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MY BIG HEROICS

So much for my big heroics, though.

Here I am prepared to die and Bruggert doesn’t seem to think I’m worth killing, or even paying attention to. He doesn’t even see my scaly green ass. It’s like I don’t exist.

Bruggert is just hovering there with his wings unfurled. And I figure he’s too focused on the mega damage he’s about to inflict on Runcita to notice anything else.

Homicidal lunatics aren’t known for their ability to multitask.

That’s the only explanation I can give for why Bruggert doesn’t seem to see me or hear me when I step in to protect Runcita from his awful wrath.

“Yo chick,” Bruggert growls. “Just cuz you the finest scale-tail in our senior class, I’m not goin’ to set here and let you disrespect me like that!”

Then he takes one powerful threatening step toward Runcita and raises his talon as if he were taking an oath, and suddenly all five claws shoot out. And these claws are so ghastly they look like they could cut a planet in half.

By this point every cadet in the crowd has their powerstaffs out and is aiming their holovid transmitters at Bruggert and Runcita.

You can definitely feel that this is turning into something huge. Something that will become legend and pass on into WarWings lore. So all these dragons are holding their powerstaffs out and maneuvering to try and get the best possible footage of history before it happens.

“But I promise you something, chick,” snarls Bruggert. “I will teach you to respect my crown! Seems like your hotshot daddy never bothered to teach you the fundamentals of being a dragonette. Your daddy must’ve been too busy blasting helpless cadets with firestreams. So he didn’t have the time to raise his own daughter right. And the first thing you going to learn is to always respect a dragon’s crown! That’s what your daddy should have taught you, Run Run. But that’s OK. Because now I am goin’ to have to teach you myself. That means I’ll be your daddy!”

Then he flicks those savage death-dealing claws out even further and whips his forelimb and slashes at her beak.

Runcita ducks as the claws pass through the air where her scaly green head just was.

“Really?!” she bellows. “That’s all you got? A bunch of stupid daddy talk? Oh please do tell me how you’re gonna be my daddy, Bruggert! Tell me how you’re gonna learn me some lame ancient bullshaka dragon traditions ’bout how since I’m a chick I’m supposed to bow down and respect your nasty crown! I’m all earholes, Brug Brug! Let’s see what you got to learn me! Show me, Brug Brug! ’Cause by my scaly green ancestor’s oath, you don’t want none of this!”

Bruggert’s eyes instantly bloom into raging lava flowers and he launches himself at Runcita with a speed and ferocity that none of us cadets have ever seen before. It is too much. It is beyond the scale of what should be possible.

His rage manifests itself in his attack to the extent that he appears to be less a dragon and more some sort of deranged weather pattern.

Seeing him like that, you feel scared for the whole universe.

The cadets squatting next to me instinctively turn their heads away as if to keep their ugly green snouts from getting blasted off. And I clench my toe claws and dig them into the floor to give me purchase against the hideous wind from Bruggert’s flight, which is threatening to blast me off my green webbed feet.

Even the atoms seem to be having a hard time withstanding the force of his onslaught.

Because Bruggert is wavy around the edges, like he’s bleeding into the atmosphere.

Then Runcita crouches low on her haunches and flips opens her beak and shoots out her tongue.

Zing.

Now Runcita’s tongue is flying too fast to track but you can just make out the red blur of it. And you can tell by how Runcita is crouched there on her haunches, with her leathery wings spread wide and her green tail lifted high, that she’s trained in the art of tongue-fu. Meanwhile Bruggert is zooming right at her like a missile. Runcita’s tongue smashes Bruggert’s beak and he goes soaring up into the air and lands with his ass stuck inside a slave-catching barrel mounted up on the wall. Bruggert’s monsterish scaly head is lolling off at a weird angle and it looks like his long green neck is probably broken. And all the cadets crowd around and start whooping and snorting and whistling.

Zing.

Runcita retracts her long red tongue back into her beak. Then she strolls over and looks up at that scaly green bastard Bruggert wedged there in the slave-catching barrel.

“Told you not to call me Run Run,” she says. “I even said please.”

Bruggert looks at Runcita with googly eyes, and then he moans.

Now Runcita starts to make her way to the exit. And all the other cadets in the gym instantly revert back to their regular hoopla.

Nearby a couple dragon fools are milling around and laughing. One of them leaps backward, doing an impression of Bruggert getting his ass knocked out.

Making her way to the gym exit, Runcita just so happens to be coming my way.

“Pardon me,” says Runcita. “Coming through.”

She is walking straight toward me. So I quickly raise the little silver canister to my dome and spritz my horns with GrowGrow^® gel. Suddenly there’s a white hot flash in my brain and I can feel some sort of machine crank up inside my skull. Then without really knowing why I am doing it, I tilt my scaly green head back and snort flames out my nostrils and start singing a WILL TO POWER poem:

“Oh why oh why, you ask,

is Gork so great?

Well by and by you’ll see it’s cuz

I’m the fiend who seals your fate!

Cuz I’m the one that decides who’ll

be living and dying,

And my foes are foolish if escape is something

they’re thinking about trying

Cuz my will’s like iron

and it don’t matter if you running, swimming, or flying!

Now where’s all them luscious chicks

who keep begging me to mate?

All y’all dragonettes got to get in line,

cuz I’m so great!”

As soon as I finish singing, I remember.

The CTD-2000.

And when I finish belting out the poem here in the gym, I feel the poem jacking me up with blasts of MATING MAGNETISM juice.

My nostrils flare.

I can hear all the cadets behind me start snorting and roaring with laughter after hearing me sing the poem out loud. And then they start chanting: “Weak Sauce! Weak Sauce! Weak Sauce!”

But I don’t care. Let these dragon fools make a racket. I’m near the end of my Queen Quest and that’s all that matters.

Because Runcita is standing right here in front of me looking up with a pleasant smile on her beak, patiently waiting for me to step aside.

And I know exactly what I have to do.

I’ve already practiced asking Runcita to be my Queen in front of the Talking Mirror at least a hundred times over the past couple days. So as I stand here in the gym I can feel my speech perched on the tip of my tongue like a missile, ready to be deployed.

And I reach for my crown where it’s fastened to my utility belt. This is the opportunity I’ve been waiting for.

“Hey Runcita,” I say. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”