As the vine ca down.
Dr. Gadget lifted his arm on instinct, watch raised toward the shadow swallowing them.
Then the air tore.
A streak of fire ripped out of the treeline at impossible speed—WHOOOM~—and slamd into the descending vine from the side. The impact sheared through it cleanly, the cut line glowing white-hot as the severed flesh blackened and split apart.
Pyro.
He tore straight through the vine’s body, montum carrying him past as embers scattered behind him like slag. The point of contact burned through instantly, the sll hitting a second later—scorched organic matter, bitter and choking.
But the cut didn’t save them.
Half the vine kept falling.
Pyro twisted midair, boots flaring as he tried to pivot back—
"Oh no—!" soone shouted.
Dr. Gadget’s watch flared.
A single point of light snapped into existence at its face—thin, precise—and fired.
The beam struck the falling mass and blood outward on contact—FWOOOOSH~—expanding into a wide lattice of energy that chewed through the vine in a blink. Ninety percent of it vanished, reduced to drifting vapor and ash.
What remained fell in wet chunks, slapping against the ground with thick, aty impacts.
Pyro dropped hard, then caught himself, hovering a ter above the ground as debris settled around them.
A man near Dr. Gadget staggered forward, voice breaking. "Pyro! Thank God—you’re okay! Where—where’s Elliot? And the others?"
Pyro didn’t look at him for long.
"No ti," he said, words clipped and urgent. "You need to go that way." He pointed past the ruined camp. "There’s another camp near a tunnel entrance that hasn’t been hit yet. They’re evacuating. Join them—now—before—"
He stopped.
His head turned.
The color drained from his face as he stared toward the woods.
One of the tunnel entrances was tearing itself apart.
The reinforced ground buckled inward, concrete plates snapping loose as the earth beneath them ballooned upward. tal bent as braces twisted free—and the soil began to glow faintly from friction alone.
Pyro swallowed.
"It’s too late," he said, barely audible.
Then he shouted, "RUN!"
The word hadn’t finished echoing when the world lurched.
Not a tremor.
An uprising.
The ground convulsed so violently that people were thrown off their feet, bodies lifted and slamd down as if gravity had gone and co. Trees snapped at the base and were hurled skyward, roots still clinging. Vehicles bounced, then flipped, then vanished beneath flying earth.
And from the tunnel—
BOOOOOOM~.
Sothing erupted.
Not a vine.
A stem.
It tore straight up from the ground, vertical and unstoppable, rising past the treeline in seconds.
By the ti it stopped, it towered roughly three hundred and so ters high. Its main body was grotesquely thick—nearly one hundred and twenty ters across at the base—a column of layered flesh, fibrous and ridged, steaming where friction had cooked its surface.
Its tip swelled wider still—twice the stem’s diater—bulbous, folded, and wrong. At a distance, it resembled a flower about to bloom.
Up close, it was anything but.
Human remains were fused throughout it.
A ribcage stretched across one side like warped scaffolding. A torso was half-embedded near the crown, spine bent backward, arms missing. Hands jutted out of the surface at random angles, fingers locked in frozen grips. Faces were pressed beneath translucent layers, mouths open in shapes that no longer knew breath.
The massive vines that had been ravaging the camps were yanked back toward it, ripped free from the ground and dragged inward. They wrapped around the base of the structure, coiling together with newly erupted growths.
Four colossal legs ford.
Each was a braided mass of vine and flesh, compacting as they twisted together until they reached a width nearly equal to a basketball court.
The ground beneath them collapsed under the pressure, soil liquefying as the legs planted themselves one by one—sending shockwaves that flattened what little still stood.
Debris filled the air.
Rocks the size of trucks spun end over end. Trees shattered mid-flight. tal made noise as equipnt was flung outward in wide arcs before crashing down beyond recognition.
Dr. Gadget stared upward, blood streaking down his face as the impossible shape finished assembling itself.
The structure lood, casting a shadow that swallowed the camp whole as the ground continued to break apart beneath it.
———
The effects of the eruption didn’t stop at the camps.
So distance away, the town of Havenridge ca apart in real ti.
People spilled into the streets as the ground rolled beneath them, storefront windows shattering outward while bricks slid loose from aging facades.
A low, endless groan carried through the town as asphalt split open, long cracks moving down main roads and branching into side streets.
One sedan sank nose-first as the earth gave way beneath it, tires spinning uselessly before the front end disappeared.
Children stood frozen on sidewalks, small hands clutching toys or backpacks, pointing up at the towering shape that had risen way beyond the treeline. The massive stem lood against the sky like a twisted monunt, impossible to look away from.
Adults snapped out of it first.
"Inside—now!"
"Get in the car, move!"
"Leave it, leave everything!"
Parents dragged kids into houses, so shoving them into basents, others rushing them into vehicles already dented from falling debris. A few people—hands shaking—still held their phones up, recording, whispering prayers or narrating through broken voices.
Sirens wailed from every direction as police cruisers slid through cracked intersections, officers shouting evacuation orders through gaphones.
Fire trucks barreled past collapsed awnings.
Ambulances stopped only long enough to load the injured—bloodied faces, broken limbs, people sobbing over bodies laid out on sidewalks under jackets.
A woman knelt in the street, clutching a man whose chest no longer moved, screaming his na until soone pulled her away.
———
At a smaller camp not too far out from the main, the chaos had settled into a grim atmosphere.
A container lay on its side, doors blown open, its interior turned into a makeshift triage area.
n and won in lab coats moved quickly between the wounded, hands covered with blood as they applied pressure, wrapped bandages, injected stabilizers. Others in tactical gear worked nearby, loading what still ran into trucks, abandoning the rest.
Many simply stood and stared.
The sprout dominated the sky even from here, rising beyond so hills.
Don stood near Charles, watching as he was treated.
A thick blanket had been pulled around his shoulders, wings fully retracted, though one side of his back showed a dark, narrow slit where what remained of an injured wing had been forced in.
Blood had soaked through the fabric there, drying stiff against his blanket.
The woman tending to him was older, hair pulled into a tight bun streaked with gray, glasses perched low on her nose as she worked with calm movents despite the chaos around them. "You’re going to be just fine, Silverwing," she said, tightening a wrap. "Anything beyond this will need a physician trained for your physiology."
Charles nodded, eyes still fixed on the distant structure. "Thank you," he said quietly. "That won’t be a problem."
He turned his head toward Don. "I managed to reach the chopper. It’ll be here soon."
Don looked away toward the skyline. "Good. Take as many people as you can."
Charles smiled faintly. "Sohow, I knew you’d want to stay."
Don didn’t answer right away.
He had wanted nothing more than to leave the mont they broke free of the tunnels. To put distance between himself and everything beneath the ground.
But standing there now, staring at what had erged, he knew he couldn’t walk away—not yet. He wasn’t sure he could handle it, not alone, maybe not at all.
But beastshift sharpened everything.
He could see the losses scattered across the camps. Bodies laid out beneath tarps. Survivors wandering in shock. He could hear it too—the panic carried on the air, distant screams from Havenridge, voices crying for help that hadn’t reached any responder yet.
This hero work had always been a ans to an end for him.
But he couldn’t convince himself to leave.
Don stepped away from the container, boots crunching over broken glass and dirt as the ground shuddered again beneath him. "Believe ," he said, voice low, "I want nothing more than to leave. But so of us have to stay until backup arrives. Otherwise the town—the people—"
He didn’t finish.
Charles didn’t need him to.
"I’ll make sure capable help is on the way," Charles said, nodding once.
Footsteps approached behind them.
Starboy ca into view, tipping back a white bottle and draining it in one long pull before tossing it aside. "I’m staying too," he said.
Don turned. "You’re exhausted," he said flatly. "You’ll get yourself killed."
Starboy frowned. "I’m not asking for permission." He glanced away toward the sprout. "I was just low on electrolytes. I’m fine."
Don studied him for a second, then nodded. He didn’t have the energy to argue—and if Starboy staying eased even a fraction of what was coming, he’d take it.
"Let’s go," Don said.
He broke into a controlled sprint, careful not to drive too much force into the unstable ground. The earth bucked beneath him, dust puffing up with every step.
Starboy hovered, rose a few ters, then glanced back at Charles before flying after Don.
Charles watched them go.
He then turned his head toward Frostbite, standing behind an overturned Escalade as another dic worked on her. She didn’t look back. Her eyes stayed locked on the two figures shrinking into the distance.
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