As Rick, the Admiral of the Air Force, entered the Domain, he was greeted by his fellow officers congratulating him on a successful air raid. Thomas, the Marine Corps General, James, the Admiral of the Navy, and Roy, the Mercenary who worked for the General, all lined up to praise his achievement. They all watched the handsome young Admiral walk triumphantly across the courtyard. Rick was pretty ¬¬¬tall and built like a football player with short brown hair and big dark brown eyes. The General, Matthew, stood on a pedestal at the head of the courtyard. The General was a short, Japanese person, but as the General looked up at people, he could look down on them. Rick halted to attention when he reached the platform and saluted the General.
Once the General raised his straightened hand to his forehead and then brought it down again, he spoke.
“Congratulations, Admiral, on your victory over the Rebellion and welcome back to the Domain. You and your pilots have successfully crushed the spirits of the rebel scum through your air raid. Because of this, I shall reward you with an extra ration of Goldfish!”
“Thank you General!” he said breathlessly. His face was all aglow as the General poured Goldfish into his cupped hands from the bag. Then the General went around the courtyard giving all the other officers their rations for the day.
As Rick started to walk away from the General to his lunch, cupping the precious rations, he was pulled aside by Thomas, the Marine Corps General. Thomas had short, curly, dirty-blonde hair and he was about a head shorter than Rick, but a head taller than the General.
“Rick,” whispered Thomas, “why do we serve the General?”
Rick answered, “The General gives us our rations and in return we serve him.”
Thomas’s voice started becoming stronger as he became excited.
“But we could easily just take the Goldfish from him!”
“Yeah, that may be true,” Rick replied, “but why should we? He’s a good leader and he’s good to us. Besides, if you start anything the other officers will stop you anyway.”
Suddenly the voice of the General rang out.
“Thomas! What are you plotting now?”

“Nothing, sir!” called Thomas. Then, under his breath, he mumbled, “Just your demise as per usual.”
Then Thomas scuttled away towards his lunch. Finally Rick was able to sit down and eat his lunch. He took out his two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, bag of chips, three cookies, and can of Coke. The others also began to chow down. He saved the Goldfish for last so as to savor them. Rick took pride in his skill of catching the Goldfish in his mouth. One by one, he would catch them all.
When Rick was three bites into his second sandwich he heard the General exclaim, “Thomas! What do you think you’re doing?”
Rick turned to see Thomas running holding the bag of Goldfish in his hand, with the General in hot pursuit. They ran around the courtyard in a frenzy, while Rick, James, and Roy watched in amusement. Roy stood leaning, shoulder against the wall, with his lanky arms folded onto his chest and his red hair spilling over his eyes and ears. His blade hung by his side and hanging by a gold chain over his chest was his golden dragon with two diamond eyes. They were his pride. As Thomas circled around towards Roy, Roy stuck out his arm in a flash, grabbing Thomas by the throat, and lifting Thomas off the ground. He may have been lean, but he was deadly. He had trained in the sword as well as other melee weapons.
“Thank you Roy,” wheezed the General. “You can put him down now, but keep him restrained.” Roy nodded silently and slowly lowered him to the ground, keeping hold of him with one arm across his chest. Once the General was able to gain his composure he grabbed the bag out of Thomas’s clutches and he addressed him spitefully.
“You think you can get away with stealing in my domain? You think too highly of yourself, you rebel!”
He waved the bag in front of Thomas’s face and then set it aside.
“Now,” the General continued, “shall we discuss your court martial, traitor?”
Thomas kept an unmoving expression on his face: silent, yet pompous.
The General glanced over at James, who was sitting and watching on the bench and asked, “What do you think James? Shall we send him out on one of your ships and let him be a cabin boy for a month? I hear the accommodations are quite unpleasant.”
“Indeed I would be able to make use of him,” replied James as he stood up, showing his lean yet defined sailor muscles.
Still Thomas held his cavalier demeanor as the General, Roy, and James loomed over him.
The whole scene amused Rick, and as he listened he spied the unguarded Goldfish that the General had left vulnerable on the table. He decided to take advantage of the situation since everyone was completely focused on Thomas.
Then the General nodded towards Roy.
“Or perhaps we should have him be your errand boy for a while, Roy.”
“Actually, now that you mention it, I have a few tasks that are for some reason considered cruel and unusual punishment in a number of different countries,” Roy replied with a gleam in his eye.
Even after this even greater threat Thomas held his insolent disposition.
Then the General devised a new threat.
“Or maybe we should give you to Rick for some ‘Flight Training.’”
Thomas’s eyes then got wide. That was the one thing that could break his stare.
Now this wasn’t just any flight training. The General was referring to the Rick’s version of Air Force flight training. Rick’s “Flight Training” consisted of putting the “Trainee” into a straight jacket, and then strapping them into one of the Air Force’s K-39 fighter jets. K-39’s were the most agile plane in the Domain’s fleet. Then Rick, the most cunning pilot in the Domain, would take off into complicated flying maneuvers and tricks pressing as many g’s as possible onto the trainee until the trainee passed out, but he would make sure that the trainee didn’t pass out too soon. This brutal Flight Training was an exercise designed to give the feeling of helplessness and fear.
The General asked, “What do you think Rick?”
There was no answer.
Turning around towards where Rick was eating he asked again, “Rick?”
The General swung his head around and saw two things missing from the junior high courtyard: Rick, and the bag of Goldfish!