“Well now you’re gonna watch me sleep some more,” I say. “Only this time you’re going to guard me and protect me while I sleep. Because you’re my new personal guard. So come with me back to the cave.”
“Well what’s my name?” he says. “If you’re gonna make me your personal guard you’re going to need to give me a name.”
I tell him, “I’ll give you a name once you’ve good and well earned it. In the meantime you answer to Wolf. Is that simple enough for you?”
I go to the back of the cave with Wolf trotting at my heels.
Then I take the syringe with nanobot solution and plunge the needle deep into my damaged wingjoint. I don’t know if I’m hallucinating or what but I swear I can instantly feel all those little nanobots flood my bloodstream and go to work growing me a new wing. I fall back on the cave floor next to Fribby and wrap my scaly green forelimb around her silver belly. I hook my claws inside her metal claws and then drift off into a very deep sleep.
The last thing I see are Wolf’s two yellow eyes staring at me.
[ 93 ]
THE DOOMSDAY SQUAD
When we awake we hear a cacophonous din outside the cave.
Fribby and I flap our wings—thwack-thwack—and fly out of the cave and hover there in the air, with our beaks hanging open. In addition to the wolves, there’s a bunch of other animals. They are all looking up at us and chanting, “The Doomsday Squad! Death to the man-creatures! Death to the man-creatures!” There are brown bears and black bears. There are cheetahs and lizards and monkeys. There is every kind of insect. There are bobcats and sparrows and owls. There are sloths and snakes and hawks.
The wolves look up at me and say, “How did we do?”
Fribby clacks her fangs with joy and sparks spray out her metal beak.
The wind is moving furiously in the trees, and the trees are shouting:
“You’ll bravely lead us to victory, of this you can be sure!
After fighting many a pitched battle, you will win the Great War!
Before you we bow,
because you are the King now!”
I flap my wings and turn to Fribby. “What now, my Queen?”
“Now we must get to work,” she whispers. “There are many preparations to be made.”
[ 94 ]
THE EVOLUTION MACHINE
The next couple days fly by.
Turns out Fribby is a whiz with the Evolution Machine. She swaps a hyena with a praying mantis. She swaps a tiger with a slug. She swaps a wolf with a daddy longlegs spider. First time I hear that daddy longlegs spider howl, it makes the scales on the back of my neck stand up.
Meanwhile I hash out my battle plans. I appoint an old wise grizzly bear as my Commander. I name him Surge.
Then I tell Surge I need to learn and study about these man-creatures, so I can better understand who it is I’m about to conquer.
“Yes sir,” says the grizzly bear, with a crisp salute. A little later Surge comes striding back into the cave. “Here, sir,” says Surge, as he bows and lays some books at my green webbed feet. “I found these in a man-creature’s cabin.”
Well, the first book I open is Beowulf. And as I turn the pages, I keep coming across lies about us dragons. About how vile we are. About how disgusting we are. About how uncivilized we are.
As I read, I start seeing lava. I’m getting seriously pissed off. Just holding Beowulf in my talons, running my eyes over the words.
This is what these bastards think of us? This is how they portray us?
But it turns out Beowulf is just the warm-up act. Because the next book I read about us dragons is the lunatic rantings of a man-creature that goes by the name of Mr. J. R. R. Tolkien. Now this nutjob Tolkien’s book The Hobbit is so full of balderdash and nonsense about my glorious species that it makes my toe claws shudder. I mean just look how old Tolkien paints that dragon Smaug out to be the most slovenly and debased creature in the entire universe.
Please.
Well the next book I read is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which has no dragons in it, but it isn’t half bad. No sir. And then the next book I read is The Catcher in the Rye. Now for most of the book I figured the main character Holden must be a dragon. But then I realized old Holden Caulfield was a man-creature. Just like that other fella, Huck Finn. But I reckon the two of them seem like a couple of pretty boss man-creatures. And if I happen to cross paths with Mr. Finn or Mr. Caulfield while I’m busy conquering Earth, I won’t eat them. Out of respect. I might even ask them to join the Doomsday Squad.
At one point my reading’s interrupted when a she-hawk comes flying up to our cave with news. It turns out that several miles from here, this hawk encountered some other dragons who were asking about me, showing holopics. The hawk tells me she pointed them in the wrong direction. I tell the hawk thanks and ask her a few more questions.
From the hawk’s description, it sounds as if it was Rexro and some of his dragon goons. I shouldn’t be surprised. I mean this is the last place Dean Floop saw my scaly green ass, after all. I decide to put it out of my mind. I’ll just deal with that problem when I come to it.
Anyway, so that’s how I learn to read and write English. Just sitting there reading about old Huck and Holden. Wolf never leaves my side.
[ 95 ]
WILL I BE FIENDISH ENOUGH?
Everything is set.
This is the last night Fribby and I have alone in the cave. Tomorrow morning at first light we and our army of animals will set off down the mountain.
Now that the time for conquering this planet is near, I’m feeling nervous. Tomorrow I will begin the Great War against the man-creatures. I’m sweating a little. I sure hope those trees know what they’re talking about.
Fribby and I lie next to each other, talons entwined.
Will I be ruthless enough?
Will I be fiendish enough?
Do I have what it takes?
She gives me a kiss on the beak and tells me she loves me and then falls asleep. She whisks her silver tail in her sleep.
Meanwhile my heart is pounding like a creature trapped inside its coffin, buried alive. And I’m seeing yellow dots swimming through the air. I start to worry: What if tomorrow when we encounter our first man-creatures, I faint?
I think about the fact that Rexro and his goons are somewhere out there. Looking for me. Eventually I will have to deal with them.
I roll over and something pokes me in my belly. I reach under with my talons and pull it out and hold it up in front of me where I can see it. It’s the gold disc with the red gem set in the middle of it.
The Prophecy.
When I stand up, Wolf starts to get up too, but I say, “No. Stay.”
[ 96 ]
THE PROPHECY
I go all the way to the back of the cave, where I am alone.
I place the disc on the ground and use my index claw to press the red gem. A holovid pops up, filling the air with a 3-D video of a scaly green dragonette.
I instantly recognize her. She’s young and beautiful.