NOVEL SIMPLE 49 - Not much of a plan
With sodden fur weighing him down, David floated contentedly in the river's gentle current near the shore, playfully snapping at the occasional bubble that drifted by as he swam in lazy circles. Claire crouched just upstream and played her usual game of attempting to drink the entire river dry while she kept half an eye on him as he relaxed. His snout pushed under the water while he exhaled, and a storm of bubbles floated to the surface before he withdrew his face and sneezed while laughing and doing it a few more times. Claire paused momentarily as she scooped water into her maw, lower jaw still in the river, and rolled her eyes mightily before she finished the motion and swallowed. David’s ears twitched as he had a fantastic idea and inhaled hugely before shoving his entire head into the water and activated Screech at full power, a visible shockwave racing away from him before a bubble big enough to flip him over blasted up to the surface and did just that.
“David, you’re acting like my dog every time I take him down here, you know that?” Claire giggled loudly while she watched him right himself in the water while he laughed hysterically.
David allowed himself to float in circles as he was caught up in a small eddy current, “Yeah! I finally understand why they do this, this is great! Way more fun with a better sense of smell, you should try it. It’s too hot today, and I needed to chill out a bit after everything.”
She rolled her eyes at the pun before pausing thoughtfully and craned her enormous head up to regard the bright sun in the sky before turning back to him with a look of pure mischief. David’s ears folded down over the back of his head and his eyes widened as she stood and backpedaled a few paces, before surging forward into the river with a happy noise somewhere between a collapsing building and an engine malfunction. David instantly began to paddle his wings to turn, desperately attempting to put some distance between him and the enormous belly-flopping lizard as she howled right before she hit the water.
“Cannonball!”
“No no no! ACK!” David barked fearfully as a wave big enough for him to surf on devoured him mercilessly, sending him tumbling as it scooped him up and buried him a few feet away. He broke the surface with a gasp, whirling around to glare at her before exploding into laughter.
She had hit bottom and was trying to wiggle herself into slightly deeper water without standing fully, nostrils flaring and blowing huge jets of river water into the air before she finally reached deeper water and began to swim with only the top of her head, snout, and armored back still visible. Claire clacked her jaws a few times, water splashing everywhere before she groaned with pleasure when the cool water finally enveloped her, and she began to slowly wander her way over to where David was making his way back to the comfortable eddy. David stuck his tongue out at her, and it extended a disturbingly long way, causing her to snort and swing her giant head at him and bury him with another wave before he tapped out.
“Okay! Okay!” David chattered with a bit of a smile, “You win! You win! Don’t laserbreath the city, I beg you, we only just rebuilt from last time.”
Claire took a single step closer, allowing her jaws to break the surface so she could reply, “Queen of Mutants! Seriously though, it’s like I forgot about fun the last few days. We were trying so hard to level up, rank up our skills, making the plan to kill the Crusher…this is kinda nice. It’s hard for me to cool down now, this feels amazing.”
“I’m surprised you can swim that well. Reminds me of a crocodile or something. I figured we should take the opportunity before we head out tomorrow…unless you’re planning on staying here at Woodland?” David asked, trying not to look anxious about her answer.
She shook her head, “No we agreed to stay to help for a bit, and we only came here to see what had happened to everyone…well, everyone here is doing fine. I don’t know about you, but now I want to see what happened everywhere else. Someone has to know what’s going on, right? We all got that text, so someone knew something was about to happen. What are the chances they ended up in the first wave too?”
‘I hadn’t thought of that. Hrmm.” David idly floated in slow circles, “Probably pretty good, huh? At least if they knew what was gonna happen and not just that it’d be something bad…hey! There’s that observatory out on Flathead Peak past Redfield right?! Do you think any of them might have made it to this Wave?”
She cocked her head at the question before shrugging cluelessly, little waves rippling outwards with the motion. Claire then shot him a suspicious look just over the surface of the river before she allowed her snout to sink beneath the waves and blew an impressive amount of bubbles before her eyes widened. She briefly surfaced to inhale so forcefully that David was worried she was going to roar into the water and drown herself before she began to enthusiastically blow even more bubbles, her long tail almost wagging in the water behind her in time with her delight. He shook his head at the sight and joined in for a moment before they both had to breathe and started giggling like children.
“I say we head down the highway, hit Redfield, and see if anyone came down from the observatory. Then we go check it out if we don't find anyone.” David barked, “It’s not much of a plan, but what's the other option? We go look for some hidden government bunker that’s off the books and probably rigged to explode or something?”
Claire shrugged again, “Your plan worked the last two times, at this point, I’m inclined to think you’re an idiot savant when it comes to whatever it is that’s happening. I’ll come along, Woodland is nice but we only really have to come back when we know the second Wave is about to start. If my Mom hatches here I’m positive Herold will be there with tea and a blanket. It makes me feel a lot better.”
David nodded and grinned, his long savage canines gleaming in the evening sun before he finally sighed in satisfaction and swam over to Claire. He clambered onto her back as she chuckled, sinking slightly and allowing him to rest in a small amount of water to remain cool. David thanked her and rested for a moment as she turned to face the river instead of the shore, and they spent a few minutes just watching the river roll by in silence. As they watched the strange insects flit about and listened to the exotic sounds drifting out of the forest across the wide body of water Claire finally broke the silence with a conversational rumble.
“Seriously, though. I do want to know what happened everywhere else, like, what happened in the really big cities? If Riverport is big enough to have an Area Boss…then there are cities big enough to have two or three.” Claire grumbled in a frustrated tone of voice, “I’m just...vaguely worried in general for the last ten days since we hatched and it never stops. Knowing a little bit about what’s going on would help a lot, I think.”
David nodded, “I wish my Dad was here, he’d probably figure it out in like two days and drag Omega out from behind the curtain and throw him down a flight of stairs or something.”
Claire remained carefully silent for a few heartbeats before speaking, “You started to mention him a few times but stopped yourself, you must miss him.”
“Yeah…he’s not a superhero or anything, he’s just a Park Ranger out in the Rockies. He got the job when he was 16 because he’s huge and lied on his application back when they didn’t care as much.” David said with a sad laugh, “He’d be the perfect person to have around during something like this, he’s probably spent more time outdoors than inside during his life by now…yeah, I miss him.”
“...so, first thing tomorrow? Before it gets hot please, or I’ll have to walk through the trees for the shade.” Claire hissed inquisitively as she smoothly changed the subject at the sudden sadness in David’s voice.
“Huh? Oh, yeah! Gonna be sad to say goodbye to everybody, but we’ve hit a wall leveling here. No more progress to be had all of the sudden, I’m betting there’s still good Quests out there somewhere though.” David barked as he snapped out of his melancholy.
“You and those damn quests…”