SB013:  Royal Flush


        Just as Dino shouted, "Let's go," his prompt disappearance prompted
the others to stare at the space he used to occupy for quite a few moments.
X was the one to finally break the silence.

        "What the hell did he do now?" she spat, annoyed.

        "I don't suppose he's picked up a trick or two from his predecessor,
has he?" Red asked.  "I mean, the previous Dinosorceror did develop quite a
few talents, didn't he?"

        X closed her eyes, shaking her head quickly.  "I...I don't know what
I can assume about him."  She sighed.  "But you're probably right.  He's
probably just teleported himself somewhere, but it should be nearby.  I just
hope he wasn't unlucky enough to...uh oh.  He could be in the that Kelp
Monger's jaws right now.  Come on...we've got to go!  Red, you come with me
to where the JSKM is.  Jerhevon, scout around here.  Ben, let Livingstone's
nose guide you.  Search around the immediate vicinity for him."

        Jerhevon raised a clawhand.  "Um, X?  Aren't you forgetting something?"

        X raised an eyeridge.

        "We're only half an inch tall."

        Red stepped between X and Jerhevon.  "I can fix that.  Now come on...
we don't have much time!  I've already invested enough time, and...ahem...
although *I'm* not getting paid," he glared at X, "I'm not about to let that
twit get himself killed this early.  Everyone...outside...now."

        They all ran immediately outside, Livingstone leading the pack.
Joining hands in a circle, with Livingstone in the middle, Red bowed his head,
and they all grew to normal size over the course of a few seconds.

        X was the first to break the circle.  "Now let's move."  Red stooped
slightly to allow X to mount him [NO WISE CRACKS], and they flew off swiftly
into the distance as X set her gun to "Aww, gonna cry?" and scanned for the
Kelp Monger.  On the ground, Jerhevon split from Benjamin and Livingstone and
they spread out from the Fortrette, glistening in the sun the same way that
ice doesn't.

        Only a few moments of silence had passed, before the slender claws of
Physis reached around the corner of the building the Fortrette was laying
obviously in front of.  Bouncing lightly and nimbly up to it, Physis nearly
drooled onto the tiny structure.  "Very very shiny, pretty pretty!" he murred
as he lowered his clawhands to either side of it slowly, then quickly slid his
talons beneath it, raising it quickly and sprinting back around the corner and
through the timerift he had arrived through.  "Master be pleased, yes yes!
Master will reward Physis greatly!" he chirred as the timerift closed silently
behind him.

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        As Dino turned to see what Plot was talking about, he saw a large
spherical grey mass of what appeared to be a pulsing plasma cloud, slightly
larger than himself.  "And who are you supposed to be?" Dino asked the cloud.

        The cloud seemed to spin faster and faster.  A voice came from within
it:  "I am ultimate darkness.  I am what lurks inside the deepest recesses of
your mind."

        "Pat Sajak?" Dino inquired.

        "No, you dolt!  I have no name, though I am known by many.  I have no
form, though I am seen everywhere..."

        As the fog cloud continued to spew metaphysical rhetoric, Dino rolled
his eyes, walked up and wafted smoke away.  Beneath, he found a crouching,
yellowish ceratopsian, pumping a bellows near a bucket of dry ice.  The
anthropomorphic figure looked up, greatly startled, then stood defiantly and
sneered as she kicked the bucket away.  He noticed that her right clawhand was
a crude dark yellow cybernetic replacement.  "Hmph," she spat.  "You actually
have a brain for a stupid male."

        Dino's eyes squinted, and his jaw dropped.  He whispered in
disbelief, "Cera...?"

        Cera puffed her chest out, or at least thought she did, as she didn't
have any breasts to speak of, or even to whisper about.  Single nose horn
held high, she grinned widely, and said, "Heeeeeeeeeee."

        "I...I don't believe this!  You're that stuck-up dino-whore from those
Land Before Time movies!  But...but you're a cartoon character!" Dino gasped.

        Cera rolled her eyes.  "You don't get it, do you, Dino?  My evil works
in many different dimensions, on many different worlds, and on many different
levels.  What you saw were my first tentative tendrils of power descending
into your planet's culture.  Those movies were only the beginning of my reign
of terror."

        Dino held up a claw.  "Alright, alright...I certainly don't need to
hear you bitch any more.  So you're the ultimate evil in the universe?  Fine,
yeah, sure.  I can pretty much assume your intentions to a T.  Let's just get
on to why I'm here, where here is, and what's happened to my Lens."

        Cera strutted around the Dinosorceror, clicking the metallic claws
of her cyberhand, eyeing him up and down.  "Well, here is a little realm
outside of the omniverse proper.  As Plot Hole told you, I call this place
the Writer's Block.  It's where we can chat without being spied upon.  You
see, I have full knowledge that all I say and do is monitored by those who
seek to protect and help you.  I allow such monitoring willingly.  Why?
So that I can fully manipulate my adversaries!  For instance, I had just
mentioned, not long ago, that direct approaches never work."  She smiled,
and stopped her circling.  "And so, I directly kidnap you, and your pitiful
Fortrette, and bring them to me.  Simple, and direct.  That foolish Patriarch
never suspected a thing."  She snapped the talons of her real clawhand, and
a small dark disc appeared beside Cera.  Physis jumped through, still holding
the Fortrette in his trembling, anxious hands.

        "Here is pretty shiny shiny thing, Master!" Physis stuttered.  Cera
quickly took the Fortrette from his slender claws, and nodded for him to return
through the portal.  "But...where is Physis' reward, Master?  Where?  You said
Physis would be rewarded, yes, rewarded for bringing shiny shiny, yes yes!"

        Cera held the Fortrette in her good hand, and grappled Physis' slender
neck in the vise-like grip of her cyberhand.  She sneered, and snapped his
spinal column as Physis shrieked, then tossed his twitching corpse through
the portal, which immediately closed.  "That's your reward, you idiot, for
not knowing that I'm a woman!  A woman, damnit!"  She turned to Dino, cupping
her cyberhand around air on her chest.  "Can't anyone see my damned breasts?"

        Dino cocked an eyeridge, and muttered, "Oh...um...yeah, yeah sure,
Cera.  I can see your breasts."  He then exhaled, and shook his head slowly.

        Cera humphed, then continued her megalomaniacal monologue.  "Well, to
continue...I win!  Heeeeeeeee!  I've reclaimed the Lens that your predecessor
stole from my servants...I've got your stupid little Fortrette...what more
could I possibly want?"

        "How about a single feminine trait?" a deep voice thundered.

        Dino, Cera and Plot Hole all turned to see the shimmering image of the
Patriarch.  "Did you honestly think you could get away with a stunt like this,
Cera?  That you could actually pull off this 'I've got ultimate power' routine?
Well, if you can, then so can I.  And you've got about ten seconds to restore
the balance, before I come over there and kick your big flabby dinosaur butt
all up and down the omniverse."  Sa could be seen looking over the Patriarch's
shoulder, almost in shock at the crude words he was uttering.

        Dino stared in disbelief at the two pinnacles of power on either side
of him, childishly debating the fate of the universe.  Suddenly, he saw Plot
Hole take a step forward.  "That's enough of you two," he spat.  He raised two
deep blue clawhands, and the image of the Patriarch and Cera were enveloped in
blue spheres.  "You're in *my* demesne now, kids, and I've had it with your
silly bickering.  You two are going to settle this in your own little
universe.  Now begone."  Instantly, the image of the Patriarch and the
boobless form of Cera disappeared without a sound or trace...and Dino noticed
that the Lens ring on his finger, as well as the Fortrette, had vanished with
them.

        The Dinosorceror stood for a moment in silent contemplation of the
large blue dragon who was silently contemplating him.  "I know what you're
thinking," Plot Hole said.  "That this means *I'm* the ruler of everything.
Well, you're not correct.  There are many more who are even more powerful than
myself.  Everything works in a system of checks and balances.  And, in the
case of Cera, her check had bounced because she had a zero balance.  The
Patriarch was just trying to restore things as best he could."

        Dino tilted his crested head.  "But what's to stop Cera from pulling
this ultimate wild-card gambit again?"

        Plot Hole smiled.  "I don't think she'll be pulling a stunt like
this for a long, long time.  Trust me," he grinned toothily.

        Dino took a long breath, and shifted his stance.  "So, what happens
to me now?  Or rather, to us?  X, Red and the others?  And the Fortrette?
The Lens?"

        Plot Hole crossed his arms, twitching his upper jaw.  "I'll mix things
up a bit.  Even the score.  You see, what Cera didn't tell you was that what
she calls the 'fourth dimensional quantum lens' was really just 1/26th of
a Device that even I don't know the capabilities of.  And she had already
acquired seventeen of the twenty-six segments.  Since I don't relish the
thought of her getting more powerful than I am, I just scattered the remaining
twenty-five segments throughout the cosmos.  But you can still keep the Lens
as a head start.  It's up to you to make sure she doesn't assemble the
complete Device."

        Dino's chest puffed out.  "Gee, now I feel like I have a purpose, a
goal."

        Plot Hole rolled his eyes, then resocketed them.  "Don't get too full
of yourself, lizard boy.  Not until you get the complete Device.  Because I
and others like myself are still a little leary as to whether or not you can
handle that kind of power, and...oh, brother."

        Plot Hole saw that all his words went unheard, as Dino was gawking at
the Lens, which had reappeared around his neck, and was mumbling, "Cool!  I
can't wait to shrink down again!"

        Plot Hole smacked him gently on the crest to regain his attention.
"Now pay attention, you horny little twerp.  I'm only giving you one more
thing that you'll need to have if you ever want to successfully complete
this task.  I'm turning your Fortrette into a pan-dimensional travel
device, capable of taking you anywhere and anywhen you desire."  Instantly,
a large sphere appeared beside Dino, a gleaming white walkway arcing down,
leading inside.

        "Rather small, isn't it?" Dino remarked.  "I mean, for my whole gang?"

        Plot Hole reassured him.  "Don't worry...it's bigger on the inside
than it is on the outside.  I'll set it to morph into whatever is most
inconspicuous at your first destination.  Now, in order to work...oh, brother."

        Plot Hole clasped a clawhand over his eyes as he saw the Dinosorceror
run inside the sphere...again, completely ignorant of what he had been saying,
apparently.  Plot Hole growled, and slammed the walkway closed, shouting,
"Fine, Mr. Eager Know-It-All!  *You* figure out how to work it!"  Plot Hole
clapped his hands, and the sphere disappeared unceremoniously.  He sighed
heavily, shaking his head.  He addressed the council of supreme powers.
"I hope we know what we're doing..."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Cera found herself on her throne on the bridge of her space cruiser,
sprawled on her stomach.  Grumbling, she spat, "How DARE he!  I'll get him for
this if it's the last thing I do!"  Ignoring the male chauvanist pigs who
usually occupied the consoles around her, she stomped off to her private
quarters.

        She pressed a button on a wall panel, and it exposed an array of
twenty-six pyramids...all of them empty.  "What?  WHAT?" she shouted to
herself.  "What is the meaning of this?"  After fuming for a few more moments,
she finally noticed a small note taped to the center pyramid:


              Dear Droopy Drawers,

                        This is what you get for trying to pull
              ultimate power crap when you're just a lowly peon.
              Try it again, and you lose more than your servants.

                                            Love,

                                          The Ultimate Powers
                                               xxxxoooo


        Cera immediately crumpled up the note, and opened the door to her
cabin.  She tripped on something low to the ground, and when she regained her
stance, she saw a squealing pig at her feet.  It was wearing the robe of her
chief advisor.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------


        "Ah...maybe I should've listened to what Holey had to say," Dino
said aloud as he stood before an incredibly complex control panel in a room
that appeared to be some kind of central hub, with a dozen hallways leading
from it.  Lights blinked and speakers crackled for a few moments, and a
large cylinder in the center of the control panel slowly rose and fell...until
everthing suddenly got quiet.  He heard the door behind him...the door he
had wandered in through...open with a creaking sound.  Curiously, cautiously,
he stepped to the portal.

        "What the hell did you do now?" X cried, joyously, as Dino looked to
see her, Red, Jerhevon, Ben, and Livingstone just outside the door.  They all
appeared to be standing on a high-rise construction site.  The sun was shining
brightly outside.

        Dino just smiled, looking at everyone.  "Aw, guys!  It was so cool!
You see, it turns out the ultimate evil force in our universe is Cera, that
stuck-up bimbo from The Land Before Time.  And that the guy who is helping
us fight her is called the Patriarch..."  X raised a brow.  "...and Cera
tried to kidnap me and give me the heave-ho, but this even *more* powerful
being who called himself Plot Hole told them both off, and it turns out
the Lens is only one part of this twenty-six segment Device that we have to
assemble before Cera does, and Plot Hole gave me this neat time and space
travel device so we can all zoom around the universe and..."  Dino stopped,
gesturing wildly.  "...isn't it just so cool?"  He beamed, but his eyeridges
furrowed as he saw their reaction.

        X shouldered her rifle and sighed heavily.

        Red clamped his muzzle shut, giggling madly.

        Jerhevon just shook his head.

        Benjamin stood puzzled for a moment.

        Livingstone pressed his head to the ground and covered his eyes
with his paws.

        "What?  What's wrong?" Dino asked.  X smirked, and pointed to the
device he was standing in.  Dino looked up, turned around, and backed out
of the time-space travel device.

        It looked like a port-a-potty, exactly like the one that stood not
a meter distant from it.

        Dino closed his eyes.  "Great.  We get to travel around the universe
in a Turdis."

        As the group slowly started pushing Dino back into the Turdis, he
asked, "Say, what happened to that JSKM we were going to fight?"

        Red answered, "It turned into a pig, and we had green eggs and ham," as
he helped them all pack into the Turdis.  "I assume it's just taken this shape
to fit in with the surroundings, right Dino?"

        "Um...ah, yeah," the Dinosorceror replied as he stumbled inside the
door.

        "So you can change it, right?" Red asked again.

        Dino looked at the floor.

        "You do know how to work this Turdis, don't you Dino?"

        "Dino?"

        As the group squeezed in through the door, a yelp could be heard as it
closed.