After a few uncomfortably long seconds, the man said, “Ah, I forgot; you can’t respond. Nod if you understand.”

Nemes stared at the man blankly for a moment before nodding at him, and a manic grin suddenly overtook his face. “Good, good; no, this is perfect!”

Iroh quickly regained control over himself, and after a few seconds of fiddling with a metal band tied around his wrist, he spoke again; “We’ll provide you a means of communication soon; in fact, someone should be bringing it here right now. In the meantime, however, I think we should go over some things.”

The man pulled a wheeled stool out from beneath a desk and sat down before coming startlingly close to Nemes’ face. The complete lack of fear unsettled him; the man’s entire head could fit in his maw.

This thought made him realize two things; firstly, this was the first human he’d seen that didn’t have any metal replacements- visible replacements, at least, and second…

Nemes was bigger than he used to be. He had horns, although they were tiny, and small, fragile spikes ran down his back.

Before Nemes could think any further on that topic, Iroh spoke- idly, as he returned to fiddling with the metal band around his wrist.

“You’re the last of your kind, you know? We thought dragons had gone extinct,” Iroh said, sounding as though he wasn’t truly paying him any attention, “But, just like in the stories of old, a young man, while clearing a bit of the forest in order to make room for farmland, stumbled across your egg.”

Nemes didn’t understand what he meant by the ‘stories of old’, but Apophis, who still lingered in the corner of his mind, apparently did. The demon snorted in mild amusement as Nemes tried to process that he was the last of his kind.

Iroh looked up at him again, an amused smile on his face as he continued; “But unlike in the stories, he didn’t hide the dragon under his bed and bond with it once it hatched. Instead, he sold it to a wealthy Countess, who gave it to the greatest biological research institute on the planet.”

Apophis’ mild amusement turned to fury, but it seemed that the demon’s time in his head was over as the strange corner of his mind disappeared.

It took Nemes a moment to recover from the sudden burst of fury that the demon had exploded with before disappearing.

“…To arrive,” Iroh finished. Nemes only caught the tail end of what Iroh had been saying, but he didn’t have to wait longer than a second before it became apparent.

The door slid open, and a short man stepped inside, carrying a pair of metal horns, larger than his own and curved backwards. Silently, the short man handed them to Iroh before quickly leaving the room.

“Are you ready?” Iroh asked, and Nemes stared at him blankly. What was he talking about?

After a few seconds, Iroh repeated the question, but Nemes didn’t understand. After a few more seconds, the man venomously muttered; “The implant must’ve stopped working. I told them they should’ve tested it on a wyvern and not just a big lizard…”

“Whatever,” Iroh said, standing up and walking over to the tray full of medical tools and picking one of them up, before making his way to Nemes’ head.

He placed the tool against one of his scales, and...

Nemes roared in pain as Iroh tore the scale off. It took every fiber of his willpower to avoid trying to kill the man.

When he moved over to the other side of his head and placed it against yet another scale, however, Nemes shoved the man backwards with his tail. To his surprise, he push only forced the thin man a single step backwards. Without even an ounce of hesitation, he returned to his previous position and placed the tool against one of his scales once more.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

This time, Nemes didn’t resist. He still vividly remembered all of the things that the humans could do to him. His scale was torn off, and Nemes grit his teeth; even with all of his efforts, a short growl still escaped him.

Iroh placed the metal horns where the scales had been, right behind his horns, and they attached themselves to his body with startling ease. And then, a tendril of… something punched into his head, slithering towards his chest with startling speed.

Without even thinking about it, Nemes willed his Aether to resist, but it didn’t budge from its place, stored within his Aether core; it refused to obey his will to resist the tendril- of what he now recognized to be Aether- that extended towards his chest- no, not towards his chest, but towards his Aether core.

His Aether permeated his body, but refused to do anything more.

Before Nemes could try to do anything more to resist it, the tendril latched onto his Aether core, and suddenly, he was struck by a wave of sensations. Nemes gasped, both from his maw and… and from his metal horns.

***

Nemes could hardly believe it. The horns were well and truly apart of his body; as his Aether circulated through his body, it flowed through the metal horns’ nerves, just as they did with his own horns- or, rather, his original horns.

The horns weren’t actually metal; they, similarly to the implant within his brain, were made out of some strange hybridization of metal and keratin. More importantly than that, however, was that they… could speak. There was something within both horns, similar in material to the implant within his brain, but different in size and shape.

It felt just like any other part of his body- it felt natural, like he could, even accidentally or subconsciously, use it. In fact, he already had.

“I… can speak?” Nemes said, his eyes wide. This… this solved so many of his problems! He didn’t have to just guess at what the humans wanted; he could ask them, and he could understand them!

“What?” Iroh said, and Nemes’ heart stopped for a moment. The horns didn’t work? The humans couldn’t understand him?

“What language was that in?” Iroh said under his breath, but Nemes’ sensitive ears caught it.

‘Oh…’

Nemes had spoken in the language that he had learned from the odd corner of his mind.

“Is it right this time?” Nemes asked, and Iroh’s eyes lit up. Before the man even responded, he knew that it had worked.

***

Nemes stared idly up at the ceiling. There was nothing else in the room; he was once more confined to an empty room. Part of him was glad for the dog to be gone, but the other part was horribly bored. There was absolutely nothing going on in the room- perhaps the most interesting thing in the entire room was the mirror. He was too afraid to ask for anything more, though.

…It left plenty of time for thinking, though. Iroh hadn’t said much to him after Nemes gained the ability to speak- mostly, he only asked questions, but there was still a lot to think about- like his size, the metallic horns on his head, the implant within his brain, the demon hiding in the corners of his mind and what the humans wanted from him.

Nemes’ purpose was one of the only things he had been told, and it made his hearts burn with rage. He shook his head, clearing himself of these thoughts. He could not afford to harbor hatred for the humans- not when they held his life in their hands.

He couldn’t get over the strange feeling of the metallic horns on his head. It felt simultaneously natural and unnatural.

This thought only distracted him briefly before he caught his reflection in the shiny metal.

Nemes... was big. Whereas before he had been the size of a large dog at most, he was now the size of… a large wolf, maybe? He didn’t really know- he had never come across any wolves, and the words that both the implant and Apophis’ corner of his mind fed him didn’t include much knowledge of what they meant.

Regardless, he was big. He stood up and moved closer to the mirror so that he could have a better look at himself- one that didn’t look grey because of the metal.

Nemes’ scales had become a bit darker, making them somewhere in-between bronze and gold in color. His face looked more angular and predatory, and his wings looked larger and more powerful than they had the last time he’d seen them; he’d probably be able to use them to glide soon- not that there was anywhere for him to fly within the cramped metal box that he resided.

His Aether spread throughout his body, and he looked at his fire gland. It’d take a while longer before he could breathe fire, unfortunately.

‘Why’s my Aether working now?’ Nemes wondered. It refused to obey his will for any purpose other than just spreading it throughout his body.

‘It does not obey your will because it does not belong to you.’ Apophis said, ‘It belongs to me.”