Instantly it feels like my scaly snout is broken and my beak has been smashed up into the top of my head. Blood spurts out of my snout and my eyes are watering and I can feel my brain jiggling around in my skull. I’m dazed. But I’m definitely not down for the count. I leap back on my webbed feet and roar and blast a mega firestream at the first gloved tentacle, and the tentacle goes up in flames.
ATHENOS II’s ghastly mouth in the wall cries, “Ow ow ow ow ow!”
And you can tell by the way the hideous green tentacle is thrashing around on the floor, trying to put the fire out, that it hurts like hell.
Then a third muscular tentacle shoots out of the wall and it’s carrying a fire extinguisher and it spews a stream of white foam on the burning tentacle and puts the fire out. I can barely see because the Dungeon is choked with smoke. The burnt tentacle zooms back into the wall. Then the third green fleshy tentacle zooms over and swings the fire extinguisher and whaps me over the head with it.
Clang.
I back up and open my black beak and shoot a bunch of firebolts at the glistening tentacle but it expertly dodges the soaring flames.
Then I whip my powerstaff off my utility belt and crouch down on one scaly green haunch and aim the business end of the staff at Fribby’s stasis pod standing upright against the wall.
“ATHENOS!” I shout. “You should’ve never messed with my best friend Fribby like this! You should know by now that if you mess with the dragon then you get the horns!”
I press the button with my index claw and fire a blue photon bolt which is intended to disrupt the stasis field and shatter the Evolution Machine’s glass pod. The blue bolt strikes the stasis pod and for several moments it surrounds the tank and kicks off blue sparks as it goes about the business of disarming the Evolution Machine’s security firewall.
“I warned you not to do that, sir,” snarls the giant mouth in the wall.
The glass tank is shaking violently and a thin crack appears along the top of Fribby’s pod. Inside the pod, though, Fribby’s chrome-flex body remains remarkably tranquil. The blue photon bolt is enveloping the entire Evolution Machine in energy currents. The tank starts shaking harder. And Fribby starts to vibrate in the fluid.
The crack in the glass continues to grow, lengthening down the front.
That’s it that’s it that’s it! Come on you stupid glass break all the way and let Fribby out of there!
[ 61 ]
THE EVOLUTION MACHINE STRIKES BACK
I never even see it coming.
The blowback.
The blue photon bolt.
Because then, as if tossed aside, the blue bolt suddenly blasts off the Evolution Machine and comes flying right at my scaly green ass.
I have just enough time to raise my powerstaff and deflect the full power of the bolt or I surely would’ve been killed.
And when the bolt strikes my staff I shoot backward as if from a cannon and strike the wall so hard it makes my spine vibrate.
I stumble to my webbed feet and glance behind me and see a detailed impression of my body imprinted into the wall, scales and all.
“I’m afraid I can no longer trust you, sir!” booms the giant mouth in the wall. There’s a controlled rage and fierceness in ATHENOS II’s voice that I haven’t heard before, and it is super terrifying. “You don’t seem to grasp the significance of what we’re up to and for some reason you seem to think you’re entitled to meddle in my affairs! It’s too bad you don’t seem to grasp that this is all being done for your benefit! In the future it would behoove you to show a little more gratitude, sir!”
Suddenly what look like a hundred wet membranous tentacles shoot out of the Dungeon walls. And some of the green fleshy tentacles are clutching swords and some of the tentacles are wearing silver-plated boxing gloves and some of the tentacles are clutching shields and then all at once the tentacles come zooming at me.
I roar and spread my wings and fly full-throttle into the sea of hideous tentacles.
[ 62 ]
THE DUNGEON
A tentacle whips around and cracks my beak so hard that a couple of my fangs get knocked loose. I spit them out on the floor.
The deranged mouth on the wall chuckles and says, “Ouch. That looks like it hurt, sir!”
Then another fleshy tentacle grabs me by my tail and starts swinging me around and around the Dungeon Room. Now as I’m being swung around the room by my tail I say a little prayer in my scaly head, asking that my tail please not get ripped off. Somehow miraculously it doesn’t.
But I also fight back like a true savage.
I know the sweet feeling of sinking my fangs into a tentacle.
And I fight with a lust for blood and victory.
I rip tentacle after tentacle out of the wall and then shred them with my fangs and claws. I blast a hundred firebolts. Dozens of amputated glistening tentacles writhe on the floor, unable to put out the flames that cover them.
Now even with all the chaos and flying green tentacles here in the Dungeon, I can still just make out Fribby’s silver body floating peacefully in the Evolution Machine’s stasis pod on the other side of the room.
“Hold tight, Fribby!” I shout. “I’m coming!”
The hideous mouth on the wall snarls, “That’s where you’re wrong, sir. You won’t be saving anybody today. Not even yourself!”
Now the giant mouth on the wall opens wide and this long red tongue comes shooting out of it and then wraps around my scaly neck and cinches itself tight like a noose.
My eyeballs bulge.
I can’t breathe.
I’m seeing yellow dots swim through the air.
I claw helplessly with my talons at the repulsive tongue as it squeezes tighter around my neck.
The tongue suddenly yanks back and I’m whipped off my webbed feet and I go flying headfirst into the open mouth.
I can’t breathe.
Then the mouth closes.
It’s so dark and warm in here.
And that’s when I black out.
Part V
EARTH
[ 63 ]
POOF
Poof.
As soon as I materialize, I know exactly where I am.
It is snowing.
The full moon is high in the sky.
I’m crouched on my muscular haunches here in the forest.
Everything is the same, but everything is new.
That scream is definitely new.
My God. Who is screaming like that?
I cock my scaly green head to listen.
The scream is barreling along on the night wind, slashing at my poor earholes. The scream is piercing and nonstop and it’s coming from deep within the forest. There is so much terror in that scream, it makes my wings shiver.
I mean whoever is screaming like that, they are definitely shredding their vocal chords. Something inside of them is going to burst.
My nostrils flare.
My toe claws shoot out.
I crouch lower on my haunches and gnash my fangs.
Clack-clack-clack.
[ 64 ]
THE METAMORPHOSIS
The snow is coming down even harder now, blanketing the forest.
I tap my powerstaff and pull up my Cadet Profile on the floating screen.
Wow. My data is definitely new.
And the new data can be summed up in three words:
You are mega.
Or maybe four words: Old Gork is dead.
Because as I gape at the floating screen, the data is telling me: You are New Gork. And New Gork is one seriously deranged dragon fiend, in the best possible way.
The data is telling me:
Your days of being Weak Sauce are over.
And as I gape at the floating screen, the data is telling me: Wherever you are, that is your domain.