We watched each other for a few moments. I couldn’t tell what was going on inside her mind or what she was thinking of the music that I presumed was still playing. I knew that I didn’t have anything to fear from her, the cr only covered her head and not her teeth. That being said, it is another thing entirely to have such a dominating figure staring down at you.

Why didn’t she look anything like her mother? I wondered as I looked at her scaly smooth length. She wasn’t all bony and craggy looking like what I imagined her being after she hatched.

Oh, that's right. Her mother was probably half-starved to death waiting around the Core for her hatchlings. Chalk up another thing to add to my list of why Magus the old 2nd was hated. The guy didn’t deem to notice or care about the suffering of others.

This thought of how badly Sublimis’s mother had been treated snapped me out of the fear that was holding me in place and let me move freely. Nothing had changed between my hatchling and me. Yes, she was now adorned with a high-tech helm that let her, hopefully, see and experience more of the world than she had before. As far as I knew, she was still just a big puppy dog wyrm at heart. I hoped anyway.

Just to be on the side of caution I let the book I had set down sink into the floor, putting a layer of gold cr between it and my now weaponized hatchling. I was pretty sure that she could damage normal mud cr with her new helm and I wasn’t about to let her test it on my book. Besides, I still had two other sides to open and read. I just needed to make another helm since she was wearing my last one.

I walked up closer to my Leva and looked up at her from close up. The effect of darkness enshrouding her head was trippy. Intent on seeing if I could add some gold cr accents to the mix I reached out my hand towards her. She surprised me by moving rapidly to intercept my touch, placing her forehead against my palm.

---

What had my parent done? I could see now and yet I hadn’t once needed to flood the area with light. The world was different around me now.

I could see something incredible, I could see movement.

Before, everything had held still with each pulse of my light, captured for me, ever frozen until I pulsed again. Now though, I was introduced to a whole new world. The world that flowed and moved without pausing. It was terrifyingly breathtaking.

The rhythm sounds in my head stopped just as my parent finished standing up fully. He? He faced me with his small and different body, watching me. Something next to his foot fell through the floor, drawing my attention as the cave floor seemed to flow around it, taking it away.

My parent stepped forward towards me and raised his side tail towards me.

-Hand. Side tail is incorrect. Hand is the correct term.-

There that voice is again. What could it be? The voice of learning? Is this what my parent was trying to give me with all those rhythm lessons? Amazing!

I lowered my head to meet his side tail called hand. What would he give me this time?

-Request for Authority override pending. Do you wish to let him change settings?-

My parent? Yes! Let him teach me more!

-Acknowledged-

---

I couldn’t help but smile at my Leva as I placed my hand against her head. I tried to interact with the helm and was surprised when a window popped up in front of my eyes telling me that a request for Authority to access the helm was pending. It must have been a glitch because the window vanished a second later.

I willed the helm to absorb the same amount of gold cr, creating another white layer underneath the dark obsidian layer. This way I could change her appearance to suit what I wanted. I had plenty of gold cr to spare and a single layer of it wouldn’t be missed.

Out of curiosity as to what she might do, I willed the helm to generate a large holographic mirror in front of Sublimis so that she could see what changes I was making to the design of the helm.

I was just about to add accents to her scales with gold cr when she yanked her head out of my reach and struck with her mouth open at something behind me. I was in shock as I looked over my shoulder to find her snapping viciously and throwing herself around the room like she had gone insane.

It took me a second to figure out what was wrong. I had made another mistake. She didn’t know what a mirror was and was trying to kill her reflection.

I watched her fling herself around the cargo hold for a second, unsure how best to jump in and stop her. It was crazy how insanely fast and savage she was acting. She was going all out to try to kill something only she could see.

After a few moments had gone by she must have figured out that something wasn’t right because she began to pulse her photon bulbs, flooding the room with her indigo light.

---

My parent was touching my head when suddenly another Leva appeared behind him. I must have missed it sneaking up on us somehow. Its dark head was bent low, bearing a threatening posture, and getting ready to strike my parent.

I reared back and launched myself at the evil female. She was trying to harm my parent! Her mouth opened just like mine and we fought, trying to obtain a death grip on each other's bodies. Instinctively I knew that the first one to get a solid bite would have the best chance of tearing the other’s head off. If I failed she would be able to hurt my parent and I would not let that happen.

She was fast! I couldn’t seem to be able to grab her, or even touch her. She seemed to not be there at all.

I pulsed the room, trying to stun my adversary. The light revealed something strange. She wasn’t there and yet she was. My pulse revealed the cavern to be empty except for myself and my parent. But that didn’t make any sense... she was right in front of me!

I stopped moving, pulsing often while I tried to figure out what tricks my senses were playing on me.

---

When she stopped I rushed over and stood directly under her large head. I placed my hand on the helm and quickly turned off the mirror effect. My Leva tensed as she pulsed the area over and over, moving her head back and forth as she tried to find the offending enemy.

Knowing I was probably being stupid again I decided to turn on the mirror effect one more time. This time I included myself in the mirror's effect. Applying firm pressure and keeping my hand on her for a second, I tried to convey that I wanted her to just chill out and observe. When she didn’t immediately launch herself at the mirrored image I stepped away from her and towards where the mirror was supposed to be. She got to watch me attempt to dance for a little bit as I tried to convey that it wasn’t real. I couldn’t see the mirror effect that her helm was showing her but I could try to teach her that it wasn’t something to be feared.

---

My parent came over to stand between me and the lie of a female. He placed his hand against me as I wished with all my being that I would only see the truth.

The female vanished for a moment before coming back again, only this time with a fake image of my parent.

This is unacceptable! I only want to see what is real!

-Acknowledged. Removing mirror effect.-

Both of the illusions vanished and left just me and my parent in the cavern.

For some reason, my parent started to move in strange ways. Perhaps he was fighting his illusion as well while waving his hands around? He was smart, I am sure that he would realize that it was fake soon as well.

---

After a lengthy dance session, totally reminding myself that I possessed no natural skill, my Leva seemed to have calmed down and was no longer intent on attacking her mirror image. She was just sitting there calmly watching me as I finished dancing.

Her calm behavior gave me the incentive to finally approach her to see if she would let me add the white accents to her helm. When she didn’t attack the mirror again I stepped back and admired her new appearance.

Her unique starburst pattern of scales stood out on her forehead like a symbol of destruction against the intense blackness of the obsidian cr. I hoped that it was just a coincidence and not a foreshadowing of something to come because she looked amazing.

“All I need to do now is to teach you some vocal commands and we will be set,” I said as I held out my hand again towards her head. She lowered her starburst pattern to rest it against my palm. I had never had a dog before and I was beginning to see the appeal. My cat would never have obeyed me like this. A Leva did not breathe so the cargo bay was currently existing in a vacuum. I wanted to link her helm up to me so that I could transmit sound to her even while in an environment that sound could not travel through.

“Hey, Kevin! George wanted to know if you wanted to be in the Navigation deck when we arrive in the…”

“Just one second Invicta,” I said as I was busy going through the menus to link the helm to me.

“What are you up to?” I heard her voice ask as she materialized into sunglasses on my head. “Oh no, what have you done to Ess?” She asked in surprise.

“Mmm… I made it so that she can’t be stunned by another Leva’s photon blast?” I asked as I found the proper setting and linked it to me. Now, whenever I willed it Ess would be able to hear my voice.

“Yes but, giving Tela cr to an animal is or was illegal the last time I checked.”

“Why is it illegal?” I asked in surprise. Had I just done something that would come back to bite me with the Tela in the future?

“In the early wars, once cr was discovered by the Tela, animals, and pests were infused with cr and dropped off on enemy planets. It became a war crime in some instances because of the destruction that could be caused by the right animal or insect.” She said bitterly.

“Wow. So the Tela are the villains of the cosmos?” I asked.

“Ha! Hardly. As far as war goes the Tela are beginners in the grand scheme of things. There are some races that you never, and I mean, never ever want to go to war with. The Tela self-classified their crop-killing pests as a war crime themselves. Sure the pests didn’t actually kill any U’lennea’s but the amount of suffering caused on three planets from starvation… that was the war crime.” Invicta said as I felt her studying Sublimis.

“Well, you dodged the bullet on this one.” She said cheerily.

“Huh? How is that?” I asked as I had already started to consider taking back the helm from my hatchling.

“She isn’t using any Tela cr. Not one. Your alien cr neatly sidesteps that law. I also can’t request any interfacing with it so no Tela will be able to claim that it was stolen technology. To top all that off… you had to go and use a material that no one in the cosmos has ever seen before.” She replied.

“She looks really awesome, Kevin,” Invicta said with silent awe.

“Yes, she does.” I agreed as we both studied Sublimis.

“So, what do I do now? I don’t want her to go crazy while I am away.” I said as I thought about heading to the Navigation deck in VR.

“Well, you could give her something to do while you are gone,” Invicta said.

“Like what?”

“Feed her the nest material. She can spend time leeching the energy from it so we can sell it as billets later. If you want to explore we need stuff that we can sell.”

“What about selling it as batteries? I read that the material can be used for that as well.” I asked as I walked over towards Where we had stored the material under the cargo hold floor. Sublimis propelled herself after me.

“Really? The amount of radiation and energy that the stuff in storage has absorbed all this time is enough to kill whole colonies if you try to bring it to them without cr shielding. It is way too powerful from sitting in a blue dwarf. No, best to let Ess drain all the energy away and then let them charge the billets to what they can contain with their level of technology.” She said as I started to sweat.

“Look, could you tell me these things before I accidentally kill everyone around me by accident?” I asked as I mentally raised the nest material through the floor to take up a large area in front of us.

“Sure thing. George has that protocol running in the background. It only took us leaving you alone for a few hours for you to tie a nuke to a sheep though.” She muttered. “I mean, who does that? I don’t even know all the capabilities of the Last Engineer’s helm Kevin! It is like you gave a quantum computer to a goldfish. Leva aren’t recorded as being very smart. Well, some of the ancient ones have shown rather remarkable intellect but not normal ones. Least of all hatchlings,” Invicta said as I watched Sublimis approach the revealed nest material.

She seemed to be hypnotized by it.

---

After my parent realized that there were fake copies around us he just stood in front of me for a few moments before he turned and moved a little distance away. I followed him, just continually amazed at how I could see everything moving now without needing to pulse.

I didn’t know why he was moving away, there was nothing inside the cavern with us.

He stopped and I watched in amazement as the floor flowed away, lifting something upwards. It was energy. Pure energy being held inside a dark substance.

Was this how my parent was so strong? He had food like this to eat?

I wanted the energy yet I knew that it belonged to my parent.

It was not mine to take.

---

“So, what is the deal?” I asked as my Leva just sat there staring at the nest material.

“I am not altogether sure. She can see with the helm, right? She just seems to be frozen. Maybe if you cut a piece off and toss it at her she might get the idea,”

“Toss it at her? What kind of advice is that?”

“Are you kidding me? Have you seen a Leva’s mouth? She might try to bite you.” Invicta said as I rolled my eyes. What is the worst that could happen?

I bent down and grabbed a chunk about as big as a melon and began working at cutting it free, making sure to continually pull it away from the surrounding material lest it rebond.

“So the internal energy helps it rebond with the neighboring nest material,” I muttered as I observed how quickly it could self heal. The fact that a Leva’s teeth could cut this stuff was impressive. Their teeth had to be orders of magnitudes stronger than any steel that I had grown up with back on Earth.

Once I got the large portion free I stood up and turned towards my hatchling. Her head was trained on the ball of material like it was a treat for a dog. Something about her manner showed me that I surprised her by extending the mass towards her, offering it to her.

Slowly as though she was unsure if I was really offering it to her, her snout moved closer to my extended hand.

I stepped backward.

She followed, only seeing the extended treat.

It wasn’t until I reached the center of the nest material that I stopped moving and let her draw closer to the extended mass.

She still moved slowly as though she was unsure of my intentions. I let her get within a couple of feet of the treat before I slowly lowered it to the ground, setting it down with the rest of the nest material.

I stepped back and left the nest, leaving it all to her with a pleased smile on my face.

Sound crackled in my ears as her helm connected with my hearing. A roar that sent shivers all through my body and raised the hair on my head sounded loudly behind me when I crossed the edge of the mass of dark gel.

I turned to look back at my Leva and found her head back and her maw open to the ceiling of the cargo hold.

“Yeah, best never to get near that mouth,” I said as I watched her snap up the ball that I had set down. Her crazy teeth easily sawed through the strong substance, shearing it away from the nest that it had already reformed with. She barely had to rotate her head before she had the mass pulled into her mouth, cut cleanly from the surrounding nest.

---

My parent didn’t eat anything right away. He simply watched me and waited.

Maybe he was testing me?

I waited, keeping my urge to eat what was before me down.

I watched as my parent bent down and gathered some of the nest before turning around and offering it to me.

Yes!

I moved forward, all of my focus on the portion that he held out to me.

I must have been following him because he slowly lowered the portion that he had offered me and set it on the rest of the material, letting the portion that he offered me form with the rest of the material around us.

Then he moved away.

All of this was for me?

All of this energy was mine?

I tilted my head back and roared my delight and power towards the heavens.

---

“That is not the response that I expected. Why does it feel like you just gave a pyromaniac gas and matches?” Invicta mused as I set my cr body a distance away from the nest and sat down.

“Well, hopefully it will keep her busy for a while. How much energy do hatchlings need?” I asked as I willed my mind into VR.

“I really don’t know but I will find out. That way you can cut her off if it gets too out of hand.” She said as she materialized on my shoulder when I arrived on the travel disk.

“Thank you Invicta. I appreciate it.” I said as I leaned my head towards her for a second. I must have surprised her because she laughed a second later and returned the favor, bonking her smaller head against the side of mine.

Her response was strange. I had expected her to want to kiss my ear or something random like she normally did.