Seeing the baby thunderhawk sitting on Zach's bed, Milo and Zach did what any sane person would do when seeing a cute baby animal, or beast in this case. They freaked out.
"Holy crap it's cute," Milo said.
The little chick was currently taking in its surroundings. It was about six inches tall with black feathers covering its body. There were small gold specks on its wings and it had a small patch of yellow feathers running around its eyes and the top of its head like a pair of goggles, along with a yellow v shape on its tail feathers. Unlike most baby birds that looked like fuzz balls, the baby thunderhawk that came from the egg just looked like a miniature cutesy version of its adult form that their team had encountered on their in field experience.
Milo then activated the inspect skill to check if there were any differences from the beast's mother that they had defeated.
[Unique Rank Infant Tamed Beast]
Species: Greater Thunder Hawk
Status: Healthy(hungry)
Disposition: Tamed
A tamed version of the unique ranked beast, Greater Thunder Hawk. Like other tamed beasts, they remain smaller in size when compared to their wild counterparts, but still pack the same punch. They are very inquisitive creatures that always investigate things they deem interesting.
[clear]
Seeing the description, Milo heaved a sigh of relief, he had seen a few tamed beasts in his life, but assumed that they grew to the same size as the wild counterpart but it appeared that they stayed at a smaller size. He had an image in his head of stuffing the thunder hawk in a giant bird cage and feeding it full sized cows. Seeing the system say that tamed beasts stay smaller compared to wild beasts it also meant that his future beast he'd tame would also be smaller compared to the beast it came from. It most likely had a connection to the differences in appearance between dogs and wolves that came over time as people tamed them and bred them for different traits.
Milo then noted that it said that the small chick was hungry.
"Hey Zach, do you have any food for your child?" he said jokingly, "it's probably hungry."
Hearing the word food, the small bird cocked its head and let out a small chirp, curious about what the two were talking about. Zach said yeah, before pulling out a small container of worms. He grabbed a few out with a pair of tweezers and placed them on a plate before setting the plate in front of his new pet.
Once the dish was set down, the bird made its first bit of movement as it hopped from its original position and made its way over to the plate of small worms. It pecked at one of the small grubs before it took it into its mouth and swallowed it whole. The small bird paused for a second before spitting the worm out and squawking out of what could only be annoyance, no matter how cute of an act it was.
Milo asked Zach if he had done any research about the species he'd be raising and Zach responded with a dejected no, as he now knew where he went wrong. After doing this, Milo and Zach made their way over to the laptop on Zach's desk and searched up what baby greater thunderhawks normally ate. After a second they found a website that had information on the small bird that had recently hatched. Seeing the two teens move over to look at the computer, the small bird grew curious and hopped over to where the two were sitting and looked at what they were doing.
After doing some research, Zach and Milo found that infant thunder hawks ate what were called thunder grubs, which were small beasts that could be found out in nature due to them burrowing underground during gatebreaks. They were normally harmless but if stepped on would give a slight zap to whoever didn't watch where they stepped. They also discovered that the little bird in the room with them was in fact a boy, which could be determined by the yellow feathers on its tail and around its eyes. Seeing this, Milo grew worried as to get their hands on them they would most likely need to find a vendor who would sell them which probably wouldn't happen, as the beast tamer ability was pretty rare. That was until Zach reminded him of the gatecrasher market. An online database where gatecrashers could special order different materials or exchange information. The things that you could order would even be delivered through teleportation, and could be picked up from the lobby of their dorm where they had small teleporters for exactly that.
Zach made his way to the website where he logged in, normally only gatecrashers could gain access, but the school had made him an account when he had arrived back to the school with an egg, most likely predicting something like this would happen. Zach searched up the thunder grubs and winced when he saw the cost. Normally one could feed a pet by spending anywhere from five to fifty credits depending on the type of animal, but the thunder grubs that Zach needed would cost him 100 credits, and based on what they read while researching, the amount he'd receive would only be able to last him 2 weeks at most. He put in his information and transferred the credits, before running to the lobby to fetch his package.
A few minutes later, Zach got back and opened the package, pulling out a bucket that apparently contained the thunder grubs he'd ordered. He put on a pair of rubber gloves in case the grubs shocked him and placed a few of the chubby black grubs on a new dish before putting them in front of the small electrical chick.
Once again the small bird hopped up to the dish and pecked at the grubs before gobbling one up. After swallowing it, the bird seemed happier than the first meal he had been served and ate the rest of the grubs with gusto.
After its meal, the bird ruffled its feathers in joy and chirped. It then flapped its wings in excitement letting off a small burst of electricity that arced along its feathers.
For a few minutes the small feathered beast bounced around the room investigating things it thought looked interesting. Finally it hopped over to Zach's pillow where it stopped jumping about. When it stopped searching around the room it seemed to yawn before laying its head against Zach's pillow, its eyes slowly drooped shut before it fell asleep.
Zach and Milo were exhausted from trying to keep the little bird from getting into trouble. Milo was so caught up with helping Zach take care of the little beast that he completely forgot to test out his new ability. Once the small bird was sound asleep, Milo and Zach took a seat to rest.
"He's definitely a handful," Milo said, "have you thought of a name for the little guy yet?"
"I'm thinking Waki," replied Zach, "It's a play on the word Wakinyan, which is what my grandpa used to call a thunderbird."
Looking up the word, Milo learned that it was a Sioux word, which were a native american tribe from the central and western United States.
"My grandpa used to tell me stories about a giant bird that would cause a sound like a thunder clap when it flapped its wings," Zach continued.
Hearing his reasoning, Milo thought it was a fitting name, who knew how strong the little Thunder Hawk would grow up to be. After the little bird was sleeping for a while, Milo let himself out and made his way back to his room. It was getting late after taking care of the tiny beast all evening. Milo once again began to wonder what type of beast he should tame to suit him best. He had a lot of ideas but they could wait, he was a ways off from being able to afford a beast egg and there was a very low chance of finding one in a gate as is. Soon, Milo had soon nodded off to sleep.