My grandpa told me I was a wussy for even talking to Trenx and that my stupid jumbo oversensitive heart is messing up my natural dragon instincts. And Dr. Terrible said the next time this Mech-Freak dared to speak to me in public, well that I should just attack him and eat him right there on the spot. Of course Dr. Terrible doesn’t give a crap about this robot one way or the other, but he said it was just the principle of the matter.
Plus Dr. Terrible says weak WILL TO POWER is contagious. And that it sends the wrong message to the Normal dragonettes to even allow them to see me jabbering with a degenerate loser robot like Trenx in public. And that it seriously damages my MATING MAGNETISM too. And my grandpa says when I try and see the good in a piece of robot trash like Trenx I’m really just hurting myself.
But these are just my natural instincts, so what are you going to do?
Anyway, so my point is the one good thing I’ve been able to discover about this robot over the years is he’s the only cadet at WarWings with horns that are actually smaller than mine.
He has an inch up there, if he’s lucky.
Because if you want to know the truth, this Datalizard’s horns are downright microscopic.
So when I stand next to Trenx he always makes my two-inchers look seriously mega.
And because this robot is such a pathetic loser, I always feel a little sorry for him. And so I can’t bring myself to completely ignore him or blast him with firestreams like the other dragons from my senior class do. I mean sure, Mr. Gigabyte here tries so damn hard to be cool that it makes your scales crawl. And having this Reptilizoid around definitely isn’t going to help you score any dragonettes.
But it just never made sense to me to spit venom on a fella when he’s down. Which of course Dr. Terrible says is a big part of my problem. The fact that I’m not such a big fan of spitting venom on a fella when he’s down. Because out at the Institute, my grandpa told me that’s exactly when you’re supposed to spit venom on a robot like Trenx, is when they’re down.
And one time recently during our weekly session, Dr. Terrible told me that’s why Datalizards like Trenx let themselves get so low in the first place. Because it makes them an easier target in terms of spitting venom on them. And my grandpa said he’s not in the habit of doing favors for Mech-Freaks and robot trash and such. But when it comes to spitting venom on a Tin Can like Trenx who’s already down, well that’s one favor he can’t help himself from doing.
Now when Dr. Terrible uses the phrase “spitting venom,” he’s using it as a euphemism for eating them.
Then Dr. Terrible concluded that particular session by making me promise that the next time this robot Trenx tried to talk to me in public, I would attack him and eat him right there on the spot.
And so because Dr. Terrible had been filling my head with his DataHater garbage, I’d promised. “OK yes,” I’d said to Dr. Terrible. I would eat Trenx the next time he tried to talk to me in public.
I could tell my promise made my grandpa happy. And my grandpa had thumped me on one of my wings and said, “Don’t do it for me, do it for you.” He said, “You’ve got to connect with your inner Terrible.” He told me attacking and eating that Datalizard Trenx would do wonders for my class ranking and my rep.
And I remember I’d said, “What rep?”
And he’d said, “Exactly my point.”
So after making that promise to Dr. Terrible during our session, anytime I saw Trenx approaching me I’d just turn and run the other way. But now here the sorry Dragobot is, squatting right in front of me.
“Hey,” says Trenx, still grinning at me like a lunatic. “I like your red cape!” He spins around to show me that he too is wearing a red cape.
Great. Now the fool is jacking my signature style.
Maybe it won’t be so hard to find motivation to eat this bastard after all.
“Your cape looks just like mine,” I growl.
“I know, right? What a coincidence, huh? I guess when we’re together our coolness factor gets multiplied by two. Lucky I found you here then!”
For a moment I just study the Datalizard’s silver skull. I’m stunned. And now I understand why my horns are tingling like crazy.
Because on top of Trenx’s chrome-plated head are two long black shiny horns which curve near the top and finish off with incredibly savage-looking spikes.
I feel like I am literally squatting in the shadow of this robot’s horns.
Whereas my horns are so small I couldn’t even use them to gore a flea.
This Datalizard’s big badass horns make me sick with envy. And the fact that this robot is able to make me feel so jealous is almost more depressing than anything else.
I suddenly feel like I want to take a running leap headfirst down a black hole.
I use my index claw to tap the screen on my powerstaff and see that Trenx’s WILL TO POWER has exploded.
He’s rocking a MegaBeast.
I point my claw at his silver head and growl, “Yo, who’d you have to murder to get those babies? Are those things prosthetics or what?”
He chuckles.
And I can tell by his chuckle that he’s been waiting all along for me to notice his new horns.
He laid the trap and now my scaly green ass has walked right into it.
[ 13 ]
THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME LIVE
Now just in case I’ve failed to grasp the particulars of the situation, I guess Trenx wants to make sure he drives his point home.
Because then without warning the robot leaps up and whips his metal scaly head and rams his horns straight into the wall, burying them up to the hilt. His giant black horns are obviously securely anchored in the wall. Because then he quickly flexes his long neck to hoist the rest of himself up off the ground so that now his chrome-flex body is rigid and sticking out of the wall. As if he’s a spear that’s just hit its target.
I mean at the base of his neck you can see a small sprocket bulging under his silver scales, but other than that he seems completely relaxed.
Now the robot looks at me with this stupid grin on his beak. “So you tell me, Weak Sauce, could prosthetics do this?”
I’m speechless.
Then he flaps his wings twice—thwack-thwack—and yanks those horns out of the wall and then drops to his silver webbed feet and stands there leering at me.
“That, Weak Sauce,” growls the Datalizard as he points an index claw at the two new gaping holes in the wall, “is what happens when some nasty Normal bastard tries to mess with my scaly ass. They get their ass ventilated right quick!”
This robot doesn’t need to explain what he means when he refers to some nasty dragon messing with him. Because we both know he’s spent the last four years getting sadistically tortured by Normals on a near daily basis. And some of the bigger DataHater dragons on the island like to use him as target practice for their lavaloogies.