n\t\t\t\tPartners - 'Issue 1' by Norithics\r\n\t\t\t
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\r\n\t\t\t\tPartners - 'Issue 2' by Norithics\r\n\t\t\t
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\r\n\t\t\t\tPartners - 'Issue 3' by Norithics\r\n\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tpool: Partners, vol. 1\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tby Norithics\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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I highly recommend it!", "writing": "Kaz and Benny were sprawled out on the floor, having humped their merry way down the hall towards the living room.\n\nBenny, taking a momentary repose, tossed his crumpled can of Carbolate into the nearby trash can… or at least he attempted to, the can rebounding off the wall rather far from it. Sensing an opportunity, Kaz slid herself forward on her rump and kicked the can out of the air as it was coming back down, bouncing it back up and into the trash can. There was a thunk, and the bin flickered with a soft light bathing its interior before the faint flowery scent of disassociated sodacan particles freshened up the room a bit.\n\nBenny looked rather impressed, nodding slowly before glancing to his girlfriend. “Nice save.”\n\n“Well you did set me up for it.” Kaz said with a smile, looking up at him, before rolling over and scrabbling at his belly with her fingertips, causing him to burst into a fit of giggles. The two rolled around on the floor before she climbed atop him once more, their lips meeting sweetly as they closed their eyes in a gentle embrace...\n\nIt was then that both their PDAs went off in unison. \n\nIt was the emergency alert.\n\nKaz heaved a deep sigh, rolling her eyes and pushing herself to her feet as she clambered off of her beau. She brushed her hair back with one hand, getting it away from her eyes and straightening it out a bit, swaying down the hall towards where her jacket was hung up near the door. Benny watched her (or more accurately, her behind) intently as she proceeded, Kaz’s tail beating back and forth as she fished her PDA out of the beaten black, pleather jacket’s pocket.\n\n“I swear, this had better be an [i]actual[/i] emergency or I’m going to wring-” She stopped mid-sentence as she read the alert, her ears standing straight up. “Oh, shit.”\n\n“Bad?” Benny asked, nookie time now officially over as he got up from the floor, his orange understicker flattening slowly back to its neutral state. The gazelle stretched and went to go grab his pants off the kitchen table.\n\n“Category 7. Blew up out of [i]nowhere[/i].” Kaz responded, grabbing her jacket and rushing back into the kitchen to grab her clothing: a tanktop and jeans along with her boots. \n\nBenny got dressed as well, getting his long-sleeves on and adjusting his glasses as he looked over his own PDA with concern.\n\n“Do you know where Tal and Shen said they were heading? I… I wasn’t paying attention.” Kaz asked, chewing on her lip as she hastily got everything into enough of a position that it could auto-straighten without accidentally strangling her.\n\n“Tal just said ‘for a walk’. They could have gone [i]anywhere[/i]. They should have gotten the alerts though, so they’re probably on their way back by now.” Benny replied, pulling up the Weather Bureau's site to see some scanner imagery of the surrounding area. He gave a soft whistle, in response. \n\n“That’s… intense.” The storm was [i]massive[/i], and rotating at a good clip, churning through the waters east of the city as it encroached on the dome.\n\n“Well… I’m going to send them a message and then put the fields up, okay?” Kaz said before a jazzy piano run emanated from her PDA, momentarily interrupting her plans. She cursed quietly to herself and made sure her top was in place, at least, before tapping the answer button. \n\nAn older, stately looking dingo woman in a blazer and a necktie sat behind a large if simple and uncluttered desk. Her hair was cut fairly short, very businesslike and the blazer contained some rather comfortingly motherly proportions. \n\n“Kassidy, dear? I just got the alert. Is everything alright where you are?” Her mother asked, in a very businesslike manner, as if she were inquiring about quarterly reports instead of checking up on her daughter..\n\n“[i]Of course[/i], Mom. Nothing’s [i]happened[/i] yet. The storm’s supposed to arrive within the next couple hours, so I was just about to call my friends to make sure they got back in time.” Kaz explained, her mother giving an understanding nod in response as she tapped her fingers together on the desk.\n\n“Well then- Oh! I see [i]Benjamin[/i] back there,” Miss Dunerunner remarked, the barest hint of a smile settling on her lips as she leaned a bit to the side to look past her daughter. She put up one hand in a short wave, to which Benny smiled rather sheepishly before stepping out of the kitchen and scurrying upstairs to get out of Miss Dunerunner’s field of view. Her attention then returned to her daughter.\n\n“As I was saying... I’ll leave you to that, then. But, please don’t hesitate to call if you need anything, dear. You [i]know[/i] I’m here for you.” She said, her daughter sighing a bit as she shifted under her mother’s keen, if holographic gaze.\n\n“I know, Mom. You don’t have to worry about us, we’re not kids anymore! We’ll be just fine… it’s [i]only[/i] a hurricane.” Kaz reassured her mother before something odd caught her attention.\n\nHer ears twitched, standing straight up and then her mom blinked and sat up straight, hers doing much the same. They turned in the direction of the perceived sound. There was no shaking or any such thing, but there was… [i]something[/i]. A high pitched whine… faint at first and then growing ever closer.\n\nHer mother turned back towards her, a curious look upon her face.\n\n“Do you [i]hear[/i] tha-”\n\nThere was a sudden jolt, the holo on her PDA cutting out as the walls heaved, a shock ripping through the building with enough force that it even overwhelmed the traffic dampeners in the floors and popped Kaz right off her feet. \n\nThere was a brief moment of apparent calm that took over as she hung in the air just before she hit the floor like a shapely sack of bricks, glass raining down on her from the kitchen windows as they imploded. \n\nShe found herself wet, sprayed with rain as it was blown into the kitchen by the driving wind outside. The roar of the storm forced itself into the little room, throwing everything sitting the counter across the kitchen, onto the floor and most of it out into the hall. It would have turned over the table, too, if it wasn’t magnetically locked in place for... reasons.\n\nThe shards of glass bit into her palms as she scrambled to scoop up her PDA and get to her feet, bracing herself in the doorframe and shouting as loud as she could over the wind.\n\n“User Pass: 4595-Razor! Activate: Unit Weather Field! Activate: Emergency Shutters!”\n\nThere was a loud buzz from somewhere in the apartment, and the wind stopped abruptly, its roar damped to a deep basso rumble against the walls of the building. The fields flickered and shuddered timidly over the open portals before another buzzer reported, followed by a loud, solid “kachunk” as the metal and plastic shutters slammed down outside the windows, sealing the building off from the torrential beating only just kicking up outside.\n\nBenny came down the stairs a few seconds later, skipping steps in a bound as he nearly crashed into the wall at the bottom, rounding the corner to see Kaz propped up in the doorway to the kitchen, bleeding from little lacerations all over her hands, arms and face.\n\n“Kaz!” He shouted, rushing over to his girlfriend, kneeling just a little bit so that he could look up at her. “Are you alright?! You’re bleeding…! Are you seriously hurt?” Benny took her hand and looked it over, then tilted his head to the side to try and see if she was bleeding anywhere he hadn’t immediately noticed.\n\n“N-no. I’m fine… just some little cuts. Are you [i]okay[/i]? Everything just fucking… [i]exploded[/i].” She said, shaking the noise out of her ears that had left her momentarily disoriented. Benny gave a nod and put his hand gently on her arm to steady her.\n\n“I’m… fine. Just got knocked over onto the bed,” he said looking her over, picking little pieces of glass out of her arm and fur, a somewhat large one causing her to jerk her hand back a bit. “I’ll get a pencil…” He said a little breathless, turning to head into the ground floor bathroom. Fortunately the electricity was still on, so the cabinet slid open at a touch and he grabbed a small white tube, about the size of his middle finger, out of the holder in the medicine cabinet.\n\nKaz shivered as she leaned against the wall, taking a deep breath as Benny came back with the pencil. He tapped it a couple of times on the handle until the readout read “styptic” and begin to tend to Kaz’s lacerations, making sure the glass was completely removed from her skin before sweeping it over the cuts. Wherever the pencil touched, the bleeding clotted almost instantly and the skin began to rapidly seal back together until all but the worst ones had completely healed up within a matter of seconds. There were a couple of larger ones that would take a minute or so, but a bottle of water and a micromuffin or two should take care of that. \n\n“What [i]was[/i] that? The windows blew in… and the rain… Did the dome go down?”\n\n“That shouldn’t be [i]possible[/i],” Benny said in response, looking up at her after he was sure he had tended all the bleeders and put the pencil in his shirt pocket. “I mean, it’s gotten depleted by storms before, but… it shouldn’t have happened that quickly. That felt more like a [i]bomb[/i] going off…”\n\nAs Benny said that, the building shook again. Not as violently as before… but noticeable enough to rattle the items strewn all over the floor. Little shocks, one after another, just a few seconds apart each of varying intensity. This continued for about a minute until they finally stopped altogether. Kaz and Benny stood silently, their breath held, the the house eerily silent as they waited for [i]something[/i] uncertain to happen. What exactly, they didn’t quite know, but after a few moments of nothing, they finally relaxed enough to breathe again.\n\n===\n\n‘Emergency’ didn’t [i]quite[/i] seem to encompass the reality of the current situation. Everyone at the Bureau was running around like a headless chicken and Thomas was no different, pacing up and down the aisle next to his desk as his co-worker,Travis, poured over the data they were getting. There were rows and rows of desks, populated with computers and ready to use PDAs, but these days most of them were empty, everyone at the center was doing double-time as most of the higher profile researchers went down to the facility to work on more interesting projects. It was a skeleton crew and that was most noticeable on days like this. Not that Tom really remembered any days [i]quite[/i] like this.\n\nThomas was typically high strung, and right now the calico felt like he was about to twist into pieces. His tail was twitching and puffed out as he spun around once more at the end of the aisle, proceeding back along his route, claws peeking out from his fingers as he flexed them anxiously. Every centimeter of his entire lanky frame was taut and visibly ready to snap somewhere like an overstretched rubberband.\n\n“[i]So[/i],” Tom began, a bit of irritated forcefulness in his voice, “a typical cyclone that had been spinning up near the islands just to the east, suddenly, [i]for no apparent reason[/i], strengthened dramatically in the space of a few [i]hours[/i]. In an intensification unheard of in the last several hundred years, its diameter begins to grow and encroach upon the city, and [i]just[/i] as it’s about to make landfall, [i]the dome goes down[/i].” \n\nThe bat, tapping away on his computer as he arranged and sent out data to the various Ministries, looked up from his screen, adjusting his glasses as a few wisps of his cocoa brown hair fell down in front of his face.\n\n“Well, we’d always been warned that Catagory 7 or higher might be able to overload the dome and bring it down, or at the very least deplete it beyond holding strength.” Travis remarked, recoiling a bit as the slim feline spun around to look at him.\n\n“Yes. After a [i]week[/i]. Not [i]instantaneously[/i]! None of this makes any sense! A storm shouldn’t spin up that fast. And the kind of impact that it would take to bring down the dome… We’ve never gotten readings like that before. It wasn’t the [i]wind[/i].” Thomas spat with an edge of irritation.\n\n“Well, according to the preliminary simulations, we haven’t ruled out celestial phenomenon yet. It could very well have been a meteor impact or a gamma ray burst.” Travis said in the most matter-of-fact, uncomforting manner possible. He didn’t mean it, it’s just that the data was so [i]fascinating[/i]. This offered Thomas little solace, of course.\n\n“Well, that’s [i]fantastic[/i],” the cat hissed, “why doesn’t heaven just drop a giant [i]boot[/i] on us, next?”\n\nThe floor vibrated suddenly, the objects on the desks rattling as Thomas stopped, his ears flattening back against his head. \n\nThen, there was a loud [i]bang[/i], and the shutters rattled as the entire building shook violently from side to side, sending PDAs and monitors tumbling off of desks and nearly throwing Tom backwards over the one behind him. Travis held onto his for dear life, but the vibration stopped abruptly as it came and he slowly opened one eye, looking around at the rest of the office that had just been thoroughly disheveled by the movement.\n\nThe lights flickered weakly and went out, the soft blue emergency lighting coming to life for a moment before the normal power fought its way back on again. Up on the huge holoscreen projected against the shuttered windows on the opposite wall was a map of the rim and the facility dome below. Large angry red circles began to appear on the map, showing what was slowly becoming apparent as impacts, the spikes in the seismographs indicating the radiating effects of each one. One or two were extremely large, but the map was being quickly populated with a dozen other smaller ones around the rim, as well as a few off shore in and under the water. \n\n“Me and my big mouth…” Tom said, steadying himself to his feet as he watched the glowing red ripple across the map.\n\n“Tom! Travis!” A reedy voice called out from around the corner of one of the dividing walls. They both looked over to see a flop-eared brown rabbit leaning out from the hallway beyond.\n\n“You guys… you’ve got to come see this…” He said, looking as if the color had drained out of his face. He looked down and away, his gaze turning to his feet before before he disappeared back around the bend. \n\nTravis looked to his friend and then stood up from his desk, transferring his work to his PDA with the touch of a button before tucking it into his vest and powerwalking down the hall with Tom towards the breakroom where the other workers in the Weather Bureau had gathered. \n\nThey were all staring up at the wall a somewhat weak holo display projected up upon it. There was a grainy news broadcast being put out on one of the local signals showing a smoking crater in the middle of a large avenue. There were trees broken all around it and a long, carved-out ditch leading up to it, as if it had dug itself down through the road for several meters before coming to a halt.\n\n“So, they [i]were[/i] meteors…” Travis said, adjusting his glasses as they watched. The rabbit gave a soft hush with one finger over his own mouth, not looking at the two as they paid close attention to the screen, as if Travis’ voice would somehow interrupt the silent broadcast.\n\nAnd then they saw it. Something emerging up from the edge of the crater…\n\nTom felt a chill run down his spine, his blood going cold under his skin as the implications dawned on him. The videos of the destruction in Locksmouth sat at the front of his mind, and from there his brain blurred with hasty plans. Who to talk to. How to organize. What to do first.\n\nBut right that second, all he could do was utter quietly to himself.\n\n“Oh, [i]no...[/i]”\n\n\n===\n\nKaz turned her gaze down to her slightly scratched, bright pink PDA and thumbed her way through her collection of cluttered windows to her contact list, scrolling down it and finding Shen’s name. \n\nShe hit the call button on the touchpad. \n\nThere was a brief clicking noise and tense pause. Then the PDA responded with a three-note rising tone.\n\n[b][We’re sorry. Your call cannot be completed as dialed.][/b]\n\nShe growled softly and moved down to Talon’s name, Benny leaning over her as she attempted to call him instead. However, the result was the same, the PDA chiding her.\n\n[b][We’re sorry. Your call cannot be completed as dialed.][/b]\n\n“Dammit…! Come on…! Okay, Tommy?” \n\nAgain. And again, the same result.\n\n[b][We’re sorry. Your call cannot be completed as dialed.][/b]\n\nIt was then that a text box popped up over her interface, flashing pink and white on the screen as the PDA made a sad tone.\n\n[b][We are currently experiencing network connectivity issues and other interruptions. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please try again at a later time.][/b]\n\n“Fuck!” Kaz hissed and smacked the side of her PDA with her palm before pocketing it again. She hopped off the table and grabbing Benny’s shoulders, “We’ve got to find Shen and Tal. Like… [i]now[/i]. And find some way to call Tommy. Make sure he’s alright down at the Weather Center...” Kaz stammered before heading quickly towards the door. \n\n“Wh- Wait!” Benny called after her, pursuing her a few steps, “You want to go… out there? [i]Now?[/i]” He said, his tone imploring her to reconsider this course of action. \n\nShe spun around with a quick, “Benny!” Her eyes locking onto his, the reply succinct. Benny stopped in place and held up his hands to her, a finger pointed up to indicate a request for just the briefest of pause.\n\n“I… I… I have some raincoats. I think. From when Georgie took us all fishing out by the islands. I’ll get them, just… wait right here,” he stammered and with that, the gazelle was back up the stairs in nary three steps, ducking down the hallway towards his room.\n\nThe place was a mess. His art supplies and tools, including the old-make utility knife he used, various glues in their bottles and other carving and painting implements were all scattered across the floor. A rather worked on model of a 12th century gothic cathedral that he’d been closely replicating lay smashed on the floor, knocked off of its table by the force of whatever had shattered the windows. He stopped for a moment and sighed, scooping up the large sheets of painted plastic and wire in his arms before setting them on the bed. Turning to his closet, he opened it and rummaged through his stately, classically styled outfits before finding a pair of rather bright and gaudy raincoats, one yellow and one pink. He dragged them out of the closet, sniffing a moment for mildew before carrying them downstairs. Seeing his girlfriend waiting below, he tossed the pink one to her halfway through his descent, hopping over the banister and landing on his hooves next to her with a thump.\n\n“I forgot we even had these things,” Kaz said, slipping hers on. She scanned the barcode on the wrist with her PDA and tapped a button to tighten the coat up to fit her form perfectly.\n\n“Yes, well, I don’t know who else we’d give them to. They’re a bit gauche, but it [i]was[/i] a lovely trip…” Benny remarked, the smile returning to Kaz’s face, if a bit subdued.\n\n“Yeah… Just make sure you’ve got everything. We don’t know when we might get back.”\n\nBenny gave a barely audible whine of disapproval, not too keen on having to go out in the first place, and walked into the living room to grab an old yellow spotlight off the shelf by the holo. The display on the holo itself was just showing a wallpaper of a pair of Jumpers zipping across water, caught in the middle of a drag race, the two vehicles neck and neck. Overlayed was a translucent blue window with the word “OFFLINE” displayed.\n\nSpotlight, raincoat, pencil, PDAs… hopefully the GPS was still working. \n\nIn the front hall, he could hear Kaz deactivate the front shutter, the shutter coming up with a loud [i]thump[/i] as the muted roar of the rain and wind still picking up outside permeated slowly through the field across the doorway.\n\nAs he turned to head back to the entrance, he stopped in place as the screen on the holo turned a bright angry red, the same warning beep as before playing over the speakers.\n\n“What are you [i]waiting[/i] for? “ Kaz shouted from the front door, “Come on, Benny! It’s getting worse already! We need to go [i]now![/i]”\n\nBenny swallowed hard and ducked his head down, threading his antlers through the hood of his raincoat as he stepped back out into the front hall and the two made their way out the door, the shutter coming down behind them.\n\nThe alert carried on without them, text scrolling continuously, the signal coming through the secondary lines built for just such an occasion.\n\n[b][=======][/b]\n\n[b]Category 7 Alert - Brightwater is currently under a Category 7 Storm Warning for all sections until at least 0200.\n\nDome Failure Alert - At approximately 1755, an unknown impact overloaded the Climate Contaiment Dome, causing a full powerdown.\n\nInclement Conditions Alert\n\n...\n...\n\nTake shelter immediately.\n\nActivate all local fields and shutters.\n\nSeek shelter on the lowest floor of your homes.\n\nAvoid any unsecure overhead objects, light fixtures or shelving.\n\nAvoid any exterior doors or windows.\n\nStay sheltered until the all clear is given.\n\nDo not look outside.\n\nDo not go outside.\n\nDo not investigate strange exterior noises.\n\nDo not answer the door.[/b]\n\n[b][=======][/b]\n\n===\n\nIt was hot and wet and dark. A gross heat seared the inside of Shen’s throat as he pressed his hands against the weight above him as he lay on his back. It was something solid and firm, unyielding at first and smothering him slowly, but after a moment of pushing with his palms he felt it begin to move and on the next push it gave way, rising up until the light broke in front of his eyes. Sore and short of breath, he saw Talon’s face hovering above him backed by the dark clouds overhead for just a moment as the bird rolled over with great effort, climbing off of him and flopping down into the mud at his side with a wet plop.\n\nShen sat up out of his shallow grave, wanting to puke as he coughed and spit the mud out of his mouth, the rain slowly stripping it from his face and quills as the force of it pushed the muck along the ground around the two of them. The hedgehog dug the muck out of his ears, the fine silt having been liquified from the steady ground by… whatever had just occurred, minced little roots and blades of grass floating in it as he scooped it away from the sides of his head. \n\nThe return of his hearing was greeted by the forlorn blaring of a siren. It sounded distant at first, before becoming closer and harsher, something he had only heard in old movies and films in history class. It wailed mournfully into the nearly empty city as the wind contested it at every living moment.\n\nLaying in the mud, Talon took a deep breath and winced, a pain shooting up his side as his lungs expanded. That was… unfortunate. Still, looking over to Shen, he gave a gentle smile when he saw that his prickly little friend hadn’t taken the brunt of it.\n\nShen blinked the last of the mud out of his eyes and looked over to Talon, a sudden flash of worry crossing his face as he crawled out of his hole in the mud and leaned over him.\n\n“Tal! Are you okay? I… I thought we were goners!” He said, close enough that he was just audible above the wind.\n\n“Nah… just a few scratches. I’m fiiine…” He returned with a smile before breathing in deeply and trying to sit up. \n\nHe didn’t [i]quite[/i] make it and Shen grabbed him halfway, pulling him slowly into a sitting position. This caused Talon’s entire body to tense up, the action causing him visible pain.\n\n“You… sure you’re fine, Tal?” Shen quested, cringing a little at the look on the bird’s face.\n\n“Okay… I [i]may[/i] have broken a few ribs. No big deal. Nothing that hasn’t happened before...” He says, trying to sound reassuring. He grit his teeth and with a grunt, planted his foot in the mud and after a failure or two to find purchase, finally pushed himself up, braced firmly on Shen’s shoulder.\n\nThey both stood and looked around as the sheets of rain blew in around them. They could hardly believe their eyes. There was a great flow of mud on the street where they’d landed, a semicircle overlooking Seaside Park that was a good hundred and fifty meters from, and fifteen metres above where they’d been standing. They approached the edge of the road; beyond the small wall guarding the sidewalk, they could see a huge gouge taken out of the park itself. Most of the grass near the impact was gone completely, including the knoll where they had been standing, leaving just a great dirt parking lot with a deep valley in which a huge obsidian mass the size of an apartment building sat. The object was steaming in the pouring rain as the water hissed against its hot exterior.\n\n“What… the [i]fuck[/i].” Talon said quietly.\n\n“It… doesn’t matter. Come on… let’s go. We need to get inside.” Shen said, tugging at Talon lightly, a good bit concerned for his friend’s wellbeing. The bird gave a hesitant nod in response, wiping a huge clump of mud of the side of his head as he stared down into the pit.\n\nAnd then, something emerged from below.\n\nIt was black and brown and purple, glossy and undulating. Six yellow eyes passed by their field of vision heading upwards as numerous legs sprouted from its shadowy core. It rose above them several meters, their heads tracking it all the way up as it loomed over them. It swayed like a wire in the wind, and then, fell forward.\n\n“Holy…. Shit! [i]Move![/i]” Talon yelled and twisting his weight, shoved Shen out of the way a good couple of meters as he tumbled into the mud again. The huge [i]thing[/i] came down, slamming into the road’s surface, sending up clumps of mud and plasteel as Talon scrambled to his feet just far enough away to avoid being crushed by a group of chitinous legs. Shen was already off running, looking back in worry as Talon stumbled out of the mud and onto the road proper. \n\nThe creature turned, watching them curiously with its bright yellow eyes as they bolted for safety. Perhaps it didn’t know what they were, or wasn’t sure what to do in this strange place, but either way it generously offered them a few precious seconds head start before beginning its pursuit.\n\n“Run, Shen! [i]Run![/i]” Talon barked hoarsely, the hedgie having stopped to look for him as the creature began to give chase. A pang of fear zipped up Shen’s spine as the thing twisted itself towards them and he begin to haul as much ass as his little legs would carry. Talon sprinted along behind, his arms wrapped tight around his chest as he wheezed through his beak, not so much running as stumbling forward just fast enough that he didn’t ever manage to fall on his face.\n\nThe clamour of dozens if not hundreds of clicking limbs followed after them, audible even through the rain and wind as they ran in a panic down the street. \n\nMuch of what had been pristine just a few hours ago was now cracked and broken, shattered either by the impact’s shockwave or the steadily strengthening winds of the hurricane bearing down on their city.\nThere were downed signs and billboards flickering on the ground, smashed lights and broken trees, the limbs being blown across their path by the wind and glass scattered across the road. Most of the buildings were shuttered up completely now and many of them had had their facades broken or shattered in some way. In the distance many of the commercial buildings’ lights were out and one of the more prominent abandoned residences had seemingly had several of its upper floors [i]ripped clean off[/i].\n\nBut, here was no time to take in any of it. All they could afford to do was run.\n\nThe upper residences were where they ran, down the long rimside avenue, the sound of unearthly pursuit hot on their heels. Talon’s sides burned and Shen was quickly becoming winded. He couldn’t help it, and staggered to a stop next to a railed overlook. He began heaving and hacking up mud as his lungs refused to work for the moment, a stitch pulling painfully in his side. \n\nTalon was just behind him, however, still running at full tilt. He tried to drop his momentum, but Shen suddenly found himself surprised by a hard impact to his prickly backside, the force of which sent the both of them straight over the railing. Upended, they fell with a united shout of surprise and a moment later came to an uncomfortable rest under a small group of bushes behind someone’s home. \n\nThe both of them lay quietly in pain, now with even more cuts and bruises. The many legs of their horrible pursuer approached and the two held their breath as it stopped at the edge of the overlook. \n\nThere was a moment of… relative silence in the wind, however, then a loud chirp followed by a series of clicks before the thing retreated into the distance, leaving the two once again alone in the storm.\n\nThey stayed there in silence for a time, Talon’s lungs and sides on fire while Shen pulled free of several branches that decided to play quills themselves. Rolling over onto his stomach, Shen sighed and looked to his buddy, reaching out to rest his hand on Talon’s shoulder.\n\n“We… [i]really[/i] should get inside.” He said, wincing and letting out an audible whimper as he pulled another stick out of his skin with his other hand, looking over in… surprise at how far it had been imbedded. Talon frowned a bit looking up at the stormy sky through the branches of the bush above him.\n\n“Yeah… I know. Just… give me a minute.”\n", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "Kaz and Benny were sprawled out on the floor, having humped their merry way down the hall towards the living room.

Benny, taking a momentary repose, tossed his crumpled can of Carbolate into the nearby trash can… or at least he attempted to, the can rebounding off the wall rather far from it.  Sensing an opportunity, Kaz slid herself forward on her rump and kicked the can out of the air as it was coming back down, bouncing it back up and into the trash can.  There was a thunk, and the bin flickered with a soft light bathing its interior before the faint flowery scent of disassociated sodacan particles freshened up the room a bit.

Benny looked rather impressed, nodding slowly before glancing to his girlfriend.  “Nice save.”

“Well you did set me up for it.”  Kaz said with a smile, looking up at him, before rolling over and  scrabbling at his belly with her fingertips, causing him to burst into a fit of giggles.  The two rolled around on the floor before she climbed atop him once more, their lips meeting sweetly as they closed their eyes in a gentle embrace...

It was then that both their PDAs went off in unison.  

It was the emergency alert.

Kaz heaved a deep sigh, rolling her eyes and pushing herself to her feet as she clambered off of her beau.  She brushed her hair back with one hand, getting it away from her eyes and straightening it out a bit, swaying down the hall towards where her jacket was hung up near the door.  Benny watched her (or more accurately, her behind) intently as she proceeded, Kaz’s tail beating back and forth as she fished her PDA out of the beaten black, pleather jacket’s pocket.

“I swear, this had better be an actual emergency or I’m going to wring-”  She stopped mid-sentence as she read the alert, her ears standing straight up.  “Oh, shit.”

“Bad?”  Benny asked, nookie time now officially over as he got up from the floor, his orange understicker flattening slowly back to its neutral state.  The gazelle stretched and went to go grab his pants off the kitchen table.

“Category 7.  Blew up out of nowhere.”  Kaz responded, grabbing her jacket and rushing back into the kitchen to grab her clothing: a tanktop and jeans along with her boots.  

Benny got dressed as well, getting his long-sleeves on and adjusting his glasses as he looked over his own PDA with concern.

“Do you know where Tal and Shen said they were heading?  I… I wasn’t paying attention.”  Kaz asked, chewing on her lip as she hastily got everything into enough of a position that it could auto-straighten without accidentally strangling her.

“Tal just said ‘for a walk’.  They could have gone anywhere.  They should have gotten the alerts though, so they’re probably on their way back by now.”  Benny replied, pulling up the Weather Bureau's site to see some scanner imagery of the surrounding area.  He gave a soft whistle, in response.  

“That’s… intense.”  The storm was massive, and rotating at a good clip, churning through the waters east of the city as it encroached on the dome.

“Well… I’m going to send them a message and then put the fields up, okay?”  Kaz said before a jazzy piano run emanated from her PDA, momentarily interrupting her plans.  She cursed quietly to herself and made sure her top was in place, at least,  before tapping the answer button.  

An older, stately looking dingo woman in a blazer and a necktie sat behind a large if simple and uncluttered desk.  Her hair was cut fairly short, very businesslike and the blazer contained some rather comfortingly motherly proportions.  

“Kassidy, dear?  I just got the alert.  Is everything alright where you are?”  Her mother asked, in a very businesslike manner, as if she were inquiring about quarterly reports instead of checking up on her daughter..

“Of course, Mom.  Nothing’s happened yet.  The storm’s supposed to arrive within the next couple hours, so I was just about to call my friends to make sure they got back in time.”  Kaz explained, her mother giving an understanding nod in response as she tapped her fingers together on the desk.

“Well then- Oh! I see Benjamin back there,” Miss Dunerunner remarked, the barest hint of a smile settling on her lips as she leaned a bit to the side to look past her daughter.  She put up one hand in a short wave, to which Benny smiled rather sheepishly before stepping out of the kitchen and scurrying upstairs to get out of Miss Dunerunner’s field of view.  Her attention then returned to her daughter.

“As I was saying... I’ll leave you to that, then.  But, please don’t hesitate to call if you need anything, dear.  You know I’m here for you.”  She said, her daughter sighing a bit as she shifted under her mother’s keen, if holographic gaze.

“I know, Mom.  You don’t have to worry about us, we’re not kids anymore!  We’ll be just fine… it’s only a hurricane.”  Kaz reassured her mother before something odd caught her attention.

Her ears twitched, standing straight up and then her mom blinked and sat up straight, hers doing much the same.  They turned in the direction of the perceived sound.  There was no shaking or any such thing, but there was… something.  A high pitched whine… faint at first and then growing ever closer.

Her mother turned back towards her, a curious look upon her face.

“Do you hear tha-”

There was a sudden jolt, the holo on her PDA cutting out as the walls heaved, a shock ripping through the building with enough force that it even overwhelmed the traffic dampeners in the floors and popped Kaz right off her feet.  

There was a brief moment of apparent calm that took over as she hung in the air just before she hit the floor like a shapely sack of bricks, glass raining down on her from the kitchen windows as they imploded.  

She found herself wet, sprayed with rain as it was blown into the kitchen by the driving wind outside.  The roar of the storm forced itself into the little room, throwing everything sitting the counter across the kitchen, onto the floor and most of it out into the hall.  It would have turned over the table, too, if it wasn’t magnetically locked in place for... reasons.

The shards of glass bit into her palms as she scrambled to scoop up her PDA and get to her feet, bracing herself in the doorframe and shouting as loud as she could over the wind.

“User Pass: 4595-Razor!  Activate: Unit Weather Field!  Activate: Emergency Shutters!”

There was a loud buzz from somewhere in the apartment, and the wind stopped abruptly, its roar damped to a deep basso rumble against the walls of the building.  The fields flickered and shuddered timidly over the open portals before another buzzer reported, followed by a loud, solid “kachunk” as the metal and plastic shutters slammed down outside the windows, sealing the building off from the torrential beating only just kicking up outside.

Benny came down the stairs a few seconds later, skipping steps in a bound as he nearly crashed into the wall at the bottom, rounding the corner to see Kaz propped up in the doorway to the kitchen, bleeding from little lacerations all over her hands, arms and face.

“Kaz!”  He shouted, rushing over to his girlfriend, kneeling just a little bit so that he could look up at her.  “Are you alright?!  You’re bleeding…!  Are you seriously hurt?”  Benny took her hand and looked it over, then tilted his head to the side to try and see if she was bleeding anywhere he hadn’t immediately noticed.

“N-no.  I’m fine… just some little cuts.  Are you okay?  Everything just fucking… exploded.”  She said, shaking the noise out of her ears that had left her momentarily disoriented.  Benny gave a nod and put his hand gently on her arm to steady her.

“I’m… fine.  Just got knocked over onto the bed,” he said looking her over, picking little pieces of glass out of her arm and fur, a somewhat large one causing her to jerk her hand back a bit.  “I’ll get a pencil…”  He said a little breathless, turning to head into the ground floor bathroom.  Fortunately the electricity was still on, so the cabinet slid open at a touch and he grabbed a small white tube, about the size of his middle finger, out of the holder in the medicine cabinet.

Kaz shivered as she leaned against the wall, taking a deep breath as Benny came back with the pencil.  He tapped it a couple of times on the handle until the readout read “styptic” and begin to tend to Kaz’s lacerations, making sure the glass was completely removed from her skin before sweeping it over the cuts.  Wherever the pencil touched, the bleeding clotted almost instantly and the skin began to rapidly seal back together until all but the worst ones had completely healed up within a matter of seconds.  There were a couple of larger ones that would take a minute or so, but a bottle of water and a micromuffin or two should take care of that.  

“What was that?  The windows blew in… and the rain…  Did the dome go down?”

“That shouldn’t be possible,” Benny said in response, looking up at her after he was sure he had tended all the bleeders and put the pencil in his shirt pocket.  “I mean, it’s gotten depleted by storms before, but… it shouldn’t have happened that quickly.  That felt more like a bomb going off…”

As Benny said that, the building shook again.  Not as violently as before… but noticeable enough to rattle the items strewn all over the floor.  Little shocks, one after another, just a few seconds apart each of varying intensity.  This continued for about a minute until they finally stopped altogether.  Kaz and Benny stood silently, their breath held, the the house eerily silent as they waited for something uncertain to happen.  What exactly, they didn’t quite know, but after a few moments of nothing, they finally relaxed enough to breathe again.

===

‘Emergency’ didn’t quite seem to encompass the reality of the current situation. Everyone at the Bureau was running around like a headless chicken and Thomas was no different, pacing up and down the aisle next to his desk as his co-worker,Travis, poured over the data they were getting.  There were rows and rows of desks, populated with computers and ready to use PDAs, but these days most of them were empty, everyone at the center was doing double-time as most of the higher profile researchers went down to the facility to work on more interesting projects.  It was a skeleton crew and that was most noticeable on days like this.  Not that Tom really remembered any days quite like this.

Thomas was typically high strung, and right now the calico felt like he was about to twist into pieces.  His tail was twitching and puffed out as he spun around once more at the end of the aisle, proceeding back along his route, claws peeking out from his fingers as he flexed them anxiously.  Every centimeter of his entire lanky frame was taut and visibly ready to snap somewhere like an overstretched rubberband.

“So,” Tom began, a bit of irritated forcefulness in his voice, “a typical cyclone that had been spinning up near the islands just to the east, suddenly, for no apparent reason, strengthened dramatically in the space of a few hours.  In an intensification unheard of in the last several hundred years, its diameter begins to grow and encroach upon the city, and just as it’s about to make landfall, the dome goes down.”  

The bat, tapping away on his computer as he arranged and sent out data to the various Ministries, looked up from his screen, adjusting his glasses as a few wisps of his cocoa brown hair fell down in front of his face.

“Well, we’d always been warned that Catagory 7 or higher might be able to overload the dome and bring it down, or at the very least deplete it beyond holding strength.”  Travis remarked, recoiling a bit as the slim feline spun around to look at him.

“Yes.  After a week.  Not instantaneously!  None of this makes any sense!  A storm shouldn’t spin up that fast.  And the kind of impact that it would take to bring down the dome…  We’ve never gotten readings like that before.  It wasn’t the wind.”  Thomas spat with an edge of irritation.

“Well, according to the preliminary simulations, we haven’t ruled out celestial phenomenon yet.  It could very well have been a meteor impact or a gamma ray burst.”  Travis said in the most matter-of-fact, uncomforting manner possible.  He didn’t mean it, it’s just that the data was so fascinating.   This offered Thomas little solace, of course.

“Well, that’s fantastic,” the cat hissed, “why doesn’t heaven just drop a giant boot on us, next?”

The floor vibrated suddenly, the objects on the desks rattling as Thomas stopped, his ears flattening back against his head.  

Then, there was a loud bang, and the shutters rattled as the entire building shook violently from side to side, sending PDAs and monitors tumbling off of desks and nearly throwing Tom backwards over the one behind him.  Travis held onto his for dear life, but the vibration stopped abruptly as it came and he slowly opened one eye, looking around at the rest of the office that had just been thoroughly disheveled by the movement.

The lights flickered weakly and went out, the soft blue emergency lighting coming to life for a moment before the normal power fought its way back on again.  Up on the huge holoscreen projected against the shuttered windows on the opposite wall was a map of the rim and the facility dome below.  Large angry red circles began to appear on the map, showing what was slowly becoming apparent as impacts, the spikes in the seismographs indicating the radiating effects of each one. One or two were extremely large, but the map was being quickly populated with a dozen other smaller ones around the rim, as well as a few off shore in and under the water.  

“Me and my big mouth…” Tom said, steadying himself to his feet as he watched the glowing red ripple across the map.

“Tom!  Travis!”  A reedy voice called out from around the corner of one of the dividing walls.  They both looked over to see a flop-eared brown rabbit leaning out from the hallway beyond.

“You guys… you’ve got to come see this…”  He said, looking as if the color had drained out of his face.  He looked down and away, his gaze turning to his feet before before he disappeared back around the bend.  

Travis looked to his friend and then stood up from his desk, transferring his work to his PDA with the touch of a button before tucking it into his vest and powerwalking down the hall with Tom towards the breakroom where the other workers in the Weather Bureau had gathered.  

They were all staring up at the wall a somewhat weak holo display projected up upon it.  There was a grainy news broadcast being put out on one of the local signals showing a smoking crater in the middle of a large avenue.  There were trees broken all around it and a long, carved-out ditch leading up to it, as if it had dug itself down through the road for several meters before coming to a halt.

“So, they were meteors…”  Travis said, adjusting his glasses as they watched.  The rabbit gave a soft hush with one finger over his own mouth, not looking at the two as they paid close attention to the screen, as if Travis’ voice would somehow interrupt the silent broadcast.

And then they saw it.  Something emerging up from the edge of the crater…

Tom felt a chill run down his spine, his blood going cold under his skin as the implications dawned on him.  The videos of the destruction in Locksmouth sat at the front of his mind, and from there his brain blurred with hasty plans.  Who to talk to.  How to organize. What to do first.

But right that second, all he could do was utter quietly to himself.

“Oh, no...”


===

Kaz turned her gaze down to her slightly scratched, bright pink PDA and thumbed her way through her collection of cluttered windows to her contact list, scrolling down it and finding Shen’s name.  

She hit the call button on the touchpad.  

There was a brief clicking noise and tense pause.  Then the PDA responded with a three-note rising tone.

[We’re sorry.  Your call cannot be completed as dialed.]

She growled softly and moved down to Talon’s name, Benny leaning over her as she attempted to call him instead.  However, the result was the same, the PDA chiding her.

[We’re sorry.  Your call cannot be completed as dialed.]

“Dammit…!  Come on…!  Okay, Tommy?”  

Again.  And again, the same result.

[We’re sorry.  Your call cannot be completed as dialed.]

It was then that a text box popped up over her interface, flashing pink and white on the screen as the PDA made a sad tone.

[We are currently experiencing network connectivity issues and other interruptions.  We apologize for the inconvenience.  Please try again at a later time.]

“Fuck!”  Kaz hissed and smacked the side of her PDA with her palm before pocketing it again.  She hopped off the table and grabbing Benny’s shoulders, “We’ve got to find Shen and Tal.  Like… now.  And find some way to call Tommy.  Make sure he’s alright down at the Weather Center...”  Kaz stammered before heading quickly towards the door.

“Wh- Wait!” Benny called after her, pursuing her a few steps, “You want to go… out there?  Now?”  He said, his tone imploring her to reconsider this course of action.  

She spun around with a quick, “Benny!”  Her eyes locking onto his, the reply succinct.  Benny stopped in place and held up his hands to her, a finger pointed up to indicate a request for just the briefest of pause.

“I… I… I have some raincoats.  I think.  From when Georgie took us all fishing out by the islands.  I’ll get them, just… wait right here,” he stammered and with that, the gazelle was back up the stairs in nary three steps, ducking down the hallway towards his room.

The place was a mess.  His art supplies and tools, including the old-make utility knife he used, various glues in their bottles and other carving and painting implements were all scattered across the floor.  A rather worked on model of a 12th century gothic cathedral that he’d been closely replicating lay smashed on the floor, knocked off of its table by the force of whatever had shattered the windows.  He stopped for a moment and sighed, scooping up the large sheets of painted plastic and wire in his arms before setting them on the bed.  Turning to his closet, he opened it and rummaged through his stately, classically styled outfits before finding a pair of rather bright and gaudy raincoats, one yellow and one pink.  He dragged them out of the closet, sniffing a moment for mildew before carrying them downstairs.  Seeing his girlfriend waiting below, he tossed the pink one to her halfway through his descent, hopping over the banister and landing on his hooves next to her with a thump.

“I forgot we even had these things,” Kaz said, slipping hers on.  She scanned the barcode on the wrist with her PDA and tapped a button to tighten the coat up to fit her form perfectly.

“Yes, well, I don’t know who else we’d give them to.  They’re a bit gauche, but it was a lovely trip…”  Benny remarked, the smile returning to Kaz’s face, if a bit subdued.

“Yeah…  Just make sure you’ve got everything.  We don’t know when we might get back.”

Benny gave a barely audible whine of disapproval, not too keen on having to go out in the first place, and walked into the living room to grab an old yellow spotlight off the shelf by the holo.  The display on the holo itself was just showing a wallpaper of a pair of Jumpers zipping across water, caught in the middle of a drag race, the two vehicles neck and neck.  Overlayed was a translucent blue window with the word “OFFLINE” displayed.

Spotlight, raincoat, pencil, PDAs… hopefully the GPS was still working.

In the front hall, he could hear Kaz deactivate the front shutter, the shutter coming up with a loud thump as the muted roar of the rain and wind still picking up outside permeated slowly through the field across the doorway.

As he turned to head back to the entrance, he stopped in place as the screen on the holo turned a bright angry red, the same warning beep as before playing over the speakers.

“What are you waiting for? “ Kaz shouted from the front door, “Come on, Benny!  It’s getting worse already!  We need to go now!”

Benny swallowed hard and ducked his head down, threading his antlers through the hood of his raincoat as he stepped back out into the front hall and the two made their way out the door, the shutter coming down behind them.

The alert carried on without them, text scrolling continuously, the signal coming through the secondary lines built for just such an occasion.

[=======]

Category 7 Alert - Brightwater is currently under a Category 7 Storm Warning for all sections until at least 0200.

Dome Failure Alert - At approximately 1755, an unknown impact overloaded the Climate Contaiment Dome, causing a full powerdown.

Inclement Conditions Alert

...
...

Take shelter immediately.

Activate all local fields and shutters.

Seek shelter on the lowest floor of your homes.

Avoid any unsecure overhead objects, light fixtures or shelving.

Avoid any exterior doors or windows.

Stay sheltered until the all clear is given.

Do not look outside.

Do not go outside.

Do not investigate strange exterior noises.

Do not answer the door.

[=======]

===

It was hot and wet and dark.  A gross heat seared the inside of Shen’s throat as he pressed his hands against the weight above him as he lay on his back.  It was something solid and firm, unyielding at first and smothering him slowly, but after a moment of pushing with his palms he felt it begin to move and on the next push it gave way, rising up until the light broke in front of his eyes.  Sore and short of breath, he saw Talon’s face hovering above him backed by the dark clouds overhead for just a moment as the bird rolled over with great effort, climbing off of him and flopping down into the mud at his side with a wet plop.

Shen sat up out of his shallow grave, wanting to puke as he coughed and spit the mud out of his mouth, the rain slowly stripping it from his face and quills as the force of it pushed the muck along the ground around the two of them.  The hedgehog dug the muck out of his ears, the fine silt having been liquified from the steady ground by… whatever had just occurred, minced little roots and blades of grass floating in it as he scooped it away from the sides of his head.  

The return of his hearing was greeted by the forlorn blaring of a siren.  It sounded distant at first, before becoming closer and harsher, something he had only heard in old movies and films in history class.  It wailed mournfully into the nearly empty city as the wind contested it at every living moment.

Laying in the mud, Talon took a deep breath and winced, a pain shooting up his side as his lungs expanded.  That was… unfortunate.  Still, looking over to Shen, he gave a gentle smile when he saw that his prickly little friend hadn’t taken the brunt of it.

Shen blinked the last of the mud out of his eyes and looked over to Talon, a sudden flash of worry crossing his face as he crawled out of his hole in the mud and leaned over him.

“Tal!  Are you okay?  I… I thought we were goners!”  He said, close enough that he was just audible above the wind.

“Nah… just a few scratches.  I’m fiiine…”  He returned with a smile before breathing in deeply and trying to sit up.  

He didn’t quite make it and Shen grabbed him halfway, pulling him slowly into a sitting position.  This caused Talon’s entire body to tense up, the action causing him visible pain.

“You… sure you’re fine, Tal?”  Shen quested, cringing a little at the look on the bird’s face.

“Okay… I may have broken a few ribs.  No big deal.  Nothing that hasn’t happened before...”  He says, trying to sound reassuring.  He grit his teeth and with a grunt, planted his foot in the mud and after a failure or two to find purchase, finally pushed himself up, braced firmly on Shen’s shoulder.

They both stood and looked around as the sheets of rain blew in around them.  They could hardly believe their eyes.  There was a great flow of mud on the street where they’d landed, a semicircle overlooking Seaside Park that was a good hundred and fifty meters from, and fifteen metres above where they’d been standing.  They approached the edge of the road; beyond the small wall guarding the sidewalk, they could see a huge gouge taken out of the park itself.  Most of the grass near the impact was gone completely, including the knoll where they had been standing, leaving just a great dirt parking lot with a deep valley in which a huge obsidian mass the size of an apartment building sat.  The object was steaming in the pouring rain as the water hissed against its hot exterior.

“What… the fuck.”  Talon said quietly.

“It… doesn’t matter.  Come on… let’s go.  We need to get inside.” Shen said, tugging at Talon lightly, a good bit concerned for his friend’s wellbeing.  The bird gave a hesitant nod in response, wiping a huge clump of mud of the side of his head as he stared down into the pit.

And then, something emerged from below.

It was black and brown and purple, glossy and undulating.  Six yellow eyes passed by their field of vision heading upwards as numerous legs sprouted from its shadowy core.  It rose above them several meters, their heads tracking it all the way up as it loomed over them.  It swayed like a wire in the wind, and then, fell forward.

“Holy…. Shit!  Move!”  Talon yelled and twisting his weight, shoved Shen out of the way a good couple of meters as he tumbled into the mud again.  The huge thing came down, slamming into the road’s surface, sending up clumps of mud and plasteel as Talon scrambled to his feet just far enough away to avoid being crushed by a group of chitinous legs.  Shen was already off running, looking back in worry as Talon stumbled out of the mud and onto the road proper.  

The creature turned, watching them curiously with its bright yellow eyes as they bolted for safety.  Perhaps it didn’t know what they were, or wasn’t sure what to do in this strange place, but either way it generously offered them a few precious seconds head start before beginning its pursuit.

“Run, Shen!  Run!”  Talon barked hoarsely, the hedgie having stopped to look for him as the creature began to give chase.  A pang of fear zipped up Shen’s spine as the thing twisted itself towards them and he begin to haul as much ass as his little legs would carry.  Talon sprinted along behind, his arms wrapped tight around his chest as he wheezed through his beak, not so much running as stumbling forward just fast enough that he didn’t ever manage to fall on his face.

The clamour of dozens if not hundreds of clicking limbs followed after them, audible even through the rain and wind as they ran in a panic down the street.  

Much of what had been pristine just a few hours ago was now cracked and broken, shattered either by the impact’s shockwave or the steadily strengthening winds of the hurricane bearing down on their city.
There were downed signs and billboards flickering on the ground, smashed lights and broken trees, the limbs being blown across their path by the wind and glass scattered across the road.  Most of the buildings were shuttered up completely now and many of them had had their facades broken or shattered in some way.  In the distance many of the commercial buildings’ lights were out and one of the more prominent abandoned residences had seemingly had several of its upper floors ripped clean off.

But, here was no time to take in any of it.  All they could afford to do was run.

The upper residences were where they ran, down the long rimside avenue, the sound of unearthly pursuit hot on their heels.  Talon’s sides burned and Shen was quickly becoming winded.  He couldn’t help it, and staggered to a stop next to a railed overlook.  He began heaving and hacking up mud as his lungs refused to work for the moment, a stitch pulling painfully in his side.  

Talon was just behind him, however, still running at full tilt.  He tried to drop his momentum, but Shen suddenly found himself surprised by a hard impact to his prickly backside, the force of which sent the both of them straight over the railing.  Upended, they fell with a united shout of surprise and a moment later came to an uncomfortable rest under a small group of bushes behind someone’s home.  

The both of them lay quietly in pain, now with even more cuts and bruises.  The many legs of their horrible pursuer approached and the two held their breath as it stopped at the edge of the overlook.  

There was a moment of… relative silence in the wind, however, then a loud chirp followed by a series of clicks before the thing retreated into the distance, leaving the two once again alone in the storm.

They stayed there in silence for a time, Talon’s lungs and sides on fire while Shen pulled free of several branches that decided to play quills themselves.  Rolling over onto his stomach, Shen sighed and looked to his buddy, reaching out to rest his hand on Talon’s shoulder.

“We… really should get inside.” He said, wincing and letting out an audible whimper as he pulled another stick out of his skin with his other hand, looking over in… surprise at how far it had been imbedded.  Talon frowned a bit looking up at the stormy sky through the branches of the bush above him.

“Yeah… I know.  Just… give me a minute.”
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