Chapter Three: The Final Blow or Never EVER tick off a woman, particularly a super powered head of a mass war base of genetically altered hybrids.
This was the last straw. He was going to get his way or bring hell down upon all of Dawna.
Iggy stomped angrily through the halls, his heavy combat boots echoing eerily down the corridors, a perfect soundtrack to the fearsome scowl that occupied his face.
Soon he reached his destination and stormed into Max's office with all the force and fear of an oncoming tornado. His eyes blazed with unseeing fury.
Max glanced up with forced disinterest from the laptop on a large slab of stone that served as her desk, she gave him a cool once over, then sighed quietly.
Before she could voice her annoyance at his presence, however, he cut her off. "I demand reassignment."
"Excuse me?" Max asked, the fake innocence in her voice extremely convincing.
"I want to be reassigned." Iggy repeated. "Not a year ago you mentioned something about sending small groups off to form study bases and watch towers. I agree with you. I want to establish one. The farther from here the better."
"I wasn't really serious about that Iggy. It was just a threat to keep some of the riley hybrids in line, you know that." Max made her voice harsher then necessary in order to mask her amusement. In all truthfulness it had primarily been to keep him in line, and also to stop Gasman from randomly blowing up various items in the kitchen. Usually while they were being consumed…
Iggy gave Max a glare that clearly said do you think I give a crap? "Well, nevertheless the offer was made. I am fed up with all I am forced to put up with around here! I'm tired of no one respecting me. I'm sick of being labeled as the scapegoat for all our problem and most of all I'm sick of being treated like a freaking village idiot!"
Max blinked. That was actually a lot calmer then she had expected. After an empathic pause for dramatic effect, she sighed. "Well, okay. Your going to have be more specific. Why do you want to leave Dawna? What has you so… aggravated? Maybe this can be resolved without resorting to…"
Iggy didn't let her finish. "Well, for starters; I absolutely hate Nudge. I can't stand it when…"
He went on like this for about an hour or so, droning on and on about various complaints including several about all the Dawna heads and a dozen other people.
"… so, will that do then?" Iggy finally finished, seething.
Max's eyes had glazed over. She shook her head to clear them. "Huh? Oh, yeah."
Iggy took a breath, then another. He hadn't thought Max would agree with him. "Seriously?" He asked, his voice clearly stating his eagerness.
Max sighed dramatically. "Well, if you really feel that way…"
"Of course!"
"…then I suppose it is better…"
He did wait to let her finish her sentence or even find out where he was going. Iggy practically skipped out his room with glee and headed toward his quarters to pack. The idiot suspected nothing.
It took all of three hours for news of Iggy's departure to spread through Dawna's rapid fire gossip trains. Most people thought it too good to be true, but those that believed it began planning a celebration extravaganza the likes of which Dawna had never seen. Therefore it didn't take long for the word to reach a certain Dr. Martinez (who had become the official government connection in all things hybrid) to catch wind of the situation.
Within a day of finding out, Dr. M caught an express plane to the nearest airport around Dawna and called Fang to come pick her up. Mere hours later, see was standing, rather amused but condemning, in front of Max's desk.
"Max, honey, is it true that you're going to let a commanding member of Dawna, Iggy, I believe, to leave Dawna and support an outpost all on his own?" She was trying, but Max could easily sense the poorly masked accusation in her mother's tone.
"Yep." Max replied, concealing a smile. The happy air of her words got her message across though.
"You know, sweetie, that I can't support this decision." Dr. M said softly, frowning.
"Trust me, mom. This will solve a lot of problems." Max said, giggly smirk gone and replaced by a more serious expression.
Dr. M frowned deeper. "Max… I know Iggy has done nothing but complain. But he's a value member of this compound and, quite frankly, I'm going to be the one who has to put up with his gripping when he regrets leaving and begins to question your authority… Well, if I have to listen to one more lecture on irresponsibility from that pompous, over-zealous jerk I swear…" She sighed deeply and leaned her head against the wall.
"Trust me, Mom. We won't have to deal with Iggy's complaining for a while yet." Max said, smile back. She handed Dr. M a printed piece of paper with navigation directions on them.
Dr. M scanned it once, then echoing Max's smile, she nodded and walked away.
Two hours later, Iggy took off into the sky, not once looking back.
As soon as he was for sure out of hearing range all of Dawna erupted in cheers.
Max herself stood on the outcrop from which he'd departed, a knowing smile on her face. When she finally turned around, she found all three of the other conspirators staring slacked jawed up at the spot Iggy's form had recently disappeared from.
"Whoa." It was all Nudge could manage. The others were even worse off, merely nodding their assessment.
Max plastered a confused expression on her face. "What?"
"What a plan." Fang said, adding a wolf whistle for good measure.
Max smiled widely. What else was she going to do? Fang paid her a complement!
"Thanks. I've been working on it for some time now. I never thought I'd actually get to use it, though…"
"I just can't believe he actually fell for it! He didn't suspect a thing!" Nudge gasped out, finally locating her voice.
"Why didn't my plans to get rid of him ever work that well?!" Gasman exclaimed. He forced out his bottom lip and crossed his arms angrily.
"We'll never have to put with him ever again!" Nudge exclaimed, leaping into the air.
Max sighed. "Sorry Nudge. I hate to burst your bubble, but I think we'll be seeing Iggy back here very soon."
The three just stared at her.
"What?" Gasmna asked, sounding like a little kid who'd just been told he wasn't going to get a birthday party this year because money was tight.
Max sighed, then handed Fang a piece of paper exactly like she'd shown Dr. Martinez. Fang frowned as he read, the other two copying him over his shoulder.
Fang's brow furrowed suddenly. "Is this.."
"Yeah."
Gasman stared a little longer, then suddenly he got it. "OH!"
Nudge stood at his side, glaring at the paper. "What? I don't…"
Max sighed and told her.
Nudge's eyes grew to the size of saucers and grinned so wide she hurt her face.
She's good. Was the unanimous thought as Max slandered away.
For exactly three days, everything was peaceful in Dawna. In fact it was the quietest time the entire compound had ever experienced.
Eventually, though, all good things must come to an end. And the hybrid on look out yelled the dreaded word.
"Incoming!" Silver shouted from her post. A few seconds later she shouted again, this time glumly. "It's Iggy, Madam."
A collective groans heard throughout Dawna. Max tried to suppress a grin for the groaners benefits. This was going to be good.
A dirt-clad figure with leaves and random pieces of brush sticking to his cloths leaded (or rather crashed) onto the landing cliff. Giggling replace the groans. Max refused to let herself smile. Ah, the sweet smell of victory. Or was that swamp water?
The figure sloshed up to her desk, leaving a trail of wet mud out of her office. Max took a deep breath and slowly looked up.
Only to nearly lose it in a fit of hysterical laughter.
Iggy was covered, head to toe, in a coarse green slim which was dripping from everything, including the tip of his nose. His clothes were ripped and tattered beyond repair. Some sorts of pond scum inhabiting his hair caused it to stick out at an awkward angle. On top of all this, Iggy appeared to be trying for furiously intimidating but was really only making hilariously funny.
To her credit, Max was able to control herself, which was more than could be said for Maxwell, Cannon, and Sparkler who were guarding her office. Instead Max forced a seamless expression of surprise.
"Iggy. That was fast." She intoned in an air of innocence. "What happ…"
"The Southern Outpost." He spat, ignoring whatever she was about to say.
"Yes, that was your destination. Did you not arrive safely?"
"Oh, I arrived all right!" He screeched, a large glop of pond scum hit the floor with a resounding splat.
"Then what is the problem?" Max asked, folding her hands in her lap.
"Because it just so happened to be the place of study for Dinosauria hybrids! You set me into freaking Dinotopia!!"
Max pulled on her best fake shock expression. "Really? Are you all right?"
Iggy glared at her harshly. "Yes, really!" He snarled, ignoring her question. "Not even an hour after I reached the location you assigned me to I staggered upon a nest, not realizing what I had stumbled upon," Iggy scowled hard "I continued forward to examine them at which point I managed to upset a very protective Mama Tyrannosaurus Rex!" Iggy didn't notice Max raise her hand to cover her delighted smirk, but plowed on. "I had to plow through the swamp gunk for days before I could find a spot dry and clear enough for takeoff. It's amazing I escaped with my life!"
He went on like this for a few minutes, blabbering and ranting on various subjects revolving around his desolation and almost-demise. Max kept her face a stony mask, the only emotion betrayed being a 'and you expect me to do what exactly?' expression and an occasional cocked brow questioning his sanity.
After a moment, Iggy stopped ranting, apparently having run out of subject matter, and just glared at Max furiously. The glaring contest ensued for about a minute.
Finally Max broke the glare. "Well, you did ask for this Iggy."
Iggy continued glaring. "Are you saying this is my fault?!" He hissed angrily. Suddenly Iggy was hit with the pronoun sense that the protective mother dinosaur wasn't the only female trying to do him in today.
Max allowed herself a grin, one that, if she was being honest, she would have to admit was slightly more than a bit condescending. "It's certainly wasn't my fault you took off out of my office before I had a chance to explain your destination."
Iggy blinked for a second, standing dumb founded before realizing she was completely correct. He ignorantly decided to disregard this fact. "I wasn't the one who sent a member of her own family in a bad remake of Jurassic Park, Maximum." He spit out her name as if it were a bad taste in his mouth he was desperate to be rid of.
Now sufficiently angered, Max rouse to her feet. "Excuse me Iggy," She said, imitating his tone to highlight his own stupidity. "I'm afraid that you have been unhappy with every new development since we established Dawna. Even when I allow you your way, something is amiss. This leads me to believe you are purposely trying to land those who you happen to dislike into trouble or you are simply trying to ensure that no one will ever mistake you for someone with an IQ over 100! Obviously I never meant for you to come to harm, but make no mistake, you brought this tragedy on yourself. You demanded to be reassigned! You didn't care where you went! You managed to aggravate every female on this planet, including that irritable dinosaur!" She paused for a second to collect herself as she allowed this all to sink in. "Now, what exactly do you propose I do about it?"
Iggy looked like she had decked him. Repeatedly. He fished around for a response but found nothing. He could even manage a 'this isn't over' sneer.
Smiling slightly at him, Max suddenly whipped out a stop watch from under her desk and pressed the button.
"Seventy-eight hours, fifty-three minutes and forty-seven seconds!"
Iggy frowned curiously.
"BOO YEAH!" A voice rained through the hall, a meow-like screech in the almost dark. Seconds later Nudge, Fang, Gazzy, and Tiger's Eye all tumbled into Max's office. Tiger's Eye had a piece of paper with 'Seventy-five hours, thirty-seven minutes' written on it pierced through a claw on her right hand which she preceded to wave around triumphantly.
Nudge huffed and slouched into a chair by the wall. "I could have sworn he'd just last thirty." She mumbled.
Fang shrugged. "I only gave him fifteen."
"Congratulations, Tiger's Eye." Max said with a smile. "I put forty-eight hours."
"You-you-you all knew!? You knew I was in that ghastly swamp, likely to die?! You took bets?! You-you did this on purpose!!!" Iggy seethed.
Max turned back, still smiling to face the furious pyro. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Iggy." She said, her face now a stone cold mask of seriousness. "I expect a full report on my desk by tomorrow morning."
Strangely, Iggy wasn't to complain about Nudge, Fang, Gasman, or even Tiger's Eye for the next few weeks, and when a position became open for a real transfer as liaison to the government, Iggy took the job before you could say 'IT'S ABOUT TIME!'