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Senku, Kohaku, Chrome, Ryusui and Ukyo were all gathered on the ground, being in the middle of adding more details to the maps they were creating of all land to help track what was where, which places were easier to reach and of course were they could find useful resources such as oil when Ryusui suddenly tensed up.
"What's up?" Senku asked, making the others look up too.
"We should find some shelter. It's gonna hail soon." the captain told them seriously.
"Hail? Are you sure? It's sunny after all." Chrome asked.
"No, look! I can see dark clouds coming over in the distance!" Kohaku said, looking into the distance with a hand above her eyes.
None of the guys could see anything but they knew better than to not trust her eyesight or Ryusui's weather forecasting.
"Should we set up the tent?" Ukyo suggested, only for Ryusui to shake his head.
"No," he said grimly, "This feels like a bad one. One where the ice will be larger chucks and might damage the tent if we set it up."
"Really?!"
"Alright people, no need to panic! Let's hurry and take the balloon down and find some proper shelter!" Senku ordered, bringing them back to order.
Together they quickly disassembled the balloon and took off with everything, luckily managing to find a cave they could go into with all their stuff and not have anything damage anything important.
No sooner than they were inside the storm had caught up with them and it started.
At first it started with a light drizzle of rain, then this turned into a heavier rainfall and then hail started.
"Hey now, that doesn't look so bad. We could have easily been fin just sitting up the tent." Chrome said, looking at the admitably tiny ice-balls that fell from the sky.
"Wait for it..." Ryusui drawled and as if waiting for his permission larger chunks of hail started falling, slowly getting bigged and bigger till they were the size of tennisballs.
"Yeah... Nevermind..." Chrome gulped nervously.
"Yeah, even I wouldn't go out in this weather. Getting hit by those things would definately hurt." Kohaku agreed.
"I just hope Ruri and the others back at home will be okay." she frowned worriedly.
"Don't worry about them. Judging by the wind right now this storm won't pass the village." Ryusui reassured, earning a relieved smile.
"I've never even seen hail this bi in real life before. I mean, I heard about it getting big in some parts of the world but..." Ukyo trailed off.
"Fun fact, the biggest hailstone ever recorded feel in Vivian in South Dakota with a diameter of 20,3 centimeters and and a circumference of 47,3 centimeters." Senku piped up, earning stares.
"Why do you even know that of all things? Ah, no wait. I don't even care anymore." he archer sighed rubbing his temples, making the scientist chuckle.
"So... It would have been about this size?" Kohaku asked, holding her hands appart.
"Right, ten billion points to you, Lioness."
"I'm not a lioness!"
"But you sure roar like one."
"If anything, she's more of a gorilla." Chrome of course had to add, resulting in him receiving a powerful kick to the head and with that everyone decided that discussion was over.
"Anyway, I'm pretty sure this will pass in about an hour." Ryusui stated.
"Well, nothing we can do about that for the moment. Might as well get comfortable." Senku shrugged and leaned back sat down against the cave wall.
An akward moment of silence hung in the air.
"Sooo... Do you guys wanna hear about the time Magma thought he was too tough to take shelter from hail like everyone else and got hit in the head and knocked over several jars of wine?" Chrome perked up, looking at the other guys.
"Ha! He got yelled at by half the village for that since we had a party planned later that week!" Kohaku laughed as she remembered.
"Ha ha! Nothing like some good old memory-sharing to pass the time! Tell me more!" Ryusui demanded with a grin.
"Just please make sure to not talk too loudly? Everyone's voices are echoing from the walls." Ukyo suggested sheepishly.
"Right, sorry!"
"Ow... That's not helping much but thanks for trying."
As Chrome and Kohaku went on with telling them of Magma's dumbassery, Senku heaved a heavy sigh and leaned back against the cave's wall.
As annoying as it was to have to take a break and wait out that stupid hail, hearing the laughter of his friends made it not so bad after all.