[ 39 ]

RUNCITA

A few minutes later, I fly through the gym’s entrance.

I close my wings and drop and land in a crouch on my green webbed feet. I scope out the area. And there she is. My sweet luscious dragonette in all her glory. Just like Metheldra said she’d be.

Runcita Floop.

She’s just squatting there on her muscular haunches. But then I see something which makes my horns tingle. Because the reason Runcita is just squatting there is some dragon fool is down on one haunch in front of her and he has his wings spread out wide and his tail raised. And he’s holding his crown out to her, like an offering.

Crap.

It’s this senior dragon fool named Tog. Tog is crouched down on one haunch and he’s holding his crown out to Runcita and it’s obvious that he’s asking her to be his Queen for EggHarvest. Now frankly I’m kind of shocked to see a punk like Tog making a play for Runcita like this. Because in terms of class ranking, this fella Tog is definitely nothing special bordering on doofus.

But I don’t have time to think about this because at that moment out of the corner of my eye I see a green blur blasting toward Runcita. I don’t know if it is my intuition or what, but I get a bad feeling right then. And I figure whatever this blur is, it is big trouble.

Turns out I’m right. Because the green blur I track out of the corner of my eye turns out to be this big nasty dragon Jock bastard named Bruggert. He smashes right into Tog. It’s a heck of a shot. Everybody there in the gym can hear it, that’s for sure. Serious scale-on-scale contact.

Tog instantly goes soaring up through the air a good fifty feet. And I glimpse Tog’s yellow eyes as he flashes through the air, and you can see right away Bruggert has seriously damaged something neural in Tog. I mean Tog’s leathery wings are sort of flapping, but his wings are broken, crumpled. This poor dragon bastard Tog is just a brutally crippled creature reduced to the fundamentals of existence: try to flap wings, try to breathe.

Tog never even knew what hit him. I’m guessing the whole experience was kind of painless. He smashes into the far wall of the gym and explodes in a gush of blood. Tog is simply no more. It’s pretty repulsive. To see what is left of Tog.

When he splats against the wall like that, all the other fiendish cadets in the gym start hooting and snorting with laughter and cheering. Then a bunch of dragon fools scurry over and start snapping images of the Tog-turned-blood-splat on the wall with their powerstaffs.

Meanwhile that big deranged Jocko Bruggert comes to a halt in front of Runcita. And squats directly in her path, blocking her way.

Bruggert is at least three heads taller than the average cadet, and his thick muscular tail is flapping around in the air behind him and you can’t help but marvel at the two giant black horns on Bruggert’s monsterish scaly head. Each of Bruggert’s horns must be ten feet long at least. His horns look so sharp at the tips, you reckon he could leap up and gore a low-flying spaceship.

And he is the star player on WarWings’ varsity Slave-Catching team.

As I watch Bruggert step in and block Runcita’s path, my piddly horns start vibrating so hard it’s making my freaking vision blurry. Each year after the Slave-Catching Championship, Bruggert has been named Most Valuable Player. No cadet in the history of WarWings has been named MVP for four years straight. Except this scoundrel Bruggert.

And it’s just assumed that once Bruggert graduates from WarWings he’ll go on to an illustrious career as a Planet Conqueror. I’ll bet the WarWings administration already has Bruggert’s 3-D holophoto ready to go up on the Notable Alumni Wall in the Library. I mean this dragon’s intergalactic imminence is just a foregone conclusion.

He’s just standing there on his hind legs, studying Runcita. He hasn’t even once glanced over to see what became of Tog. Bruggert opens his black beak wide and belches up a thunderous firestream which shakes the gymnasium and makes the walls quake.

Then Bruggert lifts his talon and points a long index claw at Runcita.

“Hey Run Run,” he purrs. “How are ya doing, beautiful? You’re a hard chick to find. But lucky for you, now I’ve found you! Ha-ha.”

Then Bruggert spreads his wings out wide and grins this megawatt smile, showing off a beakful of fangs.

The other cadets in the gym definitely smell blood. They crowd around Runcita and Bruggert. Because when Bruggert splats Tog against the wall and then ambushes Runcita, there’s instantly a new and dangerous energy in the air. You definitely don’t need to be a genius to know what all the other demented cadets in the Dining Hall are thinking. You can see it in their eyes. What they are thinking is:

Sure, earlier this morning Runcita put a bunch of dragons in the WarWings Medical Center, but none of those morons was as big and strong and tough as Bruggert.

Bruggert could single-handedly crush any dragon fool in our Academy!

Last week something happened at the Friday night WarWings Slave-Catching game that I haven’t been able to get out of my mind. And it involved Bruggert and his coach, Coach Deebs. Coach Deebs was roaring at Bruggert from his stratospheric perch, while Bruggert was out there with his spear and net, trying to catch slaves.

I was there at that game along with the other cadets, sitting in the orbital viewcraft. At one point Coach Deebs roared: “Bruggert you better move your tail out there! Stop sleepwalking and get involved in the game! I swear I’ll sit you on the transport ship if you don’t start catching some slaves!”

I guess that last threat from the coach was more than Bruggert could take. Because at that moment, Bruggert flapped his wings and flew up to the stratospheric perch and opened his beak wide and literally bit Coach Deeb’s scaly green head off. Coach Deebs’s headless body plummeted down to the terrain. I still remember the coach’s scaly green body lying there all crooked with his wings folded funny and the blood pooling around him. Then Bruggert flew back out onto the terrain and resumed playing the game with his spear and net, as if nothing had happened.

Even for dragons, there are limits. And this was way over the limit for normal sports-related violence. Because the idea that one of our cadets could do that to an adult dragon was downright scary. I mean Coach Deebs was no slouch. We’re talking a full-grown adult dragon here, a former Intergalactic Conqueror with at least twenty planets under his belt. And Bruggert bit Coach Deebs’s scaly green head off with his fangs as easily as if he were ripping open a bag of hornetpops.

Now on top of all that, I can’t tell you how many times I’d seen Bruggert shooting up ’roids around Central Campus, out in public. More often than not when you see Bruggert in the corridor he’ll have a syringe needle sticking out of his long scaly neck. As if for him the syringe is a fashion accessory, part of his style.

Like the way some dragon fellas wear glasses frames with no lenses.

What kind of maniac wears a steroid syringe in his neck as a fashion accessory?

I’m surprised Bruggert hasn’t got a syringe stuck in his long green neck right now.

But what gives me an even worse feeling this Crown Day in the gym is knowing this dragon Bruggert can have practically any dragonette in our grade he wants. I mean the hottest female cadets at WarWings will literally beg Bruggert to lock them up in one of his cages, let them spend the night in his lair.

Shoot, even Fribby will get these big dreamy eyes whenever Bruggert walks by her in the hall. Once when I asked Fribby how she could be attracted to a deranged Normal lunatic bastard like Bruggert, she just hooted and told me I was being a prude.

“Bruggert had a horrible childhood,” said Fribby. “He’s damaged, is all. If you understood that, then you’d see him for what he is. Which is a badly wounded and terrified dragon fella.”

Which is typical. Whenever a chick wants to justify being attracted to a monster or laying a monster’s eggs, they always talk about how traumatized that dragon bastard is from his horrible childhood. And I think it’s flapdoodle.

Why not just admit that you enjoy being with a monster?

Why not just admit that the monster gives you that special little tingly feeling in your tail?

But I’m sure Dr. Terrible would tell me I need to get over myself and that if anyone could benefit from adding a little monster to his personality, it would be me.

My point is I’m really worried that Runcita will fall prey to Bruggert’s special powers.

The lure of the monster.

So I charge forward and plow into the crowd of cadets gathered around Runcita and Bruggert there in the gymnasium. But even as I fling the hideous dragons aside and shove my way to the front of the circle gathered around Runcita and Bruggert, my heart is sinking. Because I sense I might already be too late.

“Yo Run Run,” purrs Bruggert, flexing his wings. “What say you be my Queen for EggHarvest? I reckon we could make a great Colony together. I’m envisioning billions of slaves kneeling before us with their heads bowed. And lots of little Bruggerts running around. So what do you say, Run Run? Will you be my Queen?!”

Runcita just eyeballs Bruggert like he’s lost his mind.

“My dad gave me a new spaceship for our Fertility Mission,” he purrs. “It’s got an anti-grav LavaTub.”

He flicks his powerstaff and a 3-D holovid appears in the air, and the holovid shows a tricked-out spaceship which radiates power and fiendish technology. The holovid jumps to a new clip showing the interior of the spaceship. There are long hallways and gardens and luxury rooms. The clip finishes with a slow panning shot of the anti-grav LavaTub floating in midair. And above it is this clear-paneled ceiling, so you can soak in the LavaTub and watch the planets as you pass them by.

“That’s a pretty righteous spaceship, ain’t it?” purrs Bruggert. “And when we land on our Designated Foreign Planet we’ll engage in much merry mayhem and destruction. Catch us some slaves. Plunder some gold. Build us a sweet Colony to rule over our new planet. You’ll be my Queen. And I’ll be your Dragon King!”

Runcita’s tail raises up and starts twitching around in a Threat Display. Now I just happen to catch a glimpse of the white meat lining the underside of Runcita’s tail, and the sight of it makes me woozy with lust. Squatting here on the edge of the circle, I whisper: “She’s even more beautiful when she’s angry!”

Bruggert grins at Runcita and her twitching tail as if she’s nothing more than a mighty cute and amusing tiger cub. “And on our way to our Designated Foreign Planet,” he purrs, “maybe we can rock that LavaTub together. Get real nasty. So whatdya say, chick? You reckon you got what it takes to lay my eggs? Huh? Do you, Run Run?”

Then he gets down on one haunch. He reaches for his utility belt and produces a seriously boss gold crown lined with flashing colored gems and a massive diamond in the center. The crowd of cadets gasp because it’s the most gorgeous and insanely expensive-looking crown that they have ever seen offered for EggHarvest.

Bruggert holds the faboo crown out to Runcita. “Will you be my Queen?”

And I don’t know which part makes my scaly green ass feel worse. The fact that his gold crown chockablock with red and blue and green gems and diamonds is so boss that I know in my heart if I was a chick and a fella offered me that crown I would say yes in a heartbeat. Or the fact that as Bruggert crouches there with the crown he somehow manages to look so damn sweet and sincere.