Thoughts in the Dark
For a split second which felt like an eternity, the snoozing scientist was convinced, or rather lulled to believe, that he was sleeping soundly in his house.
That was, until he experienced some kind of sensation. A feeling that Adam, the scientist, had wings of all things.
Wanting to check what it was, he stirred and moved his body left and right, trying to wake up quickly and threw whatever the objects were before going back to sleep. So he tried to turn his body around... and felt shackles restricting his wrists and ankles. What the hell?
"It's time to wake up, slave."
What was that? A booming voice echoed around the shackled person. Who was the speaker, he thought. The voice was laced with utter contempt. Normal people didn't talk like that, which could possibly mean one thing; Adam was kidnapped. Adam wished he could speculate on the reasons why he was taken as a prisoner, but he knew that the shackles put on him should've been obvious. Adam knew too much about something classified, and now his kidnappers wanted it.
"Who are you? Reveal your identity!" he demanded.
"Shouldn't it be clear, Equal Dragon Soldier? You are a slave. That means you have a job to do." the looming voice talked back.
Great, now he's more than a mere prisoner, Adam tiredly surmised. He's very likely going to be forced to overwork on some random project until he fell to the ground and die, or be 'taken care of' once his usefulness was over. And did the voice said something about a 'Dragon Soldier'... perhaps it was related to his work in the laboratory... Something related to a weapon of mass destruction or the like...
"Very perceptive, dragon." As if reading his mind, the voice boomed again, "But to save some precious time, now we are about to get straight to business. You will perform missions for us depending on your level of skills, and you are to leave no witnesses in each task. That includes children." The voice then became abruptly still, as if it was done talking. Adam thought he was finally given a chance to ask questions.
"Wait, what? What are you talking about? What did you mean by 'leave no witnesses'? Hey, are you listening to me?!"
But there was no answer. Had the voice went bored at his absentmindedness and decided to leave his mind? Adam needed to know, to see it himself.
Willing his body to wake up, Adam took his best to gather himself up and opened his eyes.
What he saw next would never leave his mind.
Adam looked down to check his body, only to realize that his legs and feet were metallic. Some kind of man-made steel or iron melded over his four-toed, lizard-like feet and legs, but when he stood up, his legs became dinosaurian-like... and Adam somehow felt six meters taller than he was supposed to be And his body was long, too. Confused, Adam examined his arms and hands to find them being reptilian-shaped too, also fused with a layer of dusty iron plating which reminded him of medieval age armor suits. Just like his feet, his hands were four-fingered but with one finger serving as opposable thumbs. Adam didn't want to believe what he just witnessed straight away; he checked all of his body parts to see whether he really was a metallic lizard of some kind...
But there was no denying it; his body, his draconic-shaped body that his mind resided in this very moment, was truly metallic.. or should he said it cybernetic. His wings (he really had wings after all!), his tail, even his alligator-shaped head were all fitted with metal plating, but the robotic augmentations made him feel like some super hero, except the evil voice told Adam that he wouldn't be playing super hero now. Adam was kind of curious about what his insides might looked like, however the idea of performing self-surgery was far too grotesque for him, so he decided to run his right hand over his chest.
Weird sensations Adam received seconds later confirmed his worst fear; he was no longer a human and his internal organs were mostly, of not entirely, cybernetic. Damn. Whoever transformed him into a robot dragon must've spent millions of dollars into this project.
"This is... It's madness! This is mad science! Who would've..."
Adam's grumbling was cut short when he realized that he was growling and barking all this time, not speaking in his human voice anymore.
Great, one more problem added to the list.
Adam shyly admitted that he wasn't a good talker, and despite his mastery of multiple languages, it wouldn't mean a damn thing if nobody understood what he could say, or write, in his current form.
Adam shook his head in disbelief. What if he really was a half-machine, half-human abomination? What if he never got a chance to revert back to his human form? What if... no, it's useless. There was no use wailing over his latest state of affairs. The only way to find a solution to his problem was... well, to break out of his prison, wherever it was located at the moment.
So, imagining himself as a bull, Adam stood on all his four limbs, preparing his footing as he contemplated on which wall to charge at. Adam decided to aim and ram the wall in front of him, just to see if he could break it. The armored creature took deep breaths and counted one to three.
One...
Two...
THREE!
With a loud grunt, the Equal Dragon Soldier broke into a run and charged straight through the solid wall. His iron horns impacted with the wall, only the wall wasn't solid anymore thanks to thousands of years of neglect from its builders. It soon crumbled away as Adam recovered and stood on his legs.
As the dust settled in the aftermath of the breakout, Adam concentrated his gaze to identify what objects, animate or inanimate, lay outside of the prison-like building.
A landscape full of ruins covered in lush tropical vegetation was his answer.
The ruins gave him an impression of a once-existing metropolitan, with jutting ruins which could've been skyscrapers at one point in history, now shrouded by tangling roots and vines. Metal railings were strewn everywhere, marking the positions of former offices and apartment buildings, along with structures which might have been overhead streets like those he remembered seeing in the United States. It was disconcerting to see them all covered in thick layer of foliage, stretching over them as if the whole place was but a greenhouse. However, the more Adam looked around, the more he realized that the crumbling city was overtaken almost entirely by nature, including the construction Adam was in.
Adam was kept inside a forest! Well, perhaps it removed food-related concerns for the bumbling monstrous scientist, but would there be human civilization anywhere nearby? Maybe so, but then the robotic dragon came into realization of another trouble.
He needed a way to communicate if there really was a human.
-X-X-X-X-X-
"Alex? Are you anywhere nearby?"
"In here. Don't worry, there's no problem at home!"
As soon as she got home, Rei quickly disappeared into her bedroom to changed her work uniform to her casual dress as she spoke with Alex. The increasingly dry weather brought with it a number of days full with unbearable humidity. For the irritated Rei, such climate was suitable only for males, and the approaching summer hunt served to assure her that Alex must be taught how to take over the expanding tasks the guild had planned for her. The tired lady did her best to keep her grumbling as low as possible; the young man didn't need to hear it too early.
By the time the woman was done with her casual dress, she walked out of her room and found Alex having dinner in the kitchen. Mira was nowhere in sight.
"What's with the long face?"
"The hunter's guild has... in the most polite words I could think of, assigned me to oversee a series of tasks which will take place during the summer." Rei scowled as she recited the guild's message, "Of course, they don't expect me to perform it on my own. They recommended me to bring at least two other people to help with the scouting missions first, then step back and let the... more experienced people to carry out the heavy-duty jobs."
"You can always bring in the bald guy with the hammer." Alex offered.
The woman's scowl grew deeper, "Absolutely not! Let's say I have personal reasons to dislike the man's peculiar ways. I'll try to talk Mira or her mentor to come," she then looked down towards Alex, waiting for the young man to respond. When he did not, Rei continued her speech, "As for you, I'm planning to have you trained on monster hunting. I'm greatly sorry if in the future, you find the job difficult, messy, dangerous, or even outright offensive to whatever you believed in, but I may not have other viable options. I can't go alone on those missions, and I need someone to watch my back."
Alex's eyes widened in astonishment, "You're not bluffing, are you?"
"I wouldn't be breaking the news to you if I'm not certain of your... special talents," said Rei after exhaling in defeat.
Alex sighed as he stared at his dinner. Rei had to admit, Alex had done plenty of good work during his time as her occasional assistant, albeit his habit of giving dry or sarcastic remarks would incite discontent in Rei's behalf. Huh, some four months of living together with Mira and the stoic lady hadn't truly erased the boy's seemingly carefree attitude, if anything Alex's status as a parentless young adult in the hunter's time period resulted in him becoming too carefree for his own good, likely due to the absence of a controlling figure. Perhaps it was time to teach some sense of responsibility into him. After all, Alex did say (privately) that he had absolutely no idea what to do after graduating his college, or whatever level of education he once enrolled in.
But that's the catch; freshly graduated hunters from training institutions were always eager to get assigned to field work. Could the same thing happen to Alex? Only one way to find out.
Much to Rei's surprise, Alex said one thing that lifted her hope a little bit, "Count me in."
"Are you sure? Once you're in, you won't be able to put your weapon down forever."
"I know. And let's be honest, I don't have anything better to do. Better get myself involved in something big rather than leaving me without anything good to do." For a moment, their eyes met each other.
Satisfied, the older woman nodded in agreement. "Then get some good rest tonight. We're going to have your name registered tomorrow," Rei said as she prepared herself some dinner. It's a shame Alex didn't cook more for her; despite behaving more like an assistant than an actual chef, the young man frequently made some great food, with Mira's help no doubt. Those two really had a kind of connection to each other.
But then Rei decided to forget about it. Dinner got to come first, then rest until the next day.
