An average, non-elemental human would not know the slightest thing about magic. Lottie, on the other hand, had already proven herself knowledgeable about many things that the average human did not care to know.

"You know how you have the cardiovascular and lymphatic system in your body?"

"What?" eX-0281 knew about the cardiovascular system—blood and veins—but had no idea what the other things meant.

"Blood and lymph fluid?" she asked, a little dumbstruck.

"Sure, I know what blood is…." He did not bother with the other thing. "Can you speed up your explanation before you bleed out?"

Her vitality kept trickling down in the meanwhile, despite her hands over her own gushing wound.

Target: "Lottie" [Human]

Vitality: 15%

Even so, she stuck up her nose with indignance. "Hmph. Well, your body also has the ley system for mana, just like the planet has ley lines."

Now, eX-0281 knew exactly what she was talking about so he nodded along fervently.

"You should be able to draw that energy from your body into a physical manifestation. Don't focus on the crystalline structures of ice at all, just focus on making something—anything. It will naturally become ice per your elemental alignment because science." Lottie waved her hand around in the air, clearly abstaining herself from the minutiae.

"Um…." Her explanation summarized into 'just do the thing', but eX-0281 did not know how; that was the whole problem!

All the while, her life was slipping away.

Vitality: 13%

The Disco Menace was not going to be happy about this, and that would not bode well for eX-0281 and eX-0704.

Though his tail writhed along the bar in agitation, he tried to keep his voice steady. "I think I need a little more direction."

"A lot of beginning mages cut their hand to help them along. As the blood leaves your veins, try letting the mana seep out of your ley lines."

eX-0281 released one hand from the grate and slashed his own palm with his claws. Blood oozed from the cut, and he closed both sets of eyelids to focus. The frigid, rushing air against his exposed blood reminded eX-0281 of how cold he felt.

Then, the pads of his fingers grew colder yet.

His eyes flashed open to see a clear, bluish structure aglow in his hand, charged with fresh mana.

"Magical ice!" he cheered. "I did it!"

The mana sensors in his gear must have been able to sense the change.

[Manifest Ice] learned!

Updating information for eX-0281….

The data on his status page had adjusted in kind.

Name: eX-0281 [Sub-Dragon Shifter (Dragon Form)]

Vitality: 95%

Discrete Parts: Right Wing (90%), Left Wing (90%), Tail (100%)

Mana Reserves: 9 Mu

For the first time ever, eX-0281 had his mana reserves drop below his default maximum. Just 1 Mu had been required to make the piece of ice. It was the official definition of a mana unit: the amount required to cast the basic [Manifest] spell for all elements.

"See? You must be a B-grade mage at least, if not A-grade. Magic comes easy for your sort." A momentary sadness tinged her voice before Lottie returned to her neutral, factual tone, "I'd expect no less from the Grandesia Power Company's personnel."

Her heavy lids closed behind her goggles, and she let up the pressure on her leg. "Help?"

The ice ceased floating above his hand, clinking down into his claws. He held the chunk of ice close to her wound, hesitant to apply it directly to the flesh. "Um, I think this will need more than an ice pack."

Lottie snatched it from his hand and hurled it through a gap in the metal bars.

eX-0281 watched the ice arc through the sky and glimmer in the aging sunlight. "My ice…." Just like that, his very first piece of magical ice had been discarded.

"Put pressure on my leg and make new ice," Lottie snapped. She was getting more irritable as her health dropped lower.

Vitality: 10%

Instantly, eX-0281 obeyed and leveled his sliced palm against her leg. It was stupid to mix their blood, but unable to make ice any other way right now, he trusted that the girl did not have any bloodborne illnesses.

More ice shimmered into existence. This time, he watched the crystals expand and interlock as the ice encased both her leg and his claws. "Oops."

"Did you just freeze your hand to my leg?" Lottie asked in disbelief.

"Sorry," he said lamely. eX-0281 was not a trained mage; he was just trying his best over here!

"Never mind. The warmth of my blood will melt the ice, so you'll need to reform the bandage every once in a while. Try not to freeze your claws next time. How are your mana reserves?"

He checked and repeated the number on the screen.

Mana Reserves: 8 Mu

"What's your regen rate? I'll time how long your ice lasts against my leg and determine how long we can keep this up…." Quickly, Lottie shook her head. "Oh, who am I kidding? Just use your fancy helmet to do the math."

As she suggested, he had the [Predictive Analytics] focus on the ice and used his thoughts to query for how long he could recreate it before his mana ran out entirely.

16 Hours

The red liquid swelled against the sheet of ice, but the broken vessels had been effectively blocked off. Lottie's health had stabilized for the time being, a critically low amount.

Vitality: 10%

Concerned, he kept his focus on the two bullet holes in her leg. To his knowledge, ice should never be applied directly to the skin. "Is this bad?" eX-0281 asked. "What if you get frostbite?"

Lottie closed her eyes and tipped back her head, wincing with her teeth barred. "Frostbite will kill the tissue and stop blood flow to the area. As I said, I'd rather lose my leg than my life. I should be fine though. My mom's a nature mage! She can heal me when I get home."

For a few seconds, eX-0281 tried to wrap his mind around that. The [Cure] spell only came to A-grade nature elementals. "How is your mom so powerful, but you don't have any mana?"

"I'm adopted," Lottie chimed easily, somehow managing a big, toothy smile through her pain. Hopefully, the ice had started to numb her leg.

"Oh." eX-0281 did not know what to say to that. Adoption was usually a bad thing, something that caused drama in the books and TV shows which he had absorbed. "I'm sorry?"

A small hand struck over the side of his helmet. "What? Shut up!"

eX-0281 would have shrunk back if he could, but he had to keep clinging onto the metal grate with one hand and two legs—his wings and tail not doing much for support. His other hand was physically stuck to Lottie's leg who lay across his chest.

"Why did you hit me?" he whined.

"Someone says they're adopted, and you apologize? You're rude!"

He had no idea that it had been a bad thing to say, so he offered more sincerely, "I didn't know. I'm sorry, Lottie."

Her temper spiked. "Don't call me that! I'm Charlotte, to you."

"Then you can't call me 281. I'm eX-0281, to you!" Though he glared at her, she would not be able to see his narrowed eyes past the black visor.

"Is that your name?" Her question came with a few stunned blinks, but her eyes soon glazed back over. "Of course it is."

A void hung between them, nothing to say to each other if survival did not depend on it. Even so, Charlotte tried to fill the void.

"Too bad you weren't a fire elemental. You could've cauterized it."

More sorrowful, she murmured, "Too bad I didn't jump when she told me to. This never would've happened." Some tears beaded at the corners of her eyes, spattering across her goggles.

"Well," he said, feeling how his spines bristled beneath his helmet, "we're stuck here now and got to figure a way out." As he stared upward to the sky which was painted with the colors of the setting sun, he said, "Let me contact 704. With any luck, he should be with the Disco Menace by now."

At that, Charlotte snorted. "Disco Menace?"

Ignoring her, eX-0281 reopened the communication channel. "704? Come in, 704."

Silence greeted him on the other end.

The smaller voice of Charlotte piped up instead. "We'll need to kill your network connection. We're second priority as long as the Disco Menace is out there, but we should still take precautions. They can figure out I'm with you from the cameras in your visor. The less data you transmit, the more likely we can stay off their radar."

A wave of anxiety seized him as he imagined shutting off his helmet, getting cut-off from his new friend and never seeing him again. Before he replied, eX-0281 muted himself in case eX-0704 were preoccupied at the moment.

"If we wait for him to respond, he can come help us with the Disco Menace based on our coordinates," eX-0281 tried to rationalize.

"It wouldn't surprised me if she got away," Charlotte said with an indifferent shrug. "I need you to shut down your helmet."

His pulse started beating as hard as it had mid-flight. "They won't be able to find us if we do that. I don't see how else we're getting out of here." eX-0281 wrenched his neck to the side, trying to catch a glimpse of the air return tube beyond the swinging fan.

"Fair…" Charlotte said with a wavering voice. "I don't know either."

As he stared at the rotating blades, an idea began to formulate in his mind.

"There's a chance I could shift into my human form so that my wings won't catch the air. Then I could shift back once we drop down far enough. Maybe we could get back out the hole like that."

The more that he spoke, the more that eX-0281 only wished he had thought of that when they were getting sucked up the tube in the first place. If only he had been more quick-witted, they would not have the fan to contend with.

Charlotte, on the other hand, got tripped up on the first thing he had said. "Y-You're human?"

"No, a sub-dragon. I have human and partial dragon forms."

"Right," Charlotte drawled out. Her quiet countenance seemed to get lost in pondering the plan he had proposed. "Can we wait a bit for your buddy to respond?" The tremble in her bottom lip belied her fear of enacting his plan.

eX-0281 unmuted himself, trying to elicit a reaction from 704 yet again. "Do you copy? Please come in if you can hear me."

"Oh, 281," he exclaimed, "sorry! My helmet got shut off briefly. Still in pursuit of the Disco Menace!" A few of his heavy breaths could be heard over the audio.

"You haven't caught her yet?" How exactly did a sub-dragon not manage to restrain a woman, carrying a child and lacking her mana reserves?

Quickly, eX-0281 asked a question more pertinent to the situation. "Can you memorize my coordinates? Lottie is safe, but we're trapped at the top of the air return vent. Meet up with us on the outside and bust us out."

"Coordinates saved—" eX-0704 tried to say.

"No, I said memorize." eX-0281 explained hastily, "Lottie thinks the GPC will track our data output. They know you're following the Disco Menace. You need to shut off your helmet."

"Alright. I'll grab the Disco Menace, and we'll meet up with you on the outside!"

Their communication channel was cut again, eX-0704 likely powering down his helmet.

On his own screen, a prompt appeared.

Are you sure you would like to shut down?

Yes / No

Grimly, eX-0281 flicked his eyes with the intention to confirm.

Goodbye.

With his helmet shut off, eX-0281 and Charlotte had nothing to do but wait. Every word of that exchange would have been recorded onto Grandesia Power Company servers. It was only a matter of who would find them first: his friend or the company.