Cybernetic Beast Taming In A Game-like World

She looked smaller somehow. Her dark hair was tied to a short bun behind her, but two strands fell to the sides of her face, framing the soft expression she had and the shadow under her eyes.

"You," Jethro muttered, like he'd seen an angel. "I mean… you're okay."

Padva's lips formed a frown as she looked at her feet. "Yeah. I was barely hurt anyway." Then she looked at him. "But you don't look at all like you did hours ago."

Jethro managed a weak snort. "High praise. Though I'm surprised it's only been hours, my spine swears it's been longer."

The attempt at humor fell flat in the quiet hall. Padva looked away and Jethro frowned, watching her. The shared horror of the Darc Throne Depths hung thick between them, a suffocating blanket.

Jethro waited a bit before asking. "So, how did you make it out? When Decterion went after you, I thought you were dead for sure."

Padva opened her palms, staring at them like she was too scared to look at Jethro's face."I only survived because of Shadow's teleporting abilities," she whispered. "When the Conqueror came after us, he kept warping until we were outside the Rift."

Jethro lifted a brow. "Shadow? That's your Doomsday Panther, right?"

She nodded.

'If it warped outside of the Rift, does that mean it can teleport through the Dimension Wall?' he thought to himself, gazing at her as she remained head low.

"Hey? You're not blaming yourself for any of this, are you?"

Padva looked at him briefly, like she had gathered confidence just to do that, before she turned away. "I ran away and left you and the others."

"You didn't run away," Jethro told her after a scoff. "Your mechbeast saved your life. Like it should."

"But when I saw you come out…" her face glowed with emotions that she never showed once during the expedition. "...why did I suddenly feel so relieved? It felt like I wouldn't have to live my life in guilt."

Jethro shrugged. "Trust me, I felt the same way when they told me you were alive."

Padva froze, her eyes slowly moving to his face once more, watching him, taking in his features. "How did you survive?" she asked her most burning question.

Jethro shifted uncomfortably, arms folded. His eyes narrowed as he replied. "Eh, I just got lucky. Turns out my Red Lizard's thermal regulation was strong enough to buy me time against the fire Decterion tried to kill me with. After that…" He shrugged stiffly. "Blur. Woke up here. And I don't look at all like steak for dinner."

Padva slowly turned away, digesting the information but not saying anything.

Jethro looked at her, then exhaled and rested his back on the bench. They stayed like this for a moment, before he asked, "Do you still want to do it? Be a Riftwalker?"

Padva's lips and brows tightened, as though she was suppressing a very heavy emotion, possibly tears. Her palm clenched on her knees and she hid her face. "Do I have a choice?" she murmured, more to herself than him. "My fear doesn't outweigh my duty."

There was a bleak acceptance in her tone, one that left Jethro feeling a pang of sympathy for her.

"What about Shadow?"

Padva glanced over at where a couple troopers marched past. "He's in the mechveterinary bay now. He was hurt really bad by the conqueror when he attacked us. I'm a little worried."

Jethro watched her profile. Her steely resolve was still there, buried under the exhaustion and fear. "Shadow will pull through," he said. "I can feel how strong your bond is. It would have been weaker if he wasn't going to make it."

Padva's head slowly raised and snapped towards him, hair strands whipping. Her gloomy face finally met him, stunned. "How could you possibly be able to feel that..?" she asked.

Jethro, realizing himself, widened his eyes before scratching the back of his neck. "It was just a lucky guess. Was trying to cheer you up." His hand fell and began fiddling with the frayed edge of his burnt glove.

Padva looked down at the glove too.

A moment of awkward silence stretched, for so long that Jethro began to look down the hall, wondering what was taking the troopers so long. When he returned his gaze, his eyes caught Padva withdrawing something from the pocket of her clinic pants. A small, smooth object that glinted dully under the hall lights.

It was the Titanic Liongolem's core.

"Here," she said, holding it out. "I grabbed it from your pocket when you fainted outside the Rift. Knew Beastcorp would confiscate it if they found it on you."

Jethro stared at the core, his heart suddenly dropping as he remembered the escort and his dying wish: 'He should be free this time. So please, grow him yourself.'

He gazed at Padva and a relief, warmer than he expected washed over him. "Thank you," he said. "Seriously." He took the core, feeling the pulsing soul of the beast in his palm and gently sunk it into his pocket.

Padva stared at him, her silver eyes exploring his facial features. She opened her mouth to say something, hesitated, then closed it, looking away quietly. Jethro hadn't seen it, and they both sat in silence for a while. Two survivors adrift in the antiseptic aftermath.

"Jethro Merrick?" The quiet was broken by the approach of a trooper. "Your mechbeast is cleared. Come with me."

"Finally," Jethro muttered as he stood up. He paused his excitement and glanced back at Padva, still sitting on the bench, hugging her knees. "Guess… I'll see you around."

She didn't say anything. Just watched him with a quiet expression as he followed the trooper down the corridor.

Throughout the short journey, Jethro had to force himself to stop thinking about her. The only thing they shared was surviving the most dangerous man in two worlds. She was a princess.

He successfully achieved this once he entered the mechveterinary where his eyes instantly locked onto the small, transparent container unit in the corner.

Inside, looking absurdly small was his Red Lizard. Its crimson scales were vibrant and shiny after the intense cleaning. Synthetic bandages were wrapped around one hind leg and its tail. But its bulging eyes snapped open the moment Jethro entered, fixing on him.

A frantic squeak of excitement and joy erupted from the unit, and the lizard scrambled around the box impatiently, tiny claws tapping the glass desperately.

"Hey! Hey, easy, bud!" Jethro rushed over, ignoring the mechvet nearby. He pressed his hand against the unit where the lizard was frantically trying to reach him.

The mechbeast replied immediately by pressing its snout against the barrier where his palm was, chirping incessantly, its whole body vibrating with relief and anxiety.

"You two seem to have quite the bond," he remarked. He tapped the control, and the top of the unit slid open with a hiss.

With no hesitation at all, the lizard leaped out of the containment and landed on Jethro's arm with surprising speed, squeaking with the joy of reuniting with its master who was surprisingly completely unharmed.

It scrambled up his arm to his shoulder, climbed up his neck, rested on his head, rolled over before jumping and landing on Jethro's waiting palms, chittering non-stop throughout all of this.

Jethro chuckled. "I missed you too, you ugly little hero."

The lizard curled on his palm like a baby and as expected, nodded its big scaled head.

Jethro couldn't hide his smile.

The mechvet watched the reunion impassively, hands in his coat pockets. "Such a lucky little beast," he stated. "And unlucky too."

Jethro looked up at him, frowning. "Unlucky?"

"It's… a matter of perspective," the mechvet explained. He turned around and tapped his data-slate. "You see, the diagnostics of your Red Lizard was interesting. As we know, all mechbeasts have core signatures. They're pathways of aether that connect different mechbeasts of similar types to each other, and to an overlapping primal source of power from centuries ago."

Jethro's eyes widened. "A bloodline." His heart skipped, almost bouncing for joy. "Are you saying my lizard has a—"

"Yes," the mechvet replied. "However, it is useless. Locked away completely."

Jethro frowned, all his dreams crashing down all over again.

"If he were a Vulcan Alligator or even a Solar Flare Salamander, the bloodline might have been awakened by the extreme thermal stress he channeled to save you."

Jethro frowned. "But bloodlines only awaken in the Apex Stage."

"Naturally," the mechvet explained. "They can forcefully awaken in times of stress. Unfortunately for your lizard, he's only Grey Rank. The core is too small and can not hold something as powerful as a bloodline awakening."

Jethro stared down at his lizard in disbelief, its eyes blinking up at him. "What bloodline does he have in him?"

The mechvet sighed. "Are you sure you want to know? Knowing would only make you feel bitter."

"Just tell me."

The mechvet hesitated. "The Valaksyrian Bloodline. It's quite a popular one though no one has awakened it in centuries." He turned around and returned to his work. "For a moment, I thought I'd discovered something exciting. So heartbreaking how ranks define and subject us. The only way your Red Lizard can awaken his bloodline is to evolve. Too bad Grey Ranks can't evolve at all."

Jethro continued to stare at his sleeping mechbeast, but now, he was also looking at the screen that had once again appeared to him, and the title this time read; Red Lizard Evolution Pathways.

"Yeah," he murmured, hiding his excitement. "Too bad."