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HOW DR. TERRIBLE REVEALED HIS FIENDISH EVOLUTION MACHINE AT THE TELEVISED PRESS CONFERENCE EARLIER THIS WEEK

Let me quickly tell you why Dean Floop hates my grandpa Dr. Terrible so much. And why Dean Floop would love nothing more than to dance on my grandpa’s scaly green carcass.

Dr. Terrible burst onto the public’s radar Tuesday morning when he appeared on TV. My grandpa just stood there behind the podium and you could hear the flashes as the dragon journalists in the audience snapped holovid pics with their powerstaffs. He was decked out in his finest WarWings cloak and robe and his trademark red cape. He had his tail arched over his scaly green head and his leathery wings were relaxed and spread out wide in such a way as to suggest this was indeed a momentous occasion.

“Good morning!” purred my grandpa, snorting firestreams out his nostrils. “My name is Dr. Terrible. I run the Institute of Advanced Biokinetics and Neuroanatomy here at WarWings. And the reason you have been invited here today is to witness firsthand my newest scientific invention. It’s called the Evolution Machine. You can call it the Evo-Mach 3000.” My grandpa pointed an index claw at the big screen hanging on the wall behind him. “That lion and that worm were my first test subjects on the Evo-Mach 3000. In this image, as you can see, those two critters are having their minds swapped.”

Now up on the screen there appeared the deranged Evo-Mach 3000. The Evolution Machine was a giant upright stasis tank that comprised two fused pods, and each pod was filled with thick clear goo, and inside one pod was a lion and in the other pod was a tiny worm. Each pod had a series of tubes running out of it, which met in a small silver pyramid hovering above the pods. The pyramid was pulsing with light, as if the fiendish machine were breathing.

“Now,” said Dr. Terrible, as he looked out at all the dragon journalists in the audience, “I created the Evo-Mach 3000 so that our species can utilize the mind-swap, for the purposes of stealth warfare. Because now with my new Evo-Mach 3000, dragons will be able to hide in plain sight, blend into the native population on any planet we have come to conquer.”

This famous dragon journalist in the front row, Bozz, stood up and snorted flamestreams out his nostrils. “What exactly do you mean by hide in plain sight?” he snarled. “And why have I been brought here this morning to look at images of a stupid worm?! I don’t appreciate having my time wasted! Hurry up and get to the point!”

There was a chorus of growls and delirious hisses of agreement among the dragon journalists, who now had their tails raised in the air and were glaring at Dr. Terrible. The vibe in the room was definitely fiendish, and you should know that dragon journalists on Blegwethia are notoriously ruthless.

Because on my home planet Blegwethia if a journalist shows up to report a story and they don’t like the situation they’re seeing, they’re not afraid to wade right in and get their claws and beak bloody. That’s dragon journalism for you.

“Are there any among you here today that are tired of playing the role of the big green scary monster?” said Dr. Terrible. “Are there any among you who while conquering a planet have thought to yourself, There has got to be an easier way? Must we always play the role of the barbarian, watching the natives flee in terror before our firestreams? Now don’t get me wrong, I love seeing a native flee in terror as much as the next dragon. But what I am driving at here is what if you had a choice? That’s right. I said choice.”

“Do I have a choice to sit here and listen to this twaddle?” snorted one of the fool dragons sitting in the front row. “Because if so, I choose to leave!”

The entire audience erupted with deranged snorts and hoots of laughter.

Dr. Terrible ignored the disruption, waited a second for them to quiet down, and then proceeded. “Well I say no, we do not always have to be the monster! Not with my new Evolution Machine, we don’t! Imagine if you could mind-swap with the native species of a planet, such as a butterfly? A butterfly who could shoot fire out its mouth and fly at speeds of up to three hundred miles per hour? A butterfly fully capable of conquering and enslaving an entire planet? A butterfly with a taste for gold and the ability to write epic poetry? We are talking the ultimate in camouflage here. Because if you’re disguised as a butterfly, your future slaves would never even see you coming!

“Well enough with the hypotheticals! Let’s look at actual results! So for my first procedure earlier this morning, I used my Evolution Machine to perform a mind-swap. As you can see in the image on the screen, I swapped a worm into a lion’s body, and the lion into the worm’s body. My new Evolution Machine performed brilliantly. So now what you are about to see is the worm, post-procedure. A worm that can now wriggle at speeds up to sixty miles per hour! A worm whose array of instincts and abilities has been radically altered because of my Evo-Mach 3000!”

Then on the TV screen they cut to a vid clip of the newly “swapped” worm, and in this vid clip you could see this little worm chasing a gazelle as the gazelle bounded at top speed through the jungle.

The little demented worm raced along behind the bounding gazelle, nipping at its hoofs.

And when the gazelle briefly stumbled, the worm roared and leapt up onto the gazelle’s neck.

The terrified gazelle with bulging eyes exploded out of there with the worm clinging to it. And then that worm bit the gazelle’s neck and wrenched it down to the ground for the kill.

Dr. Terrible proceeded to show a few more short vid clips of the worm, and one of the clips showed the worm running straight up a tree. Another clip showed the worm roaring so loud that the ground shook.

Then my grandpa looked out at the audience and began wryly flapping his wings, as if to cool off the stunned journalists who sat there quietly with their toe claws retracted.

“Now I would like to show you the lion!” purred Dr. Terrible, as he squirted firebolts out his nostrils. “This lion who now has the worm’s mind. Here is a vid clip that was shot earlier today in my Institute’s BioGarden!”

And lo, this giant deranged lion came twisting up out of the soil like some sort of bionic worm and leapt in the air and then dove back deep down into the soil. Apparently my grandpa had strapped a vidcam to the lion’s forehead, because now on the TV you could see the lion’s point of view as it rocketed underground and powered through the soil. Then they cut to another camera, and as the lion tunneled through the soil you could see the top of the lion’s mane slicing along the dirt’s surface like a shark’s fin in the ocean.

Then Dr. Terrible surprised all the journalists at the press conference when he opened a hole in the floor and suddenly the lion appeared standing there next to him.

The journalists in the audience growled and fiendishly gnashed their fangs at the sight of the psychotic lion standing there glaring back at them.

Then Dr. Terrible unfurled his leathery wings and bellowed: “And now for my final demonstration! So nobody can doubt the genius of my Evolution Machine! Let all my colleagues bow down to the greatest mind WarWings has ever seen!”

Dr. Terrible used both of his talons to pick the lion up and hoist the beast over his scaly green head and he held the lion like that as if he were in a weight-lifting competition and he was striking a pose for the judges. And then Dr. Terrible suddenly wrenched his talons in opposite directions and ripped the lion in half like a sheet of paper.

Now Dr. Terrible casually tossed the two halves on the ground and then the two halves regenerated their missing parts so now there were two smaller lions standing there.

Both lions roared.

The delirious audience leapt to their webbed feet and started clicking their talons together in applause and flapping their wings and thumping their tails against the floor. So that press conference happened on Tuesday morning, which was three days before Crown Day. And after that Tuesday morning press conference in which my grandpa Dr. Terrible revealed his new Evolution Machine and its ability to perform the mind-swap, all hell broke loose here on WarWings’ campus.

And the next couple days turned into a demented nightmare. Which culminated in what we dragon cadets were right away calling the Doctor vs. Dean RageFest last night. Basically, when Dr. Terrible and Dean Floop clashed horns out on the campus quad. I’ll get to the RageFest later. And when the RageFest was over and the smoke had cleared, my grandpa disappeared.

Dr. Terrible had up and vanished, and nobody knew where he was.

The next morning was Crown Day, which is today. And this morning there’s even a big article about the Doctor vs. Dean RageFest posted up on our school’s datastream, The Digital Fire-Breather:

DISTINGUISHED RESEARCH PROFESSOR

DR. TERRIBLE DISAPPEARS WITHOUT A TRACE

SOME SUSPECT FOUL PLAY

It is Crown Day, the most important day of a dragon’s four years at WarWings. And this morning none of the senior cadets are wasting any time wondering what happened to Dr. Terrible because they’re too busy worrying about making sure they find a mating partner for EggHarvest.

And on the morning following what everyone is already calling the Doctor vs. Dean RageFest, it’s actually Dean Floop’s luscious daughter whom I’m scheming to score as my Queen.

Runcita Floop.

And that’s what I started off telling you about before I took a detour to get you up to speed on all this fiendish Dr. Terrible stuff. I started off telling you what happens this morning in the Central Campus corridor when Dean Floop suddenly points at me and then his daughter turns and looks at me and so I quickly duck down out of sight.

Runcita Floop.