The skydancer dragged Starseer, still trapped in the net and all, towards the tube. “Stop, stop, stop, please, stop!” She yelled, reaching out and managing to grab the skydancer’s leg. He paused, looking down at her curiously. “Please, stop. Please,” Starseer begged, holding onto his leg tightly. Something changed in the skydancer’s expression, though. But then he just dragged her into the capsule and sealed it. She never felt so alone.
Ranger3760 looked at the containment capsule. “Directive… run a test on the vitals.” He just had to be sure. The Arcania wasn’t a dragon, it just couldn’t be. But he had to know for sure.
“Ranger3760, its a [i]machine[/i] so it I doubt—“ The directive stopped emitting noise when it saw the readings as they were projected on the screen above his work table. Whatever was containing the Arcania had a pulse and vital organs and not a ounce of metal within it.
Ranger3760 walked over to the screen, peering at it. “Impossible…” He muttered, trying to make sense of it. The vitals matched what a dragon would have, in every category. “The Arcania can’t possibly be… a dragon, could it?” Ranger3760 looked back to the capsule, were the Arcania sat. It was still trying to break out of the netting.
Directive3760 followed his ranger’s gaze to the Arcania.
“Ranger3670, I have been programmed to know a lot of things, but after being operational for two centuries, I noticed that there are some things out there that the High Mind wants us to think we know…” the machine paused. Why was he telling Ranger3760 this? Speaking about the High Mind this way—it went against his programming, but then again, so did the Arcania’s current state. “But,” he continued, “We really don’t know. We only have false information that gives us the illusion of knowing.”
Ranger3760 took a deep breath, watching the capsule. “Directive… do you think she’s like me?” Ranger3760 asked, but it cam out as a whisper. The skydancer had been volunteered when he was a child to be in a series of tests to try to imbue dragons with magic. Those tests… they had been painful, but Ranger3760 had changed after them. Most notable were his eyes, which gain primal markings. But also, he had become resistant to the pain of electricity and somewhat of a conductor. Ranger 3760 had been the only successful test subject, the other hatchlings had died. The scientists never found out how to replicate the experiment, and funding for it had since been shut off.
“Possibly.” The directive said. The Arcania had been in a different dimension that even the High Mind barely knew of for eighteen years. A lot of crazy things could have happened to the Arcania during that time. Perhaps it have—
The sudden sound of metal door being opened made Directive3760 freeze his hypothesizing.
“Where is it!” Head-Commander457 roared as he entered Ranger3670’s headquarters, with own monkey-shaped directive in tow.
[i]Shoot[/i]. “Head-Commander457, so nice of you to come by,” Ranger3760 greeted with a smirk. Subtly shifted to remove the screen display of the Arcania’s vitals. “What could possibly bring you to my sector?”
