CHAPTER 8
X-D03
Now that the "strangers" was captured, some of the "biological creatures" Jingo had talked about came crawling out of their hideouts in the broken buildings.
They weren't pretty; some looked as if they were struggling only to stay alive as they crawled on six and some even 7 feet and gasped for air, although there was nothing wrong with the air around them.
"What do you call that?" Rambo asked.
"Early experiments" Jingo said. "Not very successful as you can see. Their lungs aren't fully evolved; they rarely live for more than a few months."
"Disgusting" Rambo said. "And these robots?"
"They work as guards" Jingo said. "Looks after the animals, takes in sick ones and make sure spies don't get in".
"Where are you taking us?" Balder asked.
"You'll see" Jingo said and smirked.
Without warning, some strange creature crashed onto the ground in front of Balder and roared straight up in his face.
This creature didn't seem to have any problems breathing.
It looked like a combination between a slug and a giant beetle with metal covering its face.
It had a large mane around its neck, which looked like it was made out of bones.
The face consisted of a mouth with clearly visible sharp teeth, four vicious yellow eyes and a greenish glowing gem on its forehead.
The rear end had long insect feet and ended in a long scorpion-tail.
"What are these rats doing here? Are they lunch for the newcomer?" the creature asked.
"They are visitors X-MH02. Leave them alone" Jingo said.
"Mmm, they sure look tasty" X-MH02 said before it flew of again.
"What was that?" Rambo asked.
"If you think he was nasty, just wait. I'm pretty sure he'll get much bigger" Jingo said. "You got to admit you're impressed. But that's not all I wanted to show you."
He led them into the dark eco factory, which had been rebuilt.
The outside looked like it always had done, but the inside was a different matter.
Where it once used to be dozens of work-places where ottsels were working with chemistry stood now long lines of glass tubes, each containing a strange liquid.
Balder looked closer at the tubes and gasped, there were animals inside the tubes!
Some looked more like fetuses than animals but it was clear what the dark makers were trying to do.
They were creating all new animal-species.
There were doors behind the tubes, where dark makers went in and out carrying injured or newborn animals.
"Impressive isn't it? Can't understand what the Lionheads have against this?" Jingo said. "Either way, they will soon be a long lost memory, thanks to what's in here".
He opened a door which said "No admittance".
In this room were three tubes, bigger than those in the hallway.
In two of them were two creatures that could not possibly live outside the tube, they already looked dead anyway.
But in the tube to the left was something that looked like a large snake or a lizard, twice a precursor's length.
The body was like a snake bright blue, and with darker stripes, it had four short feet and an unusually long thin tail, the tail had a purple brush on the end.
The head was like a lizard's; the nostrils were sticking up on the long nose.
The creature had its eyes slut, but Balder was sure he had slits for pupils, like a cat.
It had long ears which lay back, and between the two ears where two black horns which grew out on the top of the head.
"Beauty eyh?" Jingo said to his guests. "It'll be our strongest warrior. A real-life dragon!"
"What are those other things?" Balder asked.
"Forget them, they are failed experiments" Jingo said and pressed a button.
All the liquid and the creatures in it were flushed out of the two tubes to the right, leaving the dragon alone in the left tube.
"It's ready" Jingo said. "Ready to step into the world. It took two years for it to grow to this size and I think it's been ready for all that time. But we decided to wait a while so that it wouldn't be killed until it got time to grow up, but now we have decided to test it out".
"Test it? What do you mean?" Rambo asked.
"We have to check if it's up to the job" Jingo said. "If it's capable of killing. Luckily for us, two guinea pigs just entered our town" he added with a smirk and pressed a new button.
The liquid in the third tube was flushed out, but this time the dragon stayed in the tube as the glass was lowered.
Soon the tube was gone, leaving the dragon standing on its pillar, shaking the liquid of.
"I don't like this" Balder said.
"That's not the point either" Jingo said. "Go on X-D03 make me proud".
The dragon opened its eyes, the iris was blood red and the pupils, like Balder assumed, were slits.
It let out a cry like a distressed bird and charged at the two ottsels.
"Run!" Rambo yelled and ran for the door which was left open (Jingo obviously wanted to check the dragon's ability to catch its prey too).
As they ran down the hallway, more dark makers appeared to cheer at the dragon.
"When we get out in the city we'll have a chance" Rambo said. "There are so many fallen rocks; we can crawl under them while the dragon will be slowed down because it has to walk over them.
When they got out, the two ottsels quickly jumped into a hole which was too narrow for the dragon to follow, and the ground above had too many sharp rocks for anyone to just jump over.
"That'll keep him off our tails" Rambo said.
But he was wrong.
As the dragon came out of the door it revealed two new body-parts that the ottsels hadn't noticed while it was in the tubes.
Gigantic wings erupted from either side of the mid-part of the dragon's snakelike body, and it flew graciously above the rocks.
Miss.Ecofreak: anyone who's guessed who X-MH02 is? He has appeared in one of the Jak and Daxter-games, but I'm not telling which one
Zakura: because she's an evil, evil dark maker herself
Miss.Ecofreak: but not so evil I won't update this.
If you wonder what the names of Jingo's pets mean;
XD03 stands for Experiment Dragon Nr 3.
XMH02 stands for Experiment Metalhead Nr 2
Please review, and I'll have the next chapter up soon.