“Naw,” says Trenx, flapping his wings. “He didn’t mean for it to be disrespectful or nothing. He was actually just that terrified of me that he forgot his manners, is all.” Trenx belches up a cloud of blacksmoke and pats his chrome-flex belly. “Besides. I’m already stuffed. I couldn’t eat another bite.”
I snort firebolts out my nostrils and get this real serious look on my scaly green face. “Trenx,” I hiss. “What are you talking about? What do you mean you’re so stuffed you couldn’t eat another bite?”
Trenx suddenly gets this real hush-hush vibe. And then he leans forward in a conspiratorial way and lifts his shiny silver wing to show me something. “Now check this baby out.”
I do what I’m told. I lean in and look. And I sure am glad I can’t see myself right now, because I’ll bet my eyeballs are rolling around in their sockets. Probably my horns are wilting on top of my skull like a couple of dead flowers in a vase.
Because there on the underside of Trenx’s metal wing is a tattoo.
And the tattoo needs no explanation.
Because the tattoo says everything you’d ever need to say.
Because somehow this robot Trenx has been initiated into our school’s most elite secret society of dragons, called Masters of Chaos. Which is comprised of the most ruthless and fiendish horned nasties to have ever flown the halls of WarWings.
We’re talking about a secret society of seriously deranged cadets whose CONQUER & RULE FACULTY is so freaking monster that a new initiate has to eat his own dad before he can gain membership.
And now this Datalizard belongs to Masters of Chaos.
How do I know?
Because Trenx has the Masters’ motto tattooed right there on his silver wing: FEAR ME.
There’s no denying it, Trenx’s tattoo is seriously boss. And these black horns on top of his scaly silver head are mega, and he’s way beyond legit.
This cadet’s game has straight blown up.
Now as I squat there in the hallway it feels as if my life is a typhoon, and I’m just barely clinging to a palm tree trunk with the tip of my index claw to keep myself from being blown away by the gale force winds.
“Hey Trenx,” I growl, snorting firebolts. “You got to tell me where Dr. Terrible is hiding! I need to ask him for his advice on this Queen Quest situation I got brewing!”
“Sorry, but Dr. Terrible made me sign an NDA. This beak is sealed. Even if you tortured me, I wouldn’t tell you your grandpa’s new secret location.”
“Secret location? Torture? What the hell’s an NDA?”
“NDA stands for non-disclosure agreement. Means I can’t tell nobody where Dr. Terrible is or how Dr. Terrible got me these big black horns. And if I do tell anybody how I got these big black horns then Dr. Terrible has the right to chop my durn head off and mount it on the wall of his new secret location. Dr. Terrible even showed me the spot on the wall where he would mount my metal head if he caught me blabbing. But I can promise you one thing, Weak Sauce. You’ll never in a million years guess where Dr. Terrible is hiding!”
“Did he say anything about me? Dr. Terrible, I mean.”
“For reals.”
“For reals what?”
“For reals this beak is sealed, fool.”
“Answer my goddamn question.”
“?’Course he did. Your grandpa griped about how he’s been trying to cure your horns for years and years, with no results. He said you were bad fruit off the family tree. Oh, I almost forgot,” says Trenx. “He also asked me if I was an orphan.”
“Why the heck would Dr. Terrible want to know if you were an orphan?”
“Duh! Because your grandpa wants to adopt me! He was practically begging me to let him adopt me!”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I hiss. “Like how would Dr. Terrible adopt you?”
“Like I’d be his son and whatnot,” says Trenx. “He even gave me my own brand-new spaceship as a gift. He said I could keep the spaceship no matter what.”
My belly instantly twists up into painful knots. Because as I study Trenx’s silver beak I get a premonition that if Dr. Terrible adopts this robot then he’ll rename him Gork II.
I mean you have to wonder if I’m squatting here looking at my replacement?
“But how could he adopt you if you already have a mom?” I growl.
Trenx comes from one of the nearby islands here on this part of Blegwethia. One of those islands where the Dragodroids live, to keep a safe distance from the Normals. Once Trenx showed me some holophotos from his recent trip home. It was just metal dragons for as far as you could see.
“Well,” says Trenx. “My mom’s very open-minded. Most of the mechs from her generation are like that. Honestly, you Normals could take a page out of our playbook. Your scaly green asses can be very uptight. You hear what I’m saying, Weak Sauce?”
Now I don’t mention Trenx’s dad. Because it’s just a given that Trenx has eaten his dad as part of the Masters of Chaos initiation rites. And as I study Trenx’s silver scaly belly right then, it looks awfully swollen and I know that’s his Dragodroid dad right in there. That’s what he meant when he said he was so stuffed he couldn’t eat another bite.
Trenx is really something else. I mean here the bastard hasn’t even digested his dad yet, and now he’s jabbering on about becoming Dr. Terrible’s son. And if you want to know the truth, there’s a tiny little part of me that can’t help but admire this Datalizard’s swagger.
“Dr. T said he could pay my mom off. Build a planet made out of gold and name it after her and then give it to her. Shoot, he said he’d have his engineers build five gold planets if that’s what it took.”
“Wait a second. Dr. Terrible is going to purchase you from your mom?” I reach out and grab Trenx’s silver forelimb like I’m inspecting him. “I don’t see a price tag on you. I didn’t know you were for sale.”
Trenx gazes at me through lowered lids. “Well that’s a real cynical way of looking at it, Weak Sauce. But yeah. Payment would be made to my mother. And in exchange she would give up her custody rights as my legal guardian. Your grandpa said once she waived her custody rights over me, then he could legally adopt me. He said us Mech-Freak dragons were the future for our species. And he wanted to get himself his own little piece of the future. By having me as his son and all.”
On one level I can’t believe what I’m hearing. But on another level I know this robot isn’t lying because everything he’s saying is classic Dr. Terrible. You can’t make this stuff up. Because when Dr. Terrible tries to get you to participate in one of his schemes, this is exactly the kind of insanity he’ll try and get you to sign on to.
I remember how the previous semester my grandpa taught a special weeklong intensive seminar here at WarWings called “I Win, You Die: The Art of Brokering the Diabolical Deal.” The seminar was so popular that I heard some of the professors even enrolled in it.