Chapter 124: Storm Warning

The town of Stormcrest looked absolutely fucked.

Grace stepped off the cliff path onto wet cobblestones, immediately slipping. Diana caught her arm, steadying her.

Above them, the sky was having an identity crisis. Dark clouds twisted into baby tornadoes, dissolved into blinding sunshine, then reformed as angry thunderheads. Rain fell sideways. Then upwards. Then not at all.

“Charming,” Diana muttered.

Venus twirled past them, somehow staying bone dry.

“I love what they’ve done with the place.” She struck a pose. “Very end-of-the-world aesthetic.”

Thunder cracked loud enough to make Grace’s teeth rattle. Lightning struck a place three buildings away, turning it into molten slag that dripped onto the street below.

“Okay.” Grace wiped rain from her eyes. “This is… not good.”

“Understatement of the year.”

The locals moved through the chaos like it was just another Tuesday. Which it probably was. An old man swept his porch while hail the size of marbles pelted his roof. A woman hung laundry during a ten-second break between downpours, only to watch it get sucked into a mini cyclone.

“Excuse me!” Grace jogged toward a middle-aged woman hauling a basket of groceries. “We’re here about the, uh, weather situation?”

The woman stopped. Her eyes traveled from Grace’s white angel robes (already soaked through and clinging), to Diana’s warrior getup (which was basically just pants and confidence), to Venus’s physics-defying dress that somehow repelled every raindrop.

“Angels.” The woman’s shoulders sagged with relief. “Thank Eternia. I was starting to think you’d forgotten about us.” She set down her basket. “It’s been three weeks of this madness,” the woman continued.

“Three weeks?” Grace’s voice cracked. “How are you all still functioning?”

“We’re mountain folk. We’re used to weird weather.” The woman gestured at a house missing its entire roof. “But this is something else. Started small. Random rain showers, little dust devils.”

A funnel cloud materialized fifty feet away, casually sucked up an entire chicken coop, then vanished.

Grace, Diana, and Venus, all found their jaws on the floor. The lady, though, simply sighed.

“Then the real storms hit,” the woman said, like poultry-teleporting tornadoes were just a minor inconvenience. “Those are the worst. They don’t just take things.”

Grace’s stomach dropped.

“What do you mean?”

“They take people.” The woman’s voice went flat. “Seventeen so far. Just… gone. Sucked up into the sky and never seen again.”

“That’s…” Grace couldn’t find the right word. Horrible? Terrifying? Completely fucked up?

“Mayor’s daughter was first. Pretty thing, about your age. Had the sweetest smile.” The woman’s eyes went distant. “Tornado appeared right in the market square. No warning. She went up screaming.”

Grace took a deep breath.

“Well, we’ll help,” Grace said firmly. “I promise we’ll fix this and bring them home.”

The woman’s eyes filled with tears.

“You mean that?”

“Absolutely not. We’ll find them. All of them.”

The woman dropped her basket. Before Grace could react, she was wrapped in a crushing hug that smelled like wet wool and desperation.

“Thank you.” The woman sobbed into Grace’s shoulder. “Thank you so much.”

Grace hugged back, trying to channel comfort through the embrace. Her hands found the woman’s waist, rubbing soothing circles. The hug felt good. Warm despite the chaos. Natural, even.

Then, her hands slipped lower. And lower. And lower. Until, without conscious thought, she ended up giving what she meant as a reassuring pat on the lady’s butt, but definitely turned into a squeeze.

Diana snorted.

Venus giggled.

The woman pulled back, face flushed but smiling.

“I, um.” She smoothed her dress. “Should get home before the next lightning round. But thank you. For the, uh, comfort.”

She grabbed her groceries and hurried off, throwing one last glance over her shoulder.

Grace turned to find both Diana and Venus grinning like idiots.

“What?”

“Smooth,” Diana said. “Real smooth.”

“Very comforting technique,” Venus added, eyes sparkling. “The ass grab really sold the sincerity.”

Grace’s face went nuclear.

“I didn’t—”

“You absolutely did.”

“Full palm contact and everything.”

“It was instinctive! Muscle memory!”

“From what?” Diana raised an eyebrow. “All that turnip farming?”

[Oh god. They’re never letting this go.]

Grace looked at her traitorous hands.

“I didn’t mean to! It just happened!”

“Sure it did.” Diana crossed her arms, which did incredible things to her chest. “Your Love stat had nothing to do with it.”

“Seventy is a significant number,” Venus said sagely. “Your body’s just expressing its needs.”

Thunder crashed overhead. Rain started again, fell for three seconds, then stopped mid-air. The drops hung there like crystals before reversing direction and falling up.

“Can we please focus?” Grace wiped water from her face. “People are missing. Seventeen people.”

“Right.” Diana’s teasing expression shifted to business. “Mayor first?”

“Mayor first,” Grace agreed.

—

They started toward the town center. The architecture here was all sharp angles and reinforced everything—buildings designed to handle whatever insane weather the mountain usually threw at them.

This was clearly beyond the usual though.

Windows were boarded up with metal sheets. Roofs had been chained down like someone expected them to fly away. One house had been picked up and set down backwards, its front door now facing the cliff edge.

“The Tempest is really showing off,” Venus observed.

“Or throwing the mother of all tantrums,” Diana countered.

A miniature tornado danced past carrying someone’s entire clothesline. Grace watched underwear spiral gracefully into the stratosphere.

[At least it’s just stealing laundry at the moment. Maybe it calmed down once we got here?]

The mayor’s house perched at the town’s highest point like it was supervising everything below. Weirdly, it looked completely untouched by the chaos. Perfect roof. Spotless windows. Not a single weather mark anywhere.

“Either he’s got divine protection or the Tempest has a sick sense of humor,” Diana said.

They climbed stone steps carved directly into the mountainside. Grace’s thighs burned after the first fifty.

[When did I get this out of shape?]

Halfway up, the temperature plummeted. Snow fell for exactly three seconds—fat, wet flakes that immediately turned to steam when they hit the ground.

Grace’s teeth chattered.

“This is ridiculous.”

They finally reached the mayor’s door—solid oak reinforced with enough iron to build a small army. Grace raised her hand to knock.

Lightning struck the doorframe.

The thunder came simultaneously, loud enough to make Grace’s ears ring and her bones vibrate. She definitely didn’t squeak and grab Diana’s arm.

The door swung open.

A man stood there. Tall, thin, grey beard trimmed to mathematical precision. His eyes were red-rimmed but sharp, like he’d been crying but refused to let it dull his focus.

“Angels.” Not a question. Just acknowledgment.

“Yes sir. We’re here about—”

“My daughter.” His voice was too level. Too controlled. Like he was afraid if he let any emotion through, he’d shatter. “Come in.”

They entered a house that felt more like a memorial than a home. Everything perfectly placed. Not a speck of dust anywhere. No signs of actual living.

One wall was completely covered in photographs. All of the same girl—dark hair, bright smile, maybe seventeen. Recent photos showed her at town festivals, laughing with friends, dancing at harvest celebrations.

A normal teenager before the sky decided to lose its shit.

“Tea?” the mayor asked.

“Sir, we should really—” Grace started.

“Tea.” He was already walking toward the kitchen. “We’ll have tea and discuss how you’ll save her.”

Diana caught Grace’s eye. Mouthed: “Let him.”

So they sat in a living room preserved like a museum exhibit while the mayor made tea with robotic precision. Outside, hail hammered the windows. Then blazing sun. Then rain falling at a perfect forty-five degree angle.

Grace couldn’t stop staring at the photos. The girl—Veraline, according to a labeled picture—looked so alive. So happy.

[Seventeen people. Just gone.]

She thought about the Tide’s victims. At least they’d been transformed, turned into weird fish people. Still existing, just different. This felt worse. Grabbed by the sky itself and taken… where?

The mayor returned with a tray. Four cups, perfectly arranged. He poured with hands that didn’t shake even a little.

“Her name is Veraline.” He sat down like his spine was made of glass. “She’ll be eighteen next month.”

“Sir—”

“She was buying ribbons.” His cup stayed perfectly level. “For her birthday dress. Blue ones to match her eyes. I told her we could go to the city, get nicer ones. But she liked supporting local merchants.”

Silence except for the weather having a breakdown outside.

“The tornado appeared from nowhere. She reached for my hand.” A tiny crack in his composure. “I grabbed for her. Our fingers touched.”

Grace’s chest hurt.

“I couldn’t hold on.” Still that terrible levelness. “The wind was too strong. She went up so fast. Still had the ribbons in her other hand.”

“We’ll find her,” Grace said.

“Will you?” The mayor looked at her directly. Really looked, like he was trying to see her soul. “Or will you find what’s left after three weeks in the storm?”

Grace thought about it.

She wasn’t too sure what she could say to that.

But, she knew she could try.

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