Both lions roared.
The delirious audience leapt to their webbed feet and started clicking their talons together in applause and flapping their wings and thumping their tails against the floor. So that press conference happened on Tuesday morning, which was three days before Crown Day. And after that Tuesday morning press conference in which my grandpa Dr. Terrible revealed his new Evolution Machine and its ability to perform the mind-swap, all hell broke loose here on WarWings’ campus.
And the next couple days turned into a demented nightmare. Which culminated in what we dragon cadets were right away calling the Doctor vs. Dean RageFest last night. Basically, when Dr. Terrible and Dean Floop clashed horns out on the campus quad. I’ll get to the RageFest later. And when the RageFest was over and the smoke had cleared, my grandpa disappeared.
Dr. Terrible had up and vanished, and nobody knew where he was.
The next morning was Crown Day, which is today. And this morning there’s even a big article about the Doctor vs. Dean RageFest posted up on our school’s datastream, The Digital Fire-Breather:
DISTINGUISHED RESEARCH PROFESSOR
DR. TERRIBLE DISAPPEARS WITHOUT A TRACE
SOME SUSPECT FOUL PLAY
It is Crown Day, the most important day of a dragon’s four years at WarWings. And this morning none of the senior cadets are wasting any time wondering what happened to Dr. Terrible because they’re too busy worrying about making sure they find a mating partner for EggHarvest.
And on the morning following what everyone is already calling the Doctor vs. Dean RageFest, it’s actually Dean Floop’s luscious daughter whom I’m scheming to score as my Queen.
Runcita Floop.
And that’s what I started off telling you about before I took a detour to get you up to speed on all this fiendish Dr. Terrible stuff. I started off telling you what happens this morning in the Central Campus corridor when Dean Floop suddenly points at me and then his daughter turns and looks at me and so I quickly duck down out of sight.
Runcita Floop.
[ 12 ]
MY SCALY GREEN ASS GETS AMBUSHED
“Yo what’s up, Weak Sauce?!”
The voice is right behind me and it slices through my brain like a blade.
Then I feel a talon grab my wingjoint, and that same voice growls: “Fancy finding you here, Weak Sauce! Ha-ha! At first I heard somebody singing here in the hallway and I was thinking who’s the big singing moron? But then I turned and saw that it was you, Weak Sauce! Your singing led me right to you!”
My nostrils flare and I try to pull away but there’s nothing I can do because this talon has my wingjoint clapped firmly in its grip.
Now my webbed feet clench again and my toe claws shoot out so far this time they make a screech sound as they cut deep into the floor. And the talon gripping my wingjoint from behind is squeezing even harder, making sure I can’t twist free from its grip.
I crouch down low on my haunches and growl. A firestream rises up out of my belly and shoots into my throat and flickers over my tongue and then halts and hovers at the back of my fangs. I’m gargling fire.
And I hiss and spray sparks out my beak.
“Hey Weak Sauce, why so antisocial?”
And:
“Can Weak Sauce come out to play? Ha-ha!”
I’d know that voice anywhere.
So I spin around and sure enough. It’s this robot. Trenx.
This Datalizard is grinning at me with this deranged look on his metal beak. When the robot sees the look on my scaly face, he squirts flamestreams out his nostrils and purrs, “Why so edgy on this glorious Crown Day morning? Now you’re not going to faint, are you?”
This Datalizard Trenx always acts like we’re fiendish buds even though we aren’t. He reckons that gently mocking my scaly green ass this way is code for how close we really are, as if we’re brothers in flame who used to raid and pillage planets together or something.
I’m whipping my tail back and forth, trying to use it as an outlet for the big freak-out that’s building up inside me. Because it’s super important that right now I don’t blow my stack. Too much is on the line. I mean here I am on my Queen Quest and so there’s definitely no room for idiot emotions or bogus distractions.
I glance over the robot’s wingtip and spot Runcita right across the hallway. And as soon as she finishes flapping her beak with her villainous dad Dean Floop, then I’ll go over there and present her with my crown. My Queen Quest will finally be over.
Meanwhile my horns are still tingling, which means they’re acting as antennae and picking up on some specific danger right here in front of me. But for my horns to be going bonkers like this seems kind of weird.
Because this Reptilizoid is one of the few cadets in my senior class that I don’t have to regard as a savage predator who could eat me. Because the day this robot becomes a legit threat to me is the day that I’ll just fold my wings up and call it quits as a dragon.
Still grinning like a lunatic, the robot reaches up and slings his metal talon on my shoulderbone as if he’s holding me at forelimb’s length so he can get a good look at me.
“Yo you’re wigging out, Weak Sauce! You gots to chill!”
I casually reach up and knock his steel talon off my shoulder.
Trenx, aka Mr. Gigabyte.
This robot has a way of popping up wherever I am and always at the exact moment when he’s the farthest thing from my mind and the last fiend I want to see. You know the type of fool I’m talking about. Because in the cruel hierarchy that is the WarWings rating system, this Datalizard is a straight-up bottom feeder. I mean a couple weeks back I pulled down this robot’s Cadet Profile and his WILL TO POWER rank was a lousy FlameToy.
And so when you think about it, it actually seems like kind of a miracle that Mr. Gigabyte here has managed to survive all four years at WarWings. Because usually robot cadets with a FlameToy get eaten by the DataHaters.
Now as I study Mr. Gigabyte’s stupid grinning beak, my black heart flutters in my chest and I feel just a tiny pang of pity for this poor fool. And as a WarWings dragon I’m sure not proud to have to be telling you this, and trust me, I know it’s despicable. But the truth is it’s just my natural way to try and see the good in a fella. Even when it comes to a low-down loser like Trenx.
Dr. Terrible and I have been over this before, during our weekly WTP sessions. And we’ve even discussed my relationship with this robot.