The Commander was still new to this world. His construction began three years ago, when his body was first found. Making sure he stayed alive was the first priority. It was harder with him than it was with any of the others. Porky insisted this boy had to be the one that they made into his robot guard. Nobody else would do. He said the boy had the same spark as a selfishly brave hero from long ago. He insisted on making that old shadow bow to him.
They normally went through so many test subjects trying to create the first chimera of any kind. This boy was their first human chimera. The normal scientists had nearly butchered the boy when Doctor Andonuts had stepped in and stopped them. He kept the boy alive, though barely. It took almost a year for the boy to be completed because of this.
Another year was needed for his training. The boy wasn't bad, but he also wasn't good. He couldn't hit the broadside of a barn with his cannon when they began. The blasts were too powerful and he was too light. He'd send himself flying every time he tried. More surgeries had to be done. They had to make him strong, more capable of dealing with the blow back from his weapon. It took a long time for him to recover from that was well.
Sword play he was a little better at. He had always been left handed, the scientists had realized. They didn't have to train him to use it like he would his dominant hand. He was good with a held weapon, but treated it too much like he was a stick. He'd messed up a few times and cut himself. The boy would carry a scarred hand for the rest of life, not that it was the only scar he had.
PSI took the longest, though. The chimera boy hadn't realized he had it until his master ordered him to complete a combat test. He had struggled and called up his PSI. That changed everything. He was no longer just going to be a guard robot. Now he was going to be a perfect weapon for the pig king. He was told he would lead the king's army, something that nobody else had really managed until that point. Though many of them had good traits, none of them were what Porky wanted in a commander.
His new future made the Commander's work even harder. He had to be perfect. He had to be faster, strong, smarter, and, most importantly, he had to learn how to act like a Commander. The boy had been an empty doll up until that point. He didn't have any social skills. They hadn't even taught him to talk. He knew only to be submissive. Now he needed to learn to be a mix of submissive and aggressive. He had to stand on top of an army, give orders, but still cower in from of his master. It had been a long process of trials and errors to learn that.
Finally, three years after his creation, the masked boy finally took his place at the highest point in the army. However, it wasn't all he had been trained for. He didn't really make any choices. The colonels that had been running the army for so long continued to run the army. The scientists handled their things. Fassad took most of the decision making that the Commander had been assigned to anyway. In the end, he was nothing but a flashy weapon.
That was when the mission came in. His master had something special for him to do. Something that only the Commander was capable of. He felt a rush of childish excitement, as for the first time, he was given a purpose. It was just pulling seven needles, but they were seven needles that only the Commander could pull. He excitedly and willingly went about his new task.
'Similar' was the only word he could find to describe pulling the first needle. As he gripped the needle, coating his hands with PK Love to avoid being forced back like all the other hands that reached for it, he got a glimpse of what was under the needle. It was too dark to see its real form. The thing didn't even know what it was. It was lost and in the dark. All it memories had been stripped away, leaving it an empty shell. It was similar to him.
The creature wanted to see the outside world. As the Commander was the only tether it had to that world, it burrowed into his mind. It took things, lots of things. It took his first memory of picking up a sword. It took the memory of the man that created him, Dr. Andonuts. It took the skill of driving a Pork Bean. This left the Commander shocked and unsteady. Things were simply ripped from his head. However, that wasn't the end. The creature didn't just take. It also gave. It showed him a new power, much like the PSI he had been created with, only a little stronger.
Despite the horrible pain in his head and how disoriented he felt, the masked boy was excited. For the first time, he had met something like him. He understood its urge to learn. He had felt the same thing when he was first activated, but the impulse had been curbed be the harsh lessons. Meeting this creature had brought it back. He started to spend hours in his quarters, reading books on the world, the human body, engineering and war strategies. Though he wanted to know more, this was all he could research without the army questioning his motives. They didn't want him getting smarter, they wanted him to stay as he was.
As time passed, the masked boy learned that he was not the only one able to pull the needles. It hadn't bothered him, since he had found the creature. The feeling of wanting to be special and of use was replaced by the desire to meet with the thing that was like him again. However, when the other pulled two of the waiting needle, the Commander was not happy. He needed to be the one to pull those needles.
He was, however, the one to pull the fourth needle. He'd arrived at the snowy mountain just in time. There were reports from his men that the blond boy who pulled the other two needles was climbing it as well. It was his only chance.
The red haired boy was in for a surprise when he pulled the needle. He'd gathered so much information for the creature, but it wasn't pleased. In fact, it was upset.
"Where are the feelings? The connections? The opinions?"
The Commander was confused. Those were all things he knew he didn't need. He didn't need emotions, they would cloud his vision. A Commander couldn't have any connections to people either. He didn't have anything in him that was nourishing a heart. He certainly wasn't refined enough to have opinions on the things he learned. The excitement and wiliness of some of his actions were the closest things he had felt to happiness. He knew a bit of fear, but it was only a bit. With connections, he had no heart to give the dragon.
"You just aren't as good as him."
The knowledge was still taken and the Commander felt stronger, but he wasn't satisfied with this meeting. It was as if the creature had snubbed him. Nobody had been that rude to him before. Well, nobody besides Fassad and Porky, but they just didn't understand. The creature was like him. No, not anymore. The creature had learned more than him about the world. While he was still empty, it was filling up.
The bitterness carried him to the next needle. He coldly took down the group that pulled the other two needles. He wanted to see the creature again. However, this meeting went no better than the last. The creature showed irritation at the Commander's lack of a heart. It gave him the power and took the knowledge, but the meeting was rushed, almost as if the creature didn't have time for him anymore. It stung in a new way. It wasn't like a wound. It felt different. It was like there was a thorn in his chest.
Bitterness turned into desperation as the boy tried to get to the creature another time. He'd almost forgotten this was a mission from his master. These days, the Commander just wanted that warm sensation of meeting someone like him again. Though the dragon had changed, he knew it could also change back. Surely, it could be a twin existence to his own again.
The sixth needle was lost too. It was the blond boy again. He and his friends easily took out some of the strongest majors in the army and one of the colonels. The Commander fought them with all of his might, but even he wasn't strong enough to take the group down. He was frustrated and angry. These were the first full emotions he ever felt.
He was angry right up until that last moment in front of the needle. There was no desperation on the face of the blond boy, of Lucas, there was only concern. This confused the Commander. He expected the same strange desire to see the creature. No, this boy seemed more concerned with the Commander than anything. Why did the creature think Lucas was better than him if the boy was only this? The masked boy pushed him back time and time again, but the blond wouldn't stay down. He just allowed the Commander take out his anger on him time and time again.
The voice of the brown haired woman and the continuing fight slowly calmed the Commander. As he heard more and more, he realized he wasn't empty at all. He had slowly become filled with information and a desire to know the creature, to befriend it. Even before that, before the first surgery, he was special. He was someone before. He was Claus. The memories came back. Then came the horror. He was fighting Lucas.
The end of their battle was no epic finish. It was two unwilling fighters exchanging blows that had no real force behind them. Lucas' attack hurt more, but he would miss on purpose. Claus' attacks were nothing more than a soft much to the chest. Both boys' chests were heaving. They couldn't put force into their blows if they wanted to.
And so the story ended with one brother living and the other brother dying. As Claus looked up to his brother's fading face, he couldn't help but smile. This was the similar existence he was looking for this whole time. Not a dragon with a hole in its heart, but a boy with a face so much like his own and a heart ten times too big. He finally felt happy.
"I'm sorry it turned out like this. I'm really happy you could be with me just before the end…"