This is an all-new story commission I've made for my friend Conrad, AKA barsirbis. I created this story based on a couple different commissions of his, which you can find here, here and here.

The Snep that Fell from the Sky: Part One
a short story by ash//damon//winter
featuring conrad aka barsirbis

The city streets brim to life with the hustle and bustle of its daily commuters. Traffic suffocates its asphalt pathways as people shave precious seconds off their drives- often at the expense of other vehicles around them. The air is mildly chilly as a light fall of snow blankets the skies. Sidewalks are stuffed with pedestrians cluttering the pathways as everybody seems hellbent on reaching their destination without consideration for anyone around them. There was all manner of fauna that populated this city: canines, felines, birds and bugs alike- even reptiles and aquatic mammals had their place in this society. Traffic almost always ran at a frenetic pace, but there was a kind of synchronized harmony amidst this chaos that somehow managed to find its way through.

Far away from this boisterous scene, an inconspicuous building housed a small research company named CATO Enterprises. Contrary to the public scene happening at a distance, the hallways of CATO were barren. Not a sound could be heard, not a door was open, not a scientist in sight- the building might have been considered deserted were it not for the security guards stationed at the front desk and around the perimeter. At this precise moment, every scientific mind at this company was gathered in the lowest leveled section of the facility, far from any possible prying eyes.

A blue-spotted Dalmatian was patiently riding an elevator down to this lower level, anxiously wagging his tail back and forth. He knew that countless years of research and tests had led up to this precise moment- he couldn't afford to fail at this stage. He flipped open a manila folder that he was holding at his side and carefully examined its pages- at the top of the opening page, his name was printed "DAMON ROSS - HEAD OF R&D FOR PROJECT SG-1." As he skimmed over the countless pages of notes, Damon cross-referenced every equation and calculation he had jotted down to ensure that everything was exactly as it needed to be.

"This needs to work," the blue-spotted scientist spoke softly to himself as the elevator brought him into the lowest depths of the facility. "This HAS to work, there aren't any possible alternatives. I can't fail now!" He reached into the pocket of his lab coat and withdrew a small vial of blue liquid. “Every test puts this vial of serum at a growth rate of 50 feet per second for five seconds after ingestion- accelerated to 150 feet after for ten seconds…” He mumbled to himself some more growth rate calculations before placing the vial back into his coat and slamming his folder shut. “I will find you.” The dalmatian breathed a large sigh before the elevator door slid open to reveal the underground control center.

Rows of chairs were lined along consoles resembling a rocket launch control station. Research associates and scientists alike filled each seat, double- and triple-checking their assigned calculations and making adjustments as necessary. An oversized four-panel screen adorned the opposite side of the bunker, displaying four separate cameras that showed a helicopter POV of various points in the city. Damon hurriedly walked towards a podium strategically placed in the room's center and addressed everyone present.

"Now, I know just how much of your time, blood, sweat, and tears were poured into this project," the blue dalmatian began, "but know that everything we've been working for over the past few years has led to this exact moment." He looked around as the technicians and scientists around him were still busily working on their respective consoles, some taking a moment to look up and acknowledge him. Before continuing, the white-and-blue speckled dalmatian dusted some loose debris from his white lab coat sleeve. "Just know that all of your efforts have not been in vain, and you are all about to become part of one of the most important moments of scientific progress this century. Finally, we may have found a viable method for interdimensional travel! I hope that you all are just as excited by the possibilities as I am. I just want to thank you all for your hard work and effort on this project. It means more to us here at CATO than I can ever put into words."

His speech couldn't come off to his peers as anything other than corporate, but Damon meant every word he said. There was no way he could have pulled this project off without the help of some of the most brilliant minds around- had they known the true purpose behind this project, Damon may not have succeeded in his efforts. He looked around at the different control consoles and back up at the screens, examining each point to ensure that the helicopters were placed in their proper positions. He looked at a cluster of computers huddled in the left corner in front of him as he began their operation.
"Team Alpha, are we in the clear?" Damon spoke to a nearby cluster of computers manned by technicians who spoke into earpieces to confirm the helicopters swirling around on one of the screens were in their proper positions. As they looked back and gave him an enthusiastic nod, he confirmed the other three teams were ready as well. He looked towards the screens- each had a fixed vantage point of a seemingly random area surrounding the city. While remaining fixated on the first screen on the top-left corner, Damon gave the order: "Execute Generator Alpha!"

The technicians in one corner of the room hustled on their workstations- the click-clacking of keys sounded off before a large button on the side of the desk was pressed, and a laser fired down into the sky on the screen. A portal slowly opened up at the end of the laser beam above the helicopter; and the cameraman zoomed in closer to get a better peek. As the portal opened up even wider, a lush purple sky littered with stars could be seen- a scene far different from the cold, cloudy, and snowy atmosphere around them. After a few brief moments, the portal closed quickly as the satellite above deactivated.

"Bravo, go!" Damon barked the order as another huddled group of excited technicians activated their satellite, beaming a different laser onto the top right screen and opening another portal. As the blue, glowing opening revealed itself yet again at a snail's pace, a completely new environment unfolded. This one showed a bright crimson sky and what appeared to be embers floating around in the air. The most trained ear, had they been carefully listening, may have picked up on a distant kerfuffle beyond the portal as licks of flames could be seen from the other side. The cameraman slowly zoomed in ever closer, trying to get the best view of the environment. It was to remain a mystery, however, as Damon ordered the portal closed a mere moment later.

"Charlie, now!" A third laser fired from another corner of the city, miles above the atmosphere. This one showed a bright neon green sky, complete with a wavy swatch of blue light reflections that looked suspiciously similar to aurora borealis. This one looked more unusual- although the sky was clear of obstructions save for the light, this display was an orange wavy light in a different pattern altogether from the northern lights. Damon stared at the bottom left screen for a few moments, taking in the beautiful display of sky lights before ordering the portal closed once again.

"Delta, fire!" The fourth screen glowed as the satellite in its corner made its way down to the surface, opening another hole in the sky that revealed a bright blue sky, not unlike a sunny spring day- the scene looked starkly opposite from the cold cloudy sky that adorned where they were. After a few moments, Damon ordered the portal closed yet again and furiously scribbled more notes into his folder. After a few moments of deliberation, he barked another command.

"Triangulate all satellites to these coordinates." Damon input a series of numbers into a chat window on the console in front of him, ensuring each team received the exact number. After a few minutes of adjusting and tinkering with coordinates on each team's console, each satellite was directed to one specific location approximately three miles from the city limits, near where satellite Bravo had fired. Damon gave a dramatic countdown before giving the next order.

"All teams ready? All systems go?" Each team nodded back to him in reply. "Five... four... three... two... one... fire!" Each team lead simultaneously gave their respective commands to their consoles, firing each satellite directly towards the position Damon had indicated for them. Each satellite hummed to life as their lasers beamed down from the atmosphere into the distant horizon. A cacophony of explosive and energetic BOOMS sounded in the distance, shaking the ground even in the underground bunker miles away. A ring of dusty air shot out from around the centrifuge, carrying the force of the colliding lasers' blast out for a solid few miles.

The intersecting lasers created a quickly-growing vortex a few miles above the surface, stretching a portal in the sky that was considerably larger than the other ones that came from each individual satellite. A concerned technician looked back towards Damon as the seemingly violent storm continued brewing in the distance. "Sir, these energy readings are too unstable! We may need to abort-"

"I’m not stopping this operation on your life! I haven't come this far for nothing! I refuse to let myself be-"

Damon found himself interrupted by another booming sound in the distance; but this one was distinctly different. He quickly turned his attention back towards the screens on the wall to see the portal created by the lasers had stretched to a few miles wide, but even more noticeable was the source of the sound. An extraordinarily large snow leopard, with grey fur and dark spots on his sides and all down his back and tail, had landed beneath the portal. He had a stomach that protruded far beyond his waist- a gargantuan beach ball that could easily obliterate the entire metropolis in a few short moments. A smile slowly creeped across Damon's face- had anyone noticed, it might have raised several questions and every eyebrow in the room. His true intentions were about to come to fruition- this was only the first phase.

The snep rose to his full three-mile-tall height as he began to get a bearing on his surroundings. He slowly lifted his head and surveilled the area, looking around at the helicopters whirling around him like flies. His head contained a long, flowing mane of brown hair that dropped down to his shoulders. As he swirled his head around to get a better view of his surroundings, his hair whipped around with him, causing a near gale force that almost knocked the helicopters around him off of their axes.

"Who dared to summon me?!" the voice boomed with a deep and commanding presence that echoed across the landscape. "What is this place?! Where am I?!" The enormous snep looked around some more before turning his focus towards the ground, where the nearby city dazzled with an effervescent display of its skyline lights. "And what do we have here? A new world for me to conquer? Or maybe to eat... I am rather famished, after all..." Without another word, the oversized snep began to grab at the helicopters that had been buzzing around him one by one and tossing them into his mouth like candy. The pilots didn't even have time to escape his grasp as they were swiftly plunged into eternal darkness, being tossed into his maw without so much as a second thought.

"What... what is that thing?!" One of the technicians rose from his chair and pointed towards the screen as the snep continued his voracious attack. "Is that... is that a snow leopard? Why is it so big?! What did we just bring here?!" Panic began to overcome the room as everyone realized the severity of this situation.

"What's going to happen to us?! Is he going to eat us? Where did that thing come from?! Shouldn't we be evacuating?!" The dissonance and fear that gripped the room sent nearly everyone present into a pandemonium; but the blue dalmatian didn't budge. After ordering a nearby tech to switch the cameras to an auxiliary backup feed siphoning from the city’s camera network, Damon kept his gaze fixated on the screen as he observed what the snep would do next. After finishing his appetizer of the helicopters that had been whirling around his head, the titanic snep set his focus on the city before him. He turned about to face the sprawling metropolis before addressing anyone present who could hear him.

"Hear me now! I am Conrad, conqueror of worlds, and I will lay claim to your city, or destroy it. The choice is yours!" The snep slowly took a first large step towards the city, making the ground shake for miles around him as each paw made landfall. Neither Conrad nor Damon could see from their vantage points the absolute chaos that began to encompass the endangered city- civilians scrambled en masse to escape the quickly approaching threat, rapidly congesting the streets and making a clean escape for anyone in the vicinity nearly impossible. Each quake from the snep's gigantic paws that hit the ground only caused more chaos, shaking cars trying to narrowly escape their demise onto their sides and rendering the area inescapable. It wasn't long before the military began to arrive on the scene- fighter jets scrambled across the sky as tanks and jeeps rolled up to the approaching behemoth in a final desperate attempt to dissipate the imminent attack.

"Aw... is that all you’ve got? You're gonna have to try harder than that!" The massive snow leopard's teasing voice boomed with a force that knocked the oncoming jets off balance before scrambling to escape from their imminent doom. With a simple swipe of his paw, Conrad wiped out the jets around him, grabbing them into his fist and unceremoniously dropping them down into his maw, never to be seen again. He kicked his leg forward towards a row of the incoming military vehicles, swiftly toppling them over and sending them into an oncoming row behind them. Before anyone had time to react, Conrad leaped forward towards the approaching convoy and belly slammed onto the ground, obliterating anything within its blast radius. As the dust settled, Conrad playfully rolled over onto his back, wrapping his long, flowing tail around his gigantic round tummy and began to snack on the vehicles strewn around the area.

"My, my, I wasn't expecting a feast today! You should send more of these out to me, they taste delicious!" He opened some of the doors to the vehicles he grabbed, dumping their occupants into his massive hand before throwing it up to his mouth and swallowing everyone within down in a single gulp. Blood-curdling screams could be heard in droves that were quickly silenced as the snep snapped his mouth shut and sealed their grim fates. After scarfing down all the people he could find, Conrad began to gran the empty vehicles around him and tossed them down into his stomach as chasers- there was evidently no way to truly satiate this alien monster's hunger.

"Oh, you all are so screwed..." the snep said playfully as he turned around towards the now-defenseless and chaotic city. He once again rose to his full height, towering over the puny skyscrapers before him- before taking another massive step towards the endangered metropolis. Just before reaching the limits to the city, Conrad stopped to lay on his side, mischievously surveying the miles of buildings and its occupants and dreaming of how tasty they must be. Compared to the reclining titan, the skyscrapers in the city could hardly even reach the middle of his enormous bulging belly. He looked down once more onto the sprawling city and mused: "To think, you could have been such a great kingdom for me to lay claim to- I would have ruled over you all with a benevolence that even the most forgiving god would not have had. It's such a shame you people chose the path of violence..." The sneppy trailed off before dramatically raising his gigantic bulging stomach over the panicking pedestrians beneath him, stretching over scores of blocks and buildings. The screams below became louder and much more intense as the snep slowly started to tease, lowering his gigantic stomach over the city before finally flopping over onto it with a thunderous crash that could once again be felt in Damon's underground bunker.

The blue dalmatian almost couldn’t contain his excitement- but he had to remain stone cold, staring at the screens and soaking in the chaos as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. He watched as Conrad continued his destructive rampage, knocking over miniscule buildings that barely reached the top of his toes, devouring everything in sight and crowds of people by the handful. Nobody else in the world could have possibly known, but everything was going exactly according to plan. He stared in awe- watching what he considered to be the perfect organism participating in some of the most destructive mayhem in the history of the world. As the room continued to erupt into panicked chaos, Damon slowly slipped out towards a private elevator on the opposite end of the room and jetted onto the roof, where another special helicopter was waiting for him.

"Go! Now!" Damon barked the order as he waved his hand towards Conrad, still rolling around in the city limits like a cat in a hay pile. The helicopter quickly lifted and sped towards the rollicking monster, as Damon pulled out a megaphone to try to communicate with him.

"Sir, are you absolutely sure that this is a good-" the concerned pilot stated before being briskly cut off by the dalmatian yelling back at him.

"What do you know about good and bad ideas?! This has been a project a decade in the making, and I'm not about to let someone like YOU tell me what I should and should not be doing! Just shut up and do your job!" Damon was practically screaming at the top of his lungs in a combination of overwhelming adrenaline and trying to be heard over the roaring of the helicopter blades. The stunned pilot turned around, staring straight at the snow leopard as he could only watch Conrad wantonly decimating rows of skyscrapers all around him. Beneath them, the screams of the citizens scrambling for what little shelter they could find would have been deafening had it not been for the thunderous crashing and booming sounds that the snep's massive stomach made as it hit everything around it. As their helicopter approached the titanic harbinger of destruction, Damon stood up holding a megaphone with one hand and his other clasped onto a stabilizing handle on the roof.

"Hello! Can you hear me?!" the dalmatian began as the helicopter hovered in place a short but safe distance from the snep's immediate vicinity. Conrad didn't seem to notice as he continued his rolling rampage against the buildings around him. The snep stood up to his full height where the nearby helicopter barely reached his neck. Compared to the oversized snow leopard, the helicopter was comparatively the size of a fly- it would have been so simple for Conrad to simply wave his hand and send them spiraling down to the earth, had it not been for the distance between them. Damon once again pulled the megaphone up to his mouth to try and address the rampaging behemoth before them.

"CAN. YOU HEAR. ME? I. AM TRYING. TO COMMUNICATE WITH YOU. I COME IN PEACE!" The blue dalmatian yelled over the megaphone at the top of his lungs, enunciating every word to ensure that his message transferred to the behemoth snow leopard's gargantuan ears. "CONRAD!" Damon screamed out the name in a last-ditch effort that seemed to catch the rampaging cat's attention as his ears flickered. He slowly craned his neck around to find the source of the noise.

"WHO SAID THAT?" boomed the snow leopard, before looking up at the helicopter whirling before him.

"Wait! Don’t attack! I have a proposition for you! I mean you no harm, my intentions were for you, your highness!"

Conrad adjusted his position before slamming his rear onto the ground with a thunderous *BOOM!* His gluttonous stomach rolled out onto the street before him, crushing lines of cars and fleeing pedestrians in its wake. "Ah, at last! Someone who understands the gravity here. What is your name? Are you the ambassador for this realm?"

"My name is Damon Ross, your highness! I do not represent any government, sir, but I can promise that my allegiance is to you and I will do anything I can to help you secure your kingdom! I’ve actually been looking for you!"

"What guarantee can you make that you can secure this "kingdom? And what do you mean you’ve been looking for me? Who told tale of my mighty conquests?" The titanic invader asked in mocking disbelief.

"It's funny you ask!" Damon replied before pulling the vial from his lab coat pocket, immediately opening the lid and downing its content. In a matter of seconds, his body expanded as he leapt from the helicopter. As he traveled towards the ground, his body quickly expanded, ripping everything he had on to shreds. By the time he made landfall, Damon had grown to a towering 500 feet- his body reverberated against the earth as his paws cratered down with a resounding BOOM. He rose to his gargantuan new height, taking a moment to gain his bearings so as not to fall before causing any more destruction. He continued his slow ascent towards Conrad- though he was barely reaching his toe at his present height. His voice grew incrementally deeper as he gained mass, booming with an echo that shattered windows around him.

"I've been researching alternate realities for more than a decade, searching for the ultimate life form. Someone with immense capabilities and power who I could rule with. I've seen you decimate countless realities, bringing billions- hundreds of billions- to their knees. YOU are the one I've been searching for- yearning for! I've wanted someone like you my entire life, someone who I can rampage with across the universe, in a power-hungry lust for domination. Because..." the dalmatian trailed off as he grew another spurt of 100 feet, knocking over an adjacent business tower in the process. "Because you are my soulmate! You are that ultimate life form!"

Damon pulsated upwards, growing an additional 100 feet with each word he emphasized in his last sentence. Barely reaching Conrad's ankle in height, he jumped onto the top of his paw before the enormous sneppy leaned down and plucked him up, holding the dalmatian up to his face, still a mere speck in between his fingers.

"You have an incredible amount of energy behind your words, little blue creature. I like seeing that in my subjects. You showed immense promise by taking the initiative in contacting me. It seems as though I may have found my most valuable asset in overtaking this planet. How much more of this... size shifting... will you experience?"

"I am not certain, my lord," the dalmatian replied, slightly embarrassed at his lack of calculation. "I never was able to properly test this serum out before-"

"No matter," the snep cut Damon off with an air of dismissal before focusing his energy on the dalmatian, making him glow. Conrad gingerly dropped Damon onto his open palm, smiling as the dalmatian began to increase in size yet again. It wasn't long before Damon covered Conrad's entire palm, throwing his legs over the side of the snep's hand as he kept up his intense growth spurt. The rapidly expanding dalmatian before long reached a towering mile-tall height, though by comparison he still barely reached Conrad's thigh.

"That's good enough for now, I think." the still-towering snow leopard replied before cutting off Damon's exponential expansion and placing him on the ground. "Now... you said you wanted to assist in my conquest, yes?" The smaller gigantic blue dalmatian nodded in reply. "Then I suggest you begin by helping me raze this infested rebellious place to the ground. Nothing will stand in my way!" The snow leopard slammed down onto the ground onto several intersections as screaming civilians below were immediately silenced by the explosive sound of his rear hitting the pavement. He then stretched his legs out, ensuring that he crumbled several more blocks of skyscrapers in front of him before enclosing them together and sweeping away scores of skyscrapers and roads filled with fleeing vehicles- everything in the area between his legs was reduced to nothing in a matter of seconds. He looked back expectantly at his new servant, awaiting what he would do next.

"As you wish, my liege!" the dalmatian replied with no hesitation as he proceeded to kick over a skyscraper right next to him. The building folded with next to no resistance, crumbling to dust as panicked screams could be heard echoing from the inside. Damon reached down towards the scattered crowd scrambling for safety and lifted a handful of them up to his mouth before turning around and looking at his new ruler. Conrad flopped over onto his back, crushing several blocks of buildings in the process, and allowed Damon to climb onto his massive stomach and make his way up to his gaping maw. He began to toss terrified residents from his fist into Conrad's mouth like they were tiny grapes, ensuring they dropped straight into his throat into their new domicile. After throwing several victims into Conrad's throat, Damon took the rest of the terrified citizens and stuffed them into his mouth like they were miniature pieces of candy.

"God... why do they all taste so... good? And why do I want more?" He mused between chews and swallows as he slowly gulped every person down- whether or not they made it into his throat in one piece was another story entirely.

"Micros, as I've learned throughout all of my exploits, are the greatest delicacy only reserved for the strongest of warriors. The biggest. The most powerful. We are the apex predators in the universe. You should consider this an honor, little blue one."

"Without a doubt I do, my lord. I just wasn't expecting the taste to be so... enticing. I need more!" Damon had found himself overcome with a voracious appetite, scooping up another handful of fleeing victims and tossing a few more into Conrad's throat like tiny gumdrops before stuffing another handful into his mouth.
After depleting his hands of all the edible civilians he’d gathered up, Damon quickly hopped off of Conrad's bloated belly and ran up to another building twice his height, swinging his arm through the middle and slicing it in half. He quickly pushed the top of the building onto the ground and drooling atop the horrified inhabitants. With the widest grin on his face that he could muster, Damon gleefully reached for another fistful of terrified onlookers as he stuffed his maw again with more petrified innocents. After grabbing another group of petrified citizens, he bounded back over to Conrad, still lounging in his spot in the middle of the decimated metropolis, and climbed back onto his chest, feeding him even more micros to satiate the gluttonous ruler's unending hunger.

Passers-by were trying to flee the destruction both on foot and by vehicle, but they found themselves quickly blocked by the sneppy's falling arms. In a matter of seconds, tens of blocks on either side of Conrad were swept up in his arms as he pulled them together towards his sides. The ravenous snow leopard curled his arms up, scooping with him a massive crowd of screaming pedestrians and cars that he quickly shoved into his maw, chewing and swallowing his victims in a clean, nonstop motion that turned him into a micro-eating factory.

Damon watched in reverent awe as he watched his new overlord shoveling in rows of vehicles and pedestrians- swallowing them whole with no apparent effort. In all his years of research and exploration to find the ultimate form of power, he never could have imagined anything like Conrad. There was some kind of strangely appealing allure to this monstrous feline as he continued to decimate his aggressors and victims for their audacious rebellion. He felt a strange sort of affection towards the snep- seeing such a raw display of unadulterated power was bolstering his emotions in a way he never could have anticipated.

Once Conrad finished his massive meal of tinies, he scooped Damon into his palm and placed him on his shoulder. Standing to his full height once more, Conrad took a step forward and wiped out another several blocks of buildings in front of him. There was barely anything left to salvage in the area at this point- Conrad looked around at the fruits of his destruction and gave a hearty, satisfied sigh before flopping one more time onto a patch of skyscrapers that were nestled behind him. What few escaping civilians remained were quickly caught under his swiftly-falling belly, crushed into dust and never to be seen again.

The entire city had been reduced to ash. Toppled buildings crumbled into dust, and whatever few citizens had managed to escape from the frenetic destruction were quickly spotted and scooped up by either Conrad as a last snack or Damon to deliver back to the conquering ruler. After ensuring that every sign of life in the former metropolis had been snuffed out, Damon kneeled before addressing the playfully destructive conqueror. "My lord, if it pleases you, would you allow me to join you in your conquest across dimensions? You have my undying fealty- I wish nothing more than to serve you in any way I can."

The gigantic grey snep let out a hearty, bellowing laugh- his belly bounced up and down as his roaring laughter echoed across the land around them. "In all my years, I've never met anyone so eager and willing to go along with me. I like you, little blue. You showed some pretty great promise here today as my humble helper. I will grant you this request, if only to satiate the curiosity I have for your potential! Come along with me now, let me show you the wonders that the universe has to offer! I bore of this reality- perhaps we’ll find something more challenging in our travels."

Conrad got up once more and reached down to pick up Damon. With a snap of his fingers, a portal opened beneath them to reveal an entirely new environment: the sky was crimson red, and a vast field of grass starkly contrasted with the snowy streets around them. Conrad looked over at Damon and gave him a smooch on the nose before jumping into the hole in the ground, whisking the two away onto their next calamitous romp.


TO BE CONTINUED…

Copyright MMXXIV ADW Enterprises