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Description
The Last Afternoon

A transformative Tale

Midsummer afternoons were meant for having fun or relaxing , if you could do so. Sometimes work had to take up the hours though. Important work, desperately needed as urgent work - even more so. Among many, there was an especial need to relax and enjoy as there were so many signs of late that any day might soon be the last one.

How mankind ever got so close to the edge is almost as much a mystery as how they could ever step back from it. The way ahead almost seemed to be written beforehand, so - like a car wreck, we could only watch as it unfolded in slow motion. A suspension of all air and road travel made it just all the more quieter, more ominous.

A sight seen never by humans, a Dragon , with a Wolf - anthro riding him was looping over the countryside of Western Nebraska. Proceeding from routes selected to avoid sightings rather than following the highway, they instead make their way along a creek, carefully counting the bends. On the bend marked as number 12, a hard right turn plus descending to low heights, skimming the corn stalks as their goal soon appears ahead.

Two pairs of the sharpest eyes see the fenced rectangle of gravel parking lot, empty looking except for a tall silver mast at the center with a low concrete block(s) at the South corner. The dragon pulls out a crystal while chanting a short incantation then placing it back around his neck. The two make a landing behind the concrete forms so that they cannot be seen from the highway or the small building a hundred yards away. Clearly they are on an appointment of secrecy.

Dismounting, the wolf asks “Everything dampened?” to which the dragon holds up the crystal with a nod of yes as they move to the door of the structure. A house will have a door, along with a bell, maybe even a knocker plus a welcome mat. This door is circular with a combination lock set into it, and it lies on the ground, simply as a manhole entry. With his incredible hearing, the Dragon quickly has the combination dialed in with the latch under it lifted. Exposing a pump lever, several strokes of this by the wolf raises the door up so they can take the stairs down below.

Pushing a handle once indoors lowers the lid - like door again, bringing both into a semi-lit room. The lights are from a row of electronics cabinets and equipment racks, plenty for these two to navigate. Now hidden they start to converse more readily.

“Glad this is the last one” the wolf muttered.

“Same here, its almost getting boring” the dragon replied.

"Must be getting close, seeing as how we're doing this by daylight now, I guess every minute matters now," The wolf concluded.

Making their way to the next room, the two walk on a metal platform, reaching a retracted metal walkway. With a gentle push, the walkway moves into position and locks into place, allowing the two to step over to the middle of the room, where a cylindrical object stands. The two crouch at the side of the object.

“Lets get it done, I’m ready for lunch!” the wolf grumbled, followed by the dragon opening a door at the side of the object.

A second panel inside the cylinder is raised revealing a package of cones, cool , dark and forbidding, three of them together. “Almost there,” the Dragon said, as he pulled a glowing rod from his pouch then placed it into the center of the three cones. In moments, the violet glow moves from the rod into the cones, causing them to glow.

“Done,” said the Dragon, sliding the cover back down. He turns next to a circuit board, locates a hidden spot and with a claw tip, carefully breaks a printed wire trace.

Closing and latching the cover on the cylinder, the two make their way back over the walkway to the metal platform to quickly pull back the walkway over again to the wall plus latch it there.

Moving back to the room entry, a soft sound from a wall mounted box freezes the Dragon in place.

“I thought you had the systems shut down?” the wolf gruffly asked.

Click... The room is suddenly lit!

“I did, this is not the security system anyway, the only way they would use this is....” the Dragon muses.

Click tick click click...........................CLACK!

“Relays!” yelled the wolf, followed by “They’re going to do it, they are going to do it, those damn fools, they're starting it - now!!! Four more and this thing is moving... RUN!!!”

Click tick click click...........................CLACK!

Click tick click... The two are running back through the electronics room. An ear splitting alarm goes off, almost crippling them. Up the ladder with a mighty shove puts the door manhole open again as they tumble out onto the ground. They both know that the sound made the room unlivable, but out here was an even worse possibility. One chance only- the Dragon grabs the wolf at the elbow then pulls him next to his body as he crouches, spreading his wings. A hard rap on the crystal produces a humming sound and a glow surrounds the dome of the wings covering the two in a hemispheric shield.

In the fields surrounding them, a last moment of silence, the world soon to change forever....

A deep roar as two charges explode, pushing the big cement block over into another one, shattering it while stopping the first piece. It has moved 20 feet, just exposing a hole in the earth. From the hole a deeper roar soon bellows, almost as though a great beast has awakened. A ring of fire belches from the hole into the sky, changing to a large ring of smoke. The ground trembles as a long cylinder rises from the hole, its pointed nose moving skywards, the lower end of it thundering a greenish blue fire. The beast has awakened, by a Presidential order combined with the turning of two keys!

The blast of rocket exhaust batters the shield but it holds. Looking to the sides, the Dragon sees the roof blow off a nearby barn while the next door building peels off all of its shingles. The battering ends as the shield withdraws back into the crystal, allowing the two to rise. The wolf puts a paw on the Dragon’s shoulder, saying “Thanks, old friend.”

Looking up, their beast is roaring into the sky, plus all around them, in the distance, in their ones and two’s more and more of the objects are rising on brilliant white clouds of smoke and fire. As they gain height, each starts making slight changes in direction, some leaning one way or to another, as though each is on its own destiny. Way down South, still more of the shafts of light are rising, then from behind the mountains still more, hundreds are now knifing into the blue.

The sound of the alarm from inside the complex shuts down, birds are chirping, wind rustles corn and wheat, like nothing ever happened, like the world still had a future...

“I sure wish someone would have tested the changes we have been making, now its a matter of turn or burn!” said the Dragon. The wolf nodded, growling “Stupid people- they haven’t tested one of these in 25 years, plus 25 more since one was tried above ground. For all we know its a dud taking a ride.”

From farmhouses, people began filtering outside watching the show, surprisingly - little panic or outburst but more of a numbed sense of resignation.

Next door to them had been a control center whose hatches in the ground now sprang open, crews tumbling out onto the lawn, watching the departing beasts going over the horizon. A group of them came walking over to the empty launcher as the Wolf and Dragon stood there. It really didn’t matter where you were, the area around them would be hit in kind. For each beast moving out of sight above, soon a equal beast from another country would come in exactly the same way, aimed at the spot on which they stood. Retaliation, deterrence, mutually assured... yadda yadda...

They could fly away, but that was pointless given that the entire state was about to fry. The men approaching knew this, unlocking the gate they fatalistically wanted to be under the explosion, rather than be wounded, poisoned, blinded or buried alive inside bunkers. They had lawn chairs and even a cooler with them, so after inspecting the smoking hole, set them up - paying little attention to the two mythic creatures.

Sitting back , one of them opens the cooler, even offers a bottle to the two of them “Have a cold one, the second half is about to begin.” One of them stares at the mythic twosome but then sits on the concrete lid that had covered its beast for nearly half a century. The man looks again at the two then softly asks “Why are you here, and why now?”

Answering, the wolf says “We were here to conduct a little experiment, before you started yours.”

Some more heads began turning to the two of them.

“What exactly did you two do?” asked the one in the lounge chair, noting the access hole to the underground complex left open near them.

“Your answer is coming right up,...erm....down” said the Dragon, pointing to a patch of sky now showing brilliant moving lines appearing, these pointed downwards, coming in from space.

“Those are coming from the other side of the world, my green friend, so you didn’t change them.” the man stated.

“You are correct, I didn’t...but my associates...they did!” the wolf laughed.

The humans looked at each other then at the two. Smiling the Dragon said “You may feel some discomfo....”

A series of multicolored flashes lit up the sky from their altitudes of many miles high. The warheads had exploded. The lights merged into an overall wave, coming down toward the ground, but lightening as it came.

The wave seemed to pass into the ground, having gone through everyone and every thing at the surface.

All of the people began looking at their fingers, one asked the other if it was tingling sensation, to which the other nodded at him.

The wolf and Dragon stood, hoping that their mages and alchemists had been right, the experiment was in high gear.

“Cool light show with particle shower” said the fellow in the lawn chair, taking another chug on the bottle, one he had never expected to be remaining there to drink fully.

“So you guys basically pulled the teeth on all those bombs, well, I thank You both along with all the rest of your friends. Personally I’m Nineteen and would like more years.” Said the one sitting on the top of the Silo door.

“Actually we did quite a bit more than that, you may want to remove your shoes, belts, suspenders then most clothes while you still can.” said the Dragon getting a chuckle from some of them, but a few more starting to unlace their boots.

“Belllllllllllllllllllllllllllchhhhhhhhh!” from Mr. Lawnchair as he looked at his wrist, starting to grow black and gray scales. The others came to look as another began to sprout fur, gray fur. Another was producing feathers. A bottle shattered as its holder grimaced a bit but noticing the hand and arm growing in size plus in muscle.

With a groan, each began to change.

Arms became claws, feet turning digitigrade for some of them, hair, fur or scales. Some cries of pain, others in shouts of disbelief, or expletives.

Horns, fins, ridges, even wings and tails. A wonderful concerto of morphology played out around the two figures as they watched.

Many minutes later, the launch crew were consisted of a second Dragon, two wolves, a centaur, two Griffons along with a rather friendly looking Naga.

The commander, now wolfen- began “How could you do this? What, is this like a punishment? turn all the crews at just these sites into animals?”

The original wolf said “No, its bigger than that actually, you see, the wave passed into the earth where next it mixed with the core energy then rebounded outwards. Everyone was exposed, from deepest bunkers to space station along with the entire surface, not just the upper Midwest.”

“But WHY?!” from lawnchair wolf.

“To give you all a chance to try living again” said the original Dragon.

“Who said we needed help though, No one ASKED YOU, what ever gave you the idea we needed help or something?” asked the seated wolf.

The original Dragon simply pointed to the empty silo, still smoking.

He then nodded to the wolf who had accompanied him today, who waited as the dragon crouched then lowered his head, allowing the wolf to climb aboard. A quick lunge and flap, as the two began their homeward journey, unaffected by the waves of energy still bouncing and shimmering.

From fields, farms and towns , slowly - in their ones and twos rising up were Dragons, Gryphons, Hippogryphs and more, some younger, some older, all fledglings.

Their mission was complete, right or wrong...the reset button for Terra had been pushed, society had been re-booted, new version begins.

Up ahead of the pair, two Dragons were in a definite shoving match, not wanting to simply give right of way or maybe staking out territory in the air over their city. Old habits still making themselves known.

It would be a long way forward....

Description
The Last Afternoon

A transformative Tale

Midsummer afternoons were meant for having fun or relaxing , if you could do so. Sometimes work had to take up the hours though. Important work, desperately needed as urgent work - even more so. Among many, there was an especial need to relax and enjoy as there were so many signs of late that any day might soon be the last one.

How mankind ever got so close to the edge is almost as much a mystery as how they could ever step back from it. The way ahead almost seemed to be written beforehand, so - like a car wreck, we could only watch as it unfolded in slow motion. A suspension of all air and road travel made it just all the more quieter, more ominous.

A sight seen never by humans, a Dragon , with a Wolf - anthro riding him was looping over the countryside of Western Nebraska. Proceeding from routes selected to avoid sightings rather than following the highway, they instead make their way along a creek, carefully counting the bends. On the bend marked as number 12, a hard right turn plus descending to low heights, skimming the corn stalks as their goal soon appears ahead.

Two pairs of the sharpest eyes see the fenced rectangle of gravel parking lot, empty looking except for a tall silver mast at the center with a low concrete block(s) at the South corner. The dragon pulls out a crystal while chanting a short incantation then placing it back around his neck. The two make a landing behind the concrete forms so that they cannot be seen from the highway or the small building a hundred yards away. Clearly they are on an appointment of secrecy.

Dismounting, the wolf asks “Everything dampened?” to which the dragon holds up the crystal with a nod of yes as they move to the door of the structure. A house will have a door, along with a bell, maybe even a knocker plus a welcome mat. This door is circular with a combination lock set into it, and it lies on the ground, simply as a manhole entry. With his incredible hearing, the Dragon quickly has the combination dialed in with the latch under it lifted. Exposing a pump lever, several strokes of this by the wolf raises the door up so they can take the stairs down below.

Pushing a handle once indoors lowers the lid - like door again, bringing both into a semi-lit room. The lights are from a row of electronics cabinets and equipment racks, plenty for these two to navigate. Now hidden they start to converse more readily.

“Glad this is the last one” the wolf muttered.

“Same here, its almost getting boring” the dragon replied.

"Must be getting close, seeing as how we're doing this by daylight now, I guess every minute matters now," The wolf concluded.

Making their way to the next room, the two walk on a metal platform, reaching a retracted metal walkway. With a gentle push, the walkway moves into position and locks into place, allowing the two to step over to the middle of the room, where a cylindrical object stands. The two crouch at the side of the object.

“Lets get it done, I’m ready for lunch!” the wolf grumbled, followed by the dragon opening a door at the side of the object.

A second panel inside the cylinder is raised revealing a package of cones, cool , dark and forbidding, three of them together. “Almost there,” the Dragon said, as he pulled a glowing rod from his pouch then placed it into the center of the three cones. In moments, the violet glow moves from the rod into the cones, causing them to glow.

“Done,” said the Dragon, sliding the cover back down. He turns next to a circuit board, locates a hidden spot and with a claw tip, carefully breaks a printed wire trace.

Closing and latching the cover on the cylinder, the two make their way back over the walkway to the metal platform to quickly pull back the walkway over again to the wall plus latch it there.

Moving back to the room entry, a soft sound from a wall mounted box freezes the Dragon in place.

“I thought you had the systems shut down?” the wolf gruffly asked.

Click... The room is suddenly lit!

“I did, this is not the security system anyway, the only way they would use this is....” the Dragon muses.

Click tick click click...........................CLACK!

“Relays!” yelled the wolf, followed by “They’re going to do it, they are going to do it, those damn fools, they're starting it - now!!! Four more and this thing is moving... RUN!!!”

Click tick click click...........................CLACK!

Click tick click... The two are running back through the electronics room. An ear splitting alarm goes off, almost crippling them. Up the ladder with a mighty shove puts the door manhole open again as they tumble out onto the ground. They both know that the sound made the room unlivable, but out here was an even worse possibility. One chance only- the Dragon grabs the wolf at the elbow then pulls him next to his body as he crouches, spreading his wings. A hard rap on the crystal produces a humming sound and a glow surrounds the dome of the wings covering the two in a hemispheric shield.

In the fields surrounding them, a last moment of silence, the world soon to change forever....

A deep roar as two charges explode, pushing the big cement block over into another one, shattering it while stopping the first piece. It has moved 20 feet, just exposing a hole in the earth. From the hole a deeper roar soon bellows, almost as though a great beast has awakened. A ring of fire belches from the hole into the sky, changing to a large ring of smoke. The ground trembles as a long cylinder rises from the hole, its pointed nose moving skywards, the lower end of it thundering a greenish blue fire. The beast has awakened, by a Presidential order combined with the turning of two keys!

The blast of rocket exhaust batters the shield but it holds. Looking to the sides, the Dragon sees the roof blow off a nearby barn while the next door building peels off all of its shingles. The battering ends as the shield withdraws back into the crystal, allowing the two to rise. The wolf puts a paw on the Dragon’s shoulder, saying “Thanks, old friend.”

Looking up, their beast is roaring into the sky, plus all around them, in the distance, in their ones and two’s more and more of the objects are rising on brilliant white clouds of smoke and fire. As they gain height, each starts making slight changes in direction, some leaning one way or to another, as though each is on its own destiny. Way down South, still more of the shafts of light are rising, then from behind the mountains still more, hundreds are now knifing into the blue.

The sound of the alarm from inside the complex shuts down, birds are chirping, wind rustles corn and wheat, like nothing ever happened, like the world still had a future...

“I sure wish someone would have tested the changes we have been making, now its a matter of turn or burn!” said the Dragon. The wolf nodded, growling “Stupid people- they haven’t tested one of these in 25 years, plus 25 more since one was tried above ground. For all we know its a dud taking a ride.”

From farmhouses, people began filtering outside watching the show, surprisingly - little panic or outburst but more of a numbed sense of resignation.

Next door to them had been a control center whose hatches in the ground now sprang open, crews tumbling out onto the lawn, watching the departing beasts going over the horizon. A group of them came walking over to the empty launcher as the Wolf and Dragon stood there. It really didn’t matter where you were, the area around them would be hit in kind. For each beast moving out of sight above, soon a equal beast from another country would come in exactly the same way, aimed at the spot on which they stood. Retaliation, deterrence, mutually assured... yadda yadda...

They could fly away, but that was pointless given that the entire state was about to fry. The men approaching knew this, unlocking the gate they fatalistically wanted to be under the explosion, rather than be wounded, poisoned, blinded or buried alive inside bunkers. They had lawn chairs and even a cooler with them, so after inspecting the smoking hole, set them up - paying little attention to the two mythic creatures.

Sitting back , one of them opens the cooler, even offers a bottle to the two of them “Have a cold one, the second half is about to begin.” One of them stares at the mythic twosome but then sits on the concrete lid that had covered its beast for nearly half a century. The man looks again at the two then softly asks “Why are you here, and why now?”

Answering, the wolf says “We were here to conduct a little experiment, before you started yours.”

Some more heads began turning to the two of them.

“What exactly did you two do?” asked the one in the lounge chair, noting the access hole to the underground complex left open near them.

“Your answer is coming right up,...erm....down” said the Dragon, pointing to a patch of sky now showing brilliant moving lines appearing, these pointed downwards, coming in from space.

“Those are coming from the other side of the world, my green friend, so you didn’t change them.” the man stated.

“You are correct, I didn’t...but my associates...they did!” the wolf laughed.

The humans looked at each other then at the two. Smiling the Dragon said “You may feel some discomfo....”

A series of multicolored flashes lit up the sky from their altitudes of many miles high. The warheads had exploded. The lights merged into an overall wave, coming down toward the ground, but lightening as it came.

The wave seemed to pass into the ground, having gone through everyone and every thing at the surface.

All of the people began looking at their fingers, one asked the other if it was tingling sensation, to which the other nodded at him.

The wolf and Dragon stood, hoping that their mages and alchemists had been right, the experiment was in high gear.

“Cool light show with particle shower” said the fellow in the lawn chair, taking another chug on the bottle, one he had never expected to be remaining there to drink fully.

“So you guys basically pulled the teeth on all those bombs, well, I thank You both along with all the rest of your friends. Personally I’m Nineteen and would like more years.” Said the one sitting on the top of the Silo door.

“Actually we did quite a bit more than that, you may want to remove your shoes, belts, suspenders then most clothes while you still can.” said the Dragon getting a chuckle from some of them, but a few more starting to unlace their boots.

“Belllllllllllllllllllllllllllchhhhhhhhh!” from Mr. Lawnchair as he looked at his wrist, starting to grow black and gray scales. The others came to look as another began to sprout fur, gray fur. Another was producing feathers. A bottle shattered as its holder grimaced a bit but noticing the hand and arm growing in size plus in muscle.

With a groan, each began to change.

Arms became claws, feet turning digitigrade for some of them, hair, fur or scales. Some cries of pain, others in shouts of disbelief, or expletives.

Horns, fins, ridges, even wings and tails. A wonderful concerto of morphology played out around the two figures as they watched.

Many minutes later, the launch crew were consisted of a second Dragon, two wolves, a centaur, two Griffons along with a rather friendly looking Naga.

The commander, now wolfen- began “How could you do this? What, is this like a punishment? turn all the crews at just these sites into animals?”

The original wolf said “No, its bigger than that actually, you see, the wave passed into the earth where next it mixed with the core energy then rebounded outwards. Everyone was exposed, from deepest bunkers to space station along with the entire surface, not just the upper Midwest.”

“But WHY?!” from lawnchair wolf.

“To give you all a chance to try living again” said the original Dragon.

“Who said we needed help though, No one ASKED YOU, what ever gave you the idea we needed help or something?” asked the seated wolf.

The original Dragon simply pointed to the empty silo, still smoking.

He then nodded to the wolf who had accompanied him today, who waited as the dragon crouched then lowered his head, allowing the wolf to climb aboard. A quick lunge and flap, as the two began their homeward journey, unaffected by the waves of energy still bouncing and shimmering.

From fields, farms and towns , slowly - in their ones and twos rising up were Dragons, Gryphons, Hippogryphs and more, some younger, some older, all fledglings.

Their mission was complete, right or wrong...the reset button for Terra had been pushed, society had been re-booted, new version begins.

Up ahead of the pair, two Dragons were in a definite shoving match, not wanting to simply give right of way or maybe staking out territory in the air over their city. Old habits still making themselves known.

It would be a long way forward....