Cybernetic Beast Taming In A Game-like World

He made it.

As soon as the grate clicked shut, he crawled down the stairs, though its slippery surface made him basically slide down to the bottom.

He landed lightly on his feet, and Scorch was already on the floor, waiting for him, tail flicking with excitement. Jethro picked up the little lizard before looking around.

He was finally outside the dorm, the night air whipping past his face and clothes, cool and restless. Everything was mostly dark, but the city itself was very much alive.

Far overhead, hovercars threaded shining paths through the night, academic buildings and mechshops cast glowing colored halos across the dark campus, and patrolling troopers moved steadily along distant walkways, silhouettes sharp against sprays of security lights.

Jethro was standing by a shadowed corner of the dorm, and he was painfully aware that the only thing that would give out his movement under these night shadows was his luscious white hair.

So he took off his jacket and hung it on top of his head. Scorch whimpered; one of the jacket sleeves had fallen over his eyes. Jethro quickly adjusted it, grinning slightly.

After a slow breath of preparation, he sprinted carefully down the darker parts of the Academy labyrinthine city.

By some miracle, nobody noticed. He arrived at his destination: a nondescript utility panel beside a restaurant exclusively reserved for staff. Professor Luria most likely used the checkpoint here to tunnel to another checkpoint that was by the staff's private hotel.

A shortcut for when she was too lazy to board a hovercab.

Jethro squatted beside the surface of the panel, avoiding being seen by any patrol troopers. Now, it was time for the truly illegal part. He pulled out the Portal Box once again, and with the grace of someone who just started using one, he pressed the recessed button on the side of the cube.

A small screen projected out from the top. It was blue like the neon lines, and displayed the checkpoints in its grid. Checkpoint K, Jethro noted, was the one he wanted to portal to.

The Box pinpointed him precisely at Checkpoint V, then created a glowing thread on the hologram that connected to K.

That thread, Jethro figured, was the tunnel through space that the Portal Box was going to make. Jethro wondered for a moment if that was how Padva's voidspace was. He was just about to summon a screen on the full depth of a Doomsday Panther's warping powers before he realized he was going off focus.

'Focus, Jet,' he told himself.

After the line was created, Jethro clicked the button below the box, mimicking Professor Luria's actions in Gadgets class. He placed the Box on the asphalt once he felt an energy thrumming within its volume.

Then, he stepped back.

Suddenly, the air before him ripped. Not a tear in space like Rifts, or a doorway like a dungeon gates.

It happened like reality fractured, like this world was an actual game, and there had been a malfunction in its programming, allowing for a space through the world.

Just like in Professor Luria's class, the portal glitched like a bad tv network, crackling with unstable colorful energy.

The air around it tasted sharp, metallic. Static hissed audibly, It looked fragile, dangerous, like stepping through could scatter his molecules across dimensions.

Even Scorch was scared. Its big black eyes gazed at the sizzling energy, blinking only once. Jethro stared too, all his practiced bravado faltering as he realized something.

So far, this was the riskiest thing he'd ever done.

Entering the Rift was a blind move, he had no idea what awaited him except for the weak Grey Rank Darcbeasts. But this? This was knowingly committing a major Academy offense— smuggling himself out of the school's guarded walls.

The potential consequences weren't just suspension or expulsion; he could have his license suspended or be shipped off to some crystal-mining penal colony. Somewhere in Watergate.

Jethro scowled. He hated Watergate.

Still, he knew that this was important. The knowledge he now possessed screamed in his mind that this had to be done. His gut, honed by survival in two worlds, agreed.

Staying put meant enduring the promised troubles from Eryn Fenlor, Nyro Vexx and others of their kind. Even worse, was the slow suffocation of knowing Scorch could be more while doing nothing.

Jethro couldn't let that happen. He couldn't just stay and do nothing. Waiting around for an official excursion or scraping together credits for travel permits was plain surrender.

No. He had to take control of his own fate.

Kaden's words echoed in his mind: 'Why don't you do something about it, huh? So that when you punch someone, they get knocked down and don't get back up.'

Jethro's gaze hardened, his eyes reflecting the unstable violet light of the portal.

This was him doing something about it. But he wasn't doing the dangerous core expanding programs that Kaden had unmeaningly suggested, he was going to evolve his mechbeast. And he in turn would get stronger because of it.

This was the first, desperate step on the path laid out by the impossible knowledge in his head. If it was right— and every instinct, every fiber of his being told him that it was —this glitching hole in space was the threshold to great power.

And if he was wrong, then at least he tried something.

Jethro took a deep, steadying breath, the cold night air sharp in his lungs, his heart beating as the danger of being caught still simmered behind his mind.

He narrowed his eyes, focusing not on that danger, that fear, but on the potential future of his little Red Lizard soaring the skies as a glorious mechdragon. An Infernal Dragon.

Without another second's hesitation, Scotch holding tight on his shoulder, Jethro stepped forward into the glitching, unstable void. The distorted edges of the portal glitched louder and more violently as he stepped through.

Almost instantly, he felt his body shatter into pieces, even though he could still see himself whole. It wasn't a painful or disorienting feeling.

It was rather subtle, almost non-existent. There was an emptiness and darkness present for only a fleeting second before he was reunited with the numerous bright lights of Sector One's major city.

Jethro's eyes widened.