DeBear’s robot clone sat down in a chair at the desk belonging to Yearyo, the Bear President. He was wearing a belt, and attached to it was a Cow Galaxy Energy Gun, powered by gricklite. An extremely deadly weapon.

  “An extremely deadly weapon you have there, hmmm?” said Yearyo as DeBear sat down.

  “Yes,” said DeBear. “I stole it from the cows alongside the ship I arrived in. Now, I understand that you would like to know how I escaped from them?”

  “Yes, yes, you understand correctly.”

  “Well, there is one thing I must know first, Yearyo.”

  “Yes, DeBear?”

  “Where did TROTCCAASF end up after the invasion? They still owe the Bear Bank 79,900 Cat Credits. And, more importantly, they’re our allies.”

  “They continued their mission to collect a bunch of artifacts,” explained Yearyo. “After they finish doing that, they’re going to sneak into the Cow Galaxy to save you, and then once we free you, we can launch a full attack against them. So now I guess we can skip directly to the final part, yes?”

  “That doesn’t exactly answer my question, Yearyo,” said DeBear. “Where are they at this exact moment?”

  “Well, DeBear, according to our tracking systems, their ship was destroyed about a day or two ago.”

  “And do we know what happened to them?”

  “Well, DeBear, we investigated the place where they last were.”

  “Which was…?” asked DeBear.

  “Smack-Smork.”

  “...and?”

  “They were not there.”

  “So?”

  “They must be somewhere else, DeBear, yes?” said Yearyo. “If we’re patient, maybe they’ll come back to us eventually.”

  “Alright, Yearyo,” said DeBear. “You have not been very useful here, but nevermind. I’ll just have to find them myself, yes?”

  “And then we attack the Cow Galaxy?” asked Yearyo.

  A strange thing happened then. Mid-conversation, DeBear seemed to simply freeze. Since he was a robot, he didn’t breathe, so he was perfectly still. Yearyo observed that his eye started to glow red and he could see robotic parts behind it.

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  “...DeBear?” asked Yearyo. “You there?”

  DeBear’s robot eye then focused on Yearyo. It stayed there for a moment, then stopped glowing and went back to normal.

  “We’re done here,” said DeBear. Without warning, he whipped out his Cow Galaxy Energy Gun and shot directly at Yearyo. Yearyo, though, was proficient in the Art of Reacting Fast. It is one of the Seven Essential Bear Skills, after all. Because of this fact, Yearyo was able to dive sideways out of his chair and fall flat on his face. Ouch. Better than being hit with a beam from a Cow Galaxy Energy Gun, though, because if that had happened, then Yearyo would be dead.

  Unfortunately for Yearyo, not only did DeBear also know the Seven Essential Bear Skills, but he was the one who created them in the first place!! And another one of the SEBS is the Art of Swiftly Counter-Reacting To Your Enemy’s Fast Reaction, which DeBear was especially good at.

  DeBear thrusted upwards out of his seat to get Yearyo back in his line of fire, but that was when a sword came flying through the air out of freaking nowhere and hit his gun out of his hand! And the reason for that happening, you see, was because Yearyo’s Beardyguards heard the commotion and came running to the rescue. Four bears, three of them equipped with swords (because one of them had just thrown their sword, of course), entered the room, and Yearyo swiftly got behind them and scooted out of the door.

  DeBear, though, was not unprepared, as the Art of Not Being Unprepared was yet another one of the Seven Essential Bear Skills. DeBear whipped out his gricklite sword which he had and which I totally forgot to mention. But hey, that just adds to the unexpectedness of it!

  The four Beardyguards approached DeBear from the front. DeBear cautiously backed up while surveying the area. The swordless bear (the one that threw its sword) suddenly leaped at DeBear, so all DeBear had to do was hold his sword out and the bear impaled itself on the sword. That was really not a very smart move on the part of that bear.

  Now that the four bears had been reduced to three, DeBear’s job was 25% easier. Well, actually, the bear that was eliminated didn’t have a sword, and as swords make whoever is holding them about 3x more dangerous, DeBear’s job was actually only about, like, 6.25% easier. I’m not telling you these numbers for no reason, by the way, because now that DeBear was robotic, he had all these calculations built into his system. That 6.25% was crucial, you see, because according to the Art of Mathematically Calculated Risks (another one of the Seven Essential Bear Skills), if you want to make a risky move, the battle should be at least 4% easier than it was when you made your last risky move. Therefore, DeBear was eligible to make a risky move. And the risky move he made was to throw his sword directly into the head of one of the remaining three bears, thus eliminating it from the fight and making it 31.25% easier (all calculations are in relation to the starting 100% difficulty, otherwise it would now be 33% easier). Why 31.25% and not 25%, you ask? Because (100 - 6.25) / 3 is equal to 31.25. The 6.25% difficulty of the swordless bear must be factored into the calculation so that it still adds up to 100%.

  That, however, was a risky move. Now DeBear was swordless. But the Art of Mathematically Calculated Risks stated the the odds were in his favor, and indeed they were. In fact, now that he had reduced the difficulty of this fight by another 31.25%, he was eligible for yet another risky move. DeBear performed a somersault on top of Yearyo’s desk, landing on the floor on the other side of it and spilling papers everywhere. Now the distance between DeBear and his sword was smaller than the distance between DeBear and the two remaining bears.

  One of the remaining bears threw its sword at DeBear after seeing the somersault he just performed. But, of course, DeBear was proficient in the Art of Reacting Fast, and with his robotic body, he was extremely good at it. DeBear ducked, and as the sword flew over his head, he reached out and grabbed it by the handle. Barely using any effort, he then swiped the sword in the air like a baseball bat, causing it to collide with the sword that the other bear had just then thrown at him. The sword was deflected, went all the way through the neck of the bear that threw it, and got stuck in the wall behind him.

  The sole remaining bear was now completely defenseless. DeBear stared at him, his robot eye instantly performing a ton of calculations. He was in Combat Mode, so the bear was made to glow very brightly in his vision for increased visibility. Sensing no risk, he turned around, grabbed his gricklite sword from where he had thrown it before, and slowly made his way to the one remaining frightened bear, who he then stabbed in the neck. He grabbed his Energy Gun and proceeded out into the hallway. All that was left to deal with was the crew of the entire rest of the ship. The only cost to DeBear was time. And he had plenty of time.