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Merton awoke with a start and found himself sitting on a bench in the park. He couldn't even remember closing his eyes. 'I must have been more tired that I thought.'
Looking at his watch, he noticed that it was now two in the morning. He quickly jumped up from the bench and started heading home, constantly reminding himself that this was the first time in a long while that he had been out this late, alone. Alone. Without Tommy. Or even Lori. What would happen if the boogey-man jumped from behind the next corner? Merton's cowardice was put on hold for a second as he realized that none of them had fought the boogey-man yet, but that of course meant that it was still at large. He nearly squeaked in fear.
Looking behind him, he rounded the corner, turned and found himself face to chest with eight hundred pounds of mean. When Merton saw what he was facing, he briefly wished that it had been the boogey-man. The school bullies, Tim and Travis Eckert, looked down at the smaller Merton, who had always been a target for them.
"Dingle, why don't you watch where you're going?" Travis insisted.
"Yeah, we were standing here, freak," Tim added.
"I'm sorry," Merton said sarcastically. "I guess I didn't expect to find people outside here at the dead of night." He quickly regretted his smart mouth.
"You know, Dingle. One of these days, that smart mouth of yours is gonna get you in a lot of pain. Like today."
With that, both Eckerts grabbed Merton's collar by one hand and reached their other hand back in a fist. Merton prepared himself for the beating of his teenage life by flinching and squeezing his eyes shut. However, relief flooded over him when a cry of "hey" sounded from about 20 feet away, causing the brothers to stop. The goth opened his eyes in time to watch a tall, wild-haired man wearing vintage clothes and a shorter, balding man with a sports jacket come walking up to them.
"What's going on here?" The taller man asked.
"Who wants to know?" Travis demanded.
The two strangers looked at each other, reached into their own jackets, pulled out their wallets and quickly flashed their badges at the bullies. Neither Tim nor Travis was smart enough to realize that the badges were merely for show. All they knew was that authority figures were mad at them, and that usually meant detention.
The bullies both released Merton from their grip and slowly backed away.
"Sorry about that, Dingle."
"Yeah, um, see you in school on Monday."
Then, they both vanished around the corner and their footsteps were heard running away quickly.
Merton straightened out his shirt. "Thank you guys. That will keep them off my back for about a week." He extened his hand to the closer, smaller man. "Merton J Dingle, pleased to meet you."
The man shook his hand. "Bobby Hobbes. Happy to be of assistance."
The other man raised his hand as a wave. "Yeah, it was no problem. I'm Darien." He also shook Merton's hand.
"Darien...?" The teen's voice took an inquisity tone.
"Fawkes."
"Fox? Like Mulder."
"No, Fawkes, like Guy."
The happy introductions were interrupted by a vicious growl coming from around the corner. All three of them froze at their spot and glanced toward the sound.
It was as if time slowed down. The trio watched in horror as the first of four taloned feet stepped into sight. Each of the feet was attached to powerful legs, which connected with a sleek body no larger than that of a great dane. A long tail whipped around it, and huge wings spanned from its back. At the front of it all was a reptilian head with red glowing eyes. The whole thing was plated with midnight black scales. Both Darien and Hobbes gawked in fear at the creature before them, but Merton was taken over with joy.
"A real live dragon!" He exclaimed. His jubilation was cut short as the dragon took a deep breath and exhaled a column of flame right at them. Simultaneously, the three fell to the ground and flattened themselves, allowing the fire to pass over them. Then, they rolled over, hopped up and took off running. Merton instinctively ran toward his house, whimpering, "Tommy, help" as he ran. Darien and Hobbes, who were just fleeing in blind terror, followed the spiky-haired goth.
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Darien brought up the rear of the group as they ran toward as unfamiliar house. His mind was spinning wildly. Invisible Bigfoot was one thing, but a fire-breathing dragon! That's where he drew the line. He and Hobbes continued to follow the teenaged Merton across the driveway (which had a hearse parked on it, for some reason) and toward the back of the house. They ran down some stairs and burst into a room in the basement. As soon as Bobby and Darien had followed him into the room, Merton slammed the door shut, instantly waking another young man on the bed and a young woman asleep in a chair. The three who had just ran from the center of town doubled over, trying to catch their breath.
"Merton, what's wrong?" The other boy asked while sitting up in the bed.
Between gasps, Merton attempted to answer him, complete with hand motions of claws and simulated fire puffs. "Grrrrrrr... AHHHH... Fwoosh... Ksh-ksh-ksh." At this point, he was stomping his feet while still bent over, making quite a sight.
The girl got up from her chair and put her hands on Merton's shoulders, straightening him out. "Merton, calm down. We don't understand you."
Darien was also trying to calm down. He had felt his adrenaline level rising as they had ran, and now he was at a dangerous point of losing control of himself.
Hobbes broke in to help Merton answer the girl. "Big... Lizard... Definitely not... wolf." He noticed as Merton's friends perked up at the word "wolf."
"Who are you people?" The boy asked.
Hobbes pointed to himself. "Bobby Hobbes." He pointed at Darien. "Darien Fawkes. Department of... Fish and Game."
"Trying to save...wolf in area." Darien gasped into the conversation and noticed as the teens relaxed.
The boy got up and motioned for the ones out of breath to sit down. "I'm Tommy Dawkins and that's Lori Baxter." He gestured to the girl. "We're friends of Merton's."
"We gathered," Darien replied sarcastically but then realized why Tommy would say such a thing. Merton looked like a typical goth: pale skin, all black clothes, black spiked hair. Darien could even tell that this was Merton's room merely by its appearance. Black and velvet covered the room. There was even an albino snake slithering its way around the computer on the desk. 'Kevin would have flipped,' Darien thought to himself. Then, he looked at the other two. Tommy looked like every jock that Darien had ever seen in high school. Clean-cut hair, faded blue jeans, letter jacket etc. And Lori, well, she looked like the jock's girlfriend. Now that Darien really thought about it, he would have never expected them to be friends if he met them randomly.
Merton had apparently gathered his breath because he was now answering everything that he could. "I think it was a black Classic-English firebreather." He grabbed a book off of a shelf and opened it to a certain page. "A fairly young one too. It wasn't that big but was still able to shoot flame." The goth made a happy squeaking noise. "A dragon in Pleasantville."
"It's early," Tommy sighed.
"Early?" Both Darien and Hobbes yelled in disbelief. "How can something like this be expected in the first place?"
"Well, we get some kind of creature-feature here about once a week," Lori explained. "We just got rid of one, so we thought that we'd have a little break or something."
Darien and Hobbes just stared, too shocked to even think.
Tommy turned to Merton. "This thing is dangerous, isn't it?"
Merton grimaced. "According to this, yes. While adult dragons are generally harmless unless provoked, hatchlings and adolescents are pretty moody and violent. Usually, those are the ones in the stories that burn down villages and attack the valiant knights."
"That's not a good thing," Darien stated.
Tommy looked at Lori. "Well?"
Lori looked at Merton. "Well?"
Merton looked at...the book. "Well...."
A silent agreement was made among the teenagers. They were going to go after the dragon.
Hobbes glanced at Darien. "Can't let them go off by themselves, can we partner?"
Darien sighed. "I guess not."