A wind blew across the desert, failing to cool any of its sun baked occupants and kicking up a bunch of dust. Deputy Rick Riselskon gritted his teeth in irritation. His lizard ancestors may have loved the scorching heat in the direct sun, but in his polyester police uniform he was hot and itchy and had been hiding put behind this billboard with his radar gun for far far too long.
As Rick considered for the umpteenth time just waiting out the rest of his shift in his air conditioned patrol car and giving any speeders a free pass, a beat up ratty silver blur of a station wagon flew past his vantage point at a speed it shouldn't really have been capable of, something hanging out of the window.
That something happened to be named Kyle, and with his head out the window, tongue hanging out of a dopey grin, he had much more in common with his canine ancestors than Rick. He also couldn't see the speedometer, so when the billboard he just screamed past somehow disgorged a set of blue lights and matching siren, it came as a much bigger shock to him than it really should have. Pulling his head back in Kyle began the arcane process of slowing down to somewhat reasonable speed, and then pulling over to the sandy shoulder in the middle of nowhere.
Ricks gloriously refrigerated patrol car pulled up behind the rust bucket of a station wagon, it occupant lamenting the need to get out of the vehicle again. The green and red cop certainly would not have complained about getting into a chase in his cooled car. Especially since it was a straight shot to the city on the eternally empty road. There was nothing to wreck on but the occasional pothole.
Red and green wearing blue, the officer pulling him over sure was colorful noted Kyle, hoping he had a personality to match. As the officer approached one hand was on his holster so the canine put both his hand on the steering wheel in plain view, one holding his retrieved drivers license.
Rick, self pity driven temporarily back by professionalism, approached the car. As he did so he noted that the driver clearly knew what to do. Relaxing his hand off his firearm, he thought that at least this would be quick. As he approached the window to the vehicle rolled down and the voice of a young adult asked "What can i do for you officer?" And from rick came the question echoed by police everywhere "Do you know how fast you were going?" as he held out his hand for the id, which was promptly handed over.
This was where things went off script for the lizard. Of all the responses, a chipper "0 miles an hour sir" was not really in the play book. Rick looked down at the far less muscled puppy and shook his head "Yeah... no. I clocked you at over 150"
Kyle felt a little bad for playing headgames with the officer but he really didn't feel like a ticket. "I don't see how you could have officer, I'm a hitch hiker and i just stopped for a rest in this rusted out wreck. Honestly I don't think this thing has run in a decade." And with that Kyle made a overly dramatic show of turning the key, with the result of absolutely nothing happening, exactly as he had known it would. After all, he had been powering the wreck himself. It wasn't exactly fair to the cop, who had no way of knowing the first thing about magic, but a ticket would just lead to too many problems. Keeping a drivers license was hard enough when you were over 300 without people examining it closely in traffic court.
Rick wasn't sure how to take that, but his training told him he couldn't show it, so he moved on to examining the license in his hand. It was clearly a fake, since the birth date would put the canine at over three centuries. Back at his cruiser he ran it through the scanner where, to his continued mounting confusion, it showed the ID as completely valid and matching what was on file, including the ancient birthdate.
As he turned back to the beater, he heard a pop, which he identified as a hood being opened from his frequent assistance to stranded motorists. Hand immediately back on firearm, he called to the apparently ancient dog "What do you think your doing? Hands on the wheel where i can see them."
"Yes sir" was the entirety of the vocal reply that came from the vehicle. However in a show of solidarity a family of feral rats that lived in the now exposed engine compartment chose this to exit their nest in the engine compartment and move to the roof to witness proceedings.
The movement drew the attention of officer rick to the engine compartment, which was visibly sans engine even at that distance, instead containing only a rats nest of disconnected hoses and wires, as well as a literal rats nest.
At this point Rick abandoned all thoughts of asking for registration. He was being fucked with. He didn't know why, or even how, but he knew this dog was messing with him.
The heavily muscled lizard was suddenly seeing red as his reptilian blood started to boil. The family of rats scampered for the safety of the cars interior framework as the lizard stomped his way back to the car, and where a more level headed officer might have simply added a seatbelt violation to the impossible speeding ticket, the lizard showed why he was known in the locker room as Ragin' Rick, grabbing the canine by the throat and bodily pulling him from the corpse of the car and throwing him down to the sandy shoulder of the road.
Startled, and in more than a bit of pain Kyle looks up at Rick. "Ow, what was that for." he demanded, only to be met with a swift kick to the ribs driving away his remain protests.
The lizard crouched down next to his victim "You have one chance. Stop FUCKING with me, and tell me the truth now. Or you will regret it" the last bit coming out a menacing whisper.
Kyle started to weigh his option, and then realized he didn't have any. Pretty soon the cop above him would realize he couldn't charge him because if any of this came out he would lose his job and probably his freedom. On the other hand if Kyle fought back, win or lose he was now a wanted fur and a life sentence was a pretty intimidating threat to those who had to to jump through more hoops to die than simply waiting for old age. Really, all he could do now was tell the truth and cross his fingers.
"Ok, but its not much better than the 'fucking with' honestly" he started from under the cop, who gave a bull like snort indicating that wasnt a good thing for Kyle. "The car genuinely doesnt work, Im running it with magic”
"Magic? FUCKING MAGIC? I TOLD YOU TO STOP FUCKING WITH ME" roared the lizard, which was the reaction Kyle had both expected and been worried about. Even after 200 plus years he could hardly believe it himself, but there it was.
The canine exited his musings quickly as he heard a sound that made him realize there was one more option at play he hadn't considered. As the canine quickly tried to rethink his stance on murdering a cop, the lizard beat him to the punch, pulling the trigger on his now cocked revolver and sending a bullet ripping through the forehead of the prone canine, leaving a nice neat red hole in the middle before blowing everything that made him than a piece of meat out the back and across the desert.
Ricks blood rage quickly cooled and he set about taking care of the enormous mess he had made. First he dragged the rapidly cooling lump of meat back to the rusted station wagon, and shoved it roughly back into the drivers seat, dropping its id back then pulling a gas can normally meant for stranded motorists and well soaking the area. He wasnt sure if the rusted metal wreck had anything left that could combust, but he was sure gonna give it the old college try.
Hopping into his gloriously artic cruiser, the lizard rolled down the window just long enough to throw out one of the matches he kept just for these occasions, already starting to brace him for his coming call to his station chief/father begging for yet another coverup.
So wrapped up was Rick as he tore off down the highway he didn't notice the fire turning a deep black as it burned.
Kyle swore and cursed.
Sometimes being immortal only sucked. Other time, like this, it was one of the worst things that had ever happened to him. He had finished regenerating from having his brains blown out just in time to catch the worst of the fire, agonizingly burning to death. Sometimes he wondered if being things would have been better if his possession had taken full root.
By the time the poor canine finished regenerating from his double demise, the sun was a distant memory. The poor burn out husk or his already wrecked car was well beyond worth even trying to animate, the only thing left being a charred metal frame. The rat family whose home he had stolen (aka bought from a junkyard) was huddled into his newly regenerated fur for warmth against the desert cold.
Gingerly extracting himself from the vehicle, Kyle stretched his newly formed muscles, working out the post reformation tightness in them. Then the canine grabbed a piece of jagged metal and snapped it off of the vehicle's wreck. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he drew the metal in a line across his hand. Dripping blood glinted in the moonlight as he extended his black left arm, and making a series of intricate gestures with his right, the pool of blood gathering on the scorched sand slowly started to take on shape and volume, materializing into rudimentary red shirt and sweats. The canine picked those up and slipped them on, and then repeated the process, to create a few blankets which he placed under the hood of the burnt wreck in a crude nest.
Kyle bid farewell to the family whose home he had displaced, uttering a magically laced bidding for their good fortune. Then he turned and started walking in the same direction he had been traveling before. His thoughts became well and truly detached from his body, wandering from subject to subject as his feet trudged him down the long desert highway.
