09/21/2025 Snippet, BRAVING THE MALSTORM.

Come, I will conceal nothing from you. I forgot the damned thing was flying! Well, easily fixed.

…

I involuntarily winced when I heard the double snap! of the rampager’s main wings, and its ponderous flight suddenly turned into a ponderous crash. Hell, the monster bounced, twice, before it slammed into a storefront. That made me wince again, before I started coughing from the new dust. Fighting monsters in built-up areas is bad.

Roger tried peering at the dust cloud. “Can’t hope that put it down, right?” he asked. “Or is part of the superstition against assuming the best?”

I shook my head. “You always get to hope. But… yeah. There it is.” ‘There’ was in the middle of the dust, which meant less to me than it would to Roger, so I helpfully pointed. “It’s banged up, but we probably knocked off most of the pieces that would pop off anyway. Good news is, it’s coming after us instead of the town.”

“Also the bad news,” Zeke said. “Oh, well, we wanted it over here anyway.”

“Yeah.” Roger laughed, so: points to him. “Guess we’re getting our wish.”