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62. Aegis
🕑 Added 2023-07-22 15:32:32 +0000 UTCDeep in the nalutsa jaw, Liam let go of his hold over the 'mandibles' that protected the nalutsa neural queue.
The relief of not having to lift the ton of flesh, cartilage, and bones was short-lived as he instantly changed position. He put himself within the space he cleared, feet spread and pressing onto the side of the slippery right 'mandible', his right hand held on the fleshy side thanks to the large bone below and his back against the 'mandible' he just let go.
'The connection now…', Liam thought the strain of holding such weight plus the muscles behind wanting it closed, felt less strenuous with the use of more of his body.
And if he didn't become numb to his absurd strength it would have been mind-boggling to him. It was things you just got used to but since he got into Hell's Gate his inhumane strength became all the more evident.
It was still an awkward position that made him very vulnerable but there weren't a thousand solutions. He was quite certain putting his weight on the translucent membrane below would rip it apart like wet paper.
If it happened chances were due to its location and the organ it had growing from where it led directly to the brain. At best it will permanently cripple the nalutsa and at worst it will outright kill it, also not forgetting even if the membrane was capable of holding a fraction of his weight it would prove to be an even worse support than presently.
His back facing the inside part of the 'mandible' he lifted earlier placing himself in the newly forcefully open area, his boots on the opposite 'mandible', his right hand holding a corner, and his back the closing 'mandible'.
This stopped it from closing up as he stayed over the fleshy cavity maintaining the 'mandible' nearly using all of his instead of fraction thereby making the effort diminish immensely.
He commanded his left gauntlet to open up to his forearm revealing his implant as he extended his left hand toward the bifurcated queue waving in the strong current waiting for it to be pushed in toward his outstretched finger and when it was close enough he sucked the water in his inventory to gain a suction force and grabbed it.
Immediately Liam felt a prickling sensation as the appendage immediately coiled around his hands and glowed an ever brighter red. It coiled around his hand at first then as if guided many of the feathery tendrils dragged around his implant and coiled around.
He felt a shock go through his tensed body as the connection was made, his pupil dilating to the point his silver irises almost became impossible to see; however he did not waver, in fact, he put more strength behind keeping his position as it was.
He closed his eyes diverting his attention towards the foggy connection to the nalutsa. The first Liam noticed was that it was old, older than him, and that all of his tame but insignificant compared to the All-Mother, it was more bestial, less complicated, rawer, and direct.
And it was half-dreaming, it was confused and sleepy until everything wasn't and it suddenly became aware of him.
It was as if both were staring at one another, immiscible like oil and water, their emotions bare to the others, one was confused, fatigued, and almost fearful barely able to focus the drug in its system plainly in effect but it wasn't so much the case for the other, it was clear, calculated organized and impossible to comprehend it was both alien and familiar.
Liam's implant glowed an intense orange to the point of bathing the area in its light as he mentally began to try and make contact, as he did so the strength behind the 'mandible' suddenly weakened leading to his right hand slipping further back.
Then as a deeper connection between the two was made, his Mind pushed against the Mind of the nalutsa using the same feeling he had when speaking to Eywa, knowledge, and experience. He wouldn't have dared to do so before but he knew he was safe at least in the non-physical way.
If the All-Mother couldn't enter without his express accord or knowledge then the nalutsa wouldn't either. This was aside from how anomalous Liam's Mind was but that he wasn't in the known about the finer details or even large, only Eywa knew and even then he was puzzling.
Either case was that he needed to dominate it and force it into submission for it to open its Mind and a link and a hierarchy to be established and the only option now was to fight. It was a battle of wills but not only as it wasn't the only factor.
Metaphysical metallic root-shaped tendrils pulsing blue energy shot out from his Mind toward the giant shark Mind and as they entered in contact they divided into smaller tendrils forming complex networks as they ensnared their target, as if ready to snuff it out of existence.
Then the dreamy and sleepy state of the nalutsa disappeared as it suddenly became all too aware of its state and pain, an intense mental one that was incomprehensible.
Its Mind suddenly fought back by sending waves upon waves of itself at the thorny tendril as if it was the raging sea against the rocky cliff of a coastline during a tidal wave and the results were similar. Nothing, it did nothing, at most it tickled Liam.
Then the feeling of numbness over its body started to fade away and Liam felt the world shake, destabilizing him greatly, almost to the point of falling but he held.
The 'mandible' Liam had his back against suddenly tried to close by using all of the available strength, at this point, he understood that the three shots of tranquilizer had begun to lose their effect.
It was sooner than he would have liked but not sooner than he had anticipated, the drug could not even have any effect, to begin with.
His eyes suddenly snapped open, he gnashed his teeth together almost to the point of breaking while a deep groan of muffled pain escaped his throat as felt the fingers on of his right hand bend the wrong way, the bones cracking, ligament straining, and the metal of the gauntlet digging in his flesh.
Even with what was happening Liam put all of his strength in his leg, trunk, and back as he pushed the 'mandible' open, uncaring if he caused damage, at worst he would nurse the nalutsa back to full health.
However as much as he pushed he could gain but a few centimeters and that wasn't enough to dislodge his fingers without risking ripping them right off, he could but maintain his position to avoid further damage.
It was a relief but it was still very painful, however, it was far from the worst he had gotten. It hurt like hell but that won't be enough to stop if nothing else it did the opposite.
He knew the reaction from the nalutsa was normal and that injury minor injury could have been avoided but that pissed him off either way.
Liam wasn't aggressive before, physically one was superior but mentally one was pitifully weaker than the other and it was a mental battle that had the most at stake, the physical one having been cheated through.
The metal root coming from him suddenly stopped moving seemingly giving a moment of respite for the nalutsa and like the distressed, confused, and trapped wild animal it was, it lashed out a storm against the roots of the alien Mind.
But yet again it had no effect then in a moment all tendrils grew at speed several times the earlier one covering the formless Mind of the shark in its entirety by an all-encompassing network similar to a prison.
'Submit.', the wordless intonation resonated from nowhere and everywhere at once as the cage of metallic thorn tightened all the while the blue hue became both brighter in luminescence and darker in shade.
The nalutsa did not do as ordered, it only fought harder both mentally and physically as it progressively gained control of its body back. The Rhyniocopter hovering above did as its programs told and gave more cable to not be dragged as the beast started to sluggishly flick its fins and tail.
'Submit!', the same wordless intention echoed, this time louder and stronger as the root started to exert a great amount of pressure on the nalutsa's Mind.
The thorns of the roots dug and scraped it creating great mental anguish lesser creatures would have perished from, yet the shark continued to fight back, it didn't yield but it was getting weaker neither did it have the mental strength or physical as even if the primary effects of the drug were wearing off the drug was still in its system.
The nalutsa understood it was going to lose but it wasn't going to do so by abandoning, it knew intrinsically what it meant to relinquish it was within its blood, and this realization led to its confusion and fear to vanish as those were replaced by trepidation.
It wanted a worthy individual to be the one dictating it, and this desire stemmed from the memories of its ancestors passed down from generation to generation. The ones having tamed members of its species were in the singular digit and all exceptional even if they nearly without fault bonded with young orphaned nalutsas.
Even a young one was nearly at the top of the food chain and could swallow a Na'vi whole, all the while being nearly immune to their weapons. Those were from a time when the tulkuns stood in opposition to their present ways of life, a time the shark didn't live but held very foggy memories of.
This was different, this being made its instincts flare in excitement so in a last-ditch effort it fought back with all it had.
The outside world shook all the more, the cameras of the Rhyniocopter giving feedback of the nalutsa waking up and trying to fight back against the floater but again with no real success.
The only thing it did was cause constant agony to Liam as metal fragments from his gauntlet dug deeper into his skin damaging the tissues as they did, the feeling over half of his small finger suddenly vanished but none of this diverted his focus.
The mental defense from the nalutsa increased all of a sudden, waves growing, current increasing, and the storm rising to new heights as it ceaselessly slammed against the alien root-like tendrils.
But the pattern didn't change. It did nothing, it couldn't do anything, and all efforts were useless with little to no effect aside from seemingly enhancing the growth of the tendrils whose hold became more powerful as those last few endeavors to fight rapidly weakened into nothingness.
It was futile, the moment this being seemingly touched by Eywa connected to its Mind and after it didn't manage to force him out it was a lost battle. The only two possible outcomes were death or as he asked…
'SUBMIT!', the wordless intonation rang true for the third time, the intention behind it was more powerful than ever before, raw alien emotions pulsating from the metallic tendril as their hold became a death grip.
The other option was submission and that is what the shark-dunkleosteus hybrid-looking beast did, its Mind suddenly opened to its deepest level. Without much of a fraction of a second, the entire cage of roots shifted back as if time was going in reverse with it the pain disappeared as well.
The metallic roots changed into thin ethereal blue threads of energy that entwined together in a complex pattern that dove into the core of the weaker Mind shooting thinner thread at every layer as it did so.
Each and every one of these ethereal when in contact with the nalutsa's Mind led to both partially fusing leading to a permanent mental connection between both but with one winding as the dominant one, Liam, as he gained control of everything yet the nalutsa kept its, life, ego and freewill In exchange for its liberty.
A good deal, if forced upon one but that was how it is, the fittest, luckiest, smartest, and most adaptable won. The nalutsa wild movement stopped as the link was finalized and both felt the other's intents, emotions, and thoughts.
'Open.', Liam not savoring his victory ordered, his new tame undemanding what it meant in the grand line opened its two inside 'mandibles'.
The physical connection was severed as he immediately stood up, his muscles burned, he immediately placed a bag over his right hand and walked out of the shark's jaws.
Once above his helmet unfolded as he commanded his aircraft to hover down before jumping in it, the cable attached to him going back to where it came from.
At the same, time his two tetrapterons flew out extreme worry for him in their minds clear for him to read, it warmed his heart to think this degree of anger directed toward the nalutsa was unwarranted and without his express order to pop the floaters, they would let the shark stay in this position and would have likely started eviscerating it.
Placing his right arm on a flat metal surface caused bloody water to spill out from the nylon bag he put his hand in but he didn't care.
'This isn't a pleasant sight…', he thought sizing up the extent of the damage after having stored the bag back in his inventory.
Only his thumb was in good shape the rest were bent in the wrong way, but the one that made him feel strange in his stomach was his small finger, it was ripped off only holding by a thread of skin and artificial textile. It was a strange feeling.
"No wonder I couldn't feel it.", he mumbled in slight disbelief, his eyes locking for a few long seconds onto the visible bone, several thin metallic arms grew from the back of his armor and cradled his damaged fingers as he poured saline solution onto them.
Then he started to take the pieces of his gauntlet off with his inventory to avoid further damage, each time a hiss of pain escaped him as blood poured from the ugly wounds.
When all of it was taken a few seconds later he began working on his right small finger. He didn't want to lose it, he wasn't sure it could regrow and wasn't going to test if it was the case or not.
Compared to when he was shot in the chest and envenomed by a slinger here he was perfectly awake, more experienced, and knowledgeable.
He didn't need to do the job of several surgeons for ten hours straight, he needed to set everything back in place and let his body do the rest.
Stitching the finger back in place the right way was done in under five minutes, doing it was painful and unpleasant, the feeling of a needle followed by a thin string in your flesh far from being in his top ten best things but he didn't shy away. It was that or he risked losing his piece of finger.
Then the three others were broken at various places with the middle finger having one of its bones poking out slightly. A very unpleasant experience he will not be able to erase from his memories.
He set everything back in place, took bone fragments and things that shouldn't be here out, closed, and disinfected the wounds. After he put on a makeshift cast composed of thin stainless beams and bandages but it was temporary.
Only after he finished his improvised surgical operation on himself did he take painkillers in the form of paywall cubes, the pink aloe vera.
He did it all without taking any as he deemed it necessary to feel potential mistakes or foreign bodies. If this entire problem could have been avoided by not wearing gauntlets Liam didn't know and didn't truly care.
It happened and that's it, at most what could be taken was that the armor was flawed for such a case but it's not like there is any possible solution against being compressed. A forcefield would work wonderfully but that wasn't possible as of now.
'Now…', Liam thought a large almost euphoric smile formed on his face varying his beard away to show unnaturally white teeth, his excitement palpable as he felt like a child.
Without even needing to ask anything the nalutsa, now free from the floaters swam toward his aircraft inviting him to jump on its back, which is exactly what Liam did.
"Hmmm… Yes. Your name shall be Aegis.", he exclaimed, crouching down next to one of the black large eyes of his newly named tame, an apex predator and it was an incredible feeling to be able to have such a massive and powerful creature.
Though it was still very much wild to everyone that wasn't him or his tames, it just obeyed him and considered it's better, Aegis will need to be trained and quite intense at that but that didn't deem the sheer joy mixed with relief he was feeling.
The wind against his beard and hair only helped but what really made him happy wasn't his new tame by itself but what Aegis gave in terms of sheer possibility.
He didn't go tame it for only this masculine-childish urge to get such an aquatic tank of a beast.
Unknown to all a curious young adult tulkun had seen everything unfold.
