Macro March is in full swing and its mysterious propensity to gigantify furs, and their immediate surroundings, is still poorly understood. A crack team of storm chasers, devoted only to pursuing storms of the Macro kind, are on the case though!

As we near the end of March it's about time I start sharing what I have to show for it! And that happens to be a story commissioned by none other than one of the biggest best wolves and heroes around,  KingDead! Per his wishes I'll be posting a chapter a day until the story is complete.

I hope you enjoy reading it as I certainly enjoyed writing it!

-, -, NEXT

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Macro March: Supersized Storm Chasers
By: RaddaRaem

Chapter 1

"Close but not quite," Rick mumbled through a mouthful of potato chips. The raccoon dismissively waved at the Doppler radar before noisily shoveling handful after handful of barbeque flavored corn starch and food coloring into his maw. "We're a different breed of storm chasers here, Brook."

Brook wiggled his whiskered nose as he tried to make himself comfortable between his new coworkers. Pinched between a generous set of thunder thighs and a rail thin pair of bean poles the tortoise shell cat could only describe his newfound office as ‘cozy.' With a very very VERY heavy emphasis on the air quotes.

"The view's nice enough, I s'pose," Brook thought. Ominous green skies, visible through the hail pelting at their van's windshield, greeted him.

Plunked down in the passenger seat, Lukas swiveled the computer dock towards him. Knees knocking together, and against the metal arm holding the laptop aloft, the fennec rolled his eyes at the oily smudges that blotted the monitor. "Here, Brook, I'll explain." Lukas gestured towards the green, yellow, and red blobs slowly cascading across the screen. "So you've got your run of the mill storms here. Some rain showers, thunderstorms, the occasional super cell, what have you. That's not what we're actually interested in though."

"Uhhh..." Lips pulled flat, Brook pointed outside to the column of clouds coiling towards the earth.

Both Rick and Lukas acknowledged the newly formed tornado with an unenthused shrug.

The fennec's ears, fuzzy satellite dishes swiveling atop his head, flopped back. "I mean, yeah, doesn't hurt to be aware of your surroundings. But that's, what, an F2 at most?"

"If even. We've accidentally driven into worse..." Rick trailed off as he tilted his head back. Tongue lolled out, he held the exhausted bag of chips above him and emptied what crumbs, and clumps of salt, that remained down his gullet.

"Anyyyyyyyyyway," Lukas continued. "You've heard of Macro March, right? And how the past couple of years, right around this time, mysterious storms have been billowing up outta nowhere?"

Brook nodded emphatically. He'd read the stories. Last year alone had been a doozy. An entire college town flattened by a grad student's belches. A plane fracturing apart mid-air when one of the passengers outgrew it. Hell, the pictures too! Of the rescue crews venturing down the badger's throat to rescue an entire class he had swallowed to spare them from being crushed. Then sakes alive the crater that cow left when she fell from the very sky! It was any wonder she, and the crew tucked between her breasts, survived.

"That's what we're chasing," the Lukas smirked.

"What we've been chasing," Rick corrected. "You think all of this is natural?" the raccoon chuckled as he slapped at his gut.

Brook did think his coworkers were a tad... unusual. At least in terms of sheer size. The raccoon towered over the feline, that distended gut of his eye level with Brook, while Lukas was everything a fennec ought not to have been. Even if it was mostly the ears, Lukas still had a good head and shoulders over Brook.

The van creaked in pain at even the subtlest of shifts from Rick. The raccoon, nearly thick as he was tall, had no right fitting in the vehicle as it was. Its undercarriage bowed dangerously close to the asphalt.

"So... wait. This is all residual?" The tortoise shell cat gestured to the both of them in wide eyed shock. "Just being near the storm is enough to grow you?"

Lukas, leaned back and elbow bumping against his armrest of a coworker, sighed at the radar. "It's a prolonged exposure kind of thing. I was tempted to say you'll see for yourself but... eh." He swiveled the laptop dock over towards Rick.

"Aw hell," Rick cursed. He shook his head in disappointment at the Doppler. Whorls of crimson blotted the screen as arcs of lightning arced across the sky and quaked the very land. "C'mere, Brook. Today might be a bust but lemme show you something."

With some trepidation, Brook shifted uneasily on the crumb covered center console that served as his seat. He leaned in close to where Rick's padded finger smudged against the screen.

"Look don't touch," Lukas tutted.

"So see here?" The raccoon dragged his digit back and forth along the storm front and the various colors that comprised it.

A disgusted groan escaped the fennec's lips at the fresh oily stains that now coated the monitor.

Waving his hand about his wrist, Rick casually ignored the vulpine's complaints. "You're familiar enough with the color coding for these things, right? The rainfall intensity and all the implications that carries with it."

Brook bobbed his head. "Right. And?"

"See... with the advent of Macro March storms folks needed a whole new means, a whole new measure, of tracking them." With some difficulty, Rick fat fingered at the keyboard as focus eventually shifted to the Windows Explorer icon lining the toolbar at the bottom of the screen. A couple arrow clicks and taps of the Enter button later and...

A screenshot, titled "THE_BIG_ONE" popped up and spread across the screen. An ominous mass of purple pixels, glowering with intensity, bathed the interior of the van with an unsettling glow.

"To put it plainly, you'll know," Rick snorted while he slapped a hand against Brook's back. His swollen palm practically swallowed up the feline's torso.

Brook's eyes fixated on the capture. Data, that's all it was, crudely crafted into something his mind could just barely begin to grasp yet it filled him with an anxious dread. The power contained in a Macro March storm was impossible to overstate.

"Now I dunno about you two but all this sitting around has me starving!" Rick chuckled as he thrummed his meaty fingers against his gut. "Ya think the Pancake Parlor is still open?"

The cat's whiskers drooped as rain, hail, thunder, and lightning roared down and sirens wailed outside. Visibility was nonexistent. "M-maybe we should wait for the worst to pass before-"

"Iunno. Worth a shot," Lukas shrugged. “Come to think of it, I could really go for some brinner. Ooh, wait, Brook! You ever been?" The fennec asked as he excitedly whacked against the, relatively speaking, bitty kitty's bunched shoulders.

"N-no? I mean I'm fine waiting, really, you don't-"

"Well now we gotta!" Rick hollered. "C'mon little buddy, it'll be our treat!" Turning the key in the ignition, the van kicked to life with a sputter and wheeze. Gravel crunched beneath its wheels as the raccoon, his enormous feet spilling across both the brakes and the accelerator, daintily guided them forth with taps of his toes. They ambled along between the corn fields that lined the lonesome country roads as the wind kicked up and threatened to blow them across into the oncoming lane of traffic.