“It’s pretty,” Wildwalker whispered. “Like the sky is full of falling stars.”

  “Yeah, too bad every one of those flaming meteors actually contains untold numbers of Antithesis, and whatever isn’t burned up by entry will spill out of those pods and swarm whatever settlement is closest,” Mudflap grumbled.

  His partner finally lowered her gaze from the spectacle above, looked towards the grizzled biker, and laughed. “You’ve heard the reports. The Family expects that more than ninety percent of the small pods will burn up before they hit the ground. It’s only the large ones we have to worry about.”

  “It’s not the small ones I’m worried about. They say the large ones may be capable of limited control and may land outside the expected zones,” he replied.

  “The nearest major impact zone is expected to be over five thousand miles away,” Wildwalker said. “Just relax, old man. We’ll probably see one or two pods land in our area, and if any of the Antithesis survive impact, they’ll be too injured to put up a good fight. All we have to do is clean them up and collect easy points.”

  “Listen, kid. You don’t survive as long as I have by taking the Antithesis for granted. If a pod does land in our area, we need to take it seriously. Who knows what sort of monstrosities they had in that moon.”

  “Please don’t give me any of that ‘back in my day’ talk. You may be old enough to be my uncle, but you only awakened a year before me. Give the old man act a break, will you?”

  “I’ll stop worrying when you start taking things more seriously,” Mudflap grumbled.

  Wildwalker just rolled her eyes and raised her face back to the heavens. It wasn’t every day you saw the death of a moon, after all.

  After the Family announced that the Antithesis had thrown a whole moon at the earth the two of them had kept their eyes glued to the info streams. They’d watched as Vanguard around the world spent weeks coordinating their efforts and slowly breaking down the mammoth projectile until, just before it was about to reach earth, it finally broke apart.

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  Even though they’d managed to wear away the vast majority of the planetoid before it broke apart, it still dumped a significant amount of debris into the atmosphere.

  “Do you think we’ll actually get something in our area?” WildWalker asked.

  “Not if we’re lucky,” Mudflap muttered.

  As more and more pods burned up in the atmosphere, they slowly lit up the sky.

  “It would be pretty if it wasn’t so lethal,” WildWalker whispered.

  “Is it just me, or does it feel like the pods are getting closer?” Mudflap grunted.

  “Maybe it’s just bigger ones are finally entering the atmosphere…” Wildwalker started until something caught her eye. “Did that one just turn?”

  “Don’t be stupid. How could they…” Mudflap paused. “Shit.”

  Dozens of small- and medium-sized pods simultaneously turned, changing from arcing across the sky to coming nearly straight down.

  The pair watched as the first pods screamed downwards, and instead of just smashing into the ground, they opened fleshy parachutes, slowing themselves enough to make controlled landings.

  Wild Walker jumped up and started running towards the door, only to be caught by her partner.

  “What are you doing? We need to get out there and deal with those Antithesis!” she hissed.

  “And there are still more pods coming down. What if one hits the town while we’re out dealing with those first pods?” Mudflap asked.

  “Well… we can’t just let them run loose out there,” Wildwalker hissed. “What about the people outside the town? The farms?”

  “We’ll help them, after the planetfall ends,” Mudflap replied. “The people outside town might get hurt, but if one of those things hits the town, we may lose everyone! Think rationally.”

  “Rationality be damned, people are dying right now!” Wildwalker screamed, wrenching her arm out of his grasp. “I’m going!”

  She took a couple steps towards the patio door, then paused as a second sun lit up the sky. The two Samurai paused and looked up as an absolutely massive chunk of the moon flew over the town.

  “Please don’t tell me that is coming down around here…” Wildwalker whined. Despite her fears, the massive chunk slowed its movement across the sky and hovered above the horizon. Slowly the fiery aura around it disappeared and the surface of the massive celestial body writhed. Hundreds of eldritch tentacles, wings and other appendages sprouted from the ball.

  It hung in the sky for what felt like an impossibly long time before slowly descending towards the horizon. As it fell, dozens, hundreds of smaller pods followed it down.

  Although they couldn’t see the impact, they felt it. Massive ground tremors violently shaking the town. The two samurai dove to the ground as shingles slid off the house and rained down upon them.

  When the shaking stopped, Mudflap jumped to his feet and looked towards the horizon. Even with the town’s walls blocking his view he could see the tips of titanic tentacles reaching into the sky.

  “Wild…” he muttered. “Call the Family. We have a problem.”

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