“Yup, you can tell by the fact that she doesn’t have spikes on either side of her jaw,” Invicta said happily as the massive wyrm slowly rotated in place as if she was surveying the domain that she was born into.

After one complete rotation around her massive head came to point back in my direction. Locking on to me. Oh boy, that was terrifying.

“So females are good, yes? Does that mean she will be easy to train and to be docile?” I asked as the female hatchling flooded the cargo hold with rapid pulses again. Turning everything an intense shade of blue.

“Ha! No no no, exactly the opposite! Female Levas are the smartest and most aggressive of the sexes.” Invicta said as the Leva rushed towards me.

---

I knew nothing until the moment my shell was taken away.

The intense sound of my shell being broken kicked my mind into wakefulness.

A dark, barely usable light surrounded me as I felt suddenly naked and unprotected.

Who had the right to wake me from my dreamless sleep?

To take away my protective shell?

I tilted my head back and screamed at the dark lights above me.

So dim and useless.

I flexed the muscles of my body, working the heat inside me around until it flowed all throughout my armored length.

I could feel the incredible power inside me.

I knew that someone had chosen to wake me.

To limit my endless absorption of power.

I blasted the area around me with light, seeking the parent who offended me.

There you are.

Such a small parent.

Pathetic.

I will put you in your place for waking me.

---

The huge head slammed into me and sent me flying. I hadn’t expected the hatchling’s first action to be to headbutt me so her aggression caught me by surprise. It was like getting hit by a speeding car. Just that the car was a speeding boulder made of solid lead.

“That is 1 to 0. Don’t let her do that again!” Invicta screamed in my ear as she got angry at the baby Leva.

I extended my arms outward and caught myself, arresting my flight towards the far wall of the cargo bay. While not upset like Invicta, I definitely was not going to let the hatchling think that she could push me around. I returned to the deck of the cargo hold just as the female Leva came rushing at me again, intent on sending me flying the rest of the way to the wall.

---

My first strike was a victory!

I hit my parent hard and sent its little body tumbling.

All I needed to do was to move it to the far wall and strike it into submission.

Then I could claim my victory and authority over my weak parent.

It was their fault for being weak.

I waited until it had righted itself before rushing in to deliver my victory strike.

This would fling it all the way to the wall.

---

This time I used the incredible power of my cr to hold myself in place when she rammed into me again. The resulting collision would have been funny if not for the fact that I was a little worried that the hatchling was going to get herself hurt. She smashed her head into me at full speed and simply rebounded when she met an immovable object.

“That looked like it hurt,” I commented as she shook her head and flashed pulses that seemed to relay surprise.

“I wouldn’t be so sure… I think you just pissed her off.” Invicta said as we watched the huge wyrm shake its head before coiling and flexing her entire length.

I could see her scales ripple and move as she seemed to flex her muscles in a ring pattern down her entire tail. She was a very pretty and deadly-looking wyrm. Like a long dragon with no legs.

I had expected her to learn from that failure but as it turns out, she was determined to smash me against the wall and wasn’t about to give up.

She tried over and over again for the next twelve hours.

“Invicta, you said females are smart. I am beginning to feel like we have a dud.” I said as I walked around the cargo hold to keep from going crazy. No matter what I had tried, the hatchling was only interested in smashing her massive head against me and blasting the surrounding area with her insanely bright indigo photon blasts.

Both Tutor and Invicta had instructed me to not run or attempt to dodge the incoming headbutts lest my actions be conveyed as weakness. I had already lost one point from when she had sent me flying at the beginning and I was determined to not lose any more points of her respect. They also had said that this could take a while. Well, it had been a very long while and now I was ready for something to change.

“Well, you can see that she is learning. She has increased her sudden acceleration from a standstill by a considerable amount as well as learned how to launch herself off the walls at you. The main source of their smarts are inherited through their genetics. It is like a hand-me-down memory.”

“Has her photon blasts changed at all in intensity?” I asked as I felt the baby wyrm crash into me from behind. I was beginning to get a little irritated at the constant aggression.

“No, not at all, she is still hitting you with the full power.”

“Am I able to reproduce the same effect with cr?” I asked as I wondered what the wyrm would do if I hit her in the face with a photon blast.

“Yes, easily. Why, what did you have in mind?” She asked as the hatchling rushed back to the far wall to use it again as a launching pad.

“Set me up with the same wavelength of light that she uses and increase the power by… 5%”

“Are you sure about that? I know she can put out more energy than adult Leva but you still will be using it against a hatchling.”

“True, but she has been blasting her insane energy at us since she hatched and seems to be immune to its effects so I just want to see what she will do if I return the favor,” I said as I felt the impact of the wyrm again on my back.

Her neverending determination to cut me down a notch completely lost its novelty with that last hit.

“That may be true but people don’t tend to look down the beam of their own laser cannons,” Invicta said as she created emitter circles on my shoulders and down the sides of my body.

I turned to face the Leva as she returned to the far wall to get ready to rush back at me.

“No, that is enough of that nonsense,” I said as I spread my arms wide in an aggressive invitation for a fight.

“Come get some,” I said angrily in anticipation of the relentless wyrm. The Leva hatchling flexed her length and launched herself at me. She seemed even faster than ever before this time, as though she took the invitation as a challenge.

I blasted her in the face before she reached half the distance to me. It was as though I had used a live wire and zapped her. Her entire length went limp instantly causing her to just barely miss me and fly off to crash into the far wall instead.

“Opps,” I said as I rushed over to the limp hatchling.

---

I failed to move my parent!

I hit it as hard as I could and I failed.

It didn’t even move at all.

Is my parent strong?

Now it stands there and gives me time to cycle my energy.

Time to grow stronger.

I cycled the energy through my body, enriching and strengthening my muscles more.

Still, it waits for me to try again.

I rush forwards with my new strength.

My parent is powerful!

I failed.

I need to be stronger.

Still, my parent waits and lets me grow my power.

Over and over again it lets me try.

I circulate and strengthen my body.

I fail over and over again and yet still my parent waits, letting me grow.

Letting me learn to empower every part of my body with my energy.

I will strengthen my mind and cycle energy through it as well.

This is so good! I can think more clearly. I will circulate more energy into my mind from now on. I am already beginning to see how I can use the solid walls of the cave to make myself go faster. I am so much more powerful than when I awoke. My strong parent has been giving me time, letting me grow and learn. I want to learn so much more!

I think that my body is nearing its limit, however. No matter how much I cycle and try to force more energy inwards I can’t seem to get any stronger or faster.

Oh, my parent must see this too. It is raising its little side tails. I wonder if I will grow those soon as well. Maybe when I become stronger like my parent. Is it asking me to try one last time? Ok! Here I go!

---

I reached the limp hatchling first and placed my hand gently against the smaller scales on the side of her head. I could feel a slight vibration of power resonating through her scales. Tutor and George appeared a couple of moments later, manifesting bodies and kneeling next to the hatchling with me.

“If it is any consolation, I was totally for that action and probably would have tried it a long time ago.” George said before muttering “At 100% power.”

I frowned at him as Tutor measuredly moved her hands all down the length of the long hatchling's body.

“What? It was beginning to feel like an infinite loop like she was broken inside her mind. Maybe this will shock her out of that crazy headbutting spree she got locked into.” George said as he tenderly ran his hands along her scales as well. I could tell that he cared for the Leva, he just didn’t like that we hadn’t seen any progress in her behavior for more than half a day. I completely understood his sentiments. I had found a stray kitten when I was thirteen and nursed it back to health. It was not a happy camper for at least a week until it began to understand that it could trust me not to hurt it and to always bring it food.

Half a day with an exotic space dragon was exciting and something that I couldn’t wait to tell my family about. The fact that it had been intent on mashing me into a pulp the entire time didn’t detract from the experience.

“The good news is that she is still alive. The pulse knocked her out is all. The bad news is, she is all energy.” Tutor said as she returned, moving up towards the hatchlings head.

“Even here. How strange.” She said as she moved her hands around while taking readings.

“What do you mean that she is all energy?” I asked as I gently moved my knocked-out hatchling's massive head across my legs and lap. It was my fault that I had knocked her out, so I was going to stay here and wait until she woke up. It was a good thing that I was made from cr or I would have been using a wheelchair for the rest of my days. Her huge head would have crushed my human legs easily.

“Well, that is the strange thing. Usually, Leva cycle their energy into a ball near the center of their body. Mostly centered around digestion and processing newly absorbed solar energy.” She said as she pointed a distance down the length of the body.

“Our little girl here, she seems to have her energy flowing throughout her entire body, even concentrated inside her brain and I don’t know what that means.” Tutor said as she rocked back to squat on her heels while gently petting the delicate scales where the Leva’s snout would have been.

I finally had time to inspect the pattern that the scales made on the hatchling’s face. They seemed to reflect light at a different wavelength than the surrounding scales, making them appear to be a slightly different color. The size of the scales radiated outward from her forehead and reduced in size the farther away they traveled across her face. There were a couple of random scales that didn’t fit the pattern scattered here and there. They kinda looked like a star. One that was in the middle of exploding. A starburst.

“What are those? The scales are different.” I asked as I reached out and ran my hands over the reflective dark mirror-like scales.

“Hmm? Those are her eyes.” Tutor said as she saw me pause and gently take my hand off of the hatchlings scales.

“Haha, don’t worry, you can’t hurt her by touching them. Well, you could if you used too much force with cr but being gentle like that won't harm her at all. Her scales are all very tough, just like the rest of her.” She said as she rested her chin on her hands. I could feel that Tutor was off searching for reasons why a Leva would have energy spread around in other places inside its body. She wanted the Leva to live and was concerned about its wellbeing.

“Look, you guys can take a break. I will just rest here with her while she recovers.” I said as I made a cr backrest to lean back on. The Last Engineers book rose through the floor across the length of the hanger and started to fly towards me. I was controlling a small amount of cr to bring it to me and it looked like I was using telekinesis to move objects around. I couldn’t help but grin from ear to ear as the brick of a book smacked into my gloved hand. Just like magic.

“Yes, it would be best if we aren’t here when she wakes. If she hasn’t bonded with you by now then there is nothing in existence that she will bond with.” George said as he stood up and looked down at me with a grandfatherly smile. I suppose I looked like a sight with my feet just sticking out from under the other side of the Leva’s huge head.

“Before you go. Can we take a picture?” I asked, feeling so happy to have these AI as my friends.

“Always, Kevin,” George said as he knelt next to my legs on the other side of the hatchling’s head while Tutor rushed to scoot and sit next to me.

“Hey wait for me!” I heard Invicta shout as she appeared above my head in a swirl of cr. She quickly landed on my shoulder and posed for the photo with her head resting against the side of mine.

A sound of a shutter clicking sounded and I couldn’t help but laugh when I noticed that Tutor had generated it. The effect was nice even though I knew it wasn’t needed.

“Thanks, guys. You all are the best.” I said in appreciation as they left me with my baby Leva and a book I had been meaning to read.

Invicta stayed, returning back into a pair of metal sunglasses and a pair of gloves. I could feel her in the corner of my mind humming to herself and doing something over and over again. It wasn’t distracting, just like listening to the background sounds at a cafe. I flipped the book over to the side that I could read and dived back in.

The texts and images popping up in front of me again reminded me of the old Tela who had lent it to me.

Inesena.

I hoped he was doing ok. I needed to check up on him again in the future when I had time.