[ 60 ]

A CRACK IN THE EVOLUTION MACHINE

It’s a miracle my scaly green head stays attached to my neck.

Because the silver boxing glove zooms in and smashes me square in the beak.

Pow.

My head whips hard to the left just in time to see another gloved tentacle shoot out of a different wall and zoom toward my beak.

Pow.

Instantly it feels like my scaly snout is broken and my beak has been smashed up into the top of my head. Blood spurts out of my snout and my eyes are watering and I can feel my brain jiggling around in my skull. I’m dazed. But I’m definitely not down for the count. I leap back on my webbed feet and roar and blast a mega firestream at the first gloved tentacle, and the tentacle goes up in flames.

ATHENOS II’s ghastly mouth in the wall cries, “Ow ow ow ow ow!”

And you can tell by the way the hideous green tentacle is thrashing around on the floor, trying to put the fire out, that it hurts like hell.

Then a third muscular tentacle shoots out of the wall and it’s carrying a fire extinguisher and it spews a stream of white foam on the burning tentacle and puts the fire out. I can barely see because the Dungeon is choked with smoke. The burnt tentacle zooms back into the wall. Then the third green fleshy tentacle zooms over and swings the fire extinguisher and whaps me over the head with it.

Clang.

I back up and open my black beak and shoot a bunch of firebolts at the glistening tentacle but it expertly dodges the soaring flames.

Then I whip my powerstaff off my utility belt and crouch down on one scaly green haunch and aim the business end of the staff at Fribby’s stasis pod standing upright against the wall.

“ATHENOS!” I shout. “You should’ve never messed with my best friend Fribby like this! You should know by now that if you mess with the dragon then you get the horns!”

I press the button with my index claw and fire a blue photon bolt which is intended to disrupt the stasis field and shatter the Evolution Machine’s glass pod. The blue bolt strikes the stasis pod and for several moments it surrounds the tank and kicks off blue sparks as it goes about the business of disarming the Evolution Machine’s security firewall.

“I warned you not to do that, sir,” snarls the giant mouth in the wall.

The glass tank is shaking violently and a thin crack appears along the top of Fribby’s pod. Inside the pod, though, Fribby’s chrome-flex body remains remarkably tranquil. The blue photon bolt is enveloping the entire Evolution Machine in energy currents. The tank starts shaking harder. And Fribby starts to vibrate in the fluid.

The crack in the glass continues to grow, lengthening down the front.

That’s it that’s it that’s it! Come on you stupid glass break all the way and let Fribby out of there!