[ 24 ]

RUNCITA’S LUSCIOUS SCENT MAKES MY NOSTRILS FLARE

I feel nauseous and light-headed.

Being so high up and all. I’m actually scared of heights, if you want to know the truth. And for a dragon that’s a disgraceful thing to be, and so I’ve never told anybody that before. Sometimes when I fly I get vertigo and feel dizzy.

Anyway, so being way up here on the observation deck in the Coliseum of Heroes is definitely freaking my scaly green ass out. And as I squat here and peer down I feel a little flash of vertigo and it feels like the coliseum is collapsing to the left.

So just to be on the safe side, I wrap my tail around the main beam of the deck and knot it. This way, in case I happen to faint, my knotted tail will keep me from falling to my death below.

My Secret Weapon. I peer down at the screen on my powerstaff and there’s the blinking red light. Larger now, signaling to me that I am indeed close to the target of my heart.

My Queen.

Now I whip my binoculars off my utility belt and lean over the edge and proceed to scope out the crowds of dragons below for Runcita.

Come on, Luscious, where are you?

My nostrils flare as I pick up Runcita’s scent, wafting all the way up here on the observation deck.

Mmmmm. I smell you, Luscious.

I peer through my binocs, though it’s sort of hard to focus, what with the mobs of cadets shrieking and bouncing around in the coliseum. Nothing but green heads and spiked tails as far as the eye can see.

I zero in on a gang of senior fellas playing Whap Whap. Then I watch as one of the seniors, this scaly fool named Spaetz, well he dances right into the middle of the Whap Whap circle with a grin on his beak and gets whapped so hard on the back of his scaly green head he blacks out and collapses onto the floor. Then one of those deranged cadets steps forward and uses his spiked tail to start whip-a-whapping the poor bastard Spaetz on the floor, but he doesn’t budge. And the rest of the dragon fellas start snorting and hooting and spitting lavaloogies on him.

No Runcita there. Come on, Luscious, where are you?

I swing my binocs toward the opposite side of the coliseum and zero in on this senior cadet that everyone calls Lick Lick. He’s got a crowd of dragons watching him while he juggles what look like forty or so humanoid skulls using only his talons and his tail and his powerful long tongue.

Luscious, you can’t hide from me.

Come out, come out wherever you are!

I whip my binocs over toward the coliseum entrance and zero in on this cute scaly senior dragonette named Buddle whom I know from my Escape and Evasion class. Buddle’s showing off by shooting fireballs out her black beak, and each fireball’s in the shape of a WarWings faculty member’s head.

Buddle shoots a fireball out her beak that looks just like Professor Prook, who’s the only five-headed dragon that WarWings has on faculty.

Then this chick Buddle shoots a fireball out her beak that is the spitting image of Dean Floop’s repulsive scaly head with his eye patch and the familiar pissed-off look on his beak. And all the fool dragons gathered around shriek and snort and point their index claws at Dean Floop’s fiery head as it zooms through the air. The fireballs shaped like faculty members’ heads bounce around the Coliseum of Heroes, and all the other scaly dragons are howling as they scramble to avoid getting hit by this chick Buddle’s balls.

I am starting to lose patience here, Luscious.

Don’t you want to wear my beautiful crown and lay my eggs, Luscious?

Show yourself to me!

Here in the coliseum you can feel the insane levels of tension in the air because it’s Crown Day. I figure all those senior cadets down below who are showing off by juggling skulls and shooting designer firestreams and whapping each other over the head with their tails are really just engaging in elaborate mating rituals. Because they’re hoping that a dragon of the opposite sex will see them and want to be their King or Queen for EggHarvest.

Then at that moment I feel my powerstaff vibrate, and I look down and see it’s a message from Fribby:

I’m doing fine! Rexro tried to catch me but I bolted out of there!

Right now I’m back in the spaceship, getting my stuff ready so I can come back in for my next class. They had to shut down the teleportation pad temporarily so we have to walk onto campus now. Any luck with Runcita?!

I don’t have time to shoot her a message back, and plus I figure I’ll just meet up with Ms. Cyber Scales once she gets in the building. Now as I scope the area down below for Runcita, a giant swarm of bats come flying through the Coliseum of Heroes, flapping their wings and screeching. There must be thousands of them. And a scaly green dragonette down on the ground shoots her tongue out thirty feet into the air and snatches one of the bats. “Gulp. Mmmmm.”

But no Queen-to-Be in sight.

So I check my powerstaff to get a bead on Runcita and I hold the powerstaff screen out in front of me.

For a brief moment, I see the red blinking dot from the nanotracker on Runcita. It looks like she’s still in the Coliseum of Heroes.

But then the blinking red dot vanishes.

What?!

I tap at the screen with my claws.

But the blinking red dot is gone.

I keep frantically tapping the screen.

Then on the screen it says: SIGNAL TERMINATED.

Oh my God! Did Runcita find the device on her?! Oh my God!

My heart sinks. Because I know if Runcita found my tracking device it’ll be easy enough to track the home signal and decipher that the nanotracker belongs to me. And then Runcita will surely turn me in to her dad.

Dean Floop will be coming for me now!

Suddenly there’s a loud flapping of powerful leathery wings next to me and horrid bursts of air explode near my scaly green head. And in the midst of trying to keep myself from falling off the observation post I realize with alarm that some dragon has just flown up and come barging onto my deck. My horns instantly start tingling.

I turn toward the intruder and growl, “Hey what’s the big—”

But then I stop when I see who it is.

What the—?