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    Gift of the Minion
    Gift of the Minion
    Gift of the Minion
    Ebook109 pages1 hour

    Gift of the Minion

    By Joe Rover

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Ryan gasped as the tree bent and a face appeared among the branches and bark. “Do you plan to murder us in our sleep?”

    Ryan’s mouth flopped up and down like a kid playing with automatic windows. Finally, he found his voice. “N-no. I didn’t know you were alive.”

    Join Ryan as he hunts for a Christmas tree but finds more than he bargained for in "Ryan's Christmas Adventure." Then in "Gift of the Minion," Dogboy and Stickyfingers must stop a horde of zombified Black Friday shoppers.

    Other stories include Dogboy's fight against a malfunctioning vending machine and the return of an old foe still bent on destroying humanity.

    If you enjoy fantasy, action, and humor, make sure to buy the latest Dogboy Chronicles story.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJoe Rover
    Release dateDec 3, 2019
    ISBN9780463638835
    Gift of the Minion
    Author

    Joe Rover

    One day while on a field trip, I was bitten by a radioactive writer. Thus, I was granted the proportional imagination and typing speed of a writer. I also found that I could stick notes to walls and developed an early warning “grammar sense.” Eventually, I learned that with great action verbs comes great sentences. From that day forward, I was The Somewhat Impressive Writer-Man!But really...Joe Rover is the pen name of an author who spends his time writing many family-friendly fictional stories. “Joe” has been a journalist, computer programmer, photographer, and graphic designer. He is currently studying digital animation and business.He has won many awards, such as the "Magic Holiday Thrills" contest and the "Write to Rank" Orange Belt round.

    Read more from Joe Rover

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      Book preview

      Gift of the Minion - Joe Rover

      Gift of the Minion

      The Dogboy Chronicles

      Joe Rover

      Published 2019 by BLT Publishing

      eBooks distributed by Smashwords and Barnes & Noble

      Print books distributed by Amazon

      Copyright 2019-Present by BLT Publishing

      Dogboy symbol Trademark 2017-Present BLT Publishing

      Dogboy and all related characters Copyright 2004-Present by Joe Rover

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this eBook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.

      If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy.

      Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without prior written permission of the author/publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

      All characters, locations, and organizations in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation to anyone bearing the same name or names. Any resemblance to individuals known or unknown to the author are purely coincidental.

      For The mothers, fathers, and siblings that support their weird writer relations

      Table of Contents

      Title Page

      Copyright Page

      Dedication

      Mornings

      Gift of the Minion

      Wishmaker’s Origin

      The Vending Machine

      The Ghost in the Machine

      Nah

      Ryan’s Christmas Adventure

      O When the Mimeos Go Marching

      --It’s Backstory, Boys

      --Everybody Wants to Change the World

      Doom to the World

      A Hyper New Year

      Other Books by Joe Rover

      Awards & Praise

      Thank You

      About the Author

      A Brief History of Superpowers

      Mornings

      Hello? My voice echoed through the empty darkness. I’m not sure how it echoed for it seemed there existed nothing but the wet emptiness. The taste of fear began to rise in my mouth. My heart quickened. A drop of sweat fell with the sound of crashing symbols.

      I then heard laughter.

      Who’s there? I asked.

      More laughter.

      My heart beat like the hooves of a horse in the championship race.

      No more laughing.

      Silence.

      Except my breathing.

      In.

      Out.

      In.

      Out.

      Finally, I started to calm down.

      What are you doing here? whispered a voice near my ear.

      ***

      I gasped sharply. The ringing of my alarm beat against my ear drums like a rock concert in my head. Off, I groaned. The ringing stopped. I pushed the covers off and pulled myself out of bed. Three am. Time to get up. I carefully passed by my still sleeping dog, Bandit. He’d been out most he night with his buddies.

      I shaved then showered—my equivalent of coffee—and brushed my teeth. Up. Down. Up. Down. Around and around and around. Spit. Rinse. Floss. Mouthwash. Blech!

      I poured myself a bowl of Lieutenant Leprechaun cereal (#notsponsored—though if you want, I don’t mind; you can pay me in cereal). This time I managed to grab the milk and not the cranberry juice. At some point, Bandit padded into the kitchen and headed for his food bowl. He took a couple laps of water and shook.

      Rough night? I asked.

      We treed two cats and chased four cars, said Bandit in the dog language, which I can understand. Benji caught one with his head and had to be taken to the vet. He’s fine now.

      I nestled into the couch with a moan then turned on the holovision. I flipped to Toon Strike; it’s a show about a group of people who find out that they are fictional characters and decide to rebel against their creators.

      I snorted a laugh. People finding out they’re really just figments of some creator’s imagination…I turned to look at the fourth wall of my apartment. Isn’t that just the silliest thing you’ve ever heard?

      After a couple quick belches from me and the dog, I cleaned the dishes then headed over to my bookcase. I pulled out the book titled A Lite Tale: The Lucas Lite Story.

      Click.

      The bookcase slid to the side revealing a transmatter pad. It was a small, flat platform with four spots that looked like light bulbs shining underneath. I stepped onto one of the lights; Bandit took another spot. A column of blue-white light surrounded me; it kind of felt like a pneumatic tube encasing me. The column seemed to turn solid, so solid that I couldn’t see passed it. A moment later, the column disappeared; Bandit and I stood on the transmatter pad in the Doghouse, my superhero base. According to Brain, the tube becoming opaque is to help the traveler not feel so disorientated from teleporting to another location. It gives the mind a chance to reset its perception of space.

      Brain tapped his polished brown lab shoes impatiently. His hands rested inside his lab coat pockets, making him look like a scientist waiting for his guinea pig. "You are tardy once more. Were you binge watching Toon Strike again?"

      ***

      Brain literally shoved me into the obedience school training simulator. The room hummed and electric piping in the walls came to life. Other than that, the room was empty…for now.

      We are going to start out easy this morning, said Brain from the safety of the control room. Thanks to Ace’s stories, I have been able to recreate the Neo-Geo golem…virtually of course.

      Why on Earth would you want to do that?

      For fun.

      We really need to find you a woman.

      Not that it is any of your concern, but I have been seeing Sportsgirl on the weekends.

      My mouth dropped. What??! When did this happen?!

      Begin simulation, said a computerized voice. It belonged to SPOT, the Doghouse AI system.

      The room shifted like pond ripples into a barren area about twenty or so miles east of the city. Back in 2012, when Ace was interning at Neo-Geo Mountain, he faced off against a man named White Hat. White Hat wanted to reawaken the Neo-Geo golem in order to reveal transbeing kind to the world. He succeeded on December 21, 2012. He used his computer skills to order the golem to attack Newton. Thankfully, Ace defeated the golem and a cover story was created by Ether Operations. However, the Order of the Unseen had other plans.

      Like a flash mob on crack, the Order publically showcased their powers in locations all around the globe. There was no hiding this. The bad news is that a lot of the displays were not friendly. The domesticated feline was out of the grocery bag as THEY say. Everyone knew that aliens, monsters, AI machines, superhumans, and so on existed.

      As for the golem, the reason why it was so hard to wake up was because the golem was the mountain. When the asteroid that brought the phantasmic gems to Earth hit, it created a mountain and that mountain became the golem. So…you can guess what the creature I now faced looked like: very tall and rocky—tall enough to be snow capped. It also had some trees.

      My lips vibrated as I made an exhausted you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me pbbbt. My shoulders went limp. Man, I hate Mon—

      POW!!

      The golem smacked me like a five-year-old tearing down a building made of colorful bricks. Next thing I knew, my face left an imprint in the wall.

      Gift of the Minion

      The young woman, about 20, moved through the crowd like a ghost. She was use to it. She’d been a ghost ever since her parents abandoned her on the streets at age six. She spent many days scrounging and begging before finally turning to the life of a pickpocket. No

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