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Short Story: The Journal of a Meka; Upload Progress: 1 of 5 Ready
Topic Started: Nov 20 2013, 07:52 PM (551 Views)
Cedi Fonei
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Dragon Lord in Training
Entry 01: Chrome

“Alright, I’ll get on it. See ya later…” I told Mr. Girag, hanging up our call. Tucking my phone back within my pockets, I took one last quick look towards the lake’s crystalline waters.

I could use a quick wash… I figured, leaning down towards the lakebed, my cobalt-chrome reflection staring back. As I splashed my visor, I noticed my cheeks felt oddly rough.

Am I breaking out with rust…? Better take care of that after work, I decided, as I felt my insides rumble. Ah, time to refuel, first…

With little hesitation, I opened my torso, revealing the dulled-out crystal. Planting it back into the grassy soil, I waltzed over to the transporter, reaching for my personal belongings, and grabbed a shiny, gleaming new battery crystal. Snapping it into the place of the old one, the hunger pangs almost instantly vanished as I closed the compartment, feeling refreshed. I leapt back into the driver’s seat, as I ran a quick check of my surroundings.

Cargo’s still secure, hoverdrive’s still warm, weather’s still clear, seat’s still cushy. Nothing out of the ordinary except my light facial irritation as I revved up the steering grips and steered the hovercraft back towards Adamantium. A little bit painful to try and look at the city’s spires while the sun was hanging right above it on the horizon, but it’s not like I hadn’t been driving to and from this route like a dozen times just today. Humming a classic tune, I eased my back towards the seat’s as I scanned my surroundings.

No buses behind or ahead or in the adjacent lane, the road seemed oddly vacant. Surely enough, just a few miles up ahead I caught glimpse of the caution signs, displaying an image of a hawk with orange feathers, yellow zigzag patterns, and a spear-like beak, Thunderbird sighting, looked like. My free hands reached into the drawers, pulling out my trusty focus staff, as I kept half of my vision on the road, and half of it to the skies.

As I expected, the screeching of galvanic avians graced my ears within a couple of minutes. Leering through the windshield, I spotted a couple of them as they began to dive right for the engine.

“Alright, don’t ruffle your feathers…” I played around a little, setting the autodrive as the transporter whirred to a slightly slower speed. Grabbing my staff, I climbed over my seat and up into the cargo storage, taking care not to touch the crates as I climbed into the emergency hatch.

I started by teasing them with a simple waggle of my staff, diverting their attention from my fragile escort to an angle I could shoot them from, as I whispered a few lucky words.

”Essence of flame, heed my words…”

Sure enough, a fraction of the herd began to make way towards my face, though much to my chagrin a few still charged beak first towards the engine. Nonetheless, I kept to my strategy, waving my stick as they got into range...

”... raze my enemy with your breath!”

Holding my staff out towards the thunderbirds, an arcane crimson glow flew from its crystalline tip, taking the shape of a searing ray of fire. Before the bird brains even knew it was coming, they were roasted right on the spot, their bare, featherless bodies flopping onto the transporter’s roof.

I’m going to owe the washers an apology for that… I noted, as my attention turned back to the remainder of the flock, which were already pecking at the transporter’s delicate exterior.

... and the mechanics one for this… I sighed, ducking back towards the driver’s seat. “Autodrive, slow down!” I ordered, as the vehicle slowed to a cruise that made walking atop its roof easily manageable.

“Hey, shoo!” I shouted, whacking my staff at the feathered pests. “Eat some grass or something, not my engine!”

Cawing madly, the birds’ feathers sparked with a few jolts as they leapt towards me, as I attempted to swat them away. It was a pathetic flailing about on my part, but what can I say? I really didn’t want to risk doing the birds’ job for them with a poorly-aimed spell.

After a while, I nailed the last of them with an overhead smack. Crying out in pain, the bird ruffled its feathers one last time before taking off to the roads behind me, presumably in search of a source of electricity guarded by something fleshier.

“Phew…” I relaxed, groaning a little at my injuries. I had taken a few talons to my clothes, and a number of spark burns to my body and limbs, but nothing major. Chanting a simple invocation, I repaired my damage as I scraped the charred and knocked out thunderbirds off of the transporter with the dull end of my staff. Crawled back into the cargo, shut the emergency hatch, sit back in the driver’s seat, and shut off the autodrive.

In retrospect, a light manabolt would have been a safe spell to use on those pests without damaging anything, but meh, what’s done is done.

Luckily, that seemed to be the most of the monster sightings. Within half an hour, all of the warning signs had been replaced with the usual road signs and adverts. Not too long after, a familiar bus had appeared in the distance, driving towards the way I came.

It was a pretty typical drive back from there on out.








Maybe it’s just cooling down from the rush of it all, but there’s something about any drive that involves a monster ambush that makes the rest of drive seem so much longer, so I was pretty relieved to see the hospital. I went through all of the usual formal stuff, traded some paperwork for the cargo, and revved the hoverdrive right back towards Girag’s place. As I drove in to park, a familiar voice was making his leave from the building.

“Hey, Nohol!” Wyving hailed me as I sprang out of the seats. “Wrapping up your shift?”

“Yeah,” I responded, walking over with him to the terminal. “Just made a delivery of orichalcum to the hospital.”

“Yikes, another one?” he asked as we punched out for the day. “Just how bad is this recent outbreak?”

I answered his question with a quick gesture towards the transporter’s charred spots and punctured rear.

“Emberwolves? Whelps?”

“Thunderbirds. About half a dozen of ‘em,” I explained, as our feet shuffled into the sidewalks. “Roasted a few of them myself, but I ended up smacking the rest.”

“Why not just toss a manabolt at them?”

“Eyehhhhh… hindsight.”

“Well, you oughta be more careful out there, alright? The last thing you need is to be delivering your own replacement arm.”

“Heh,” I chuckled a little, winding my right arm, its orichalcum finish gleaming in the sunset. “Good point.”

“Glad to see you’re as careless as ever,” Wyving teased, punching me lightly in the elbow. The pain underneath my arm and my wincing reaction told me I must’ve missed something. “I think they nicked a wire or two.”

“Ow… thanks,” I told him only half-sarcastically, sighing. “Alright, you win, I’ll play it safer until it repairs itself.”



“Say, speaking of the outbreak,” he changed the subject, “Have you heard that Congressman Zelgios has proposed to raise the legal mana concentration on mana cores for military devices to 500%?”

“... you’re not serious, right…?” I paused. “Please, tell me you’re not serious. No meka in the right mind would propose that…”

“He wants to take the risk. It’s been all over the radio. Biggest backlash I’ve ever seen...”

“No rust there’s backlash! You think that they’d ever hear the end of it if they ended up accidentally binding a soul to a wavesword or a focus staff or a barrier, or... something!?”

“Yeah, it was just this afternoon,” Wyving clarified, motioning me to keep my pace. “If he’s paying ANY attention, he’ll backtrack by tomorrow. Gods help him if he expects the rest of the Congress to support him.”

“For this nation, I hope he does…”

We were both quiet for a little while. It’s not exactly easy to transition from the most stunning move in recent politics to a topic like last night’s Netball game.



But I brought it up a couple of blocks later. I figured if we made a bet whether the Paladins or the Stingers would win, that I’d be a fair sport and remind him that he won.







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So yeah, this is an idea I kinda had in my head for a while and have just now started to write about. Most of the planning mostly applies to plans that won't be seen until later, though. But still, I'm always open to constructive criticism~

please actually give me some I need it to live
Edited by Cedi Fonei, Nov 20 2013, 08:04 PM.
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