Phillip The Fantastically Spectacular!!!
an excerpt

“What makes you think you’re qualified should another galactic war present itself?” He asked. Phillip was sitting across the table from a jittery youngster with glasses in a pizza parlor.
“Well…” The boy shifted in his seat uncomfortably. “Whenever my brother and I play games--”
“Play?” He mimicked. “Play—we don’t play. If you roll with me thinking you are going to play you’ll get yourself killed. Are you ready for that? Huh?”
“Well…I--”
Phillip laughed, “Well it’s all fun and games until little Gregory gets his face melted by a Space Pirate.”
The boy now seemed very alarmed, “I don’t want to die.”
“Of course you don’t—and neither do I. But you’re saying you seek the glory of the adventure with none of the risks. I can’t guarantee that. Tell me, what adventure have you ever heard about where people weren’t in danger? If there’s no danger, there’s no adventure, get it?”
The youngster shifted in his seat once more, and then with a glimmer of hope raised his head. “This face melting, it’s not permanent is it? And it doesn’t really hurt does it?”
Phillip laughed, “Are you pulling my leg? What do you think it would feel like?”
“Horrible, I’d imagine.”
“Horrible is right, and as far as permanent goes, no it’s permanent only in a sense that when it happens you die, so they’re not very likely to keep on doing it are they? And if they are--” Phillip shrugged his shoulders, “Don’t worry though I’m sure someone will inform your parents you’ve been melted to death. Can’t guarantee there’ll be a body left behind, you see, sometimes they get hungry.”
“Hungry?” The little boys’ lips were trembling.
“Well what are they supposed to do? You don’t see many cows grazing out in space do you?” Phillip smiled and then padded the boy on the shoulder encouragingly. “Hey, don’t worry about it; you’re worrying about the wrong things. I mean, there are lots of worse things than face melting to worry about.”
“Worse t-t-things?”
Phillip looked at him blankly, “Well duh. If Space Pirates were the worst of it what would I need you for? Unfortunately there are a lot of--”
He was cut off by a man who walked up to the foot of their table.
“Have you decided what you want yet?”
Phillip directed his attention to the man standing at their table, “Oh! I’ll have two slices of pepperoni pizza please, and a Coke. Gregory what do you want? Gregory?”
He soon saw that Gregory was no longer sitting across from him in the parlor. He now had the booth entirely to himself.
“Not another one.” He thought. “I’m just going to have to start lying to these people.”