“Sir, I wouldn’t have summoned you without just cause. I promised his mother before she—” The female voice cracked and then regained its composure. “He is more sophisticated than he appears. He can speak basic Draconese. I taught him. I protected him from the predators. I helped him flush out game when I could, so that he would learn to hunt. So that he could eat.”
“Well, I suppose I could try to reverse the damage you have done to him. Civilize him. Help him unlearn whatever it is he learned from spending so much time in the company of a machine. It will be difficult. But I suppose I shall try.”
“And what about our agreement, sir? I did everything as you requested. I contacted you as soon as I could. You said if I delivered, then you would help me restore power and return home. You said that you would let me help you raise him, sir.”
“Raise him?” growled the creature, his eyes suddenly blooming red. “Haven’t you already done enough damage to him already, Tin Can? Raise him? Well I’m quite certain you shan’t be raising him. As for the rest of the deal, well you will receive the agreed-upon reward and compensation. After you undergo comprehensive psychosurgery—”
“Psychosurgery, sir?! You never said anything about any—”
“If you have any hope of returning home, the memory wipe is mandatory. Otherwise you would be a liability. I can’t very well have you going around knowing what happened here, can I?”
“Sir, but that was never part of our agreement! My memories are all I have. Without them I won’t be me.”
“Try being logical for a moment, Tin Can,” said the creature, snorting firebolts. “You’ve clearly developed an unhealthy attachment to him, haven’t you? Thus the need for psychosurgery. Also I will need to reprogram your operating system. It’s my own fault, really. Just because you can make a machine with emotions, it doesn’t mean you should. But before we get to that, there’s just one little thing I need to take care of.”
Then this mammoth creature reached over and tapped at the screen that was flashing:
DESTINATION: PLANET EARTH
“Sir!” boomed the voice throughout the chamber. “That’s not for you, sir! You have no right. His mother left that for—”
“Give me the Prophecy! Open this thing! I’m warning you!”
“I gave his mother my word, sir! I’m afraid I cannot allow you access—”
“I will teach you,” he said, violently plunging his talon into a wall, “to obey me!”
“Ouch! You’re hurting me, sir! Ouch! Please stop!”
“Aha! There it is.” He ripped his talon out of the wall, clutching a huge black heart, which was still connected to the wall by a fleshy tube. He held the throbbing heart up in front of his beak, carefully eyeballing it. “Rather impressive, if I do say so myself. Superior design. It’s not often I get to admire my own craftsmanship up close like this.”
He squeezed the throbbing heart and blood squirted out of it.
“Ouch! What are you doing, sir? Please don’t!”
“Release the Prophecy or die!”
“But sir, I did as you said. I alerted you to his whereabouts. You promised me, sir. You said that if I—”
And then in a flash of rage he ripped the black heart all the way out of the wall and tossed it on the floor, where it writhed and spewed blood.
“Sir, you shouldn’t have done this. He’ll be traumatized, sir! He shouldn’t have to see this!”
“Don’t be so melodramatic,” said the creature, and then reached out and stomped on the heart, which exploded in a gush of blood.
“You are after all just a machine,” he snorted, as he wiped his webbed foot on the floor, trying to get rid of the goo. He chuckled. “Well, I guess I should say were a machine.”
Then this mammoth creature reached over and tapped at the screen that was flashing:
DESTINATION: PLANET EARTH
This time the screen popped open.
The creature reached in with his talon and withdrew a flat gold disc with a red gem set in the middle of it. I would later learn that this flat gold disc was what we dragons call a Prophecy. He held the gold Prophecy up in the air and seemed to examine it, turning it in his claws, before pocketing it in his tunic.
Then he looked down at me.
“Are you the only one?” he said, snorting blacksmoke. “The only survivor?”
Who was this big green bastard that dared to intrude into my lair? I could understand what he was saying but I didn’t understand how. He was speaking Draconese.
Besides, this fiend had invaded my lair. So even though I was bleeding out of my scaly green belly from all those puncture wounds, I looked up at the giant creature before me and I hissed and sprayed sparks out of my black beak.
Then I raised my tail up in a Threat Display, and started clacking my fangs together.
“I’m your grandfather,” he said, looking down at me. “But you will call me Dr. Terrible.”
I crouched even lower on my haunches and hissed and sprayed sparks at him.
Then he reached down and gently held out his massive talon to me, with razor claws extended. “Come with me, Gork. I’m going to take you home. It’s time for you to learn what you really are.”
Thus ended my first round of adventures on planet Earth.
So that was The Night When Everything Changed.
And that’s how I came to live on Scale Island, Planet Blegwethia.
And that’s how I first met my grandpa, Dr. Terrible.
I was only three years old at the time.
Yes sir. That was the night when my scaly green ass went back to live on my home planet Blegwethia.
But little did I know that on Crown Day of my senior year, it would be my destiny to return here to this fool planet Earth.
Part II
CROWN DAY
[ 4 ]
I TRY TO GET RUNCITA TO BE MY QUEEN FOR EGGHARVEST
So it’s Friday morning and I’ve got my black heart set on asking this luscious chick Runcita to be my Queen for EggHarvest. And right now I’m hanging upside down in the cockpit of my spaceship as it zooms over WarWings Academy. Well the full name is the WarWings Military Academy of Planet Conquering, Epic Poetry Writing, and Gold Plundering for Draconum, but nobody ever says that. Because it’s a beakful.
Parking here is always a nightmare. And the reason my scaly green ass is hanging upside down by my toe claws is because it tends to help me relax. Now when I say “black heart” I don’t mean to paint myself as some kind of monster. Because every dragon’s heart is black and that’s a fact.
“We are on Loop 3 of cruise stage, sir. Still scanning for an open parking spot,” says my spaceship, ATHENOS II.
I’m looking out the spaceship’s windshield at all my fellow dragon cadets lounging around down there in the parking lot, getting ready for yet another day of classes. I’m scanning the crowds, desperately looking for Runcita Floop. And if I see her before ATHENOS II finds a spot, then I’ll just leap out the ship and fly down and offer her my crown.
But as I look out the windshield, there’s no sign of her.
And I’m thinking: Where is my Queen?