As neither myself, Cleetus, or the mecha dragon that we rode could piss sulphuric acid, I was all but certain our fiery deaths were upon us.

"Thank you for serving me all these years, Cleetus," I said softly as the mecha dragons before us roared. Cleetus said nothing, just stoically closed his eyes as if preparing himself for the end like a champ.

But then, before the heat of scorching fire could be felt, once more familiar voices called up from below: "PROVIDER! PROVIDER!"

The dragons before is quickly looked down at the unexpected sounds. I followed suit.

The Boom-Boom bloom of cat-alien hybrids had been burned to ash moments earlier- yet now those burnpiles were moving. They began to morph into new, black cat-alien hybrids, still taking a feline-like shape, yet somehow even more hideous and startling than before. Equally surprising, whereas before they had been exploded into seperate entities, the separate cats now seems to jump onto one another, morphing into a singular, giant cat-like monstrosity.

Cleetus and I just watched dumbfounded as this all happened. The mecha dragons seemed equally stunned and had all but shifted their focus to this growing beast.

"Just what the fuck are aliens from Uranus like?" muttered Cleetus under his breath.

"Apparently really horrifying," I replied. We had really learned nothing about that strange figure before Boom-Boom had been chucked at it; there seemed to be a lot we didn't know, particularly in its phisiology and biology.

As the now one Boom-Boom hybrid began to grow the mecha dragons started to roar. New waves of fire were directed at her- and they seemed to have an impact; she once again crumbled into ash with a painful scream. But in mere seconds, the ash was alive again and becoming a giant cat once more. This cycle of coming back alive only to be burned continued; while little happened or deviated in this action, it seemed to be keeping the mecha dragons caught in a Sisyphusian loop, and their attention away from us.

"Maybe Detective LaLouf was right," remarked Cleetus, "maybe we did knock our heads together at some point and this is all some shared trippy hallucination."

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"Yeah, this is some weird shit," I agreed. Suddenly, I had an idea. "Cleetus, maybe while the dragons are distracted we can use the opportunity to melt the polar ice caps as originally planned!"

"Will we be able to get this dragon blowing fire without the others noticing and becoming suspicious?"

I observed the enemy mecha dragons, well engrossed with trying to destroy the supernatural Boom-Boom that kept reforming before them. "I mean...they seem pretty occupied..."

"I guess it's worth a shot," Cleetus shrugged, "we can't count on Boom-Boom to keep their attention forever."

The snow right below us had been pretty well-consumed by the Boom-Boom bloom in preparation for the urination showdown, but not far ahead was an untouched patch.

"Dragon," I commanded, "melt that snow!"

As instructed, flames came out of the dragon we rode; the ice and snow turned quickly into a sizable puddle of water.

"That was easy-" Cleetus began. But the dragon continued to breathe fire- the puddle was quickly being evaporated.

"Dragon! No! Stop!" I instructed in a hurry, "MELT the snow, but leave the water there!"

The mecha dragon blinked and almost seemed to roll its eyes, as if my request were stupid. But it halted its breath and moved on to another snowbank, leaving some liquid behind.

"Okay, so we have a little water," I said, "and plenty more snow to melt."

"That's really an insignificant amount of water based on the number of mecha dragons we have to fight," remarked Cleetus glumly.

"We're getting more," I countered, "besides, the sulphuric urine already burned some holes in them- adding water to the wounds might be enough to do some substantial damage."

"And did we ever determine how exactly we were going to get the water onto the mecha dragons?"

"...maybe we can fly them into it," I suggested.

"...fly them into a puddle."

"There will be additional water! Look, our dragon's melted some more!"

"This seems like it's gonna be a logistic issue we really should have thought about before."

"Look, Negative Norbert," I said annoyed, "do you have any other bright ideas?"

"Maybe Boom-Boom can drink from these puddles and piss more acid on them. That had a good success last time."

"Um, Boom-Boom currently is getting incinerated every time she tries to reform. It's a good distraction, but leaves little time for her to consume and process liquids."

Cleetus paused a moment. "Then perhaps once our dragon has melted enough snow we need to switch roles and become the distraction Boom-Boom needs to refill."

I sighed. He was right- the sulphuric acid urine attack had worked best against the dragons. But it had already been harrowing enough barely surviving their flames so far- did we really want to risk it again?

But I nodded to my companion, out of thoughts of any alternative solution.

"Okay," I said slowly, "once the dragon melts a bit more we'll become a distraction again."

I hoped the melting process would take a long time. But alas, the dragon seemed efficient.