Gork, the Teenage Dragon

by Gabe Hudson

  She picks up her roiling lava shot and tosses it down.

  “Mmmmmm.” Her red glowing eyes go a little glassy.

  “You’re just saying that ’cause you feel sorry for me,” I say.

  “You wish. When I see something pathetic, I’m not programmed to pity it. I’m programmed to laugh at it.”

  “I want my horns to look scary. Instead my horns make me look like a big fat wussy.”

  “Who says?”

  “Me says.”

  “Me’s a fool. Don’t pay him no mind. Who else?”

  Fribby belches up a big cloud of blacksmoke.

  “Dr. Terrible,” I say. Out of habit, I reach up and touch my horns.

  “Forget that crusty bastard,” she says.

  “That’s easy for you to say. You’re a MegaBeast,” I say. “What about this big stupid heart of mine? And the crying? And the fainting? Fribby, I’m a mess.”

  “It takes courage to be so real. You’re not like these other fools running around here. You’re different.”

  “Because I’m such a loser?” I say.

  “Because you’re different.”

  “Different is just another name for loser.”

  “Answer me one question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Are we dead?” she says.

  “Heck no, we’re not dead, chick.”

  “Have you ever been dead before?” she says.

  “No, I’ve never been dead before. Not in the way you’re talking about.”

  “Then how would you know if we were dead or not?” she says.

  She leans in and gazes at me with this curious smile on her silver beak. Framed against the oozing lava on the wall behind her, she looks pretty.

  “Because my big stupid heart won’t shut up,” I say.

  “Is that why you’re going around starting fights with Mutants?”

  “That freak didn’t have a head,” I say. “Besides, he started it.”

  She reaches out and puts her talons on top of my talons, squeezes gently.

  “You be careful of Dr. Terrible,” she says.

  “How are you supposed to intimidate a fella that doesn’t have a head? I couldn’t figure that one out. Still can’t.”

  “Your grandpa’s up to something,” she says. “I don’t know what. But I feel he’s got something planned for you.”

  “I guess after you learn to live your life without a head like that, well there’s just not a lot that can faze you. Seems to me, anyway.”

  “Stay away from him, alright? Be strong, Gork,” she says.

  “There’s nothing strong about me, chick. You know that.”

  “That’s what makes you strong,” she says. “Your weakness is your strength.”

  “If you’re trying to make me forget what a loser I am, you’ll have to do better than that.”

  “I meant what I said. Did you hear me?”

  “About Dr. Terrible? About how I should steer clear of him and whatnot?”

  “No, fool. About your horns. I think they’re seriously cute.”

  [ 30 ]

  THE INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED BIOKINETICS AND NEUROANATOMY

  Old habits die hard.

  How else to wrap my brain around why I am standing right here where I’m standing at this moment? And if old habits die hard, then it seems like bad habits are freaking immortal.

  Because I jet from the Lava Lounge and fly out behind Central Campus and then fly a couple miles through the jungle path. Out of habit. Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself right now, anyway. Because this is the only way I can explain to myself why I am standing here in front of my grandpa Dr. Terrible’s Institute of Advanced Biokinetics and Neuroanatomy.

  Because the only other possible explanation is that I’m just a straight-up chump.

  But you promised yourself you’d never come here again.

  Don’t you remember? After Dr. Terrible stole Idrixia away from you. When you spent that week heartbroken under the covers in your lair?

  You told yourself you were through with this place forever.

  Now I glance down at my powerstaff to check my BIOCON LEVS and almost faint.

  Because my WTP monitor bar is flashing EMERGENCY MODE. While dealing with that headless Thing back in the Dining Hall, well I must’ve burnt right through what little WILL TO POWER I had left in the tank.

  So I reverted to autopilot.

  Who can blame me, really? I mean for the past four years I’ve been coming out here every Friday for my weekly sessions with Dr. Terrible. And now here it is Friday and I’m squatting on my haunches outside the entrance to the Institute.

  The Institute is my safe retreat. Or at least it had been before Dr. Terrible whisked Idrixia away from me.

  How long ago was that exactly?

  Close to two months now. My grandpa and I haven’t spoken since. Of course, he gave me the spaceship ATHENOS II and he’s written me a couple letters recently.

  Now a light breeze comes up and my nostrils flare and I catch a whiff of something ominous which makes the scales on the back of my long green neck stand up. I drop down low on my trembling haunches in the tall grass on the edge of the Institute’s grounds and whip my binocs off my utility belt and peer out.

  I spot a WarWings security detail of dragon Commandos squatting there in front of the empty space where Dr. Terrible’s laboratory used to be. There are six or seven of these demented-looking scaly green fools. Each of the Commandos is heavily armed with photon blasters and decked out in full Conquer Gear. These dragons are some of Rexro’s clowns, for sure.

  If these dragons get their talons on my scaly green ass then I can kiss my chances of going to EggHarvest good-bye. So I flap my wings and fly toward the back of the Institute and far out of sight of the security goons.

  I fly along the perimeter of the Institute grounds, which are surrounded by jungle.

  I fly all the way up to the entrance of the Center for Combat & Conquer, which is a black structure of stones and bones. My grandpa used to bring me here during our weekly sessions, so we could work on my moves. A couple hours in here always seemed to amp my BIOCON LEVS. Especially my FIRESTREAM BLAST RADIUS, WING STRENGTH & FLIGHT CAPABILITY, STRATEGIC DESTRUCTION COMBAT READINESS, TRAUMA INDUCTION CAPABILITY, TONGUE SHOOTING ACCURACY, and of course my HORN DENSITY & MASS scores.

  Because assuming you don’t die during the course of your training here at the Center for Combat & Conquer, you always fly out of here feeling refreshed. Reinvigorated and yes, a damn sight more ruthless and deranged.

  And as I squat here in front of the Center for Combat & Conquer, a scary thought occurs:

  Maybe I’m here because I miss my grandpa? Oh God.

  Maybe I’m feeling wrung out and hung out to dry and there’s a masochistic part of me which craves to be in the company of the treacherous Dr. Terrible? To hear him lecture me in his demented and violently intelligent ways, and to give me counsel?

  Because I’ll be the first to admit that what started out as a Crown Day morning filled with so much promise and potential glory has quickly flat-lined into a hideous nightmare seemingly without end. The fact of the matter is I desperately need help.

  My powerstaff vibrates and I hold it up and see it’s a message from Fribby:

  Remember what I said about Dr. Terrible.

  Keep your distance from him, OK?

  I got a real bad feeling.

  He’s up to something. I just know it.

  I swipe the screen with my claw. There’s no way I’m responding to that message. Things are too humiliating and bleak right now. Besides, I know if I tell Fribby where I am she’ll freak and fly out here pronto. And I just can’t deal with that right now. Things are bad enough as it is.

  I nervously tap my powerstaff to see if anything has changed. And it has, just not in the way I was hoping. Instead of rebounding to my normal Snacklicious, my WILL TO POWER has actually dropped. KickMySnout. My WTP score is KickMySnout. The little firestream
icon in the staff’s monitor is flashing faster now, as if to make sure I understand that my plummeting BIOCON LEVS situation is significantly more desperate than it was even a minute ago. I feel queasy.

  Can you tell me why it is that those of us who need help the most are always the last ones to realize it? And then why do we go about seeking help where there is obviously none to be had? Now if you try to explain it away by saying that I’m just plain stupid, well that would be way too generous. Because my problems have to do with much more dire deficiencies than good old-fashioned ignorance.

  I sigh and feel my jumbo heart swell and suddenly take on so much more additional weight that it causes me to stumble and momentarily lose my center of gravity.

  You broke your promise to yourself.

  You swore you’d never come back to this place.

  Turns out habits have nothing to do with it.

  I’m just a chump after all.

  And so, without further ado, I push through the door.

  Part IV

  INSIDE

  THE

  BELLY

  OF THE

  BEAST

  [ 31 ]

  DR. TERRIBLE’S SCREAM OPERAS ARE IN FULL EFFECT

  Inside, it looks like business as usual.

  But then, when I take a closer study of the bustling entranceway, I can tell something is definitely off, though I can’t quite put my claw on what it is.

  The first thing I notice is that I don’t smell Dr. Terrible in the air, not even a trace of him. And usually this place just flat out reeks of Dr. Terrible. I used to joke with my grandpa that he could bottle his fiendish dragon scent and sell it as a cologne called Depravity.

  The second thing I notice here inside the entranceway is my black horns are tingling like crazy. I flick my scaly green tail around behind me, keeping it ready to help propel me with lightning speed if I need to make any sudden movements.

  Now this Center for Combat & Conquer represents the apex in Dr. Terrible’s pedagogy. And if pumping up BIOCON LEVS is your thing, then this is definitely the hottest game on the island.

  I squat here for a moment taking in the scene. Dragon cadets decked out in combat gear are flying this way and that, heading into the bowels of the building for their advanced training. WarWings professors in their robes and cloaks are flapping their wings and flying about.

  Injured cadets on gurneys wheel by. These wounded dragons have ghastly smoking charred patches on their scales and their fried flesh is showing through. I see where one of the dragons being wheeled by has had his hind legs chopped off and now there’s just these bandaged bloodied stumps.

  Another dragon cadet being wheeled by has a sucking chest wound. His bandaged head is jerking back and forth so fast you’d think he was being electrocuted. Another dragon going by is laid out on his belly and you can plainly see where his wings have been chewed off right up to the joint. Some of these poor bastards have got their beaks twisted up and are shrieking in agony while others are blacked out and unconscious, leaking fluids onto the floor.

  Then I see a brain floating inside a big glass jar, being wheeled on a gurney. The floating brain has all these wires and tubes running into it.

  And the dragon medic who’s wheeling the gurney uses his talon knuckles to rap on the brain’s glass container, and says, “How you holding up in there, cadet?”

  “I reckon I’m doing OK, sir,” says the brain’s voice through some sort of microphone. “Boy, I thought for sure I was going to die during this morning’s training, sir. It was the weirdest thing. When I stumbled upon them barbarian dwarves and they unloaded on me with those acid-vaporizer guns, well I figured I was a goner, sir. I swear I could feel myself dissolving and I remember thinking how I was definitely dying right then!”

  “Well, son,” says the dragon medic, “it was a real close call. That’s a tough strain of dwarf you were trying to conquer this morning. We imported them from the planet Krolnix. And when we’re not using those dwarves for training, we keep them in our maximum-containment facility. Those Krolnix dwarves are real nasty bastards. That’s why we welded those muzzles onto their heads. But you performed well this morning, son. And because of our advanced technology here at the Institute, we were able to evac you from that bunker in the nick of time.”

  “Say, sir,” says the brain in the glass container, “when do I get to take this gauze off my head and open my eyes? You said it would only be a few minutes. And I know this may sound crazy, but I could swear it feels like it’s already been several days since you said that. When do I get to open my eyes, sir?”

  “Well, son,” says the dragon medic, “we’re nearly finished prepping the wound. It’ll be just a few seconds. We’re almost there. But first we have to—” And then the medic reaches out with his talon and starts shaking the glass container super hard and the brain with all those wires in it is getting sloshed around.

  “What was that, sir?” says the jiggling brain. “You’re breaking up, sir. I’m afraid I’m feeling sort of dizzy, sir. I may need to take a short rest…”

  Well the mortality rate for training here at the Center for Combat & Conquer is through the roof. And before a dragon can begin training here, he or she has to make a last will and testament for their hoard and lair.

  And when I made my will, I went ahead and bequeathed everything I owned to Fribby. At first the WarWings administration had made a big stink about me leaving my hoard to Fribby and they said it wasn’t allowed, because she was a robot and all. But eventually my will and testament was run up the WarWings chain of command and was finally approved. Because Fribby is a MortalMachine dragon and she’d been hatched in the WarWings Creative Evolution Lab, so what could they say, really?

  Now over the audiomembranes they are playing the booms of a volcano erupting overlaid with the near constant scream of a terrified creature. Well, I know these screams are part of Dr. Terrible’s advancements in the field of Sound Therapy Training for WarWings cadets. Because there’s not a dragon on Blegwethia who doesn’t consider the scream of a terrified creature to be liquid gold to the earholes.

  The most acclaimed musicians on our planet are dragons who stick a foreign creature in a torture device and then proceed to press buttons so that the creature’s agonized screams form a rapturous melody. For dragons these tortured screams are what we call classical music.

  But my scaly green grandpa took the whole concept one step further and applied it to the combat training of WarWings cadets. So with an eye to jacking up cadets’ BIOCON LEVS, he composed a series of what he calls scientifically informed Scream Operas, which are designed to enhance and fortify a dragon’s WILL TO POWER.

  Dr. Terrible’s research results confirmed that regular auditory exposure to his Scream Operas boost a dragon’s scores in nearly every conceivable category: WING STRENGTH & FLIGHT CAPABILITY, SCALE DENSITY & LUSTER, FIRESTREAM BLAST RADIUS, CORE FLAME TEMP, MATING MAGNETISM, TRAUMA SURVIVAL READINESS, CONQUERING CAPABILITY, HORN DENSITY & MASS, TONGUE SHOOTING ACCURACY, VENOM POTENCY & VISCOSITY, and of course the all-important HEART MASS REDUCTION & SHRINKAGE.

  Even I have to admit the repetitive sound of Dr. Terrible’s Scream Opera right now blasting over the audiomembranes is getting my juices going. My toe claws involuntarily shoot out and my nostrils flare.

  Who am I kidding?

  I’ve missed this place over the last couple months, and I didn’t realize how much I’ve been missing it until now.

  It feels good to be back.

  I snort firebolts out my nostrils and swagger forth.

  Now as I step up to the greeting console, this old crusty Admin dragonette eyeballs me through the glasses perched on the end of her scaly green snout.

  “I’m here for my Friday session,” I say.

  This old dragonette keeps glancing up at the top of my head, like she’s clocking my tiny horns. “We’ll need your talon match,” she snarls. “Just put your palm against that biometric ID scanner, and it’ll do the rest.�
��

  I put my talon against the lit circle on the machine and then the circle flashes.

  “Hey,” I say. “Where’s Tokira?”

  The receptionist is busy looking at something on the floating screen next to her scaly green head, like she’s reading something off my talon printout. Without looking at me, she snarls, “Who?”

  “Tokira,” I say, flapping my wings. “The dragonette who normally works reception here. I’ve never seen you here before. What’s your name?”

  The old dragonette glances up and gives me a look with her hooded yellow eyes that makes my toe claws shudder. Then my eyes’ peripheral zoom feature activates itself just in time to see the dragonette slide an index claw under her console and frantically commence pushing a button.

  “Gork,” she purrs, “we seem to be having some problems with your Cadet ID. I’m sure it’s nothing. But I’m going to have to ask you to wait over there at the LavaBar until we can get this cleared up. Feel free to have a lavatov cocktail. It’s on the house.”

  She points a long yellow claw at said LavaBar over in the corner of the lobby. But I happen to know the bar is just a front for its true identity, which is the Apprehension Chamber. Lucky for my scaly green ass, I was raised by the demented bastard who drew up the blueprints for this building.

  “Yes ma’am,” I say. “I’ll just go suck down a lavatov cocktail while you get things straightened out. Just give me a holler when you need me. I’ll be at the LavaBar.”

  I notice her left lid twitches.

  And that’s when I bolt.

  I explode off my haunches and run like a bastard. I bound right through the yellow smartfoam® security blockade and strike out running on my hind legs into the interior of the building. And while I run, I can feel the smartfoam® clinging to my green scales as it starts to harden and congeal and try to make me as still as a statue.

  My toe claws are clacking frantically on the floor as I run.

  I know when it comes to smartfoam® the key is to keep moving. Because if you keep your RUN SPEED at 20 MPH or above, then the smartfoam® can’t get a grip and lock you up like it has been designed to do. So as I race along, I don’t slow down or even stop to try and wipe the burning acidic foam off my green scales. Because once I stop I’ll never be able to start moving again.