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Post By Lisa with the last of the adventures (via Visionary) Wed Feb 28, 2007 at 07:30:35 pm EST |
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The Meteor Team Book Three: The Epic Conclusion! | |
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(co-starring Dorilla and the Friendly Dragons) Book III: Love Knows No Barriers, but Evil Cuts The Cheese. Sawtooth cleared his throat ominously. “Ahem, I don’t want to be precipitous, but there’s molten lava spilling through the valley at forty miles per hour. Shouldn’t we be doing something?” “ You mean, besides sitting around, listening to R-rated elephant stand up?” Hotwheels quipped. “To be perfectly candid, there is not much left to do,” RockBlast began somewhat apologetically, “We’ve actually already completed our mission. You see, we came back to the Triassic to save a huge herd of rare, long necked dinosaurs from this very eruption, somehow caused by Baby Elephant. As it is, however, Dorilla scared all the sauropods out of the valley hours ago. Consequently, the only ones in any danger from the volcano are, well, us… ok, maybe not all of us, since we dragons can fly and all… so, ah, you little guys are toast. Sorry about that. Really.” “Don’t be ridiculous,” snapped Sawtooth, “ You can easily carry us out of here. Jet can go with Jaws; Deathwing with his/her mother; Delgado with Rockblast; Hotwheels with Siunid; myself with Bionl; and Dorilla, who can’t be hurt by lava anyway, can become his regular size and just step over the mountains, like a humongous, stupid, spotted show-off.” “What’s about the lovely and precious–like Baby Elephant?” demanded the icky and vulgar-like Baby Elephant. “Who’s, like, gonna get da great honor of carrying her to safety?” The silence that followed seemed to drown out the roar of the molten rock. “Oh, all right,” growl Spik, “but she has to take a bath before I touch her.” “Not a problem,” purred Aryna, over the miniscule herbivore’s cries of outrage. Gearing up her water blaster, the organ in her throat that normally pumped out fire -- except during pregnancy and 30 days thereafter -- she then turned to her baby. “Watch this, sweetie, Mommy’s gonna make the stink-stink all go away.” All the 21st century dragons and their passengers gave a huge sigh of relief as they alighted safe and unharmed on a nearby plateau. Although this unique land topographic feature was perched high enough in the sky to have generate its own cloud cover, it held the life-affirming quality that it rose far above the mountain that was generating the vast sums of flesh-melting magma. With the addition of the mysterious lizard, Delagado’s, survival gear, they would all be quite safe here, the dragons calculated, until they figured out how to return to their own time. However, instead of expressing gratitude for her sheer survival, one member of our group gave an angry yelp instead. “Hey, you people suck!” exclaimed the scalded (but reasonably clean) juvenile elephant. “Ya better not squirt me again, or I’ll explode (e.g. forcibly expel mind-destroying quantities of intestinal gas). “Fine,” said Arnya calmly, “Then the next time we will leave you to the mercies of the volcano.” “ I know you are, but what am I?” parried the insane, insignificant quadruped, who was proud that she had only had to pause briefly to formulate such a witty rejoinder. Nearby, various primitive rat-like mammals began to whimper in distress; evolution had clearly dealt their kind a dirty hand. Leaving Arnya and little Deathwing to roll their eyes heavenward, Delgado sidled up to the tiny dim heffalump and tried to draw her aside. “Um, Ms. Baby Elephant, would you mind if I spoke to you in private, for just a moment?” “What’s in it for me, squishy lil’ lizardy?” “A possible way back home for everyone?” “Yeah, dat’s good, I guess, but I was hopin’ for cookies…chocolatey cookies,” the pudgy mutant quickly clarified to permit no tragic mistakes, like Fig Newtons. “OK, yes, I’m sure we can scrap up some chocolatey cookies after we get home, but what I want to talk about now is your lease with Dr. Moo.” Baby Elephant chuckled moistly. “Doc Cheesy wants me ta buy out her share in da labamatory, right?” “Not exactly,” admitted the gecko, wiping off the stringy globs of elephant spit, “She wants to buy you out. I think that means you would have to stay out of her lab from now on until the end of time.” “What a crock! I’d no sooner give up our deep an’ meaningful friendshiplyness, than I would throw my granny elephant to da starving woozels!!” “She’ll give you a box of Thin Mints,” offered the crafty lizard. “Deal.” Exhausted by this strenuous round of bargaining, Baby Elephant crawled into a particularly filthy puddle and fell asleep. For her part, Delgado stood by and waited for Dr. Moo to keep her end of the bargain. After a long afternoon of hanging around with no manifestation of Moo’s stylishly decorated time displacement device, she gave up. Shortly thereafter, Baby Elephant awoke and stumbled forth from her puddle, demanding chocolately cookies in a whiney, dinky voice, one that held all the charm of a buzzing mosquito on Methamphetamine. So, as a dark night approached, things were not looking any brighter. Stunned by B.E.’s record-breaking idiocy, and the mad genius’s betrayal, Delgado wandered back to her new friends. The Friendly Dragons almost immediately approached. They wore strangely expectant expressions. Out of curiosity, Jet, the Meteor Team leader, followed along. “Sooooo, ahem, where would it be, little lady?” asked Jaws. “I don’t understand… where would what be?” “The cheese, friend lizard, the cheese! Dorilla happened to overhear your conversation…” “He does that a lot,” warned Jet. “… with the mentally disturbed pachyderm, and he told us that cheese was mentioned once… maybe even twice!” “It was only once… and it was about Dr. Moo, not cheese per se.” “Ah, sweet agony, I knew it was too good to be true. The gentle squeezings of the noble cow are denied to us yet again,” Jaws and Siunid moaned as one. “What is wrong with them,” whispered Delgado to Jet. “In my relatively short association with them, I have discovered that the Six Friendly Dragons are very, very, VERY fond of cheese.” Jet whispered back. “Oh, that’s, um, weird, I guess. By the way, any luck on coming up with a plan to get home? I did what I could, but I’m afraid my ride isn’t going to come through for us.” “No,” frowned Jet, “it’s starting to look hopeless. Even if they weren’t covered in fifty feet of lava, there simply wasn’t enough left of the old time portals for me to jerry-rig any new devices.” “But what about the dragons, don’t they have their own time machine?” “Yes, but they kinda came along with us this time. I thought it would be more convenient that way…” Jet appeared so miserable that Delgado knew she would have to think of something very fast before her old friend lost heart. So she carefully considered the day’s events over and over again, mentally replaying all that had happened. Amazingly, within the hour, the ingenious young reptile had an inspiration of, well, lactic proportions. Relying on the probability that Dr. Moo was smugly monitoring every word they spoke, she called the dragons over again and noted, with cautious optimism, that Jaws and Siunid were still openly weeping. “Tell me again how much you like cheese,” she asked brightly. “It’s only the most delectable thing on earth!” exclaimed all the dragons in unison, including little Deathwing (as every good crypto zoologist knows, baby dragons are tremendous copycats because they don’t like to feel left out). “Well, if that’s the case, then I know a certain mad genius who’ll be happy to meet you! Take us home, if you please, Doctor. These nice folks have a certain cheese ball covered lawn to clean up.” Delgado didn’t know if this sorry ploy would accomplish something, but it was worth a try. She knew how much Dr. Moo hated yard work. Shortly thereafter, it was Baby Elephant loudly proclaiming another “accident” that signaled the unlikely success of Delgado’s plan. It was a mere minute after our heroes returned to their own time that Baby Elephant began to demand her payment in full. “Gimme the cookies, or I start singing one o’ my favorites, ‘Noi! The Herald Elephants Snarf.’ I know all one hundred and fifty verses...” Dr. Moo gazed at her dim former lab mate and paused. All at once the various reptiles began to wave frantically at the evil genius, performing a sort of hysterical semaphore. “All right, calm down, I’ll get the sweets. I was simply trying to decide whether or not to wash the live botulism toxin off my gloves first…” By this time, the Friendly Dragons were looking decidedly unfriendly, “But it probably isn’t worth bothering. Here are your cookies, Dumbo, cram away. In the interim, why don’t you dragons, snakes, and lizards step outside and enjoy my garden. The one with all the rotting cheese products.” Moo continued pointedly, As the various super-powered beasts hurriedly shuffled out through the small Dutch door connecting the lab to the unsuspecting world, Baby Elephant boisterously demolished the box of Thin Mints all over Dr. Moo’s most sensitive apparatus’. Nevertheless, this was not the problem that you might expect, because all of the dairy- devoted doctor’s equipment went well with cookies. Outside, as Delgado promised, Moo’s lawn was covered with no less than 2500 melting cheese balls, each in a different stage of decomposition. Their distinct odor assaulted the lungs of any creature fool enough to inhale before reaching the fence line. “Let us prey,” Jaws breathed in, fully and deeply and reverently. Somehow, the origin of his terminal halitosis seemed less of a mystery to the Meteor Team. They also discovered, much to their horror, that the majority of reptiles have no gag reflex. “Well?” demanded Dorilla, upon sneaking a look at the chapter heading, “Who exactly are you?” The Meteor Team and Delgado discussed this mystery as they watched the dragons lay waste to the curdy remains of Moo’s former enemies. “That’s easy,” teased Hotwheels, “She is obviously Jet’s girlfriend. You know, the mystery hottie he bleated last year about after getting snockered on fermented wax worms.” “I really don’t think our relationship is anybody’s business,” frowned Delgado. “Come on, folks, let’s at least get back to the Meteor Mansion, where we can discuss this in private,” urged Jet. He too looked extremely uncomfortable chatting about his love life. “Why, do you need time to think up a cover story?” Dorilla grinned. Sawtooth quickly came to Jet’s rescue. “Maybe he would prefer not to watch our dragon friends eat disintegrating globs of cheddar until they have had enough to vomit all over the neighbor’s forsythia.” “Um, coincidentally enough, we’ve just had enough cheddar to vomit all over Mrs. Kirkenbaum’s forsythia,” burped Spik, whose scales had turned an even greener hue than usual. “So, I’m thinking the only way to get rid of the leftovers is palming them off on the rest of the neighbors, you know, as a sort of fancy French dish. I suggest we operate under the brand name 'Le Lait de la Mort.’” “Don’t be so silly, my boy. Plenty of room for more in the old tum-tum,” smiled Jaws, as he patted his gigantic abdomen, “By the way, have I ever told you nice folks about the time Aryna’s fourth bun, little JackHammer, gave her the old pregnancy jim-jams. Why, my darling gal was bringing it back up like a fire hydrant. No, like a geyser, it was! There were semi-digested hunks of prey everywhere, weren’t there, Dearest. Especially intestines and eyeballs. In fact, I seem to recall… “YES! IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT’S HOLY, YES! I”M HIS GIRLFRIEND!!!” shrieked the thoroughly grossed out Delgado. She then sobbed for air and ran for the fence line. “So much for that mystery,” said Hotwheels, sounding a trifle disappointed. “Yeah,” agreed Dorilla, “ After all we’ve been through, I was expecting more from such a tough babe; I kinda think the regurgitated eyeballs got to her in a big way.” It had been a thrilling adventure, but it was now time for the Meteor Team and Dorilla to make their way back to their respective homes. “Ahem,” Delgado reminded the writer, “What about me?” Oh, sorry. It goes without saying that Delgado, the lovely lady leopard gecko, accompanied the Meteor Team back to their mansion, where she soon became a valued and important member of the superheroes’ lineup. “Oh crap,” whispered Hotwheels to Dorilla, “You know what happens when the lead guy’s chick gets involved?! She takes over frickin’ everything!!! Think Spinal Tap, for crud’s sake.” Sheesh. Ok, so Delgado becomes the Meteor Team’s back-up member and has no voting rights as regards costumes, publicity, and/or theme music. Happy? “S’cool.” Likewise, the Friendly Dragons, now seven in number, said their farewells to everyone and stumbled back to their HQ, a disturbing miasma of spoiled dairy products and fresh dragon barf floating in their wake. And what about Baby Elephant and the Diabolical Doctor? What hand did thoughtless fate deal out to these two retrobates? Were they finally punished for their many crimes? Stop asking so many friggin’ questions, dammit! *Ahem* I mean, you must decide, gentle reader. “I TELLS YA, I DON’T NEED TA GO TO OBIELANDER SCHOOL!” howled the sub-adult Elephas maximus. “Hush up, dear, and get on the bus,” replied her ever-patient mother, “You know perfectly well that the nice judge added completing obedience school to your list of parole requirements.” “But… But… the rest of the kids is TOY POODLES!” “Your lovely and thoughtful parole officer explained that to us before; she didn’t want you to be the smallest one in class…” “EUREKA!” shouted the Diabolical Dr. Moo. “What is it?” asked her new lab assistant, an infant dragon that was bravely trying to earn enough money to purchase a Wii. “After literally minutes of tireless labor, I, the great humanitarian Dr. Moo, have discovered the formula for true happiness!” “Well?” “It goes something like this -- and, for Gouda’s sake, keep it to yourself – all you need to do is mix cacao paste, sugar, cocoa butter, milk, lecithin, vanilla, and peppermint oil …” “Um, what do I keep to myself? The chocolate itself, or the ingredients’ list?” “Quiet, you, I haven’t finished yet: those items can be combined with crisp little cookies made from enriched flour, sugar, vegetable shortening, caramel color, high fructose corn syrup, corn starch, whey, salt, and leavening to create nothing short of human ecstasy. I shall call these novel creations‘ Moo’s Magic Medicine For Mental Malaise.’ Why, I’ll make a fortune!!! Never again shall I have to beg my huge scaly neighbors into going door to door selling moldy cheese balls in order to finance my experiments and pay for my ‘essential lab supplies.’ Mhahahahahahahaha!” *Sigh* “You’re quite the visionary all right. But listen; can’t we just stick with the insurance scam I suggested before? Mommy promises to put the fire out before it damages the shed too much?” ‘”Hmmmm, perhaps…. let me run the numbers again…. In the meantime, please hand me a couple of Thin Mints; I always think better after a snack…” |
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