Disclaimer: I don't own Tangled. I don't own Twister. This is what, in Fair Use, we call a parody.

Please note the following about this story:

I reference weather terms here and there. Where I deem it necessary, there will be explanations, but not all of them will be explained. This isn't a school lesson, and the jargon is only there for authenticity and "local color."

I've made the deliberate choice to refer to the Fujita Scale rather than the Enhanced Fujita Scale. This is because the Enhanced scale is in use operationally only in the United States, and this allegedly occurs in Europe.

If anyone reading this thinks that the subject matter might bother them (e.g., they experienced a loss from a major tornado strike), please, don't read it. If you must, then you've been warned. I'm not going to censor it and I'm not going to apologize.

The fic is rated M for multiple reasons, to be safe. I'm not holding back in the language department, and that is the primary reason for the rating, but there's also some violence, friskiness, and depictions of drunkenness. Note that I said "friskiness." I do not have out-and-out smut planned for this story.

Author's Note: This begins on a really cheerful note (sarcasm). However, the story follows Twister somewhat closely in the main events, and this is necessary.

Chapter 1: Devastation

It was a dark and stormy night, and the wind did not sound like a typical gale whistling through the branches of trees. It did not sound like anything the Fitzherberts had ever heard before. It was unearthly. It roared as if it had a mind of its own and this little homestead had somehow angered it by its very existence. At least, that was how it seemed to the terrified but fascinated child who lived there.

"Get into the cellar!" screamed the mother as they ran across the field. A piece of metal flew across the grass, barely missing her. Another one flew directly at the little boy's head, but preternaturally, he seemed to sense it, and ducked. He reached a wooden trapdoor and tried to pull it upward, but it was too heavy.

The tornado was now very close. A gust of wind got into the small crack that the boy had managed to put between the door and the ground, lifting the entire trapdoor up—and away. The hinges shattered and the storm cellar door was sucked into the wind.

"Jump!" cried the father. He held his wife's hand. The entire family made to leap into the shelter. Little Eugene went first.

A lot of things happened at once. He found himself suddenly not falling straight down, but flying—airborne—and a thrill coursed through his body at the sensation. It was both fascinating and horrible. He knew that if he didn't find something fixed to grab onto—

Suddenly he saw something. Eugene grabbed a metal pipe that had been bolted into the wall of the shelter for a grip. Clinging to it for dear life, he looked back at the stairs. His parents were still outside, holding on to each other, his father's hand gripping a remnant of a hinge. Sick at the terrible sight, Eugene loosened one arm from his pipe to reach for his father's other hand.

"No! Don't let go!" shouted the man. Agony was in his eyes and his wife's. "Whatever you do, don't let go!"

"You have to get inside!" Eugene cried.

There was so much pain in their eyes. "I'm so sorry," his mother said over the roar of the wind. "We love you so much. Don't let go."

He let out a cry. The hinge that they were clinging to snapped, and they were pulled into the maelstrom, vanishing from his sight into a black cloud of darkness.

He screamed and screamed. He could hardly hear his own screams over the roar. The soul-shaking roar. But he didn't let go.

It seemed like hours before the noises stopped, but when it was finally quiet, Eugene noticed that he was still clinging to the pipe. He felt the normal downward pull of the Earth and realized that it was over. Starlight, wicked in its irony, shone through the exposed hole in the ground. Gingerly he stepped down and began to walk up the stairs that he had never walked down in the first place.

A scene of total devastation met his eyes. His house was completely gone, with no trace that it had ever been there except for what looked like trash scattered everywhere. The big tree that he had not been allowed to climb was snapped off halfway and stripped bare of all bark. Sap oozed from it.

He looked out, a sinking feeling in his body. "Mom?" he called tentatively. Another step. He was on the ground now, out of the storm cellar. "Dad?"

He broke into a run. "Mom! Dad!"

There was no answer.

He ran and ran. The debris that had been their belongings was barely recognizable. There was nothing there larger than the size of a coin. Nothing. He called for his parents for what felt like hours before finally collapsing on the ground facedown. The size of the debris told the tale. No one could have survived this. His parents were dead. He began to cry, and it very rapidly turned into uninhibited sobbing.

He didn't know how long he lay there, sobbing into the grass and the fragments of his old possessions. When finally he could stand up, he heaved a deep breath, swallowed a hiccup, and happened to glance at the other tree, the one that he liked to climb. It too was stripped bare of all bark, and all the leaves and smaller branches were snapped off, but something was caught in one of the lower limbs. He went over to the tree and quickly realized what it was. His satchel dangled from the limb, somehow completely intact. He expertly climbed the tree—it was harder now that it was so sticky and smooth—and retrieved the brown leather bag. At least he still had something. Opening the button and lifting the flap, he saw with a shock that the satchel still held the book of adventure stories that had been his last birthday present from his parents.

"Damn squatters, no record of who they were or anything else," complained an ugly, red-uniformed man as he shuffled papers around in the office.

Another official grunted in response. "Yeah, probably living outside the law. Bet they weren't married either. Were they even inside Corona borders?"

"Hell no," said a third officer.

"Then why's this"—the first man gestured at Eugene—"our problem?"

"He's just a kid," said the second man. "Ain't his fault. We can't leave a kid out there all by himself. Better off they're dead, actually. He might have a chance to be something, away from a family of criminal squatters livin' under the broomstick."

The little boy sat stock-still in a leather chair in the office, clutching his satchel possessively and watching this scene. How dare these people speak of his parents like this.

He suddenly noticed that none of them were actually paying him any attention. They were too focused on their paperwork or their stupid conversation. They didn't even see him as a person, most likely. He was just a problem to be taken care of. Silently, sneakily, he took a ballpoint pen off the desk and put it in his satchel. They didn't even notice. He had something of theirs, and they didn't know it. Inwardly he exulted at the feat and what it signified to him.

The first man was still taking down notes. "If he's fourteen, we can apprentice him out."

"Ain't likely he's that old."

"Scrawny. He might be. How old are you, kid?"

"Eight," he said sullenly. It was true, after all.

"All right. Looks like you gotta go to the orphanage. What's your name?" His pen was poised over a form.

Eugene suddenly came to a resolution. He was not going to have his parents' real names dragged through the mud by these despicable men. They didn't know who he was or who his parents had been. There was no record of them, so he would keep his memories of them to himself. No one else was worthy of knowing them, least of all these people. He would take on a new identity. The book in his satchel swam to the front of his mind.

He glared at them. "My name is Flynn Rider."