[ 40 ]

THERE’S NOTHING MORE IMPORTANT THAN GETTING THE RIGHT CHICK TO LAY YOUR EGGS

“Get that stupid crown out of my face,” Runcita hisses. “And please don’t call me Run Run again. Nobody calls me Run Run.”

“Why not give it a test drive and see how it fits, Run Run?” purrs Bruggert, holding the crown out. “You might feel different once you’ve got it on your pretty little head.”

Then the crown floats out of Bruggert’s talons and it soars up into the air and it hovers several feet over Runcita’s gorgeous scaly head. The crown clearly has some sort of neurospring technology in it that makes it bend to Bruggert’s will. It’s really something to see, the boss crown hovering up in the air like that.

“I’m warning you,” growls Runcita. She eyeballs the crown overhead as she reaches for her powerstaff and yanks it off her utility belt.

“Once you put that there crown on your scaly head, you ain’t going to want to take it off, Run Run. There’s not a chick alive that wouldn’t want to wear this crown!”

The floating crown suddenly lunges several feet to the left. Runcita wheels herself around to keep the crown in her sight. Then the crown shoots to the right. Runcita leaps and dances to keep the crown in her line of sight.

Now I don’t know if you can say that a crown has body language. But if you can, then you’d have to say Bruggert’s crown whizzing around up there in the air, well this crown’s body language is aggressive bordering on predatory.

Then the crown starts zigzagging overhead. And Runcita is turning every which way to keep it in her sights. Sadly, it looks like she’s losing ground. Because you can tell Runcita is getting confused and dizzy. She’s panting and her tongue is drooping several feet out of her beak.

Well apparently this has been Bruggert’s plan all along.

Because he gleefully bellows, “Gotcha!”

And at that moment the crown shoots straight down onto Runcita’s gorgeous scaly head.

Well it almost does. At the last moment, Runcita dives away and activates the laserblade in her powerstaff. The laserblade is bright red, at least seven feet long, and makes a whirring noise.

Now Runcita ducks to avoid the crown and she swings the laserblade and cracks the flying crown. Sparks explode everywhere and the crown goes shooting through the air across the gym. It smashes up against the far wall with a loud clang and then falls to the floor where it wobbles around making an awful racket before finally coming to a stop.

Bruggert glares at Runcita and snorts firebolts out his flared green nostrils.

“I really wish you hadn’t done that, Run Run,” he growls. “Maybe you ain’t the chick I thought you was after all.”

Then Bruggert casually lifts his talon and holds it up high.

The crown jumps up off the ground and zooms across the gym and back into Bruggert’s palm.

Smack.

He hitches the crown to his utility belt and then turns and glares at Runcita.

“I told you to get that stupid crown out of my face,” she hisses. “You should’ve listened to me.”

Bruggert’s black beak is twisted up into this sadistic grin and you can see all of his fangs. All thousand of them, it looks like.

“Listen to you?” he purrs. “I’m all earholes, Run Run. Message received loud and clear.” Now that depraved dragon pauses for a moment and his eyes bloom red in their sockets.

“But I gotta warn you, Run Run,” he growls. “I’m one of them fellas who thinks that when a chick says no, she really means yes.”

Runcita squints at Bruggert. “So then what does it mean if I say yes?”

“Yes means yes.”

“I thought no means no.”

“No means yes. So either way, your answer’s yes.”

“Hey Bruggert,” she growls.

“Yeah, Run Run?”

“Do yourself a big favor.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t let your beak write a check that your tail can’t cash.”

In response, the veins in Bruggert’s long neck pop out and his entire scaly green body begins to inflate and the rippling muscles in his chest and forelimbs and powerful haunches swell up to hideous proportions.

His toe claws shoot out.

Then Bruggert’s giant wings ominously unfurl behind his monsterish scaly green head, and each of his leathery wings is seriously massive. Truth be told, the sight of Bruggert with his leathery wings unfurled like that is insanely scary.

Now as if summoned by Bruggert’s fierce Threat Display, a dark wind starts howling through the gym.

Runcita is just crouched there on her haunches looking up at Bruggert with what can only be described as a helpless expression on her beak.

And that’s when I know I have to stop what’s about to happen.

Runcita, poor Runcita, she’s about to get mauled by a psychopath. My darling Runcita is going to get her scaly green head bitten clean off. And I can’t just stand by and watch that happen.

So I step right into the circle.

“Yo Bruggert,” I growl, “why don’t you leave her alone! If you want to show everybody what a badass you are, why not give me a shot?! Huh? Why not give me a shot?! You big ugly sonuvabitch!”

Then I open my black beak and blast a firebolt at Bruggert.

Swoosh.

The firebolt shoots right by the side of his monsterish scaly head.

It creases his left earhole.

It’s meant as a warning shot, nothing more.

Now I know what you’re thinking. Why would I willingly volunteer to sign my own death warrant like this? Love? Well you can call it love if you want. But really it’s much more primal than that.

Because the truth is that a teenage dragon will do anything to make sure the right chick lays his eggs. Even if it means he has to die trying.

And that’s exactly what I am prepared to do.