Going Nuts

A/N: Last part. Full A/N at the end of this chapter.

Disclaimer: Oh, for crying out loud! – puts up a sign that says “Don’t own Dragon Booster. Don’t sue me. End of discussion…for now.” –

Chapter 9:

What We Consider “Normal”

“You know, I’d really wish that this thing wasn’t so big!” Artha grunted, pushing his jakk-stick forward. He extended one end and whacked the large wraith’s head as Beau jumped back. “It’s making things really difficult!”

Lance and Fracshun jumped down, followed by Moordryd and Decepshun, who was called back to her rider. Kitt blinked as she stared at Moordryd’s disguise. “Uh, isn’t Halloween a bit far from now, Paynn?” she mocked.

Moordryd shifted his eyes at her dangerously. “Shut up,” he muttered.

“Paynn, can you – ” Artha started, looking at Moordryd, then his eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. “Whoa, Magna Draconis! Moordryd, why – ”

Before he could say another word (and before Moordryd could yell at him too), the wraith knocked Artha and Beau to the ground. It placed a foot on top of them and slowly pressed down forcibly. Artha and Beau grunted and groaned under the pressure.

“This is heavy!” Artha growled, trying to push the wraith’s foot off.

“Ar – ” Lance cried, but Kitt quickly slapped a hand over his mouth before he could call out Artha’s name. The wraith turned its head towards them and lunged forward.

“Oh, dear!” Cain cried, his legs shaking. “Oh, my! Oh, no!”

“We’re gonna die!” Parm bawled.

“Get a hold of yourselves!” Kitt demanded, snapping her head towards them. “Okay, we’re cornered, Dragon Booster’s gonna get crushed and we’ve got no place to go! Means only one thing!” She got back on Wyldfyr and activated her thrusting gear in reverse, Wyldfyr crying out in fury as the flames shot forward, raising a wall. “Alright, who has a plan? Does anybody have a plan?”

Silence, except for the wraith dragon roaring and Artha trying to get the dragon’s foot off him and Beau. “Anybody?” Kitt asked, starting to get nervous. “Anyone? Anything?”

“Oh, I have a plan!” Lance piped up, waving his arm in the air.

Kitt paused for a moment, then said, “Seriously, anybody?”

“Hey, me! Me! Hellooo?” Lance cried, waving his arms in front of Kitt.

“Anybody?”

“Uh, me? Lance Patrik Penn? Kitt?”

“Anything?”

“Kitt!”

“No, then? Okay, we’re doomed.”

“I hate you, like I hate all girls,” Lance muttered.

“Okay, fine, Penn!” Moordryd growled, getting annoyed with the constant babbling of the two. “What’s your plan?”

Lance grinned. “Why don’t we get the dragon confused so that Artha can get out and we can get more space?” he explained. “It’s like that really big and colorful dragon that Word once made!”

“That’s ridiculous!” Cain said, pulling out Parm’s gadgets and punching in calculations. “It will never work!”

“Before you start babbling on, Professor number two, he’s got a point, and for once, a really good plan,” Kitt said, raising a finger. “According to Moordryd, this wraith dragon isn’t remote controlled. It’s being controlled under Word’s command, and destroys everybody else!”

“Oh, so that means we can escape!” Parm gasped, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “Hopefully without being crushed.”

“Exactly!” Lance grinned. “See? Some of my plans aren’t that bad!”

Moordryd scoffed and rolled his eyes, but there was the faintest smile under his helmet.

Everybody turned to look at Cain. He blinked, then shrugged. “Er…it seems possible,” Cain said. He clapped his hands together. “Excellent! I have no argument with the plan!”

“Good, because I think we need our brains functioning right now instead of confused with your big words,” Kitt joked. Cain huffed while Lance laughed. The thrusting gear ran out of fuse, just in time. Kitt and Wyldfyr sprinted behind the wraith dragon.

“Hey, you!” Kitt called. The wraith grunted and turned its robotic eyes towards her. “I really think you should get a makeover! Wraith gear looks really ugly on you!”

Wyldfyr gave her owns comments in dragon, and the wraith charged after them, just as Cain and Coershun ran beside it. “Yoohoo, big dragon!” Cain said, waving his arms. “Do you happen to know what the perimeter of a large cage big enough to hold you is?”

The wraith turned its head towards them and was about to charge when Moordryd and Decepshun ran in between the dragon’s legs, stopping behind the wraith, who shook his head and cried out in frustration. At that moment Cyrano and Parm charged forward. Ramming gear was activated, and Cyrano ran into the wraith’s other leg, causing it to lose balance and get off Artha and Beau.

“Alright, drac!” Parm grinned, skidding next to Cain and high-fiving with him, before shoving the man in the opposite direction with realization as he coughed and cleared his throat.

The Dragon Booster sat up. “Whew!” Artha gasped. “If we were still under there, we’d be pancakes!”

Beau rolled his eyes, as though to say “I could’ve survived it anyway, you baby!”. “Huh, yeah, right!” Artha retorted to the black and gold dragon.

“Ar – er, Dragon Booster! You’re okay!” Kitt cheered, she and Wyldfyr walking over to Beau and Artha.

“Yeah, but that wraith is still after us!” Artha said, pointing the end of his jakk-stick at the wraith, who shook its head and was getting up. “We need to release it from that gear! It’s dangerous for us and that dragon!”

Everybody turned to Moordryd. “Don’t look at me!” he protested, lowering his bottom helmet visor. “I don’t want to have anything else to do with these stupid plans of yours, Dragon Booster!”

“Wait!” Artha said. “Wraith gear is weak, right?”

“Not this particular one,” Moordryd muttered. “It’s gonna take you a lot of work to remove or break it.”

“Hey,” Lance murmured thoughtfully, raising a finger. “What if we disable the gear?”

“Now you’re starting to think like Parm,” Kitt said. She paused. “And that’s not really a good thing.”

“Kitt, leave him alone for a moment,” Artha told her. “But then disabling the gear? Uh, how?”

“Now that I may be able to do!” Cain said, beginning to punch in calculations, formulas and such into Parm’s gadgets. “If I can quickly create some kind of device to make the wraith gear malfunction and disable…” He stopped talking as he went to work.

Kitt rolled her eyes. “This calls for another distraction for that wraith,” she said, looking at Artha. “Got any suggestions, Dragon Booster?”

“How about a flash stick?” Artha asked, looking at Lance.

The boy gave a sheepish grin. “Er, I didn’t bring any,” he said. “And I forgot to grab the blinding device from the Voices back there. Sorry.”

“Lance!” Artha and Kitt cried.

“Looking for this thing?” Parm smirked, pulling out a flash stick. It went off in front of Moordryd, Lance, Artha and Kitt.

“Gimme that!” Kitt snapped, and gave it to Lance. “Your call.”

“Fore!” Lance called as he threw the flash stick, which landed in front of the wraith and triggered off. The wraith gave a roar and staggered for a moment.

“Done yet?” Moordryd said, turning to Cain. “Wraith dragons don’t last long to taser effects!”

“I’ve done it!” Cain said in triumph. “You see, I took a normal level 3 green trapping gear, reprogrammed the binary coding and functioning of the effects, and made this!” He lifted up what looked like green trapping gear.

“A higher level of trapping gear?” Moordryd said, half-understanding what Cain had just speedily said. “That’s not gonna work.”

“Ah ah ah!” Cain said, shaking his head and wagging his finger. “This may look like your run-of-the-mill green trapping gear, but it’s actually connected with my formulas in my calculating device! When you shoot this at the wraith dragon’s control gear, I can activate the formulas into effect, therefore disabling the gear and causing the dragon to run free!”

“Er, what did he just say?” Parm asked, looking at Moordryd, who took the device with several formulas ready and was looking over them.

“They’ll do!” Moordryd finally replied, grabbing the modified trapping gear. He sighed and looked down at Decepshun. “I’m not gonna like this,” he whispered.

Decepshun frowned at him, as though to say “Do you have any other choice? You’re in enough trouble already.”

Moordryd placed the modified shooter on and ran forward, stopping to aim at the wraith, but the wraith turned around, its tail knocking Moordryd off Decepshun and sending him flying. The trapping gear came off of Moordryd’s arm as he slammed into the wall, and before he could fall to the ground, the orange robes he was wearing got snagged by a sign pole.

Lance burst out laughing while Moordryd cursed under his breath. “This is the small little reason why I hate wearing jackets,” he muttered to himself.

The gear landed right next to the large dragon’s foot. The wraith raised its foot, ready to crush the gear, when Artha noticed it.

“Huh, what’s that?” he said. “Beau, mag me!”

Beau mag-blasted Artha to the ground, who slid and grabbed the gear just as the wraith dragon’s foot came down, barely smashing his head. “Aim it at the wraith dragon’s gear!” Lance called.

“Got it!” Artha said, and shot the device out of the trapping gear, which clamped onto the wraith’s gear. The wraith gave a confused grunt.

“Do it now!” Kitt cried, turning to Cain, Parm and Lance.

Cain gave a wide smirk, and he pressed a button on his calculator. The wraith gave a shriek as the gear glowed a pulsing dark purple, and dimmed. The dragon growled and looked up with flashing eyes.

“It’s not working!” Moordryd and Kitt cried in unison.

“Oh dear!” Cain squeaked.

The wraith saw Parm and Cyrano and advanced towards them. Parm gave a scream, then looked down, and quickly slammed his feet down on the saddle pedals. Green ramming gear was activated, and an attack ball flew out, zooming at the gear and breaking it off.

The dragon cried out again as the gear fell off and the attack ball zoomed high into the air. The dragon limped briefly, and suddenly turned blue, with white and electric blue streaks.

“Drac, a bipedal blue dragon!” Kitt exclaimed.

“So it wasn’t Psi-class!” Cain marvelled. “Huh, looked like it, though.”

Moordryd fell off the pole and fell to the ground, rolling next to Artha. Artha looked down at Moordryd. “Hey, Moordryd, how old do you think this dragon is?” he asked.

Moordryd looked up at the blue dragon. “My father said about forty years old, though I guess specifically forty-two or three,” he said. “It’s almost as big as Abandonn, his dragon.”

So that’s what his dragon’s name was! Artha thought, remembering meeting Word and the large, orange-colored Psi-class dragon. He looked over to see Beau and the other dragons conversing with the large blue dragon, who grunted something in return, and walked away. “Where is he going?”

“Probably Worktown,” Kitt said, walking up next to Artha. “Most of the older and bigger dragons are seen there to work and hang around.”

“She’s right,” Moordryd agreed, then walked away towards Decepshun, who shook her head and flexed.

“Hey, er, Moordryd?” Artha called.

Moordryd turned back to the Dragon Booster. “What?” he said, rather coldly.

“Thanks,” the hero said, giving a grin, and he and his dragon walked away.

Moordryd blinked, then rolled his eyes. “Yeah, whatever, Dragon Blunder,” Moordryd called, checking his nails absentmindedly as he got onto Decepshun. “Until next time, you little pests! C’mon, Cain!”

Then it hit him. “Oh…right,” Moordryd groaned.

“Augh, I totally forgot!” Kitt sighed, planting her face in her hand.

“You forgot?” Lance said, his posture slumping in disbelief. “How could you forget?”

“Well, we were in a life-and-death situation, so then you just…argh, I don’t wanna explain it!” Kitt cried, looking ready to scream.

Just then Artha and Beau came around the corner. “Hey, the Dragon Booster told me that you guys were here!” Artha said, shifting his eyes. “So you defeated the wraith, huh?”

“Yeah, and where were you?” Lance smirked.

“Oh, I was busy…calling up Dragon City security, but, well, you know how they are,” he said, winking at Beau, who grinned. Artha then looked at Moordryd and blinked. “Now I’m convinced that you’re Daddy’s Boy!” he laughed.

“That’s it!” Moordryd snarled, and pounced, attacking Artha, who yelled and punched back. Kitt rolled her eyes.

“Boys will be boys,” she murmured, and smirked as Lance shot her a glare. She looked at Parm and Cain. “Well…I guess we’ll just have to…get used to this,” she said, finding it hard to say the last few words.

Artha nodded grimly as he stopped fighting. “So what happens from here?” he asked.

“Well, I could go with you guys,” Cain said. He paused. “Or I could go with Moordryd, or…oh, look at all the possiblities! There’s so many!”

“Yeah, and if you start talking big words again, my brain’s gonna explode,” Parm muttered.

“Enough with the sarcasm!” Cain yelled, looking angrily at Parm. “You’re irritating me!”

“Well, why don’t we just see what other scientific facts you can come up with, egghead?” Parm snapped back, folding his arms as the two glared at each other.

“Oh, really? Well, I bet you’re too inane to understand my logic! Grow some brains!”

“And grow some humor!”

At that moment the attack ball from Cyrano’s ramming gear came falling down, bouncing off Cain’s head and hitting Parm’s with the same impact. Both staggered around, and Cyrano and Coershun winced as they both hit the ground.

“Parm!” Lance cried, kneeling next to his friend as he sat up. “Parm, are you alright!”

“I…I think so…” Parm murmured, staring at his hands. “Oh, my…where am I? What am I doing here?”

“Remember, Parm?” Lance said. “We fought off this wraith!”

“We did? A…a wraith?” Parm echoed. Cain got up and groaned.

“Hey, Coershun, what are we doing here?” he said woozily, resting himself on his dragon, who gave a confused grunt. “I though we were attacking the stable brats a couple of minutes ago!”

“Cain, are you alright?” Moordryd asked, getting off Decepshun once again and approaching his friend.

Cain shrieked and immediately hid behind his dragon, whose jaw just dropped open at this sight. “W-W-Word Paynn!” the man stammered. “Uh, Mr. Paynn, sir, we were, uh, attacking the stable brats and were, uh, about to steal their dragons! Just please don’t hurt me!”

That really got Moordryd angry. “Cain, it’s ME!” Moordryd screamed, pushing the man to the ground.

“Moordryd?” Cain squeaked. “Uh…why are you wearing your father’s clothes?”

“Moordryd wearing his father’s clothes?” Parm pondered in amazement. “Moordryd helping us out? Why, that’s only a one in seventy thousand point eighty-six two four three and seven zero five repeated chance, and yet, it actually happens!”

Everybody else but Parm and Cain blinked. The dragons gave grunts of bewilderment and a couple of jaws dropped open. “By Drakkus and Abandonn…” Kitt breathed, then gave a cheer. “Oh, drac! You know what this means?”

“They’re back to normal!” Artha cried happily, hugging a laughing Kitt. “They are sooooo back to normal!”

“Drac!” Lance said, jumping in the air. “Can you believe it, Fracshun?”

Fracshun gave a squeak of approval while Beau grinned, Wyldfyr laughed and Cyrano nodded in approval. Moordryd gave a relieved sigh, slumping on an also relieved Decepshun. “Thank the Magna Draconis…” he breathed.

Parm and Cain exchanged confused glances. “Hey, geek, have any idea what they’re talking about, and what the heck is going on?” Cain asked.

“I’m not sure, and don’t call me a geek!” Parm snapped, folding his arms, in which Cain just stuck his tongue out.

“Okay, see, you guys got amnesia, and then switched personalities, then you were captured by Word Paynn, and we had to go after you, and a huge wraith dragon chased you guys, and we had to go after you again, and then we defeated it and released it from Word’s control, and here were are!” Lance explained rather quickly.

“Say it again?” Parm asked, blinking.

Moordryd sighed as he, Artha and Kitt explained what happened in detail. “Oh, wow! Really?” Parm marvelled.

“I don’t believe it,” Cain murmured with a scoff. “I don’t believe it at all. Oh, wait! Now I remember! Or do I?” He began snickering, trying to hold back laughter.

“Remember what?” Kitt asked, arching an eyebrow suspiciously as Artha and Moordryd exchanged glances.

“Well, I definitely don’t think you could’ve done something like that…” Cain snickered. “I mean, it doesn’t seem like any of you…”

“Oh, you’re thinking what I’m thinking!” Parm said, also snickering.

“What? What?” Artha asked, starting to get impatient.

Parm’s snickers rose. “Oh, nothing,” he said, and snorted. “It’s just that…I remember…you, Kitt and Moordryd…” He burst out laughing.

Cain was also holding his side, laughing out loud. “You three looked totally stupid!” he wheezed. “I mean, why would you stand on top of each other like that, with candy bars, and – and – ” He and Parm continued laughing uncontrollably.

Moordryd, Artha and Kitt exchanged awkward glances, then glared at Lance. “Lance!” they snarled.

“Er, hehe, see?” Lance said nervously. “I told you it’d be good for their memories!”

“Yeah, well, I’ll make sure they forget!” Kitt growled, and extended her mag-staff.

“NO!” Moordryd and Artha cried instantly, grabbing her arms.

“I don’t think they need to suffer anymore, Kitt,” Artha said with a nervous chuckle.

“And we don’t need to suffer either,” Moordryd added.

Beau, Wyldfyr, Coershun, Cyrano and Fracshun burst out laughing. Decepshun rolled her eyes, but she found herself laughing with them. Everybody else ended up laughing as well, and Moordryd tried hard not to laugh, but like Decepshun, it got to him. “Well, I guess everything’s back to normal!” Artha said.

“Or at least what we consider normal,” Kitt added with a chuckle.

“Yeah…yeah, well, I’m going!” Moordryd said, his happier mood fading quickly as he got onto Decepshun, who tried keeping a straight face. “Let’s go, Cain!”

“Uh, Moordryd?” Cain said. “I just realized something.”

“And what would that be?” Moordryd asked, rather impatiently.

“You helped the stable brats out, you went against your father, you didn’t get him any dragons, or coffee, and now you’re impersonating him,” Cain pointed out. He twiddled his fingers. “Do you realize how much trouble you’re in right now?”

“Oh?” Moordryd said, and his eyes widened in terror as it dawned on him. “No…”

At that moment a com-screen popped up from Moordryd’s wrist-comm, and Moordryd didn’t even have to look at the screen to know who it was.

“MOOOOOOOORRRRRDRYYYYYYDDDDDD!” Word roared, causing Artha, Kitt, Lance, Parm, Cain and the dragons to wince.

“Oh, scales…” Moordryd whimpered.

End

To Conclude: Thanks to all original readers and fans of "Going Nuts" for all your reviews, and I'm glad I could make you laugh. And to those who just found this fic, thanks for reading “Going Nuts”, and I hope you enjoyed it. ;)