[ 6 ]

DR. TERRIBLE’S FIENDISH POETRY & HIS TOWERING GENIUS

“Sir, Runcita is just about to step on the Zap Pad,” says ATHENOS II. “I’m afraid if you don’t get a move on, you might miss your opportunity!”

This is typical ATHENOS II, always looking out for me. ATHENOS II is another one of Dr. Terrible’s fiendish and glorious inventions. My grandpa built ATHENOS II by using a hybrid of reactive memory-based carbon nanotubes and amorphous fiber. Living tissue had been fused in all sorts of new and innovative ways. And part of the technical wizardry of ATHENOS II is that on the outside she looks like a regular spaceship, but once you’re inside you find that she has several floors and an array of seemingly endless rooms.

Now when ATHENOS II speaks to us, there in the cockpit a giant panel of multicolored lights pulses with her deep voice.

But on the other end of the spaceship, down in the hideous Dungeon Room, ATHENOS II has an actual mouth. Her mouth is about five feet wide and it’s embedded in one of the Dungeon walls. It is seriously demented and fiendish-looking, and the ship’s massive mouth in the wall has fangs and a long forked tongue which she’ll shoot out at you and try to grab you with if you happen to make her angry. Once a week, I have to throw some alien critter down there in the Dungeon Room, to feed her.

And if you want to know the truth, it’s kind of insanely creepy to go there and stare at a giant mouth with fangs, speaking to you from a wall. So I really don’t go down there that much. Pretty much never, actually. Except when it’s time to feed ATHENOS II.

Anyway, she is technically 72% living dragon organism, 28% other. And on most days, 100% right. But the downside of ATHENOS II’s cutting-edge nanostitch biotech is that she has a full-fledged psychological profile.

Now my grandpa Dr. Terrible gave me ATHENOS II as a gift a couple months back, citing the spaceship as an example of a machine designed to serve dragons and enhance our lives. Unlike Fribby and the other robot cadets enrolled here at WarWings, who aren’t programmed to serve. But to conquer.

And for the most part over the last couple months, ATHENOS II has proven to be a mega asset. Like today.

So now I look at Fribby squatting there in the cockpit.

“ATHENOS is right,” I say. “I better bolt. This might be my only chance. Do you mind if I go on ahead?”

“Of course I’m right!” says ATHENOS II. “Even the time you’re wasting standing here right now might be the difference between you going to EggHarvest or not. Your Queen is out there! And yet you continue to stay in here and talk with this robot!”

Fribby glares at ATHENOS II’s Control Display and snarls: “Watch your mouth, you bucket of bolts.”

This is the downside of ATHENOS II. For a spaceship, she has no sense of boundaries.

Fribby looks at me and flaps her wings. “Don’t worry about me,” she growls, as if she’s insulted I would even ask her such a stupid question. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

Then a green muscular tentacle shoots out of the spaceship’s wall and zooms thirty feet over to where I’m standing. And the fleshy tentacle is clutching my red cape.

“Here, sir,” says ATHENOS II. “Let me put this on you first. Runcita won’t be able to resist you when you’re wearing your cape!”

Then I squat in front of the full-length Talking Mirror and give myself a quick once-over. I can’t help but admire myself, squatting there in front of the mirror with this red cape on. I snort firebolts of joy out my nostrils and bare my fangs. I look seriously fiendish and demented. And I don’t know what it is exactly, but the red cape always makes my horns look bigger. The red cape also makes me feel more ruthless and deranged, less prone to fainting.

I squirt blacksmoke out my nostrils, and say:

“Mirror, Mirror, tell me how am I looking?

Am I hideous enough to get things cooking?”

Then the mouth appears in the Talking Mirror, and says:

“Sir, I’m sorry but I must confess,

when you offer your crown

there’s no way Runcita will say yes!

Because your cape is a stinkin’ filthy mess!”

Ms. Cyber Scales comes up behind me and starts tugging on my cape, trying to brush something off it. “The mirror’s right,” she snorts. “Your cape is a stinking filthy mess. You’ve got dried bloodstains all over it. There’s hornet wings and fur all over this thing. Tell me something, Weak Sauce. Is this your cape? Or is this your freaking dinner napkin?”

“Well clean it up, will ya? I can’t go offer my crown to Runcita with a raggedy-looking cape. She’ll laugh in my face.”

“What do you think I’m doing?” Fribby tugs at the cape, and then rubs one spot real hard like she’s trying to get a stain out. “But I’m telling you, this thing is putrid.”

Now I’m seriously desperate and I start sweating like a bastard. And for us dragons, sweating is a huge no-no. It’s like wetting your nest, something you’re supposed to outgrow by the time you can spit fire. A dragon’s olfactory senses are specially attuned to detect even the tiniest bit of perspiration in our environment, so that on a dark night we can locate hidden prey. It also lets us know the creature we’re about to attack is terrified of us. Which is the same reason dragons never sweat. Because it’s essential that at all times we give off the odor of No Fear.

Anyway, I’m starting to sweat like crazy. I glance at my powerstaff and see my MATING MAGNETISM score has actually dropped to FatChance, and I know this is because my red cape’s so raggedy-looking. With my cape situation in disarray, my BIOCON LEVS are plummeting fast. My cape is surely one of my best features. If not the best. It’s got a big T embroidered in the middle of it, which stands for my last name, Terrible.

The cape was a gift from Dr. Terrible, and it helps offset my puny horns. Makes me look more rotten and depraved. And I know that without my cape I basically have no shot at scoring Runcita.

“Come on, Fribby,” I purr. “Could you please just go over my cape with a lint-roller?”

“Oh sure,” she growls. “Lemme just see now. Where did I put my lint-roller?” I can hear her rifling around in her utility belt. “Oh that’s right, now I remember. I don’t carry my freakin’ lint-roller around with me. And why not? Cuz I’m not in the business of lint-rolling fools’ nasty capes!”

At that moment, a long green fleshy tentacle shoots out of the spaceship’s wall and zooms over to us.

“I’ve got a lint-roller, sir,” says ATHENOS II. “Shall I lint-roll your cape, sir?”

“Give me that!” The robot lunges for the lint-roller and the green fleshy tentacle deftly swerves away and then Fribby trips and falls on the floor.

ATHENOS II giggles. And the sound of ATHENOS II giggling makes my toe claws shudder.

“Oh we’re going to play it like that, are we?” says Fribby, as she gently flaps her chrome-flex wings and lifts herself up off the ground. She’s just hovering there in midair, glaring at the green tentacle clutching the lint-roller.

“Who’s the bucket of bolts now, chick?” says ATHENOS II.

There’s a flurry of commotion as they explode into combat. Fribby and the muscular green tentacle are really doing a number on each other, and you’d think it was a demented fight to the death. And my heart is a little torn, because Fribby is my best friend, and ATHENOS II has been like a big sister to me. And she’s done considerable work to help my scaly green ass boost my WTP rank from ThrashBait up to Snacklicious. And as I crouch there on my haunches and watch, I start getting a little worried for Fribby.

Because ATHENOS II’s tentacle zooms across the cockpit with Fribby in its clutches and slams the robot’s shiny head against the wall. Bam. But one thing I’ve learned from my sixteen years of life is that if a dragon’s WTP rank is above ScalesOfMenace, then you shouldn’t even bother trying to help them in a fight. Because once a dragon’s got that much TURBO FIEND juice coursing through their system, they’re dangerous.

Last week in the WarWings Dining Hall, I stepped in to defend Ms. Cyber Scales when some nasty DataHater cadet got up in her grill. It was this big depraved senior dragon named Groog.

“Hey stupid robot trash!” roared Groog, with his green tail twitching around over his head in a Threat Display. “It stinks like rusty machines in here! Should I just throw you in the garbage?! Huh, stupid robot trash?! Hey my computer broke down and I need some spare parts to fix it! Should I just open you up and take the spare parts out of you, stupid robot trash?!”

Now for a moment there, Fribby looked confused. Like I said, the weird thing about Fribby is that she keeps forgetting that she’s a machine. So when this DataHater fiend busted into her like that, you could tell she didn’t have a clue what he was jabbering on about at first.

“Now wait just a minute,” said Fribby, and then her silver webbed foot slipped in some food on the floor and she fell back down in the mess. It certainly wasn’t one of her finest moments, I’ll say that much.

Meanwhile Groog was raised on his toe claws and dancing toward Fribby and spraying sparks out his beak. Other scaly green cadets started to gather round behind him with flared nostrils, getting ready to join in the fun.

Anyway, when this maniac Groog knocked Ms. Cyber Scales to the floor like that and started roaring at her and calling her robot trash, I stepped up and shoved this bastard Groog and snarled, “Hey! Leave her alone, you jerk!” Then I squared off on this deranged fiend Groog and raised my scaly green tail over my head in a Threat Display. And I started gnashing my fangs so there were big sparks flying out of my black beak.

Boy did I learn not to do that again.

Because instead of thanking me, Fribby opened her chrome beak and blasted me with a mega firebolt right in the chest. I flew back over several tables and landed awkwardly on my tail, spraining it. The burnt spot on my scaly chest was smoking from where her firebolt struck and I had a big bruise on my chest for a week after that. Meanwhile that loudbeak Groog who’d been messing with Fribby and calling her a stupid robot just stood there pointing at me and snorting firebolts and laughing.

Then Ms. Cyber Scales turned and blasted Groog with a hideous firestream to his scaly green face and then leapt on him and tore into his chest with her silver fangs, as if she meant to eat him on the spot. Groog’s blood sprayed everywhere. Blood all over the other dragons. Blood all over Fribby’s metal beak and chest. The way that Datalizard unleashed on that Normal, it was totally brutal.

Groog ended up with a nervous twitch under his left eye and some sort of permanent damage to one of his leathery wings. So after that you’d see him walking the campus corridors with his one gimpy wing dragging flat on the floor behind him, like a stingray. And because of that gimpy wing, I happened to know, Groog had bypassed the Crown Day ritual and gone ahead and registered to be a slave. So he’d flown out to his assigned planet earlier this morning.

Anyway, now back to this battle in the spaceship. Well like I was saying, ATHENOS II’s muscular tentacle is bashing Fribby’s shiny head between the walls with so much velocity that the two of them are a green and silver blur.

Bam bam bam bam bam.

But then in the midst of being smashed around the cockpit like that, Ms. Cyber Scales somehow manages to open her metal beak and bite down on the glistening tentacle with her fangs. You can hear it.

Chomp!

“Ow!” cries ATHENOS II.

Now there’s a hissing noise as air seeps out of the drooping tentacle. The robot has punctured the tentacle with her fangs. I see what looks like plasma oozing out of the puncture wound on the tentacle and I have to remind myself that ATHENOS II is 72% organic reactive tissue. Then the green tentacle zooms back into the spaceship’s wall.

The robot harrumphs and flaps her silver wings and flies over and scoops up the lint-roller and quickly cleans my cape.

“Some chicks just don’t know their place around here,” growls Fribby.

The spaceship’s driver-side door flips open and ATHENOS II says:

“Sir, you really must leave right this instant if you want to have any chance at all of catching up to Runcita!”

I look at the spaceship’s open door and then I look back at Fribby, as if I’m not quite sure. I don’t know why I’m lingering like this. Maybe I really am scared that Runcita will put me in the Medical Center.

Now I quickly reach and spritz my horns with a canister of GrowGrow^® gel. The gel makes my horns burn like crazy but I just grit my fangs and remind myself that the pain is for a good cause. Suddenly there’s a white-hot flash in my brain, and I feel some sort of machine crank up inside my skull. Then, without really knowing why I’m doing it, I tilt my scaly green head back and snort firebolts out my nostrils and start singing a WILL TO POWER poem:

“Hey, Weak Sauce, don’t be a wussy or a punk!

And when it comes to EggHarvest

don’t let your hopes get sunk!

So on Crown Day make sure you grab

the right chick,

and by that I mean the chick whose tail

is thick!”

As soon as I finish singing, I remember: Dr. Terrible’s Cranial Telecaster Device.

Now my grandpa surgically implanted the CTD-2000 in my skull at the beginning of my senior year. As a way to accelerate my personal development and to jack up my BIOCON LEVS. Basically it activates whenever I find myself in an insanely stressful or dangerous situation. Whenever I need a serious injection of WILL TO POWER.

This is poetry as mega stimulant. The thing is, I always quickly forget the CTD-2000 is even in my skull. The device itself imposes selective amnesia by burning synapses and neural pathways so as to conceal its presence from me. So what was I saying again, oh yeah.

So after belting out the poem here in the spaceship this morning, I can feel it pumping me up with boss blasts of MATING MAGNETISM. And the title of this poem is “Grab the Chick Whose Tail Is Thick!” Then, when I finish singing, I do what Dr. Terrible has trained me to do out at the Institute, which is to take a quick POWERGASM and think about the STRATEGIC WISDOM of the poem as it applies to me and my current life situation. And as I do this I can feel even more glorious TURBO FIEND juice exploding throughout my haunches and shooting down my tail.

My nostrils flare.

Don’t be a wussy. Gotta get a chick whose tail is thick!

Yes sir. I glance at my powerstaff and see my WILL TO POWER rank has spiked to PsychoticTyrant. I’ve jumped from the paltry rank of Snacklicious and vaulted to the status of AREA DOMINANT FIEND. My scaly green ass is feeling demented and ruthless.

“Bravo, sir! It’s a lovely poem,” says ATHENOS II. “And a perfect commentary on your particular plight. And I must admit, Runcita is definitely the chick whose tail is thick, no doubt. Did you write the poem yourself, sir?”

“Of course he didn’t!” snaps Fribby. “Weak Sauce here couldn’t write a poem if it came up and bit him on the tail! That’s just more flapdoodle from his despicable grandpa. Dr. Terrible cut open Weak Sauce’s head and stuck some device in there. So the poor bastard Weak Sauce just starts singing Dr. Terrible’s poetry, like a jukebox.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

And I’ll be honest with you, I don’t exactly know how to respond to this. Because part of what the robot is saying rings a bell. Dr. Terrible’s CTD-2000 is responsible. The device inside my head selects a poem based on my current situation, and then forces me to sing it. The idea being that singing Dr. Terrible’s poem will boost my BIOCON LEVS and help me destroy whatever obstacle stands in my way.

Poetry as a weapon.

Poetry as a way to be more deplorable and hideous.

This is what Dr. Terrible is forever preaching to me out at the Institute. This is what all the dragon professors at WarWings preach. Because you’ll often hear about fiendish dragon bastards belting out poems as they conquer a planet. I don’t know why it is, but singing a poem out loud will always make you appear more repulsive and psychotic to those who you intend to enslave.

Even though these poems give me temporary blasts of WILL TO POWER, well they still don’t help the source of the problem. Fribby calls the boosts of WTP I get from singing Dr. Terrible’s poems out loud false power, because the power fades away.

She says I need to learn how to write my own poems, and that’s how I’ll get some real badass WILL TO POWER.

I just tell her that’s easy for her to say, considering her WTP rank is freaking MegaBeast.

But these poems just spontaneously pop into my head and I’ll open my black beak and start singing a poem and I won’t really know why. And for a while there Fribby would try and stop me whenever I started singing. She’d use her shiny metal tail to punch me and knock me out. But as soon as I regained consciousness I’d just finish singing the poem. And so finally Fribby decided it was best to just let me get it out of my system.

Anyway, so here in the spaceship this Crown Day morning, Fribby points an index claw at the open door and barks: “What are ya waiting for, Weak Sauce? Your Queen awaits!”

I just squat there like a royal moron.

Fribby flaps her chrome-flex wings and looks out the windshield and says, “Seriously, Weak Sauce. You better get a move on. Your Queen is getting away.”

I can tell that something is definitely off, but I can’t put my claw on exactly what it is. There is something in the robot’s voice I can’t quite place. And it’s not the usual sarcasm, it’s something else.

I snort firebolts out my nostrils and say, “Thanks for understanding, Fribby!”

She harrumphs loudly, as if I’m being a jerk.

Then I leap out the spaceship and start jogging toward Runcita.

And just like that, my Queen Quest has officially begun.