Ch. 7: I Am Drobot
As Potestatem came to once more, he became aware of a throbbing, almost unbearable pain at the back of his head, the end of his tail and the joints of his wings. Nearby, Whirlwind rolled over to face him, yawning, with her eyes closed, and sleepily muttered "Not now, brother, I'm still asleep,"
Polarus, however, was wide awake, as he had been thrown into a small depression in the ground - with Whirlwind on top of him. Her one-eighty-degree roll had revealed him squeezed into the whole, wings spreadeagled due to his sister's lying on the joints. "Finally!" Polarus groaned, standing up, returning his wings to their normal position, and shaking the dirt out of his fur. "Whirlwind, when we get home, you are going on a diet!"
"Can you check my body, please? I am experiencing large amounts of pain and would like to know the cause," Potestatem asked the angry hybrid matter-of-factly. Polarus, still grumpy, turned - and gasped in horror as the image of Shadeblazer's mutilations came over him.
"What is the problem?"
Polarus numbly beckoned him over to a nearby puddle, where Potestatem saw his injuries. "Oh dear," Polarus then registered that Potestatem was still losing blood at a worrying rate. "Dude, we have gotta get that patched up,"
The mutilated dragon suddenly collapsed, a wave of dizziness coming over him. "Get me to the junkyard. There are things there that can save me,"
Polarus roused Whirlwind, and, as soon as she had gotten over her shock at Potestatem's condition, they together managed to lift the young dragon across the forest and the narrow gap between Skylands to the junkyard.
Potestatem, upon landing, staggered over to Arkor's cockpit. "Arkor? Activate Emergency Protocol AKI99. Codename: Ultimate Cheatcode,"
Another hollow Arkeyan limb trundled it's way over to Arkor's communications helm, pulled by an Arkeyan DrillTrain M3, which was quite similar to Drill Sergeant, but it trailed half a dozen carriages behind it, and this particular one had lost both arms to ten thousand years of rust. The hollow Arkeyan arm was mounted upon the carriages.
The carriages were originally designed for carrying rocks out of mines, but Potestatem had found another use for them.
He looked at Whirlwind and Polarus. "Go. I do not know what period of time I will be inside this area for,"
And with that, green dragon jumped into the limb, and it sucked him through and down into a hollowed-out Arkeyan Robot body that was already filled with a synthesised liquid-like substance designed to artificially reproduce the conditions inside a dragon's egg, where the substance would spread through an injured being's body and deactivate multiple parts of the being in question's internal systems, one of which was the nervous system, preventing him from feeling any pain while inside it. Something could literally tear his body to pieces, and he wouldn't feel a thing. It also deactivated his lungs and provided his brain with all the oxygen necessary, so he didn't need to breathe.
This would also return Potestatem to the semi-conscious state he had possessed while his organic body was created, and, if it worked properly, should do a better job of restoring his body than he could ever do without it. Unfortunately, while it would stabilise Potestatem's condition, it could not regrow the parts of his body that had been removed, and unless Potestatem's injuries were far less serious than he thought, he would have to stay in this vegetative, semi-conscious state for eternity, or find another solution to the problem. The synthesised substance prevented ageing, to all ends and means, so in theory it was possible to be in there forever.
So Potestatem did what he did best. Think.
And over time, he formulated, designed, built and fine-tuned his greatest invention ever.
It was a stroke of genius, something that he laboured over in his Arkeyan womb for an unknown amount of time - for it was impossible for him to measure the passing of time from a place where time never moves an inch - and finally, it was done. He had created a battle suit.
Potestatem had started with his head, designing implants into his very cranium through the wounds Shadeblazer had inflicted, which were built to send messages directly from his brain to his technology as if it were part of his body, for he knew that to survive, he would need to make this technology part of his body.
He had then used the head of an Arkeyan Scout that was internally damaged beyond repair, and adapted it into a perfect helmet, with a special casing for his one remaining horn, metal teeth, since Shadeblazer had removed most of his original ones, and a special sealant around his neck that could trap a modified version of the womb-goop inside it and, for good measure, he had adapted the lightning technology from Arkeyan Rip-Rotors into laser beams that fired when he blinked, because, due to the substance on the inside of his helmet keeping his eyes moist, he no longer required to blink. He had gotten used to not blinking inside the techno-womb.
He had then focused on his injured tail, building a long, tall pyramid designed to launch a titanium gear he had sharpened, making it lethal. Some technomagical Arkeyan missile launchers that were enchanted to never run out of ammunition were also adapted into the design. It also had the lock and was filled with the modified synthe-stuff, and so should serve his purposes. Potestatem had resolved to leave the suit pieces on once he had finished them, in order to get used to wearing them - because once he was out of the womb he would need to wear them full-time, for the computers inside the womb informed him that without them, he would die an excruciatingly painful death in three to four hours.
The power core of an Arkeyan Ultron, somewhat stripped down, was adapted into a back casing and that was connected to two wing-joint encasers that Potestatem built, before he finally got to work on his new wings.
Two more technomagical bladegear launchers were designed first, and attached to the wing casing, as well as some extra laser crystals just on the edge of that. Then Potestatem attached some hover-jets to the bottom of those, and a set of thrusters to the back of all that. Finally, remembering the way Whirlwind and Polarus' wings only folded partway, he designed some rather similar hinges and attached some aerodynamic Arkeyan Assassin Swords to the hinges. Those things could cut through anything, and would never dull.
Finally, Potestatem linked all of the technology together with artificial nerves, and connected it all to the chips in his head. All the tests worked perfectly.
Now it was time for the big moment. The moment when he, the new Potestatem, would return to the world.
Engaging his new wings' aquatic mode, he propelled himself back along the extended Arkeyan arm. And erupted from the end into the sky, his jet thrusters engaging and propelling him up like a rocket. He landed in Arkor's communications hub, and saw six dragonoids that he instantly recognised. Whirlwind, Polarus, Cogshine, Burn, Insidae and Shadeblazer.
Cogshine was holding Polarus by the throat, Burn was holding Whirlwind, Insidae was hanging back, looking conflicted, and Shadeblazer was standing in front of them all, a grim smile on her face.
"Three months I've waited for this day, punk," As before, she spat the last word out like an insult.
So that's how long it's been, Potestatem mused.
"I've been wondering when you'd return, Potestatem. And now, I'm going to tear you to pieces all over again,"
The cyber dragon frowned behind his mask, and, with a thought, activated his voice modifier. "You killed Potestatem three months ago, when you tore off his wings, horns, and teeth," he boomed.
Clearly punctuating each word, he proclaimed: "I. Am. Drobot,"
Okay, I'm not going to lie. I loved writing this. It was so much more enjoyable than the turmoil I went through writing the sixth chapter of this story. And we've got some awesome action being prepped for Ch. 8. But please, review!
Oh, and on the off chance that anybody from SKC Heyington has actually gotten this far, which I highly doubt as the vast majority of you guys probably haven't read ten thousand words of an actual book in your lifetime, let alone 'A Technical Tail', (yeah, if you live in Melbourne, Australia, consider that when you pick your school) you are to be commended on doing so, and warned that as far as you lot go, the fanfic net is my domain.
If that made no sense to you, don't worry about it, it was kind of aimed at a certain group of people, and yes, I am great at being melodramatic. Peace!