From: dino@voicenet.com (Dinosorceror) Date: 4/30/96 8:55PM Subject: SB026: I'm Just Dizn^Hzy for a-Lad-in Texas Address: To: Herpetophile Mailing List Jenn slowly and carefully picked up the tiny charred Dinosorceror, purring, "My master...is that you?" X rolled her eyes, and strode up behind her. "No, Jenn. This is _our_ Dino. Your Dinosorceror just got swamped by an ocean of furballs." Nevertheless, Jenn extended her tongue and cleaned off the little naked parasaur, and when she was done he realized how naked he was, and moved his lil' clawhands in an effort to cover his delicates, always out to dry. "What the hell happened?" Dino squeaked. The Jerhevon Twins(tm) moved into his view, and the dark variety explained. "Well, we were just about to get the Lenses, when Cera appeared and attacked not with coelasaur warriors, but with a billion hamsters. Your evil counterpart was out there when we ran in. As a matter of fact, we should..." The TURDIS shuddered and made a sound much like a metal rod being rubbed across a dozen piano strings, up and down. Everyone turned to see the juvenile Red at the controls. "Way ahead of you, negaJerhevon...we're outta here. I've used the autonav to plot a course to Texas." Everyone sighed in collective relief. Dino looked around at the twelve heads. "Jeez...for an infinite interior, this TURDIS sure is getting crowded." Everyone just sort of looked at each other in random spurts. Stormfront cleared hir throat. *What is it?* the lioness of Orelious asked. "I just told you guys that there's this entity that can pretty much wipe our existence, remember? And you're all playing fetch for some trinkets!" Ben shrugged, grooming Livingston. "Well, you go with what you know." Everyone nodded dopily in agreement. Stormfront threw hir hands in the air and sighed. "How did I get into this mess?" X chrred and chuckled, and walked over to the controls. "Well, we've got an hour or so before we arrive. I say we all get cleaned up and get ready for our next bout. I'm sure Cera won't be far behind us." As everyone slowly dispersed down several corridors leading from the control room, X caught up with Jenn and grinned widely at the little Dinosorceror she was carrying gingerly. She snapped her jaws a few times, then pricked him up by his tail, forcing him to expose his tiny delicates and flail around a bit. "Leave the care of this little guy to me," she smiled toothily. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Scales and tails, Cera! Am I glad to see you!" the battered evilDino beamed as Cera held him high off the ground, ever so precariously, and raised an eyeridge at him in disbelief. "You are?" she replied. "Well, to be honest, I would have preferred if the Patriarch showed up...he's a little more vicious and powerful than you, but you'll do in a pinch. Now come on...get me to your---OW!" Cera squeezed the tip of his tail he was suspended by. "I'll give you a *pinch*, you little twit! I should just swallow you whole right now!" She raised him above her moist, rank maw. It suddenly dawned on the evilDino, as if the sun was rising in his brain. "Oh, of course...you're not _my_ Cera, you must be...oh, no! Don't tell me you're a goody two-claws like the rest of those freaks!" Cera smirked, and brought him before her eyes again. "What? What are you driveling about? How _dare_ you call me good!" Dino smirked in return, eyeing her chest. "But I see you still don't have any cleavage, no matter what parallel dimension you're in. No matter. Listen to me, woman. I'm the Dinosorceror from Pollux...a nice evil world you'd love. And I know where both my Lens and that twitty Dinosorceror's Lenses are. Help me get them back...we'll comandeer their goofy TURDIS...and I'll take you to a universe that's a thousand times more evil and sinister than this one. Your counterpart...my Cera...has a ball there." Cera looked to the side, sneered...pondered, then tossed the evilDino gingerly into the air, letting him land the palm of her clawhand. "Where exactly are the Lenses?" she hissed, then couldn't help but "HEEEEEE" a few seconds later. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- *bing* This is your shipboard computer speaking. You know, the one you always mistreat. We'll be arriving in Texas in five local minutes. I don't suppose you'll take me wwwiiiiitttttthhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh *fizz* Red Dragon tore out the speaker cable with a grin and munched happily on it, as the other crew members slowly assembled. The last two to arrive were X and Dino. X giggled with glee, cupping the little Dino in her claws, obscuring him from their view until they all gathered around her. "Comrades...I give you the new, improved Dinosorceror!" With a grand motion, she uncupped her claws...and standing in her palm was what looked to be a refugee from the 50's. The Dinosorceror wore a tiny pair of mirrorshades, a studded black leather jacket, black leather wrist bracelets and black shorts. He stood rather annoyedly as they all brought their muzzles close to see him, shifting his pose. "X, do I have to wear these sunglasses all the time? I can hardly see a thing." She huffed. "Oh, go on and be a sissy then," she grumbled. "But doesn't he look spiffy, guys? I thought our leader should be someone with a little more strength in his appearance, not some toga-wearing frat boy." As Dino took off his sunglasses, folded them and put them inside a pocket on the inner lining of his jacket, he muttered, "I feel like the Fonz." Red made an "Ayyyyyy!" motion with his thumbclaw, then deliberately hooked the end of said talon on Dino's shorts, tugging. "Hey!" Dino snapped. "Claws off, you little hoodlum! God, and I thought you were immature before," he giggled, slapping at the big white talon until it receded. They all chuckled, with the exception of Stormfront. Shi stood somewhat aloof from the others, with hir arms crossed before hir, hir wings folded yet twitching. "Don't say I didn't warn you," shi muttered. "Look, guys!" Ben shouted, feeling one of the Braille flexible piston screen readouts, and chuckling. "Texas!" They all turned to look at the viewscreen, and saw a mostly brown landscape...a few tumbleweeds...some cattle...and both X and Jenn licked their lips. X shook her head, snapping herself out of her hunger, and toyed with a few controls. "According to these readouts, both the Lenses are around here somewhere. Let's stick together this time, and try to get them with a minimum of fuss." They all nodded in agreement, even Stormfront, and filed out of the TURDIS. Looking back, they saw it had disguised itself as a big Seguaro cactus. Dino, sitting on X's shoulder, got the attention of the dark Jerhevon...well, of his one good eye, anyway...and pointed across the way to a small rickety wooden town, and a banner over the main street. The banner read, "Finneus T. Hogswaller brings you The Greatest Dinosaur Show on Earth!" "What time is this?" Red asked. The fat-free (light) Jerhevon looked at a geosynchronometer. (That's a gizmo that tells them the year.) "It's 1980," he said. "Looks more like 1880," Dino mused. Red rolled his eyes. "No, what time of the _day_ is it? I'm hungry...is it lunchtime yet?" Stormfront shook hir head, and sighed. "Well, I don't think going here is a good move, if you ask me." "Come on, everyone...let's go," Ben chided, and they all walked towards the little town. Stormfront slapped hir hands to hir sides, flustered. "Don't I have a voice? Doesn't anyone listen to me? I'm telling you, there's bad news there!" They continued to walk, oblivious to hir. Stormfront humphed...but followed a discrete distance behind them. As they walked down the dusty main drag, tumbleweeds blowing by, they saw that plastered everywhere were advertisements for this "great dino show," and yet they saw no evidence of it. Or anything else. Or any_one_ else. "This place gives me the creeps," Jenn chrred, and trembled, holding the dark Jerhevon's side. Suddenly, an old man with a cane and a battered top hat jumped out in front of them all from a sidestreet. "You won't get me without a fight, you bastards! I'll never sell! You'll have...to...eh?" He had been violent and belligerant towards the party, but as he saw the composition of said party, he slowly put down the cane he had been brandishing. Dino squeaked from X's shoulder. "Hey, pops! Can you tell us where this dino show is?" The man humphed, and dusted himself off...a useless affair, considering the atmospheric conditions. "Pops? I'll have you know I'm Finneus T. Hogswaller, host of the greatest dinosaur show on Earth!" Red nibbled on one of the flyers. "Yeah, we noticed. But where 'on Earth' is it?" The man huffed, but sighed in defeat. "Well, it used to be here. This town used to be booming with customers, coming to see the rare alien dinosaur skeleton! But now...the bank is going to foreclose on us. That's who I thought you were. But...I see...you guys look more like the alien dinosaur! Are you here to claim his remains?" Stormfront looked to the sky, and sighed. "Oh, yes! Yes! YES! We are! Let's just get the Lenses off this old coot and go before Selsun gets here!" The old man paused a minute, curious at Stormy's outburst, then stuttered, "F...follow me, then..." He led them inside what look like an abandoned barn...because that's what it was. The party pulled away tarps as they passed them, revealing ancient concession stands and attractions and statues that hadn't seen the light of day _or_ night in years. "This used to be the talk of the state," the old man sighed. "People would come from all over the country. Then...that cooky idiot ruined it all." Continuing to tour the remains, X asked, "What idiot?" "That Baugh moron," the old man coughed, choking momentarily on dust. "He's the one that came to me with the alien artifact he found in a dinosaur footprint. He's the one who thought up the whole idea of getting some random dinosaur bones and assembling them into this..." Hogswaller reached the end of the barn, and weakly flipped off the tarp from a display...a mish-mash of bones and fragments, labeled "The Real Ancestry of the Dinosaurs." It wore the two Lenses around its bony neck. As the group approached the Lenses and assured victory (surely), Hogswaller continued. "That damned Carl Baugh. We had a good thing going, before he brought his religious nuts in. See, he started preaching that the alien dinosaur's remains were really archangels from Satan, and that we all had to repent and worship God before they returned." He chuckled softly. "I guess you really did. But that still doesn't give him the right to ruin my damned business with his fruitcakes!" As X reached out, inches from the Lenses, a bullet shattered the hodgepodge skeleton before her, sending the pendant sailing to a corner of the barn. They all quickly turned to see a twitching man at the door of the barn, brandishing a six shooter and clutching a tattered Bible. Hogswaller spat, "Baugh!" "That's right, you heathen!" the man nervously screamed, his voice cracking. "I see you've finally summoned those agents of Satan! Well, now I'm gonna finish you all off...by the will of GOD!" The gun wavered wildly in his clutches. "No, no no. This won't do at all. I gotta change this." Everyone stood, paralyzed for a moment, including the maniacal Baugh. After seconds of silence, Dino finally peeped, "Who said that?" "I did." Everyone turned to see a blue bottle, like a ribbed (for her pleasure) shampoo bottle. It was sitting on the dusty ground inside the barn. From the top of the bottle, a blue mist emerged, and the higher their gaze rose, they saw that it took the form of an etherial Eastern-looking dragon. "Who the hell are you?" the dark Jerhevon posed. "Oh, you morons!" Stormfront chided. "She's Selsun, the Blue Dragon! She can just wipe us all away with a casual thought!" "Well, why the hell didn't you warn us about her?" spat Red. Stormfront collapsed on her back in a poof of dust, making angels in the dirt and whimpering. "That's right, mortals. This timeline is getting way too stupid and boring. If I hadn't intervened, that Bible-bashing boob would've just shot you all, and that would've been that. We can't have that. I'm going to make this all a dream, and start you guys out somewhere better," Selsun giggled. "But...he's only got a six shooter," Ben sighed. "That's what the script says." "Nevermind that! You won't get me on technicalities!" Selsun retorted. As each member of the party took turns annoying Selsun...including Stormfront when shi saw what was happening...X casually placed the tiny Dino down to the ground. Dino nodded up at her, then his gaze fixed on her big sickle clawed feet before him. She stomped it gently and he snapped out of his trance and headed for the bottle. "But...if time and space are infinite, how can you change everything?" Ben continued to verbally assault the gaseous blue dragon, who was getting increasingly agitated...as was Baugh. "Demons, devils! I'll destroy you all!" cried Baugh, as he emptied his pistol into the gaseous dragon, who flared red eyes at him. "Just for that...you never even existed." With a poof, Baugh disappeared, pistol and all...and just then, Selsun noticed the little creature on the ground at her bottle. "Hey, what are you doing down there, pipsqueak?" Dino sneered up at the big blue cloud above him. "Revoking your genie licence, bitch!" He jumped up and pressed the convenient flip-top dispenser closed. "No, what a way to go! Oh, what a world, what a world..." Selsun shrieked as her cloud dissipated. Dino dusted off his tiny clawhands. "That takes care of that." Stormfront walked over to the little parasaur, placing a big clawfoot on either side of him, smirking down. "Not bad, Dino, not bad. Maybe you guys are worth sticking around, after all." Dino blinked-blinked up at the huge Stormfront, but then jerked as his body was hit by a blue ray...X had retrieved the interlocked Lenses, and was using it to bring him back to his normal size. As the process completed, Dino was looking slightly _down_ at Stormfront, belly-to-belly, and he cleared his throat. "Thanks," he smiled, and stepped back from Stormfront to extend a clawhand. Stormfront looked at it momentarily, then smiled as well and grasped it. "Welcome aboard," Dino continued. "Then there are those of us who don't want to be aboard," the dark Jerhevon said. Dino turned to him as X walked over and placed the Lenses around his neck. "What? Why?" Jenn held the dark Jerhevon's arm. "Well...we really don't belong here. We have loved ones back on Pollux," she purred. The dark Jerhevon continued. "And you've all taught us a valuable lesson, Dino. With our Dinosorceror weakened or possibly even dead, we can return to Pollux...to our own universe...and try to set things straight." "I'll take them," a muffled voice from within the bottle said. The dark Jerhevon walked over and picked up the bottle. "You?" "Yes!" Selsun pleaded. "I'll do anything you say! Just please...let me out! I'll be your slave!" Dino grinned to the dark Jerhevon. "Looks like you'll have some help cleaning up your universe as well." He paused, looking down at the ground, then back up to the patched stegosaur. "I wish you the best of luck, Jerhevon." It was quite a warm and mushy moment as everyone hugged the dark Jerhevon and Jenn goodbye. "Say...I wonder if my evil twin _is_ still alive..." Dino pondered. "Let me out and I'll tell you!" Selsun muffled. "Well, okay," the dark Jerhevon said, flipping the lid. "But just remember...I've got my thumb on your cap all the time." As Selsun puffed forth, she said, "Oh, don't worry. Once I make a promise, I have to keep it. And the Dinosorceror from Pollux is still alive. In fact, he's on his way here with the Cera from this universe...and they don't seem too happy." The dark Jerhevon chuckled. "Well, then. Selsun, I command you to take us and our Dinosorceror back to Pollux. And...swizzle Cera's ship around a bit, to give these guys time to escape." Selsun glowed. "Your wish is my command!" As they began to fade from view, everyone waved to them. ~Good luck, and thankssss!~ hissed the snake as they disappeared. As the silence returned, Dino sighed happily. "Well, that's that. We've got two pieces of the Device, and we're safe from Cera for the moment. Let's get back to the Turdis." "Just one minute!" said a voice from behind them. Orelious, X, Ben, Livingston, Red, Stormfront, and Dino turned to see Hogswaller brandishing a camera, just as the flash went off. They all blinked for a few seconds, and Hogswaller beamed, "This is great! I'll make a fortune selling this picture to the Weekly World News!" Dino chuckled, and walked over to the old man, patting him on the shoulder. "Good luck, old timer. Who knows," he mused as he looked around. "This show might be revived someday." As the Dino-Crew walked back out to the main street and towards the outskirts of the town, Dino strode happily in his new leather attire. "Wow! Things have really turned out good for us, eh guys? We made out okay!" X smiled, chrred, and nuzzled the side of Dino's leather jacket. "You know...for once, parasaur...I'm proud of you. Now let's get...back...to..." X paused as her gaze scanned the desert. "Dino? You did mark where the Turdis was, didn't you?" the goat of Orelious asked. For as far as the eye could see...nothing but Seguaro cacti. Thousands. "Dino?" *bop* "D'ohhh!" -- -=+ From the Dinosorceror of Lava Dome III +=- Herpetophile - Macrophile http://www.voicenet.com/~dino dino@voicenet.com "Cry 'cheeble' and loose the hamsters of war!"