Buster

something to break the stalemate.

Mia? Tonio asked.

Likes you. Likes Beamblade. I gestured with my nose over to Mia and Devon, who were watching the game and cheering him on when they could. Maybe likes Devon.

Tonio took a slow breath. I drew a card and passed the turn.

Devon? Tonio asked.

Likes you. Likes Beamblade, I repeated. Very … calm. I didn’t have a good way to say chill in Underspeak.

He nodded and tapped a card to suggest I play it. I drew, did, and passed.

Game … bad? I took that to mean he was asking about losing.

Nothing, I answered.

Nothing?! he repeated, alarmed. I wished his vocabulary was better.

Nothing bad, I clarified.

He wiped his eyes with the back of his arm. Phil tested attacking with a smaller hero—Tonio followed with his eyes as I dropped a bubble and slid it forward with my paw, capturing Phil’s hero and leaving it too weak to get past Principia.

You! Tonio realized. I gave him a sideways look and dipped my head in a shrug.

Good/Bad, I said, trying to cover everything I felt about the situation in one simple and completely clear thought. Helping!

He wasn’t totally satisfied with that answer, but he was relaxing. I drew another card.

The Gray Beamblade. We both knew as soon as we saw it that it could turn the game around. The Beamblade gained power for every gray card on the field, and since Phil was also playing a gray deck, it could leech gravity from everything on both sides and arm Principia with a hyper-dense, ultra-powerful weapon of pure … dark matter, I think? The lore actually isn’t totally clear about that.

I looked up at Tonio, and he nodded. “Good boy, Buster,” he said out loud. I saw Skyler relax with relief—she’d been tensed and ready to spring forward to bail Tonio out any second. “Have a treat … little puppy dog,” he added, less convincing. But he did get a treat out of his pouch and toss it up in the air for me to catch.

I wasn’t going to not eat it.

They’re delicious.

Tonio finally lifted his eyes up to Phil. “I’m gonna, uh, I’m gonna equip Principia with the Gray Beamblade.” He put it down on the table.

Phil stared at it. The crowd leaned forward in their chairs. Did he have something to counter it? A Bug? Some surprise card slipped in from another color?

Ten seconds.

Thirty seconds.

One minute.

Two minutes.

“Whatever,” Phil said finally. “I concede.” He flipped over his last two Spirit Batteries himself.

Mia and Devon cheered, and then the whole crowd erupted alongside them. Suddenly, everyone was swarming us, petting me and congratulating Tonio. I was surrounded by hands and smiles and laughter.

Mia and Devon hugged Tonio together.

“You did it!!!” Devon said.

“Three hundred big ones!!!!” Mia called out.

“They’re normal-sized ones,” Devon corrected. “Three hundred big ones would be a lot of money.”

“How much is a big one, then?!” Mia looked at him incredulously. “I thought that just meant money.”

“What did you think little ones were??”

“Quarters!!!”

“Excuse me,” Tonio said, pushing past Mia and Devon. He ignored the crowd and slipped between them without looking back.

reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Something, some sound, was nagging in the back of my head. Something buzzy and annoying. I shook it off, dodged the petting hands, and hopped off my chair to follow Tonio.

“Sorry, excuse me.” We should be celebrating, I thought. What is Tonio doing?

reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

And what was that noise?

Tonio made it to the bathroom and turned around, searching the ground for—me. He found me and held up a finger. One second, he mouthed. Oh. I bobbed my head in understanding but went over to the door just in case and tried to listen in.

R​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​E

But that noise was getting really loud now. It was filling up my whole hearing with a high, piercing, horrible shriek.

No one else seemed to notice. The crowd was laughing and joking, teasing Phil and swapping cards, like their ears weren’t out to get them, except—

“Mozart?” I’d forgotten he was here. Whoops, I thought, he saw everything up close, so I’ll have to—

R​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE

—deal with that later.

“Are you okay?” I could barely hear Mia, mostly picked the words up from the shape of her mouth. Mozart was squirming in her arms, pawing at his ears. Where was it—

R​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE

—coming from? Outside, I was pretty sure, and I had to make it stop, but I heard, just barely, the chunky sound of Tonio throwing up in the bathroom.

Oh, buddy, I’m sorry, I thought. I can’t just leave, I have to—

R​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​E

The assault on my ears was starting to make me feel dizzy, but the sink was running, and Tonio was probably rinsing his mouth out, so in just a second he would

R​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE

I staggered to the door

R​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE

Tonio washed his hands and

R​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​E

by the time he came out

R​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EE​E

I was gone.

“And that’s the end. The officers were using one of those high-grade dog whistles, as you know, and the second I walked outside they muzzled and cuffed me.” Buster sat back in his bumper car and tried to calm down—telling the end of the story had raised his hackles. “Which, I’d like to add, was way more suspicious than anything I did on my own. Me, the hero dog of the hour, disappearing all of a sudden? Right after I showed off how well trained I was?” Buster couldn’t resist a tiny growl of frustration. “It was suspicious the first time, and now it’s suspicious again. You get rid of me, there’s going to be talk. Somebody will put it together.”

The colorful lights of the bumper car arena were still spinning as dawn began to peek up over Juicy Fun Theme Park and Strawberry Orchard. Buster’s story had gone on for hours, and many of the dogs attending had fallen asleep curled into balls or splayed out on their backs. Even Lasagna and Pronto looked like they were struggling to stay awake; only the judge showed no signs of drowsiness.

“While the Court appreciates your excessively detailed story, Buster,” Pronto said, waving away a yawn