CHAPTER FOURTEEN ~ HALLOWEEN STORY TIME **CLAWS OF TERROR** A BRAND NEW BASIL AND THE B TEAM ADVENTURE FOR 2024

Claws of Terror is an action-packed and immersive adventure that takes mew on a journey through a world of danger and excitement. With vivid and detailed descriptions of the intense battles and spine-tingling encounters, the story draws mew in, making mew feel as though mew are right there with The B Team, fighting for survival.

HANG ON TIGHT GUYS, THIS IS GOING TO BE ONE WILD NIGHT!!!

If mew missed the start of this brand-new adventure click the link below:

Chapter One   Chapter Two   Chapter Three    Chapter Four    Chapter Five

Chapter Six    Chapter Seven    Chapter Eight     Chapter Nine     Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven     Chapter Twelve     Chapter Thirteen

 

Chapter Fourteen

How The Fluff Did We Get Duped

Why is it that when everything goes to fluff, it really hits the fluffing fan?

Mew know I’ve been in some peculiar dimensions before, but never in the Thirteenth Parallel, though I did read about it many years ago, and let me just say, it would be the last place I’d ever want to willingly visit! 

          Pandora let out her most ferocious war cry as the magic surged from her paw in a blazing violet lightning bolt. The sizzling magic collided with the nearest raptor, and it screeched violently as it fell to the mist shrouded ground. Its skin was on fire as the violet ray intensified and consumed all the organic matter, leaving just a crispy chrome skeleton, which had melted in places. The stench was sickeningly foul, and Pandora tried not to gag on the pungent fumes.   

Miss Warts waved her crystal-tipped wand in a wide pattern and unleashed the power. An arc of glittering gold careened towards the attacking raptors, circling around, and trapping three of them in a golden vice before the sparkling green motes exploded. Their heads blew off and sailed into the air, disappearing into the night. Loud thwumps were heard as the severed heads crashed to the ground outside the stone circle.

Mogs spied two more of the red beasts who’d jumped up onto some of the tall stones, and were using them as stepping stones to ambush the trio from above. His coat was as black as night as he melted into the shadows, disappearing from mortal view, and leaping atop one of the lower stones. He bounded effortlessly on silent paws until he’d reached the taller part of the stone circle. Creeping up behind the Red Wing Raptors in total stealth as they were focussed on Pandora and Miss Warts below.

Sensing something behind them, the raptors suddenly spun around on lethal curved claws just in time to see the golden magic as it smashed into them and exploded. The two creatures emitted a sickening whine as they fell to the ground with a crash.

The vile stench was getting worse and worse, as Miss Warts standing back-to-back with Pandora blasted at anything that moved.

“There are too many of them!” she yelled above the noise as more of the creatures appeared. “We need to get to the church!”

“How?” Miss Warts shouted. “We’re surrounded!”

Mogs, who was still on top of the standing stones, did a three-sixty and couldn’t believe what he saw emerging from the mist. “Shufflers incoming!” he bellowed.

>^.^<

          Vera was on the last two seconds of her Code 792-Delta-Echo-9 countdown. “Two…One... and transcendence is initiated.”

A wave of luminescent nano-particles materialised and streamed like a swarm of angry bees from the rotating holographic globe, which hovered above the circular console in the centre of the Control Room. They spiralled around the room several times, getting faster and faster like a mini-tornado before shooting upwards and straight through the ceiling.

Moments later, the spiralling swarm burst through the lawn and shot into the sky like a rocket.

The T-Rexs were roaring as they stamped on the summerhouse, which was now like a pile of toothpicks, and they smashed their way towards the blast doors of the bunker. The Red Wing Raptors were savaging anythingm and that even included the garden furniture and several prized shrubs that got in their way, as they wanted to be first through the blast doors.

Funghorn Furkle stood on the edge of the courtyard clapping ecstatically, with the maniacal grin of a severely psychotic psychopath on his face. His wild neon orange and white streaked hair stood on end, quivering and vibrating with utter excitement at his plan coming to fruition in the next few minutes.

He saw the spiralling light zoom into the sky and vanish, and dismissed it as nothing, just a weird light anomaly. And in his wildest imaginings, he never could have guessed what was about to happen. 

>^.^<

          I was beside myself and trying to contain a burning scream that wanted to escape. Clenching my jaw shut, trying to suppress the incandescent frustration that wanted to erupt like Mount Etna on an especially violent day. I knew that this kind of emotional response would not be a good idea right now. It was no one's fault we’d drifted through a fluffing black hole. Magical portals are the slippiest mother fluffers any way, without adding a Time Travelling Telephone Box to the mix. 

Unclenching my paws several times as I regained control of my emotions, I inhaled, paused for a second and said. “Astrid, please return us to Mewton-Clawson, in the correct time-line immediately.”

Nothing happened. Astrid remained silent, and I glanced at my team, as that hinky-icky feeling crawled all up my spin again and my hackles bristled.

Parsley sidled up next to me. “Basil, what the fluff is going on dude?”

Shaking my head, I replied. “I don’t know. It’s like everything we try to do to counteract the bizarre circumstances that keep unfolding, it all keeps going wrong, and dude mew know, even we aren’t that unlucky!”

Smooch, Fudge and Humphrey had huddled in. Smooch was signing to Parsley while Humphrey, Fudge and I watched as they had a rather heated and incredibly animated conversation. Paws waved wildly in the air, and there were several paw-gestures which, in all honesty, I thought were fluffing rude.

Parsley ripped open a velcro pocket on the inside of his tactical vest and whipped out a notepad and pencil. He scribbled frantically on the paper, as Smooch leaned right over the notepad, and kept nudging him, while tapping the notepad with his claw, shaking his head before his paws moved in a flurry, signing another secret message.

“Mew know, I’ll never understand what they’re saying,” Fudge sighed. “I’ve tried to learn it, but it’s too much for me!”

“Dude, mew don’t want to get involved in it. Stay sane and be happy that mew’re not part of that circus!” Humphrey murmured.

Parsley and Smooch both glared at Humphrey and flicked him the bird. “We’re not deaf dude, a little more respect please!” Smooch hissed.

Smooch grabbed the notepad off Parlsey and thrust it in front of me, while Parlsey used his paws to shield the text from any cameras that may have been covertly activated by Astrid.

Seeing what Parsley was trying to do, Fudge leaned in closer, as did Humphrey, until our huddle was a completely closed affair.

I looked at the first line. ‘Don’t say a word.’ Glancing at Smooch with a colossal amount of perplexment while rolling my eyes, he tapped the notepad with an equal amount of irritation.

Looking down at the notepad, I read. ‘We think Astrid has been infected with a virus, and we know mew’re going to say that it’s not possible as her systems are fully air-gapped from everything else at BBHQ and the TTTB has an independent operating system, but something’s not right. Ask her to relinquish all controls and go to sleep.’

Smooch tipped the notepad upside down as we broke apart. And I said. “Astrid, please relinquish control of the TTTB, I invoke protocol 391-Bravo-Zulu-488.”

There was a brief pause and Astrid’s robotic A.I. voice replied. “Commander Basil. I am unable to comply. Access is denied.”

Snowie and Amber stared in horror as the control console turned off, the lights went out and the pale blue emergency lighting came on.

Humphrey glanced all around the bridge, and he gestured to Smooch to pass the notepad and pencil. It was in that moment I remembered that he’d told me he’d had an idea back in the Control Room.

I said. “Dude, mew told me mew had an idea.”

He gave me a sly wink as he covertly tapped the top pocket on his vest. I knew not to say another word as he wrote on the notepad while Fudge, Smooch, and Parsley shielded his scribblings.

>^.^<

Posie zoomed as fast as she could towards the church. She could see more of the Red Wing Raptors headed towards the stone circle, and her heart sank as she spied dozens of zombie cats headed there, too.

They stumbled over the uneven ground, clawing their way over each other to get to the stones as fast as their broken bodies could carry them.

“Oh fluff!” she hissed. “I bet an entire year’s worth of catnip that Pandora, Miss Warts, and Mogs are trapped in there!” 

In the next second, it looked like a firework display had erupted; flashes and lightning bolts, followed by a burst of green sparks, filled the sky.

“Jumpin’ juniper berries,” she growled as she swooped towards the carnage. Three decapitated raptor heads flew through her ghostly body as she entered the fray. “Fluff me!” she yelled.

Landing on one of the tallest monoliths, she tapped her Earth Me Device and became fully corporeal again. Reaching into her tactical vest, she pulled out a small blaster gun. “I hope this fluffing works,” she murmured as she took aim at a raptor about to ambush Mogs from behind atop the stone he was perched while he was unleashing merry hell below.

Posie pulled the trigger and a wave of energy pulsed towards the lethal creature.

Mogs spun around, paws glowing neon green, just in time to see the raptor shrink to three inches tall. He stared, mouth agape, at the now shrunken dino, seeing it as an incredible opportunity. He released the magic and the green blaze shot towards the raptor and it exploded on contact.

Posie was zapping the rest of the raptors like it was just another day at the target range. Each target shrunk instantaneously, and she yelled. “Pandora, shufflers incoming, we have to move now. Get to the church. Let’s go!”

Pandora didn’t have to be told twice, she grabbed Miss Warts by the arm and dragged her towards the back of the stone circle, Mogs landed next to them as Posie ran ahead, then turned to cover them as the three of them ran as fast as they could towards the church. The shufflers scenting their prey’s retreat, changed direction like a murmuration of starlings in flight, and were scrambling on a direction collision course.

Posie fired the blaster at the approaching horde before spinning around and racing after the trio.

Launching over the hallowed wall, Posie felt a claw sink into her back and she yelped. A shuffler was still clinging on. She landed in the churchyard with a thwump, and as the shuffler’s paws touched the blessed earth, it burst into flames and disintegrated to dust.

The first wave of the shuffler horde crawled over the church wall, and moments later were nothing but ash on the ground. They’d gone to meet their maker; they were finally free of the curse that had been forced upon them by evil incarnate.

Pandora let out a huge breath and said. “Oh Posie, thank Cod, mew turned up! Are mew ok, do mew want me to heal that wound?”

Posie pulled her vest off, and Pandora gasped at the ragged cut. She held out her paw and released a pink healing glow which filled the wound, closing it.

“Mew can’t get infected, can mew?” Mogs asked warily.

Posie laughed. “Nah, I’m already as dead as they come! That gash would have healed on its own in a few minutes, but it’s nice that Pandora can speed it up.”

Miss Warts pointed towards the stone circle and out of the mist ran the pack of raptors, now full size again.

“Looks like Humphrey’s miniaturising ray gun only has a temporary effect,” she said thoughtfully.

“Well, it lasted long enough for us to escape,” Miss Warts replied. “So who cares and if they come in here, they’ll end up like those over there.” She pointed towards the raptors who’d chased the drone in earlier, dormant on the floor, just gleaming lifeless skeletons.

The raptors ran along, parallel to the church wall and two burst through the church lichgate; they exploded about eight steps in, fell to ground, their red eyes slowing dimming until there was nothing.

“I think we’ll be safe in here until Basil arrives,” Pandora said with relief, as the shrieking shufflers began to amass around the church perimeter, with the remaining raptors snorting and bellowing angrily at the gates.

The stench was vile, and Miss Warts waved her wand, saying, “Perfumo profusio neroli.” And the smell of sweet neroli filled the air, absorbing the rancid stench of death. “Phew, that’s better!” she said.

“Where is Basil?” Posie suddenly asked.

“He said he was coming to pick us up,” Pandora answered. “I’m assuming he’s in the TTTB, as there’d be no other way to get here.”

Posie peered off into the mist towards the stone circle. “He should be here already. They left me at the bunker looking for mew guys.”

Pandora tapped her comms unit. “Basil, are mew on channel?”

There was no sound. No reply. The line was just dead.

“That’s not good,” Posie said as she pulled her tactical vest back on, and put the ray gun away. “That’s not good at all!”

>^.^<

          Bomber, Ice, Smoke and Shadow headed towards me. Melvyn was sitting on Bomber’s shoulder. “Uncle Basil, I need to tell mew something,” he squeaked.

I looked at my young nephew, and smiled, waiting for him to tell me.

“Erm, I was playing my video games in here last week,” he grimaced. “It was after mew told me I couldn’t play them anymore on that old Commodore 64, that one in the old store cupboard. So I snuck into your office and took my games, and got Astrid to install them into her main operating system so I could play them on the big screen over there.”

‘Jeez,’ I thought, pinching my nose. “And where did those games come from?” I asked as I tried to keep my expression as neutral as possible.

“Back in 2033, I stole them from the necromancer who tried to catnap me,” Melvyn answered innocently. “They were fantastic games too, and Astrid did a great job rendering the graphics. They looked pawesome.”

Looking at Bomber, realisation dawned and I said. “That’s why we got away in 2033.”

Ice grimaced, Shadow blanched as much as a black cat could. Smoke bared his fangs and growled.

Bomber took a deep breath and said. “We were played, and played real good Commander Basil. I can't believe that we fell for the old Trojan Horse ruse!”

**AND CUT**

Guys, mew know how we roll, so many apologies to cut it right there, but we will say, fluff me, and fluffing fluff, it's just so bonkers!!! MOL 

Jumpin' juniper berries, who knew that young Melvyn had brought in a literal Trojan Horse?

What the fluff is Vera going to turn into, and will she be able to stop the T-Rexs?

and

How the fluff are we going to get back to BBHQ from the Thirteenth Parallel?

If mew would like to read Chapter 15, let us know in the comments, as OH MY CAT, this is getting wilder each week. In fact, it's getting so fluffing wild that the P.A. has had to go and have another little lie-down! MOL

  Remember, this story is for mew, and mew decide if it continues.

Don't forget to check out yesterday's Valentine's Crafting with Cats post, and we'll be back tomorrow with some more Midweek News.

In the meantime...

Wing Commander Basil & The B Team 

Click Here to go to Chapter 15 

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