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    Baddest of the Bad: The Chronicles of Stygius of The Nefarians, #1
    Baddest of the Bad: The Chronicles of Stygius of The Nefarians, #1
    Baddest of the Bad: The Chronicles of Stygius of The Nefarians, #1
    Ebook92 pages1 hour

    Baddest of the Bad: The Chronicles of Stygius of The Nefarians, #1

    By Gregor James

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    About this ebook

    Stygius Ghenghis Brian Anthrax Doom Inferno is just like any other 10-year-old boy, with just a couple of minor differences. Firstly he has blue hair. Secondly - two hearts. Thirdly he is the Emperor of Nefaria, which is a star system consisting of one really nice world, another OK one and then some horrible others mainly used to threaten to send naughty children to. 
    Oh dear - that's 3 already, and I haven't even mentioned the most important one, which is that his homework is to prove himself so ruthless and scary that everyone in his Empire and beyond will frightened of him. It's judged by the Baddest of the Bad awards - the only important rating of ruthlessness and scariness in the galaxy And it's due really really soon. 
    Join Stygius as he and St3v3 - his android butler - journey through the galaxy on an epic quest to worsen his reputation in the most enjoyable and lazy ways he can find. His journey will take him through spectacular and spectacularly unfair sporting competitions, spectacularly lethal talent shows, and to scheming villains and despots who are far more eager to prove they are worthy of their evil reputations than Stygius is. 
    This story is part one of a two part series and is aimed at anyone from the age of 8 to 88.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGregor James
    Release dateJun 24, 2017
    ISBN9781386377139
    Baddest of the Bad: The Chronicles of Stygius of The Nefarians, #1
    Author

    Gregor James

    Gregor James is a psychology graduate from the University of Leeds who - after a career in IT - has begun putting together 20 years of productive daydreaming into the plots of fantasy and sci-fi books for adults and older children. He has written 3 books to date.

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      Book preview

      Baddest of the Bad - Gregor James

      For Hannah, Ollie and Katie

      Chapter 1

      ––––––––

      Begins in

      ––––––––

      THE JUNGLE

      ––––––––

      The jungle is a merciless place. It is a leafy green hellhole full of ill-mannered, flesh-hungry vermin. In the jungle, everything is out to kill, eat, sting, bite, climb into the pants of, and generally annoy everything else: Big bugs eat little bugs. Frogs eat big bugs. Monkeys eat frogs. Piranhas eat monkeys (well - the clumsy ones that fall off their branches into the river anyway). And two-hearted alien boy emperors eat piranhas.

      OK - admittedly you would have a tough job convincing your teacher about the last one (and possibly the piranha-monkey one come to that). There aren’t many alien boy emperors in, say, the Amazon, for example. But this is not the Amazon. Oh no. This is a million light years from the Amazon. Literally.

      The two-hearted alien boy emperor at the centre of our story is ten years old, and looks more or less like a ten-year old human on the outside. He has the same number of legs and arms and all that, and his skin is a healthy olive-brown colour thanks to his home planet’s sunny climate. He has a very cool haircut in his part of the galaxy, which involves removing all but a thin fuzzy layer of his blue-black hair everywhere but the fringe, which is a lot longer, and currently splattered over his forehead. And his expression, normally an endearing scowl, is now more concerned with panting breathlessly. He has large deep purple eyes, which are darting around, trying to look everywhere at once.

      Because - even though he not on the menu for the bugs or the frogs - he is afraid. Even for an interplanetary emperor-prince the jungle has its dangers. And today High Emperor Stygius Genghis Anthrax Kevin Doom-Inferno of the Nefarians is being hunted.

      He staggers down an avenue of trees, slaps a barrier of thick deep-green leaves out of his way, then stumbles over a couple of knotty creepers, just keeping his footing, before a slamming his back into a tree - hitting it slightly too hard. He tries to catch his breath, feeling the relief in this lungs that he has stopped for a moment, feeling his hearts bash out a messy competing rhythm inside his chest.

      He checks the motion sensor on his wrist. It’s flashing. Something is heading towards him. He wipes the sweat from his face and blinks in an effort to clear his vision. At least one something. Probably more.

      He shuffles to the other side of the tree, putting it between him and the direction of his approaching enemy. He checks the sensor again. Whatever it is, it’s moving fast. 50 metres away, now 40, 35. Now another dot appears on his radar, from the east this time. They are closing in. Oh dear. Nowhere to run anymore.

      Time to make a stand.

      Stygius takes a deep breath, braces himself. He raises his gun to his shoulder. It is a large, complicated looking set of glittering chrome pipes and tubing with the large neon-green, HandiDeath™ logo glittering in the shafts of afternoon sunlight. He hesitates: he was wildly excited this morning when he saw this shiny monstrosity twinkling at him in the gun rack. He hadn’t had any new guns to play with for a few weeks at least, and this looked like a lot of fun. But maybe he should have gone with something a tiny bit less glittery, a bit less heavy. Something he’d used at least once before even?

      Pah – what was he worried about. Hands trembling slightly, he fumbles for the power switch at the bottom, finds it and pushes it in.

      There is a click, a deep electronic warbling noise then a moment’s silence. Then – rather unexpectedly – his gun bursts into song. Stygius recognises the sound of a loud brass fanfare as the opening of the song from the Handi-Death adverts:

      Handeeeee, Handy-Death,

      Your enemies have drawn their final breath,

      With the Handy Death crew in your team

      You’ll make the opposition scream

      Hannnn-Deeeeeee – Death!!

      ––––––––

      Over the enthusiastic harmonies of the Handi-death choir, Stygius can hear a deep roaring sound, followed by a cracking and rustling in the bushes. A very close rustling...

      Shut up! Shut up - you crimping lump of snotting space junk! Stygius hisses at his still caterwauling gun. He wheels it around, points it at the source of the rustling and pulls the trigger....

      ‘Demo mode’, says a rich voiced man with bland central-galactic accent.

      ‘Level 1 – Soft Tickle!’

      And then - something comes out of his gun – a barely visible transparent light blue light. It hits the bushes near where the cracking branches were, to almost no effect, though some of insects’ chirruping does get a bit higher. There is another ominous growling sound.

      Stygius picks the direction with the least jungle in his way and runs. He does not fancy trying to tickle his opponent to death. He can hear the cracking of branches getting louder behind him, accompanied by another snarl. He could swear he saw a flash of orange right behind him. He points the gun behind him and presses the trigger again.

      ‘Level 2 – Chinese burn!’

      He hears a grunt of surprise behind him, and whatever it was slows down for about a microsecond before resuming the chase for its dinner. Stygius needs to get his gun to do something useful soon, or he is toast. Still clumsily stumbling forward, he points the gun behind him and starts mashing the trigger:

      "Level three – annoying poke in the - *beep* - level four - *beep!* - Lev- *beep!* -*beep!*- *beep!*- *more beeps!* -  Level 15 – thermal shredder! You’re gonna like this folks – stand back!

      A blinding flash of white light accompanied a noise like a T-Rex stubbing its toe really badly erupts from his gun. A shock wave throws him forwards and up in the air ten feet, crashing him into an enormous tree root, which he lands on with one leg either side, as if straddling a horse. A split second later, he feels something splatter against the back and side of his head before he falls sideways off the tree root and crumples to the ground.

      Stygius lay there for a moment or two. His ears were ringing, but he was pretty sure there were no sounds of snarling or movement, so that was good. He tried movement – nothing hurt badly enough to feel like it was broken. Slowly he picked himself up and looked around:

      The 20 metres of land that used to be jungle behind him was no longer

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