[ 8 ]

THE HEART IS THE HIGHEST LAW THERE IS

By this point I couldn’t stop running if I wanted to.

If I’ve got a weak spot in my running game, it’s my inability to brake.

Because in my life I’ve run into more walls than I care to count. Fribby likes to say that I don’t so much stop at a destination as impale myself upon it.

And it’s not just my running either, the same thing goes for my flying. When it comes to my flying, don’t even get me started. Once I came flying out of the sky at 200+ MPH and hit the ground and plowed a good forty feet straight down into the ground before finally coming to a stop. And then spent the next couple days scooping dirt out of my snout with a shovel.

I glance at my powerstaff. My RUN SPEED showing 71 MPH. It feels like I’m running even faster than that.

A big dragon bastard named Velch who’d been next in line has already stepped up onto the teleportation pad. I don’t know this fiend very well and frankly I don’t want to. But I do know this bastard has WILL TO POWER coming out the wazoo. I mean I don’t know what his exact WTP rank is, but it has to be well over SkullCrusher.

I also know Velch plays on the WarWings varsity Slave-Catching team. And I remember how a couple weeks ago in the locker room he used his powerful talons to hold my scaly head underwater in the toilet while he flushed it to see if he could give me “swirly horns.”

But I know for a fact that Velch doesn’t even remember doing it to me. Because to a mega Jock like Velch, I’m just one more piece of ThrashBait to be trampled on and then forgotten.

Now whenever I pass Velch in the Central Campus corridor you can see in his yellow reptilian eyes a vague flicker of recognition, as if he’s trying to place me. But in the end he can’t and he doesn’t really care anyway and then he just keeps on walking. And I don’t know which part is worse: the fact that he forcefully held my scaly head underwater in the toilet and gave me swirly horns, or the fact that afterward I wasn’t even worth remembering.

“First-period classroom!” shouts Velch.

This time I don’t even bother to try and hit the brakes. I come charging up onto the teleportation pad like a runaway train and nail Velch from behind.

Ker-pow!

For a split second, it feels like I broke my wingjoint. When you drop a plate and it hits the floor and shatters, that’s what my wingjoint feels like.

But I shouldn’t be complaining. Because between me and Velch, he definitely gets the worst of it.

When my wingjoint hits Velch’s back, I instantly feel the air go right out of him, and he gasps, “Ooooompf!”

And then he goes soaring up into the air.

I know what you’re thinking, and trust me I agree this isn’t the nicest thing for me to have done. Rear-ending this Jock Velch like that. And I can tell you that definitely isn’t my style on a normal day.

Which of course my grandpa Dr. Terrible would tell you is part of my problem. That I am not ruthless enough. That in terms of my family heritage I’m a complete failure, because I have serious WTP deficiencies. Because my horns are way too small. Because my heart is grotesquely large and sensitive. And because of my problem with fainting.

I mean I’m sure if it were up to Dr. Terrible I would spend every single day smashing dragon fools from behind, one right after another. Until there was no one left standing but me. Especially certain degenerate scoundrels who held my scaly head underwater in the toilet.

But this morning I am seriously desperate because I have to find Runcita before some other knucklehead gets to her and offers her his crown and then asks her to be his Queen for EggHarvest. So all I can say in my defense is that when I ram this fella Velch from behind, I am listening to my black heart.

My jumbo-sized heart is guiding my scaly ass through the madness.

And of course there’s no arguing with the heart, because the heart is the highest law there is. No matter if that heart is twisted and tiny and evil, or if the heart is hideously deformed and huge and sensitive.

Now after I crack into this big nasty Velch, he goes flying off the teleportation pad and zooms a good thirty yards through the air. But it’s not like he’s got his wings spread or anything. Because if you want to know the truth, this fool is dead weight in the air. Even his tail is limp.

Although at some point Velch must get part of his wind back, because as he’s soaring through the air he shouts, “Nooooo!”

And then clank!

Velch hits his monsterish green head against Rexro’s Safety Cage and crumples up in the lava pits and rolls over on his back like an insect with his hind legs up in the air, groaning, “Oooohhhh!”

The other cadets here in the lava pits who’ve been standing in line for the Telo-Device explode with laughter. So all of a sudden I find myself squatting alone up here on the Zap Pad and my scaly green ass probably looks pretty pathetic. Because it’s not like I’m in great physical shape or anything.

When it comes to my physical conditioning, well that’s where my nickname came from. It’s another gift from that scoundrel Dr. Terrible, the gift that keeps on giving. Out at the Institute, my grandpa is always harping on me about how he’ll stop calling me Weak Sauce when I grow a pair and get some WILL TO POWER.

And by grow a pair, he means a pair of horns.

Well now I glare at this tyrant Rexro in his Safety Cage and shout, “Runcita! Where’d you just zap her to?! Was it her locker? Or her first-period classroom?”

“You know I can’t give out that kind of information! It’s against regulations!”

“You better press that button and zap me in next to Runcita right this second!”

“Forget it!” he booms, his voice crackling over the intercom. “I ain’t going to lose my job for no two-bit peckerhead like you!” Then he studies me out here on the teleportation pad as if he is really just seeing me for the very first time, and now he’s taking the full measure of my essence. And then he snorts, “Especially with them little itty-bitty nubs you got stickin’ out your scaly-ass head!”

At the mention of my piddly horns, all the cadets behind me hoot and roar with laughter. Then they start chanting, “Weak Sauce! Weak Sauce! Weak Sauce!”

Now my black horns start tingling like crazy, which can only mean one thing: imminent danger. Because your horns are way smarter than your brain. Because your horns can see what your eyes can’t. Well things definitely aren’t looking so hot for me at the moment. And suddenly I’m starting to feel a little doubtful about my whole campaign to try and get Runcita to be my Queen.

Maybe I am Weak Sauce.

I’ve already used a ton of WTP and all it’s got me is a bunch of public insults from Rexro and the laughter and jeers of my fellow cadets gathered behind me. I feel the old weakness and doubt settle into my bones.

And so I think to myself:

Maybe I just need to lower my standards.

There’s that one senior chick everybody calls Peekaboo who aside from the fact that she’s got three eyes actually has a pretty hot bod. Now the reason the other dragons call this chick Peekaboo is because she wears this golden tiara which drapes down and covers her extra eyeball in the middle of her scaly green head. But aside from that third eye, in the plus department I know she’s got a WTP score somewheres around ScalesOfMenace, which is pretty darn respectable. Especially considering my measly Snacklicious.

And I’ve seen Peekaboo glancing at me plenty of times in class. And when I catch her looking at me then she’ll smile and I’ll smile back at her while trying hard to forget that she has a third eyeball tucked away behind that low-hanging tiara. So if Peekaboo were my Queen and we landed on a foreign planet in order to start a Colony, well the natives would never know her nickname was Peekaboo. And we could just give her a new name.

And yes of course I’d be worried that when our little dragon chicks hatch they might come out of their eggs with three eyes. But you know the truth is that no matter how careful you are in life there’s always going to be some element of risk, thank you very much.

So all this stuff is flashing through my scaly green dome while I squat here on the Zap Pad. And meanwhile this deranged bastard Rexro is just glaring at me from his cage. Now as these loser thoughts balloon inside my skull and I come to terms with yet another personal failure, I can feel my giant heart fill with resignation.

I should just step down off this teleportation pad and admit defeat.

But at this moment my thoughts are interrupted by Rexro as he roars at me over the loudspeaker: “Hey you out there with them retarded-looking horns! You better get your scales off my teleportation pad pronto or I’m gonna come out there and rip your tail off and whip you with your own tail right in front of your fellow cadets! And if you think I’m joking or I won’t actually rip your tail off and beat you with it, well then go on and test me! Cuz I reckon you’ll find my cruelty has no limits!”

Now when Rexro shouts at me about how he’s going to come out here and rip off my tail and whip me with it, well my scaly green ass doesn’t appreciate being spoken to like that. And it kind of pisses me off. But at the same time I’m already feeling resigned to stepping off the teleportation pad and becoming a slave.

So while I’m suddenly incensed by Rexro’s whole ripping-off-my-tail vibe this morning, I’m also feeling resigned to my crappy fate. I reckon my black heart is torn.

Rexro is glaring at me from inside his cage.

“Didja hear me, knucklehead?” he shouts. “If you don’t get your tail off my Zap Pad right this instant I’m fixing to come out there and rip your tail right off and whip you with it!”

Then suddenly my webbed feet muscles clench and my toe claws shoot out. And Dr. Terrible says when my toe claws shoot out like this it’s my body’s way of telling me that I should attack the source of my agitation and destroy it.

So I puff up my scaly chest and arch my tail in a Threat Display and the tip of my tail starts twitching around like a scorpion’s tail. I snort firebolts out of my nostrils and flap my leathery wings to enhance my menacing appearance.

Then I point my long curved index claw at Rexro and bellow: “If you don’t zap my scaly ass in next to Runcita right now you’ll need to worry about losing a lot more than your job! Cuz I’ll come over there and rip your forelimbs off! And if you don’t have any forelimbs, then how are you going to eat your dinner?! By the time I’m done with you, you’re going to have to pay someone to pick your snout! So hurry up and zap me in next to Runcita, you sonuvabitch!”

Now I don’t mean to pat myself on the back here but when I finish shouting those mega threats like that, well I know in my heart I’ve just slapped one whopper of a scare on that big ol’ nasty Rexro. And I know right about then that Rexro’s giant black horns are tingling like crazy, warning him that he’s in serious danger. Because that caped fiend out on the Zap Pad is definitely not to be trifled with.

I know he’s shaking and quaking and falling all over himself as he tries to push the button for the Telo-Device. Because I figure Rexro doesn’t have any interest in going through life without forelimbs, and I think I made a pretty darn convincing case for why the fool wouldn’t want to start off down that path.

But when I stop shouting and peer over at Rexro in his cage, he just chuckles and lifts his talon and gives me the middle claw.

And when that bastard gives me the middle claw like that, the other cadets behind me start roaring with laughter. “Ha! Ha! Ha!”

Then I’m seeing lava and I know my eyes in their sockets are blooming a fiery red. 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.

Oh you’re gonna whip me with my own tail are you, you sonuvabitch?!

And now I open my black beak and roar a seriously boss roar and a dozen or so bats come tumbling down from the sky and land all around in the lava pits. Because the sonic boom of my roar has knocked them unconscious in midflight. And a tongue belonging to one of the cadets behind me shoots out twenty feet to my left and snatches up one of the bats on the ground and then retracts. And I don’t turn to see who the tongue belongs to but I hear the familiar “Gulp. Mmmm.”

Then I open my beak and blast a mega firestream at Rexro’s cage. It explodes out of my beak and I shoot it a good thirty yards and aim it directly at Rexro’s stupid scaly green face. And speaking just from a visual standpoint here, the firestream I blast at Rexro is a real beaut. Because the cherry-colored flame looks super menacing there in the morning air. It is straight nightmare.

Then my firestream blasts into the cage.

Now Rexro only just manages to dive down out of the way right as the tip of my firestream hits the spot where his monsterish scaly face was a split second before.

But I don’t stop there.

Because by this point it’s clear that I can show no mercy.

So then I clench my talons like some sort of tortured beast and I roar a roar so deafening and sharp that I swear you can feel the sun up in the sky shudder and go dark for a millisecond before coming back on. And then I call forth the roiling lava from my belly and blast another deadly firestream out my black beak. And this time I keep shooting it for a full twenty seconds straight until I hear a bunch of popping noises and Rexro’s cage goes up in a whoosh of flame.

Now there are gigantic waves of blacksmoke pouring out of the burning cage. And I can feel the heat from those flames climbing into the sky all the way over here on the teleportation pad.

And when I finish blasting Rexro’s Safety Cage with that firestream it’s so quiet out here in the lava pits you could hear an ant cough. Because all the cadets behind me are just squatting there hushed with their toe claws retracted.

One thing is for sure, nobody’s laughing at me now.

That’s one of the Four Basic Power Principles from the WarWings Cadet Planet Conqueror’s Handbook:

If the natives fight back,

then give their skulls a crack!

Because violence

brings silence!

And I’m thinking:

Wow, you really got Rexro’s attention! I mean look at the way Rexro’s glaring at you right now as he struggles to escape from that burning cage. It’s like he’s really seeing you for the first time!

Which is true. I can see Rexro whirling around in his fiery cage. Then for a moment there he just stops and stares at me with murder in his eye until a gigantic wall of flames comes and washes over him. And as I stand there on the Zap Pad and stare at the fiery cage with all that blacksmoke pouring out of it, well I can feel how the momentum of this situation has definitely begun to turn in my favor.

Yes sir.

But unfortunately there is one very key piece of information I’ve failed to take into consideration during the proceedings so far. Which is the fact that Rexro is a renowned maniac of the nightmare variety.

Because before taking over as Chief of Security at WarWings, Rexro served as a mercenary for Wastuka the Hundred-Headed Warlord during his famous bloody intergalactic conquering campaign in the 249th dimension. Now if you’re sitting there wondering what the heck am I jabbering on about with this whole 249th dimension bullshaka, because everyone knows there’s no such thing as the 249th dimension, well that’s my whole point. Those sick fools didn’t just conquer the 249th, they destroyed it.

Suddenly I hear an insanely loud roar explode from within that fiery cage. And this roar is so powerful that it instantly sends flametongues and blacksmoke geysers and sparks exploding straight up into the sky. And then in a flash I realize what this scaly bastard Rexro has just done, which is really kind of ingenious when you think about it. Because he’s used the mega force of his roar to blast the flaming roof right off the cage so that now he has an avenue of escape.

And then with another mighty roar, Rexro the dragon pops out of the top of the fiery cage like a champagne cork. It’s really something to see, the way he leaps up out of those flames so that he’s now maybe forty feet high in the air.

But here’s the part that really gets my attention.

After this demented dragon is clear of the fiery cage and up there in midair he unfurls his huge leathery wings and he flaps them twice—thwack-thwack—and with that he is suddenly flying toward me at what seems like supersonic speed.