When Ed got back to Dover’s Tavern, he found the barn's side door partially open, and the worried face of Logan peaking out. “Come inside,” he called on to Ed and had shut the gate tight behind him.

Inside was a lot darker with no torches or lamps lit, but the lights of two moons coming through the roof window were enough for Ed to see a lot of hay stacked and thrown around. On one pile Reina was laying down with Goro next to her.

“I’ve got everything I could find at home, bandages and antiseptics,” Ed said and gave Goro the bag with everything he found at home.

“Relax,” Goro told him. “It seems she is not doing so bad. Just some minor cuts, most likely from the tree branches. All that blood covering her that had spooked Logan ended up being actually someone else’s. It washed right off. So, her cuts are minor. And once I clean them up with what you brought us, she should be fine.”

“Why is she so quiet then?” Ed asked, seeing how Reina had laid down on the hay, her body almost all relaxed, eyes half shut.

“I’m fine, kid,” Reina answered as she lifted her head and dished out a smile for him. “Just catching my breath.”

“I can’t find anything wrong with you,” Goro told her again. “No broken bones. And you have no big bruisers on your head. Still… if the dragon’s tail had hit you and knocked you down, you might have internal bleedings. A concussion too.”

“No. I don’t think it hit me. I’ve seen what that tail did to that prick Morty. What a dick he was. Can’t say I will shed any tears on the account of him being gone. But that was a brutal way to go if I ever saw one. So, if the dragon tail had hit me, I probably would have been sliced up too. I think it must have been a branch, or a tree trunk, something that came flying when the dragon gave the forest a haircut.”

“Well, if you were back home, you would be in ER right now.”

“I know. But we don’t have that option now, do we, so…”

“Hey, I brought all of you some energy drinks, some refreshments,” Ed said and started to pull stuff out of his bookbag. “Should have left this with you before but… I forgot. Please help yourselves.”

Reina decided to take some and even risked getting up. Goro was there right next to her, making sure she does not drop down, but his help was completely not needed as she stood up without a hitch.

“I’m feeling okay,” she announced as she took a bottle from Ed’s hands. “Maybe it was all just stress. It’s not like I was ever attacked by a dragon before, you know.”

"Yeah, that could get anyone to feel lightheaded," Logan said

Reina brought a bottle to her lips and took a long sip. “Thank you for that drink. I used to hate that stuff, and now, it just tastes so good. That was mighty sweet of you. What the hell?!” Reina suddenly said, and raised her head higher, looking at something above Goro’s head.

“What?” Goro asked.

"Do you guys see this?” Reina said and pointed to the darkness above Goro's head.

“What is it?”

“The blue cloud, like a screen, the golden letters inside… I guess I might have a concussion after all.”

Goro sighed, shook his head, and asked. “What does it says?”

“You really don’t see it?”

“Nope. It’s your personal MOLI interface,” Ed said, knowing that probably Logan and Goro would not hurry to give her any explanation.

“You have the same thing?” Reina asked

“Yes. I have to read and talk to it out loud. But two of them have a neural link. They don’t even need to say things out loud. Pretty cool. Once I earn some ducats, I plan to purchase it.”

“Wow… So, you don’t see what I see?”

“Nope. Is this like the first time you see it?”

“Yes.”

“That’s strange. We’ve all seen it before we came here.”

“Well, I was not conscious during the trip here.”

“Oh, yeah, you said something like that. So, what does DOLI have to say to you?”

“I’ve been chosen a Team Leader.”

“Well, congratulations!”

“It makes sense,” Logan said. “Since you’re the only member of your team that is left.”

“It also says, my job is the Bodyguard, and that I have completed my first objective… Wait a second…. Who is the Joker?” she looked around and then her eyes steadied on Ed. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

“What if it is?” Ed asked instantly.

“Well, I should have seen that. On account of you always trying to be funny. Maybe I would have if…" Reina said and pointed her finger at Goro as if suddenly figuring things out. "You had not started that fight with Morty! You slick dog. You did it on purpose, to create a distraction. Cool play. Gotta say."

Ed scratched his head and ask her directly, “So, what does that mean now?”

“Well, it means that you are my new boss, little man.”

“Really?”

“Yes. If I want to complete my mission, I have to give you my full protection.”

“Cool.”

“There is this, advisory… saying…”

“What is it saying?”

“What do you think they mean that my Health will be turned to zero if I do not complete my mission successfully?”

“I think it means, I better not die here, Reina. Or else, your ass is grass as well.”

“Shit.”

“Cool, so you practically have to protect me no matter what, right? Do whatever I tell you? I mean, I’m just saying…”

“Cool it off, kid. I’m your bodyguard, not your momma.”

That 'kid' rubbed Ed all the wrong way. So he said, “Well, I was not thinking off… nothing, absolutely nothing I would ask my momma to do.”

“What???” Reina asked, not sure she understood it right at first. Then seeing his crooked, mischievous smile, she figured she guessed right what he meant, getting her all worked up suddenly. “You know, I can put you over my knee and spank those thoughts right out of you.”

“Yeah, Ed, really,” Logan told him.

“If he tries to wiggle out, I’ll hold him,” Goro added approvingly of the plan.

“Come on Logan, she is hot, what can I do?” Ed said as he admired a tall woman in her tight and wet uniform, now not wearing any protective gear.

Reina just chuckled really loud then. “That’s fucken’ incredible. You know, it might be funny when you’re a kid and you think all the kiddies you hang around laughing at jokes like that. Then you grow up, and you continue to talk shit like that, but it ain’t cute no more. And then, you end up saying shit, hurting people, and pretending to be all macho and tough, a lot like Morty did.”

Harsh words hanged in the darkness of the hanger for a long moment, Ed finally starting to understand that he had passed the line.

“Got you," he said as he looked embarrassed, now unable to look past his sneakers. "I’m sorry I said that. I will never be disrespectful to you ever again.”

"Or another woman," Reina added. "Or girl."

Goro sighed, then put his hand on Ed's slouching shoulder. “Isn’t it time for you to go back home now? You know how dangerous it is to be here. Besides, you've done a great job already.”

“Nope. My mom won’t be back for another two hours at least. And, that means… Oh, by the way, I figured something out,” Ed said with renewed vigor in his voice.

“What did you figure out, Ed?" Logan suddenly asked him, probably not understanding that Ed seemed to have recovered completely. "That not all women actually want to engage in a sexual relationship with a minor, no matter how cute and puffy they are?

“Ha, ha, ha. Funny. But you ain’t taking my place and graduating yet to a master joker class, not yet. So, wait in line, buster. No, what I was going to say is something that might interest you. Like, I discovered that time passes slower in real life, or whatever you want to call it. Like, the last time I was here, how long do you guys estimate I was here?”

“About two hours.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too. I doubted myself thinking maybe I was wrong-”

“Why don’t you just measure it with your cell phone? You know, you have a stopwatch timer.”

“My cell phone just goes out. I brought it with me both times. Left it in my pans. But no luck. The battery is completely gone. Otherwise, I would have been already taking a lot of selfies you know. I mean, the videos I could make of this place. I’d be like a…”

“Why don’t you just finish what you were saying…”

“But I measured my absence in real-time, I mean, you know what I mean.”

“And?”

“Only ten minutes have gone by. I shit you not. Only ten minutes.”

“How can that be?”

“I don’t know,” Ed answered and shrugged his shoulders. “You’re a scientist. You figure it out.”

A loud splash of water suddenly made them all turn their heads toward the river.

"What do you think it is?" Logan asked. "It sounded very loud! Something hit that river."

"Might be that dragon, going for a swim," Goro said.

Reina picked her rifle from the ground. "It sounded close by, very close by," she said as she checked how many bullets she still had left.

Ed just could not help himself and run for the door.

"Stop!" Goro screamed, but it was no use. Ed was already outside.

"Hey, kid, come back!" she screamed after him, but hewas already running down toward the river.

They watched in horror as he stopped on the bank and the light of the two moons suddenly showed the water of the river break out in waves with the head of the dragon coming out of it.

Reina pressed the rifle to her cheek and aimed at the dragon's wide-opened reptilic eyes.

"Don't shoot!" Ed yelled back at her. "Don't shoot!"

The dragon slowly approached Ed who stood there on the bank with both his hands extended toward him, as if he was offering himself.

"Stupid kid!" Goro cursed.

The dragon, in no rush, came close enough to Ed that when he slowly opened his mouth, his tongue came out and licked Ed's hands.

“He’s just tasting him. What the hell! I’m dead. I’m so dead,” Reina cursed her bad luck. “One little bite, and it’s all over. That little shit!”

But nothing of the sort happened. The dragon licked Ed’s hands again, then his face, and then slowly lowered his head down on the ground, and slid himself completely off the shore, submerging inside the water again.

The ripples of waves did not even completely quiet down when a new splash occurred in the same place where the dragon’s head went under.

A bald, naked man suddenly came out of the water.

“Can I please have something to put on? There should be a spare gown someplace in the barn," he said as he called to three of them still standing dumbfounded by the barn's door. "Then we can go to my home and talk.”