Blast: The Teenage Hero

8. Canine Catastrophe

It's a calm afternoon in Peachwood. Tommy is on his way to Alice's house to help with the science project, humming as he walks, cheerful as always. "What a beautiful day!" Tommy says with a smile on his face. "I have a feeling this is going to be a great day." he adds, until he sees something in the distance. It's a silhouette that looks like the shape of a dog. "Huh?" Tommy narrows his eyes, trying to see what that is.

The silhouette approaches, and Tommy sees that it's definitely a dog, though not a regular dog. It's a large, black dog with two heads, one that seems all too familiar to him. It's the same dog that was at Dr. Zack's base! Tommy comes to a complete stop as the dog seems to recognize him as well, and starts growling. Tommy's smile disappears and instead an expression of pure terror appears on his face, as he gets a flashback of the dog almost biting his foot off last time he saw him.

"N-Nice doggie..." he says, trying to calm down the dog, but the dog starts barking, and chases after him. Seeing the dog running at him, clearly with the intention to bite him, Tommy lets out a yell, and starts running away as fast as his legs will take him, while the dog chases him along the sidewalk.

The dog keeps barking as it chases after Tommy, with Tommy running away for dear life, yelling the whole time in fear. Why is this dog here anyway? Shouldn't it be at Dr. Zack's place? He wonders what could've possibly happened for the dog to be out here, so far away from Dr. Zack's base. Did it really just come all this way to hunt him down?

As he runs away, he passes through a park, making his way through some bushes on the way. The dog chases him, still barking the whole time, with Tommy desperately trying to lose the dog. As he gets chases, some bystanders see Tommy and the dog run by, so fast that most of them don't even notice that the dog has two heads. One man in particular does notice the two-headed dog, and just looks at the bottle in his hand. "Maybe that's too much for one day..." he says, throwing the bottle away.

However, as Tommy runs through another bush, this one in particular had thorns. He gets through, getting poked by a few of the thorns along the way, but as the dog passes through, Tommy hears the dog stop barking, and instead letting out a high-pitched cry, as if it was hurt. Tommy looks back, and sees the dog just out of the thorn bush, lifting one of its front paws off the ground, whining with a pained face.

Tommy stops running for a bit, realizing that the dog is no longer chasing him, and seeing that the two-headed dog is in pain. As much as he's afraid of the dog, he can't help but feel sorry for the dog. He turns back, and approaches the dog slowly. "H-Hey... are you alright?" he asks. The dog growls a bit as it sees Tommy approach, but Tommy keeps approaching. Despite the growling, the dog doesn't actually run towards him to bite, as it keeps holding its paw up above the ground, almost as if it didn't want to put its paw on the ground.

Tommy gets as close as he can, and notices what the problem is. A thorn is stuck on the dog's paw. No wonder the dog doesn't want to put its paw down. "Did you get a thorn stuck on your paw?" he asks, looking at the two-headed creature. "I can help you... just promise you won't bite me..." he adds, looking at the dog with a compassionate face. The dog looks up at him with its two heads, as if waiting to see what the boy is going to do.

Tommy gets a bit closer, and extends his hand towards the dog's paw. The dog growls a bit, but Tommy grabs the thorn and pulls it out of the dog's paw, causing the dog to let out a brief cry, but then, it looks at its paw, and puts it back on the ground. Seeing that it no longer hurts, it looks back up at Tommy. Tommy starts to tremble, worried that the dog is going to attack him again now that its paw is back to normal.

The dog approaches him, and Tommy feels as if his heart skips a beat, as the dog knocks him onto the floor... and then starts licking it with both of its tongues. "You... you're not going to hurt me?" Tommy says, as he laughs a bit as the dog licks him. "Aw... you're thanking me for helping you? Don't worry, it's all good!" Tommy says to the dog.