Nemes and the dog took a step forward simultaneously, but while the dog came to a stop upon seeing Nemes move for the food, he paid the dog no attention.

There was a significantly larger amount of the slimy red substance than there had been for just him, meaning that part of it was clearly meant for the dog. He didn’t mind sharing, since the food was so energy-dense. Only a single small meal- relative to what a growing dragon would usually need to eat, that is- was enough to feed him for a full day, after all.

Once he had his fill, he returned to the corner of the room and the dog, slowly and cautiously, moved to eat his portion.

Shortly after the dog finished its meal and returned to its corner, several bugs came into the room, filing out of a hole in the wall that shut shortly thereafter.

These bugs were similar to the one he had killed; it was small, circular and flat, with a metal carapace and a complete lack of arms, legs or facial features, like eyes and ears. These ones, however, had two little sticks of metal poking out of their front- presumably arms.

They all moved towards the dog, making a semi-circle around it. They started to corral it away from the corner, but the bugs’ intentions soon became clear, and the dog refused to move past the middle of the room and toward Nemes.

The tips of their metal stick arms began to buzz with electricity, but the dog didn’t seem to understand that the electricity was a hundred times scarier than Nemes. It didn’t move an inch from its position, and the metal bugs came closer and closer to striking the dog with their electricity arms.

One of the bugs reached out with its arm and poked the dog, evoking a yelp from the dog, but it still refused to move any closer to Nemes.

When the bugs shocked it a second and third time, it took a single, instinctive step back, but then tried to jump over the bugs in order to avoid getting any closer to him.

The bugs quickly surrounded the dog again, pushing it into the center of the room over the course of a minute or so. Once again, the dog refused to move any further, and the bugs started prodding it with their arms once again.

This time, however, they meant business. The dog did not just yelp whenever it was shocked, but screamed.

Nemes acted without thinking, surging forth and crossing the short distance within a moment. He stomped a foot down on the back of a bug, crushing its body. His long and beefy tail shot forward, slamming into the sides of one of the bugs and knocking it backwards several feet.

The bugs’ arms all began to audibly buzz, surging towards Nemes as fast as their legless bodies allowed. His hearts beat furiously as his fear of the electricity almost made him freeze, but a slight nudge from the strange corner of his mind pushed him to act.

He smashed another one with his claws, but this time, it dodged to the left, causing his feet to only crush the edge of its right half. Nemes’ claws were dug into its body regardless, and he flung it away. It bashed against the wall and bounced off, but he hardly paid it any attention.

Nemes’ leapt backwards, making distance between himself and the closest bug, which had been a mere heartbeat away from shocking him. To his surprise, that same bug’s arms detached from its body, shooting towards him. There wasn’t enough force behind the arms for them to penetrate his scales, but the brief instant in which it touched him before bouncing off and clattering on the ground was enough for him to let out a sharp hiss of pain.

The now-weaponless bug’s arms were attached to a wire that were dragging them towards it, but Nemes’ wasn’t about to allow it to retrieve its limbs.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

But the bugs weren’t about to allow Nemes’ to not allow it to retrieve its limbs, either. Four of the remaining eight bugs guarded the weaponless one, and the other four surged towards him fearlessly.

Nemes stood on his hind legs for a brief moment before bringing his feet down onto the two nearest bugs. Their attempts to dodge were successful, however, and he only managed to crush the edges of both bugs.

Before he could try to finish them off, the two other bugs pressed their arms against his temporarily-grounded front legs.

Nemes’ let out an enraged roar as he pushed the two bugs that were beneath his feet forward and into the two bugs that were shocking him, knocking all four away and causing minor damage to them all.

While they were all tangled up with one another, he surged forward and slammed his front legs down once again, crushing two of them. In that same attack, a third that had been just barely within reach of his claws was stabbed through, but it was still active.

The remaining bug took a moment too long to recover and Nemes struck it in the side with his tail, sending it a few feet away and denting it. At the same time, he finished off the one that his claws had pierced.

And then… the bugs fled. They all left the room; even the one that he had smashed into a wall. A complex mix of emotions surged within him, but then…

Two different doors, on opposite ends of the room, opened simultaneously, and three guards entered from each door. None wielded any weapons, but Nemes’ knew that there was no way to escape the consequences of his actions. He wouldn’t be able to fight the guards off with the ease in which he had fought off the tiny, fragile bugs.

His instincts and his sensibilities clashed. His body urged him to fight, but Nemes knew that that would only make everything worse. If he gave up, it was possible they’d be lenient.

A foot struck his right flank, and he was knocked several feet away, right into the legs of the three humans to his left. He had taken too long to think, even if it had only been for a heartbeat. The humans moved too fast, even in the bulky suits of armor that they wore.

One of the guards produced a syringe from some compartment within their armor and knelt down next to him. Nemes could do nothing, held down as he was by guards larger and stronger than himself, as the needle slipped past his scales and penetrated the hide beneath them.

The guard pushed down on the plunger, and Nemes blacked out.

***

‘Awaken, hatchling!’ Apophis’ said. He only heard the demon- at least, he assumed that’s what it was- distantly. Almost immediately after the demon’s shout, his consciousness disappeared once more, only to reappear a half-second later.

‘Awaken, or you will meet your demise!’ Apophis screamed.

Nemes came to for a brief heartbeat, but the most he could do was just barely twitch his tail before his consciousness slipped away.

***

Nemes didn’t remember anything- not even waking up. He merely found himself within yet another sterile metal room, laid atop a table of sorts.

A few feet away was a tray filled with tools- some that he recognized, like a scalpel, and many others that he did not.

Right beside the table he was laid across was a weird metal something, with tubes extending out of it and connecting to various parts of his body.

‘What’s happening?’ Nemes wondered, ‘What do I do?’

He didn’t like his situation, but he didn’t want to do anything that would anger the humans. It was too late, though, because, without thinking, his claws moved, severing the tubes that connected to his body.

Immediately, the metal contraption that the tubes had extended from let out a long, obnoxious ‘Beeeee!’ sound- presumably, screams of agony. After several seconds, it became clear that it would not end, and it took a bit of willpower to avoid destroying the contraption, which may have been related to the bugs.

Nemes stood up on the large table he had been laid across, looking around the room for any clue as to what was happening and finding nothing.

Just then, Apophis spoke once more: ‘They did something to your brain.’

Nemes looked at himself in the metal’s reflection, but his head seemed fine. Was the demon lying to him, as demons tended to do?

After a brief second of confusion, Nemes spread his Aether throughout his body once again, using it to feel his internals. It didn’t take long before he found something that had not been there before.

There was a small… something inside of his brain. It wasn’t made of flesh like himself or the dog, but it wasn’t made of metal like the bugs, either. It was something in-between, and he couldn’t figure out what it was for.

And then, Nemes’ thinking time was over as the door slid open and an unarmored man stepped into the room.

Before Nemes had time to even react to the human’s arrival, he spoke… and Nemes understood.

“Greetings, dragon; I am Iroh. Is the implant working correctly? - can you understand me?”