Cold Scales

by Konatra

The Help

Spines stood atop a very thin pillar set up by her legion, keeping herself up in a tree position she stood absolutely still. she felt it was important that she got used to the new legs by testing them and herself to the limit. She opened her eyes and took a step forward on a tight rope across a small gap, while she was never known for her great balance she was aided by the automatic sensors in her brain making her senses and balance highly advanced. As if walking down a street she went across it like nothing. "....I'm stalling myself aren't I?" She sighed to the only one in the room.

"No, really? I just hadn't noticed these past three days you spent mulling around this hunk of junk." The only other organic lifeform on this ship, Discord, threw another empty glass of mimosa into the gap, thus adding to the semi dangerous broken glass pit she could fall into if she slipped up...that is if glass could even hurt her at this point. Spines just rolled her eyes at him. "Look, I get not wanting to go back to Dusk and the rest of his merry band of misfits yet because you're a freak and all-"

"The fuck?" A small flicker of fire ignited in her eyes directed at him.

Discord held out his hands defensively. "Don't worry I'm a freak too, I got the F word pass my sister from another race." A gold chain and sunglasses materialized on him. The absurd response doused her anger and added sheer bewilderment. She also noted how easily she seemed to feel anger recently, "What I am saying is I get it. It's hard sometimes to break that barrier but what I am wondering is why you haven't at least told your father lord sunbutt yet."

She stayed quite for a moment, for awhile she had been sending envoys to tell her Father about the updates on her forces progress with repairs and the current state of peace they were in with no traces of Void left behind. For some reason she didn't want anyone to see her new state yet, it was just so unnatural, something out of fiction she was unsure anyone but a Lord of Chaos and her loyal followers could accept. "...At what point do I stop being me?" Flexing her cybernetic hands again, feeling the electric hum inside her.

Discord hummed a bit, not knowing how to console another. In all his life he never really got to know another person who felt this certain kind of isolation. "Look kid...forget about what you look like, just remember what it feels like being you and don't forget it. If you can do that much then you'll never lose yourself." With that the Chaos god faded out of the room. Leaving the altered dragoness to her thoughts.
___

Spines stood with her arms crossed on top of the loading dock, looking down at the androids scrambling around as the large loading ships touched down. Casually she hopped down from her platform to see the new content they brought from under the sea. Inside one of the large rectangular loading/retrieval ships she could see all kind of storage units that still had some seaweed and barnacles clinging one them. She was excited to see the insides of these ancient containers, more units of course, but she was told all sorts of devices could be in them. "Let's get these things opened already!" In haste the androids rolled the boxes out of the ships. Of course they wouldn't actually just crack them open like that, a few initial scans and tests had to be fulfilled to make sure no potential explosives or exotic pathogen was inside them.

One by one the crates passed inspection and were opened to be sorted through. The first few were the as expected androids, she was told they were of a lower quality build so they would be best at menial tasks and not to be made sentient for the time being. She wondered a bit if the concept of denying an inanimate object the right to sentience was some form of slavery. "Oh, now that's a real mental puzzle there." Much like many problems in life she simply chose to ignore the quandary.

Other boxes were filled with pure materials like platinum and a jet black material she couldn't really pin down by sight. Apparently it was some kind of super material found way beyond her planet called 'Yon' her engineers and R&D department were scrambling like crazy to take their fill. All the while arguing with the other department on how this should be used for hull improvements or armor. She didn't get involved since they seemed unusually rabid at the topic.

'General Spines, I believe you may want to this.' On the other side of the loading room she saw a large box with many odd labels on the sides. The door was shut and unlike the others that only needed to be pried open, this one had a palm scanner. Next to it was one of her Captains. She believed his name was 'Lead' ''Now this is rather unexpected, our manifest only showed low clearance materials, not a category five unit...we will not be able to open this'

"How come, don't I have authorization?"

'Much like before, you lack the given credentials of one with higher authority, just as well you are not apart of the official Unity data roster, until we make contact with an out-' As he spoke Spines' mind began to drift back to the container and the vague shape that somewhat resembled a claw print, she needed to see what was inside, maybe strong androids or some cool high tech stuff like a...a mecha she could ride inside of! In a flash she placed her claw on the scanner and in an instant the scanner gave a curt buzzing noise in response also the several megajoules that raced across her body.

___

'CLEAR' It was electricity that tried to kill her and it would be electricity that would bring her back. Spines woke up with a jolt to the often familiar feeling of pads compressing on her chest. Another burst of energy that really woke her up this time
"OK I'M UP."
Honestly, this time she was just more annoyed than freaked out like last time. Lead looked down at her with what she swore was a look a disproval from his unchanging face. The med unit walked off with his job done.
'My apologizes for not explaining the self defensive reaction first, were it not for your inorganic arms you would of surly have melted to a charred crisp, they dissipated the worst of the surge.'

Spines just slowly got up while muttering. "Well aren't I lucky to be a amputee. Why the hell is the self defensive so dam violent? Like at least give me five tries sweet Solaris."

'In normal circumstances that would be the case but it appears this specific device has been set to automatic rejection, the reason behind this is unknown as we cannot even ascertain the contents of this one.' She could still feel static in her teeth and a hollow ring in her ear, but considering she came back from death a third time in the course of the month she decided she was doing pretty good. 'I doubt we have the proper fire power to open this up without damaging the contents, if only we had some emergency blood from a ranking general.'

Spines flexed her arms to kneed out the strict feeling the shock gave her. "Emergency blood?"

'Yes, these scanners can also accept blood samples from authorized personal in a rare emergency event where the higher rank cannot open the doors themselves. That in itself requires further authorization from Captains and Charge Overseers like us to decide if such a process is correct given the situation. If we once had some samples on hand they would have long expired even if their cold storage ports were still functi-'

While he explained Spines started having a flashback to her time on that dreaded field of death with the Spawn army 'blood of the general detected' wasn't it? What exactly did it mean, she never really had a moment to think about it much after getting blown to bits...Tendrix also did say something about her blood being something oddly similar to his past, what did it mean?
Feeling impatient that Lead was still somehow elaborating the lore of authorization panels she made another possibly idiotic decision by biting down her teeth on her inner lip to bring out a bit of blood in her and from, what she considered a safe distance from another surge, spit out a ball of blood right onto the scanner. Lead saw this all unfold to his absolute bewilderment.
'My Queen, what the fu-' His unandroid like response was drowned out by the loud affirmative tone the scanner made.
Both stood in awe as several hissing sounds came out of the door, the amount of locks inside must of been insane. The second the panels fell open she was already partway inside despite Lead, and other units who were about to do several scans, protest.

All that bravado and buildup was setting Spines over the edge, she had to find out what the big deal was and inside the container she sure found it.
In the back end glowed an odd black light out of a cylinder like device. She stopped for a moment to marvel at the black swirling tube. It almost looked like a lava lamp....so very mesmerizing, but the second she was getting into it a hand slammed on the inside of the glass, scaring the life out of Spines. "Wha-?" She gasped as the hand balled into a fist and punched the inside. "Woah, guys!?" She called back to see her units were frantically calling her back. As she was about to dart back to safety she couldn't help but stop when she heard the sound of shattered glass and draining liquid behind her.

Slowly she turned around to see a black hand through the hole it just made and what was more terrifying were the two red eyes staring right at hers.