by Gabe Hudson
So my point being her whole death vibe isn’t helping her cause in terms of getting some Datalizard dude to ask her to EggHarvest. Because no dragon fool wants to invade a planet with a chick who keeps asking him if he’s dead.
Anyway, so on this Crown Day morning when I say that smart-ass thing to Fribby about how she should be a cheerleader, I figure she’s definitely going to whack me upside my scaly green head.
So there I am, bracing myself for the blow.
But instead, Fribby points out the windshield, and shouts: “Look! Runcita! There she goes!”
I whirl around and look out the spaceship’s windshield and spot Runcita. She’s out there strolling along on her muscular green haunches, making her way through the crowded parking lot. And as per usual, she is looking seriously luscious.
Now I don’t need to point my powerstaff at Runcita because I already know every number in her Cadet Profile by heart. Like I already know her WILL TO POWER status rank is a whopping MegaBeast. Another twenty-seven points, and she’ll bump up into the Seek&Destroy rank. Seek&Destroy is the highest possible classification on the WarWings WILL TO POWER RANKING INDEX.
Runcita is wearing her gold tunic and she’s got a gold tiara on her head. Her green webbed feet are bare and her toe claws have red polish on them.
Now if you happen to be a man-creature who’s reading this, then you should know that us dragons usually go barefoot. On Blegwethia it’s a sign of status. Only slaves wear shoes. Besides, the scales on the bottom of our webbed feet are so thick that we can walk through a fresh stream of lava without feeling a thing. So why would we ever want to wear shoes?
I don’t mean to sound perverted here but Runcita is stacked, and the way she bounces when she walks, it’s a wonder she’s able to keep all those glorious scaly curves moving in unison like that. It’d probably be easier to control a herd of camels, if you get my drift.
So Runcita strolls through the parking lot. She keeps her leathery wings spread out a little behind her to give her some balance and her luscious tail is raised up over her head.
Well seeing Runcita out there like that, it catches me off guard. Suddenly it feels like I’ve just been punched in my jumbo-sized heart.
Her red toe claws are sparkling in the new morning sun.
And that dragonette is so juicy-looking that it literally hurts my eyes to stare at her. But we’re talking a good kind of hurt. The kind of pain you don’t ever want to stop.
As if in slow motion, I watch Runcita move freely through the different dragon crews huddled around out there in the parking lot. You can see all the fellas stop what they’re doing and turn to eyeball Runcita as she walks by. The Jocks and the Nerds and the Mutants and Multi-Dimensioners—the lust she inspires is equal opportunity.
A couple of the Jocks are even drooling strings of lava from their fangs.
Runcita strolls right on up to the Telo-Device in front of WarWings. Because of the recent outbreaks of violence on campus, cadets are only allowed to enter the campus through a secure teleportation pad.
“It won’t be long now, sir,” says ATHENOS II, as she flares her actuator gills in preparation for the landing. “Please prepare to disembark quickly!”
Squatting here in the spaceship’s cockpit, I finally start breathing again.
“Runcita’s even more beautiful than she was last night,” I croak.
“You saw Runcita last night?!” says Fribby.
“ ’Course I did. She appeared to me in a dream.”
“Oh yeah?” she says, rolling her eyes. “Did Runcita happen to say anything to you during her nocturnal visit?”
I look at the robot sideways like she’s a kook.
“ ’Course she did,” I growl. “What, is Runcita going to come to me in my dream and then give me the silent treatment? She said I should go up to her in school today and offer her my crown. She said we’d make a great team! And she said as my Queen she would happily lay my eggs!”
The way Fribby looks at me then with her glowing red eyes, it’s almost as if she’s disappointed in me. Like how can I be such a fool. Or maybe it’s that she pities me.
“But Dean Floop isn’t exactly your biggest fan, in case you forgot. Runcita’s dad hates your guts! Especially after what happened last night. Doctor vs. Dean RageFest? Ring a bell? Your crazy grandpa blinding the Dean in one eye? Sound familiar? Or have you forgotten already?!”
“I can’t see what that’s got to do with anything,” I say. “It’s not like I’m asking Dean Floop to be my Queen.”
“So let me get this straight,” says Fribby. “Leaving out the part about how Runcita’s dad, Dean Floop, hates your guts by proxy and would probably like nothing more than to blast you with a firestream because your grandpa Dr. Terrible just blinded him in one eye last night! Let’s just forget about that for a minute. Now you think Runcita, who is the most beautiful dragon chick in our class and who could have any fool she wanted, is actually going to take your crown and agree to be your Queen for EggHarvest?!”
“Yes ma’am.”
“And why exactly would Runcita do that again?”
“Cuz that’s what she wants.”
“And how do you know that’s what she wants?”
“Cuz she came to me in my dream last night and told me so herself. Haven’t you been listening to a word I said?”
“That’s the problem,” says Fribby. “I’ve been listening to every single word you’ve said!”
“Where’s the problem then? I don’t hear a problem.”
“I swear you sound crazier than a bear with a badger’s butt for a mouth.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Badgers can’t talk with their butts.”
“So what’s your point?”
“So a bear couldn’t neither.”
“A bear couldn’t either what?”
“Talk with a badger’s butt,” I say.
“Since when did you become an expert on badger butts?”
“Oh I don’t know, probably around the same time you became an expert on talking bears.”
The robot harrumphs and I notice her shiny chrome tail has raised up some and is twitching around. She is definitely miffed, and judging by her body language she’s just a couple tail shakes away from making a full-on Threat Display.
“OK, Mr. Lover Fiend,” snarls Fribby, her voice laden with sarcasm. “Tell me this. So when Runcita came to visit you in your dream last night?”
“Yeah?”
“What was she wearing?”
“Nothing,” I say. “She was naked. Her nipples were real perky and hard—”
“Stop! Forget I asked!”
Then Fribby mimes sticking a silver claw down her throat and gagging.
The spaceship screeches to a halt in the parking spot.
[ 6 ]
DR. TERRIBLE’S FIENDISH POETRY & HIS TOWERING GENIUS
“Sir, Runcita is just about to step on the Zap Pad,” says ATHENOS II. “I’m afraid if you don’t get a move on, you might miss your opportunity!”
This is typical ATHENOS II, always looking out for me. ATHENOS II is another one of Dr. Terrible’s fiendish and glorious inventions. My grandpa built ATHENOS II by using a hybrid of reactive memory-based carbon nanotubes and amorphous fiber. Living tissue had been fused in all sorts of new and innovative ways. And part of the technical wizardry of ATHENOS II is that on the outside she looks like a regular spaceship, but once you’re inside you find that she has several floors and an array of seemingly endless rooms.
Now when ATHENOS II speaks to us, there in the cockpit a giant panel of multicolored lights pulses with her deep voice.
But on the other end of the spaceship, down in the hideous Dungeon Room, ATHENOS II has an actual mouth. Her mouth is about five feet wide and it’s embedded in one of the Dungeon walls. It is seriously demented and fiendish-looking, and the ship’s massive mouth in the wall has fangs and a long forked tongue which she’ll shoot out at you and try to grab
you with if you happen to make her angry. Once a week, I have to throw some alien critter down there in the Dungeon Room, to feed her.
And if you want to know the truth, it’s kind of insanely creepy to go there and stare at a giant mouth with fangs, speaking to you from a wall. So I really don’t go down there that much. Pretty much never, actually. Except when it’s time to feed ATHENOS II.
Anyway, she is technically 72% living dragon organism, 28% other. And on most days, 100% right. But the downside of ATHENOS II’s cutting-edge nanostitch biotech is that she has a full-fledged psychological profile.
Now my grandpa Dr. Terrible gave me ATHENOS II as a gift a couple months back, citing the spaceship as an example of a machine designed to serve dragons and enhance our lives. Unlike Fribby and the other robot cadets enrolled here at WarWings, who aren’t programmed to serve. But to conquer.
And for the most part over the last couple months, ATHENOS II has proven to be a mega asset. Like today.
So now I look at Fribby squatting there in the cockpit.
“ATHENOS is right,” I say. “I better bolt. This might be my only chance. Do you mind if I go on ahead?”
“Of course I’m right!” says ATHENOS II. “Even the time you’re wasting standing here right now might be the difference between you going to EggHarvest or not. Your Queen is out there! And yet you continue to stay in here and talk with this robot!”
Fribby glares at ATHENOS II’s Control Display and snarls: “Watch your mouth, you bucket of bolts.”
This is the downside of ATHENOS II. For a spaceship, she has no sense of boundaries.
Fribby looks at me and flaps her wings. “Don’t worry about me,” she growls, as if she’s insulted I would even ask her such a stupid question. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
Then a green muscular tentacle shoots out of the spaceship’s wall and zooms thirty feet over to where I’m standing. And the fleshy tentacle is clutching my red cape.
“Here, sir,” says ATHENOS II. “Let me put this on you first. Runcita won’t be able to resist you when you’re wearing your cape!”
Then I squat in front of the full-length Talking Mirror and give myself a quick once-over. I can’t help but admire myself, squatting there in front of the mirror with this red cape on. I snort firebolts of joy out my nostrils and bare my fangs. I look seriously fiendish and demented. And I don’t know what it is exactly, but the red cape always makes my horns look bigger. The red cape also makes me feel more ruthless and deranged, less prone to fainting.
I squirt blacksmoke out my nostrils, and say:
“Mirror, Mirror, tell me how am I looking?
Am I hideous enough to get things cooking?”
Then the mouth appears in the Talking Mirror, and says:
“Sir, I’m sorry but I must confess,
when you offer your crown
there’s no way Runcita will say yes!
Because your cape is a stinkin’ filthy mess!”
Ms. Cyber Scales comes up behind me and starts tugging on my cape, trying to brush something off it. “The mirror’s right,” she snorts. “Your cape is a stinking filthy mess. You’ve got dried bloodstains all over it. There’s hornet wings and fur all over this thing. Tell me something, Weak Sauce. Is this your cape? Or is this your freaking dinner napkin?”
“Well clean it up, will ya? I can’t go offer my crown to Runcita with a raggedy-looking cape. She’ll laugh in my face.”
“What do you think I’m doing?” Fribby tugs at the cape, and then rubs one spot real hard like she’s trying to get a stain out. “But I’m telling you, this thing is putrid.”
Now I’m seriously desperate and I start sweating like a bastard. And for us dragons, sweating is a huge no-no. It’s like wetting your nest, something you’re supposed to outgrow by the time you can spit fire. A dragon’s olfactory senses are specially attuned to detect even the tiniest bit of perspiration in our environment, so that on a dark night we can locate hidden prey. It also lets us know the creature we’re about to attack is terrified of us. Which is the same reason dragons never sweat. Because it’s essential that at all times we give off the odor of No Fear.
Anyway, I’m starting to sweat like crazy. I glance at my powerstaff and see my MATING MAGNETISM score has actually dropped to FatChance, and I know this is because my red cape’s so raggedy-looking. With my cape situation in disarray, my BIOCON LEVS are plummeting fast. My cape is surely one of my best features. If not the best. It’s got a big T embroidered in the middle of it, which stands for my last name, Terrible.
The cape was a gift from Dr. Terrible, and it helps offset my puny horns. Makes me look more rotten and depraved. And I know that without my cape I basically have no shot at scoring Runcita.
“Come on, Fribby,” I purr. “Could you please just go over my cape with a lint-roller?”
“Oh sure,” she growls. “Lemme just see now. Where did I put my lint-roller?” I can hear her rifling around in her utility belt. “Oh that’s right, now I remember. I don’t carry my freakin’ lint-roller around with me. And why not? Cuz I’m not in the business of lint-rolling fools’ nasty capes!”
At that moment, a long green fleshy tentacle shoots out of the spaceship’s wall and zooms over to us.
“I’ve got a lint-roller, sir,” says ATHENOS II. “Shall I lint-roll your cape, sir?”
“Give me that!” The robot lunges for the lint-roller and the green fleshy tentacle deftly swerves away and then Fribby trips and falls on the floor.
ATHENOS II giggles. And the sound of ATHENOS II giggling makes my toe claws shudder.
“Oh we’re going to play it like that, are we?” says Fribby, as she gently flaps her chrome-flex wings and lifts herself up off the ground. She’s just hovering there in midair, glaring at the green tentacle clutching the lint-roller.
“Who’s the bucket of bolts now, chick?” says ATHENOS II.
There’s a flurry of commotion as they explode into combat. Fribby and the muscular green tentacle are really doing a number on each other, and you’d think it was a demented fight to the death. And my heart is a little torn, because Fribby is my best friend, and ATHENOS II has been like a big sister to me. And she’s done considerable work to help my scaly green ass boost my WTP rank from ThrashBait up to Snacklicious. And as I crouch there on my haunches and watch, I start getting a little worried for Fribby.
Because ATHENOS II’s tentacle zooms across the cockpit with Fribby in its clutches and slams the robot’s shiny head against the wall. Bam. But one thing I’ve learned from my sixteen years of life is that if a dragon’s WTP rank is above ScalesOfMenace, then you shouldn’t even bother trying to help them in a fight. Because once a dragon’s got that much TURBO FIEND juice coursing through their system, they’re dangerous.
Last week in the WarWings Dining Hall, I stepped in to defend Ms. Cyber Scales when some nasty DataHater cadet got up in her grill. It was this big depraved senior dragon named Groog.
“Hey stupid robot trash!” roared Groog, with his green tail twitching around over his head in a Threat Display. “It stinks like rusty machines in here! Should I just throw you in the garbage?! Huh, stupid robot trash?! Hey my computer broke down and I need some spare parts to fix it! Should I just open you up and take the spare parts out of you, stupid robot trash?!”
Now for a moment there, Fribby looked confused. Like I said, the weird thing about Fribby is that she keeps forgetting that she’s a machine. So when this DataHater fiend busted into her like that, you could tell she didn’t have a clue what he was jabbering on about at first.
“Now wait just a minute,” said Fribby, and then her silver webbed foot slipped in some food on the floor and she fell back down in the mess. It certainly wasn’t one of her finest moments, I’ll say that much.
Meanwhile Groog was raised on his toe claws and dancing toward Fribby and spraying sparks out his beak. Other scaly green cadets started to gather round behind him with flared nostrils, getting ready to join in
the fun.
Anyway, when this maniac Groog knocked Ms. Cyber Scales to the floor like that and started roaring at her and calling her robot trash, I stepped up and shoved this bastard Groog and snarled, “Hey! Leave her alone, you jerk!” Then I squared off on this deranged fiend Groog and raised my scaly green tail over my head in a Threat Display. And I started gnashing my fangs so there were big sparks flying out of my black beak.
Boy did I learn not to do that again.
Because instead of thanking me, Fribby opened her chrome beak and blasted me with a mega firebolt right in the chest. I flew back over several tables and landed awkwardly on my tail, spraining it. The burnt spot on my scaly chest was smoking from where her firebolt struck and I had a big bruise on my chest for a week after that. Meanwhile that loudbeak Groog who’d been messing with Fribby and calling her a stupid robot just stood there pointing at me and snorting firebolts and laughing.
Then Ms. Cyber Scales turned and blasted Groog with a hideous firestream to his scaly green face and then leapt on him and tore into his chest with her silver fangs, as if she meant to eat him on the spot. Groog’s blood sprayed everywhere. Blood all over the other dragons. Blood all over Fribby’s metal beak and chest. The way that Datalizard unleashed on that Normal, it was totally brutal.
Groog ended up with a nervous twitch under his left eye and some sort of permanent damage to one of his leathery wings. So after that you’d see him walking the campus corridors with his one gimpy wing dragging flat on the floor behind him, like a stingray. And because of that gimpy wing, I happened to know, Groog had bypassed the Crown Day ritual and gone ahead and registered to be a slave. So he’d flown out to his assigned planet earlier this morning.
Anyway, now back to this battle in the spaceship. Well like I was saying, ATHENOS II’s muscular tentacle is bashing Fribby’s shiny head between the walls with so much velocity that the two of them are a green and silver blur.