What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.—
The Ents of Middle Earth

(A/N *Warning-Graphic description of bodily harm)

Amy walked around the demolished Cadillac's crushed trunk. She froze at the sight of a crumpled body laying feet first on the ground beside the overturned car. "Oh, my God. What happened to him?"

The prone man's shredded pin-striped suit was splattered with blood. Hands flung out to the side, the twisted corpse had the surreal appearance of a broken, overweight crash-test dummy.

Irwin hurried over and gently grabbed her arm, "Come away from there. You don't want to see that."

"Stop—I have to see." Her hand shook as she pointed at the corpse. "That's Mayor Rambo."Quinton."  Her voice wobbled. "Where's his head?"

"The man was an idiot," Lars said irritably, "letting himself be killed by his own ostentatious antennae. Good riddance."

When everyone gasped, he added. "He nearly got us killed."

Irwin glared at him. "As misguided as he was, he was trying to help us, Lars. Try to have some empathy." His chin lowered. "I wish we could have saved him."

"The King is dead," Amy wept while Irwin radioed in the location of the body.

"I need a distraction," Nassem said. "Talk about anything else. Please." He grabbed his video camera and filmed the large swath of dirt the tornado had carved into the land as it pulled grass, trees and earth from the ground. "This Cadillac looks like it went through a trash compactor." Nervous, he circled the vehicle and filmed the wreckage. "Multiple times." His foot collided with a soft, cantaloupe-sized object.

"Oh, shit."

Amy called over to him, "Naseem, what is it?"

"I don't know."

Amy wiped tears from her cheeks. "What have you found? You're not uploading a film of the Mayor's dead body? That would be barbaric."

He ignored her, hypnotized by the object on the ground. He bent over to take a closer look.

"What do you see?" Her voice rose. Halle rushed over and wrapped her arms around her friend.

The curly haired blogger brushed grass and debris aside and uncovered a bruised and battered head. The mouth and nose were a bloody gash, while the eyes were wide open with a surprised look. He doubled over and vomited his breakfast on the ground. Halle dug in her pocket and handed him a napkin to wipe his mouth.

Irwin grabbed a tarp from the back of the vehicle and corralled the Mayor's head. He carefully placed it under the deceased man's arm and draped the tarp over the torso.

Lars turned and faced the group. "Now that the head's been found, we have to go. Right now. Unless you want to end up like this idiot."

—————

Irwin focused on the Weather Warrior's computer screen as he analyzed real-time Doppler information. "What the storm's position?" Halle stared over his shoulder."

"We don't have much time. The mesocyclone will pass near us within twenty minutes. We have to deploy those probes without delay. They're designed to measure the tornadic flow field. Let's try to position ourselves in front of one of the sub vortexes."

"You're only aiming for one sub vortex?" Zane asked.

The scientist nodded. "They're over a football field wide."

"Oh." Naseem's face whitened.

"Measurements of the RFD blasts and ferocious winds inside the core could be invaluable to structural engineers," Irwin said.

James leaned close to Halle and whispered, "I'm sure there's more use planned for the data than he's telling us." She remained still as she observed Lars talking to Zane. A distant memory was trying to surface with a man's voice shouting in the background, but she couldn't see his face. She shook her head to banish the images of a blue-eyed stranger that hovered over her.

Amy unhooked the cable from the storm chasing chasing vehicle's winch and pulled it towards the embedded truck. She kneeled and hooked the cable to the underside side of the Weather Warrior's vehicle.

Zane started The Terminator and inched the vehicle forward.

The chains grew taught, but the Weather Warrior's vehicle didn't move. "This beast's really stuck," Amy yelled.

He stepped on the gas pedal and and the wheels spun, splattering Amy with mud. "Shit!" She leapt back as the utility truck lurched forward out of the muddy mire.

"Nice." Irwin shouted. He unhooked the cable and busied himself organizing the equipment. "Each vehicle should have a probe. Whoever implements it in front of the vortex and gets the data I need gets the bonus."

"We'll take the extra probe," Halle said. She glanced at Lars, but he remained silent as she and James grabbed the heavy steel probe. She grunted, as they struggled to move the extra device to The Terminator.

Irwin exited the truck. "Halle, who do you want to ride with?

Lars smirked and interjected. "It's all right with me if she stays with James. They make a good team."

"Then it's settled. I'll ride with James," Halle said.

Amy caught up with her. "Naseem and I will watch your back out there. Keep to the south of the storm." She glanced over at Lars. "And don't trust that snake. He's being nice. That worries me."

Thirty miles to the south, the second mesocyclone  grew in strength and formed a monstrous wedge tornado. Heavy curtains of rain fell sideways. The deadly F-3 tornado had become rain-wrapped and nearly invisible. The monster's outer edge measured over a mile wide, while the National Weather Service clocked wind shear at the outer edge were clocked at sixty miles per an hour. Inside the core, multiple sub vortexes rotated in a carrousel of death as the winds steadily increased to over two hundred miles an hour.

Not everyone was fleeing: some drivers were trying to get closer to the spinning winds. Up to one hundred stormchasers, including cell-phone-camera-wielding hobbyists and photographers, were on the hunt as the two sets of chasers took off after the tornado.

*Picture is from the https://prairiechasers.com/vehicles website.