Now the moment I saw my scaly grandpa’s upside-down beak all lit up in that creepy way, I got a weird feeling in my belly.
And my horns started tingling like crazy.
Then Dr. Terrible dropped down from the ceiling and he landed like a cheetah and when his green webbed feet hit the ground all those gold coins and gems and bones splashed up in the air. His notorious red cape made a sharp snap sound before settling on his back between his leathery wings, which were slightly extended and definitely kind of puffed-up looking.
My grandpa sauntered over on his muscular haunches and clutched Idrixia’s talon in greeting. “Weak Sauce, what an incredibly beautiful dragoness you brought with you! Idrixia, is it?”
Idrixia, still lying on her back on top of all that gold, giggled. “Dr. Terrible,” she said. “So glad to finally meet you.” Then she got up from the ground and stood there on her haunches, gazing at Dr. Terrible and panting.
And so right there in his lair, while he was still clutching Idrixia’s talon, he got down on one haunch and purred: “Forgive my impulsiveness, my dearest Idrixia! But I am suddenly overcome by a feeling I have never experienced in all my six hundred and eighty-four years. I feel as if I have just this moment started living. It’s as if your beauty and the presence of your spirit has magically awakened me from a deep slumber. So tarry no more will I!”
Then my scaly green grandpa pulled this mega diamond ring off his utility belt and gently placed it on Idrixia’s middle claw. “My dear Idrixia, would you do me the honor of being my Queen? I do believe you are the dragonette to lay my next clutch of eggs. Will you be mine, my dearest Drixy?”
Drixy?! At that moment it felt as if my giant heart were made of glass and Dr. Terrible’s words were a hammer, smashing my heart into a thousand little pieces.
Now, to my ever-loving shock, Idrixia got this dreamy look on her scaly green face and she flapped her leathery wings and then she tittered and whispered, “Yes.”
And when she accepted Dr. Terrible’s marriage proposal, she ripped my heart out.
I couldn’t understand how she could do such a thing to me.
Though I reckon it probably didn’t hurt that when Dr. Terrible proposed to Idrixia he promised her, if she agreed to marry him, that he’d have a new planet built entirely out of gold and that he’d name the planet Idrixia II and then give it to her as a gift. Then he waved his powerstaff and a 3-D holophoto appeared in the air, displaying the gold planet he intended to build for her.
“Just say the word,” he purred. “And I’ll have my engineers start working on Idrixia II right away. And your solid gold planet will be finished in a couple hours. We can go visit it tonight, while we’re on our honeymoon. Think of it like a dowry, only a reverse dowry. Immense wealth passing from me to you.”
So as I stood there in my scaly grandpa’s boss lair I could feel my jumbo heart crank up in my chest and I knew I had to get out of there directly because I was about to faint. And so without saying a word I abruptly turned and walked out the door and flew straight to my lair and crawled into my nest and stayed there with the sheets pulled way over my head for the whole next week.
Now I never told anybody this but during that week I spent in my lair, my BIOCON LEVS dropped dangerously low.
My FIRESTREAM BLAST RADIUS dropped to TepidTorch.
My SCALE DENSITY & LUSTER plummeted to RockStopper.
I remember at one point, there under the sheets, I checked my Cadet Profile and my WILL TO POWER rank had dropped to ThrashBait. That’s how heartbroken I was.
So when Dr. Terrible stole my Idrixia away from me, I nearly died of a broken heart, literally.
Because if your WTP drops to zero, then you die. End of story.
Then a week later, on Friday, when I finally crawled out of my nest and left my lair, ATHENOS II the spaceship was waiting for me in the lava pits right outside my dormitory.
On Friday, I would’ve normally gone to see Dr. Terrible for my weekly session. It had already been one week since he’d stolen Idrixia away from me. But I was all through with my scaly grandpa and his fool Institute.
Because while lying in my lair all week and crying and feeling sorry for myself, I promised myself that I would never go back. No matter what.
I was through with that degenerate Dr. Terrible and his stupid sessions. Because I didn’t see how stealing my Queen and treating me like a putrid nasty thing was going to help me develop my WILL TO POWER.
Anyway, when I walked by ATHENOS II that morning, she said: “Cadet Gork The Terrible, I have an important letter here for you.”
Then a hideous green fleshy tentacle shot out of the spaceship and zoomed over to me, clutching an envelope.
Now I’m not a dummy. I mean I figured this spaceship and the envelope she was holding out to me with her muscular green tentacle that morning had something to do with that bastard Dr. Terrible and my stolen Idrixia. I may be stupid but I’m not that stupid. But even after spending a week in my lair sulking in my nest, I was still so pissed off and heartbroken about Idrixia that part of me wanted to just walk away and ignore the stupid letter.
And so that’s exactly what I did.
I walked away and ignored the letter.
“Come on, Gork,” said ATHENOS II, as the glistening green tentacle followed me and held the envelope several inches in front of me that morning. “Just read the letter.” And no matter which way I turned or how many times I tried to run away, that demented tentacle always managed to keep several inches in front of me, dangling the envelope right in front of my beak.
So finally I growled, “Give me that stupid thing,” and then snatched the envelope away and tore it open and stood there reading it:
Dear Gork,
I am writing you from my lair here at the Institute. I hope someday you will return to finish your WILL TO POWER session which you so rudely walked out of last week, because I think I could cure you just like that (I’m snapping my claws right now).
We could grow those horns and shrink that jumbo heart of yours. We could also make it so you stop fainting all the time like a big fat wussy. But that’s a matter to be discussed on another occasion.
Now let me address the elephant in the room. Idrixia. First off, I want you to know that I am not sorry for stealing Idrixia away from you last Friday and marrying her. Because my name is Dr. Terrible and this is what we Terribles do.
We act terrible.
Now if it’s any consolation, when I was your age my grandpa stole the love of my life away from me and married her. And so I only want you to know that I feel your pain.
But I also laugh at it, because I am terrible.
And I am sure that right now you’re feeling a lot of raw and jagged emotions but I would ask that you not let your heart turn icy with hate for me, your loyal and dutiful legal guardian.