And here at WarWings, there’s a holophoto of my grandpa Dr. Terrible on the Notable Alumni Wall. After graduating from WarWings he amassed a gigantic fortune by conquering and plundering more planets than you can shake a stick at.
And somewhere in the midst of all this planet conquering, my grandpa still managed to find the time to write several critically acclaimed tomes of epic poetry about his intergalactic reign of terror. And probably his most famous book is titled: My Belly Is Green and I’m Terrible and Mean!
They say at one point my grandpa commanded over a million foreign slaves in his personal army. Then one day without warning my grandpa abandoned his career as Intergalactic Conqueror so he could pursue his lifelong dream of being the most feared scientist in the universe. And make no mistake, my grandpa is one seriously demented genius, and so when he puts his mind to something there’s really nothing anybody can do to stop him.
My grandpa got his M.D. and his Ph.D. in molecular genetics, lickety-split. He made it look so easy it was as if those advanced degrees were a couple of sheep on a hillside he happened to spot from the air one night and then swooped down and snatched up by toe claw under the moonlight.
And until just last night, my grandpa Dr. Terrible held the title of Distinguished Research Professor at WarWings, where he ran the Institute of Advanced Biokinetics and Neuroanatomy.
Now standing here in the corridor, looking at Trenx’s stupid grinning beak, I say, “What about that spaceship you said Dr. Terrible gave you?”
“That thing is dope! You should come check it out. It’s got all these beasty green tentacles inside and it’s a living creature. Your grandpa said he built it using real dragon DNA and—”
“Hey Trenx. Your spaceship. What’s the name of it?”
“ATHENOS III. Why?”
My belly instantly twists up into painful knots.
Because my spaceship’s name is ATHENOS II.
And the spaceship my parents died in on their Fertility Mission to Earth was the original ATHENOS.
[ 14 ]
HOW DR. TERRIBLE BROKE MY HEART, AND THEN GAVE ME MY SPACESHIP ATHENOS II
Dr. Terrible gave me ATHENOS II as a gift a couple months back, but that makes my scaly grandpa sound a damn sight more thoughtful than the bastard truthfully is.
Because here’s what really happened: Like a fool, I’d wanted to prove to my grandpa that despite my lack of horn growth and my jumbo-sized heart and my propensity to faint, I was making progress in the MATING MAGNETISM department because I’d gotten this dragonette cadet Idrixia to agree to be my Queen.
I mean it wasn’t official, because we were going to have to wait until Crown Day to make it official. But still, it was a done deal, between me and Idrixia.
Now my radar probably should’ve gone off when a luscious senior chick like Idrixia came on so strong like that. I should’ve known that it was too good to be true, and that she had ulterior motives. Such as she was really just aiming to horn in on my grandpa Dr. Terrible, because she considered him to be the most faboo dude in the universe and all.
I still remember the day I met Idrixia. I’d been zooming around the corridors of Central Campus when out of the blue this hot dragonette came flying up and plowed right into my scaly chest. I bounced off the wall and fell to the floor, with the wind knocked out of me.
This was Idrixia.
“Watch where you’re going, handsome,” she purred, while waving her tail around in the air behind her.
“But you crashed into me,” I said. Looking up at her, I felt a bolt of lust ripple through my haunches.
“Guess when I see a hot fella such as yourself,” she purred, “my navigation skills get a little wonky.” Then she reached down and picked me up off the ground, making sure to rub her scales all up against me. “Hey,” she said, “you’re Dr. Terrible’s grandson, right?”
Things moved quickly from there, and within days Idrixia had volunteered to be my Queen. I gotta admit, I fell for her real hard. I mean it’s not every day that a loser like me with a Snacklicious rank has a juicy dragonette fawning all over him.
So before Idrixia came along, I’d been sort of obsessed with Runcita. But then with Idrixia calling me “hot stuff” and “handsome” and cooing over me like that, well it kind of made me forget all about Runcita.
Besides, by that point Runcita hadn’t yet started visiting me in my dreams.
So a couple months back, on my typical Friday WILL TO POWER session with Dr. Terrible here on campus at his Institute, I’d brought Idrixia with me to introduce her to my grandpa and all.
I strutted into my grandpa’s lair with Idrixia and I stood up high on my hind legs and spread my wings and snorted firebolts out my nostrils and proudly boomed: “Dr. Terrible, I want you to meet my new chick, Idrixia!”
I pointed the tip of my wing at Idrixia, who was looking around Dr. Terrible’s lair with her black beak hanging wide open.
My scaly green grandpa was hanging upside down from the ceiling with his wings folded, and he was gazing with one open yellow eye at Idrixia.
Then Idrixia bent down and scooped up a bunch of gold coins off the floor and let them run through her talons and drop back down to the floor. And then she squirted blacksmoke out her nostrils and said, “Wow. Your lair is amazing, Dr. Terrible! I love it!”
She playfully kicked a bleached white skull setting atop some jewels, and the skull went flying across the lair and smashed against the far wall and shattered on top of a pile of gold.
“I’ve never seen so many skulls! Fantastic!” said Idrixia. “There’s nothing I love more than some bones and gold. I’m a bones and gold chick, all the way. All the dragonettes from my family are. Give us a lair full of bones and gold, and we’re basically in Heaven. And I gotta be honest, Dr. Terrible, I feel like I’m squatting in Heaven right now.”
Idrixia dove headfirst into a mound of gold and jewels and bones and she started rolling around and chanting, “Bones and gold! Bones and gold! Bones and gold!”
Then she lay on her back and grinned and started slowly flapping her wings back and forth, and she shouted, “I’m making a gold angel! Looky here! I’m making a gold angel!”
I was a little taken aback by Idrixia’s behavior. But I guess part of me could understand, when I tried to see it from her perspective. I mean my grandpa’s luscious lair is covered in millions of gold pieces and diamonds and red and blue and green gems scattered everywhere. The joint is definitely faboo. There are all these weirdly shaped bones from unknown creatures mixed in with the loot and it seems like you can’t take a step in there without tripping over a skull.
I mean you really have to give it up to the demented reptilian bastard. Dr. Terrible definitely has the most boss lair of any professor on campus.
Anyway, so Dr. Terrible was still hanging upside down from the ceiling with his wings closed, but now he had both yellow eyes open and he was staring like a fiend at Idrixia lying atop all that gold. And he had a little string of drool dangling from the corner of his black beak.