Chapter 1:

The bell tinkles as I take a step from the bright outdoors into the chilled dark inside the shop. I say a polite hello to Mr Bashir, the shop owner and make a quick lap of the cramped space. I grab the softest loaf of bread from the closest shelf, a tub of butter from the fridge at the back, along with a small ham and a small bag of potatoes. I linger at the till, looking at the locked perspex cabinet containing seven brightly coloured chocolate bars. Years of fighting temptation have worked deep within me and I have a fleeting hesitation, but it soon passes as I dump the articles on the counter and ask Mr Bashir in a confident voice to unlock the box. I reach in, pull out the largest foil bar and place it gingerly with the other items.

                “Are you sure Tyler?” he says, taking the purple card I’ve handed him. “This is six months’ worth for a P-card.” I grin back and calmly clarify the situation.

                “I got in.”

                “The Academy? My boy! Well done!” He leans over the counter to shake my hand. “I knew you could do it son, and that means a G-card! You had better get used to these.” The kindly shopkeeper wags the chocolate bar at me before putting it in a bag that he pushes across the counter. I take the bag, say my thanks and step back out into the summer sun. I walk across the small fenced off park, kicking back a stray football as it crosses the path. A group of my younger brother’s friends shout back a rather high pitched thanks.

                The sun feels amazing as I leave the park through the gate and check both ways for cars, even though our sleepy village sees very little in the way of traffic. I cross and follow the pathway five minutes out of the village and up to our small 3 bedroom family cottage, it sits on the very edge of the village, a house that marks the boundary between the forest and the civilised world we live in.

                Dumping the bag on the table I quickly put the few items away in the mainly bare cupboards, but place the chocolate bar squarely on the table. I take a few minutes to savour its current existence, my family’s only been on a P-card for five years now, and before that chocolate was off the menu. Out of the ten chocolate bars we’ve had in this house, only two of them have ever been mine, and when my younger brother Timothy comes into the kitchen a small part of me suggests grabbing it and running. But that’s not what this is about.

                “Ah, you got one! Come on, open it up, it’s not like we have to savour these anymore.” The floppy haired thirteen year old suggests, his voice showing the first signs of breaking. He reaches for it but I grab his hand and pull it back, there are very few people who are a match for my strength and my brother is not one of them.

                “We’re waiting for everyone else, actually, make yourself useful and go get them.” My voice has broken, and is quite deep for my seventeen years of life. Tim sulks out into the hallway and shouts up the stairs to the rest of my family, first my mother Barbara, then my dad Clifton and finally for our younger sister Rosa.

                Rosa comes running in first, as small and dainty as ever with her blonde hair floating along behind her. Then my mother, who’s now shorter than me, comes in with her brown hair tied back in a ponytail revealing more of her pretty yet weathered face. Finally the stocky frame of my dad enters the room, his hands black from fixing something or other that had been brought in from around the village. The room is in hushed admiration as my father hangs up his dark tool laden apron, washes his hands and picks up the chocolate bar. He breaks off the first row and hands it to me.

                “Congratulations son, we’re proud of you.” His dark moustache moves up and down with his words.

                “Very proud,” my mother says, a large smile playing across her face. I smile back at the pair of them and acknowledge them with a thanks.

                “I couldn’t have done it without you two.”

                “Haha, ever the charmer, you’ll do well if you keep that up.” My father says while handing out everyone their rows. “We can eat the rest later, while watching the operations.” A small sigh comes from my siblings but they know better than to question dad’s word.

                As soon as the chocolate hits my mouth I tense, focusing all of my attention on the explosion of taste in my mouth, it melts quickly and goes down smooth, leaving an aftertaste I don’t ever want to go away, but it does eventually.

                “I can’t wait until we can have these all the time, a G-card will be amazing. The highest I know is Stephanie Hurzbrower, her dad is a banker and they have a J-card.”

                “I’m looking forward to a car that doesn’t need fixing every other week.” My dad says while forcing his head through the opening on the apron.

                “Well, it can’t be soon enough that we get an extension, and then Rosa will have her own room. You’ll like that, won’t you?” Rosa threw her head up and down with obvious glee.

                “You lot wait until I become gold-level, I heard that Herzog has a B-Card. Think about what we’ll be living like then!”

                “Ha, who’s going to vote for you? You’re stupid and ugly.” I throw a playful jab at Tim but he jumps out of the way just in time, a few years’ time and maybe the Proposed Profession Test will put him in the academy as well.

                “Don’t get anyone’s hope up” my dad waves a stern finger in my direction “you need to focus on staying in the academy, if you drop out chances are we’ll be on less than a P-Card. You know as well as any that there’s a war on, less people are driving these days, rightly so, but work is drying up.”

                “I understand dad.” And truly I do, I don’t know if I’d last very long myself knowing I’d let my family down so much.

                “Barbara, make sure dinner’s ready for 6.30, now that Tyler’s going to be involved in it, I want him to pick up as much from the operations as he can.” This is dad’s leaving remark as he heads back into the hall and out back to work in the garage. Rosa heads back out and upstairs, while Timothy sulks across the other side of the kitchen and into the living room, it takes a second before the quiet is broken by the noise of the TV coming on. I walk over to my mum as she pulls out the potatoes from the cupboard and places them in a bowl of warm water.

                “Do you need a hand?”

                “Ah yes, that would be lovely.” I grab a brush and start scrubbing the potatoes. “Are you nervous?”

                “Not really, well, I obviously have a few butterflies but it’s not an issue.”

                “You’ll make sure you’re safe won’t you? I know those people out in Thorum don’t have any level they won’t stoop to.” She began chopping the other vegetables with an enthused vigour. “The other day I read about them blowing up an orphanage for god’s sake!” She stopped cutting and faced me, “I’m glad you’re going to do the right thing, but just… be careful.”

                I put the first cleaned potato on the side, “I’ll be fine, those suckers won’t know what hit them when I get out there.” More cleaned and peeled potatoes appeared on the side while my mum told me all the gossip in the village, Jane’s acceptance into the New Hampcourt Journalism School, the way Mrs Harris looks set to have her next child any time now and how the mystery of the missing swan still hasn’t been solved. I listen politely but soon excuse myself once the potatoes are cleaned and peeled.

                Within a matter of minutes I’m into my shorts and out in the forest for my evening run, making my way under the deep green canopy as the rays of sunlight pierce through the foliage. Thinking back to the smart, wax-sealed envelope taking pride of place on the mantelpiece back home I think about what it will mean to leave this place. A collection startled rabbits leap from their hiding places in the low lying bushes to run along the forest floor and are lost within seconds amongst the trees. I’ve only ever been to the city once, years ago, and I barely remember it apart from the hustle and bustle, glimpses of colour, noise and people everywhere. A wave of anxiety drops my resolve for a second, ‘am I good enough?’ I push these thoughts right out as soon as they come in and focus on climbing athletically over the approaching stile, marking the halfway point of the run, the rest of the distance turns into twenty minutes of pavement pounding.

                I run up road to our cottage as the pink sun begins to descend below the tree line of the forest, I wave at Mrs Harris who waves back happily, she is certainly only days away from the end of her pregnancy. I run up and stomp loudly into the large open double garage, sitting down on some old tires to catch my breath while my dad closes the bonnet on Mr. Pullman’s beat up old car. He throws me an old towel that was hanging up on the wall.

                “Seven miles in forty minutes? When I was your age we were running ten miles in that time.” I’m just about to challenge him on his obvious exaggeration when we both get hit by the smell of the cooking ham. He looks down at the basic plastic watch “fifteen minutes, ok, get yourself showered and into the living room.”

                Fifteen minutes later and we’re all arranged around the wooden box that houses our unfashionably outdated TV, its big enough for us, but most people won’t dare admit they have a cathode ray TV these days. Even though everything is rationed these days, and the only choice we had on our P-card was between beech and walnut covering, no one wants to make it obvious which rank they have. I caught Tim telling his friends that we already had a huge TV on the G-card, it just hadn’t arrived yet. I can tell, for all his aloofness, being two ranks below the village average really gets to him.

                I just start to cut up the two slices of cooked ham and three potatoes as the screen bursts into life. A selection of visual delights fly across the scene, cut up with explosions before a big title splashes across the screen that says ‘Wednesday Night Operation Spectacular!’. My dad’s already finished his meal and has his bingo card held firmly in his left hand, pen in the right, while my mum holds onto a betting slip. She used up the last of our onion quota on this evening’s show, throwing caution to the wind that the new card doesn’t get held up before tomorrow.

                I look down at the fantasy bingo card in my hand that I have running with some friends just for fun. I’m currently 5^th out the boys in the village, seeing as it won’t be long before I’ll be in that world, I keep getting hassle for not being top, but it’s more about luck than anything. On the screen a very dapper man in a suit with smart glasses stand in front of a map of Thorum, the far away country that I’ll be in one day.

                “Welcome to the Operations! Please give a warm hand for your host tonight, Tim Howard!” The voiceover rings out over the applause from the studio audience. Tim Howard, the smartly dressed present gives a quick bow and waves away the applause.

“Thank you and welcome, last night you voted for an assault on the Karzhed stronghold with the omega team, just edging out a tactical strike with commando force four by two hundred votes! That was a close one.” He points to a pulsating red circle in the north of the map while a superimposed image of four young lads, no more than two years older than me, lights up in the corner of the map. “As we can see the stronghold is in the rocky far north, and .. wait..” The man on the screen holds one finger to his left ear then turns back to the camera “and, I can announce that we have two very lucky jackpot winners of this operation tonight! Stay tuned to find out if it is you!” My mum bounces excitedly in her seat.

                “Please let it be me, please let it be me.” Even though we’re facing the end of our poverty, that mind-set takes a long time to escape from.

                “Also on tonight, the bombing of Herve square!” the map changes to a montage of planes and explosions. “Who will get the highest score tonight? From the leader board Major Thompson is still in the lead by five points, but only because Lieutenant Ward lost points for hitting that school last time! At least that’s one less brainwashing centre eh?” The presenter winks to his pretty co-host lingering just off screen.

                “Also tonight we have a round-up of today’s assassination bingo and a bit of news on this year’s academy recruits!” The screen cuts to a boy of the same age as me opening an envelope identical to mine, reading the letter inside and dramatically throwing a fist in the air.

                “How does it feel knowing that you’re going to the Newhaven Military Academy?” A voice asks.

                “Oh, I can’t even really explain it, I’m just desperate to go out and kill some dirty Thorms!” The screen cuts back to the presenter.

                “That’s what I like to see, a real patriot in the making. Now, it’s onto Janette for a quick round up of scores from around the country.” The screen cuts left to the co-host sitting comfortably on a large sofa while a list of squads and numbers are superimposed on the right hand side of the screen.

                “Today’s kills for the four operations are: Bravo Team 5, Alpha Team 7, Epsilon Team 2 and Phi Team 6.” A sigh rises from my brother who looks despondently at his scorecard.

                “Epsilon were so good until they sacked Maj. Dansworth and let Col. Avram in charge, he needs to go before they end up bottom of the league.”

                “Too right” comes the agreement from my dad.

                “Well, I’ve got more members from Alpha on my team, so I’m doing fine.” Comes the dainty notes from my sister, who is sitting on the floor at the foot of my mum’s chair.

                “Shh.” My mum hushes us while the presenter introduces the daily bombing run, where a satellite image feed shows the 7 highlighted planes as they aim for several targets across a largely populated city. The first one over the city misses his target by a few meters, scoring low, as do the next four, the fifth plane hits a hospital that sits adjacent to his target, a minus 10 floats above him on the screen and the audience lets out an embarrassed ‘ooh’.

“There goes Capt. Dansbury’s chances of claiming the league trophy!” Tim Howards’s voice rings out over the image. The second to last plane hits the target dead on the bull’s-eye, leaving a computer generated plus twenty marked over the bombsite while the audience breaks into a rapturous applause. My brother’s fist pumps the air in agreement. The final plane then fails to impress and we’re on to the main event of the night. The screen darkens while a drum roll builds up in the background and the voice of the presenter builds up the tension.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, please prepare yourself for the riveting, the ground shaking, the amazing main event of this evening. Put your hands together for… Omega Team!” Small explosions go off and suddenly the stage is full of lights, Tim Howard comes running onto the stage, and waves his arm towards a large screen behind him where four army fatigued older teenagers are standing. The roaring applause of the crowd drowns him out for a few seconds before silence resumes and he begins to talk to the grinning lads on the screen.

“Hello fellas.” They respond jovially and in unison “I’m sure it was a hell of a day today, the weather conditions are about as good as they can get!” The boy standing closest to the screen, who has short cropped hair and a strong jaw, talks first.

“Yes, we couldn’t have asked for better conditions, it wasn’t too hot and visibility was perfect. But we did spend most of the mission inside.” The screen within the screen crackles here and there which makes it obvious they are being transmitted over satellite.

“Ha ha, don’t give too much away now!”

“It’s ok, I promise we won’t ruin any surprises.” The boy on his left says into the camera, dark skinned and lean.

“Good good, that’s what we like to hear. So, is that Darrel there?”

“Yes, it is me Tim” the roughest looking one of the group says from the back steps forward so the camera can see more of his stubbled face. “You’re coming up to your 20^th birthday and the end of your time on active duty. I see that next semester you’ll be mentoring this year’s recruits rather than going into intelligence or long range bombardment, what’s the reasoning behind this.”

“I’ve had my time in the limelight Tim, I’ve never wanted the fame or the fortune and now it’s someone else’s turn.” He seems fairly subdued in his words than the usual bravado shown by other commandos.

“How very dignified, thank you Darrel. Now audience, give it up for Darrel and the Omega Team!” Tim does a flourished movement and points to the screen “Play the mission”

Suddenly the screen is filled with the exact same vision as Dan, the leader of Omega Team. On the side of the screen, imposed are the portraits of the four team members, each with a zero next to their names. The scene moves left and right as Dan looks at the other three members in the helicopter, then out to the side over the mountains and the deserts they border. A referee in a black and white shirt shouts over the sound of the engines to them as the helicopter descends towards a small, high walled village.

“You know the rules. Five points for a kill, one for an injury and no points for civilians. A bonus ten points are available for each close combat kill.” The helicopter lands with a jolt in a walled courtyard, Dan’s hands appear from the bottom of the screen, check over his gun and then disappear again, he nods with the other team members

“Ok, go!” The referee shouts, “and good luck.”

Suddenly the screen is a blur of images, mainly of sand, and broken concrete paving, the odd rock punctuates it here and there. The main constant is the gun barrel that bounces around the bottom of the screen.  Soon Dan’s breathing becomes more pronounced, but never strained. A gunshot goes off, followed by two more, the screen stops being blurry and is filled with sky while the number next to the dark skinned commando’s portrait goes up by 5. An audible ‘damn’ is heard, and the screen becomes blurry again.

The image regains focus again as a wall appears along the left, Dan moves forward slowly to the end of the wall composing himself for a second before launching himself around the corner, the sights of the gun in the middle of the screen. He puts one man on the left in the sights, two jolts of the gun and he drops to the floor, then aims at the woman on the left, whose white dress is splattered with red blood, two more jolts and she also falls to the floor. Then the screen is a blur again.

This carries on for around ten minutes. Every time Dan gets a kill my mum lets out a shrill shriek, while letting out a disappointed murmur of disbelief whenever he drops the lead. Eventually Dan bursts into a darkened room, where he comes face to face with Darrel, who has a Thorm held in a headlock in front of him, also facing Dan like a human shield. For a split second it looks as if Dan has interrupted them as Darrel’s mouth opens as if to speak, but then, almost imperceptibly, the screen flickers and his mouth is suddenly shut. Darrel pulls both arms away quickly, the Thorm’s head jerks violently and he then slumps to the floor. A whistle goes off to signal the end of the mission and the screen fades out as Dan turns to head back to the helicopter. Dan hasn’t won, and even with Darrel’s extra ten points, he hasn’t won either.

My mum tears up the slip and throws it to the floor in frustration. I look around and no one seems to have noticed the odd flicker at the end of that mission. I convince myself that I must have just seen it wrong and carry on watching the show.

“A large congratulations to… Andy Templeton from Surrey, and Victoria Sweeney from Yorkshire, both our jackpot winners won an all expenses round the world trip for two!” The audience applauds, “now, onto the big competition, Assassination Bingo!” My dad looks closely at his rather cramped card, just under half of it is filled in but he’s still nowhere near a full line.

“As if you need reminding, the amazing prize for this is a lifetime of luxury, with your very own C-Card.” The man on the screen walks over to a large board with filled with three hundred portrait faces and their names underneath, not dissimilar to my dad’s card. Just under half the portraits are crossed out in red pen, Tim pulls out a large red pen and walks to the right hand side of the screen. “First one down today was Jul Hashnge, the notorious political activist who was spreading truly disgusting propaganda and lies over the Internet, he and his family were executed this morning. I doubt they have an internet connection in hell so I expect that’s the last we’ve heard of him.” The audience breaks into laughter that carries on for ages before Tim waves another hand to silence them, chuckling at his own joke.

“I’m really not that funny!” He says with an air of modesty. “Moving on, we also have Karhzid Homaj who was killed in a tactical missile strike on his convoy this lunchtime.” Karhzid’s picture gets crossed off, “and that rounds up today’s action, goodnight and don’t forget,” Tim strikes a salute on the stage, “for the greater good!” The rest of my family strike the same salute in response. The national anthem plays out over the credits before the TV goes blank to signify the end of that day’s programming.

“Ok, you scamps, up into bed.” My dad says, placing his bingo card safely on the coffee table.

“Can you carry me?” Rosa asks, fluttering those eyelashes. My dad considers this request, and at first he looks set to deny her, but a few more eyelash flutters and she’s broken him.

“Oh ok then, but only because your my special little girl.”

“I love you daddy.” She replies, while he tussles her hair before hoisting her small frame up and the two of them leave the room.

“Ok, I’m off to get a good night” I say to my mum and brother, who are both know reading books.

“Fine dear, sweet dreams.” I wag a finger at my brother.

“If you’re any later than an hour you better be silent when you come in. I don’t want you waking me up again.”

“Whatever,” he replies, not looking up from his book. I climb the stairs quietly and meet my dad on the landing where he grabs my shoulder and looks me clear in the eye.

“Son, I just want you to know I’m proud of you. The academy is notoriously tough, and there’s no shame in working with me if things… don’t work out. I don’t really want to pile the pressure on you, I’m sure we’d find a way to get by.” I grab his shoulder with my free hand.

“Dad, I’ll be fine, and you watch, I’m going to win every mission.”

“That’s my boy. Now you get a good night’s rest.” He lets me go and I retire to me and my brother’s room, change into my vest, clean my teeth in the sink in the corner and get under the duvet. It’s no time at all before I’m dreaming of the cameras, the lights and the opportunity to prove myself out in Thorum.

David McBandersnatch adjusted his top hat and looked impatiently at his pocket watch. Where is Mr. Flittsbottom? We were supposed to be at the haberdashery over an hour ago! He pontificated to himself. He was standing on the raised platform 127 of London’s grand central time-station, gyrocopters spun lazily overhead under the great industrial steel roof. He looked across at the other square platforms which had been raised, users had then travelled away or arrived from their time-journeys, then lowered again.

He twirled his moustache impatiently, all skinny six foot five of him tense with boredom. Then, without warning, just as McBandersnatch was preparing to leave, a flash of light filled the centre of the concrete platform, stayed for a few seconds, then rescinded. Sitting in the middle of the platform now was a shorter, rather plump man with a chubby face that adorned a bristly mouse brown moustache and beady eyes. He was sitting on a large wooden bench, under which were hundreds of gears and levers, currently now surrounded in smoke.

“Sorry old chap, I got held up in 1374, some idiot had caused a plague, there were milebacks for centuries! I did manage to source a new specimen however!” The plump man gestured to the figure sharing the bench.

A very muscley man sat, fully tensed and holding onto the bench with such might that it looked like it was about to break. He was sinewy and tanned a deep rust colour, he had strong features, with long blond hair held with an iron circlet. He was wearing the most garish loincloth that looked handmade, and not much else.

“Well, he’s not exactly fashionable is he?” McBandersnatch observed, “the current trend is 21^st century computer game players.”

“I know, but future trips are so… boring I mean, they know all about human rights, it always makes me feel so immoral talking to them. How could any true man think abolishing slavery is a good idea?! Ridiculous And gosh, women having rights, how uncouth!”

“Ok, I see your point” McBandersnatch said, walking over to the specimen and observing him coldly. “Do you have a name?”

“Name is Orgak, Orgak safe now?”

“Yes, Orgak safe now” McBandersnatch told him, examining his nails while Orgak relaxed. Well, relaxed as much as someone who is held wide-eyed with fascination can be. McBandersnatch turned his head to face Flittsbottom. “I think he will be ok, but not the real draw we need. Next time, go where I tell you. What is this?” he said, holding up the big pointy piece of iron that they had travelled with.

“It’s called a sword, I believe it’s like, a rudimentary walking aid, like a cane.”

“Oh, I see, well I guess he can keep it,” McBandersnatch handed Orgak the sword, “we’d best be off to the haberdashery.” He whistled and a gyrocopter floated down to their platform. McBandersnatch called down to the platform operator that they were finished, and the trio sat down in the four person flying taxi-copter. It rose into the air of the great station as the platform descended below them.

“Where to Guv’nor?” The rough, lower class taxi driver asked them.

“To the Haberdashers please good sire.” The taxi driver acknowledged and they flew over the thousands of raising and lowering concrete platforms, witnessing flashes here and there, gleeful reunions and teary goodbyes. Soon they left through the open wall at one end of the station and out into the brisk morning London air.

In the haberdashery they haberdashered, or, whatever it is you do in a haberdashery. They then re-joined the waiting taxi-copter and flew on to the great Spacetime-Zoo of Greater London. Flittsbottom chattered anxiously with Orgak, who replied in monosyllabic phrases.

“So, what kind of hobbies do you lads have back in the stone ages? A good old knees up? A fantabulous shin dig with some pretty ladies? Hey hey” Flittbottom nudged Orgak playfully, hurting his own elbow in the process.

“Orgak like,” he paused to think, “Orgak like murdering, and pillaging, and sexy time with all of the ladies.”

“Oh, what a blue blooded boy!” Flittsbottom shouted jovially, McBandersnatch sat quietly in the front, deigning to hide his agitation. “I’m sure you’ll fit right in with at the Spacetime-Zoo! You can have good old rough housing with the steroid-robots from the future, what great banter that will be eh!”

“What is Zoo?”

“Oh, it’s like an amazing holiday”

“Is this infringement of Orgak rights?”

Goddamit, Flittsbottom thought, he didn’t think those rights-loving hippies had gone back this far. “No no no, it is your right to join the Zoo!” The plump man retorted quickly.

“Ok, Orgak happy with that, no need for lawyer.”

McBandersnatch un-clenched his jaw, damn Flittsbottom nearly messed up everything he touched. Luckily they had passed most of the spires and turrets of central London, and were just now landing on the roof of the main building at the Spacetime-Zoo. As they dismounted the taxi-copter a bright flash appeared, then left a time-bench right in front of them on the rooftop. From this bench launched another Orgak, albeit a slightly more rugged one in a beat up suit.

Rugged Orgak swung his sword left and right with both hands, cutting both suited men in twain, the cutting the taxi-copter in two, which exploded.

“Orgak, is me, other Orgak! I learn lawyer-skills over many years. Lawyer was needed!” The orginal Orgak slapped his thigh.

“Orgak knew so!”

“We need free Zoo people, they also need Lawyer.”

“You Lawyer!”

“Yes, me Lawyer! Orgak forget quickly, me save them with sword!” Both the Orgaks waved their swords high in the air and yelled.

About twenty minutes later the Spacetime-Zoo was in pandemonium, the fences were being torn down and anachronisms were all over the place, monks were karate fighting jetpack clad bounty hunters. Knights on horses were running down Warcraft players who were carrying all their computer equipment while running away. Sexy mermaids were getting their groove on with centaurs, and sassy mid-90s action hero cops were having shoot-outs with cowboys.

In the middle of the pandemonium, arms filled with hot girls and loot, were the two Orgaks. They sauntered through the zoo, admiring their handiwork. Socrates noticed them walking past, he stopped hitting a Brazilian football player over the head with an abacus and said with admiration.

“Fortune favours the brave.”

“It truly does” said his bro Plato, who was spin kicking a small girl through a collection of aptly placed boxes.

Eventually the two Orgaks made it back to the roof of the main building and the rugged Orgak placed his loot and ladies on the time-bench, while Lawyer Orgak set the dials and pulled levers. Lawyer Orgak then stood up and faced his younger self.

“Pull this lever, back time you go!” Rugged Orgak sat down, holding the lever, waiting for Lawyer Orgak to get on, he didn’t get on.

“You no come?”

“No, other places need Lawyer.” He spoke the words slowly as explosions and lazers filled the air above him and an army-copter flew overhead, bells tinkling and whistles peeping.

Orgak held a fist to his heart. “Orgak remember.” Then with his other hand he pulled the lever and disappeared in a flash of light. Lawyer Orgak turned to the look down on the zoo, where it seemed dinosaurs were now taking over. He let out a guttural roar.

“ME LAWYER, ME HELP UPHOLD HUMAN RIGHHHTTSSS!” He brandished his sword and leapt off the roof, back into the zoo.

Magnus, Leo, Ginge and Alex were wading through knee deep snow. The wind whipped snow around their dark green overcoats, which they had pulled up to protect their faces. Throughout the previous night walked for 20 clicks across the wastes in the wake of the massive dark force that had travelled across the tundra en-route to the Capital.

            The combination of wind and snow had reduced visibility to only a few metres, but Leo had checked the maps constantly, and was certain that they were almost exactly where they wanted to be.

            Their attempts at flying to the Capital on the dragons had been short lived. Almost straight away they had been attacked by lightning from large black flying shapeless forms.

The Dragons fought fiercely, but they weren’t battle dragons, they were transport dragons. Light and nimble, but they still stood no chance against the assailants. After a minute of intense but one sided fighting all of the dragons had fallen from the sky.

 The barbarian rangers had all survived the landings, barbarians are tough, and snow is soft. Some of the dragons had died and the others had limped or flown away into the north, being independent legendary creatures, back to the wild lands.

            As such, the tight knit group had shouldered their gear, prepped their weapons and walked back to the town they’d just left.

            On the silent walk, all of them had been thinking the worst, but they were all still shocked to see what was left of the hold.

            The first sign they came across was a battle-axe, and accompanying arm, lying in the crimson snow. There was no sign of the owner of this battle-axe.

            As they walked down what was the Hold’s main road, they began to see more of the destruction the army had left. Burned out skeletons of buildings, the wood black like charcoal, limply held themselves up out the snow. Some had caved altogether and left only a large pile of black smouldering rubble, steam still rising from the remnants.

            It was like this on each side of the road. Almost all of the buildings were completely destroyed, and the only signs that life had ever existed there were the occasional dashes of bright red spread across the snow.

            “This is horrible” Ginge said, holding back the tears.

            “This is war” Magnus said grimly, “Where were the other dragons kept? We need to see if there’s any that have survived.”

            “It’s at the end of this road, in a cave at the base of the cliff” Ginge managed to say, through the sobs.

            They made their way through the dead town as quickly as they could, eager to escape the dread that sunk deeper with every passing minute.

            “How is this even possible? The barbarians are one of the strongest races in the universe!” Alex shouted at the burnt husks.

            “It’s got to be some terrible magic” Leo replied quietly from behind him, rifle pointing at everything he thought might be dangerous, which was everything.

            “Arrghh” Alex rebutted, firing off rounds into the air in anger.

            Magnus grabbed him and forced the rifle out of his hands “Calm down! We don’t know if there’s any of them left!”

            The town responded to Magnus’ fears with total silence.

            Magnus was worried, he wasn’t sure what to do, they had no orders to follow, and they were rangers, there was nothing they could do in a full scale invasion. His speciality was approaching situations like a crime, finding out as much as he could and striking at the weakest point. Now his only lead was Grigor.

            Magnus had heard of Grigor before, back in the academy he’d been mentioned regularly, and his name was engraved on the Bear Explosion Ball champion Trophy all the way from 6000E to 6006E. Speaking to him seemed to be the next best step.

            “Leo, you still have the network access codes right?” Leo nodded “Ok, make a search for Grigor the Destructionator. Find out where he is, or where he’s going.”

            Leo pulled the radio nav machine out of his bag and started punching in keys while the machine beeped back in response. “It should take me a little while to get a response.”

            “Make it quick, I have a feeling we won’t have much time.”

            They walked through the other side of the town, and soon a giant cliff loomed out of the whiteness that surrounded everything. At first the view in front of them of them darkened, then they came close enough that the sharp, rocky face penetrated through the blizzard.

            The walked along the base of the cliff, where the snow broke as it touched the rocky foot of the sheer wall. Here and there small trees had managed to grow and survive on the rock base, lending droplets of deep green to break up the monotonous grey and white that surrounded everything.

            They stumbled upon the cave mouth as it appeared suddenly out from the gloom. A great gaping mouth of black, dimly lit in depths by the weak aura of orange thrown off by unseen torches. Ginge stopped and motioned for Magnus to come to her side.

            “Look down here” she said, kneeling in the snow, “footprints.” Magnus looked down at the two sets of prints, definitely human, and two of them, one slightly taller than the other. The smaller human was obviously not used to the cold judging by the shuffle pattern of the prints and, no fashion sense judging by the tread pattern, I mean come on, what about effort? Brushing vain prejudices aside, it was obvious that neither had been prepared for travelling in this weather. From the drips of blood that accompanied the prints Magnus deduced that one of them must be injured.

            “It looks like one these people was injured.” He whispered to Ginge.

            “No shit Sherlock” she replied quietly. Magnus took that to be a compliment. He held his hand up to the group, pointed at his eyes and then pointed into the depths of the cave.

            The group shouldered their rifles and crept into the entrance, keeping their sights trained down the passageway.

            They crept forward, solid like moving rocks, unflinching at the murmuring echoes that groaned through the cave system. They transitioned from the white light from outside, into the deep dark where the only light was the flickering from torches further down the tunnel that glistened off the moist walls.

            They treaded carefully over the slippery rocks, Magnus took the point, then Alex and Leo behind him, while Ginge kept a look out behind them. They passed several slowly dying torches held in brackets against the rock walls as they made their way down twists and turns leading down further into the cliff. Suddenly Magnus stopped, and held his left hand up, hand clenched into a fist.

            “Do you guys hear that?” he said so quietly it was barely a whisper. The rest of the team listened, There was definitely a sound of activity further down the tunnel, they caught echoing tones of voices deeper down the cave system, more importantly they could hear the noise of great shuffling, scratching and the occasional hiss of steam echoing up to where they stood.

            “Ok, be ready for anything” Magnus said, starting on again cautiously, soon they could feel a cold wind coming faster down the tunnel, and the noises became much louder. Round the next corner a large pool of more natural light bathed the tunnel from a large cutaway in the left side of the rock. Here the noises were much more obvious, but still not enough to hear the voices clearly. However the other noises were a lot clearer, it sounded like a foundry, with heavy clanging, the hiss of steam, punctuated by heavy scraping.

            Magnus approached the opening slowly, his back flat against the wall. When he was standing next to the opening, he peered round.

            From his viewpoint he saw that a massive bowl-like cavern had been carved out of the rock, so large that he could barely make out the opposite side. Looking up he noted a massive hole in the ceiling, letting in light that dappled softly off the ever falling column of snow entering the cavern from above. The opening he was standing at was at the top of the bowl like floor, which reached its lowest point a few hundred meters from where he was standing.

            In the centre of the room a great wooden stake had been thrust into the rock, the stake was what appeared to be just an upside down tree. For most of its length it was the width of three men across, and as tall as ten tall men. Attached to this tree was a great chain, whose first link had been forged directly through the tree trunk about halfway up, at the strongest point. What was more intriguing however, was the giant sleeping creature attached to the chain.

A great dragon with black scales and a crimson underbelly lay coiled around the base of the stake, the chain attached to a iron collar around its neck. The Dragon had giant red leathery wings pinned to it’s back, and a long tail that flicked lazily around it’s head while it slept. The dragons long snout framed the sharp form of it’s face, which raised and lowered which each exhale of what appeared to be a sort of dragon snore. Each snore produced a huge plume of steam, along with a great hiss.

            The dragon was curled in the centre of the cavern, directly beneath the column of snow that melted and floated away in steam as soon it landed on the Dragon’s back.

Magnus quickly scanned the rest of the cavern hold to see several much smaller dragons tied to much smaller posts around the exterior rim of the space. Some of the dragons were obviously restless, a small turquoise blue dragon was attempting to fly away, only to be yanked back to earth as the chain pulled taut. He then shuffled back to where the chain was slacker, snorted, with a bit of added flame, and tried again. Down to Magnus’ left a medium sized red and yellow dragon was scratching irritably at the floor of the cavern, huge grooves were left in the rock floor were left as proof of his frustration.

            Down on the right however, Magnus noted a very un-dragon like movement, around a large selection of crates, harnesses and other dragon riding equipment, sat two humans. One a tall stalwart fellow, and the other smaller, slightly on the chubby side and quite badly dresses, just like Magnus thought ‘Damn I’m good’ he congratulated himself quietly.

The smaller man was sitting on a crate and had a bandage wrapped round his left thigh, which was propped up on a smaller case.­­­ He looked rather resigned and downtrodden. The taller man was leaning against a collection of wooden boxes, and looked deep in thought.

Magnus could see no obvious weapons on the pair, and they didn’t seem like too much of a threat, so he leaned back round into the tunnel, and signalled for the other rangers to come up.

He stepped out quietly and slipped between large red sandy rocks that provided adequate cover and hid him from the sight of the pair. Most of the leashed dragons were looking in their direction curiously, several were becoming rather agitated and clawing at the ground and their restraints, but the only pair of humans in the room seemed too pre-occupied to notice the entrance of the rangers.

One by one the Rangers took places behind the closest rocks, a move they had well-rehearsed, and waited for Magnus’ signal. He held his closed fist up, and they all froze and took a deep breath. He waited like this for a second, and suddenly opened his fist.

            At that moment, manic pandemonium broke out, the rangers all spun out from their hiding places, rifles held up and trained on the unsuspecting pair. In response the two of them jumped nearly out of their skins, and instantly threw their hands up. Everyone was shouting. Harvey and Indiana were shouting about how they ‘meant no harm’ and ‘don’t kill me please,’ while the rangers were shouting at them to get down.

In the midst of the action, Alex raised his rifle and stared laughing, a deep barrel laugh. One by one he other rangers sopped to look at him. Ginge whispered a him. “What are you doing?” Indy and Harvey also stopped shouting and looked at him, bemused and scared.

“Look at them.” Alex said, “they’re the foreigners from the alehouse we saw yesterday!” The other rangers looked and also started laughing, they pulled down the scarves and other clothing items they’d worn to obscure their faces from the blizzard. Magnus stepped forward, a bit sheepishly.

“Sorry about this guys, you were Indy right? And I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.” He said to Harvey.

“I’m Harvey,” Harvey replied, with a hint of a wobble in his voice.

“What happened out there in the village?” Ginge asked them, her usually emotionless voice betrayed a genuine note of concern for the people of the village.

“We didn’t see much, and it was a real blur” Indy started “We were locked down in the hold when the explosions started, the door was completely smashed in by a huge black monster, like a man but three times the size, with red eyes, horns and black skin. One of your friends decapitated it the minute it broke through though! Soon everywhere around us there was fighting, and bodies everywhere. The enemy were all black knights, they went down easily enough but they just kept coming. Eventually the roof of the hold gave way, and by that point we were in the streets fighting. Everything was on fire, and the black knights formed a tidal wave that just kept coming.” Indy paused for breath.

 “We ran out into the storm and ended up here somehow. I don’t think anyone else survived, they just kept fighting but didn’t stand a chance.” Indy hung his head.

“That’s the Barbarian way. We fight to the death. At least they’re all kicking ass in Valhalla now.” As he finished this sentence a great boom was heard, and a crack of lightning could be seen though the open hole in the cavern roof.

After the lightning briefly brightened the cavern it soon became darker than It had been before. And even though the chill of winter was all around them, it also became colder, but they could feel this chill deep within their hearts.

“Something is wrong” Ginge said looking up at the now darkened sky. The dragons were roaring what seemed to be a solemn chorus, punctuating the dark of the cavern with great towers of sporadic flame. “Very wrong” she continued.

“Sir!” Leo called out, kneeling over this radio equipped back-pack, a headphone held to one ear. “It’s a message from the he Field Marshall, he Dragon-King… He’s dead,”

“What?!” Exclaimed Magnus, grabbing the headphones and holding them to his own ears.

“I repeat, the Dragon-King is dead. He was slain by Volkang and Grigor now holds the ancient spirit. All forces on the ground are to form a resistance against the dark lord’s armies, and all other troops are to assist Grigor. I repeat, the Dragon-King is dead. He was…”

Magnus let the headphones fall to the floor. “Rarghh!” He screamed, slamming his fist into a rock, shattering it to pieces.

“I’ve got a lock on Grigor’s position, it looks like he’s heading to the Dagoba system. Ah, now the signal’s gone dead.”

“The Ice system? What does he want to do there?” Alex inquired.

“I don’t know, but we’re going to find out.” Magnus replied, grim set.

“Take us with you!” Said Harvey while Indy looked on expectantly.

“You know how to use a gun?” They both nodded. “Ever flown a dragon through space?” They looked at each other bemused and shook their heads. “Well, you’re about to change that.” Magnus looked over to the other rangers. “Mount up guys!”

Alex, Ginge and Leo each ran to the nearest dragons, a deep blue dragon, and green dragon, and a light blue with a yellow bellied dragon respectively. Even with all their gear they vaulted spectacularly on their dragon’s backs, lifted the catches on the great chain necklaces, and sped off, up and out of the cavern through the hole in the ceiling.

“This is going to be weird, but trust me, there’s a lot of magic in these creatures. Just copy me and stay close in the air.” Magnus told the pair left standing.

            He went to the great red and black dragon in the centre of the room. It sniffed him as he walked close, each movement of air through the massive nostrils acting as a gale, swirling Magnus’ overcoat around his legs, but he showed no sign of it even affecting him. He rested a hand briefly on the Dragon’s snout and it calmed immediately. He then swung himself up between its wings and gripped the great scaly neck tightly.

“Now you guys grab one each!” He shouted to the two nervous humans. They each picked rather small dragons, a deep emerald one for Harvey, and a rather bland coppery brown coloured one for Indy. Rather ungracefully they clambered onto their dragon’s backs and unclasped he necklaces. Then the dragons began to rise and hover while Magnus un shackled the great dragon, it’s necklace reverberating the cavern with an echoed boom as it hit the floor.

His dragon turned a grea long neck upward, flapped a few imes and sped straight up and out of the cavern like an arrow, the two smaller dragons, needing no instruction from their riders flew up in a similar fashion. Indy and Harvey lost sight of Magnus, and everything for that matter, immediately outside the cavern in the swirling white of he blizzard. Soon though, the broke through the tops of the clouds. The blackness of space above them, speckled with 4 dots of colour from the other riders, the whirling tumultuous blanket of fluffy white below them and the bright light and glare of the sun sinking over the much curved horizon.

Very soon they realised they were leaving the barbarian planet behind them at an alarming rate, the curvature of a horizon soon curving into a disc that decreased in size rapidly, until it was just another spot of light that permeated the ever enveloping blackness of space. Up ahead they could just about make out the other dragons, swathes of light representive of the colour of each dragon stretched out far behind them like comets as they flew.

Travelling along an interstellar rainbow, they were now well on their way to the Dagoba system.

Grigor disembarked from the pirate boat by somersaulting from the rigging, he landed with such perfection even a Russian gymnast coach would be impressed. He quickly stood up and saluted the royal guard that had come to meet him at the palace’s dock. It was a large jetty jutting out of the massive building that loomed over the industrial capital city of Arkansaw.

            As far as the eye could see were massive chimneys from the many armouries and breweries that ran the barbarian planet’s vast economy. In between these massive factories were hundreds of ramshackle taverns, blacksmiths and whore houses. The smoke gave the whole city an eerie dim red glow, and even though it was midday the sun could not be seen.

            “We’re here to give a grave message to the king” Grigor pronounced officially as the gangplank was lowered to the jetty “My crew and I must meet with the king now”

            “He’s just come back from his bear wrestling session, I’ll send a message ahead, and by the time we get to the hall he should be there.” When the rest of the ragged band had disembarked they walked along the red carpet lined jetty towards the massive double wooden doors into the barbarian palace. The wind that high up made it hard to speak properly so they walked in silence.

            The group was flanked by soldiers in wearing luxuriously ornate, head-to-toe suits of armour. They led them through the massively high doors out of the wind and into the grand entrance hall. Lined along the high ceilinged corridor were ancient statues and most of the décor was gold. Even though they could now talk due to the lack of wind, they still walked in silence, with Grigor leading the entire entourage.

            As they reached the intricately detailed golden doors Grigor stopped, turned, and addressed the group. “Listen up, there are some rules here, you need to high-five the king when he speaks to you. It is a sign of respect, also, beware of the flaming lions, they have a habit of jumping up on unsuspecting people. Oh, and whatever you do, don’t whine or be a pansy. Got it?”

            Some of the grouped nodded or murmured their understanding. “Do you reckon he’ll listen to my mix tape?” the Ty-rap-o-saurus asked.

            “No.” Grigor said bluntly “Let’s go.” The Ty-rap-o-saurus was a sad panda.

The Great Hall was an amazing spectacle to behold. It was a gigantic circular room. In the centre was a completely gold throne on which the armrests were eagles, each one as big as a man. The gold backing of the throne went up towards the ceiling about fifty feet like a golden bolt striking down from the ceiling (which was painted in the same style as the Sistine church). Around this throne were a hundred bikini clad women, and around them was a moat of lava which had several bridges crossing it. Along the whole outside of the room were hundreds of wooden benches filled with barbarians drinking, singing and fighting.

            Sitting on the throne in the middle was Argennon the Barbarian King. He was the largest barbarian since the last king and his hair was whiter than the moon. His face was covered in scars but it was a face that demanded respect. At his side was a mighty hammer, bigger than himself, legend said that he had fought a god for it, and won. His ragged armour covered his massive body, and at the end of one his tree trunk like arms was a massive tankard of ale, much bigger than a normal man could hold with both hands. He was sitting with some very curvaceous women and regaling tales of battling vicious beasts and slaying monsters of lore, his overly exaggerated hand gestures meant that everyone within his immediate vicinity was covered in ale.

            As Grigor and his company crossed the lava bridge over the lava moat the barabarian king stopped mid imaginary –beheading and stared.

            “Is that Grigor! I’ve heard news you were coming, and I hardly believed it!” The behemoth stood up and strode along to Grigor, he held his hand up expectantly and Grigor jumped to high fived him, lightning exploded from the contact. “And who are these people?”

            “This is Chainsaw-boy my travelling companion and Napalm Explosionface, who I’m sure you already know, and this is the Ty-rap-o-saurus Rex. I honestly have no idea what he’s doing with us.”

            “Oh well, any friend of Grigor is a friend of mine!” The king boomed, his great white beard shuddering with every syllable. He made a sweeping motion with a great hand in front of him “Sit down and have some mead friends.”

            The rag tag troupe sat around a large wooden bench placed in front of the throne, they had to squeeze in between several dirty Vikings warriors who were already very drunk. As soon as Chainsaw Boy sat down the large Viking next to him decided that now was time for sleeping, and subsequently fell asleep on Chainsaw Boy’s shoulder, nearly crushing him in the process. Argennon stood in between the bench and his huge throne, a barrel-sized tankard of mead in his none-sweeping hand.

            “You fellows have travelled very far, I presume your presence here is not simply a friendly meeting between comrades. What can the great king do for you?”

            “Argennon, the only thing you can do for us is heed our news. The Dark Lord Volkang has the heart of the Dragon King.” The entire hall suddenly ceased the raucous cacophony that had filled the rafters. The laughing had stopped, the clashing and swearing of fighting had stopped, the sound of pouring ale had been stopped, the giggling of swooning maidens had stopped and even the roaring of tame bears and lions had stopped.

            “Surely you jest Grigor” the King said slowly “you always were great at banter!” He began laughing, the great beard rising and falling with his guffaws, a shallow laugh spread out across the hall. At the sight of Grigor’s stony straight face the King stopped his barrel laugh, soon the whole hall was plunged into awkward silence. “I see, follow me to the antechamber, we will discuss this.”

            He spun around, his cloak floating majestically behind him, strode around the throne and walked through the concealed archway behind it. Grigor and his band followed and found themselves in a small circular room. The dimly-lit room had bare, grey stone walls, dotted regularly with several flame torches that splashed an orange red glow around the room. In the centre of the room stood a large stone table, the same grey as the walls. They all took seats around this table, with Argennon at the far side of the room, facing the archway entrance.

            “Ok Grigor, explain yourself.”

            “Argennon, the heart was stolen in transit, now it and the Dark Lord are here now.  I’m sure we both know what he’s after.”

            “Yes, the Spirit, one of the 5 pieces of awesome, if he possesses all 5 he will have ultimate power. We can’t let that happen, ever. But the Dragon Heart? That’s the single strongest of all the pieces, and the core that links them. Volkang was a challenge even for me, I was the one who threw him from the cliff of solitude into the pit of despair. I watched as he was banished for eternity down there.”

            “He’s been slowly building from the other side, I saw his mighty new Tower, and it seems his power has grown into something more powerful than it ever was before.”

            The Ty-rap-o-saurus sheepishly piped up, rasing one scaly talon in the air. “Hey guys, if the Dragon Heart is so powerful why didn’t it make you guys, you know, more badass? Or even space-Hitler, I mean he had it for a while as well. Surely there’s loads of people who’d be super powerful now.”

            “It’s not that simple, you don’t own the Dragon Heart, you merely work in a partnership with it, and it doesn’t lend power, you need to take it from the heart. Thus, only a handful of people in the universe are powerful enough to control it. Even then, it corrupts greatly, only someone powerful and evil enough could ever wield it.” Grigor replied.

            “That’s why I never took it for myself” Argennon added “I am truly not evil enough to control such an object.”

            “You said there’s 5 other pieces of Awesome, what are these things?” Illana asked curiously.

            “The 5 pieces of Awesome are the remnants of the creator, some super dude who created this entire universe. Legend has it that there is another separate universe, similar to ours, but everyone only lives on one planet.” Suddenly the room felt a lot darker, and Grigor’s gruff voice was striking awe into everyone. “They call this planet Earth, and on this planet was a man called Adam, who was the most manly of all men, truly a champion of his universe.” At the mention of that name a chill wind flowed through the sealed room. “Apparently one day he attempted to jump 100 armed nuclear missiles on a motorbike. This was nothing to Adam, but a more jealous man had sabotaged his attempt. As he flew through the air over the missiles he realised something was wrong, someone had put a deadly snake in his motorbike. He punched the snake so hard it went up in flames, but the movement distracted him, and as such he exploded into the nuclear missiles, destroying the entire earth.”

            Grigor paused for effect while everyone gasped, and then continued. “This created a super massive black hole, which imploded on itself, destroying the entire universe. And out of this time-space continuum destruction, our universe was born. And all that remains of Adam and the previous universe were the 5 pieces of Awesome that formed the original guardians of this new universe.”

            “The Heart of the Dragon King, the Spirit of the Barbarian King, the Rainbow Soul of the Inter-Stellar-Unicorn, the Flaming Motorbike of the Great Bear and the Cajones of the Ice-Wolf.” Napalm Explosionface said, looking up from his tankard of mead. “They each hold and grant immeasurable power, but the Heart is still the most powerful, only a combination of the other pieces could ever defeat it.”

            Suddenly the floor shook. A resounding boom echoed around the room, dust fell from the ceiling and walls. Argennon jumped to his feet, and Grigor pulled out his broadsword, its flickering flames highlighting the features of his face in an orange glow.

            “He’s here isn’t he.” Chainsaw boy said, his words falling heavily in the dense atmosphere of the room. From the doorway to the great hall they heard the clanging of steel on steel, the shouts of barbarians punctuating the air and the crashing and splintering of bodies being thrown through wooden tables.

            Then, within seconds, silence. Only the occasional scream pierced through the walls and echoed around the room.

            Grigor ran towards the doorway until Argennon shouted “Stop. Grigor, come up here.” Grigor stopped mid-step and turned to face Argennon, who was standing in the middle of the table. “If he gets the spirit he will be nigh unstoppable. I’m past my peak, and it’s my right to defend my hold. Take the spirit and hide it from the Dark Lord, secure the other pieces as well.”

            Grigor stepped up onto the table and faced the massive king. “Are you sure? We can defeat him.”

            “No, the heart is too powerful.” Argennon stood tall and put his hand on Grigor’s chest. The torch lights blew out and a bright blue light surrounded the pair. The whole room was bathed in a blue glow, throwing dark shadows of the assembled troupe around the walls.

            The light swirled around the room before focusing into one beam that rushed around the room and flew into Grigor’s chest. The torch lights came back to life.

            Argennon was left kneeling, he took in a deep breath and stood back up. He pointed to the wall behind where he had been sitting. “There are parachutes under the seats, the other side of this wall is above the dock.” He gripped Grigor by the shoulders and head butted him affectionately. “I’ve always thought of you as a son. Now go. I’ll see you in Valhalla.”

            Argennon ran through the archway and out of sight. Grigor punched the wall with a straight right hand. Bricks and mortar exploded out of the side of the building and into the night sky. The room was suddenly filled with a violent wind, making it harder for them to don parachutes.

            Grigor stood at the entrance to the night and looked down at the jetty. There was his ship, but all across the industrial skyline of Arkansaw were flames, smoke and explosions. Great black forms floated throughout the smoke, raining terror down on the Barbarian capital.

            He turned to his cohorts, pointed down to the ship and shouted above the wind. “See you down there.” He then proceeded to dive out into the dark, sulphur tainted night.

            As 5 parachutes bloomed open in the night sky like giant flowers, a great guttural roar filled the air. Glass shattered from every window of the great hall. Immediately lightning began to shoot out through the empty window frames, accompanied with the booming of iron clashing on obsidian.

            Then there was nothing, except a great sadness that crept magnanimously into the hearts of everyone.

            They landed on the deck of the Grigor’s large space ship, the crew had already prepped the ship, and looked cautiously at Grigor as he landed.

            “Go!” he didn’t even need to shout this order, the ship was already pulling away from the jetty, and rose into the air, slowly at first, but gaining speed quickly.

            They all stood at the rear guard rail of the ship watching as the great palace grew smaller. Even from that distance they could still see and feel the piercing red eyes of the Dark Lord as he stared directly at the ship.

            They were frozen in place until the whole ship was enveloped in a black smoke-cloud, so dense they could barely see each other. No one said a word as they launched out of the top of the cloud, and out into space at hyper-speed.

Indy and Harvey had managed to follow Grigor’s Pirate ship all the way across the galaxy. However, just before they reached Bravarion, they got separated in a stellar dust cloud. While Grigor’s larger ship just cruised straight through, Indy and Harvey needed to wait for the dust to past. It only took four hours but that was enough for them to get lost.

            As they came down into the planet’s atmosphere the ship’s maps went blank. They ended up setting down in a small barbarian keep out in the northern wastes. It was a small keep, only a handful of buildings, the biggest obviously being the drinking hall.

            The second largest was the town’s only real industry, a large dragon keep, where wild dragons from much farther north were trained and reared.

            The duo found themselves in the drinking hall, sitting on one of the long wooden tables close to the fire with two large tankards of mead between them. They were feeling very out of place.

            “Hey do you feel, like… I’m not sure how to describe it, like we’re more well described? This whole place seems much more legible” Harvey said, after having another drink of the mead.

            “Yeah, I’ve had that before, you know about karma right? How there’s balance all over the place and all that jazz?” Harvey nodded, Indy had a quick look around  and lowered his voice “Well, the barbarians on this planet are so dumb that all prose related to this area becomes more in depth. You’ll find as well that crazy things just don’t happen as often, due to the amount of crazy people who live here.  It’s just how the universe works”

            At a neighbouring table two massive barbarians were sitting on rough wooden stools, the table they were sitting at was wet with spilt beer from the several overturned tankards. Their beards and long hair were insuperable, hiding most of their faces. They were held in a deep and elaborated discussion on the intricacies of head butting. The auburn haired one was telling his friend how he once head butted through a wall. While the other’s rebuttal was to regale the tale of when he head butted a polar bear into a month long coma.

            Indy glanced at Harvey “see what I mean?”

            “Yeah I do, it’s kind of refreshing though, not having something blow up every three seconds.” At that moment a barbarian at the other end of hall had the unfortunate experience of having his beard explode. This left him in a state of shock, for which the only prescription was more beer. Harvey finished off his tankard and turned to Indy “karma”.

            Seeing as the outpost very rarely saw any outsiders, and the fact that there were only eight patrons in at the time (which nearly comprised the entire populace of the keep) the barmaid quickly swept upon their table.

            “Can I get you handsome guys any more drinks?” the volumptious bar maid asked them.

            “Yeah, two beers, this mead stuff isn’t really our cup of tea” Indy replied “Have you got any idea what’s up with the navigation systems, does this type of thing happen a lot out here?”

            “Oh no, never like this. A funny thing aswell I overheard today” she leaned in closer over the table, Harvey blushed slightly, she lowered her tone. “Some of the folk have been mentioning about something strange happening further north. They’ve been muttering about seeing a massive black dragon, nothing like the smaller tameable beasts we have out here. There’s also been some mysterious black clouds been spotted. All crazy talk if you ask me, but with you guys turning up here out of the blue, well, maybe something is happening.”

            Harvey and Indy gave each other a strong look, before Indy turned to the barmaid. “Thanks, we’ll keep a look out for anything strange, besides us” he laughed.

            “Ok boys, you enjoy those drinks now” she walked back across the hall to refill some other patron’s drinks.

            “You don’t think it could be…?” Harvey looked anxiously at Indy.

            “Well, considering the chances, I’d say its quite likely. We’ll finish these off, get some rest and check it out in the morning.”

            Just as he finished talking, the main door of the hall slammed open. Standing in the doorway, in the midst of the blizzard of snow that was pouring in from the outside, was Magnus Flamestrike.

            He strode in, snow swirling around his boots and across the floor as he walked. Three other figures followed him into the room, and together they walked up to the barmaid.

            “Where’s the dragon master? We need to speak to him urgently.” The bar maid nodded back along to the table across from where Harvey and Indy were sitting. The man sitting there had a short and singed beard, and due to his entirely burnt off eyebrows he had a constant look of bemusement. He turned his shaggy head to look at the newcomers as they walked over to him. Noting the insignia he stood and saluted as Magnus walked over.

            “Good evening sir.” He tipped his head and relaxed  some more “Hey Ginge, how’s it going?”

            “Good Grogank, we need a favour”

            Magnus looked Grogank in the face “We need to take four of your dragon’s”

            “Oh, I don’t know about that, I just trained a new flock but there’s only 5 of them, you need four?”

            “Yes, we need four. I’ll try and see that they get back to you. Do I have your co-operation?”

            “When do you need them for?”

            “Now.”

            “Ok then, I’ll get them prepared, come over to the dragon keep in 20 minutes.” Grogank pulled his bear fur cloak tight around him, left the warmth of the hall and headed out into the night to get things ready for the group.

            Magnus jumped up onto the table that Grogank was sitting at and spun around. Everyone in the hall was looking up at him with intrigue.

            “I’m sure you all know that we’re the area’s ranger group, and I need you all to listen to me. We found something up in the north, got no idea what it is yet but it’s nothing good. I need you all to head back to civilisation, any way you can.”

            “Pah. I got my trusty axe, we’ll be fine here.” Said a large barrel chested barbarian.

            “It looks like an invading army, you can try your chances if you want.”

            “Yeah, I’ll do that, now get me a new drink Greta” The barbarian smashed his near empty tankard on the tablle and splashed the dregs everywhere. The other barbarians murmured their agreement and held their own tankards out for re-filling.

            “No one leaving then? You’re all going to stay here? Well that makes me proud. Good luck guys, give them hell!” Magnus jumped down off the table and beckoned over his team to sit down. “Greta! We’ll get four meads aswell!” he shouted to loud sounds of approval from the other patrons.

            While Magnus and his team go down to drinking, Indy grabbed Harvey and they walked over to the team. “Is anyone sitting here?” he gestured to the empty seats at the table. Magnus looked around.

            “Well I don’t see anyone queuing up to grab a seat. Sit down, what can I do you for? You look quite foreign.”

            “Yeah, we’re from another star system.” Indy sat down on the bench, Harvey followed suit. “What was that you saw up there?”

            “Oh, we’re not sure. There was a big black tower with a large dragon and what looks like an army, they’ve knocked out our radio so we’re going back to base to report. What brings you guys here? You don’t have anything to do with it. Do you?”

            Harvey flustered a little “um.. kind of. We were hunting the Dark Lord Volkang, we’re sure he headed here, and I have a feeling that he’s behind that tower in the north.”

            “The Lord Volkang you say?” Magnus narrowed his eyes.

            “I heard he was a dead man” Alex said.

            “Ah yeah, he may be back, more powerful than ever, with the heart of a Dragon king?” in his nervousness Harvey finished his sentence with a question. This made him sound like a bitch.

            “Oh, he has the heart of a Dragon king? Well, what does he want here?” Magnus said thoughtfully.

            “He may be here for the spirit of the Barbarian King?” Harvey finished with another question.

            “You what?!” Magnus and the team sat bolt up-right and glared at Harvey.

            “It’s the last thing he needs to dominate the galaxy?”

            “Ok, I’ve heard enough. Team, let’s go, we need to warn the king!” The Ranger team stood up, finished off their tankards and gathered their kit. “Have fun trying not to get killed.” The team left through the door and disappeared into the blizzard.

            “What are we going to do now?” Harvey asked Indy.

            “Well let’s finish off these pints first” at that moment Grognak walked back in through the large door, behind him came the outspoken barbarian from earlier carrying several broadswords and axes. The entire population of the village was now inside the hall and were busy setting about to their individual tasks. “What’s everyone doing?” Indy said aloud.

            “Ah, do ye not know barbarian rule lad?” said a man carrying an entire table over his shoulder. “Never back down, never surrender. If that army up there wants us, it can bloody well come an’ fight us.”

            “So you guys are getting ready to fight?”

            “You bet! Now grab yourselves an axe and start helping” He lumbered off to set the table down with a heavy thud in front of the large doors.

            Harvey and Indy both picked  themselves up one of the smaller axes carried in by the outspoken barbarian. Indy turned to Harvey, finished off his tankard and said.

            “Looks like we’ve just been drafted” Harvey was un-impressed. “Get it? Like draught beer, that we’ve just been drinking, no? Well, I thought it was funny.”

            They both began struggling to drag the table they were at across to the doorway. When they successfully added to the barricade everyone stopped and the room was silent for a minute, far away they could hear a rumbling, it sounded like the drums of war.

Magnus Flamestrike looked out across the northern wastes of Bravarion. He was a ranger for the Barbarian homeland defence, he was posted in the far north and had been out in the wastes with his three man crew for two moons now. Right now everyone else was getting their camp ready underneath the snow laden firs while they still had light to guide them.

            Magnus was standing at the top of the cliff they had camped at, looking out into the endless white wastes. He could make out no discernible objects, just ambiguous shapes and shades of white for as far as his keen vision could see. His scarf flapped violently across his grizzled face while he had a drag of the cigarette he was smoking. How long was he going to be out here dammit, nothing happened up here. They should have sent a rookie, he thought, he could do so much more with his talents. To top it off his brown  military overcoat was barely keeping out the chill. He just wished something would happen, or they’d get the call to swap with the next crew, but he knew that wouldn’t happen for at least another month.

            He scanned the horizon with he had his last drag, he was certain there was nothing out there but routine made him check one last time, and this time he paused. Far out in the distance he saw a very faint flash and a slight tremble in the bright red sunset lit clouds. From this disturbance he saw a small black streak drive directly down into the wastes and into a valley far in the distance. From this valley a thin plume of smoke could be seen from where Magnus was standing.

            Now something was happening, this was what he was there for, but what was that? It looked rather ominous. He had the sinking feeling that this wouldn’t just be a routine search. There was no way they’d survive crossing the wastes tonight, definitely not over that distance. Turning around he strode back through the trees. The camp was set back five or so minutes and that gave him time to mull over what he’d seen, he decided it’d be best to send back a message to the field commander, if they left early tomorrow they’d be able to get to whatever the hell that was and get back to camp before nightfall. They might even be able to hitch a lift back to civilisation with the research teams.

            He strode back into camp as the last few rays of light penetrating the forest faded. The rest of the crew looked up at him.

            “Sir, camp’s fully set up and Ginger’s cooking up some tasty grub” Leopold snapped a quick salute. The four small tents had been set up on the snowy floor in the clearing, with Ginger and Alexander sitting around the fire. Ginger was tending to a steaming pot while Alexander sat cleaning his rifle.

            “Good work Leopold. I’ve got news, come with me.” He walked into the middle of the camp and stood by the fire.

            “aight captain, anything new happening out in the wastes?” Alexander said sarcastically with a bit of a smirk.

            “Funny you should say so, because there is something happening out there” Ginger stopped tending her pot and looked up from her cooking,  while Alexander held a look of surprise. “Something crashed down about 7 clicks from here two valleys over. First light tomorrow we go and check it out. Be ready for trouble it was black and its set off my gut instinct.”

            “Ha, that might just be Ginger’s cooking” Ginger threw Alexander a sharp glance.

            “She’s not that bad” He rolled his eyes at her second sharp look. “Leopold, get on the radio to the commander, tell him we’ll be investigating an unknown and to send a research team up here. We’ll give him a report tomorrow before nightfall.” Leopold went over and started fiddling with the radio pack they’d carried with them. “Alex, check all our munitions and set out the lightweight blasters. We’ll be on recon tomorrow. Now, when’s grub up? I’m famished.”

                                         ***

They woke up before the sunrise, packed away the camp-site into their bags and set off  out of the snowy forest. They climbed down the cliff face that Magnus had stood atop the night before. They were one of the best ranger teams in that side of the galaxy, and they were down the cliff face within minutes.

            “Magnus, those aren’t normal clouds” Alexander was pointing across the white waste to where the object had crashed. High above the valley black clouds were swirling around slowly, contrasting heavily against the completely white sky.

            “Yeah, this is getting weirder by the minute. Leopold, was there any response from base?”

            “No sir, I’ve been trying since last night and still nothing” Leopold shrugged back to him.

            “I know you guys don’t approve, but my women’s intuition is telling me that something bad is going down” Ginger added. Alexander came over and patted her on the shoulder.

            “When bad shit goes down. We’re there to clean it up don’t forget!” he said cockily.

            “Alright, the suns about to fully come up, we need to get on and up onto the ridge of the next valley as soon as possible. Alexander move out”  Magnus dropped to the back of the single file column behind Ginger while Leopold took point.

            They travelled slowly through the knee-deep snow and the biting wind, all the way over the first ridge and down through the first valley. The dark clouds had become more massive and ominous as they neared the slope up to the ridge separating the two valleys.

            When they had neared the copse of trees at the top of this ridge Leopold stopped.

            “Sir, the snow here’s melting.”

            “What do you mean, that’s imposs-” he looked at the floor and sure enough the snow was beginning to glisten, looking around he could see small shoots of green grass poking up through the snow. And even clear patch underneath the sparse trees higher up. “What the hell is going on!”

            The crew covered the last few meters of ground and threw themselves down on the ridge top, from here they had a clear view into the valley below. Alexander already had the video-noculars out. What they saw sent shivers down all four spines.

            The valley below was deep, and about 2 miles across. The edges still held onto the snow that hadn’t left this land since time began, but the middle of the valley was a different story. Dead in the middle of the valley, sticking up out of a large impact crater was a black tower. Deep inside the tower burning furnaces could be seen, and the clanking of heavy machinery could be heard echoing across the valley. Sitting atop the tower, nearly inside the black clouds, was a massive black dragon. It’s wings were folded up behind it’s giant body, but they looked like they easily be as long as a bus each.

            “Alex, you got enough recorded?” Magnus was rather agitated

            “Aye sir.”

            “Let’s get off this ridge then.” They turned and retreated down the slope, stopping about halfway down. They were all speechless, after a while Magnus spoke.

            “Any news on the radio Leo?”

            “No, still no signal sir. I have a feeling that, whatever that thing back there is, it must be jamming all the signals.”

            “Damn, what do we do now? We need to get back and warn everyone. Looks like we’re going to have to do that on foot.”

            “Or not” Ginger had a hidden smile, “I happen to know there’s an outpost 20 clicks from here. They have a dragon keep  there, we can get a flight back to base and get the defences set up.”

            “Good one Ginge, it’ll take us a while to cover that much ground, we’ll get there deep after nightfall. Grab some food and some rest, we move out in 10 minutes.”

Indy and the crew were floating steadily towards the main planet of the Vorgon 5 system. They’d just exited hyperspace and felt decidedly groggy, three days of playing intergalactic risk had taken its toll. They were all dying to get out of the cramped living space and stretch their legs. Also, for three guys who don’t really like each other anyway, the three days had been quite tense. Culminating in a bid for freedom by Space-Hitler in the only ejector pod, luckily they managed to tranquillise him before he made an escape.

            They were coming into view of Vorgonia, the main planet of the system. As the planets filled up the windscreen of ship Space-hitler exclaimed.

            “Zat is no moon! No, wait, it is a moon, my bad”

            “Look you’ve been saying that at every interstellar body we’ve seen. We get it, Star Wars is a good film, get over it” Harvey retorted.

            “It’s a trap?” Space-hitler said.

            “Dude, that doesn’t even make sense.”

            “Shut up guys, we’re entering the planets atmosphere. What’s this planet like? Haven’t you already been here before Harvey?”  Indy said.

            “Yeah, my parents dragged me here yearly for our holidays, um… it’s very green, its like a holiday and retirement planet so its what you’d expect. Lots of scenic lakes and walking places, quaint little villages, bingo halls and playgrounds.”

            “Why would a dark overlord live there?” Indy asked

            “Well, no-ones gonna look for him there I guess, and its quite pretty”

            As the clouds thinned the landscape below became apparent, and it wasn’t what they expected.

            They were looking down on a barren valley, the great castle could be seen at the far end of valley on the cliff edge. Below them the blackened land gave few clues to what had been there before. The faint scars of roads criss-crossed the valley, and large areas of flaming rubble were all that remained  of the quaint villages that Harvey had described.

            A large portion of the valley was flooded, and large black smoke spewing volcanoes had risen up like islands in the old lake. The entire valley was dead. The great dragon they had seen on google maps was gone from the top of the castle.

            “Ah, this might be a problem, lets land and find out what the hell is going on” Indy said with some grimace as he piloted the ship down towards the castle. They landed just outside the gate and disembarked.

            “So Indy, vat iz ze plan?”

            “Well, we knock first and ask what’s going on and if we can have the heart back, that’s just politeness”

            “Iz zat not like ze dumbest idea? Even I could tell you zat iz not going to work.

            “You got a better plan?”

            “Go home and pretend zere iz nothing wrong?”

            “That’s a rubbish plan, besides it’s my way or the high-way! Now let’s find out what’s going on” With that Indy walked up to the massive gate and knocked the flaming skull knocker. It’s banging resonated ominously throughout the valley, dislodging a gaggle of black ravens that were nesting in the charred corpse of a nearby tree.

            Very slowly the massive door at the other end of bridge over the moat opened slightly, a small man sidestepped out of the gap and slowly walked across the massive bridge. As he got closer they make out his features. He was under average in height, very smartly dressed in coat and tails and had a very English look about him. After a few minutes he reached the gate and stopped on the other side of it.

            “Can I help you?” he asked in a very well-spoken manner.

            “Um, yeah, is the dark lord around at all?” Indy said

            “Unfortunately the sire is out at the moment, what was your business with him regarding?”

            “We may have accidentally sold him something off Ebay, it wasn’t actually for sale. Is there any way we could get it back?”

            “This must be the Dragon Heart? I am sorry to tell you that sire has already incorporated it. You will not get that back”

            “What do you mean ‘incorporated’ it?!”

            “I’m sure you know that he was destroyed in the last Great War. He’s been reclaiming body parts ever since, now he almost has everything, the shoulders of a rugby player, the legs of a strongman, the wrists and right arm of a virgin World of Warcraft player, the eyes of a hawk and Einstein’s brain. With the Dragon Heart, all he needs now is the soul of a Barbarian King.”

            “oh boy” said Harvey “so what happened here?”

            “With his new power, sire ended a very long debate about noise pollution. Well, I need to go dust some antique teapots, good day sirs.” He turned around and headed back across the bridge and into the castle.

            As the door closed a loud roar filled the air, looking up they saw Grigor’s giant wooden ship floating down through the dark clouds.

            “Look, it’s that guy who cut us up in the space port. Do you reckon he’s come to apologise?” Harvey said.

            “Ah, I may know the owner of zat ship, zis will be awkward” Space-hitler said nervously.

The massive pirate ship lowered itself slowly down from above them, the massive anchor already weighed into the charred ground. Before it had even properly landed Grigor front flipped from the deck to the ground.

            “You!” He shouted, pointing at Space-hitler while unstrapping and taking his battleaxe off his back with the other hand. Marching over to him he grabbed him by the throat. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you right now.”

            “Gigor, I am zorry for stealing ze Dragonheart we have bigger issues on our plates now”

            “That’s not a good enough reason” Grigor swung his flaming axe over his head with his spare hand. He then let go of Space-hitler and brought the axe straight it down in one clean sweep. He cut Space-hitler completely in twain. The two halves of Space-hitler sparked violently, the protruding wires and mechanics already flaming.

            “And who are you two?” he swung his axe to point at them both.

            “I’m Indy, and this is Harvey. We weren’t really friends with that guy.”

            “Do you know where the Dragonheart is?”

            “Ah, well, turns out the Dark Lord Volkang got hold of it.”

            “Not the Volkang? Shit.”

            “Yes, the Volkang, he’s already incorporated it. Now he’s after the spirit of the Barbarian King”

            “Well, that would be king Argennon. He’s incredibly strong, and the Barbarian home world is well defended. But Volkang is strong, and who knows how powerful he is now he’s got the Dragonheart. Thanks for the heads-up, we’re going to go warn them.” Grigor turned around and shouted up to the ship that had just landed “Hoist the main sails and swab the decks! We need to leave again.”

            As he turned and started to walk back towards the pirate ship, Indy interjected.

            “Hey! What about us? What do we do? You just killed our house mate and you’re just going to leave?”

            “Yes I am.” Grigor said, grabbing the rope holding the anchor and rose with it back into the ship, within minutes the pirate ship was rising and turning away into the sky.

            Indy and Harvey shielded their eyes from the dust kicked up by the ship’s engines. As soon as he could he kicked a nearby tree stump.

            “aw, shit. What the hell do we do now?”

            “Well we’ve only got one option, we need to go help” Harvey replied bravely.

            “you really think we can do anything? We don’t have any powers, we’re all squishy and die easily. We’ve been luckily thus far, and we need to find someone else to share our rent dammit!”

            “Hey, we’ve come this far. And to be fair, we haven’t actually blown much shit up yet. No way near enough shit to satisfy my manly urges.”

            “Fair point, alright, we’ll brush Space-hitler up into a tidy pile first, he’s a creepy robot thing anyway.”

            “Awesome. Let’s blow some stuff up and hang out with some strippers! To the Barbarian home world!”

They had waited until morning to strike the house where Space-Hitler lived. That gave some time for Napalm to sober up and for Grigor to teach Illana how guns work. Chainsaw-boy had spent the night in an epic training montage and now had mad kung-fu skills.

            Now they were standing outside the door to the reasonably small semi-detatched that Harvey and Indy called home.    

            “This is it, are you ready guys? Get ready for boobie-traps” Napalm sniggered but was silenced by a sharp glare from Grigor “and there will most probably be Nazi-Robots as well. Illana, you stand at the back and watch our exit. Ok Chainsaw-boy, hit it!”

            Chainsaw-boy started laying into the door with his chainsaw arms, he was throwing uppercuts, jabs, left hooks. He was throwing everything he had at this door and was nearly disappearing under the cloud of sawdust. But within seconds there was only an empty archway left. Grigor stepped in first, flaming battleaxe at the ready.

            “Space-Hitler! Come out and fight me like a man” he roared. There was no answer. Napalm and Chainsaw-boy stepped into the living room cautiously while Illana watched. “Where are you?!” He shouted while smashing through the coffee table, which exploded.

            “Hey, I don’t think anyone’s here. Look, there’s three jet-pack spaces here, and they’re all missing. Looks like they left in a hurry” Chainsaw-boy pointed out. They still searched the whole house but found no sign of life anywhere.

            “Maybe they’ll be back. We wait here for them.” Grigor said. Sitting down on the sofa he pulled out a flask and began to drink. Napalm sat down on the chair next to the sofa and began to play his guitar leg, while Illana went to help make Chainsaw-boy a cup of tea.

            “What’ll we do if those landlubbers don’t come back? Maybe they found out we was comin’” Napalm asked Grigor.

            “Then we’re going hunting.” His grimace showed determination.

A few hours later they were in the roughest pub on the asteroid. Napalm was getting on to being paraletic, Chainsaw-boy was on his fifteenth pint new pint, and still trying un-successfully to get it into his mouth with his chainsaw arms, he was rather soaked. Illana was still sipping at her first Martini and coke and Grigor was regaling loudly how he slayed the King of the Tax Demons in a flaming motorbike duel on mars. With corresponding hand actions, that had his beer flying eveywhere.

            The other customers in the pub were obviously getting pissed off. But after Grigor decapitated the first man to knock into him and spill his pint, they decided it probably wasn’t worth it. Also, considering they didn’t have named parts, they’d quite likely end up on the receiving side of death. Even the french armoured bears relaxing after a hard day taking names didn’t want to mess with him.

            One member of the pub was rather more confident and headstrong than the rest. Sitting quietly in the dark corner of the pub he watched Grigor’s table intently, his beer sitting un-drunk on the table. The only thing that would bring any attention to him was the slight glint from the necklace he wore.

            It wasn’t until Grigor started complaining loudly about Space-Hitler’s escape that he turned. Listened for a while, adjusted his flat peak cap and approached the group.

            Illana was the first person to notice him walking over to the table and tugged on Grigor’s arm.

            “I think this guy wants to speak to you”

            Turning around Grigor found him face to face with the most blinging dinosaur he had ever encountered. He was obviously a velociraptor, standing about the same size as a normal man, but around his neck was a massive clock hanging from a heavy gold chain, along with multiple diamond encrusted crosses and dollar signs. His teeth were gilded with gold, on his face he was wearing massive sunglasses and a cap that said gangsta on his head. His lizardy skin was a mix of blues and greens, and he was wearing the flashiest high topped trainers for miles around.

            “I think I should introduce myself yo. I’m the Ty-rap-o-saurus Rex, I couldn’t help but overhear you’re looking for someone, and I’ve got some information that’ll help, you get me?”

            “Yes, I get you. What do we have to do to get this information?”

            “You have to take me with you. There ain’t no room for my to express my lyrical rhymes out here on this waste man rock blud.”

            “Oh, who didn’t see that one coming” Chainsaw-boy muttered to himself.

            “You look like you can handle yourself, I guess you can join.” said Grigor.

            “Of course, I’ve shanked bare next-mans”

            “Whatever that means, I’m sure its very important. Now your first job as a magnitude of awesome is to tell me where I can find Space-Hitler”

            “Ok boi, get this, I was just playing some dice in the alley with these two bears, and they said that the Baron literally just gave away this hyperdrive core to these dudes. One of them was Space-Hitler, turns out they’re heading to the Vorgon system”

            “The Vorgon system… what could be there that they’d want?”

            “I dunno blud, but man, when I was dinky I accidentally kicked my ball into Space-Hitler’s garden, the braeh totally knifed my ball man. I hate that dick”

            “He’s stolen from me aswell, don’t worry, when I finish this pint we’ll go and get our revenge” With that he downed his whole pint and threw the glass on the floor, which exploded, high-fived the rapping dinosaur and walked out with the crew following him. They had ass-kicking to do.

Harvey and Space-hitler loaded the hyperdrive core into the light cruiser’s waiting engine bay, the quiet engine tubes suddenly flashed blue and settled down to a mild blue colour. Standing back and closing the bonnet they turned around to see Indy embracing the baron.

“Are we good to go?” he asked as they came over, to which they nodded their response. “Ok, we’ll head off now” he said to the Baron

“See you on the other side, brother.”

They walked up the loading ramp and into the light ship, Indy got himself sat down at the controls while the others sat and locked themselves into the chairs in the cramped cabin.

The interior of the ship was completely pimped out, everything was pink fur and diamonds, with a stripper pole, disco ball and pool table, this left little room for chairs. They waved to the Baron and his bear entourage through the window as they pulled up and away from the ground.

Indy negotiated his way through the space port and set them up and away from the asteroid. The sun was just setting over the horizon. They were barely two clicks out from the port when a much larger pirate ship was heading straight for them.

“What the hell is this jackass doing!” Indy exclaimed, “Well I sure as hell ain’t moving” and he held his course.

“Indy don’t make uz crash now!” Space-Hitler said cautiously. “look, he iz obviously not moving just pull over”

“No, its my right of way, I’ll do what I damn well want with it.” And he held his ground. It wasn’t until the final second that the larger ship swung violently out of the way, looking down on the deck they saw a rag tag crew of dodgy pirates, a person with chainsaws for arms and a very drunk shouty pirate man at the helm.

“Get a job you scurvy dogs!!” the shouty pirate shouted.

“What a dick, I have a job, you guys have jobs right?” said Indy, the others shook their heads “ah, well he’s still a dick, damn pirates”

Soon they were up and out of the atmosphere, cruising happily in space. Indy set the co ordinates for the Vorgon system and sat back with hands behind head.

“The computer says we’ll be there in about 3 days, what do you guys wanna do in the mean time? What about machete snap? no. ok, Intergalactic Risk it is!” he pulled a large rectangular box off the nearest shelf.

The next three days were going to be boring as hell.

Illana had settled down reasonably into the pirate crew, she pulled her weight, and had proven to be a rather competent cook. Something that was definitely lacking in the crew, considering that all their meals consisted of a mixture of skittles and fish fingers.

She had taken it upon herself to organise bath times, much to the dismay of the crew. But many of them had found things lost aeons ago in the depths of their un-kempt beards. Various magical artifacts, explosives, Ol’ Greg even found a family of dolphins living in his.

She had to put up a few un-solicited approaches from the more headstrong of the crew, but she was a devout catholic and waiting for the perfect man to sweep into her life and take her away to live forever in his magical rainbow castle.

“Now thats a fine ass” Grigor said as he patted Chainsaw-boy on the back. As usual Grigor was wearing the usual barbarian cloths, a loin cloth made of the fur of a lion, his broadsword at his waste and his armoured shoulder dazzling everyone in the vicinity. Even the pipe he was smoking gave off an aura of awesomeness.

“Dude, she has feelings you know. But you’re right” They high-fived. It was Epic.

“Has she got any plans for what she’s going to do when we get to the asteroid? You’re closest to her” He was right, they’d spent many nights looking around at the stars, listening to coldplay and just talking. Chainsaw-boy had gone down a few penis sizes since the start of the journey.

“Well, a big floating ball of ice doesn’t really give many options to a lesbian supermodel, why?”

“I’m putting together a team, its going to be the most lethal task force in the galaxy, it’s going to get the Dragonheart back with no fuss and complete professionalism.”

“Is this force going to consist of say, me, you, Napalm and Illana perchance?”

“Yes.. How did you guess that?” Grigor inquired.

“Well, we’re the only named characters so far in this novel, it kind of makes sense you know”

“Now you mention it, that does make sense” He puffed on his pipe nonchalantly. “Regardless, I need her on the team. Napalm’s been torn up about having to leave his killer whale friends behind, and she seems to be the only one to get him back to normal.”

“Your method of telling him to man the fuck up didn’t work then?”

“Basically, no. These women have magical powers over feelings that I will never understand.”

“Tell me about it” Chainsaw boy said while trying to remove the peel from the orange that he had balanced on one chainsaw with the other chainsaw, needless to say, he was making a mess. “Damn, stupid oranges. How long till we get there anyway?”

“Should be arriving tonight, about dusk, I can’t wait to do some smashing”. With that he left the deck and went below to sharpen some axes.

Chainsaw boy was left alone to look at Illana, damn, she did have a fine ass.

Napalm was blindingly drunk, so drunk he couldn’t see, but that was the only way the pain of missing his beloved whales could be cured. But he was the only one who could steer the boat, and they were nearing the asteroid’s space port.

“Whuzzzat?!” He shouted and pointed from the helm, which was more holding him up than being steered.

“That would be me sir” his first mate told him.

“Ok, hand me that err.. doobie there son.”

Stumbling backwards he took a long drag, turned back to the helm.

“Whuzzafuckiszat!” Napalm exclaimed

“Thats ol’ Greg sir.”

“Whazzhe doin wiz that dolphin?”

“Um.. he appears to be feeding it sir.” Sure enough he was hand feeding the dolphins that had made a nest in his beard. “sir, is there any chance you could steer the ship, we’re about to collide with that light cruiser”

“Ah yeah, I’ll do some of that steering thing.” He spun the wheel arbitrarily and narrowly avoided the small ship. Much to the annoyance of the ship, which had right of way. “Get a job you scurvy dogs!!” He shouted, in between swigs of the whiskey bottle he was holding.

He must’ve had a natural instinct that came from centuries of doing the same thing, because within seconds of avoiding the collision he fell asleep on the wheel. But he still somehow managed to land them safely into the space port with only a few near crashes. After the crew found it was impossible to wake him, they decided to leave him slumped over the wheel while they unloaded and got the ship shored up.

Grigor found Illana sitting on the deck looking out over the port and the town behind, she looked rather forlorn.

“Hey, do you have any plans now?”

“Well, I guess I’ll have to go find a job, start a new life out here” she said in her thick italian accent.

“You don’t have to, I have a proposition for you. How would you live to join my team?”

“I don’t have anything better to do, I’ll join your team. Do we have a kick-ass name?

“I was thinking, ‘Grigor the Destructionator and the Magnitudes of Awesome’ you guys would be the magnitudes.”

“Its a bit of a handful and it doesn’t make sense, but I like it!”

“Ok, go to the armoury and get tooled up” he said with a smile.