Screaming Spires Shook Beneath A Sole Sky Falling
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Like from a meteoric impact, the shockwave radiated out and ripped through everything within its path with ease. Smooth polymer surfaces shattering into dust, reinforced metal beams melting, conduit lines bursting into shining sparks. Shrill screams abruptly cut short without even the slightest chance of their sources even realizing what had happened to them. An entire urban core section, from the surface all the way down to the newly developed sub-subterranean zones, had been reduced to nothing but a deep and broad crater.
Even from a distance of several civic regions away, it felt like an explosion going off right next to them. The ground jolting so hard that the overground spires wavered like something had slammed into them from the side, grounded structures quivered and tilted as their facades split and tore, cavern areas visibly deformed as the bedrock they were drilled into shifted to an unnatural degree. As far as they could see anyway, before everything went dark. Despite the innumerable interconnections and quadruple failovers, their panecumenopolitan networks couldn't cope with a disruption of such magnitude. The lights, the billboards, the dynamic signage directing the citizens according to current density requirements all went out at once. The direct voice communications were interrupted as the vocal-auditory systems went offline, leaving them without the noise cancellation absolutely required in such a packed environment, calm chats replaced with the panicked wails of billions clutching their ringing ears and pounding heads. Crowds turning into tides, scrambling, stumbling, falling without direction. Chunks of rock crashing down barely even audible in the cacophony.
Overground, they press themselves against the now-dim walls, staring at the outside. What before was a view of the center of their world-spanning city, augmented by textual location information, travel routes and capacity reports, was now instead a terrifying scene dominated by plumes of dust and smoke billowing high up into the air tinted red by the flaring fires down below. The atmospheric habitat spheres that once dotted the sky like blue moons reachable by elevator were now just a dark gray, cracks fissuring through their surface with flames and sparks from within spilling into the skies before the rest of the crumbling ball followed in its descent to the surface in chunks. At the horizon there were only the silhouettes of familiar structures visible, quickly losing their recognizable shape as they melted, crumpled and collapsed from heat, shock and deformation. For the ones whose thoughts weren't lost in the tight grip of fear choking out all rationality, the question of just what had caused such devastation was among the forefront of their minds.
The answer to their unspoken inquest came in the form of a red snout parting the clouds. Blue eyes, dark hair and perked-up ears trailed behind, the upper body of a vulpine creature revealed from the curtain of cinders. Features overshadowed by just how gigantic the whole was, head reaching far above the stratospheric residence layer, spires snapping unnoticed against its chest and conduits being torn by the continued motion forwards. All that despite it standing in the crater that it had created, the hole dug deep into the ground barely reaching up to its ankles. Its mouth opened not to speak demands, but only to form a gleeful smile as its eyes surveyed the vast cityscape below like a shiny, screamy new toy to play with.
Their attention was drawn away by a far more pressing matter. Three toes lead the charge, uncurling as they rose higher above the flames they tracked and left behind. The dark gray fur on top parted by the white pads underneath, stretching from the digits all the way across the entire sole revealing itself from the ash and dust. A pristine, shining surface in contrast to the chaos below, every furrow and wrinkle accentuated by the warm, orange light. Heel still grinding along the skyscrapers blown apart without even causing a hitch as the rest of it already hovered over regions yet unruined, the flares from the barrage of ground defense missiles only tiny blips against the incomprehensibly vast, still rising, rapidly approaching paw.
The panic amplified, saturated by inescapable, sinking dread. There was nothing they could do but stare in horror at the foot crossing distances in mere moments that would take them hours even if the high-volume transit lines were still functioning, only realizing anew just how immense it truly was as it came near. It just seemed to take up more and more and more of their vision, filling the horizon from side to side, spanning the heavens above them, stretching in every which direction. The gaps between the toes deeper than any canyon, enough for entire districts to be jammed and quashed out of existence there. The grooves in the sole becoming visible, mountains and valleys as far as they eye could see, each one of them so large that one could have gotten lost in them for days if given the chance. The paw becoming a sky, a white canopy covering all they could see, an endless plane. The cacophony became quieter as the screeches were reduced to whimpers, gasps and breathless silence as doom descended upon them. A rising feeling in their sinking guts as its sheer mass exerted a noticeable shift in gravity as it neared. Watching in abject horror as the pressure wave of displaced air disintegrated the frail hull of the buildings they were in before utterly pulverizing them all by the trillions without even making contact.
The monster's smile widened as he felt the intricate structures crumble underpaw. Layer after layer after layer crushed into oblivion, the spires breaking off against his sole giving way to an interconnected, stacked grid failing to hold against the weight upon it as its conduits snapped with ease. Breaking through the overground constructions and reaching earth that wasn't solid enough to sustain his step. Sinking down into the caverns, imploding by the immense pressure that reshaped the world further in mere seconds than even a civilization of this magnitude could have in the entire time of its existence were it not cut short by his arrival. Just as the echoes of the collective wails from the stomped-out crowds reached his twitching ears, his foot had arroved all the way at the very bedrock of the mantle, feeling the molten rock rush out for a warming welcome. He clenched his toes, feeling the lava rush and spew up between them as the planet heaved a sigh, splitting in twain at the seams of where he dug into the crust. It gave him a nice view of the cross-section of the city, watching it pull apart to reveal through just how much he'd gone as the structures parted and began plummeting into the fiery depths, innumerable inhabitants spilling out of them like a liquid. His tail happily swished behind him, blowing the plumes of dust across the atmosphere and tearing habitat spheres from their struts by the gusts.
With the city world still shaking from his last apocalyptic step, his other paw was already rising to the next occasion, toes excitedly wiggling in anticipation of making it an extinctive one.
