Gork, the Teenage Dragon

by Gabe Hudson

  Every so often my scaly grandpa would use the tip of his spiked tail to whap me affectionately on the back of my head and say, “Hold up. I want to show you this guy here. Now he may not look it, but this bastard was difficult to catch!”

  We’d spend the entire Saturday afternoon in WarWings’s Museum of Natural History. Dr. Terrible would point out the different psychotic creatures and he’d explain to me how he caught them and how much of a fight they’d put up in their death throes.

  And my favorite creature in the Dr. Terrible wing of the museum is this repulsive species called a Prete. Now this Prete is a small hairy manbird creature who, according to my grandpa, speaks nothing but declarations and opinions, but whose brain is so small that it is invisible to the naked eye.

  Dr. Terrible discovered this degenerate Prete species on the planet Kroo. And my grandpa explained to me that the Prete is a flightless manbird species that purposefully makes their little beak putrid and revolting by letting their fangs get rotten and fall out.

  And when I asked Dr. Terrible how the Prete made his beak so heinous, he said, “By eating other creatures’ poo. Eventually all their fangs rot and fall out of their beak. And when the Prete creature breathes he makes a strange whistling sound.”

  What was ironic, my grandpa said, is this Prete creature showed so much disregard for its own beak but then expected other creatures to pay attention to its beak, or to the opinions that came out of it, anyway.

  I remember, as a little dragon squatting before the stuffed Prete in the glass case, I looked up at my grandpa and whispered, “But why would this vile Prete creature make himself so heinous like that, Dr. Terrible?”

  “Because the Prete has such a tiny brain,” said Dr. Terrible.

  “How small is the Prete’s brain, Dr. Terrible?”

  “Here,” he said, “let’s go look at it under a microscope.”

  And lo, there in the Museum of Natural History they even had a Prete’s brain on display. And you could stick your eye up to a microscope and just make out the brain, which when magnified looked like a peach pit.

  Now according to my grandpa, the only time the other creatures on planet Kroo paid attention to the Prete was when the manbird jumped off of a cliff in an attempt to fly but instead plummeted to the ground and broke its hind legs. Or gave itself whiplash. Then all the different creatures on planet Kroo would gather around the Prete where it lay on the ground and they’d laugh at the Prete for being so stupid and vile.

  Thwack-thwack.

  I flap my wings and fly past the Arctic Laboratory where a scaly green dragonette is blasting an icestream out her beak and neutralizing a firestream that one of her classmates is shooting at her.

  Glance down at powerstaff. See my FLIGHT SPEED at 137 MPH.

  I can feel my scaly green ass relax and go into pure flight mode.

  My reaction time faster.

  My vision sharper.

  You become one with the air.

  At this speed, you are a weapon.

  I speed, I eradicate.

  Velocitas Eradico.

  Everything is a blur, but you see it perfectly.

  I zoom past the Creative Evolution Lab and see Professor Newg blast a chrome-flex dragon robot with a mega firestream until the scalebot melts into a pool of silver on the floor.

  What the heck did that poor robot do to get the melt treatment from Professor Newg like that?

  Probably the Datalizard violated the Third Law of Robotics, which is that there is no Third Law of Robotics. Basically, Professor Newg invented this oxymoronic law so he can have carte blanche to melt robots whenever he feels like it.

  I know Fribby and her other Dragodroid pals hate Professor Newg, and at one point they were considering sending a hit squad to assassinate him in his lair. Fribby was always snarling, “Why did Newg become a professor of robotics if he’s so darn terrified of the Rise of the Machines?”

  Thwack-thwack.

  I flap my wings and shoot past the Urban Warfare Center where Professor Bluce is teaching cadets how to take control of a planet and turn its citizens into your personal slaves. Professor Bluce’s method involves secretly amping the gravity levels to the point where all the structures collapse and the citizens can’t even get up off the ground, because the gravity is so dense.

  This is Professor Bluce’s big academic theory, Escalating Gs.

  Now I took Professor Bluce’s course my sophomore year and I reckoned his whole concept of Escalating Gs was pure flapdoodle. I mean just because you max out a planet’s gravity levels to the point where the citizens can’t even stand up, that doesn’t mean these creatures are your slaves.

  I figured Professor Bluce’s whole Escalating Gs strategy was one of those hifalutin conquer tactics which sounds good in the classroom but as soon as you try to apply it to the real world the whole thing just collapses. And what made Professor Bluce’s class even more of a sham is the fact that all of us cadets knew the professor had never even conquered a single planet himself.

  Thwack-thwack.

  So in the span of about ten minutes, I fly all the way from the west wing of the Main Building to the Coliseum of Heroes. Now the coliseum is really something to see. And it never fails to take your breath away when you first fly in here under the great domed roof, which is constructed of gold and white marble and is at least a thousand feet high.

  The marble floors of the coliseum are stained red with blood. From all the cadets who’ve fought each other to the death there in violent wing-to-wing combat affairs through the centuries.

  Just being here makes you feel more radiant.

  And as I flap my wings up here in the air I quickly scope out the six or seven white marble observation decks mounted up high on thick gold columns. These observation decks are designed so that cadets can hang out up there and get a panoramic view of the bloody wing-to-wing combat affairs that take place below.

  I look around and see clusters of nasty-horned cadets lounging around on all the observation decks. Except one. There’s one empty observation deck, thank goodness. I flap my wings even harder and rocket toward the empty observation deck.

  Now as I come up on it I grab the marble edge with my toe claws and for a split second there I am hanging upside down.

  And then I gently flap my wings and hoist myself upright so that now I am standing on the observation deck.

  Thank goodness. My wings are exhausted!

  Now where the heck is my Queen?

  [ 24 ]

  RUNCITA’S LUSCIOUS SCENT MAKES MY NOSTRILS FLARE

  I feel nauseous and light-headed.

  Being so high up and all. I’m actually scared of heights, if you want to know the truth. And for a dragon that’s a disgraceful thing to be, and so I’ve never told anybody that before. Sometimes when I fly I get vertigo and feel dizzy.

  Anyway, so being way up here on the observation deck in the Coliseum of Heroes is definitely freaking my scaly green ass out. And as I squat here and peer down I feel a little flash of vertigo and it feels like the coliseum is collapsing to the left.

  So just to be on the safe side, I wrap my tail around the main beam of the deck and knot it. This way, in case I happen to faint, my knotted tail will keep me from falling to my death below.

  My Secret Weapon. I peer down at the screen on my powerstaff and there’s the blinking red light. Larger now, signaling to me that I am indeed close to the target of my heart.

  My Queen.

  Now I whip my binoculars off my utility belt and lean over the edge and proceed to scope out the crowds of dragons below for Runcita.

  Come on, Luscious, where are you?

  My nostrils flare as I pick up Runcita’s scent, wafting all the way up here on the observation deck.

  Mmmmm. I smell you, Luscious.

  I peer through my binocs, though it’s sort of hard to focus, what with the mobs of cadets shrieking and bouncing around in the coliseum. Nothing but green heads and spiked tails as far as the eye can
see.

  I zero in on a gang of senior fellas playing Whap Whap. Then I watch as one of the seniors, this scaly fool named Spaetz, well he dances right into the middle of the Whap Whap circle with a grin on his beak and gets whapped so hard on the back of his scaly green head he blacks out and collapses onto the floor. Then one of those deranged cadets steps forward and uses his spiked tail to start whip-a-whapping the poor bastard Spaetz on the floor, but he doesn’t budge. And the rest of the dragon fellas start snorting and hooting and spitting lavaloogies on him.

  No Runcita there. Come on, Luscious, where are you?

  I swing my binocs toward the opposite side of the coliseum and zero in on this senior cadet that everyone calls Lick Lick. He’s got a crowd of dragons watching him while he juggles what look like forty or so humanoid skulls using only his talons and his tail and his powerful long tongue.

  Luscious, you can’t hide from me.

  Come out, come out wherever you are!

  I whip my binocs over toward the coliseum entrance and zero in on this cute scaly senior dragonette named Buddle whom I know from my Escape and Evasion class. Buddle’s showing off by shooting fireballs out her black beak, and each fireball’s in the shape of a WarWings faculty member’s head.

  Buddle shoots a fireball out her beak that looks just like Professor Prook, who’s the only five-headed dragon that WarWings has on faculty.

  Then this chick Buddle shoots a fireball out her beak that is the spitting image of Dean Floop’s repulsive scaly head with his eye patch and the familiar pissed-off look on his beak. And all the fool dragons gathered around shriek and snort and point their index claws at Dean Floop’s fiery head as it zooms through the air. The fireballs shaped like faculty members’ heads bounce around the Coliseum of Heroes, and all the other scaly dragons are howling as they scramble to avoid getting hit by this chick Buddle’s balls.

  I am starting to lose patience here, Luscious.

  Don’t you want to wear my beautiful crown and lay my eggs, Luscious?

  Show yourself to me!

  Here in the coliseum you can feel the insane levels of tension in the air because it’s Crown Day. I figure all those senior cadets down below who are showing off by juggling skulls and shooting designer firestreams and whapping each other over the head with their tails are really just engaging in elaborate mating rituals. Because they’re hoping that a dragon of the opposite sex will see them and want to be their King or Queen for EggHarvest.

  Then at that moment I feel my powerstaff vibrate, and I look down and see it’s a message from Fribby:

  I’m doing fine! Rexro tried to catch me but I bolted out of there!

  Right now I’m back in the spaceship, getting my stuff ready so I can come back in for my next class. They had to shut down the teleportation pad temporarily so we have to walk onto campus now. Any luck with Runcita?!

  I don’t have time to shoot her a message back, and plus I figure I’ll just meet up with Ms. Cyber Scales once she gets in the building. Now as I scope the area down below for Runcita, a giant swarm of bats come flying through the Coliseum of Heroes, flapping their wings and screeching. There must be thousands of them. And a scaly green dragonette down on the ground shoots her tongue out thirty feet into the air and snatches one of the bats. “Gulp. Mmmmm.”

  But no Queen-to-Be in sight.

  So I check my powerstaff to get a bead on Runcita and I hold the powerstaff screen out in front of me.

  For a brief moment, I see the red blinking dot from the nanotracker on Runcita. It looks like she’s still in the Coliseum of Heroes.

  But then the blinking red dot vanishes.

  What?!

  I tap at the screen with my claws.

  But the blinking red dot is gone.

  I keep frantically tapping the screen.

  Then on the screen it says: SIGNAL TERMINATED.

  Oh my God! Did Runcita find the device on her?! Oh my God!

  My heart sinks. Because I know if Runcita found my tracking device it’ll be easy enough to track the home signal and decipher that the nanotracker belongs to me. And then Runcita will surely turn me in to her dad.

  Dean Floop will be coming for me now!

  Suddenly there’s a loud flapping of powerful leathery wings next to me and horrid bursts of air explode near my scaly green head. And in the midst of trying to keep myself from falling off the observation post I realize with alarm that some dragon has just flown up and come barging onto my deck. My horns instantly start tingling.

  I turn toward the intruder and growl, “Hey what’s the big—”

  But then I stop when I see who it is.

  What the—?

  [ 25 ]

  THE DATAHATERS WILL GO ON A ROBOT KILLING SPREE

  “What are you doing, following me?!” I growl.

  “Don’t flatter yourself, Weak Sauce,” growls Trenx. “I just flew up here to this deck to get away from the crowds below. And now I find you here!”

  I wrap my tail more tightly around the observation post’s main beam.

  What is this fool doing here? There’s no way this is a coincidence. Trenx is up to something. He’s playing an angle here. Think, Gork. Think!

  “Whatever,” I say. “Hey,” trying to act all casual, “you haven’t seen Runcita Floop around this morning, have you?”

  “Oh come on, you too?!” he says. “Are you crazy? Dean Floop would never in a million years let you take her to EggHarvest—”

  I grab this robot by his cape collar and twist my talon tight.

  “Listen,” I growl. “I’ve been having a real bad morning so far. And the truth is I have a lot of pent-up frustration. So answer my damn question. Have you seen Runcita?!”

  Mr. Gigabyte looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. He reaches up and smacks my talon off his collar like he’s swatting away a nasty fly. Then he steps back and arrogantly swings his long silver neck from left to right, so that the cape collar falls naturally the way it’s supposed to.

  Now by this point I’ve had about all I can take from this Reptilizoid. Here he thinks he’s some sort of badass because of those mega black horns on his silver head, and he has no idea the only reason he even has those horns is because of me. Because Dr. Terrible is using him to get to me.

  So without really thinking about what I’m doing, I open my beak and squirt a jetstream of venom right at his scaly metal face.

  Or some dragons just call it “juice.” The venom, that is.

  Now like every other dragon here on the island, I’ve got venom sacs lining my throat and I can shoot juice up to forty feet with pretty much near perfect accuracy. And the venom can be lethal for a good many creatures in the galaxy, but not for another dragon.

  Though if another cadet splats you with some juice then you’ll get a demented rash and probably have to go to the WarWings Medical Center to fetch some sort of ointment to put on your scales.

  Anyway, the venom squirts out my beak in a jetstream and flashes through the air and zooms straight for Trenx’s face.

  But then at the last second he gracefully bobs his big silver head to one side and dodges the stream.

  “I ought to rip your heart out and eat it for pulling a stunt like that!” he growls.

  He peers at the sizzling venom on the gold column and then looks back at me in disbelief. He crouches down low on his chrome-flex haunches and hisses and big sparks spray out of his beak and bounce off my scaly green face.

  “Try that again, Weak Sauce, I dare you!” he snarls. “Squirt some more of your nasty juice at me and I promise it’ll be the last thing you ever do! I’ll chop your dang head off and feed your brains to my pet cheetah back in my lair! And yeah, fool, of course I know today’s Crown Day! I just got that chick Yavarka to be my Queen!”

  Now I’ve seen Trenx’s pet cheetah in his lair and that thing is no joke.

  “Yavarka?!” I growl, flapping my wings. “Come on, how is that even possible?”

  Yavarka is easily one of the ju
iciest and most luscious dragon chicks in our grade. And so I figure he has to be lying.

  Mr. Gigabyte flicks his powerstaff and a holovid appears in the air. The floating holovid shows the robot down on one haunch, holding out his crown to a surprised Yavarka. And even though you can’t hear what the robot is saying it’s obvious he’s asking that dragonette to be his Queen. Either that or he’s serenading her with his Mating Song.

  Then the holovid jumps to another shot of luscious scaly Yavarka who’s now proudly wearing Trenx’s crown, and she’s grinning at the screen and giving the thumb-claws-up sign.

  And you know how they say the camera always adds ten pounds?

  Well in the holovid clip, this robot’s two mega black horns look twenty pounds heavier.

  Now I can’t believe this Datalizard got that faboo Normal chick Yavarka to be his Queen, especially considering he’s a robot. But I guess once you’re a member of Masters of Chaos, a hot Normal chick will jump at the chance to be your Queen. Don’t matter if you’re a robot or not.

  Well once word gets out about this, the DataHaters will be going ballistic.

  They’ll go on a robot-killing spree.

  “Hey bud.” I reach out with my talons and straighten his cape collar a little. “My bad,” I purr. “Listen, have you seen Runcita? Help a brother out. I feel like I’m running in circles here, chasing my own tail.”

  I watch Trenx carefully. Because his eyes are now glowing bright red from the inside like instead of a brain he has an active volcano in his skull. And when a robot’s eyes glow bright red it’s always a surefire sign that he’s about to go bronco and rip somebody’s lungs out.

  I whisk my tail around behind me, keeping it ready in case I have to dive off the observation post.

  Then unexpectedly the glowing red light in the robot’s eyes starts to fade.