Mobile Suit Gundam: Rogues

41. Uninvited Guests

The impact caused quite the rumble. Dust covers the area that has been tarnished to a high degree. The shockwave knocks everyone off of their feet and forces them to impact the ground. A moment goes by and Rika is on her back covered in dirt.

"Rika! Rika! Can you hear me?! Rika!" Joshua

Rika hears Joshua but it comes out as a distorted call.

"Rika! Come on Rika!" Joshua

Joshua carefully picks Rika up and places her over his shoulder. Joshua starts to make his way up. Time goes by and Rika's senses start to come back to her.

"Ugh... My head... J-Joshua. What's the status? Where is everyone?" Rika

"Focus on yourself right now. I'm handling  what I'm able to at the moment." Joshua

Joshua makes it to the top and gently sets Rika down a few feet away from the crater.

"Joshua... What happened? I know I saw a meteor. How bad?" Rika

"... It was sudden.... Just after you shouted it... So many.... Look. We can't fully talk right now. Everyone is going to be here pretty soon so just wait here. As soon as you are able you can go and get your coms unit from the Hummer. I'm going back in to help all who I can and-" Joshua

Suddenly. A loud, high-pitched roar sounds off around the area with its origin being from the crater. Both Joshua and Rika turn their head toward the sound, unable to fathom what caused it. Once the sound died out, there was nothing left but silence. Joshua slowly gets up and carefully walks to the edge of the crater. He looks down but is unable to see anything clearly due to the dense dust cloud covering the crater.

"Jo.. Shua." Rika

Joshua simply raises his hand, causing Rika to keep quiet as he looks on. Meanwhile, Cameron and Tyriel monitored the course of the metero storm from the command center.

"The meteor storm looks like it mainly hit the outskirts, but a stray metoer hit the exact spot where the dig sight was!" Cameron

"Was there still no response from Rika?" Tenna via coms.

"Nothing! She must have left it in the hummer again." Cameron

"We need eyes out there!" Tenna

"I already sent out bird's eye mark 4." Tyriel

Bird's eye is a UAV drone that reaches up to 100 miles per hour and was launched toward the outskirts. It zooms in to get a picture perfect view of what is transpiring at the moment.

"There's Rika and Joshua! Rika looks hurt too!" Cameron

"What's Joshua doing?" Tyriel

Joshua looks down but only sees the dust cloud that shrouds the entire crater. As Joshua looks on he catches a glimpse of a shadow but only for a split second because of how fast it moved.

"Something isn't right." Joshua says as he moves toward Rika.

"What? What is it?" Rika

Joshua carefully gets Rika to her feet and supports her as they walk toward the hummer.

"I don't know exactly but I just have one hell of a bad feeling." Joshua

"What kind of feeling Joshua? What did you see?" Rika

"That's just it. All I saw was a shadowy glimpse of something and then the next thing I know it was gone like-" Joshua

The sound of something sharp lodging into the ground catches their attention and they both quickly turn around. A large paw is all that they see but it is enough to send a frightening chill down their spines.