Great and Small II

'Success!' Dr. Dred crowed, watching the mega-sized animals begin toppling over.

The humans began running away, screaming. Dred wondered why they weren't stampeding. Oh, well, the stampede wasn't strictly necessary. It was the public threat that he intended to use to lure the Drak Pack out of hiding. Now…all he had to do was wait. They wouldn't take too long, he didn't expect.

They never did.

:[

Jess spun around when she heard the screaming.

She had to quickly jump to the side to avoid being swept aside from the mass of people running. It was like a tidal wave of panicked people. Merle flew down and landed on her shoulder. An incantation came into her mind. She had the strangest feeling it'd come from her familiar. Then she saw what people were running from.

There was a large alligator ambling its way along the path.

Ambling!

It snapped like it was trying to eat people, but it wasn't moving very quickly. At the snapping of its mouth was slow and sluggish. Merle caw-cawed her. Jess glanced up. The crow was flying up to the roof of the building she'd taken cover against. Understanding what Merle wanted, Jess threw her hands down. With a burst of wind magic, she flew up.

Calling on years of gymnastics training, Jess flipped through the air. Landing on the roof of the building, she looked around. It was happening everywhere. Humans were screaming and running, or hiding. But the mega-sized animals were screaming or staggering, or just lying prone on the ground, whimpering…if they weren't completely still.

'What's going on?' Jess wondered aloud.

No answer was forthcoming, even if she felt like Merle was trying to explain it.

Jess lifted her hands and let the magic pulsate in her blood. The incantation flowed through her mind. The magic left her fingertips in a blue mist. It crossed the distance and wrapped around the alligator, shrinking the animal back to its normal size. As soon as she withdrew her hands, she was surprised to see uniformed men rush in to usher the animal back to its enclosure. But the uniform they wore did not look like the uniforms of the zoo keepers.

There was a large emblem blazed on their backs. The initials "H" and "S" set against the kind of cross Jess had only seen before in a church.

'Jess!'

Jess looked down to see Ms. McGowan standing with some more of those uniformed men.

'Can you see the other animals?' Ms. McGowan asked.

'From up here?' Jess responded. 'Easily.'

'Can you turn them all back to normal?' Ms. McGowan asked. 'Once you've done that, these men will get them back into their enclosures.'

Something about the whole situation felt…off, but Jess nodded. 'I can sure try.'

:[

Vince ground his teeth as he, Howard, and Frank dived for cover, so as to not be swept up in the fleeing crowd.

'Getting so we can't do anything without them showing up,' he grumbled.

'I don't suppose we can just let this go?' Frank asked.

'It's not good for animals to be abnormally large,' Vince said. 'Can either of you see the machine he's using to do it?'

All three boys peered around the corner, looking up at the Dredgible.

'Ah!' Vince nodded.

'You knew you were the one most likely to see it, Vince,' Howard pointed out. 'What is it?'

'He's holding it,' Vince said. 'It looks radar-based.'

'Then I guess we gotta get up there and take it off of him ourselves?' Frank asked nervously.

'Yup,' Vince said, transforming himself into his vampiric form.

With a sigh, Howard followed suit. The howl erupted out of him, which only set off the mega-sized wolves. Then Frank followed suit, transforming into the patchwork monster he was. The three of them stepped out of hiding. Howler leapt up onto a nearest building. He turned his head. For a moment, he looked, frowning slightly. Then he crouched down and called down to the others.

'Looks like the resident witch is dealing with un-resizing the animals.'

'Is she?' Drak rubbed his jaw. 'If she's good enough to do that, she clearly has been getting training from somewhere.'

'Well, it's one less thing we have to do,' Frankie pointed out. 'Let's not look a gift horse in the mouth.'

Drak decided to do just that. 'Okay. Then we'll have to worry about getting up there.'

'You'd have an easy time, Drak,' Howler pointed out. 'But me and Frankie will need a boost.'

'Boost?' Drak considered for a moment. Then he clicked. 'I've got it.'

:[

Toad stood behind Dr. Dred, waiting for the appearance of the Drak Pack.

'It won't be much longer now,' Dr. Dred said. 'Soon, they will come up here to try to stop me. When that happens, I am going to unleash the plethora of vampiric weaknesses on Clack and then we'll take care of the other two. All of these devices have been tested by Vampira, and they work like a dream.'

'Do you have the weaknesses for Frankie and Howler too?' Toad asked.

'Pah!' Dr. Dred scoffed. 'No need. As we saw in our first encounter, they are nothing without their fearless leader!'

The rest of OGRE were looking down over the edge of the Dredgible. So when Toad heard a sound from behind him, he only glanced back. He went to look ahead again, before he registered what he'd seen. He twisted around again. No, he wasn't seeing things. Frankie was sitting on the edge of the Dredgible. He climbed in, moving strangely silently for his size.

Then he grinned and waved over the edge.

'Dr. Dred!' Toad tugged on his master's coat. 'Dr. Dred!'

Howler hopped over the edge next.

'Not now, Toad.' Dr. Dred brushed him off. 'I'm watching out for the Drip Pack.'

And then Drak flew over the edge and joined the other two. 'That's Drak.'

Only now did Dr. Dred spin around. The rest of OGRE spun too.

'Are you aware,' Drak said, 'that you have just potentially killed several endangered animals? Not to mention endangering the public.'

'Pah!' Dr. Dred scoffed. 'That's nothing compared to what I'm about to do.' He threw out some holy daggers.

But Drak reached up and caught them out of thin air. Unlike when Vampire touched them, Drak's skin did not begin to sizzle and smoke. The stench of burning flesh did not reach Toad's nose. Drak did not cry out in pain and jerk away from them. Instead, he looked down at them and smirked, as if something was amusing.

'What?' Dr. Dred jerked back. 'That's impossible! You're a vampire!'

Now Drak did laugh. 'Not entirely. Not anymore. It was a nice try though.' He turned the daggers over in his hand, almost listlessly.

Toad was very intimidated by how easy it looked for him.

He was supposed to have some association to Count Dracula.

Maybe the Count had trained him too.

'Toad, turn on the sprinklers!' Dr. Dred yelled.

Vampira shot out of the way. Toad jumped up and pulled the lever.

'Holy water?' Drak asked as the sprinklers turned on over the Drak Pack's heads. 'Frankie, Howler, how does this water feel to you?'

'Cold,' Howler said.

'Cold,' Frankie agreed.

'Hm.' Drak caught it in his palm. 'It's warm to me.' He looked up with a smirk. 'Holy water.'

Then he let one of the daggers fly. Toad nearly jumped out of his mucus-covered when he heard Vampira scream. Looking, Toad saw that she'd been at the periphery of the holy water shower, where the lethal water couldn't hurt her. And the dagger had now pinned her by her dress. She was forced to hold herself awkwardly to keep from being burned.

Fly went to move but Howler pounced. 'Don't tell me you were banking on Drak being susceptible to vampiric weaknesses!'

Fly grunted as he was swatted to the ground with enough force to knock him out.

Mummy-Man then charged, only for Frankie to charge him. Mummy-Man didn't see the green one coming at him and was hit sidelong. He went flying. Drak threw another dagger, sending it spinning through the air in a wide arc. Both Mummy-Man and the dagger flew out the front window of the Dredgible.

Toad hopped over and looked out.

'Oh! Dr. Dred, they've pinned Mummy-Man to the hull!'

'I'll deal with that later, worry wart!' Dr. Dred barked. 'I still have one final ace up my sleeve!'

'Oh?' Drak asked, smirking widely. 'What's that? Garlic? Silver? A bag full of rice.' He held a hand out to the ray of light that he was standing in. 'Should be obvious that sunlight won't work either.'

'No.' Dr. Dred reached into his coat and pulled out a weapon. 'But I'd like to see you stop this!'

Dr. Dred pulled the trigger on his crossbow, and the wooden bolt sailed across.

The vampire was struck in the chest.

Frankie and Howler cried out in alarm.

:[

Drak stumbled back a step, dropping his head.

Dred cackled. 'That's it, Clack! You're done for!'

Drak stood in place and waited for him to stop laughing.

But Dred kept on laughing like the maniac he was. It seemed he hadn't even noticed. Toad began clapping. Dred didn't seem aware of the fact that if that had killed Drak, he'd have dropped to the ground by now. Instead, he bellowed out laughs that sounded more and more forced, like he was trying to draw his "victory" out.

'Missed your heart?' Frankie finally asked.

'—ha!' Dred suddenly cut himself off. 'What?'

'Hit the bone of one of my ribs.' Drak finally lifted his head and pulled the crossbow bolt out. 'Huh. Hawthorn. If I was anybody else, that would have really hurt me.' As it stood, it just ached a little.

'This is impossible!' Dred insisted again.

'No, it's not.' Drak shot across at his full vampiric speed and snatched the animal enlarging machine from Dr. Dred. 'First of all, this goes!' He smashed it against the floor. 'And, second of all…Howler?'

'On it, Drak!'

With a grin Howler leapt up and disappeared up the side of the balloon that kept the Dredgible in air.

Drak grinned at Dred. 'See you next time!'

Grabbing onto Frankie, Drak flew out. Using his cape, he suspended them in midair. Howler was already at the top of the balloon. Howler didn't use his claws all that often, but they were sharp enough to slice through a human body like a hot knife through butter. With one slash, he punctured Dred's balloon.

Drak flew past and caught Howler.

The three of them watched the Dredgible go flying off, just like any balloon that suddenly lost all its air.

'There's a puncture in my Dredgible!' Dred bellowed loud enough to be heard. 'Repair the puncture!'

The rest of OGRE just screamed.

'We should probably land,' Frankie said.

Howler looked up. 'Yeah, by the time you get us back to ground, that hole should be closed up.'

Drak grinned.