“GROWL! ROAR! ARF! ARF! SNARL!”

“Sir,” the first officer asked the Klapthorian captain. “Does Mr. Nibbles seem…all right to you?”

At that moment a slight breeze seemed to push the bouncing Death Slug off balance, and it nearly toppled over for no apparent reason.

“He’s…just a bit groggy. Poor fellah’s nap was interrupted. He’ll gobble up a few members of this chubby species and be his old horrible self again.”

“He seems to have sprouted…tiny feet, sir.”

They both peered at the monster bobbing along unsteadily toward the masses. Each time Mr. Nibbles bounced off the ground, they’d glimpse three pairs of sneakers, a pair of government-issue Special Agent black patent leather shoes, and a dozen or so tentacles, all shuffling madly beneath him.

“Aww, he’s evolving!” the captain said, sounding like a proud mother. “They grow up so fast, don’t they?”

“HYAAAAAAA!!”

A loud, angry karate cry suddenly rang out from the group of huddling G’Daliens. The captain and his officers looked down.

“HO! HAAAAA!”

One of the three baggy-skinned G’Daliens suddenly ran straight at Mr. Nibbles. She leaped into the air and delivered a devastating horizontal roundhouse kick to the belly of the beast. It rippled like a bowl of Jell-O, and the beast wobbled back and forth as his G’Dalien attacker bounced off, backflipping in the air and landing solidly on her feet.

“HUP! HUP! HUP-HUP! HUP! HUP!”

The other two baggy-skinned G’Daliens ran around either side of the wobbly Death Slug and jumped him from behind. One bounce-scaled up the back of Mr. Nibbles and delivered a forearm smash to the top of his head before grabbing Mr. Nibbles’ leathery wings and pinning them behind the beast’s back.

CLICK! Something was quickly clasped to the beast’s wings. As Chicago, his dad, EL-ROY, Dallas, and Sausalito snuck away from beneath the bouncing beastie, the two baggy-skinned G’Daliens hopped off to join the third one on the ground.

All three turned to face the huddling G’Dalien crowd.

“My fellow citizens,” the first G’Dalien cried out in a remarkably Sammi-like voice. “Earlier you heard the AlienSlayers admit they were frauds, and that they were never able to protect us!”

The other two saggy-baggy G’Daliens turned to each other.

“We did?”

“But we don’t need anyone’s protection! We can stand up for ourselves! Are we going to flee, or are we going to fight? I say we let these bullies know they picked the wrong planet to push around!”

The group of G’Daliens stared up at the Klapthorian Winged Death Slug sagging before them. The older ones remembered how this beast (or one just like him) chased them from their home planet fifty years ago. The younger ones thought about the scary stories they’d heard hundreds of times growing up.

A very old grandpa G’Dalien hobbled out of the still-huddled crowd, right up to Mr. Nibbles. He lifted his cane and poked the belly of the wobbly Death Slug.

The old G’Dalien smiled and turned back to face the others.

“Why, he ain’t nothin’ but a big, blobby bag of bully blubber! I say let’s get him!”

In an instant, the entire G’Dalien population of Merwinsville burst into cheers and sprung into action. They leaped, climbed, and swarmed all over Mr. Nibbles. The three baggy-skinned G’Daliens stood back and motioned to a floating AirChair high above the Death Slug’s head. Suddenly, Mr. Nibbles began rising above the ground, its wings flapping limply.

The G’Daliens hung on, kicking, biting, and scratching the beast as it tried to “fly” away. It rose higher, until it was directly in front of the TransPodium, where the captain and his Klapthorian first officers stood watching in horror.

“Uh, sir? Do you have any orders? Sir?”

The Klapthorian leader stared at his pet beastie getting wailed on by peace-loving G’Daliens.

“Ek.”

Down below, the three baggy-skinned G’Daliens again gestured to the AirChair—this time in a cutting motion.

CLICK! WHOOSH…BOINNNNNGGG!

Mr. Nibbles dropped to the field, causing the attacking G’Daliens to tumble off him. His body hit the ground with a wobbly BOING! and bounced straight back up like a beach ball. It SLAMMED into the TransPodium, knocking the captain and his officers into the air. They took flight and hovered above the field, watching in horror as Mr. Nibbles plummeted back down.

The G’Daliens scattered to avoid being squashed, except one: the old grandpa G’Dalien stood his ground and held his cane over his head, pointy end first. As the blobby Klapthorian Winged Death Slug landed squarely on top of him, the old alien yelled out some sort of ancient G’Dalien battle cry:

“ODELLLIIIDELLLAAAYHIIIIIDLLEH!”

KA-BOOOM!

Mr. Nibbles burst into a million scraps, popping like a giant balloon.^*

Rubbery pieces of him flew everywhere, in all directions at once, spraying the crowd of humans in the stands, who cheered their fellow citizens on.

Nibbles chunks smacked the hovering captain and his officers, slamming them against the side of their ship. Panicked, they quickly scrambled back into the cockpit and sealed the doors.

“Get us out of here!” the captain cried. “FULL REVERSE!”

As the enormous ship began to lift away, Old Man Alex joined forces with the humans in the stands. Together they grabbed a large, floppy chunk of Mr. Nibbles and pulled the stretchy skin like a giant rubber band. As the ship backed away above them, every man, woman, and child in the stands yanked with all their might, strrrrrrrrrrrrrretching it tighter…tighter…tighter…

SPROING!!!

The rubbery chunk flew high above the Flee-a-seum and smacked the tiny windshield of the Klapthorian Death Cruiser with a THWACK!

“AAAAUUUUGGGHHHH!” Inside the cockpit, the captain and his officers squealed in horror as the stretched-out googly eye of Mr. Nibbles stared grotesquely at them through the window. “They’re attacking us with the tattered flesh of our own pets! These Merwinsvillians are monsters! RETREAT! RETREAT!”

The Klapthorian Death Cruiser clumsily turned and thrust upward. It slammed into the top tower of the Flee-a-seum and fishtailed across the Merwinsville skyline. Its massive rear hull swung wildly toward City Hall. KERRRASH! The ship wiped out the SlayerLair, smashing its giant windows and lopping off its roof. From the Flee-a-seum the crowd could just make out a large, black, supercomputer-shaped object go soaring across the sky.

“Isn’t this just peachy,” SarcasmaTron said as he sailed toward a large dumpster in an alley on the other side of town.

The mighty cruiser straightened out and blasted skyward, fleeing the earth as fast as it could. As it headed back into space, all the citizens of Merwinsville, human and G’Dalien, burst into a loud and hearty cheer—this time in honor of themselves.