Our Planet has Crashed [COMPLETE]

one - KOTLC

Sophie POV:

Unmatchable. Unmatchable. Unmatchable. 

A loud roar interrupted Sophie's self-pity party. She, Grady and Edaline were in the pastures tending to Verdi, the only thing that managed to keep Sophie's mind off her new and very disagreeable status. 

Not that she was going to tell anyone.

What would everyone say? She was sure no one had ever been "unmatchable," so she would be the first to do something. Again. Besides, what would she tell Fitz? She would probably make them a bad match. And . . . that would not go over well.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Edaline asked for the millionth time. 

They had only gotten home a few hours ago, Sophie on the verge of a breakdown, or tears at least, but she knew that both of her adoptive parents were worried. 

"Knew it was a bad idea," Grady muttered, and Edaline whacked him with a bit of swizzlespice she was holding. "You can tell us anything," she assured Sophie, but the latter only glared at her shoes.

Verdi roared again, this time rearing back and making the ground shake with her stomping. Grady hurried to calm her down, and Edaline ran over to help. Sophie frowned. Despite Verdi's opposition to a vegetarian diet, she never got this riled up over something as delicious as swizzlespice (not that Sophie ever tried it). 

Sophie was trying to calm the frenzied dinosaur with her mind when a very large shadow passed over their house. The T-Rex stopped roaring the moment Sophie took notice of it.  "Um . . .  should we be worried?" Sophie called.

"Nope, it's just some rain." Grady replied as he took his chance and tossed some of the gnomish food into Verdi's open mouth. Sophie glanced at the shadows, which continued lengthening every moment. Maybe it was rain, or a storm, but it wasn't likely. The shadows covered all the land as far as she could see. 

"Actually, it might be wise to take shelter. We can continue feeding Verdi later." Edaline was frowning now too. "Come on, Grady."

"Fine! Okay, okay!" he said when Sophie started tugging on his arm. "I don't see the point of this," he grumbled when they were all safely inside the house, staring out the windows.

"I don't see anything, either," said a very annoyed Bo. 

Sophie peered out the windows again. The shadows had grown darker, but the thing was . . . it didn't look like a Neverseen attack. That was Sophie's first guess, but the shadows looked like normal shadows. None of them moved weirdly, and it certainly didn't look like shadowflux. And was it even possible to make a shadow so big? And what was the point of it, even if that was possible?

Well, now that Neverseen Attack was crossed off the list, Sophie wondered if—like Grady suggested—it was rain. Or a storm. Or something. The sky did darken sometimes . . . but this wasn't a storm. There wasn't a single cloud in the sky!

Which, of course, was a conclusion she had once she looked at the sky.

And yet, it wasn't the lack of clouds that surprised her. It was what was coming at her. 

Well, not her, specifically. More like her planet. Because for some reason . . . 

Sophie squinted. That was impossible! This was not happening. How was this happening?

"What's out there? Rain? Clouds? A storm?" Grady asked. 

"None of the above. Does anyone have a telescope?" Sophie asked.

"A what now?"

"Oh. Never mind. Well . . . I just thought . . . " Sophie glanced at the sky again. But there it was, approaching them at such a high speed a crash would be inevitable.

"What is that?" Sandor asked, waving a sword at the approaching planet. 

Yes. Planet.

Sophie sighed. "I don't know. I mean, I do know. It's Jupiter, but—"

"What?" several voices chorused at once.

"It's—oh, never mind. It's just a planet, okay? And it's going to crash into us. I think," she added hurriedly when five incredulous faces looked at her. 

"Okay. where's the nearest shelter?" Sandor barked, making a grab for Sophie. She dodged and peered out the window again. "Miss Foster! Get back here!"

"No! We have to do something! We can't just sit here and let our world explode!"

Silence. Did she do something wrong?

"The world is going to explode?" Flori finally asked, face paling.

"I mean—I don't know!" Sophie sat down at the dining table, frustrated. Why was Jupiter crashing into them? As the biggest planet, couldn't it just go hit another one? Why them? Why now? Why Earth? Their planet would surely be the one with more damage. What were they supposed to do?

"I've alerted the Council," Grady announced a moment later, stepping back into the room as he put his Imparter away. "I tried contacting Mr. Forkle. but I'm not sure I—"

"Oh, Miss Foster, there you are," said a familiar voice, and she turned to see the wrinkly man himself, frowning as he looked out the window. "Is that Saturn?"

Sophie fought the urge to giggle. Obviously Mr. Forkle hadn't absorbed human knowledge during the twelve years he'd posed as her neighbor. "No," she told him. "It's Jupiter."

Mr. Forkle's jaw dropped. Was something wrong? Now what did she do?

He cleared his throat, shutting his mouth again. "Right. So. We might have a little more trouble than we anticipated, then." He said. When their puzzled gazed landed on him, he sighed. "There was a legend. I heard it only once, when I was a child, which was a really long time ago—maybe a few thousand years?" Sophie's own jaw dropped now. Her neighbor was more than a thousand years old? "Well, in it, it mentions these planets. That each planet has a few species living in it. I'm not sure I remember them all, but . . . " Mr. Forkle scratched his head. "So in Mercury, there were large populations of phoenixes and bennu—fire-resistant birds. Venus houses plenty of flareadons, which I suppose makes sense, given its hot temperature. I think we all know what lives in Earth, though I think our planet has the most diverse creatures out of all eight planets. 

"In Mars, I think there were—no, not aliens, Miss Foster—verminions. I'm not sure how that worked out, but that's what the legend said. Then there was Saturn, which has a lot of yetis and sasquatches. Uranus has some dinosaurs, and Neptune houses . . . I believe it was mastodons and woolly mammoths. And them there's Jupiter." Mr. Forkle sighed. "And its large population of dragons."

This made Grady and Edaline frown. "I thought dragons—"

"I don't think they're like our dragons," Mr. Forkle interrupted. "They're much bigger, about the height of this house, from what the legend said. Our dragons are probably insects to them."

That made everyone in the room shudder.

"And you're sure about this?" Sophie asked. "There's going to be dragons crashing into us?"

"I'm not sure, Miss Foster," he said, rubbing his temples, "but I think so. Seems quite valid to me. So we better get ready." 

Sophie looked at the sky again. 

It did seem likely for Jupiter, the largest planet, to house the biggest creatures in the world—

—except for the gorgodon, but that didn't really count—so why them? The question seemed to spin in a loop around and around in Sophie's mind. There wasn't really an answer, was there? They wouldn't be able to stop it anyways. 

"I guess we'll have to just let it hit us," Sophie sighed. 

"Yes, I suppose so," Mr. Forkle agreed.