I awoke on the dusty tiles in Englishland, where I worked, and kneeling beside me was my co-teacher and girlfriend, Bada Kang, whom I met after transferring here. Standing around me, looking with concern plastered to their faces, was Ihar Zhuk, the school's owner, Liba Alpert, the school assistant-director, along with Nidar Dahl the academic director.
"Your up! You're awake! You silly bloke!", came the exciting words from my best friend and another teacher, Jacob Whatley.
"Stop wasting everyone's time now. You're just fine!" said Ralph Brown, a usually unhappy teacher.
"You do look so cute while passed-out, for sure, ha-ha-ha!", Ala Nedayvoda, a pretty, seductive, and downright scary woman who was the last of the staff replied.
"Sorry everyone," I said meekly, "I think the jet lag and change of diet has gotten to me. Maybe I just need to rest."
"You need not worry, young man! Jacob and Bada can walk you home if you feel up to it. I will take your classes tonight." Nidar said kindly.
"Of course, of course. Go rest! And let me know if you need a hospital or doctor. Although I think you just need a good meal and plenty of sleep." Ihar added.
"Bada, you take off tonight as well. I'll cover for you. Use the Asian food market near here and buy some great ingredients to feed this poor boy. Can you cook?" Liba asked.
"Oh, yes! I learned many recipes from my grandma. I'll make him something healthy for sure! Thank you!" Bada replied happily.
"Here," Ihar said, "This is the school's credit card. Stock up his apartment with groceries and anything else he needs. Take care of yourself too!"
"Thank you so much! You are all too nice!" I said with a tear running down my cheek.
"At least some of us are, huh?" Ralph scoffed and walked out.
"I'm sure Bada can care for you well. Don't forget, I could make you feel even better!" Ala said with a wink and she galivanted away. I shivered uncomfortably.
All of that stuff, from before, must have been a dream! Wow! What a doozy! My imagination was always top-notch, but I never had a dream so detailed before. And dreams within a dream as well!
Bada and Jacob walked me back to my apartment and laid me down in bed. Jacob gave me his best and went back to work, while Bada looked in my kitchen to see what I had.
Nothing.
"Goodness, Druk! You don't have a morsel to eat! No wonder! I'm going to the market now. Just sleep, and rest, and when I get back, I'll make something delicious and to your liking for sure!" she said while coming to me, kissing my forehead, feeling my face with the back of her hand, and giving me that glowing smile that melted my heart like butter.
When she went out, I smiled to myself thinking about her intoxicating presence, and then tried to remember all that I had dreamt. I needed a pen and paper to write all this down! I got up, gingerly, and went to the desk in my room, shuffling around in the drawers looking for the pen I left behind there. I knew there was a pen inside. I had the paper. Where what that foolish pen?
"Wake up, fool!" a gruff man's voice called out.
"No! I have to find the pen. I have to write my dreams!" I annoyingly answered.
"You must out-of-your-mind, dude!" he said.
"I have to stay here! I want to stay where everything is peaceful! Where I'm taken care of!"
"You're insane! How ignorant! You gotta take care of yourself, dude!"
"No! I want Bada back! And my friends! Go away!"
"I don't know no Bada, man! And that skinny British dude is as good as dead! You need to wake yourself up, fella! You got a lot to answer for!"
My eyes opened.
To reality.
Actual reality.
Or was it?
I couldn't be sure anymore.
The reality with me working at the English language school, with my friends, coworkers, bosses, and being sick from lack of eating and jet lag, all that seemed to be real as well. I could have pinched myself and wouldn't have woke up!
This reality, of dragons, powers, superheroes, villains, and fighting, always fighting, seemed unreal. As vivid as it was, it just didn't make sense.
However, I was somewhere strange now. A small warehouse or something. How did I get here? I couldn't remember. No, wait, a garage, yes, a garage. It was well lit with cheap fluorescent lighting and a fishing boat sitting next to me. On the walls were all sorts of decorations. What looked to be bands, rock bands, and beer logos, and music was playing loudly; heavy guitars with a monstrous voice as the signer!
"Dude, you awake now? There you are! I see yer eyes. So, I had to bring you here, to my joint, and get some answers from you. We know who Jacob is, the teleporter. We ain't never seen you before though. You showed up looking like a colorful serpent-man. After I busted your head with this fist," he held up his right arm which was steel, and shimmered under the lights, with a giant balled-up fist! "and dragged you back to my home. You changed to a little Asian boy since then. You got some shape-shifting abilities or somethin?"
"Yea, something like that. Where is Liba? Why do you folks cause so much damage?" I asked.
"That's a long story, dude. Your lady friend in a coma is being held by the Piasa Bird! Ha! What a freak-out! You guys have caused too much trouble over in Belarus. That ice-lady told us all about it! We decided to stop you before meddling with us here in 'Merica! We're sick of hidin! We're guna take this country by storm, and rule it all! Then the rest of the world is next!"
"Why would this group of superpowered people put you in charge of me?" I asked.
"Whaduya mean by that?" he answered while turning red in his ugly face with a scruffy beard and one eye that seemed to be looking to the side while the other was fixated on me.
"You're not exactly, oh, how can I say? Smart. You're not smart at all!" I exclaimed while instantly flaming on, burning the ropes that tied my hands while my Dragonite form came and overtook my body!
I instantly knew to dodge.
Dodge that giant fist projecting towards my face, and then blasted a double hand stream of fire that pushed him back, slamming him into the garage door, busting it off the hinges with the brute flying out into the road in front of his house and crashing to the ground.
He stood up, as angry as a badger, and started to run towards me until he hit a wall. A wall of flesh. Two times bigger than the steel-fisted brute, was another brute, brandishing his neon-pink tight suit!
Big Pinky!
Steel-Fist, as I will call him, hit the ground and Big Pinky picked him up with both hands and tossed him blocks away into a pick-up truck parked on the street. The truck rolled over with him pounding into it, and laying sprawled out on the street; he didn't move.
"Pinky? Why would you…" I began to ask.
"No time for talk. I don't like Shiver. I don't like these people. I help you. Come! Jump on my back! We go to where your skinny friend is!" he shouted.
"Alright! Let's do it!" I replied and lept onto the brute's back as he took off, at a great speed, leaping over houses and cars, with the late evening people going around town all around seeing us. I guess masking ourselves hidden was useless. In no time, we came upon some kind of factory, a steel refinery of some kind, or so Big Pinky muttered.
Smoking with a terrible stench, with everything around being covered in black-smoot, we appeared near what seemed to be a warehouse.
"You friend there!" Pinky said, pointing to the building, "We bust inside! Be ready for fight!"
"Wait! Pinky! You bust in through the front. I'll go in through a window in the back. Count to twenty when I leave, then smash the door! Then smash anyone in your way!"
"Good plan. I smash! You get friend! I count now, go! One, two, three …"
Simple as Big Pinky was, he listened well.
I sprinted to the back of the warehouse and lept up to a window balancing myself on the ledge of the old brick building. Peering inside, I saw Jacob, beaten up, sitting inside some kind of glowing glass container. It must be a way to keep him from teleporting, I thought. There were three people inside, near the front door, talking. They all wore black battle suits, similar to the one Nidhar wore when we were on the helicopter. Upon closer inspection, with my eyes glowing brighter, I could see they all looked exactly the same! Triplets! They all were medium build and medium height, with a strange greenish-brown skin, and large lizard-looking eyes.
They saw my glowing eyes peering in the window, turning their heads with an impressive speed.
The front door blasted open!
Big Pinky roared and the three lizardmen, as best as I can call them, with superior speed, started running all around him striking him with batons and shock-sticks, to no avail. Their weapons had no effect on the giant ogre.
I kicked open the window and went to Jacob. He was passed out. I smashed the glass bubble covering him, that shattered easily, and caused the three speedy geckos, yes, that's what they looked like, geckos, to suddenly stop and look my way. Big mistake.
Before they could react, Pinky scooped them all three up into a bear-hug, smashing their bodies into his, let out another roar, and dropped them into a heap on the floor.
"Pinky? Are they dead?" I asked.
"No, just broken!" he responded. "I wanted to smash bad-mouthed green men for long, long time!
"Come, help me! Grab Jacob and I'll leap onto your back. Take us somewhere safe. Somewhere we can talk." I commanded.
"Yes, me know a place! This town is my home town. I know where to go! My brother's favorite bar. In the basement. I work in past. It closed now. No one goes. I can get inside." He replied.
I jumped to his back and he carried the unconscious Jacob, and we bounded away, reaching our destination in just two of Big Pinky's jumps. We stood behind a bar called Kramden's, with a large fence around us, and Pinky pulled up a secrete door in the yard covered with grass. We went down, with Pinky flipping on a light. He closed the door and what I saw around was a dusty and musty room with old bar stools and tables sitting about.
"Set him on a table. We can try to wake him up! I need to find out what happened!" I exclaimed.
"Why not ask me, Druk! Did you actually think you could come here and run rough-shot over everyone? Ha! This country is covered with superpowered people from all over the globe. And now that the Piasa Bird is helping; things are dire indeed!" Nidar said.
"Nidar! Indeed? What?"
He changed.
Changed form.
To Ihar. Then to me. Then she changed into Big Pinky, which made the real brute pass out, yes, pass out behind me on the floor after seeing himself!
Turning then, to a lovely young woman, with dark hair and skin and black eyes, dressed like a punk-rocker from the 1980s, she smiled, and said,
"I don't believe we have been able to be properly introduced. I'm Cahoki, native to the region, by blood. I know what you wish to do, and let me tell you, the Piasa Bird will eat you all whole if you try to break into his home! Before you even try to do that though, I'm here to stop you!"