Gork, the Teenage Dragon

by Gabe Hudson

  “When I said that thing about your big fat mouth. That wasn’t cool of me. I now realize that.”

  “Apology accepted, sir.”

  “That wasn’t an apology.”

  “Like I said, apology accepted, sir.”

  “Who said anything about an apology?”

  “I’ve put it behind me, sir. And I strongly recommend that you do the same.”

  “Look,” I snarl, “are you going to tell me what you did with Fribby?”

  “If you ask politely.”

  I clench my talons and grit my fangs. Then I snort blacksmoke out my nostrils and purr, “Will you please tell me what you did with Fribby?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Did I stutter, sir?”

  “But a second ago you said you’d tell me what you did with her.”

  “And I just told you. I didn’t do anything with the robot.”

  “Then where the heck is she?”

  “The robot is up on Level 2, sir.”

  “Level 2?”

  “In the Fitness Suite, sir.”

  “What’s she doing up there?”

  “What am I? That stupid robot’s tracker service?” says ATHENOS II. “Why don’t you get off your scaly green butt and go ask her yourself, sir.”

  Now this last comment pushes me over the edge.

  I’m seeing lava. And I am just opening my black beak to blast ATHENOS II’s Control Panel with a hideous firestream but I never get the chance. Because right then I hear something that makes the scales on the back of my long green neck stand up.

  “Help me, Gork! Help! Help!”

  It is Fribby’s voice calling out to me.

  “Help me, Gork! Please come and help me!”

  Her voice is coming from somewhere back inside the spaceship.

  [ 55 ]

  I THINK SOMETHING BAD IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO ME

  I whisk my tail back and forth like I always do when I’m trying to control my freaking emotions.

  I hiss and spray sparks.

  “Help me, Gork! Please help me!”

  I gnash my fangs.

  You better get control of yourself.

  If you don’t keep your wits about you, this could end very badly.

  “Help me, Gork! Please help me!”

  So I cup a talon to my earhole and cock my scaly green head to try and get a bead on where the robot’s haunted voice is coming from.

  “Help me, Gork! Please help me!”

  Then I put it together. Fribby’s voice is being broadcast over the intercom and her spooky moan is echoing throughout the spaceship.

  “Fribby?! Is that you?” I bellow. “Where are you?!”

  And my voice echoes in the cavern of the spaceship, getting a little quieter each time.

  “Where are you?!”

  “Where are you?!”

  “Where are you?!”

  “I already told you where the robot is, sir,” says ATHENOS II. “She’s in the Fitness Suite. Are you accusing me of being a liar?”

  I jump at the sound of ATHENOS II’s voice. Then I glare at the panel of flashing colored lights where her voice is coming from, and I hiss at it.

  Fribby’s voice comes on over the intercom. “Oh thank goodness you can hear me, Gork!” she says. “I was afraid you were dead! Hurry, Gork! ATHENOS II is about to do something terrible to me!”

  Then over the loudspeaker you can suddenly hear a chainsaw roaring to life: Buuuuzzzzzzz!

  “Oh God! Please, Gork! Hurry! I’m in the Fitness Suite on Level 2!”

  The roar of the chainsaw blasting over the intercom is even louder now.

  “See, sir,” says ATHENOS II. “You could’ve already been to the Fitness Suite by now. If only you would’ve listened to me.”

  Then my powerstaff vibrates. I whip the staff off my utility belt and see that it’s a message from Fribby:

  It’s a trap.

  That’s not my voice.

  ATHENOS II is using a recording of my voice.

  I’m not in the Fitness Suite.

  Just then Fribby’s voice comes back on the intercom.

  “Gork! Where are you? Hurry! I think something bad is going to happen to me!”

  [ 56 ]

  TINY DAGGERS THROUGH MY SHRUNKEN HEART

  Now each word spoken by the robot as it booms out over the intercom is a tiny dagger through my shrunken heart. It crushes my scaly green ass to hear Fribby sounding so scared like that. There’s something about the pleading sounds of a terrified machine that makes you feel mighty low-hearted.

  So I decide right then and there I’m going to the Fitness Suite, come what may. Even if it is a treacherous trap, I don’t care. I will deal with this psycho ATHENOS II there, and I’ll save Fribby.

  And at that moment the chainsaw buzzing noise blasts over the intercom. Buuuuuuzzzzzzz!

  Then the sound of the robot squealing in fear. “Nooooo!”

  I am just setting my mini Telo-Device so that it’ll send me to the Fitness Suite, when my powerstaff buzzes again:

  I’m on Level B!

  I’m hiding in the Dungeon Room.

  Come meet me here but be careful.

  ATHENOS II has eyes everywhere.

  She’s going to kill you.

  [ 57 ]

  THE TELEPORTATION

  I snort flamestreams out my nostrils and roar: “Hold tight, Fribby! I’m coming!”

  The chainsaw buzz blasts over the intercom.

  Buuuuuuuuuzzzzz!

  Then I punch in the coordinates on my powerstaff for the low-range Telo-Device. Now the truth is, right up until pressing the SEND button, I haven’t decided for sure where I am going to zap myself to.

  My index claw hovers over the button for a split second.

  Fitness Suite?

  Or Dungeon Room?

  Then the sound of the hideous chainsaw buzzing erupts over the intercom, and this time in the background I can hear Fribby screaming. “Nooooooooo! Nooooooo!”

  So without giving it another fool thought, I jam my claw down and hit SEND. The good news is I don’t have time to ponder my decision after I make it. Because instantly the bright yellow light explodes up from under my green webbed feet.

  And then I feel the familiar whizzing sensation, like I’ve been stitched into a gust of very fast wind.

  [ 58 ]

  POOF

  Poof.

  I materialize down on Level B, in the Dungeon Room. And when I see what’s here in the room, I get a sick feeling in my belly.

  Fribby is here.

  But she isn’t all here, if you know what I mean.

  Oh my God.

  Now as soon as I see what condition the robot is in, I crouch down low on my haunches and arch my tail up in a Threat Display. I snort flamestreams out my nostrils.

  Because Fribby’s chrome-flex body is floating inside the upright stasis tank, which is two pods fused together and filled with clear goo. That robot looks like she’s asleep in her pod. I can’t believe what I am seeing. My mind is doling out the reality of the situation to me in bits and pieces, as a survival technique. To protect my scaly green ass.

  Not too fast, or your tiny heart’s gonna explode.

  And seeing Fribby like this, well this isn’t even the most shocking part of all. Because right next to the robot in the other pod there’s another dragon chick who appears to be asleep. And she looks familiar.

  Who is that?

  But I can’t place her.

  Not at first anyway.

  Then I recognize who she is.

  Oh my God.

  Idrixia.

  The dragonette who originally agreed to be my Queen for EggHarvest.

  The chick who Dr. Terrible stole away from me and married.

  And then divorced.

  Fribby the robot and Idrixia the Normal are lined up alongside each other in that stasis tank, each of them in their own pod. They both have their eyes closed. And connected by tubes to thei
r fused pods is a small silver pyramid hovering in the air. The pyramid is pulsing with light, so that the fiendish machine appears to be breathing.

  Then the final piece clicks into place.

  And with a flash of horror I know exactly what I am looking at.

  The Evo-Mach 3000.

  Dr. Terrible’s Evolution Machine.

  Fribby and Idrixia are hooked up to my grandpa’s Evo-Mach 3000. And you don’t need to be a scientific genius to comprehend what is happening right now at this moment. You can tell by how the pyramid is pulsing with light.

  The mind-swap is under way.

  [ 59 ]

  BUSTING FRIBBY OUT OF THE EVOLUTION MACHINE

  My nostrils flare.

  My snout detects a familiar scent here in the Dungeon Room. The scent rockets up my nasal passages like a thunderbolt to the brain.

  Dr. Terrible.

  My shrunken heart starts hammering like a bastard.

  Dr. Terrible! That deranged sonuvabitch has been onboard ATHENOS II the whole time! He’s been hiding out here since the RageFest last night. That’s why his Evolution Machine is here. He’s been using the Dungeon as an ad hoc lab!

  My toe claws shoot out.

  Right then that robot Trenx’s words from earlier on Central Campus come rushing back into my mind: “You’ll never in a million years guess where Dr. Terrible is hiding!”

  So I fly over in a rage and start pounding my talons against Fribby’s pod filled with clear goo, aiming to bust the robot out of this psychotic Evolution Machine.

  This is yet another one of Dr. Terrible’s diabolical schemes designed to torment me and turn my life into a nightmare from which there is no escape! He’s trying to teach me some sick lesson about robots versus Normals! He’s trying to show me that machines should serve us, enhance our lives. But never be our equals.

  He’s using his Evolution Machine to make a point about machines! By taking the mind of this Normal dragonette who dumped me, and sticking it inside my best friend Fribby’s robot body. And by taking Fribby’s robot mind, and sticking it inside the scaly green body of the dragonette who dumped me and caused me so much anguish! And after the mind-swap is complete, Fribby’s robot body won’t want anything to do with me. Because Idrixia will be in Fribby’s silver robot body. And my best friend Fribby’s mind will be housed in Idrixia’s scaly green body.

  My grandpa the DataHater is trying to break me once and for all!

  He’s trying to drive me insane!

  “Fribby, Fribby, wake up!” I roar. “Get out of there, Fribby! Wake up, Fribby! Wake up!”

  Then, without really thinking about what I’m doing, I whip my tail back behind me and slam my tail down with all my strength against the Evolution Machine’s stasis tank. Now the tail is the strongest muscle in a dragon’s body. My tail is nine feet long. The average dragon can generate nearly four tons of centrifugal force with their tail. And four tons of centrifugal force is enough to punch a hole in the hull of a spaceship.

  So when I slam my tail into the Evolution Machine’s glass stasis tank like that, I expect it to shatter.

  But when my tail strikes the tank, the Evolution Machine instantly zaps me with an electrobolt that explodes throughout my tail and sends me flying backward.

  I land hard on my scaly green ass. The familiar smell of burnt dragon flesh comes clawing up my nostrils. And the acute fiery pain instantly lets me know my tail is covered in flames. I leap to my webbed feet and quickly smack my tail around on the Dungeon floor to put the fire out.

  ATHENOS II’s voice booms, “I really wish you hadn’t done that, sir!”

  I look up and see ATHENOS II’s giant hideous mouth on the wall.

  The mouth is leering at me.

  Oh no.

  The mouth grins. “Remember me, sir? It’s been a while.”

  I’m seeing yellow dots swimming through the air.

  In all the chaos, I hadn’t reckoned on how ATHENOS II’s giant hideous mouth was down here on the Dungeon wall. Like I told you before, her repulsive mouth is about five feet wide and it has fangs. And right now I’m busy trying to remember the last time I came down here and fed this mouth with some alien critter. Because it wouldn’t at all be wise for me to be here in the Dungeon Room if ATHENOS II is hungry.

  The giant hideous mouth in the wall says, “Do not touch the Evo-Mach 3000 again, sir! I’m warning you! Because if you keep trying to undo my projects like this then I’m going to have to take the gloves off, sir. And things could get very nasty for you!”

  “What gloves, you lying bucket of bolts?”

  “This glove,” says the giant mouth in the wall.

  Now at that moment a green muscular tentacle shoots out of a different wall and zooms right at me. True to her word, ATHENOS II’s fleshy tentacle is wearing what appears to be an alloy-plated boxing glove, and the bulbous glove is shiny and silver.

  And I must still be dazed from getting my tail fried like that because as the silver glove zooms at me I’m thinking:

  Move, you idiot, move!

  Move! Move!

  Here it comes!

  But I don’t move quick enough.

  [ 60 ]

  A CRACK IN THE EVOLUTION MACHINE

  It’s a miracle my scaly green head stays attached to my neck.

  Because the silver boxing glove zooms in and smashes me square in the beak.

  Pow.

  My head whips hard to the left just in time to see another gloved tentacle shoot out of a different wall and zoom toward my beak.

  Pow.

  Instantly it feels like my scaly snout is broken and my beak has been smashed up into the top of my head. Blood spurts out of my snout and my eyes are watering and I can feel my brain jiggling around in my skull. I’m dazed. But I’m definitely not down for the count. I leap back on my webbed feet and roar and blast a mega firestream at the first gloved tentacle, and the tentacle goes up in flames.

  ATHENOS II’s ghastly mouth in the wall cries, “Ow ow ow ow ow!”

  And you can tell by the way the hideous green tentacle is thrashing around on the floor, trying to put the fire out, that it hurts like hell.

  Then a third muscular tentacle shoots out of the wall and it’s carrying a fire extinguisher and it spews a stream of white foam on the burning tentacle and puts the fire out. I can barely see because the Dungeon is choked with smoke. The burnt tentacle zooms back into the wall. Then the third green fleshy tentacle zooms over and swings the fire extinguisher and whaps me over the head with it.

  Clang.

  I back up and open my black beak and shoot a bunch of firebolts at the glistening tentacle but it expertly dodges the soaring flames.

  Then I whip my powerstaff off my utility belt and crouch down on one scaly green haunch and aim the business end of the staff at Fribby’s stasis pod standing upright against the wall.

  “ATHENOS!” I shout. “You should’ve never messed with my best friend Fribby like this! You should know by now that if you mess with the dragon then you get the horns!”

  I press the button with my index claw and fire a blue photon bolt which is intended to disrupt the stasis field and shatter the Evolution Machine’s glass pod. The blue bolt strikes the stasis pod and for several moments it surrounds the tank and kicks off blue sparks as it goes about the business of disarming the Evolution Machine’s security firewall.

  “I warned you not to do that, sir,” snarls the giant mouth in the wall.

  The glass tank is shaking violently and a thin crack appears along the top of Fribby’s pod. Inside the pod, though, Fribby’s chrome-flex body remains remarkably tranquil. The blue photon bolt is enveloping the entire Evolution Machine in energy currents. The tank starts shaking harder. And Fribby starts to vibrate in the fluid.

  The crack in the glass continues to grow, lengthening down the front.

  That’s it that’s it that’s it! Come on you stupid glass break all the way and let Fribby out of there!

  [ 61 ]
>
  THE EVOLUTION MACHINE STRIKES BACK

  I never even see it coming.

  The blowback.

  The blue photon bolt.

  Because then, as if tossed aside, the blue bolt suddenly blasts off the Evolution Machine and comes flying right at my scaly green ass.

  I have just enough time to raise my powerstaff and deflect the full power of the bolt or I surely would’ve been killed.

  And when the bolt strikes my staff I shoot backward as if from a cannon and strike the wall so hard it makes my spine vibrate.

  I stumble to my webbed feet and glance behind me and see a detailed impression of my body imprinted into the wall, scales and all.

  “I’m afraid I can no longer trust you, sir!” booms the giant mouth in the wall. There’s a controlled rage and fierceness in ATHENOS II’s voice that I haven’t heard before, and it is super terrifying. “You don’t seem to grasp the significance of what we’re up to and for some reason you seem to think you’re entitled to meddle in my affairs! It’s too bad you don’t seem to grasp that this is all being done for your benefit! In the future it would behoove you to show a little more gratitude, sir!”

  Suddenly what look like a hundred wet membranous tentacles shoot out of the Dungeon walls. And some of the green fleshy tentacles are clutching swords and some of the tentacles are wearing silver-plated boxing gloves and some of the tentacles are clutching shields and then all at once the tentacles come zooming at me.

  I roar and spread my wings and fly full-throttle into the sea of hideous tentacles.

  [ 62 ]

  THE DUNGEON

  A tentacle whips around and cracks my beak so hard that a couple of my fangs get knocked loose. I spit them out on the floor.

  The deranged mouth on the wall chuckles and says, “Ouch. That looks like it hurt, sir!”

  Then another fleshy tentacle grabs me by my tail and starts swinging me around and around the Dungeon Room. Now as I’m being swung around the room by my tail I say a little prayer in my scaly head, asking that my tail please not get ripped off. Somehow miraculously it doesn’t.