By me, with art by Sam Messerly.
Click here to read from the beginning.
Immediately the dinosaur trio responded with their green-fire cannons, and the evening air was ablaze with emerald flashes and showers of sparks and shimmering, spitting arcs of flame. The green balls of fire exploded off of Warbell’s skin in luminescent waves, flames pooling around him, burning, flashing. But Warbell kept right on walking.
“You want to make this a fight?” Warbell said. “I turned off my cybernetics. Your green fire has no effect. My whole body is in pain. Do you know how mad that makes me?”
I realized that, for whatever reason, Warbell was talking in English so that we could still understand what was being said. Possibly because he was still trying to include us as part of the conversation. Maybe just out of common courtesy. The other dinosaurs for whatever reason followed his lead.
“You have to go back to the Kingdom of all Eternity and Perfection of our People and the Future,” said the parasaurolophus as the other two dinosaurs continued to fire their cannons. “You aren’t supposed to be here, in this age.”
Warbell looked incredibly scary wreathed in the inferno, eyes flashing in the crackling flames, sharp teeth glittering in the jade light. And he just kept stalking forward.
“You knew what was happening, didn’t you?” he asked, standing taller. “You knew what really happened to (here he spoke what I assume must be the name of his mate in dinosaurese), didn’t you? You knew it wasn’t a heart attack! But you didn’t tell me! You didn’t tell anyone the truth of what happened to their loved ones! But anyone who cared to look into the matter would soon find out it wasn’t a heart attack. So what kind of conclusion do you think they would come to? Huh?”
Warbell was almost upon the trio of dinosaurs, and they started to back up. The theropod especially almost pranced away.
“I loved her!” Warbell roared, his voice so loud I had to cover my ears. “I would never hurt her! Yet some accuse me of murder! And you took her away from me!”
The theropod and the parasaurolophus broke and ran, but the triceratops stood his ground. The twin horn cannons on his head changed shape subtly, and the green light again morphed to that sharp, searing yellow I had seen in the city.
“There is more than one way to stop you,” said the triceratops. “We will do what we have to do.”