(no subject)

48.

“Look out!” Don shouted.

The flying attackers swarmed like gnats at a fourth of July picnic. A soon as you thought you had one sighted; he was zipping off at lightning speed.

Mickey tried to use his powers as sparingly as he could. When he saw a projectile heading towards Jeremy, he shot invulnerability to the boy. The consequences were unexpected.

The dragon dropped a hundred feet because of the mass of one of it’s passengers. But the missile missed its target.

Where ever he got an attacker in his line of vision long enough he smacked them with that same huge mass. They dropped out of the sky and hit the ground. Luckily for them they were impervious to harm.

One after another they fell, but they were replaced as quickly as they disappeared.

Rugglestump was not so careful to set his mind on not harming his annoyances. They fell before his flame blasts as well as the occasional sweep of his tail. One he actually kicked with a hind leg.

Mickey made a mental note, never fight with dragons.

Suddenly Don said, “Hold on!”

He then moved up to the head of the dragon and sat astraddle it. He then grew to his former massive size. Now his fists smacked flying adversaries out of the air, and with that added to Rugglestump and Mickey’s work, quickly turned the tide and sent the few survivors fleeing.

Mickey now noticed that they were passing over beaches and out over the ocean.

“How far did they take me?” He shouted to Jeremy.

The red head smirked, offered his friend a sandwich and said, “Get comfortable, it’s going to be a while.”

Mickey took the bologna sandwich and smiled.

He was getting tired, but knew he couldn’t sleep or he’d fall off the dragon’s back.

He fished the little television out of his pocket and turned it on.

There was his family. They were having some kind of meal and talking about the kind of nothing things that make delightful memories.

Mickey turned over and braced each foot with a scale. He sat and enjoyed his family talk about vacations past and Aunt Celia and why Mr. Cunis never brought back our garden implements and what we should do about that.

He felt better than he had in quit a while.

Jeremy took out a strap that Mickey hadn’t seen before and secured it to a scale on either side of the boy. He was not going to fall off now. So, with the good thoughts in his head, Mickey slipped off to a deep and comfortable sleep.

 

 

49.

Mickey must have slept for a good long time. When he woke, it was to Sun shining
straight into his eyes. His hand shot up to cover his face.

He looked around and saw Jeremy and Don strapped in as he had been, and Emo still astride the dragon.

Craning his neck he saw that dawn was coming up over the jungle. They shouldn’t have far to go to reach Thunderbase.

He even thought some of the terrain looked familiar, and then laughed at himself for wanting jungle to look familiar.

He fished into his pocket to take out the little TV. He couldn’t find it right away, and realized part of it was that his hands were not reacting well. They were subject to a long exposure to the cold. Even
though they were over the jungle they were still not really warm, and they had been over a great deal of ocean during the night. Luckily dragon skin vents a lot of the warm air created by the creature, so, for the most part, he had not been uncomfortable. Still, his hands were chilly.

He fished for a moment, found the device, put the plug in his ear and turned on the screen.

There were his mother and father asleep in chairs. It was clear that they had not left the room in a couple of days, just like when he had had his tonsils out.

Boy, that ice cream lie was one he hated. Sure, they get you in there telling you you can eat all the ice cream you want, but they don’t tell you that you won’t feel like eating anything.

Across the hospital room from his parents, his brother was sleeping soundly. Occasionally a nurse would come in and check him, but nothing really happened.

All seemed to be right with the world.

He would soon be reunited with his family and things would get somewhere close to normal again.

Only now with their secret superpowers.

Then in the distance he saw the gleaming tower of Thunderbase. He turned to wake Jeremy.

From that angle he saw them.

Coming from another part of the jungle was an army. Black figures, flying in formation, formed a cloud that filled the sky just to the west of the base. The were as numerous as the locusts in the movie “The Good Earth.”

From what he could see, they seemed to be heavily armed and accompanied by flying ships of some kind. It was a flying army, with only one deadly purpose. They shared the need to destroy Mickey’s little weary band before they got to safety.

He began waking his comrades, and pointed out the problem to Emo, who changed the flight path accordingly.

From a leisurely pace, the dragon was now speeding up towards its final destination. The wind whipped up around them and they had to fight even harder to stay aboard.

It was soon evident that they were not going to win this race. The flying ships were moving much faster than the weary flying beast.

“I’m going to wait to the last moment,” Don said, “Before adding my added size to Rugglestump’s load.”

The boys nodded in understanding.

“Boy,” Mickey shouted, “Just when you thought you were home, fate throws another thousand storm troopers in your path.”

“Happens every time,” Don smiled and patted him on the back.

The first shots began to whiz past them.

Another battle was about to begin.

(c) 2005 by C. Wayne Owens