At that moment, some sort of recording device in the lair broadcasts Dean Floop’s voice from earlier when he tried to shoot me out of the sky over WarWings: “You’re going to die today! And you’re going to die at my talon! You should’ve never crossed horns with me! You’re gonna die! You’re gonna die! Do you understand what I’m saying to you, Gork?! You’re going to die!”
My black heart flutters as I remember the hideous terror I felt when Dean Floop shouted this at me from his ConquerCraft. I feel a mega rage building up inside of me to the point where I go into volcano mode and I can even feel the lava gushing in my skull and it feels like any second the lava is going to explode out the top of my scaly green head.
I am a ruthless-heartless bastard who is ranked first in my senior class.
My WILL TO POWER score is 1000 out of 1000.
My status is Seek&Destroy.
Seek&Destroy. Seek&Destroy. Seek&Destroy.
“Blast him!” hisses Dr. Terrible inside my head. “Do it now!”
And then I do it.
I open my beak and blast a mega firestream.
[ 75 ]
THE FIRESTREAM
But there is just one problem.
Because when my mega firestream has nearly reached the Dean’s big furry wolf face, something terrible happens.
Fribby materializes right in front of the wolf.
Poof.
And in that instant the robot looks at me with bulging red eyes.
“Don’t do it, Gork!” she cries. “This isn’t who you are!”
Meanwhile my firestream is already shooting right at the wolf.
Which means now my firestream is shooting right at her.
Oh my God!
What have I done?!
And then the full force of the firestream strikes Fribby and there’s a popping noise and an explosion of blacksmoke.
[ 76 ]
THE QUESTION
Fribby’s glowing red eyes flutter.
I crouch over her.
She’s barely conscious. There’s a massive horrid black smoking burn wound on her chrome-flex wing where she’s taken the full impact of my firestream. It hurts me to even look at it, and I can’t even guess how much pain she must be in.
You can see one long nasty part of the wound where her entire alloy metal bone is showing through the fried silver scales and the bloody flesh underneath. The sight of the wound makes me dry heave, but I force myself to look.
“Fribby! Say something! Please!”
She coughs and a few drops of dark liquid dribble out her beak.
“Got a question for you,” she whispers.
“Sure. Anything.”
She wags her index claw, telling me to lean in closer.
I put my scaly earhole right up to her silver beak.
Feel her hot breath.
“Are we dead?” she whispers.
I yank back and study her.
The robot smiles weakly up at me.
“No, we aren’t dead, chick.”
“Then I have bad news,” groans Fribby.
“What?”
“He’s coming,” she moans. “He’s coming now!”
There’s suddenly a deranged banging at the chamber door.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Crash!
And with that, the chamber door caves in and falls flat against the floor.
[ 77 ]
THE MONSTER
We stare in horror at the chamber’s empty doorframe.
Dr. Terrible’s demented reptilian figure looms there in shadow.
Behind him, you can just see the snow still falling in the moonlight.
Then Dr. Terrible steps all the way inside the chamber and looks around and bellows, “Why is the Dean still alive, Gork?” And then he points his powerstaff at Fribby. “And what is my new Queen doing here?”
The wolf turns on its hind legs and sees Dr. Terrible and then faints to the chamber floor.
Runcita rushes over to the wolf’s side. “Father!” she cries.
“New Queen? New Queen?!” I stammer, snorting firebolts out my nostrils.
“Yeah,” hisses Fribby, spraying sparks out her silver beak. “This sick bastard forced me to agree to be his new Queen. He said if I didn’t do it then he’d kill you. He said I’d be saving your life.”
Now she stands up and snarls, “But you know what? I changed my mind. Cuz it turns out I’m not into old crusty dragon fellas!”
Then she takes this mega diamond ring off her middle claw and flings the ring right at Dr. Terrible’s face.
The ring bounces off Dr. Terrible’s black beak.
The ring clatters to a halt down by his massive green webbed feet.
All three of us stare in silence at the ring there on the chamber floor.
[ 78 ]
THE RING
Fribby has clearly crossed some sort of ghastly line from which you cannot come back, hurling the ring in Dr. Terrible’s beak like that.
In response, the ropy veins in Dr. Terrible’s long neck pop out. And his scaly green body inflates and the rippling muscles in his chest and forelimbs and powerful haunches swell up to hideous proportions.
He’s definitely seeing lava. Then his wings unfurl behind his monsterish head and his massive spiked tail raises up and starts twitching in a menacing Threat Display.
He gnashes his fangs.
My horns are tingling like crazy, and the scales on the back of my neck are standing up.
Then Dr. Terrible holds out his talon.
I flinch.
The diamond ring leaps up off the floor and into his open palm.
Smack.
He pockets the ring in his tunic.
Now Dr. Terrible points his powerstaff at Fribby and takes aim.
He snorts flamestreams out his nostrils, and roars, “Time to die, you robot trash!”
[ 79 ]
THE WING
Without thinking, I leap in front of Fribby and whip out my wings.
Stupid me.
Because just as I’ve got my leathery wings spread out, Dr. Terrible presses the button on his powerstaff and fires a red laser beam.
The laser beam strikes my shoulder and slices my right wing clean off. And the hot wet cutting pain instantly explodes all over my body.
I hear a dull thump as my severed wing strikes the chamber floor. I glance in horror at the bloody meaty stump of my wingjoint where my right wing was attached just a millisecond before. And then my lopsided scaly green body keels over sideways like a felled tree and collapses on the floor.
Dr. Terrible looks down at me and snorts and hoots with laughter. “How appropriate, Weak Sauce!” he roars. “That I should be the one who clips your wings!”
Whatever you do, don’t look at your wing!
Don’t look! Don’t look don’t look don’t look don’t look.
But I can’t help it. I turn my scaly green head and look.
And there it is.
More ghastly than I could have imagined.
My poor severed wing lying by itself in a pool of blood on the floor.
I’m going to kill you, Dr. Terrible.
And that’s when I lunge at him.
My heart full of murder.
[ 80 ]
GULP
I rocket through the air, snarling.
But Dr. Terrible just casually waves his powerstaff as if dismissing a servant. And some sort of invisible fist knocks me back up into the air and holds me pinned here. Now I’m writhing in midair against some kind of invisible restraint which is savagely squeezing my throat, choking me.
I can’t breathe. My eyes are bulging.
I glance down and see Fribby on one haunch, with black fluid dribbling out her beak.
Hold tight, Fribby. I’m coming.
Dr. Terrible studies me wriggling helplessly up in the air, as if he’s a spider examining a fly caught in its web. He shakes his monsterish scaly head and chuckles. “My failed disciple.”
Then he raises his talon. And my bloody ragged wing leaps up off the chamber floor and flies into his palm.