And now, an excerpt from Battleton: When Good Lizardmen Go Bad
Chapter 1
Salvador's Bad Day
On their way to Battleton High to tell teenagers to say no to drugs, the Kung-Fu Lizardmen were breaking at least six traffic laws.
Their iconic Sala-Van rocketed down the busy Battleton highway, weaving through traffic while heavy metal blasted from its speakers. Salvador bounced around in the back seat beside Chameleo, bracing one hand against the door.
“Would you please slow down?” he snapped at Lizzo.
“No way! I live life in the fast lane, baby!” Lizzo shouted, pressing harder on the accelerator.
“Oh, spare me the catchphrase. You’re making me feel like an action figure in a Sala-Van playset.”
Lizzo was silent for a moment, apparently struggling to come up with a response.
“Bite my tail!”
Another catchphrase.
“And I’m the leader, so I should be driving,” Salvador added, crossing his scaly green arms. “Didn’t even get the front seat…!”
“Shoulda called shotgun,” Matsuno said from the passenger seat in his slow, low voice.
Chameleo rolled his eyes.
There was always a power struggle going on in the group, and, admittedly, Salvador was sometimes responsible for a healthy portion of it.
They arrived at the school and entered through the rear doors leading to the auditorium.
“You guys ever wonder what it would be like to go to school?” Chameleo asked.
“Nah. School sucks!” Lizzo yelled. “I mean, that’s what our viewers always say—”
“Sshhhut — up!” Salvador hissed frantically, glancing over his shoulder. “Do not let anyone hear you say that! You want to be yanked off the air for good this time?”
Lizzo responded by shoving Salvador into a locker door with a thud, caving it in.
Matsuno’s burly chest heaved with laughter as Salvador rubbed his throbbing shoulder. He snarled and took off after Lizzo, who ran away, taunting him. Chameleo and Matsuno jogged after them.
The chase came to an abrupt halt when they reached the auditorium. They walked behind the curtain separating them from the denizens of the school as if brought back to earth.
The Battleton High principal stood onstage, talking to the students through a microphone. When the door closed behind the Lizardmen, he glanced over at them and dabbed his forehead with a washcloth.
He was an extremely uptight and nervous man. But Salvador couldn’t entirely blame him. Few would dare set foot in a high school located in what most polls described as the most dangerous city in America these days.
The Lizardmen picked up their microphones from a chair and clipped them on.
“And n-now, give it up for the K-Kung-F-Fu L-Lizardmen!” the principal stammered.
They walked onto the stage as the principal hurried off, ducking low as if in a warzone. Salvador prepared himself for the thunderous applause that was sure to follow. That was always the best part of these public appearances—especially when he got to stand in the middle and look particularly important.
Instead, laughter erupted throughout the auditorium.
The Lizardmen looked at one another in shock.
The principal stopped and faced the students, shushing them with frantic hand motions.
“Hey, dudes, laughing at your principal in front of him isn’t cool,” Lizzo scolded them.
“We were laughing at you!” a squeaky-voiced teenager shouted from the audience.
Salvador exchanged bewildered glances with his companions.
“What the f—I mean, uh, heck—is so funny about a gang of crime-fighting Kung-Fu lizard people?” Lizzo demanded.
This thoroughly un-lulled the lull in the laughter.
Salvador glanced at Chameleo. His scales had already begun matching the curtain behind him.
“Don’t,” Salvador whispered. “That’ll just make it worse.”
Chameleo painstakingly forced himself to remain visible.
“We came here to tell you to say no to drugs,” Lizzo stammered, “but it looks like that Sala-Ship has sailed!”
“I still think you’re cool!” a large, zit-faced kid in thick glasses squeaked from the front row amidst the raucous laughter. He proudly displayed a Karate Lizardmen shirt that wasn’t quite big enough to fit around his gut.
Lizzo squinted, looking around. The moment he spotted the fan, he groaned and shouted, “THAT IS IT! We are outta here!”
He tore off his microphone, threw it onto the stage, and stomped away.
Salvador and the others hurried after him.
But Matsuno stopped at the door, turned slowly back toward the audience, and took one abrupt step toward them.
The students’ hysterics ceased immediately.
Unfortunately, they started right back up the moment Matsuno opened the door.
The Karate Lizardmen didn’t say anything on the way back to the Sala-Van. Apart from Matsuno muttering, “Shotgun…”
They climbed inside and slammed their doors.
“Stupid damn teenagers!” Lizzo struck the steering wheel so hard that Salvador was surprised the airbag didn’t go off.
“They always thought we were cool before!” Chameleo said in disbelief. “What gives?”
“I don’t know,” Salvador said, shaking his head.
Silence befell them.
But what Salvador did know was that their recent antics had earned them bad press. Particularly Lizzo’s escalating anger issues. Still, they had never been laughed at like that before.
“Well, we should probably get outta here before someone wonders why the Sala-Van is lurking outside the school,” Chameleo said.
Lizzo snorted and started the engine. He peeled away noisily and obnoxiously, causing a woman walking her little dog to jump in surprise. But her dog jumped even higher than she did.
The woman glared at them as they peeled away.
“Lizzo, can you drive like a normal lizard—er, lizardman—for ONCE in your life?” Salvador complained.
“Shut up, Sal! I’m not in the mood!” Lizzo snapped, narrowly missing an elderly pedestrian shuffling across a crosswalk with a cane.
“Then you shouldn’t be driving!”
“Who’s up for fighting some crime?” Chameleo chimed in nervously. “I need to let out more than a little steam.”
“I’m down,” Matsuno declared heavily, cracking his huge knuckles. He was the heavy of the group.
“Definitely,” Salvador added. He leaned sideways to look at the radio. “Flip to the news.”
But instead, Lizzo flipped him off. “No way. I love this song!”
Lizzo turned up the volume. He continued to crank it up until Salvador’s ear holes hurt so badly that he shrieked at him inaudibly.
Lizzo drove around aimlessly like a maniac for a while, singing along to the metal. Salvador continued yelling at him, but his voice blended perfectly into the music.
Eventually, Salvador noticed three thugs beating the crap out of a businessman with his own briefcase. Just another Tuesday in Battleton.
“Stop here!” Salvador shouted.
Lizzo didn’t hear him, so Salvador reached forward, slapped him on the shoulder, and pointed at the scene with one claw.
Lizzo looked over and pulled to the curb, still refusing to turn down the thrashing metal.
The Lizardmen briskly climbed out the Sala-Van and approached the tussle. Cars sped past them as if every driver believed they were the protagonist of their own Need for Speed campaign.
“Really, guys?” Salvador called to the thugs, amusement tinging his incredulity. “In plain sight?”
The thugs turned and walked threateningly toward them.
“What, you think we’d find some stinkin’ businessmen to beat up in a back alley or somethin’?” asked the thug holding the briefcase.
“No need to be a smart guy, smart guy,” Salvador shot back. “You could’ve just brought him to one.”
The thugs stopped to consider this.
“Huh,” said the one without the briefcase. “We didn’t think of that.”
While Salvador distracted them, Chameleo vanished—or came as close to vanishing as he ever could. Salvador could still make out the faint outline of his body as he crept behind the thug with the briefcase.
Chameleo seized the briefcase and smashed the thug over the head with it.
The other two spun around and grabbed him at once. Chameleo could nearly disappear, but his outline remained visible if someone looked directly at him closely enough.
Lizzo charged at them.
One of the thugs hoisted Chameleo, who was lighter than the other three Lizardmen, and swung him into the side of Lizzo’s head like a baseball bat. Both Lizardmen cried out from the impact.
It was safe to say that Chameleo was now fully visible.
Salvador was busy exchanging blows with the third thug when Matsuno bounded past him. The Komodo dragon ripped Chameleo out of the second thug’s hands by the legs and used him to smash the thug over the head, downright copying the thug’s idea.
“Ow! What the heck, Mat?” Chameleo cried, changing into a dark shade of blue.
“Sorry,” Matsuno muttered, setting him down.
The thug fighting Salvador desperately leaped backward to avoid another strike.
“Four against three!” the thug complained. “This isn’t fair!”
He looked down at the cowering businessman.
“Get up and help us!”
“W-why would I help you?” the badly beaten bald man demanded weakly before coughing up a little blood.
“Smart man,” Salvador said, glaring at the thug. “That’s why he’s a businessman—and you’re a bum!”
Salvador connected fist to jaw, sending the thug hurtling to the pavement.
The Lizardmen brushed themselves off and high-bumped (their trademark fist bump/high-five hybrid), while Salvador helped the bruised man to his feet.
Then he heard another heavy thud behind him.
Lizzo was repeatedly booting one of the unconscious thugs in the side.
“Lizzo,” Salvador called.
Lizzo kicked him again.
“Lizzo!”
But he just kept booting him in a furious frenzy. Blood trickled from the thug's ears.
"LIZZO!"
End of excerpt. 🦎
Thanks for reading, martial artists.) 😌 This sneak preview is a work in progress and shall surely differ from the final version. Follow The Daily Honker for future Battleton updates. 📰
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