NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="talien" data-source="post: 5382739" data-attributes="member: 3285">Music of the Spheres: Part 18 – The Final CountdownRandy slowed the car down as they left the black cloud behind.  Just like a sudden rainstorm, it settled to the ground.  The locusts, which were surely no ordinary locusts, would scour everything clean.  Randy suspected only bleached bones would be left of the guards and Donny."Radio should be safe if you want to try it," said Randy.  "The Apache back there tore up whatever was transmitting that sound.""You're sure?" asked Judy skeptically."Nope, but then I'm not sure about anything these days."Judy fiddled with the emergency band on the radio.  There were snippets of military communications audible through the static. "PURGATORY strike commencing…fifty-five...fifty-four..." Static. "...fifty-one...fifty...""Is that a…a countdown?" asked Alexis. "A countdown to what?" responded Crystal."Gun it Randy!" shouted Judy.Randy slammed his foot hard on the accelerator.  The ambulance roared ahead, barreling down the quiet country road. "...twenty...nineteen...eighteen...seventeen...sixteen..."The ambulance tore past frightened horses jumping back from a roadside fence.  Randy barely registered them as they blew past. "...ten...nine...eight...""Girls, I want you to listen to me very carefully," said Judy, her voice calm, controlled.  She got up, buckling the seatbelts on each of the girls. "I want you to stay strapped in.  And I want you to sit as low as possible." The seats weren't optimal in the ambulance, but there was only so much time to prepare.  "Do you understand me?""Yes, but mom…" began Alexis."...five... four...three...""No time honey.  You hold on tight.  And if you can't find me, you find your sister okay?" She hugged both girls in her arms, the model of motherly efficiency.  Then she clambered back to the front seat and buckled herself in."...two...one..."Two jets pulsed past the ambulance, nothing more than black triangles in the sky. They peeled away from their target in a perfectly orchestrated arc. Then it hit. The blinding white detonation of a PURGATORY strike ripped a hole in the sky.  Searing white light filled the ambulance. A luminous shockwave raced across the prairie behind them, sweeping over backlit barns and houses.  It walloped the ambulance like a punch from God, pitching it forward on the front axle.Randy fought to control the ambulance, but there was little he could do. Through the blown out windshield he could see the shockwave go shooting past down the highway, Mach One, its vacuum sucking out the window's side windows - BOOSH!The ambulance fell back onto its rear wheels, snapping the rear axle. Randy wrestled the ambulance under control, steering it onto the shoulder, the axle grinding on pavement. The initial blinding burst dimmed to an eerie crimson half-light. After checking that Judy and the girls were all right, he stepped out of the cab to look at Hayden.It was a netherworld of fire and smoke and swirling ashes. A mile-wide cornfield was engulfed in flames, the posts of a wooden fence alight like a row of torches.  A hellish black-orange mushroom cloud rose up from the prairie beyond. There was no Hayden left to mourn.</blockquote>

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