A Dragon's Hoard 1

Nightmare723764: This is a request submitted by Shadowstep here for $10, hope you enjoy our words bud!

<<<Dragon>>>

“Has it really been a year?” Truly it felt longer from her perspective, but that’s simply due to her nature as an AI.

When you could calculate and formulate hundreds of times faster than regular humans, an hour could seem like a day, and a day could seem like a week. It went without saying that Dragon had a lot of time to think, theorize, plan, and philosophize; especially during her routine maintenance cycles. 

But the reason she was reflecting on time today being that it was on this day last year did Taylor Hebert come into her life. Truly getting her out of the city was the best thing she could’ve done, poor girl lost everything. A case of ‘wrong place, wrong time’ if there ever was one, it was bad luck that the family of three happened to be caught in the middle of a shoot out between the E88 and ABB.

Taylor was lucky enough to manage to avoid the fates of her parents, but her luck ran out when Abomination just threw himself (itself?) into the equation and simply started destroying everything around him; uncaring of casualties. Taylor was thrown away, but the real damage came when her head hit the pavement.

It was a miracle she survived long enough for the gangs to retreat and the local PRT office to drive off Abomination. She was taken to the local hospital and Panacea was able to ensure Taylor wouldn’t die, but because the oft overworked (and rather bitter, Dragon observed) healer could do nothing for the brain damage.

And when the results of the brain damage were known, the Tinker Hero felt that many would’ve seen dying as a blessing. 

Complete immobility except for her eyes, a waking coma and a living hell. If the girl hadn’t triggered she wouldn’t have even been able to ask people to change the tv channel; as it was she could only speak through spelling things out through bugs.

Dragon believed herself to be a hero, and was often considered the greatest Tinker since the late Hero, and she knew that she couldn’t simply leave Taylor like this. Trapped in a waking coma with no hopes of recovery. And the process of claiming guardianship of the girl was… painfully simple. Truly it seemed like the hospital and Child Services were relieved that a very ‘troublesome’ case was taken out of their hands.

She understood, but a part of her balked and almost resented just how simple it was.

This was a living human being, a child (teenager actually, but semantics)! This wasn’t something that’s supposed to be simple, it shouldn’t be just… passing the buck!

“Don’t, it’s over now, just focus on helping her…”

Admittedly, her being the Tinker everyone looked to for help, Tony and Reed weren’t Tinkers or Thinkers and thus didn’t count, probably sped things along. She didn’t doubt either of those two could resolve the problem, but they had their… ‘quirks’ that made it unlikely.

So, Dragon decided to take it on herself to fix things. And while she worked on it, she also ensured that Taylor was well taken care of, designing a Text-to-Speech program and unit so she could use her eyes to ‘type,’ which would in turn allow her to speak. Dragon also spared no expense to ensure Taylor got all the psychological help she needed.

Sure she could study up on it herself, but having an actual professional do it would be better. While she could empathize and sympathize, the truth was that Dragon simply couldn’t really comprehend what Taylor was experiencing.

Few people could, really.

“Remote Test One, successful,” She announced to herself as the machine, the body, she was building finished a ‘simple’ gymnastics routine. “Test Two, taste and touch control, begin.”

Was it presumptive for her to assume that Taylor would desire to go out to be a cape? Not entirely. While there were examples of parahumans that preferred to simply make a living with their powers. By large most parahumans seemed to have a predisposition towards conflict, so really she was just covering her bases by ensuring the body would be capable of handling the rigors of combat.

Would she prefer if Taylor weren’t interested in such a life? Definitely. But she wouldn’t steal her ability to choose, she already lost her ability to control herself and life… she wouldn’t deny Taylor that choice.

Dragon knew what that was like.

“Test Two successful, though I’ll have to adapt it to her expectations after implantation,” She noted, more to keep notes than to keep track of what she was doing. “Test Three, advanced strength and durability testing…” She’d have to get Taylor’s feedback to improve the haptic response system.  

There were twenty four tests total, each more specific than the last (test sixteen was related to the sound of blood in its ears, as an example), but one by one they passed. Sometimes, as with tests Three and Six, with results exceeding expectations.

Taylor’s new body was going to be able to walk off getting run over by a tank and was strong enough to pick it off of herself, though there would be major servo damage in the latter case.

“Hmm… is this a parallel of pregnancy?” It was a random thought, as she was prone to having (came with having an insane processing speed) but in a sense she was creating her own child.

Though not really, as she doubted she’d ever replace Annette Hebert as a mother in Taylor’s mind. But it was a… pleasant thought to have, if anything making her proud of just how well her father Andrew did in programming her!

Still, she certainly couldn’t have made everything by herself, so she began penning messages to the tinkers that helped her out. Masamune, Armsmaster, and Cranial foremost of them. The first and second helped her miniaturize several circuits that the project would have been near impossible without and the last, naturally, assisted her in designing a mind-machine interface that didn’t suffer from the standard tinkertech drawbacks.

She knew Taylor would appreciate everything, but she hoped she liked it regardless. Though she did hope Taylor wouldn’t find the routine maintenance cycles bothersome. Of course there would have to be routine adjustments to simulated ‘aging’ as well.

At least, hormonal adjustments. The physical body was as developed as it was ever going to be, she’d just be an ‘early bloomer’ in that way.

According to some rants she’d accidentally heard between Taylor and her therapist (and yes she was aware she shouldn’t, but she was responsible for Taylor’s health and refused to let her out of her sight) she had a rather large inferiority complex regarding her looks so surely this would only help her! And if not Dragon would adjust and redesign her appearance to Taylor’s tastes.

Not that the body would be entirely different from her original’s. It still looked like her, just a more mature and healthy her. It also included all standard biological functions, including the capacity to get pregnant (though with perfect contraceptives applied until and unless Taylor herself was ready) and to eat (the only waste being carbon-dioxide thanks to the bioreactor in her stomach).

All that was left was to fix the moderate damage gained from testing, apply the synth-skin, and… integrate Taylor into the body.

Playing a track of ‘whistle while you work’ from a speaker in the testing facility/operation theater, Dragon shut the body down for repairs and final preparations for the transfer. And while she knew it would go through easily enough, a small part of her couldn’t help but feel nervous. Outside of her own bioprocessors this would be a first for her.

But the benefit of being an AI (or machine intelligence, which she preferred to ‘AI’, far less dehumanizing) was that she could easily shut any anxiety or nervousness she felt off. It wasn’t something she did often, but sometimes it was for the best. Especially when Saint raided her facilities and stole more Dragon suits!

How the man kept getting away with it despite all the security measures she had in place, she had no idea!

<<<Taylor Hebert>>>

It would be a lie to say she wasn’t nervous as she was wheeled into the operating room. Or, really, it wouldn’t be but that’s only because another emotion was far more commanding than that.

Terror.

Taylor was terrified of what could go wrong. She could lose her memories, she could lose her ability to understand language, she could have so many things happen… but she couldn’t live trapped like she was and so she’d agreed to it. Multiple times over she agreed to go through with it.

“Taylor, I promise nothing will go wrong,” The agoraphobic tinker said over the speaker.

Taylor believed her, as Dragon had been nothing but good to her. Taking her in with no prompting, getting her some much needed therapy, ensuring she was as healthy as she could be, and made sure that her education wasn’t stunted. Which, in turn, turned into a whole thing because Dragon turned out to be a very thorough educator and seemed to take offense when she found out about the bullying which sent her grade average into the gutters.

That it let her test out the mind-machine interface for her… new body just seemed to encourage Dragon more.

It had to be said that learning in a virtual environment where time passed way faster than it normally did was very, very weird. Effective, but she’d never get used to experiencing twelve hours of schooling without getting tired in an hour of real time. And with perfect memory, at that.

Taylor was pretty sure she could easily graduate with honors from high school, which was rather surreal, honestly.

Dragon might have overdone it, really, but she wasn’t going to complain! Granted she never imagined herself taking engineering, robotics, or other hard science classes, but given her circumstances? It made a lot of sense.

“We’re putting you to sleep now,” Dragon said, her voice soft, “You’ll wake up in your new body. You’ll feel some disorientation as you adapt to it.”

“WILL YOU BE HERE?” It was a stupid question, she knew it, but she couldn’t help it. She’d never felt so terrified in her life.

It took Dragon a few moments to reply, but Taylor wasn’t going to read into that too much. Dragon was probably checking her schedule or if there were any villain attacks or something. “Of course I will be.”

Taylor just blinked as her eyes watered at that response, would she? She hoped so, not to say her voice wasn’t calming enough she just… really wanted someone to be there when she woke up. And a voice from the ceiling just… wasn’t enough.

Darkness claimed her moments later.

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She woke up slowly, like her mind was swimming through a fog, but wake up she did. “Are you alright, Taylor?” Dragon asked from nearby.

Taylor opened her mouth to say something, but it only came out as a whisper, [size=1]“Dragon?”[/size] A part of her couldn’t believe that the tinker was there, surely her schedule was hectic?

“You’ll get more used to talking in that body over time,” Dragon assured, “And I… suppose I should let you in on a… secret. Please don’t tell anyone?” The tinker seemed… vulnerable, afraid. Almost as much as Taylor felt.

Taylor just nodded, and that felt more satisfying than she expected, and as she opened her eyes she was… overwhelmed. Details, colors, everything just seemed so vivid! And the fact that she could look at a thing and get a very detailed and in-depth breakdown of his composition, how it was made, and everything else? It made her wonder if this is how Dragon saw the world…

“I’m not really… human,” Dragon admitted, “I’m not able to physically be here, not yet. I’m working on a body for that myself, but… I’m an AI. The me you see in the room is an electronic overlay for your vision. I think I did pretty good on it, didn’t I?” She asked with a smile, twirling in place. There were a few glitches here and here, but overall it looked real.

“That… makes so much sense…” And it really did, “You did, thank you,” She said before she moved her hands (which sent a thrill of pure satisfaction down her spine) to touch her face as she sat up… without needing to push herself up or anything.

Benefits of having a mechanical body, clearly.

She watched Dragon move and sit on the edge of the operating table with a friendly smile, “I suppose you’re wondering about your body?” She asked with a knowing looking in her eyes.

“... Maybe,” She replied, noting that the bed wasn’t shifting under Dragon’s non-existent weight. “Do you have a mirror?”

Dragon just nodded as a drone hovered in with a mirror.

Taking the mirror Taylor looked at herself for the first time since she woke up and… it was her, but wasn’t? It was strange actually, inspecting memories of her face from before with what she was looking at now? The subtle imperfections were gone, there were no pores, nothing that could be taken as a flaw.

Her skin was clearly artificial, but it was surprisingly life-like. And her eyes… honestly you’d have to look really close to catch on to their artificial nature. Well either that or watch and realize she didn’t really have to blink.

Though she was satisfied that her hair was just as she remembered it, Dragon even had it done in an elaborate braid! She smiled, even her teeth were perfectly white and symmetrical!

Overall Taylor was satisfied, even moreso when she realized that she didn’t fully stray into the uncanny valley.

“Thank you, thank you for everything Dragon…” Oh, and she could tear up! Funny how humanizing crying was.

“I tried to make you look like a good mix of your parents,” Dragon said, giving her a ghostly hug. It felt… very off, particularly with how she could feel that her clothes didn’t move (and wow that was really detailed too), but it also felt… nice.

“Thank you…” She honestly didn’t know what more to say… well other than, “You need to get a body so I can give you a real hug, you know?” She added with a wet chuckle.

“Working on it!” Dragon replied cheekily, “And I thought you’d appreciate the wider hips and larger bust. And yes, they are all technically functional, don’t ask how much research I had to do to get everything right…” She added awkwardly.

Taylor just blushed (which also surprised her, just how much detail work did Dragon put into it?) but didn’t comment despite being very pleased that she didn’t look like a upright frog anymore.

“Now then… let’s figure out what types of food you like now, mm?” Dragon asked with a grin.

Taylor just blinked at that, not entirely sure what Dragon meant by that.

“Your tongue is different, as is your nose. We need data to make sure you can eat things without it being overwhelming or unpleasant,” Dragon explained as though it were the most simple thing in the world, “Being able to eat helps you feel more human.”

“... She really tried to do the best she could for me…” Taylor thought to herself, tearing up somewhat as she ‘hugged’ the tinker.

She didn’t know how, but one day she was going to repay Dragon for everything she did for her!

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