The dust from the impact and the vapor of the meteor as it burned in the air suffused the atmosphere with rock and iron. A halo of dust was around the white sun in the sky. The screams from the people who ran were quiet as they continued their riot in any way they could to get away from the epicenter of the meteor impact.

It was in this still calmness that the pain of the broken legs hit me again. I had never broken my legs when I was on Earth, so this pain was new. There was a sharp pain in the muscles whereas the bones themselves had an extremely dull achy pain to them. And then on top of everything else, the broken bones disrupted the body's magic conductivity, so any attempt to channel magic fired the pain up by about one thousand fold. I'm pretty sure I just felt the combined pain of twenty childbirths at once. I'll spare you any more specifics, but know that the majority of my concentration is just trying to stave off the pain. Also, the feet were still embedded in the brick road.

I grit my teeth and channelled tiny amounts of magic energy into my hands to pull the stone bricks apart. What was stone made out of again? Ahhh, fuck it. There's probably oxygen in there. I pulled on the oxygen inside the rocks and they fractured and turned to dust enough to remove the feet.

Sullivan still held Celestine's body up like his life depended on it to keep the weight off her legs. I would probably be in much more pain without him. But he's still only 6. I pulled on the iron atoms in the air that had broken off the meteor as it burned through the atmosphere and recombined them into a pair of simple crutches. Basically just two sticks with a T shaped top in the middle and a handle on each side. Like the letter F, actually. Funny that. I wonder what other letters could be made into useful tools. I won't live long enough to find out, but it had me thinking at least.

I found the strength to at least carry the majority of Celestine's weight off of Sullivan, but I still relied on him for balance.

"Be my legs for a bit, will you Sullivan?" I asked in a pained voice, guiding him to move use out of the crater I had created in my foolishness. He just nodded in my back and carried me where I wanted to go.

All right. Back to the matter at hand. A creature with the capability to cause widespread disaster to a continent just landed in front of me. Voice, elaborate on what an armored tiger is for me. Because of the pain, I can't sift through memories right now. Since Voice was able to identify the creature, it must have been in a book Celestine read at some point in time. There's no all-encompassing system to provide information in this world like there is in some novels I read on Earth, so Voice is limited to what is inside Celestine's memory and judgements on objects based on context clues, which is how she was able to identify the chrysalis, i.e. meteorite.

A large crack, and the meteorite fractured and fell apart like a hollow egg with its eggshell falling by the wayside. Curled up into a pill-shape was something that reminded me of an armadillo. It slowly moved, separating its head from between its shoulders, curling its rear out from its chest, extending its legs out and stabbing into the dirty metal-laden crater that the meteorite created when it impacted. A long, spindly tail tapered off of its hind, plates of dark gray metallic skin covered its back, while pink fleshy bits were visible at its belly, at the bottom of its neck, and at its waist.

It stood, stumbled a bit, then the bits of metal from the meteorite broke off and began to form around the armored tiger. It was recycling its chrysalis to make up for the gaps in its armored skin. This must be the power of instinct. This must be when it is at its most vulnerable. I have to act, even if it causes me pain.

I lifted Celestine's right hand, the metal crutch still under the armpit, and channelled magic energy to the hand, gritting my teeth to bear the pain. I pulled on the iron of the meteorite and whatever was within the creature in front of me. It was pulled off its feet and into the ground closer to me. Both it, and I, let out a pained wail.

"AHHHHHHH!" I shouted, the worms eating at the wounds of the legs, how it felt.

The armored tiger shouted in agony, its voice sounded like a machine with the tone of scraping knives howling. A split opened in its otherwise completely rounded face and a thick miasma of black dust wretched out of, what I assume was, its mouth. Then it curled over and vomited black goo and stones. This is a continental disaster? Despite being called a tiger, it was more the size of a large dog. A long body, some multicolored segments on its back, and its tail is probably what gave it the name. And what about that ridiculous age?

I released my pull on it, and the pain in Celestine's body subsided. It was too different than what the book described. This creature is pathetic right now. Could... could I tame it?

"Hey, Sullivan, would you like a pet environmental disaster?"

"Don't joke, Novos!" He barked. Hey, boy, calm down. This isn't his usual shy demeanor. Does he hate me?

"Hey, when did you figure out it was me?"

"Only you call me by my name in Sis's body."

"Humm, I never thought about that." Naivete wins. If I need to pretend to be Celestine in front of him, he is now Bubby from now on.

"Now give Sis her body back."

"You don't seem to quite understand the situation, bud. That thing, despite how pathetic it looks right now, is a creature that could tear you both apart right now. Also, the whole city would be ash without me. You're welcome!"

"What do you want me to do? Sooner we kill that thing the sooner you let Sis come back?"

"Celestine doesn't want us to kill it. And to be honest, killing something that pathetic leaves a bad taste in my mouth, too."

"No one told you you had to eat it..."

"Figure of speech, boy. Also, she wants me to hit you. So do a girl a favor and smack your head against the wall there, please?"

"Then you'll just fall over without me."

"Good point. No head smashing."

The armored tiger huddled on the ground, taking deep breaths of the air as if it was the first breath it ever took. This thing is over 25 and a half millennia old, why is it acting like all of this is new? I almost don't want to even look at it, it's so pathetic. In the end, it's just an animal...

I look elsewhere, the plaza was still full of stalls. Many were full of produce and a couple were meat stalls trying to sell dried and fresh hunted meat from the forests to the south of the city. Many stalls were upturned by the impact of the meteorite.

I pulled on her limited knowledge of spacial magic, grit my teeth to bear the pain in the legs, and strummed the strings of the fabric of space to draw a haunch of some large game animal off of the closest fresh meat stall and held it in front of me suspended.

She repeated in my head as I demonstrated, with perfect ability, the magic school she was trying to utilize in the last year.

"Carry. Me. Forward." I said between her teeth as pain coursed through the veins. A hard thing to say without being able to open your jaw in their language, but I hoped he figured it out. His grip on Celestine's body tightened and I could move the crutches to help keep her weight so it wasn't completely on him.

The armored tiger turned, saw our approach, and shook in fear. Fear of a little girl? Oh, well I am gritting her teeth. I guess that's a universal aggression act?

"Stop. Lower. Slow." I said. Then I bent the crutches with iron atomic manipulation so that Celestine would slowly kneel in front of the animal. Most of the damage was in her lower legs, so this much should be possible, I hope.

I release all my magic acts. The metal crutches lock and the haunch of meat drops to the ground between Celestine and the creature.

"Let go for a bit." I said to Sullivan, and he did so hesitantly. Under my own power, I slowly inched forward with the help of the crutches and what little strength I was left in the legs. The creature did nothing now. Only stared. Its eyes were a weak point in its head armor. Brilliant white with yellow irises and round pupils. Two round pupils in each eye on top of each other within single irises. Perhaps from a distance it would look like a slit eye. I wonder what abilities he has.

I reached to the meat haunch and pushed it forward with Celestine's child arms. This meat haunch must weigh as much as she does, because it barely moved. I pulled out a chunk of the meat as best as I could, held it in my hand so the creature could see me, I agitated the water molecules and heated it up in the same manner a microwave would so that it was save to eat, atomic manipulation is OP, and put it in my mouth. It tasted awful not being properly cooked, but this was to demonstrate for the creature what this was. It eyed me curiously. I tossed the rest of what I had in its direction. It flinched, but then bent its head down to examine it.

After it started to lap at the chunk of poorly cooked meat with its blackened tongue, its mood changed. It started to bite at what I threw at it, its teeth were like small knives of black iron. Within the pink part of its mouth, though, shinier teeth embedded into its jaw ground the meat up with ease.

I held my hands out to the haunch and pushed it again to the creature. Again, no success in pushing it far, but it got the hint and started to slowly approach. It lapped at the exterior of the meat, then sunk its double-rowed teeth into it, ripping the flesh from the bone as easy as a knife through butter.

The metal skin was not always still like you would think something like a turtle's shell would be. It was moving as it breathed and ate. It would move like liquid over the surface of its body. More bits of metal from the shell of the meteorite began to separate and move to the creature, covering its pink belly and spaces between the metallic chitin bands on its back and neck. All while it devoured the meat haunch. I could no nothing but stare at this creature. It held an alien beauty that I had never beheld before.

I had my own theories about this species now. Especially after the meteorite had been identified as a chrysalis by Voice and the reason for the age. Obviously it's extraterrestrial. The meteor might act as an egg or suspended animation pod. Then they are ejected from where ever they are from and drift to whatever world will accept them... or kill them. I can't imagine many of them make it to habitable worlds. Of all the natural magical beasts in this world... I just had to meet the one that has such an astronomically low chance of appearing for the first time. Where was this RNG when I was on Earth playing MMOs?

The creature was already tearing meat off the bone, inhaling the meat without tasting it. It must have been starving. Is this why they are considered hostile? Can they be tamed so easily just by giving them food when they emerge from their meteorite? I turned my head back to the meat stall and pull another large chunk of meat over with spacial magic. I was starting to get used to the pain. Damn, that's not something you want to get used to, though. I slid it over and beside the haunch the creature was already chowing down on.

"CELESTINE!" I heard a shout at the entrance to the plaza closest to the mansion. Oh gods, damn it!

"SYLVIANNA, STAY BACK!"

A low grumbling scraping sound was echoing through the throat of the armored tiger in front of me. It turned its attention to Sylvianna, who was now standing awkwardly on the edge of the plaza. I could see in her feet that it was all she could do to hold herself back at my shout.

"Shh shh shh, down." I said to the beast, who was now starting to take a step toward Sylvianna. I couldn't have that.

I forced magic energy into my hand and commanded the metal of the magic beast's metallic skin to stop and force it to the ground. It howled in pain, but something like this needed to be done while it was still young, well young as in just emerging from the meteorite.

"Stay!" I shouted at it. It whimpered and gave up resisting. Its resisting was mostly just muscle resistance. Its ability to control metal must be completely instinctual and involuntary. Like a heartbeat. I wonder if it could be taught greater control. But at least I should be recognized by it as a being that was capable of great compassion... as well as great punishment.

I released control of it, and it stayed there as per my command.

"You can keep eating now." I said with a smile, pushing the meat a bit further to it. It hesitated before continuing to eat.

"Approach slowly, Sylvianna."

She said nothing, but just walked slowly toward the group of two children and an alien monster.

When she was next to Celestine, she knelt, staring at the creature. "Honey, what did you do?"

"It's Novos." Sullivan chimed in.

"It was Celestine's idea to not kill it. I just stopped the meteor from destroying the city and calmed a beast that is known for causing widespread environmental damage and requires an army to kill." Well, when you put it like that, I might really be a god and just don't know it yet.

The armored tiger was finishing with the first haunch of meat, actually biting into and chewing the bones and marrow. I then slid the new chunk of meat in front of him, this one was a smaller chunk of meat with more bones. Probably a rib or ab muscles of some creature I have yet to see, but have probably already eaten in some cocktail of food mixture. Sometimes I don't know what the cook at the mansion puts in the meals, but it's good regardless.

"Also, don't overreact, but Celestine's going to need to be carried back home. The strain of stopping the meteor was too much... and her legs are broken."

"A few broken bones are easily mended with magic and time." Another familiar voice spoke behind me, Warran in his old old man form overlooking everyone. "You've made yourself a frightful companion, Missy."

I reached over to the head of the armored tiger, happily crunching away at the bones and meat with its grinder-like teeth. I carefully touched the surface of its armored skin. It flinched a bit, but then turned its head into my hand like a dog. The armor gave way like water and my hand sunk into its skin. I could feel its fleshy inside layer. It's warm and smooth like a human's skin, but feels far more fragile than a human's skin. Like if I were to pull on it or stroke it too hard, it would tear. I gently stroke it over its smooth head, over small bumps which I assume are ears, and down its neck before pulling back. A bit of the metal skin lingers on my hand before breaking back off and reforming onto the creature.

"Things are going to get far more interesting..."

When did Warran start using magic to repair Celestine's legs? I don't remember. I'm just lost in this creature's eyes, now.