By me, with art by Sam Messerly.
Click here for to read from the beginning.
The larger tyrannosaurus made landfall, the vibrating air that had previously been holding the creature aloft giving out in one dramatic whoosh. Patches of green fire nearby wavered, dust and junk scattered across the stones. As it approached, the tyrannosaurus was saying something—I only heard a series of grunts and whistles, but it obviously must have been dinosaur language. Really freaking scary dinosaur language. The hissing, grinding, roar of its voice had me paralyzed.
Just then I heard a whoomp from behind me, and I saw something arc through the air right towards the larger tyrannosaurus. The enormous predator jerked its head, seeing the object coming, but before it could react further, the projectile smashed against a nearby wall, exploding into a brownish dust cloud that partially enveloped the menacing dinosaur’s lower body.
“Take THAT, you nasty meat-muncher!”
I heard Colander’s voice, then saw her standing astride the truck, potato cannon in her arms. She was already loading another bomb of some sort into the chamber of the cannon. I looked back at the tyrannosaurus, which was now bearing its teeth at us, its semi-biological shoulder cannons turning our way. The ends of the bio-cannons noticeably reformed, becoming sharper, more focused, the green glow that had been pulsing inside them changing to a piercing yellow.
Then the tyrannosaurus stopped, its eyes wide, and it dashed out of the dissipating brown dust cloud and began raking desperately at its thighs with its claws while snorting with fury and confusion. I glanced at Colander who pursed her lips.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Must’ve been the itching powder. I just grabbed the closest bomb. Here we go!”
And she shot another grenade at the huge rex. The dinosaur dodged. Even though the grenade was way off, in stepping away the beast put one foot into a remaining patch of green fire that continued spitting and sizzling. Instantly the rex froze, its muscles spasming, and it was down, falling over as if KO’d by Punchface.
Warbell meanwhile was almost completely covered with the bubbling foam, and he started to move.
“Thanks for coming,” he said to me, switching his teeth to herbivore mode and attempting a tense smile.
Colander was already loading another grenade into her potato gun, this bomb with a leering smiley face painted on one side. She raised the cannon to fire.
“No!” barked Warbell, and we both looked at him bewildered.
The same bubbling foam that had seemingly reawakened Warbell was now seeping out of the prone, yet visibly angry, orange rex—who looked about ready to spit at us. We hesitated.
“No more death,” he said.
Twin shoulder cannons emerged from Warbell’s shoulders, and a look of fear broke out on the face of the fallen rex. But Warbell didn’t shoot his foe, and instead shot all around its fallen body, the resultant green fire flaring up and bursting into smoke where it contacted the burping foam.
“Let’s go,” he said, turning back around, backlit by the horrible shimmering green light. “We need to get back to Final Pumpkin.”
“What?” I asked. “Why?”
Warbell grimaced.
“We need to close the portal for good.”