...because at that moment, the group was surrounded by a fierce-looking gang ("twelve to be exact," thought Precious) of sewer gators decked out in black leather, spiked collars and mohawk scale-dos.
Bugs tried to look aloof as he glanced around sizing up the gang and mentally formulating the best defense. Muffy, on the other hand, was mesmerized by the scale-dos and wondered how their stylist could possibly have worked such magic with such an unforgiving medium. Either way, Bugs must have been successful in looking nonchalant, and Muffy must have looked most interested as the Leader of the Gator Pack suddenly broke away from the rest of the gang and moved to address Muffy. They all knew he was the leader because he was a big brute of a fellow with a ragged T-shirt under his leather vest with a picture of a Harley and a slogan that read "Leader of the Pack (Vrooom! Vrooom! Vrooom!)." As he advanced, he motioned to a couple of cute young caimans that had been clinging to his massive forearms to stay back in the safety of the pack.
There was a sudden rush of adrenaline and a palpable tension between the two groups when Iggy quickly moved to place himself between the Gigantic reptile and Muffy's soft edible vulnerability. "I'll handle this!" hissed Iggy over his shoulder to his besieged friends. But things weren't looking too promising as Iggy, even standing upright on his hind legs and raising his scaly dorsal ridge in an instinctive show of machismo, was dwarfed by the leviathan towering over him.
"Ho! Good Gator King!" Yelled Iggy in his best Cultured Reptilian Universalist Dialect (C.R.U.D.), "What manner of will do you bring to my friends and I?"
The Gator-king, taken aback somewhat by the impudent show of bravado from the puny lizard stopped in his tracks.
"Who dares question the will of Beldorg, King of the Sewer Gators and Defender of the Subterranean Realm?!" Roared the giant reptile.
With that, Iggy used some trick of the tail to somehow thrust himself yet another five inches towards the towering beast, and did his best to flare his cheeks as he boldly replied "It is I, Grendargus IV, Prince of Drexpet, and Ambassador to Humanity!"
"Grendy??? " the voice of the Gator king suddenly softened, "is that you? Well tie my nose and send me into a death-roll! Hey guys!" he called excitedly to the rest of the gator gang, "Meet Grendy, an old friend of the family and my roommate from prep school."
During this exchange, our friends continued to stand knee-deep in sewer sludge, surrounded by the gator gang, Bugs assessing each Gator's weaponry, Muffy still marveling at the artistry of the gator's personal effects, and Precious meticulously counting the number of dead goldfish floating by in the stream of sludge. To them, the exchange between Iggy and the behemoth confronting them was nothing more than a bunch of hisses and grunts with occasional spitting thrown in for good measure. Had they even an inkling of the dialogue that was taking place, they would have learned that Iggy was in fact a noble of outstanding lineage, and well respected among all living reptiles as well as a close personal friend of Beldarg, King of the Sewer Gators and Defender of the Subterranean realm.
As quickly as the confrontation had escalated, it was suddenly over when Iggy turned to his friends and stated "It's okay guys, they're going to help us."
But too late, Bugs Pond who had been lost in his mental preparation for battle and missed the outcome of the reptilian exchange suddenly sprang to the fore yelling... |
