"I think the dragon's melted enough," remarked Cleetus. There was now a sizable amount of water where once were snow and ice banks- this was exactly what we had wanted. But I also knew what it meant- he and I would have to cause a distraction now so that Boom-Boom (whatever she had become) could have time to drink and refill her sulphuric acid urine. I swallowed hard.

"We could always use more..." I tried to delay but Cleetus shot a very stern look.

"We're just dragging this out, Cole," he said, "and who knows how much all of this is hurting Boom-Boom, These mecha dragons need to be stopped and the only way we can do that is to give Boom-Boom time."

He was right but I still didn't want to hear it. Recognizing my hesistation, Cleetus called down to what once was my cat.

"BOOM-BOOM, PLAY DEAD!" he instructed, "COLE AND I GOT YOU SOME WATER! WE'LL DISTRACT THE DRAGONS SO YOU CAN RE-FORM AND DRINK UP. "

Boom-Boom made no sound back, but after the next wave of flames from the mecha dragons, the pile of ash stayed a pile of ash.

"Looks like they're losing interest in her now," Cleetus observed as the dragons waited for a few moments then, with nothing else to see, turned their red eyed gazes to us.

"Okay, Cole, get this dragon flying!" he told me, "before they get close enough to burn!"

"Dragon, fly.anywhere!" I commanded and the creature we rode took off. As before, our enemies did not like that, and quickly took off behind us, roaring and racing.

"They aren't breathing fire," Cleetus noted, slightly relieved, "maybe they've run out of flames!"

"Or maybe they're waiting until there directly over us to conserve energy," I offered, less positive. "And those claws and teeth of theirs look pretty nasty. May not be as instant an end as being burned to death but can't imagine it's any more enjoyable."

"Look, you were the one just calling me Negative Norbert," countered Cleetus, "we're well in the lead. We just have to keep them occupied long enough for Boom-Boom to do her thing."

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"Do we know how long it takes for a cat's bladder to fill?" I asked, really not knowing the answer, "how long do we need to fly around?"

We both stared at one another.

"I mean, she's half Uranusian now," finally said Cleetus, "that's had all sorts of weird outcomes so far. Maybe that means once she drinks up she'll be instantly good to go?"

"We can only hope," I sighed. A dragon suddenly roared loudly, causing us to look and realize it was right beside us- incidentally, it had managed to catch up.

"Oh shit!" I exclaimed, "dragon, go faster!"

Our dragon did its best to increase its speed, but the other dragon seemed ot have no trouble keeping up.

"Dragon, drop and turn back the way we came," I commanded, thinking it would be a cool tactic to lose our opponents.

Our dragon did exactly what we asked, though in doing so got rammed in the side but the nearby dragon; it caused us to nearly lose our balance and fall off; that we didn't was a miracle.

"Jesus!" exclaimed Cleetus, "what are you doing?!"

"Trying to get some distance between us and them while staying close to the polar ice caps," I replied, "this dragon's sense of direction sucks, if we go too far we may never get back to Boom-Boom again!"

"But if we fall off the dragon we're pretty much sitting ducks!"

Suddenly, our dragon shook again. Cleetus and I slid towards the side, once again barely lucky to hold on.

"What's going on?!" he cried.

We both managed to see- it was the same dragon as before that we had struck unintentionally- incidentally, as a highly intelligent creature, it had realized the effect striking it before had had and seemed to have decided that it was going to keep ramming our dragon to knock us off..

"Dragon," I called, trying to crawl back onto its back in a more stable location, "Go faster!"

I do believe the dragon was doing its best to obey me, but it just could not manage to outrace its enemy. Once again, the mecha dragon slammed itself into ours; this time Cleetus and I had nowhere to grab hold. We were sent plummeting from our ride's back, falling through the air and landing with a thud on the frozen surface below. It was lucky that we had been flying lower at this point or else the height certainly would have killed us. As it was, though, hitting the ice from above was hardly gentle.

"Ahh!" we both cried out as our bodies surged with pain. Surely we both had broken something. I was too far away from the dragon I had controlled to call to it- it just continued to fly as it had been ordered, leaving Cleetus and I below.

Even worse, the other dragons knew what had happened, watching us fall. They abandoned their pursuit of their fellow dragon and instead flew above us, almost in a circle.

"Cl...Cleetus..." I moaned, "I think...we're really done for now..."

"Well, Cole...." Cleetus moaned back, "We had a...good run...while it lasted."

Once again, I closed my eyes, expecting that my end was nigh.