Macro March is in full swing and its mysterious propensity to gigantify furs, and their immediate surroundings, is still poorly understood. A crack team of storm chasers, devoted only to pursuing storms of the Macro kind, are on the case though!

As we near the end of March it's about time I start sharing what I have to show for it! And that happens to be a story commissioned by none other than one of the biggest best wolves and heroes around,  KingDead! Per his wishes I'll be posting a chapter a day until the story is complete.

I hope you enjoy reading it as I certainly enjoyed writing it!

FIRST , PREVIOUS , NEXT

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Macro March: Supersized Storm Chasers
By: RaddaRaem

Chapter 3

Lukas forced the lump in his throat down with a heavy swallow.

"You're sure? Absolutely sure?" Rick asked. His bloated toes alternated between pressing down on the brakes and the accelerator while they idled in neutral.

Brook leaned in close to the fennec. It was unmistakable. Tiny blips of purple, shining brightly on the Doppler, were starting to form on screen. "We're sure," he said.

The van rocked back and forth as rain blew sideways against it. Chest puffed out, Rick let loose a heavy exhale. "This might be the smallest we ever see each other again."

"Or the last," Lukas morbidly followed up.

Rick steadied his breathing as his fingers thrummed against the steering wheel. The plastic crunched within his grip. "You ready, little buddy?"

Brook patted at his chest. He could feel his heart threatening to pound its way out of his ribcage. "I don't know if I ever will be. Then again, I thought the same thing the first day I rode along with you two," the tortoise shell smirked. "Gun it, big buddy."

"Now that's what I like to hear!" Rick hollered. A flick of the raccoon's finger sent the van shifting from neutral to drive. Scrunching his toe, the van lurched to life and screamed down the lonely back road. Farms, trailers, and fields left to fallow stretched as far as the eye could see.

"Storm system is moving north-east," Lukas rattled off as his eyes remained intently fixed on the laptop monitor.

Rick's eyes darted up towards digital compass slotted just above the rearview mirror. "Everyone buckled up?"

The click of the fennec's seat belt immediately sounded out.

One hand on the steering wheel, the other protectively clasped against Brook, Rick angled towards the shoulder of the road and pulled a sharp u-turn. The van fishtailed wildly, its back end flailing into the grass and spinning up chunks of mud, before stabilizing and lurching back onto the asphalt.

"A-anything I should be keeping an eye out for?" Brook asked as Rick's grip relaxed on him.

"Bigness!" the raccoon declared. "That's how we'll track this thing on the ground. Keep your eyes peeled for anyone or anything out of the ordinary. Like uh... uh..." Rick snapped his fingers. "Oh, like right there!"

Clawed finger smudged against the windshield, Rick guided Brook's attention towards an eighteen-wheeler parked alongside a barn.

"Okay? Rick that's just a semi-"

"A semi-sized Geo Metro," Rick corrected him. "Since when did they ever manufacture hatchbacks that big?"

Blinking, Brook pressed his face against the glass once more. It... it really was a Geo Metro. And its tires were damn near as big as he was! Tracks leading up to the farm, feet deep scars in the earth, had long since grown in with weeds.

"These storms have a funny way of growing people, and whatever they're wearing or driving, along with them," the raccoon explained.

Lukas audibly hummed and hawed.

"Most of the time, anyway," Rick added with a roll of his eyes. "So keep a lookout for ANYTHING larger than life. Got it?"

"G-got it!" Brook resolutely meowed back. Back and forth he turned his gaze from the driver's window to the passenger's window. Rusted tractors, buses, power lines, towering wind turbines... nothing stood out.

The tortoise shell shook his head. "There had to be something out there," he mumbled under his breath. Brows furrowed, he squinted at those familiar sights yet again. The pounding rain punched holes through the crumbling vehicles that polluted the land. Electricity crackled along the wires whipping wildly in the wind. The leafy green stalks of the turbines swayed violently in the wind and ho-ho-hold the phone.

"B-big!" Brook screamed as he pointed out Lukas' window. "Look at the size of that corn!"

"Storm is moving due east," the fennec confirmed. "Good catch!"

"East, huh?" Rick mulled aloud. "We hop onto Tulsa Way and we should be set."

Brook's seatbelt pinched against his waist as the van abruptly shifted direction. Bounced between Rick's thunder thighs and Lukas' bony ones, he struggled to keep his attention focused elsewhere. "The sheer size of that thing..." he silently mouthed.

"Tulsa? Wait isn't that where..." Lukas trailed off.

Jutting out from the middle of a field, the wind rolling across it in waves, stood a handful of shoots that rivaled even the tallest radio towers in height. Their immense forms creaked ominously and thooms sounded out every time the leaves lining them flapped within the wind. Brook could only imagine how many tons the heads of corn they would soon bear would weigh. Much less the quakes their collapse to the earth below would cause.

"RICK. THE BRAKES!" the fennec screeched.

SQREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

"Hold on to something!" Rick roared when the van's tires locked up with a squeal. Sheets of water splashed up around the storm chasers while they hydroplaned across the road.

Brook could feel his brain ricocheting around in his skull as they skidded off into the brush.

"No no no no this is good, this is good, this is good!" Lukas shouted as hay and prairie grass matted the grill. "Rick, there ain't nothing left of Tulsa, remember? Just craterous footprints they still haven't gotten around to paving in!"

"I noticed!" Rick shot back.

The road at their side abruptly transitioned into bedrock. Asphalt boulders, some still bearing painted yellow lines, lay strewn about. As did massive pools of water.

Brook swallowed hard at the sight of the flooded indentations left behind in the road by truck-sized toes. To think. Just the stompy aftermath of a Macro Marchening, even years after the fact, could still prove potent.

"We still due east?" the raccoon asked as the van puttered to a crawl and stabilized. Grunting, Rick offered the rubble a wide berth while they ambled along what passed for the shoulder.

Lukas winced as the laptop dock whacked painfully against his knees. "We're still due east," he answered through grit teeth.

The crew settled back into an uneasy rhythm. Letting loose a breath he didn't know he had been holding, Brook tamped down his frayed nerves as much as he was able. "F-focus," he reminded himself. "Keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary."

Shaking, Brook curled his tail around his waist and slapped at his cheeks. Peering out the windows through the pouring rain he could make out the same houses, junk heaps, and farms from before. "Come on, there has to be something I'm missing..." he thought. Brook's gaze soon settled on bits of plastic and garbage, carried along the wind, being flung up high into the sky. He squinted incredulously at the pollution, dancing among the clouds, and the low flying plane beyond it. "Well that's just a disaster waiting to happen. You'd think they'd know to reroute a flight away from the middle of a Macro March sto-"

The plane flapped its wings.

CHIRP

"OKAY," Brook coughed nervously. "B-b-bird," he pathetically mewed. “Bird. Bird but big. Very VERY big," Brook stammered as he pointed out the window.

Lukas's enormous ear perked to attention as curious blips popped up onscreen. "Holy hell it's even showing up on the radar!"

Leaning forward, Rick thrummed his fingers against the cracking steering wheel. "I can feel it, boys. This is the big one..."