Chapter 0
I lay in a patch of sunlight, feeling more admiration for myself than I would have ever thought possible.
Mere days ago, deep in the Infinitude, I had defeated General Ffangg, outwitting him and the two other treacherous warlords who had tried to destroy me. And now I, Wyss-Kuzz the Incomparable, was THE EMPEROR OF THE UNIVERSE.
Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Congratulatory messages had come pouring in from all corners of the cosmos. Already this morning, I had enjoyed a tuneful ode to my greatness sung by the talented kangaroo-birds of Nesperess and learned that the Plirgrak silverfish had renamed their capital Wyss-Kuzzland.
My communicator vibrated, signaling the arrival of yet another video tribute. Though my throat ached from all the purring, I clicked on the message, and a vicious little spotted face filled my communicator screen.
Well, well, well, if it wasn’t the Calico Queen, the wretched Earth kitten who had, with the help of her two idiot brothers, ripped the Lyttyrboksian throne from my claws.
“Meow meow,” she said. “Meow, meow, meow!”
Oh delight! The little traitor was singing my praises. Not that I could understand what she was saying. Like every other Earth cat, she could only speak that one word of feline gibberish.
“Meow!” she continued. “MEOWMEOWMEOW!”
Hmmm. It did not actually sound like she was complimenting me.
“MEOW! Hiss!”
When she spat at the camera and hung up, I realized that the so-called Kitten Queen had been mocking me.
I was amused by her taunts, however. Though once I would have done anything to rule Lyttyrboks again, now it was beneath me. After all, I ruled the entire universe!
I would need to teach this kitten a lesson, of course. Such rude meowing could not go unpunished. But first: a nap.
The moment I closed my eyes, though, the ogres on the floor above me began shouting to one another.
Should the Lord of All Living Matter really have to put up with the interruptions of these pitifully lower life forms?
Chapter 1
“Raj!” Mom called. “Come pick up your dirty socks off the living room floor! And we have to leave in five minutes to see the school play.”
“Whoo-ee! Rutherford!” Dad yelled from the shower. “Can’t wait!”
I couldn’t understand why he was so excited to see a musical about a totally obscure US president performed by a bunch of eighth-graders who couldn’t sing. Then again, Dad got excited about a lot of weird things.
I went and grabbed my socks and took them downstairs to the laundry.
“How dare you disturb the All-Powerful Master of the Cosmos, peon.” The voice was coming from inside Klawde’s litter box.
“You know, I don’t really like being called a peon.”
“Would you prefer to be called a lowly plebe, lowly plebe?”
I sighed as I tossed the socks into the laundry basket. I wasn’t sure what “peon” or “plebe” meant, but I knew that Klawde was being a jerk. Besides insulting me even more than usual lately, he was always going on about how important he was now that he’d been crowned the Emperor of the Universe. It was almost enough to make me wish he hadn’t decided to use my basement as his “Cosmic Command Center.”
Klawde had already made a lot of improvements to what was supposed to be his litter box, but when I peeked inside I saw so many buttons and screens it looked like a miniature NASA mission control. There was one really big red button that I—
“DON’T TOUCH THAT!” Klawde said, swatting my hand away.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “What does it do?”
“That button lowers the protective force field around this godforsaken galaxy, so that I may then press this button”—he pointed to a green one—“which will whisk me off your miserable planet whenever I wish. You see, my Cosmic Command Center is now also a teleporter!”
Klawde started purring so loudly it almost sounded like he was choking.
Right after he became emperor, Klawde had designated the Milky Way an Intergalactic Wilderness Preserve, which I found kind of insulting. It was like he thought humans were just a bunch of wildebeests or something. Still, I was glad he did it, because it meant that none of his enemies could break through the Milky Way’s force field to get to him.
“Raj!” Mom called down. “Let’s go! We don’t want to be late for the play.”
“Rutherford!” Dad shouted.
“Begone, vile ogre,” Klawde said. “And remember to bow down as you leave the imperial presence!”
Chapter 2
After the Humans left, I completed the nap the boy-ogre had so rudely interrupted, then turned my attention to a project of vital intergalactic importance.
Gloating.
Nothing pleases a warrior’s soul like watching his enemies suffer. And suffering was exactly what my former colleagues in the Allied Warlords of Evil, Sabotage, Oppression, and More Evil (AWESOME) were doing.
After their attempt on my life, General Ffangg, Colonel Akorn, and Generalissima Zok had been sent to the prison planet of Ham-Sturr, the most secure location in the universe. Covered in sawdust and completely enclosed in a solid case of titanium plastic, it was impossible to escape from. Imposing hamster guards were armed to the teeth, and considerable teeth they had.
Even better, every centimeter of the planet was under constant surveillance by microdrones, which allowed me to spy upon my nemeses from the comfort of my command center. I donned the VQ virtual reality helmet to settle in for the evening’s entertainment, and there they were—my three most loathsome enemies—all rolling around in the plastic torment spheres of Ham-Sturr!
CRASH!
Zok smashed her ball into Ffangg’s.
“You thickheaded abomination!” Ffangg shouted. “Hit me one more time and I will slice off your fins and eat them for breakfast!”
Zok narrowed her eyes and smiled. “Zok dare you to try, kitty.”
“Oh, how I hate to see my old friends argue!” I announced. “Almost as much as I hate to see them in torture spheres.”
“Klawde!” Ffangg hissed, as the fur stood up along his scrawny spine.
Akorn looked wildly around, trying to see where my voice was coming from.
“If kitty hate it so much,” Zok said, “why not kitty let us go free?”
“He’s being sarcastic, you tiny-legged fool!” Ffangg said, bashing his ball into Zok’s.
“Zok know that!” Zok said, bumping Ffangg so hard she knocked him off his feet. “Zok have excellent sense of humor!”
“We will not stand for this abuse, vile feline!” Akorn squealed. “These spheres are cruel and—OOF!”
Zok had smashed into Akorn’s ball. “Wheee, fun!” she said. “Zok love these things!”
“This is NOT—oof—fun!” Akorn cried out, getting smashed again. “This is—ouch!—humiliating.”
Zok snickered. “Akorn just not like because Akorn has tiny ball.”
“My ball is not tiny!” cried the squirrel colonel. “It is sized exactly correctly.”
Ah, this was delightful. “I checked in to heap humiliation upon you three,” I said. “But you are doing such a good job of humiliating each other, I have nothing to add.”
“We will get you!” Ffangg vowed.
“All you will get,” I said, “is exercise!”
Copyright © 2021 by Johnny Marciano and Emily Chenoweth; Illustrated by Robb Mommaerts. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
