PA 3.5: End of a Tail

Chapter XXI Part I

K-THOOM

Cujo and Coco both felt the house lightly rattle as a muffled concussive blast rang out from outside of the house, towards the south, away from the front yard.

"What the hell?!" Coco yelled, rushing over to her window and pressing her forehead up against it, nearly knocking her witch's hat off as the cool glass mingled with her fur. She saw nothing in the yard, but peering to the left of it revealed a half of a fallen tree, one that looked like it had been blown to pieces by some kind of explosion. Just inside of her keen hearing, Coco could perceive Rover's muffled screaming.

"What- What- What's going on?!" Cujo stammered.

The cat held on to her hat and gripped her wand tight. "Get the hell out of the way, GO!" she screamed, barreling past Cujo as she rushed out of the room.

Cujo allowed the bombay to shove him out of the way, looking at her with fear as she began to descend the staircase as rapidly as she could.

He muttered aloud, as if he was still audible to Coco, "You don't think that was-" his eyes went wide in panic as his whole body froze up, "Is it him?!"

Downstairs, Olive shuddered at the sound of the ground-rattling explosion. Their paws clenched together as they searched around the room nervously for the origin of the rattling.

"Wh-What was that?!" they stuttered out, casting their gaze towards the floor as they bunched up the thin blanket in their arms, stopping halfway through folding it.

Brownie similarly froze in apprehension. "C-Coco?" she muttered out, musing on the possibility that the bombay was to blame for the sound, but it soon became evident that it couldn't be the case and that something else was unfortunately far more likely.

"B-Brownie, what was-"

"Olive, stay there!" Brownie yelled, scrambling to get up from her cross-legged position near the table only to almost immediately trip over her own feet in her rush. Once she stumbled across the room, she let herself impact against the door, quickly fumbling with the old handle and trying to unlock it.

Olive, who had been standing near the kitchen doorway, gently placing down cushions and blankets, couldn't help but cringe at the sudden explosion of energy. "Brownie you're sc-scaring me," they muttered inaudibly, bringing their paws up to their mouth and letting their mind blank as fear of the unknown took over.

"Aghhh, stupid ffff-" Brownie hissed, a moment before she managed to strongarm the hunk of metal into submissiveness. Worn brass scraped against worn brass as she turned the handle and threw open the door as quickly as she could, nearly smashing it against the adjacent wall.  The sinister air of the magically polluted Kemono Woods wafted into the room, bringing in with it the cold malice that made Olive shiver twice over. "Rover?!" she shortly yelled afterward, staring in a direction outside Olive couldn't quite see before rushing outside and letting the door slowly rebound shut. Strangely, they heard sounds of Rover and Sparky's voice- unintelligible mumbles that sounded pained.

The shaking little puppy wrapped the blanket in their paws around themselves almost instinctively; something was wrong, but it went entirely past Olive's ability to understand. The sounds of someone rushing down the stairs would've alarmed them were they not still coping with the surrounding situation. They snugly wrapped the blanket tighter and tighter, forming a shield against the invasive cold that their thin fur couldn't handle. "M-Maybe I should j-just have a snack and calm d-"

"ROVER!!!"

Olive jumped at the horrible sound, eyes widening as the haunting scream penetrated their mind and left them senseless. They barely recognized Coco leaping from the staircase and nearly tripping over her own robe in a bid to get outside as quickly as possible. The bombay ran towards the door like a cat possessed, barreling into it and tugging at the handle with as little grace as a cat could possibly have.

"C-C-Coco?" Olive begged, trying to push aside the rising realization in their stomach. Unsurprisingly, they were ignored as the bombay rushed outside with her flourishing outfit.

"Brownie, what's wrong?!" Coco demanded. Olive couldn't see the exchange, only Coco turning her head and bulging her eyes in fury. There was a light whooshing sound, followed by a sickening crack as Coco whipped her wand backward, then towards whatever she was aiming at. The sound was sudden enough that Olive clutched their ears, dropping the snug blanket and backing up against the wall.

"Please s-stop..." the mutt whispered, begging as they squeezed their eyes shut and tried desperately to ignore the spiders crawling around in their stomach.

"Bastard!" Coco screamed. The rattling of metal could be heard as she flung open the yard's gate as wide as it could go.

"No, Coco, stop!" Brownie begged, grasping the cat and preventing her from rushing further down the stone path.

"Let GO of me!" Coco yelled, finding it difficult to wrest herself from the corgi's stronger grip.

"C-Coco he's dead you can't-"

"He's going to pay for it!" Coco screamed back, "He's going to pay for what he did to him, and for what he did to my brother! I'm going to kill that bastard!"

"Coco-" Brownie stammered, trying to calm the cat down only to be interrupted by Coco tugging free of her grip. "Coco! What about us?!"

The witch paused at the edge of the gate, gripping her wand with such ferocity that her claws began to emerge from her paws. She grimaced intensely, baring her fangs at nobody in particular and lowering her head as she fought the feelings of anger welling up inside of her body.

"Sparky," Rover muttered, barely audible as he scrunched his muzzle up into the dirt, trying to bury his head into the ground. "Sparky."

"Rover, are you okay?" Brownie said, voice growing with concern as she gripped the dog's shoulders, then gently began to shake him.

"S-Sparky?" he pleaded, raising his head up towards Brownie with a despondent glare. He took his paws off of his head and braced them on either side of himself.

"Rover, c'mon, let's get inside." Brownie began to shake him up, gripping him by an elbow and lifting him up as best as the younger dog could.

"B-But Sparky's-" Rover began to turn his head to the right, to where he had last seen his captain. He barely caught a glimpse of a grey-furred mangled mess with a maroon blob sitting atop his groin before Brownie gripped him by the cheek and turned him away.

"Rover, don't look. Just- just come inside, okay?" Brownie gripped him by the arm, bringing her own around his neck to help steer him away from the scene. Despite one being two years older than the other, Brownie had very little trouble moving him towards the doorway with her rough handling.

The moment Rover got off of his knees and onto his feet, he immediately felt the pain of whatever shrapnel was lodged into his right leg as the muscles tried to move, and scraped against the invading body. He winced, surprisingly resilient to how painful the jutting wood seemed.

"Dude, c'mon, just follow me," Brownie said, encouraging the dog to let her handle the lack of support on his right leg, and continue limping towards the house.

"Don't- not me, what happened to the captain?"

"Rover please just come inside," Brownie begged, slowly beginning to make her way inside with the injured dog, immediately greeting Olive with a limping, half-delirious Rover in addition to her own shock at the situation.