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POOF

Poof.

I materialize down on Level B, in the Dungeon Room. And when I see what’s here in the room, I get a sick feeling in my belly.

Fribby is here.

But she isn’t all here, if you know what I mean.

Oh my God.

Now as soon as I see what condition the robot is in, I crouch down low on my haunches and arch my tail up in a Threat Display. I snort flamestreams out my nostrils.

Because Fribby’s chrome-flex body is floating inside the upright stasis tank, which is two pods fused together and filled with clear goo. That robot looks like she’s asleep in her pod. I can’t believe what I am seeing. My mind is doling out the reality of the situation to me in bits and pieces, as a survival technique. To protect my scaly green ass.

Not too fast, or your tiny heart’s gonna explode.

And seeing Fribby like this, well this isn’t even the most shocking part of all. Because right next to the robot in the other pod there’s another dragon chick who appears to be asleep. And she looks familiar.

Who is that?

But I can’t place her.

Not at first anyway.

Then I recognize who she is.

Oh my God.

Idrixia.

The dragonette who originally agreed to be my Queen for EggHarvest.

The chick who Dr. Terrible stole away from me and married.

And then divorced.

Fribby the robot and Idrixia the Normal are lined up alongside each other in that stasis tank, each of them in their own pod. They both have their eyes closed. And connected by tubes to their fused pods is a small silver pyramid hovering in the air. The pyramid is pulsing with light, so that the fiendish machine appears to be breathing.

Then the final piece clicks into place.

And with a flash of horror I know exactly what I am looking at.

The Evo-Mach 3000.

Dr. Terrible’s Evolution Machine.

Fribby and Idrixia are hooked up to my grandpa’s Evo-Mach 3000. And you don’t need to be a scientific genius to comprehend what is happening right now at this moment. You can tell by how the pyramid is pulsing with light.

The mind-swap is under way.