‘Thank the divines,’ Iroh thought, watching as the surgeons expertly worked on Nemes’ body. ‘It’s an on-the-spot change halfway through the testing of his arcane cores, so it’s going to be tight. Don’t blame me if anything goes wrong, dragoon; if Andorran wasn’t pushing me so hard, I could take my time.’

He couldn’t blame Andorran too much. They desperately needed a way to strike back at the Rift Creatures. Now that Nemes was old enough to withstand the surgeries, they couldn’t afford to waste even a second.

Iroh shuddered at the thought of them. There was one in the Greenhaven Institute and it was grotesque in a way that no other creature on Eclite could match. He was certain there were other Rift Creatures that could, though, and some that could even exceed it.

It was impossible to kill it through normal means. It was why his mission was so important. ‘If this goes wrong, we could lose one of our best assets.’

***

His entire body felt as though it was burning; every nerve screamed in such agony that Nemes could hardly form a coherent thought.

His vision was blurry, but he could still see wisps of the arcane through them. Nemes’ arcane vision allowed him to roughly make out three humans before him, but he couldn’t move his head in order to see anything else. He could distantly, through the pain engulfing his body, feel the sensation of cold steel wrapped around sections of his body in order to make sure he couldn’t move.

‘Stop…’ Nemes pleaded. He desperately wanted the pain to go away, but the world did not listen to his wishes.

Gradually, Nemes fell into a state of focus where, in his mind, he was the only thing left in the world. There was no pain and no Apophis, no cold metal holding him down or humans to contain him.

It was only him, seemingly floating in an eternal void. With nothing happening in this eternal void, he thought. His thoughts felt nimble and fluid, his mind making connections that Nemes had never even considered before.

‘Why do shackles cling to my body but not limit my movement? Where are the chains?’ He wondered, ‘If Apophis is in control of my Aether and Ether, why did he not use it to take control of my body when I was still trying to make use of it?’

What felt like both a century a second passed and, both gradually and suddenly, the only thing within the eternal void- his body- started to change. His Aether was safely stored within its core, but within this eternal void, he understood every fiber of his body. His external was littered with precise surgical cuts.

An untold number of miniscule metal-flesh tubes wreathed in Ether, appearing similar to his veins and arteries, pierced his hide and swam through his body like snakes through water. Once they all found their place within his body, billions of capillaries burst from the metal-flesh veins, creating a beautiful tapestry of metallic flesh within his body.

The final touch came when every single one connected to his Aether core simultaneously. In an instant, they felt as natural to his body as his real veins and arteries. The sensation was very similar to when his metal horns had connected to his body; it was indescribable.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Next, something similar happened to his Ether core. Metal-flesh veins slid between his scales and pierced his hide, spreading into his body. There were far fewer metal-flesh veins this time, but they were all larger. They never fully entered his body, either; they poked out of his hide just barely, hidden beneath his scales.

When they had all found their place, no capillaries spread out this time. Instead, they all immediately connected to his Ether core, and again, they felt as natural to his body as his natural veins.

Time passed; he couldn’t tell how much, but it did, and nothing further happened. Nemes released his focus, and the eternal void crumbled around him. Within a second, the world and its sensations hit him like a truck.

Nemes’ vision was bleary but good enough to make out the vague forms of the humans around him. His entire body ached, but his nerves no longer screamed in agony. He could hear the humans speaking, but it was distant and muffled. He tried to move, but his body felt leaden.

Over the next few seconds, he gradually recovered. The pain never went away, but he could more clearly see and hear the humans around him. When he tried to move his body, it at least twitched and squirmed a bit.

“...recovered, we’ll test the Aether arteries and Ether conduits.” One of the humans finished. His vision wasn’t focused enough to be sure of who it was, but the voice told him that it was Iroh.

And then, Nemes’ consciousness slipped away.

***

As Nemes gradually came to, it took him a moment to realize that everything was wrong. He could hear the winds and the rustling of leaves. He could feel the grass gently brushing against his body, swaying with the wind, and could feel dozens of miniscule insects crawling over his scales.

The moment he recognized this, it drug him out of his sleep abruptly. Nemes shot up and looked around.

He was out in the walled-off field that he had met Cetus in. Nobody aside from the armored guards on the wall was in sight, and Nemes calmed down. He wasn’t sure why they had moved him here and not back into his room, but it was nice to be outside again. He had only ever been outside one other time in his life, after all.

…It was nice to be outside, but when his gaze landed on the area where Cetus had laid after Leon threw her, body broken and bleeding, he flinched. He couldn’t help but see himself where Cetus had been, broken and bleeding.

“That’s what the humans will do to you, sooner or later. Don’t listen to them, and get closer to the tear in reality. It’s close; very close.” Apophis said.

Nemes tried not to listen to him, but he had long since become aware that his words were affecting his subconscious. Somehow, that thought scared him more than the thought of himself in Cetus’ place.

“If your presence within my mind did not feel so distinctly evil, you may have tricked me.” Nemes told the Ancient Dragon, and, surprisingly, he said nothing in response.

Nemes blankly stared at the sky for a few seconds before remembering that he had things to do.

‘Aether arteries and Ether conduits- that’s what they put in my body. Is it so that I can manipulate the arcane?’

The more he thought about it, the more he realized that the Aether arteries and Ether conduits felt less like something natural to his body and more like his Aether and Ether core, which were ever-so-slightly disjointed from the rest of him. He could not feel his hearts within his body, but he could clearly feel the baseball-sized cores within his chest.

That did not mean that his Aether and Ether cores didn’t feel natural, just… different from the rest of his body. The Aether arteries and Ether conduits felt the same way.

Nemes grabbed control of the Aether within his core for the first time in a long time and opened his Aether arteries with the ease of flexing a muscle. He gently guided a small bit of it out of his Aether core… but it never left.

Rather, it still fell within his control- within his Aether core. It was like his Aether arteries were an extension of his Aether core. It flowed through the arteries with ease, and when he let go of his Aether completely, it flowed through his body effortlessly… but Nemes could still control it all.