Or - A tale of Two Princes, A Princess, A Frog, A Toad, One or Two Medium Sized Dragons and a Terrible Truth...
Chapter 2 - A Brief History of Space Travel
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Prince Yorik Blablahad thought it was a very normal day. After all - waking up, falling into a pit to the middle of the earth, having a close encounter with a pair of dragons, and collapsing is as casual as taking a stroll through the park.

If that park happens to be Jurassic Park, that is.

Strange and inexplicable things often transpire when one is around members of the species known as Draconis Vulgaris. Things which often have no reason at all. For instance, "The Prophet" that these particular Draconis Vulgaris were talking about was actually living on the other side of the known universe. Back in that time, advanced, fast and affordable space transportation was not available. However, a few more years into the future, one would have been available even if one was not available.

This is, of course, impossible, Since a few years more into the future there would have been no future at all.

Nowadays, most sentient, space-faring races throughout the universe utilize the Punwheel technology. This technology is energized by the combination of a clever twist of turbines and electronic relay apparatus, powered by a metallic pinwheel-like object - the rotatory movement of which is generated by a class-two H.A. (Humorous Agent, such as, for instance, Monty Python movies). Being incredibly stupid, these machines keep laughing at the same, tired old jokes, therefore resulting in the continuous quick movement. An unfortunate side effect of these systems is the fact that they trigger the appearance of various items which may only be defined as puns, such as the appearance of the interstellar ruminants known as "Space Sheep". These are accounted for, according to the "Engineering Guide of the University of Technobabblon 6" as a result of "The release of Punnion particles and class-H rays, caused by the high-velocity linear movement the device creates. The rays and particles cause the Tachyon emmiters to go insane, generating the images."
These unfortunate side effects could occasionaly cause insanity, unfortunately, in people who are not used to it. Therefore, misuse of these units often brings a great Pun-ishment upon the Pun-k that dares misuse it.

Other species attempted to use their natural resources as fuel. For instance, somewhere else in the galaxy lies a planet known as Europia. Due to some odd quirk of topography, 90% of which is covered by a mighty desert of butterscotch-flavored sand, and the other 10% consists of an ocean of blueberry juice. The native species of this world belong to an intelligent (and yet extremely stupid) shade of the color purple. They have no emotions at all and a french-like accent, for some mysterious reason. Their original plan was a valiant attempt to locate people that are addicted to butterscotch in order to make them run around in little wheels, thus powering the ships. When this plan has failed, however, they have decided to attempt causing some of their own people to do so. These Europians who decided to volunteer all died from sugar poisoning, and so, eventually, the Europian high council (A bunch of 7 Europians led by a big, blue lump of clay which they refer to as "The Grand Zog") have decided that they would simply develop one. They did that by genetic engineering (In other words, taking a bunch of genes, whirling them in a giant blender, and then threatening them that if they won't evolve into a specific thing, they will be put in a warp core - which, being a painful and obsolete thing, makes an experience which isn't nice at all.

These ships are large and axe-like - a thing which may cause confusion amongst Punwheel-engine users, who often mistake them for Gal-Ax-ies. Europians have the hobby of shooting anything that moves, or not moves. Unfortunately for them, however, "The Encyclopedia of Boneheaded Things" refers to the Europian weapon systems as "Weapons whose approximate chances of hitting anybody or anything they are aimed at are approximately 2 to the power of 2,245,324,122 and a half to 1 against - which totally redefines the meaning of "Very very very improbable". Therefore, when the Europians say they will "Open Fire" - most chances are that their weapons would fire on their own ships - which rather redefines the term "You're Fired!!!"

Large, firebreathing, archosaurian life-forms of the order Draconis Vulgarisuse an ancient and highly secret method for travel - a method that has been banned across the galaxy for being too unperdictable for its own good.
These creatures travel by "spacefolding" - they can travel instantly to every spot on the universe from any other point, without all that tedious mucking-about with puns and genetic engineering.
In order to explain spacefolding, one must take a few mind-boggling courses in the Knowledge Plant University (Home of the Guide for Psychological Greenery), or just forget about it. It will suffice to say that the spacefolder creates laundry creases on the fabric of the universe and somehow utilizes them to rip through the space-time continuum.

The unperdictable side of this is that the folds in the fabric of space-time need to be reflattened. However, since no one has found an iron large enough, The ultimate result is some strange dimensional loopholes. For instance, An alien from Gamma Centauri (who have a strange liking for small shiny objects), while walking around in the swamps of his home planet, suddenly found himself staring at a streak of green light in the sky, a light ripple in the air... And a small, shiny and utterly normal coin appearing out of thin air, and hovering in it on what appeared to be a perfectly normal sidewalk pavement.
However, on Gamma Centauri, the primary currency consisted of small blue plastic pieces with nothing but "Pricktequacktel" (which, in the native language, means "Same Thing we do Every Night, Pinky") written upon their surface. And since THIS particular coin was clearly metallic, silver-colored and had the words "In God We Trust" on it, it made this particular Gamma Centaurian rather curious about its nature. So he touched it, only to be sucked into a space-time crease and end up picking it up from a sidewalk pavement in the middle of a rather busy day in New York City. He quickly managed to fit in and recieved a job as a cab driver - meeting, in the process, a very nice Ursa Minorian girl with luxurious blue hair, deep red eyes, pointy ears and a catlike tail, falling in love, getting married, And the rest is history.

Or in another case, an exceptionally large diamond has spontaneously appeared in the middle of a London alleyway. A resident beggar grabbed the thing quite quickly, only to find himself strandered on the planet Saiyfir - a planet made entirely of gems - and surrounded by half-witted blue creatures with pickaxes for hands. He befriended them, and within a few days made them into a laborforce to mine gems from the planet.
A few years later, this planet became the largest trade center of gems that the universe has ever seen in all the years of its history.
This, of course, made that particular street beggar extremely rich - So rich he could have bought the only confirmed existing specimen of the universe's rarest mineral - The legendary red diamond known as the Excalbium.
A few months later there were hundreds of Excalbium stones found, since it turned out that the planet of Saiyfir was in fact, the rock where this rock originated.

This, of course, made things rather painful for treasure-hunters who found their skills unneccesary, And all these barbaric fun-loving ruffians who'd do anything to get their hands on a real treasure found themselves out of job too. So the Guild of Treasure-Hunters and Barbaric-Fun-Loving-Ruffians-Who'd-Do-Anything-To-Get-Their-Hands-On-A-Real-Treasure began a long strike.

Eventually they took the former street beggar to court for trying to put them out of business illegally. The trial lasted for seven and a half standard galactic months, until the defendant said a word that made the heads of the prosecution explode and thus ended the case forever.
Curiously enough, the word was "Monopoly", which pretty much explains what this guy had on gems out of Earth after the case closed.

Meanwhile, on Earth, the disappearance of that particular Once-Beggar-And-Now-Intergalactic-Jewel-Tycoon has caused many a supernaturalist to quarrel over the reasons for the disappearance, although some have claimed to have seen a blue streak rip through the sky and a strange ripple ot the air before it happened.
Of course, no one believed them.

This utterly meaningless episode was only written to answer the question of how in the passage of a mere episode, two medium-sized dragons and an unconcious prince of the Blablahad family of Eureka on the world known as Been-There-Done-That-Prime were ripping through space, en route to the dark mists of the evil twilight world of... Earth Two.

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