By me, with art by Sam Messerly.
Click here to read from the beginning.
“What do you mean, one of us is going to have to do it?” I roared.
My voice had gotten louder since first meeting Warbell because of all the ridiculous things I now had to shout about, so while I was not a dinosaur per se, nevertheless I think my vocal volume was getting close to dinosaurian.
“Yes, why did you think I was giving you both a huge patch of my skin to create super suits with?” asked Warbell. “To start a fashion line? Creating the pillow hurt, I will have you know. Both the process of figuring out how to do it, and then actually putting it into practice.”
Warbell was outright running down a huge hallway at this time. A massive fluffy cloud was passing through the tower and the corridor, and his body caused the cloud to puff apart slightly as he disappeared inside. He was going way too fast for Colander and I to keep up, so Colander mumbled, “Oh, just hang it all,” and leapt into the air, activating her flight powers as she did so. She was already gone through the cloud before I got up off the floor to follow her lead.
When I caught up Warbell was standing at the foot of another staircase, eyes ablaze with impatience.
“They are coming!” he said again, and as if on cue the ceiling broke open at that moment and four smallish two-legged herbivores that looked a lot like psittacosauruses (each with a complimentary striped brown and white body) fell upon us, shouting and making all sorts of ruckus.
“Stop, criminals!” said one.
“There is no escape, dirty ruffians” said another.
Both utterances were of course translated by our charming ear devices.
Warbell promptly took one of the dinosaurs in his mouth (sharp teeth out, not his friendly teeth) and shook his head back and forth. The other psittacosauruses—even though they had their shoulder blasters out—absolutely freaked. Not one actually shot their cannons. One of them froze in fear, mouth dropped open in utter shock. The other two ran away, screaming. When Warbell spat out the one he had chomped, it plopped on the ground, unmoving. That was enough to motivate the last remaining psittacosaurus to faint dead away.
Up we went through more clouds, and up another ramp, the swaying of the tower becoming more pronounced. I tried to fly, but I kept running into things, and so I decided to stick to running for a while—but I learned I had cybernetic enhancements in my legs, too, so I was quite fleet of foot.
“Can you tell us why you can’t close the portal yourself?” Colander asked as we desperately ran up another staircase, this one colored pink and green like a mango.
“One reason,” Warbell said. “The dinosaur council decided a long time ago that not just anyone can close the portal. It has to be someone particular.”
“You mean we are the chosen ones?” I asked, my eyes about popping out of my head. “Like Harry Potter or something like that?”
“Sure, I chose you,” Warbell said. “But what I mean is, only people from this side can close the portal. Any human being. But not any dinosaurs. So, essentially, your neighbor Charlie could’ve done it in your stead if I had brought him with me rather than you two.”