System starting...

Installing subRoutine Prime.Cyclone...

Installation complete.

Proxy unit `Cyclone Mk II` initializing...

Flooding mana capacitors and powering unit...

Unit fully powered.

Running diagnostics...

All systems green.

Cyclone is online.

As Cyclone came online various system messages winked in and out of his HUD. Everywhere he looked a targeting icon followed his vision, locking onto anything that his optics lingered on. The icon would explode into a larger window slightly zooming in on the focused object with a bullet list of data about the object. That was new. The constant zooming in and out on different objects would take some getting used to.

Cyclone found himself lying on a large repair table in the mechanic bay of The Forge workshop. Students hovered around him scribbling away on their tablets and making notes. His sisters, Ram and Rom stood off to the side, observing, and looking slightly bored.

The system locked on and zoomed in on the face of a chestnut skinned elf with pale blue eyes and a bright pink mohawk flopped to one side. The top of the data list read: “Gary Freshspice”. The elf stared hard at Cyclone searching his optics for any sort of response or feedback on what Cyclone was seeing.

“He’s awake, right? That’s what the glowing eyes mean, right?” Gary asked the dragon girl next to him.

“You’re like... really close,” Cyclone remarked. “With this zoom in feature I’m getting a really great view of your nostrils... Ah jeeze, if I look at your nostrils then it zooms in further on them! I can see your BRAIN Gary!”

“We may need to dial back the sensitivity there,” Gary said, backing up and covering his nose.

“It’s so annoying that we can’t actually see what you’re seeing,” Heilong, the draken said, picking mindlessly at the tip of one of her curled horns with a claw.

“You’re annoyed? At least you don’t have to reboot everytime you guys make a little change and want to install it,” Cyclone grumbled.

Heilong laughed and slapped Cyclone on the back with enough force to cripple an orc. He leaned forward slightly from the blow and looked at her, dimming his optics.

“It’s fine! It’s fine!” she beamed. “We can run the body tests now, right? Right?!”

“You volunteering to be the test dummy?” Cyclone quipped, smirking with his new mouth.

“I may look dainty but I’m tough. I’ll take you on any time,” Heilong shot back, crossing her arms and flapping her wings a single time before letting them settle on her back once more.

Heilong was anything but dainty. She may be an Academy student and somewhere in her teen years, but she was only a head shorter than Cyclone at seven feet tall and built like a tank covered in thick, black scales. Her dragon bloodline manifested itself by way of large, craggy horns, voluminous leathery wings, and two thick tails that constantly dragged on the floor. Her face and torso still looked mostly human if you ignored her reptilian blue eyes and black forked tongue.

Given her dragon strength and that she could breathe fire, Cyclone was tempted to try fighting her to test out his new body. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on the perspective, he wouldn’t get the chance.

“Don’t even think about it,” Ram warned, hefting her massive hammer onto one shoulder. “We’ll put you through your paces, little brother,” she added with a wink.

“Yeah, I expected as much,” Cyclone sighed, sitting fully up and swinging his legs off of the table. “Think you can take me on your own?”

“Uh, I’ll help too,” Rom offered.

“Wait, I have to fight Solus? Solus is a four slot proxy! Even in this mark two body, I’m only a three slot,” Cyclone grumbled.

“Yeah, same as Carny and Ratchet. Quit complaining you big baby,” Ram chastised, stepping toe to toe with him. “How could you really test out this new body fighting against your poor, sweet, and delicate two slot older sister?”

“Show of hands,” Cyclone said looking out at the group of students, “who would consider this brat, delicate?”

Kong

A small metal fist rammed into his arm, he looked down at it then at its owner. To his surprise, Ram actually looked embarrassed.

“Heilong, put your hand down,” Ram mumbled before turning, taking Rom by the hand, and heading for the testing area.

Cyclone slid off of the mechanic table and stood up to his full height, rolling his neck around and working his shoulders and arms, looking for pinch spots or variances in his joint tolerances. He could hear one of the students running off and yelling that he was going to be testing against his sisters. These sorts of tests always provided a welcome distraction for the kids and allowed them to take a break without feeling like they were slacking off. They were all surprisingly diligent, but Cyclone supposed that was to be expected of an elite class full of magical engineering nerds.

He followed the sisters through the large bay where GodBomber was being repaired. Would the thing work again as God Armor Convoy without Carnivac? They could retrofit the system to use him instead, though they would need to do some heavy modification to ‘Hide since he formed the container that housed Carn in that mode.

The girls had already thrown themselves over the protective rail that ran around the airship landing pad and hit the cavern beach below. After IronHide, Cyclone was easily the heaviest proxy at three quarters of a ton and the idea of dropping fifty meters to the ground below probably wouldn’t agree with him as well as it did for the much lighter Ram and Rom.

The side stairs were divided into a set that Cyclone thought of as “human scale” and another set for larger species like minotaurs, orcs, centaurs, and the like. Thanks to the wide variety of species sizes in this world, he rarely felt like he was too large for anything.

When he reached the bottom, his sisters had already combined to form Solus and the newly installed flood lamps were all lit. She was still shorter and lighter than he was but as a four-slot proxy, she could draw on considerably more of Prime’s power than he could. It wasn’t the exact ratio but each additional proxy slot required to power a proxy body drew in about 1.5 times the power of the previous slot.

If a single slot of power could be equated to a 1 then Cyclone’s three slots of “proxy power” could be rated at a 4.75 draw on Prime. Ram and Rom were both two slots giving them a rating of 2.5 each but when they combined, their power ramped up to 8.125. ‘Hide was also a four slot, but Solus got to have all that power in a much more compact form. So far, she was probably the most powerful of Prime’s proxies. Cyclone honestly wasn’t looking forward to tussling with her. Ram rarely knew when to hold back, but Rom was more reserved... maybe they’d keep each other in check.

“You look nervous,” Solus said, with both Ram and Rom’s voices in sync. “Don’t worry, we’re only here to test the limits of your new body, not to try and break you.”

She dropped her massive forge hammer onto the sand next to her. Wisps of flame danced across the hammer, distorting the air around it as waves of heat radiated off of it. Orange tongues of fire played across her optics as well, giving her a decidedly god-like look, clearly, with the intent to intimidate. It served no functional purpose and it wasn’t something that was normally visible in this mode so Cyclone reasoned that it was Ram messing with him.

“First, let’s test basic movement,” Solus offered, sounding a bit too sweet for Cyclone’s nerves.

She squatted down and picked up a head-sized rock as if to examine it. She turned it over, looking at it from all sides, deciding that it passed whatever standard she was looking for. In a single movement, she popped up and hurled the object at Cyclone, aiming for his face.

Immiters built into his new forearms sparked and popped then exploded into wide, wedge shaped blades of plasma. He slashed at the rock flying at him, slicing it cleanly in half. The rock halves passed to either side of him but changed direction before hitting the ground to take another pass. As they flew, they changed from dull gray to a deep red followed by a fiery orange.

The partial globs of molten rock splattered against a hastily erected aura shield. Using a plasma blade like a spade, Cyclone dropped the shield, scooped the globs, spun, and lacrosse-flung the ore as hard as he could at Solus. If Solus was concerned, she didn’t show it. She stood perfectly calm, with her hands behind her back, watching with interest. The molten ore sailed true but stopped, mid flight, a meter shy of hitting his big sister. Sisters? Solus tilted her body to the side, slightly, until she could see around the glob at Cyclone.

“Ah ah,” she warned.

She looked down at the ground, watching rocks of various sizes roll and tumble; collecting into a pile in front of her. Cyclone adopted a defensive stance, unsure of just what the amazonian combiner had in store for him. It was harder to get a read on her when she had two personalities driving her, wasn’t pure AI like he was, put up mental privacy protectors all the time, and chose to cover her face with a stylized battle mask.

Lazily, Solus reached out a hand for the molten ore suspended in the air in front of her. She locked optics with Cyclone as she pointed at the ore, then swiped her finger down towards the collection of rocks. The glob crashed into the pile, seeping between the cracks, and fusing the collection. Small bursts of flame erupted from the pile as whatever organic matter may have clung to the rocks ignited.

The entire pile began to glow as it heated up, softening and forming into a single mass. It wasn’t magma hot, but it was starting to resemble soft clay. Three small pillars formed and rose up out of the mass until they formed a three fingered hand that reached over and slapped at the ground. A second hand formed in the same way as if some creature was pulling itself up out of the molten rock.

The last of the molten mass drew up to form a stumpy foot as the completed creature lumbered in Cyclone’s direction. It was vaguely humanoid in shape though it lacked a head and was only three feet tall. With each step it took, it left behind a flaming foot print in the sand. Cyclone converted a plasma blade arm into a gun arm and took aim, neatly blowing a hole through the center of the little rock monster. He then looked up at Solus and gave her a “is that it?” look.

The hole in the rock puppet sealed up and it resumed its march towards Cyclone. It honestly creeped Cyclone out a bit. He backed up half a step and took aim again only to feel something heavy slap him in the back of the leg. He stumbled slightly and looked behind him to find another rock puppet winding up another attack.

He reached down and picked it up by the arm, hurling it into the first one. It crashed into the other, toppling them both over, but then they merged into a single puppet and got back up looking a bit beefier.

“So this new? When did you guys take up puppeteering? How many can you run?” Cyclone asked, filled more with curiosity than terror.

Another two puppets assaulted him from each side. He slashed one in half w/ a plasma blade and shot the other into pieces.

“If you have time to talk then you have time to focus more on your testing. We just recently figured out we could do this so we’re just getting the hang of it. About thirty so far but it gives us a headache,” Solus chastised.

As if to signal that she was about to get serious, she sat down on the ground and crossed her legs, resting her palms on her knees. Her optics flared once more and more rock puppets started forming around Cyclone, shambling their way towards him.

“Even thirty of these little things isn’t going to be much of a test,” Cyclone complained, kicking one away and hacking another laterally.

The broken puppets kept reforming though, renewing their assault. Any time they bumped or knocked into each other, they would merge to form a slightly larger puppet. Once all the original puppets had been merged, the “level 2” puppets began combining when smashed. As Cyclone fought and repelled them, heat damage, dings, and cracks began to build up on his armor plating, though it was all localized below his waist.

Twenty three foot “level 1” puppets-- as Cyclone thought of them-- became ten four foot “level 2s”, which then became five six foot “level 3s”. As they got larger, they didn’t get any faster but they were a lot more solid and could take more damage than their smaller selves.

Cyclone had to keep moving, switching between weapons, and even making use of his new [ForceShield] systems but the puppets were still manageable. He hacked, shot, punched, and bashed at them until he was surrounded by rubble.

As with the previous times, the rubble began reforming. This time, only two globs formed, growing into “level 4” puppets. Though they still lacked heads, they were now a head taller than Cyclone, much to his annoyance. The two puppets took turns swinging massive rock fists at him, slamming against his shields.

His shield shattered, but Cyclone ducked under the swing, slicing a leg off of the puppet with his plasma blades. It tottered and wobbled until Cyclone put a foot to its back, sending it sprawling. His arms converted to machine gun mode and he unleashed a torrent of steel rounds charged with [Ice] enchantment into the remaining puppet.

The rounds punched through the rock, pumping the spell enchantment into the material, causing it to explode in a shower of glowing chunks.

“That was good, right? I think we’ve got a pretty good handle on my weapon systems now, right?” Cyclone asked, skeptically as the scattered rocks began to make their way into a central pile.

“You’ve done great so far! But you have to beat the boss, right?” Solus teased.

Cyclone sighed and looked up at the thirteen foot “level 5” looming over him. “This is your max, right?”

“Weelll... we only started with twenty, right?” she replied with a wink.

“I hate you so much right now,” he grumbled.

“But we love you,” Solus pouted.

He looked away from the giant puppet to glare at her just in time for a fist the size of a tree trunk to slam into him. He flung back through the air, hit the sand once, bounced and slammed into the rock wall of the cavern. His systems shorted for a second, disrupting his optic feed and HUD. When they recalibrated, he was on the ground with his face in the sand.

“Sorry!” Solus apologized regretfully, “that was all Ram, I swear!”

“You both suck,” Cyclone muttered as he planted a hand on the ground and pushed against it.

Everything seemed to be functioning properly, even after eating that hit. The windshield of his bike mode was shattered and his chest plate was dented in but everything else checked out. A quick glance at his mana reserves showed that he was still within the top quarter of his shiny new 1K mana tank. Time to stop playing around.

Cyclone took off like a track racer, pushing off the ground and rushing for the puppet with his guns blazing. The puppet rocked and wobbled but it didn’t go down, even when hit by [Ice] rounds. One of those massive arms rose up, ready to smash down on him once he was close enough.

He flung his arms to the sides converting them to plasma blade mode and used his [Blink] function to pseudo-teleport to right in front of the puppet at chest height. He scissored off its raised arm and rammed both feet into its chest, hitting it like a wrecking ball. Cyclone [Blink]ed again, slashing at one side then another.

Cyclone was a blur of movement zipping around the giant puppet, taking chunks off of it every time he materialized. He slashed with both blades, taking the puppet’s legs off at the knees. As it fell, he kicked the limbless torso away from him and in Solus’ direction. His arms converted and he assaulted it with steel shot again, blowing large chunks out of it.

A final [Blink] and tore the remains of the puppet apart with his blades. He pushed through the flying rubble, converting into the familiar four wheel bike mode and barreling for Solus, still sitting in her lotus position. Her optics locked onto him and she sprung up, catching him by the front fender.

The force of his collision managed to push her back several feet, digging trenches in the sand with her heels but didn’t topple her. On the contrary, Solus used the remainder of his momentum to pull him up off the ground by his front wheels.

She finally took a step back once he was in the air but twisted with the movement, swinging Cyclone around and around like a discus. Around and around she spun, building up centrifugal force until she released him into the air, sending him several stories up over the underground river that ran through the cavern.

“We’re supposed to test these things out slowly the first time!” Cyclone shouted.

His wheels locked in place and pushed out away from him. Each wheel swung out to his sides as his undercarriage split down the middle. The wheels flared out and the lightning turbines in each wheel unlocked and reoriented to provide downward thrust. His cowling shifted and realigned into a more streamlined, hawk-like shape. His wheels-turned-rotor-fans locked into position at offset planes with the rear pair higher than the front. From below, his bot-mode arms partially lowered, converted into their gun mode.

Cyclone released the metaphorical breath he’d been holding as the rotors did their job and his new quad copter form hung in the air, hovering. His targeting reticule locked onto Solus and he opened fire, raining down [Ice] enchanted steel rounds on her.

The rounds burst near her, discharging their embedded spells. She brought her arms up to block the waves of cold assaulting her but her optics never broke their lock on him. As the cold spells hit her, she must have been generating a heat field around her as clouds of white steam erupted from the collision of spells, engulfing her.

“Little bro is getting cheeky! Don’t make me spank you!” she taunted from within the steam cloud.

He could see her moving within the cloud thanks to the various spectrums of light his optics could filter but he couldn’t make out what she was doing due to the steam and spell discharge interference. He swooped down, aimed directly for her, converted to bot mode with his blades out and crashed through the cloud and into her.

Solus had her arms up in a guard, and a surprised look on her face as Cyclone’s blades cut straight through her forearms and bit into her torso. Cyclone’s weight slammed into her, smashing her into the ground where she shattered into pieces.

Cyclone jumped up looking around, horror stricken. His blades fizzled out and he pushed aside rubble, sifting for some sign of his sisters. He found a mostly intact head and knelt down to touch it only to have it crumble to ash.

A heavy weight rested on his shoulder and he looked to see Solus resting her elbows on him with her battle mask retracted and smiling mischievously.

"That was a little bit mean," he pouted.

“Good job, that’ll do for testing your weapon and shield systems, I’ll just switch those all offline for you now,” she said, patting the top of his head. “Now let’s test your agility in the air.”

“What?” Cyclone sputtered.

He then found himself bodily lifted into the air and thrown like a ragdoll shot put straight up. Below him, Solus winked and started flinging waves of molten rock in his direction.

“I hate you so much!” He screamed, finding that [Blink] had also been disabled.