I'm doing this to avert a YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH spiral.
The Baron Aqizzar rode South, the sun climbing steadily from his left, the wind blowing through his hair and the dust billowing in his face. He didn’t mind. His stubble was far grittier than anything natural, and he had in fact once used it to sand a surfboard. Unfortunately the board had not survived the experience, exploding into pieces upon contact.
He in fact had no interest in surfing, but it seemed like something to do with his time. It was necessary, after all, for him to keep distracted these days. Sometimes the lines began to blur, and the distinction between Chin and Aqizzar disappeared. Sometimes it was attached to his face, and sometimes he was attached to it.
A casual observer would notice nothing unusual about him, save for the fact that he radiated an aura of supreme manliness that, at a glance, would knock the weak-willed unconscious. If said observer were tough enough to withstand the initial shock, he would begin to notice other things – the set of his shoulders, far wider than most normal men, the narrowness of his waistline, the extreme squareness of his jaw, and his eyes, which he never seemed to open.
There was also the fact that his motorcycle didn’t seem to touch the ground when he rode it, but most of them couldn’t manage to look that close. Soaring over the road, he gunned the engine. It roared, and the speedometer’s needle went as high on the dial as was physically possible.
Something roared back even louder.
Aqizzar turned and squinted at the source of the tumult, and found he had to swerve to the left as a blazing ToonyMan, using the flames constantly erupting from his head as some bizarre form of jet propulsion, came rocketing past, carrying Duke. A huge yellow blur followed closely behind, unleashing another deafening roar, and lashing around with what appeared to be its tail.
The Baron frowned. After a moment’s thought he revved his motorcycle up and raced after them.
---
“He’s FAST,” said ToonyMan, as he blazed across the expressway with PointZilla the Dragon hot on their heels.
“We made him that way,” said Duke. He sounded short of breath, which was in itself an indicator of how supremely screwed they were, especially considering that ToonyMan had been carrying him for the past hundred miles. “He was supposed to be a challenge for Aqizzar. There was no way to make something anywhere near as strong, so we made it very, very quick.”
“Normally I’m not the one to point out things like this,” said ToonyMan, “But you’re INSANE. This thing could destroy the entire state in a day!”
As if to illustrate his point, PointZilla let out a tremendous roar, accompanied by its spewing a gob of what appeared to be radioactive phlegm. The ball of phlegm rocketed past them, narrowly missing ToonyMan’s head, and impacted a sign by the roadside. It disintegrated in short order.
“So cool,” said ToonyMan, avoiding the residual slag. “Say, Duke?”
“What? And try not to get us killed!”
“This thing has acid loogies.”
“So?”
“How’d you manage to keep it caged?”
Another gob of phlegm spiraled past them, this time spattering against the road and burning a crater in the asphalt.
“With Science,” said Duke irritably.
“That doesn’t-“
“Shush, I’m trying to think of a way out of this.”
ToonyMan shushed, and focused on flying. His head was similar to a self-contained nuclear reactor that supplied him with nearly unlimited flight time, among other things, but he could already see the city on the horizon. The last time he had used his full combustion, as he was doing now, in an inhabited area, bad things had happened.
They zoomed along, the Dragon closing steadily, Duke’s legs almost brushing the road. He would have chastised ToonyMan for cutting it so close, but he was deep in thought.
He sighed. There are worse ways to die, he told himself, than saving the world from Martians. Even if the way we do it is a bit dodgy.
“ToonyMan!” he shouted over the raging winds.
“What?”
“Drop me!”
“What!?”
“You heard me!”
“I’ve already said this, but you’re INSANE.”
“It’s right where we want it!” Duke said. “This is the geographic center of Texas. I’ll hold it here until the Baron arrives.”
ToonyMan snorted. “Hell no! This thing will murder you.”
“That doesn’t matter,” he said. “Dukedom will persevere, even if Duke 2.0 doesn’t.”
“Referring to yourself in third person isn’t helpful!”
“Just drop me, Toony! For humanity!”
ToonyMan gritted his teeth. “Duke, don’t make me do this!”
“Screw it,” said Duke, and kicked his way out of ToonyMan’s grip.
“Duke!” ToonyMan shouted. As the U-man rolled away along the road, ToonyMan swerved to pick him back up, but the Dragon was too fast. It flicked its tail around and struck ToonyMan in the chest, sending him spiraling away, unconscious.
“Sorry, Toony,” Duke said. He got to his feet. Despite hitting the road at more than ninety miles an hour, he was none the worse for wear. He had a feeling that was about to change, though, as the Dragon wheeled around to face him.
It bellowed. “GWAR!”
Acrid fumes rose from its cavernous mouth. The sun glinted off its yellow scales as it shifted its huge splayed feet. Its red eyes blazed, not with hunger, but with a malicious need to kill and destroy all in its path. That was, after all, what it was made for.
Duke nodded. He stretched out his arm and made a fist. A shimmering, curved shape appeared in it, a bow made out of pure energy. He made as if to nock an arrow to it, and a shaft materialized in his hand as well.
“Come and get me,” he said.
With an earthshaking roar, PointZilla did as it was told.
---
Aqizzar hit the brakes and pulled over to the side of the road just as one of Duke’s arrows hit the Dragon in the face. The glowing shaft exploded, prompting the huge lizard to roar and spit another gob of phlegm at him, which he dodged easily.
At first glance it looked nothing like a Dragon. It hardly even looked like a Gila Monster anymore, but that was partly due to it being bright yellow. There was something about the angular set of its head, or the splayed, five-toed feet that, or maybe the lashing tail, but whatever it was, it gave off a fundamental aura of wrongness. It reached out tendrils past three-dimensional space, seeping its way into the fabric of reality. To look at it was to see everything that was wrong with the universe.
Perhaps even Duke didn’t know the full extent of what he had created.
Aqizzar didn’t need to know what it was. All he needed to know was that it was there, and that he could kill it. That was, after all, why he was Baron. He ran towards the Dragon and took a swing at it with his crowbar. The blow tagged it in its massive flank and sent it staggering away, bellowing.
“Not yet!” said Duke, whirling to face The Baron. “If I help you kill it, it doesn’t count!”
Aqizzar frowned at him. “If you don’t help me kill it, it’ll kill you.”
Duke stared at him for a second. He let his arms fall to his side. The bow in his hand dematerialized.
“What are you doing?” said The Baron.
The Dragon came rushing back at Duke with a roar. Aqizzar could have sworn he saw the ghost of a smile on Duke’s face.
“Me?” said Duke. “I’m doing what I have to to save the world from Martians.” He faced PointZilla and flipped it the bird. “And you’ll do what you have to do, Baron.”
Before Aqizzar could do anything, PointZilla’s tail flicked around, striking Duke in the lower body. It exploded in gore and Duke’s upper half was sent flying a fair distance away.
---
Duke hit the ground, hard, sending a puff of brown dust up into the air. He was dimly aware of a ringing sensation where his ears would have been. He could hardly hear anything over the din, and decided to shut off his auditory input. They wouldn’t be doing much good for him for the next few minutes he had to live.
There was, unsurprisingly, quite a lot of pain. He assumed that that was what happened when you got cut in half by a giant lizard. Although he shouldn’t have been conscious either, but that was the advantage of having a glowing U for a head.
He felt a thump beside him, and the temperature began to rise. He turned his head to look. It was ToonyMan. Steam was rising from his eyes and his flaming head.
“Are you crying?” Duke asked, somewhat amused.
ToonyMan began to say something, but Duke didn’t hear. He turned audio on.
“-ing’s for pansies,” ToonyMan said, trying to grin.
“So is dying,” said Duke, and leaned back. “This is really my fault, you know.”
“No it’s not,” said ToonyMan.
“Yes it is,” said Duke. “I should have planned for PointZilla escaping. Should’ve planned for a Martian invasion, a long time ago.”
“You’re not psychic,” said ToonyMan.
“I really should be, though,” Duke said sadly. “You know how people are going to remember me?”
“How?”
“They’re going to remember me as a failure who couldn’t even make a Dragon right.”
“Naw,” said ToonyMan, patting him on the shoulder. “At least I won’t.”
“How will you remember me, Toony?”
ToonyMan thought for a second.
“I’ll remember you as an awesome dude.”
Duke laughed a little. Everything was fading now. He could feel his U-brain shutting down from the blood loss. No use fighting it, anymore.
“That’s good enough,” he said. “Say hi to Josh and the rest for me.”
His head stopped glowing.
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Topic: Ridiculous Tales of Bay Twelvery (Read 29519 times)