Space Penguins and Baby Dragons

By Theodore Lin

An August 2026 Story Challenge Winner 

Prologue

Splash, splash. Alex, the emperor penguin who was very excited to have action and could bear a lot of heat, swam up to Chile to meet the water dragon, Fire, to talk about flight.

“What do you think about flying me to Antarctica?” asked Alex.

“Sure. Although I’m kind of scared of the cold,” replied Fire.

“It’s not that cold.”

“All right.”Fire flew with Alex on his back, who gave him the directions to fly back to the colony.

Once they arrived at the colony, the penguins naturally started getting to their “fight” instinct. They started shouting.

Emma said, “Who is this?”

Another penguin said, “Do not eat me, monster!”

A third penguin said, “Stay back, monster!”

Fire was scared of the penguins, especially since there was a group of penguins, and he rarely met armies that would attack at first sight.

Alex sighed. “Fire is my friend. I’ve met him since my father brought me up to Chile’s coast. He knew I could bear intense heat, so he brought me there, then we met him.”

Sofia snorted. “I don’t believe you. We know each other, but this cannot be accepted.”

“He won’t attack you. I trained him not to attack penguins. Right, Fire?”

He innocently nodded.

“Good night, husband,” said Emma.

“Good night, wife.”

Zzzzzz. The penguins fell asleep in their den. However, in the dead of night…(This description has been compressed into this to avoid a spoiler.)

Chapter 1: Australia

The next morning…

“Ahh! Husband! Where are the eggs?!” Emma woke with a start.

Sigh. “I’ll get the dragon, wife.” He did as he promised, and went outside the den to fetch Fire.

“Can you come with me? We have a bit of an egg problem.”

Fire went over, shocked.

“Can you fly the two of us around the world to penguin territory to find who stole our eggs?" Alex said.  "I don’t think humans will be like this. Wife, are you willing to fly?”

“Sure,” said Emma.

Fire flew them into the air, while the two penguins cheered with joy. “Where to?” asked Fire.

“Australia first,” replied Alex.

Fire heard the response, and started flying in the desired direction. They swooped low across the penguin area. No eggs. They flew into the big cities, where the Australian penguins might have hidden some eggs. They sweated, as the factories caused a lot of pollution.  They still didn’t find anything.

Flump. Emma was out of energy, and smacked her face – including her beak – on Fire’s Back.

“OW!”

No response.

Fire kept flying. “I need a rest, okay?”

They stopped at a small village in Australia, took a quick search, found a bunch of chicken eggs, but no penguin eggs, and took a rest for the night.

Chapter 2: African Coast

“Wake up, husband! Wake up, Fire!” called Emma.

They woke up, and started to pack up their gear to go to Africa, when Fire shouted, “Better bring some water, penguins! It’s super hot!” and he started flying them to Africa.

They flew over, swooping down to the west coast, finding African penguins and their eggs, but absolutely no emperor eggs. They even flew around the south and east coasts, and only found more African eggs, yet no emperor eggs. This time, both Emma and Alex fainted on the back of Fire due to tiredness.

They went to Lagos, Nigeria to search human houses. However, all they could find were a bunch of duck eggs on a family farm. They even tried to fly around the skyscrapers, and found what looked like a penguin egg.

 “Human, give us back our eggs!”

The humans were shocked, and anxiously said, “T-th-e egg-ggs a-arrr-e ch-iccken egg-ggs.”

Fire flew back up, with Alex and Emma trying to search for the eggs with all their energy. Puff, puff. Pant, pant.

Suddenly, the weather got annoyingly hot, at a 150°F and the two penguins fainted and fell off his back. Fire screamed, and swooped down to catch the falling penguins.

As scared as he was to drop the two penguins, he successfully helped them slowly reach the ground, and they slept on the ground for the rest of the night.

Chapter 3: Back to Antarctica

The next day, they concluded that the thieves weren’t on Earth.

“Fire, let’s go back to Antarctica.”

On the way, however, there was a lot of rain.

“Ugh!” Fire slowed down his flapping. “I sure am a water dragon, but I cannot fly with this much rain!”

The two penguins were just as scared of the beating rainstorm, but they knew they had to carry on.

Boom, boom.

“TAKE COVER! FLY LOW!” screamed Alex.  Fire quickly swooped down, and got to ground. He kept flying, but at a very low level. 

Clap, clap. 

Lightning came, and Fire flew faster. Ugh. They flew over the ocean. “Emma and Alex, wanna take a swim with me? We can avoid thunder and lightning like that!”

They dived in, and went for a swim. They were master swimmers, and went from the tip of Argentina to Antarctica in less than two hours.

When they got back, they chose to build a water rocket using the litter they collected in the various places they traveled through.

Using physical and chemical reactions, they found a way to make the rocket be able to fly through space properly.

“Fire, we’re going to need a method to make sure you have enough water to last us the whole journey.”

“We can try to have a swim in the ocean, so I can get wet enough so there is enough water for the journey.”

“Sure. Let’s go for a swim, and I need to hunt a little today,” replied Alex. “Wife, stay at home and make sure everything’s okay, yes?”

“Yes,” replied Emma.

Fire and Alex went for a dive, marveling at the corals, fish, and sea objects around them. Alex saw a rock-cod.

Stay calm. Follow slowly, slowly… “GOTCHA!” He caught the fish, and went for a nearby trout. He sneaked up on the fish – but it swam away! “UuuuGH!” He slowly went for a nearby shrimp herd, catching at least half of all the shrimp.

Chapter 4: Into Space!

The big day came! The penguins packed up their fish and weapons (a.k.a. very weak snowballs), and Fire got his water pack ready, and they hopped into their rocket.

“Fire, send your water power into the exhaust pipe!” Fire sent it in, and Alex steered the rocket, making sure to look for planets and penguins. They flew to a red planet named Mars when…

“PENGUINS! And they have our EGGS! We must land!” announced Alex. They got down.

“Ei!” shouted a rogue penguin. “What are you doing here?”

“We demand our eggs back!” said Alex and  Emma in unison.

“Alright… push us into giving it back.”  

HUA! Alex threw a snowball at the rogue.

“OWWW!” screamed the rogue. “Attack, Gentoos!”

The so-called “Gentoos” charged at them. Everybody threw snowballs except Fire, who shot powerful water beams. Emma and Alex did not get hit, as they were very good at dodging snowballs. The Gentoos all fired at the exact same time, quickly using up their snow. They missed all the shots, and Alex called a shot.

“Three… Two… One… ATTACK!” Emma and Alex fired snowballs with impossible (for the Gentoo penguins) accuracy, hitting every single penguin at least once.

The ones that got hit three or more times showed that they resigned from the match, but the ones that only got hit one or two times…

“You are NOT getting your eggs back. Three… Two… One… Toss!” The Gentoos seemed to be gaining a sense of strategy, and they all fired at Emma.

“Noo!” She immediately resigned, but came back when Alex called, “Wife, please… Come fight with me! We can win, but only if we and Fire work together!” They all fired at five cornered Gentoos, and they all resigned from the match. “Ten penguins done, five to go!” announced Alex.

The five remaining Gentoos growled some bad words that Alex couldn’t understand, and shot even more snowballs, and seriously injured Emma.

“I need to sit out for a little while.” 

Alex agreed, and fought them with Fire, and they continued to fight the Gentoos.

Sploosh.

Fire shot a fast yet thin jet of water at one penguin, and the penguin, filled with rage, snapped at Fire. Fire dodged in the nick of time, and the penguin fell.

“Step on him, Fire!”

Fire put his weight on him.

“Let me go, okay? I’m not going to hurt you.”

Fire let him go. The penguin charged at Alex, narrowly missing his skin.

All of a sudden, “You do NOT attack my husband unpunished!” Emma ran at him, using her beak to get him.

The penguin automatically fainted, as he bled a lot.

“Charge!” shouted another penguin. They stopped using snowballs, but instead used beaks. They successfully dodged three of the remaining four penguins, but one got to Fire. He fell over, and fell into a deep sleep.

Alex, however, wouldn’t stop fighting. He immediately nipped at the penguin who attacked Fire, causing him to pass out.

In the three-to-two match, Alex automatically told his wife to charge with him at a single Gentoo. The penguin was knocked over, but the last Gentoo hit Emma five times with his beak.

Finally! thought Alex.

The last gentoo was almost out of energy, and said, “You’ll pay for this!” With all the gentoos down, they could take the gentoo equipment and fly home, so even if the gentoos ever woke up, they wouldn’t steal eggs ever again. They decided to wrap the gentoos in groups of five using the ropes that Alex brought from Earth, and they could peacefully sleep without the risk of having the eggs being stolen –  again.

The next morning they woke up to bright sunlight and a cracking eggshell. “Fire, let’s go home.” Fire kept on sleeping, so Alex patted him, and Fire barely woke up, but slowly crawled into the water rocket. “I’m going to fly with my wife back to our planet on the gentoo ship. Is that okay with you?” Fire agreed. They took the rocket home. Fire flew the water rocket by himself, and Alex flew with Emma on the gentoo rocket.When they were about to arrive at Earth, they found their den, and landed right beside their den. They were greeted with a bunch of questions that were rather annoying yet showed the penguins’ curiosity.

“Where were you?”

“What happened?”

“Did you bring anything amazing home?”

Alex successfully answered the questions of all the penguins that were asking them questions. They ended up having a Q&A interview with them about the adventure. At the end of the interview, Emma went to catch some fish for a dinner feast to celebrate the return of the chicks.

SQuACCk! The chick came out of its egg, and Alex quickly ate a cod so he could get ready to feed his new child.

Epilogue

Squack? The little chick started gobbling down half of a whole fish for its first time ever. It comfortably slept in Alex’s feet.

“Isn’t this chick so fun to raise?” asked Alex.

“He is.” said Emma, quietly, but not like a whisper. The penguins fell asleep.

Zzzz.

To be continued in another tale…