Dino sighed in utter disgust.  "You know, I could say that I hate Cera.
I could.  But it just doesn't convey the utter contempt I feel for her.  I
think..."

        He was interrupted as an alarm rang throughout the TURDIS.  "Shit,
it's a tractor beam from the surface!" Darwin chirped angrily from the
corner of the viewscreen.

        The Dinosorceror huffed, "Oh, just let it go!  Let it suck us in.  I
wanna get this chapter over with as quickly as possible.  I have absolutely
NO desire to spend any length of time with Cera."

        A few minutes later, a throng of coelosaurs gathered around the
volcano the Dinosorceror and crew had seen on the viewscreen, watching as
the TURDIS was lowered into the top by a gentle blue energy beam.

        "I sssure hope to hell you know what you're doing, Dino," the snake
hissed.  The rest of Orelious expressed similar sentiments in a more visual
manner.  Even the newbie, Matt, was inclined to think about just what he had
gotten himself into.  Jerhevon seemed decidedly neutral.

        "I'm gonna be frank with you guys...I've had it with this Cera
bullshit. 
I'm going out there...alone.  And I'm not coming back until one of us is dead."

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

        As Dino opened the port-a-potty door, he was greeted by...silence.
The TURDIS was apparently resting in a large control room of some sort, but
the equipment was silent, and no one was to be seen.

        The silence was broken by a feminine voice.  "I'm going to be frank
with you, Dinosorceror...I've had it with this Object bullshit."

        Dino drew a breath as he watched Cera come out from a side hallway.
She had apparently found a way to revert to her traditional ceratopid form,
an upright-walking yellow dinosaur.  She was wearing plain red uniform with
some sort of emblem on the chest.  As there was not much of a chest to speak
of, Dino's gaze didn't remain there long.

        As Cera approached him, her eyes widened greatly.  Her face was at
first shocked, then angered...and then nervous somehow.  As Dino readied his
DARK 4-D Lens to shrink her out of existence now that he had the
opportunity, she hurriedly reached into a pocket and handed him a palm-sized
obsidian orb.  "Here.  I'm sick of these games.  You can have the FORCE
Object.  Take it and rule the universe, or whatever."  She turned abruptly
to scurry off.

        The Dinosorceror dropped the orb instinctively, as if he had been
handed a bomb, and it skittered away merrily.  He grabbed Cera's forearm and
yanked her back.  "What?  What is with _you?_  What are you pulling now?
You'd better answer me, because I've _had_ it with your shit!  I'll _kill_
you if you don't cut this crap out!"

        Cera rolled her eyes, as if the threat meant nothing.  "Don't you
see?  I can't win!  I can't compete with beings like the Patriarch
and...stuff!  I've got this much, and it's good enough for me!"  She
nervously watched the FORCE Object roll away.

        "_What_ is good enough for you?" Dino insisted, tightening his grip.

        "Lava Dome III!  Sure, I can't make any of the equipment work, but
I'm just happy running the only amusement park in this solar system!
Coelosaurs from all over come here!"

        Dino flinched, and shook his head a bit.  "Why the hell would
dinosaurs come here to get amused?  Wasn't this my predecessor's secret
military base or something?"

        Cera's eyeridges furrowed, and she stuttered a bit.  "Y...your point
being?"

        Dino tossed her shoulder aside, and she quickly recovered the orb.
"I mean, why _this_ place?  That's like calling a missile silo Disneyland!"
Dino barked.

        She sighed a bit.  "You obviously don't understand coelosaurs very well.
But will you just shut up and listen for a moment?  All of this is
irrelevant!  Can't you just take this goddamned Object and leave?"  She
handed him the orb again, this time squeezing and holding it into his clawpalms.

        It was then that Dino's gaze once again returned to the emblem on
Cera's chest.  It was small, but now that he was close he saw that it was a
triangle-thingy, with little squiggles...

        Just like the one on his own uniform.

        The one the...

        "Aw, you CUNT!" Dino screamed at her, and she instantly seethed with
disgust.  "You work for the goddamned Patriarch, don't you?" he spat.

        "Oh, that moron!" she shrieked.  "Why did he give _you_ an Emblem?
That's so stupid!  Just like a man!"

        Dino grabbed her close to him.  "What the hell is going on?" he
sneered lowly.

        She blinked her eyes closed for a few seconds, then spoke in a whisper.
"I've been working for him all along.  But...but why should you care?  Just
take the goddamned Object and go!"

        The Dinosorceror's mind reeled.  He began to think of what the
Patriarch had been telling him:

"You come from a noble line of leaders, Dinosorceror, extending back into
the hazy beginnings of shared galactic time."

        No, not that.  He skimmed a little forward in his memory:

"Though not exactly a ruler himself, the Dinosorceror has always been a
leader, a savior if you will, a champion for justice and the rights of all
reptilian based species."

        Yeah, that was when the Patriarch started to bullshit him, in a
really subtle way.  Sure, the Dinosorcerors were champions, but they
certainly weren't on the Patriarch's side.  Then he remembered about how the
Patriarch said they had supposedly been allies:

"They used the power of the Device, but when that power inadvertently fell
into the wrong hands, the Dinosorceror and the Patriarch made a great
sacrifice and together they combined powers and tore the Device apart,
scattering its components throughout time and the universe."

        Yeah, right.  The wrong hands were the Patriarch's.  And in the
little tiff that ensued, the Dinosorceror made sure they'd never get back in
the Patriarch's little greedy claws.

"I can rule them, Dinosorceror, I can rebuild their cities or finance their
wars, or help them develop their resources, but only you can save their
spirits."

        That's one thing you said right, you lying bastard, Dino thought.

"He lies, Dino.  He is not the only one."

        Now that's something that Sa said.  That there was someone else who
could use the Aperture to rule the universe or whatever.  What the hell was
Sa's interest in helping him?  Oh, now his mind was getting all off track.
He centered back around the main issue:  the Patriarch was playing him like
a world-class pawn.

        "So this whole goddamned thing...this whole Object hunt...I've just
been...doing the Patriarch's dirty work the whole damned time!" Dino grumbled.

        Cera squirmed away from him.  "I don't know anything!  Just take it
and go!"

        Dino took another deep breath.  "Well, you've obviously worn out
your usefullness, haven't you?  You're not even worth killing, Cera.  You're
just a meaningless pawn."

        Dino was thinking, "Just like me," when as if in answer to his
statement, the badge...the "Emblem"...that Cera wore sparked for a second,
and she was instantly turned to a silhouette of ashes that slowly sluffed to
the floor, a little 'ting' resounding when the emblem hit.

        He paused, and looked at the one he was wearing.  With only cursory
thoughts of self-preservation, he removed the emblem from the tunic portion
of his Patriarch-provided outfit and tossed it to join Cera's.  He rose his
muzzle to speak into the air.  "If you can hear me, you little spoiled brat,
I'm done being your puppet.  And I mean it.  I realize you intended me to
discover this.
To see Cera's badge.  So I'd still be going just where you wanted me to.
Well, guess what?  F you!" he shouted, squeezed the FORCE Device orb, and
stormed back into the TURDIS.

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

        The members of the TURDIS crew anxiously awaited Dino's return, and
many gazes followed him as he simply walked over to a control panel, sat
down in a control seat, dropped a black rock on the console, and covered his
eyes with a clawhand.

        "Is Cera dead?" Red asked with a bit of a snicker.

        "Yes."

        "How did you kill her?" Jerhevon asked.

        "I didn't."

        "Is that the Object that she had?" the goat asked.

        "Yeah."

        "We're leaving now, aren't we?" Benjamin asked.

        "Yep."

        "You mean...we're...we're just going to abandon this whole outpost
of your predecessors without even taking one little bit of technology from
it?" the lioness roared.

        "You got it."

        "Then just where, might I ask, are we going?" Red asked again.

        "Disneyland."

        "Disneyland?" a few of them replied in unison.

        "Yes, Disneyland!  Is there a problem?  Darwin, set a direct course
for Disneyland.  We'll be spending the next few days there."  Dino stood up
stiffly and swiped the little black orb.  "If anyone needs me, I'll be in
McDonald's."

        Matt finally spoke up as Dino left the room.  "Well, it'll be my
first trip!" he said with a grin.  The others were not nearly as enthusiastic.


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)> The Dinosorceror of Lava Dome IV               /\   "It's always a fine  <{
}> Furthest North Herpetophile _and_ Macrophile   \/   day when you poop."  <(
)> http://www.mosquitonet.com/~parasaur/dino.html /\         - Jenn The Ice <{
}> parasaur@mosquitonet.com                       \/              Raptoress <(
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