Okay, so this story used to be Rachel x Finn, but I think it should be Kendall x Jo because there aren't enough, sooooooooo here you go! I know in the beginning, they hate each other, but give it a chance :] thanks!

Storm Chasing: A Story of Love, Hate, and Sacrifice

Thunder rumbled overhead like there was a bowling tournament in the sky, followed by a strike of lightening that could've sliced a cement block clean through. Hail the size of mini-bouncy balls fell from the grey clouds, and rain came down like pellets. The winds, even though intangible, whipped and whirled ,and slammed into us; as if a warning us to leave. In other words, usual weather for this time of year.

"So this is what a real life tornado looks like up close. Wow, what category is it?" 21-year old Kendall said from the somewhat safeness of their chasing vehicle that was parked at an intersection about a mile away from the tornado. Because this was his first tornado, he wasn't sure what to expect. So far, it wasn't that bad, but he didn't want to jinx it.

It was a stormy May evening; 5 PM to be exact. The wind speed had drastically increased from the passenger seat window's view.

"It's an F4, and stop daydreaming and pay attention!" Jo yelled beside him. She was also 21, but a 3 year veteran to the part-time job and has been interested in chasing since she was a teen. So her parents told her about this program that allows you to report any major storms in your area to a weather website or station. And because she lives in Missouri, it was easy. She lives in tornado Alley, along with Kendall, so they participated in that program. Because tornado season-March to June-isn't the whole year, this is only a part-time job. Both Kendall and Jo have other jobs away from the tornado chasing.

"I'm not daydreaming, I'm thinking!" He snapped back. Even if he wasn't a veteran, he was sure of one thing; Jo always had to be right.

"Sure. Did you send the radiosonde up yet?" She said as she observed the Doppler Radar's readings.

A radiosonde is a package that is carried into the sky, like a weather balloon, that researchers-or in this case, Kendall- put information in like; air pressure, temperature, and humidity into the computer and it automatically graphs it. Because it is all automatic, it makes collecting information that much easier, and less work for Kendall.

"Yeah, yeah, all covered. So um now what?" He asked peering over at the radar.

"Just hold on a sec." she said. He sighed and looked out the window. Even though the tornado was a mile or so away, there was still horrible winds and debris flying everywhere. The Fujita Scale could be wrong and this could be a F5 tornado, but it was highly unlikely. The wind snapped trees with ease and the rain was pounding down on the van. There was also the sound of a freight train barreling towards them, but he knew it was just the tornado. When a piece of drywall hit the windshield, he was knocked out of his trance.

"Hey don't you think we should distance ourselves from the tornado a little more?" Kendall asked slouching in his seat.

"No. Why?" Jo snapped her head around to him. She seemed to be irritated by that comment.

"Well, I was just thinking the tornado is kind of you know, gaining on us." He was very cautious of what he said, because he didn't want to get into another fight with her.

"You were just thinking. That's the problem, you shouldn't think on this expedition. You have to know. Like if I asked you,' What is a tornado?' What would you say?" She spit back at him. Why did she have to be so damn uptight!

"I would say it's an extremely violent thunderstorm, with high speed winds. And is measured on the Fujita Scale. Which to me sounds like Fajita Scale." Kendall was sure she would chew him up and spit him out.

"WRONG! A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that extends from a thunderstorm to the ground!" She spoke extremely quick, as if she was running out of time, or breath." How could you not know this?"

"How do you expect me to be a human tornado dictionary on the first day!" He said throwing his arms up in the air with exasperation. "How in the world did you remember that?"

"I-"

"Wait, I don't want to know. You'll probably give me this lecture on your younger years of reporting tornadoes. Oh and by the way, 'human dictionary' is not a compliment on my watch!" He wasn't yelling, but he certainly wasn't using his indoor voice.

"Well what is a compliment for you? Idiot? Cheese head? Oh I know, BUFFOON! That's exactly what you are!" She was steaming now. She was about to grab both of his shoulders and give him a good shake until he understood her point.

"Well at least I'm not a fact-book that spits out random information on stupid stuff. Like I remember on the way here, you were talking about 5,000 different things at once!" He screamed back. He had had enough of her know-it-all attitude. "Like 'No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.' Seriously, who needs to know that? I spent like an hour trying to rhyme some word with them. The only thing I could come up with is door hinge rhymes with orange, kinda. Oh and who needs to know, 'The sentence: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter of the alphabet.' I also couldn't help but try to prove you wrong."

"So it's my fault I'm smart, and you're not? That makes perfect sense!" She glared daggers at him, but he held her gaze.

"Aren't you supposed to be driving or something? Or are you too smart for that?" He said crossing his arms over his chest. " 'Kendall will you do all the work for me because I'm waaaay too smart and experienced for this kind of work?' "He chuckled at his impersonation of her. If this part-time job or his Lifeguard job didn't work out, he could always look into acting or voice acting. Yeah, he'd be good at that.

"My voice isn't that high pitched! And for your information, I've done more that you have. This is why I didn't want to go follow this tornado alone with you! I wish we had another car. Then maybe I could drive that one and not put up with you! 'I'm Kendall, and ooh I wonder who's playing today in sports. I think it's the Green Bay Packers and the Miami Heat! Yeah throw that basket and do your dance!' " she said huskily trying to imitate him, but failing epically.

He couldn't hold back a laugh. She was horrible at sports trivia, but even with all that anger boiled up inside her, he oddly noticed how her dark brown eyes sparkled. Dude! Not now! His voice of reason yelled at him. Whatever.

"Fine!" He said leaning into the back seat, grabbing the camera and video camcorder from the travel bag. "Look I can help as well!" As he held up the camera to snap a Kodak moment, he noticed a small detail. "Oh my gosh! Look at how close the tornado is! It's less than a mile away and I don't think we can just drive away from it! We're all going to die. I'm too young to die. Well, even if I'm not, I still don't want to!" He said pointing over Jo's shoulder. She jerked around and she gaped at the sight.

The winds were swirling extremely fast and objects were being picked up. The grey clouds looked like they were hungry and going to eat them. This is why there are at least two people in a vehicle; one for driving and the others for collecting data and snapping pictures and video. Otherwise, the driver would crash or be in total shock like Jo.

Jo, in sight of this biggy, remembered her first expedition. And how shock over took her body and impaired her senses. Her partner had to shake her whole body and scream her name constantly, to bring her back to reality.

"Jo, Jo, Hey! Earth to Jo! Crap! Great now instead of an F4 tornado barreling towards us, I have an unconscious partner! You know, I should name the tornado. Like the way they do with hurricanes. Hmm. I got it; Fabio because Fabio begins with and F and there are 4 letters after it. Hahaha F4. Man I need to get a life." Kendall gave up shaking her after a few minutes.

Jo still wasn't responding, so Kendall had to think on his feet. His eyes carefully scanned their truck's interior for something loud, wet, or both. He spread his hands underneath his seat and felt around for a desired object, but to no avail, came up empty handed. He looked back at Jo's silhouette before him-his heart beating a mile a minute, threatening to cause some kind of heart attack- and continued searching. His eyes landed on a lone water bottle that was half full and probably a day old. Acting swiftly, he unscrewed the cap-which took him a few seconds on account of his nervousness at that moment- and tossed it aside like it was a piece of unwanted trash. In one quick motion, he soaked her with the warm, clear, liquid sustained, no longer, in the plastic bottle. Even though the bottle held less than half of the water supposed to be in there, it was enough to snap Jo back to reality, and also enough to cause her to go from scared and frightened, to angry and was in a great deal of trouble if he didn't think of something fast, which, lucky for him, he had a great track record.

"H-hey Jo. Glad you're back." He stuttered sheepishly. Deep breath. You got this man. "Wait! Before you kill me, can I just point out something?" He shielded his face with crossed arms, as if that would protect him from any harm she inflicted upon him.

"Yeah, yeah let's hear it." Her sour tone suggested his accusations about her being angry, were confirmed.

"Uh Fabio is coming after us, so I suggest we-" He started saying, but she cut him off.

"Fabio?"

"Yeah! That's what I named the tornado! You know, like how they name hurricanes?"

"Whatever. "

"Well, we need to go. Like NOW!" He wasn't sure if Jo would listen to him, but he figured she did after the next few seconds.

Jo seemed to process this because as quickly as she could with all the nervousness packing on, turned the keys in the ignition, and as the truck revved up, put it in drive and stepped on the accelerator.

Faster than the speed of light, Kendall and everything in their chasing mobile, was thrown backwards. Kendall was suddenly thanking the guy who invented the cushioned seat. Everything fell to the floor and cluttered from its previous position. The jerking of the truck caused a mesh pit to form on the floor of the back seat area.

Jo, however, remained unfazed and still was a tad jumpy from her mental run in with the torn- Fabio. Kendall was an idiot, but saying 'Fabio' was a whole lot easier than saying 'the tornado'. Why on Earth was he braver than she, a 3 year veteran? He should be the one shaking from the sight of a colossal, swirling whirlwind plowing it's way over him. She shivered at the mere thought, but looked over at him for some kind of reassurance in her time of need...again. Even if she was soaked, he did wake her up instead of ditching her. She did owe him that.

Of course when she glanced over at him, he was clutching his arm rest like he was about to fall of a cliff and the arm rest was the boulder at the top that would save his life. She smirked, but he caught it and gazed dreamily at her. Weirdo. "Drive Woman!" He said pointing at the windshield, indicating for her to keep her eyes on the road ahead of them.

She turned back obediently, and cracked a smile at his exasperation. Whilst she navigated away from Fabio, she had instructed Kendall to locate the nearest town within a mile radius. She could hear the crinkling of the map, before she heard him shout over the noise, "Cassville! Cassville is the closest town; it's only about a quarter-mile away. Just take the next left-no not your left, my left ugh!-and then we'll be on our way to Main Street." Fabio was drawing closer; she knew without looking it that direction because there was an increase of sound from that direction. The sound itself is hard to explain , but it sounds most like a train coming at full speed towards you. It's enough to cause temporary or permanent deafness.

"Are you sure?" She yelled and peered over at him and saw he was staring blankly at the map, turning it every which way, trying to decipher which way would actually get them away from Fabio's path. He was failing epically. "We're doomed," she said in a hopeless tone under her breath.

Apparently Fabio wasn't loud enough, for Kendall heard her mutter the almost inaudible comment. He was ready to defend his navigational skills at all costs. "Hey! I happen to be an excellent navigator! And I don't need to justify this to you! Wait. Um is west up or down?" He asked shifting the map once more.

Jo sharply turned the car to avoid flying debris, but it ended up jerking Kendall to the left. The end result was Kendall crashing into Jo. His right arm was jabbed towards the car door, but looked as if it was draped over Jo's they realized the position they were in, they burned to a deep crimson color. After draping over her for a few seconds, Jo pushed him off with her right arm, and yelling, "Will you get off me! You're impairing my driving!" He seemed to get the point, but remembered it wasn't his fault for falling into her; it was hers because the car doesn't drive on its own. He just brushed it off because he was just trying to survive Fabio. But he couldn't resist the urge to snap back with, "I'm sure that's not the reason your driving's impaired." He peppered in sarcasm to make sure he got his message across.

He leaned into the backseat and grabbed the camera assigned to them. He put the strap around his neck and removed the cap over the lens. He'd almost forgot about it, what with all of their bickering. The video camcorder on top of the van has been recording Fabio's progress all this time, but it was his duty to capture at least two snap shots of Fabio. Each chasing vehicle had a small waterproof camcorder attached onto the roof. It wasn't required, but it's the easiest way to capture the movement of a hail continued to crash down onto, it seemed like, them alone, it made the angle of which he needed to snap off a picture, extremely difficult. He, stupidly, opened the window for a better view, but as he zoomed onto his target-BAM! Their vehicle went over a small patch of rocks stranded in the middle of the road. Kendall hit his head on the inside top part of the window sill, and the camera, which was still wrapped around his neck, bounced off the bottom part of the window sill and hit his chin. His face was throbbing. To add to the pain inflicted upon his face, he hadn't closed the window, thus allowing hail and rain to continually pelt him repeatedly.

"OWW!" He said in pain. He rubbed his chin, but it was no use.

"Sorry," she said with a smirk crawling onto her face, "my driving was 'impaired', remember?" She didn't wait for an answer to her hypothetical question. "Just focus on navigating!"

"Blah, blah, blah," He just waved it off like it was no big deal. "I have to take at least 2 pics or Mr. Simins will kill me! So please try to drive, okay?" He took the camera back into his hands and lined up for another decent shot. The window was still opened, but ceased the peltation of hail towards him. SNAP! 1 down, 1 to go.

Mr. Simins is their boss, kinda. He is in charge of the weather station they reported to as teens and now the owner of their chasing company in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Feyetteville is located in the northwest corner of the state, so they could chase in Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Because Kendall is a rookie, and has only the experience of reporting as a 19 year old boy, Mr. Simins assigned him an easy job: photography. Obviously Kendall forgot about it until now.

It's a good thing their business is close to Cassville, and where ever they were now because this gives them a lot of area for chasing. This is what most companies do; build their organization near a highly tornado prone area. The reason Missouri is so tornado prone, is because it's in tornado alley. Tornado Alley is a range of states that gets hit by tornadoes each year. The warm, moist air swept in by the Gulf of Mexico ,collides from the cold, dry air from Canada and the Rocky Mountains, and form super cell thunderstorms, which turn into tornadoes if they are strong enough.

"Well hurry up! I'm going to need help navigating around Cassville. And I guess I'm stuck with...you," she said in disgust. Jo was turning onto a road which was unknown because Fabio had uprooted the street sign and it was probably swirling above their heads right now. But according to his calculations, they would be turning onto Fr 2160, which he guessed was a federal road. Then they would turn right and BAM! You have reached your destination. Jo will definitely be thanking him after this.

"Well whatever. Keep going straight until you see Main Street, which will be on your right." He was starting to pay more attention to the surroundings outside their van.

He hadn't noticed how much sweat he was perspiring, but to be honest, he was soaked! He glanced back out the window, and saw what he'd heard about but never witnessed. His ears were still ringing form the loud freight train that sounded like it would come, but never showed. He saw trees being snatched by Fabio, leaving empty holes. Debris made up of pieces of drywall, wood chunks, windows, insulation, shingles, toys, and a lot of unidentified flying objects were floating around them and smashing into their vehicle. What was really depressing, was when a baby doll without an owner came in contact with the windshield. Kendall couldn't stand looking at the baby doll because it reminded him that people's lives would be effected by this freak of !

"What just happened?" Kendall noticed their sudden halt in the middle of the road, with a killer tornado after them.

"I think we ran over something sharp, 'cuz it flattened the tires. The point is, either we stay here and you know...perish, or we run for our lives and try to find shelter in a basement or tornado shelter." She said turning off the engine. A storm shelter is a cellar dug into the earth to give protection to people in harm's way, but if that is not available, a basement or low ground area works too.

"Option B please. Let's go!" Kendall grabbed the door handle and pushed it open, but it took a lot of force because of the 100+ mile an hour winds pushing against him.

The wind was overpowering as he jumped down from the safety of the truck. Luckily, it was pushing with him, or he would be gone.; swept up into Fabio. They ran around the front of the car and exchanged a wary glance. Then it was all instinct.

They could barely hear anything with the unbearable noise and they constantly had to avoid falling could barely make out where he was going, so he reached over and grabbed Jo's hand. They continued on at a bit slower than a sprint and Kendall almost missed it when Jo yelled, "Storm shelter! There's one over this way! Just follow me!" She pulled him over to the left and a million things were running through his head.

Stupid Fabio! Where are we? How far away is Fabio? Are we going to make it to the shelter? Is there a shelter? Will I die? Will Jo die?

Unfortunately, he came back to reality but to his disdain, it wasn't how he'd imagined he would be woken up. A sharp pain ripped through his body. He was on fire, and his arms were the only things he could move. Covering his lower torso, was a huge piece of drywall that had torn from a nearby house. He could see, even though his eyes hurt from the increasing winds, a bright red seeping through his pants. His mind was now paralyzed at the sight of his position. He looked up at Jo with tears in his eyes, and either she couldn't keep her composure or was just letting it out. She was allowing tears to slip down her cheek and her eyes were red. He knew that if one thing was for sure, she had to make it at all costs.

"Jo, help me lift this up!" His voice was strained and his hands went down to the piece of rubble capturing his lower body.

She ran over frantically and lifted with all her might; he could tell by the look in her eyes. She tried over and over again, but it wasn't helping. She looked up at Fabio, shuddered and looked back at him. Her mind wouldn't stop racing.

He's going to die! No he can't! NO! NO! NO! NO! This cannot be happening! I need to help him! He has to survive! Why can't I lift this stupid piece of wood!

Then she heard something she dreaded and something very un-Kendall, "You need to get out of here! I'm not strong enough to lift this and you're going to waste time that you could be using to get away, here where it is useless. Maybe this is why there were only two of us; I was sent here to make sure you survived. I'm sorry I fought with you and I regret it. Okay maybe not regret, but this is it. You need to be selfish and leave! Now!" He was tearing up at his own words. She couldn't leave him. She wouldn't leave him! Would she?

"I'm not going to leave without you!" She tucked a piece of flying hair behind her ear. The black clouds in the sky were frightening and she couldn't imagine anyone being swept up into them.

"As my final wish," He began taking her hand." I want you to leave."

She crouched down to his level and looked dreamily into his eyes. He wasn't going to leave her. But she followed her instinct and nodded. He smiled. Why in the world would you smile now? She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tighter, not waiting for this to end. They pulled away and he kissed her cheek.

"Go!" Those were the final word she heard him speak because she got up and ran. Not like oh I'll race you to the corner. The winner gets a dollar. No, more like I'm running away from death. It's like sprinting, but faster if that was even possible. She arrived at her safe haven and looked back at Kendall's figure in the distance. The ominous cumulonimbus clouds overtook his stranded body. A single tear slipped from her eye. She had to turn away. She shut the door and locked it tightly. There was a moment of shaking. Think of it as an earthquake or if you haven't experienced that, the whole room shaking and you're being pressed to a life-size vibrator. After a few seconds, it stopped, but Jo stayed put on the small wooden chair for a few more minutes just to be safe.

Her curiosity overtook her, and she stood up. Had Kendall managed to escape? Was he still there, pinned to the ground? What happened? Is he okay or not? Did I make the right choice?

She pushed open the wooden door and peered out into the vast dump that lay before her. She gasped. She now knew what it meant to have your breath taken away: Kendall was nowhere in sight.

DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN

So please read the whole thing and tell me what you think : good? bad? stupid? revolting? trash?