So what if they sometimes drive you crazy? Name me one carbon-based creature that won’t also drive you crazy.
Isn’t that the definition of a best friend? Someone who drives you crazy but someone who stands by you even if your horns are no bigger than a couple of baby carrots? And I know Fribby wouldn’t have sent the message if it wasn’t something serious. She’s the kind of dragon who will still go to class even if her leg gets bitten off.
So, standing here in the bathroom, I shoot her a message back:
I’m coming now! Hold tight!
Then I quickly whip my wings out, and when they reach full extension they make a pop noise like a flag snapping in the wind.
I clench my talons and raise my forelimbs straight ahead of me.
Then I launch forward into flight, like a photon bolt.
And I don’t even bother flying out the bathroom door.
I just fly right through the wall, punching a hole in it.
[ 44 ]
FLYING OVER WARWINGS
I flash through the sky in a blur.
Check FLIGHT SPEED on powerstaff. 374 MPH.
Hold tight, Fribby. I’m coming.
Flying over WarWings, I peer down and see the remnants of my clash with Rexro at the Telo-Device. There’s rubble spread out around the Zap Pad like the aftermath of an asteroid storm.
Rexro’s Safety Cage is still smoldering, with plumes of blacksmoke twirling up off of it.
You can see there are journalists from our school’s datastream, The Digital Fire-Breather, snapping holopics of the scene with their powerstaffs.
A couple of the dragons down below turn and look up into the sky and point at my scaly green ass.
I know they’re snapping holopics and saying how that fiend up there wearing the red cape is the crazy fool bastard who blasted Rexro with a firestream.
They’ll probably post a piece about me on The Digital Fire-Breather in the next hour or so.
Now as I’m flying through the sky I have to admit it feels a little glorious to be pointed out like this, as if I am some kind of boss dragon with tons of WILL TO POWER.
But unfortunately I don’t have time to enjoy it, because I’m needed elsewhere.
Below me I spot ATHENOS II, parked among thousands of other spaceships.
And so I flap my wings and start my descent, rocketing toward my spaceship.
Thwack-thwack.
[ 45 ]
I COME TO FRIBBY’S RESCUE
When I burst into the spaceship, I’m shocked at what I find there.
I don’t see blood. I don’t smell blood either. And my horns are tingling like crazy. My scaly green body is flooded with WILL TO POWER and I whip my tail around behind me, keeping it ready to help propel me with lightning speed if I need to make any sudden movements.
Then I see her.
What is she doing?
Fribby’s staring out the fool windshield as if she is lost in thought. This is yet another characteristic of Fribby. She can daydream or get caught up in a memory so that she loses touch with the present. She’s the first machine I’ve ever seen that can drift right off in the middle of a conversation and get a vacant look in her eyes when she thinks what you’re saying is boring.
Now when Fribby hears me burst through the spaceship’s door she turns and looks at me. “What are you doing here, Weak Sauce?”
What’s going on? Where’s all the blood?
My tail is thrashing around behind me.
And then Fribby says: “I was just coming in to go to my next lecture in the Egg Hatchery. Professor Natch is giving a lecture this afternoon on Conquering Minor Planets and Laying Your Egg in Enemy Territory.”
And like I said, my horns are tingling like a bastard.
“Hey Weak Sauce,” she says. “Are we dead?”
I can feel a bunch of lava rushing to my skull.
“Don’t start,” I growl.
“I mean seriously,” she says, flapping her silver wings. “I’ve been thinking. Is it possible that right now we’re already dead?”
“Heck no, we’re not dead,” I growl. “You said you were bleeding. I thought you cut your leg!”
“How do you know we aren’t dead?” says Fribby.
“I just know, that’s all.”
“Have you ever been dead?”
“No, I haven’t ever been dead. Not in the way you’re talking about.”
Then Fribby peers at me as if she’s seeing me for the first time. “Hey Weak Sauce, your beak looks funny. What’s that big bump on your forehead? Hey, have you been crying?”
“Why’d you send me that message? I nearly killed myself flying back here!”
“What message are you talk—”
But then she claps a metal talon over her beak. It looks like she starts to step toward me but then her scaly body commences jerking back and forth and I can instantly tell that something is wrong. Her tail is whipping around behind her as if she has no control over it.
What the—?
[ 46 ]
THE WARNING
Fribby has gone into some sort of hideous bizarro freak mode.
I mean it’s obvious by the way she’s moving that her mobility is being impeded by some sort of invisible constraint. It is as if her silver webbed feet are glued to the floor but her scaly chrome-flex body is spazzing out all herky-jerky. She looks like she’s doing some sort of demented dance to music only she can hear.
I get a sick feeling in my fiery belly, just seeing it.
And I hate to say this, but honestly it looks like she’s malfunctioning.
“Say something, chick,” I cry, flapping my wings. “What’s wrong with you?”
Now both of her talons fly to her beak and her silver head bobs back and forth, like she’s aiming to rip her beak off her head. I take a couple steps toward Fribby but she starts screeching in the back of her throat and shaking her head like she’s sending me some sort of signal.
Now you don’t have to be a genius to understand what she is trying to say.
She’s warning me. This is some sort of trap.
I stop in my tracks and growl, “ATHENOS?”
“Yes sir?” says ATHENOS II, her voice flashing through the panel of colored lights.
“ATHENOS, what did you do to Fribby? Why is she moving all funny like that?”
“What are you talking about, sir? Fribby’s not here in the cockpit with us, sir.”
“Yeah right,” I snarl. “I’m looking at her right now. She’s right here.”
“I’m very sorry to tell you this, sir,” she says, “but you’re mistaken. Fribby is lying down in the sickbay up on the second level. She sprained a wing when she flew into Rexro’s cage and helped zap you into Central Campus earlier. And she said she needed to lie down. Personally I thought it was a ploy to lure you back here and take your mind off Runcita. Fribby can be a bit of a drama queen, I’m afraid.”
“Why are you lying to me, ATHENOS? I’m looking at her right now!”
“I assure you you’re quite mistaken, sir,” says ATHENOS II.
“Oh yeah?” I growl. I flap my wings and point a long curved index claw and bellow: “She’s right there!”
“No she’s not, sir.”
Now at that moment a hole opens up in the spaceship’s floor right under Fribby’s silver webbed feet.