Pterodactyl Vanessa

**Vanessa**, also known as **Pterodactyl Vanessa**, is the young daughter of Pterodactyl Kenny. She lives in a mall buried under the sands of the Dustlands.

## Biography

Nothing is known of Pterodactyl Vanessa's life up to the point that Pete encountered her. It is unknown when her father, Pterodactyl Kenny, had her or who her mother is. It is also unknown how the family came to reside in the underground Hillsboro Mall, but it is possible that Kenny had owned it for a long time already by then, since he was already known as "The King of The Mall" while he was part of Russboy's freeway pirate crew. However, there is no way to know whether she already lived at that time. It is perfectly possible that he had his daughter with someone while still a member of the crew, or some time before joining it.

Regardless of how, when or where Vanessa was conceived, she did not remember ever living anywhere besides the underground mall, and her father lied to her, keeping it a secret all her life that he had once been an above-worlder himself. She was however very curious about the "Above World" and the cities there, not even knowing that at this point Shade was the only city that remained on Earth. It is unknown why Kenny wanted to keep Vanessa in the mall and stay there for the rest of their lives, but he had an irrational fear of the above world, thinking it full of "criminals, delinquents, chemicals and radiation." Kenny only allowed himself to take trips up to the desert, though it is unknown how far he would travel from the mall's location and for how long at a time.

At one point, some unknown event occured that forced the family of two to only live off of canned asparagus spears, seemingly ones that had gone somewhat bad. Why this is the only food they had had since this unidentified happening, is not known. The family lived in a mall that was submerged under sand in some region of the Dustlands. The mall was perfectly preserved with a fully livable and breathable atmosphere, and it even had plants growing in it somehow. The mall, which was once the Hillsboro Mall, was most likely once not covered by sand, similar to many other places littering the Dustlands that had once been inhabited and existed in the free, open air, but had, most likely because of some sort of cataclysmic event years ago, been submerged by the sands of the desert wasteland now known as "the Dustlands."

It is unknown what Vanessa spent her life doing in the mall. It is possible that she and her father played music together, as Kenny was a proficient guitarist and Vanessa was rather good at keeping a rhythm with more percussive instruments. For instance, she knew how to create a rhythm by sliding her fork along a long pine cone, using it as a makeshift güiro.

When Vanessa's father found Pete near-dead and unconscious in the desert of the Dustlands on the surface, nearly starved to death, he brought him down into the mall to save his life. He brought Pete into the the store display of a clothing store that did not have a window anymore and watched him there with Vanessa. When Pete woke, Kenny introduced himself and Vanessa. They had dinner subsequently, where Vanessa heated up a plate of the canned asparagus spears for Pete. She apologized about only having the asparagus to feed him, and started to inform him that it was the only food she and her father had had to eat ever since some sort of event, but before she could tell him what event it was her father interrupted to shut her up, for unknown reasons, by asking what the above world was like those days. Vanessa, curious, asked Pete if he had ever seen a city, which prompted her father to apologize for his "foolish daughter and her foolish question," however Pete let him know it is not a foolish question as he was in fact from a city himself. Pete, not wanting Vanessa to know anything good about the above world, however quickly ended the conversation by asking whether Pete wanted to hear some dinner music. He played a guitar while Vanessa created a rhythm by using a long pine cone and her fork as a güiro.

In the evening Kenny took Pete back to the clothing store display room to sleep. He had tried to convince him throughout the day to stay with them in the mall instead of returning to the surface, possibly afraid that he would take Vanessa with him too. When he left the room, havinb bid Pete good night and expressed his hope that Pete would be more agreeable in the morning, Vanessa came into the room and woke Pete, urgently telling him that they had to leave quickly as her father "isn't what he seems." Pete asked her if he was a cop, a bird or a pterodactyl, and she said no to each one respectively, growing more impatient with every one of the inquiries before she hurried him on. They then got up and left. However, while running towards an elevator in the area of the mall that had once been the food court, Kenny appeared, riding the elevator down to stop them from leaving. Pete ordered Vanessa to get behind his back, but confused she reminded that it was just her dad. Pete responded by saying "No, he's The King of The Mall," grabbed a hammer from the ground and threw it against Kenny, who, playing his guitar, created a shockwave blast of blue and violet energy that knocked Pete backwards some, then threw another can of asparagus at Pete. Pete announced that this could not be real and that Kenny had gotten into his mind, but then said that it was okay as he had gotten into his own mind as well, before gulping down the entire contents of the can and then flying into the air, powered by a strange supernatural force, and charged at Kenny. In the fight that ensued, Pete eventually got the upper hand and blasted Kenny down through several floors of a radio tower building in the mall, killing Kenny in the proccess (although it is possible that it was all in his imagination, as the dead body of Kenny had the hammer that Pete threw in the beginning under his head, possibly lodged in his head. It is unknown if he simply landed on top of the hammer though.) Pete got up and picked the guitar off the ground, turned to Vanessa and told her to come with him and that she was safe now. Vanessa, clearly taken aback at what had happened, however noted that Pete had just killed her father. Pete asked if that was bad, to which Vanessa answered "Kinda." Pete then said that he should go, and turned to leave, taking the guitar with him but now inside of a black guitar case, which had belonged to Kenny too. As Pete was walking away, however, Vanessa called his name. He stopped midtrack, turned his head and told Vanessa "I love you too," before walking away.

What happened to Vanessa after these events are unknown. It is also unknown if all of the story is true, as it is the version of Pete's tale that is told by the shopkeeper Connor, to whom Pete passed Kenny's guitar after he returned to Shade, and Connor was only told by Pete that he got the guitar from "the desert, from a pterodactyl dad, The King of The Mall, whom I destroyed," and that it was "a physical reminder of my biggest regret." It is also unknown what Vanessa meant by her father not being what he seems, or how she truly took Pete's killing of him.

## Physical appearance

Pterodactyl Vanessa has long, flowing dark brown hair. Her skin is pale olive and her eyes are dark brown. For unknown reasons, like her father, Pterodactyl Kenny, she wore a dark brown pterodactyl- or bird-like mask with a huge, downwards curved beak, that covered her whole head except the eyes, and which only allowed for some of her hair, at the sides and the bottom back of her head and the nape of her neck, to show. She wore clothes of muted, dark colors, including a muted grayish-brown coat with a sort of layered sleeves design, where muted white and gray-ish blue longer sleeves are sown into the shorter brownish sleeves to give the impression of wearing a longer-sleeved shirt under the coat. The coat is lined on the inside instead with a muted yellow color. The coat is worn, open, over a drab muted blue shirt. She wore a muted dark blue scarf around the neck. She wore two types of gloves on her hands, a longer deep red leather one on her left hand and a shorter black cloth one on her right. She wears white wired earbuds, a part of whose white wires can be seen spilling out the back of her bird mask.

## Personality

Vanessa was a curious young adult who longed to know more of the above world, however her father had sheltered her from learning more of it for all her life, and also kept her from going to see it herself.

## Abilities

Vanessa was good at keeping a rhythm and might have been gifted in other aspects of music and been able to play other instruments than the güiro. She might have been skilled in playing other percussive rhythmic instruments or even instruments other than the percussive variety, or been a good singer.

## Trivia

* The design of Pterodactyl Vanessa and Pterodactyl Kenny's masks is a reference to the humanoid vulture-like bird species called the Skeksis from the 1982 Jim Henson-directed fantasy puppet film *The Dark Crystal* and its prequel TV series.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 *A Pete Episode*, episode 3 of *Dynamo Dream*. Ian Hubert. April 6, 2023.

## See also

* Pterodactyl Kenny
* Pete
* Pterodactyl Kenny's mall