I didn't look back to see if the girls and Louie had followed my instructions and continued on to the tank in question. Tank sml-02, a small maturation tank that could house evos about a large wolf inside. And inside that tank was a present for Jane.
Admittedly, I did feel bad for Jiggles killing and utterly decimating her Noblesse. I wanted to make it up to Jane so Iris and I got together and came together and created a combat evo tailored to enhance her combat style.
"Chase!" Jane called out as I came to a stop on front of the tank in question.
"Yeah?!" I replied without looking back to keep from smirking. Her and Iris arrived at the tank a few moments after me and I had a serious scowl on her face.
"Seriously, what evo is in this tank!" She hissed in a lowered voice. "I told the dean and both Ascreds that other than the glipsphere and Ogarai, we didn't have any evos in production."
"Well, it's not in production. This evo is going to be the only one of its kind in the world." I said, then pointed at the rank.
You couldn't see much inside the tank other than a small curled up ball of fur about the size of a house cat. The liquid in the tank prevented any other identification. Jane noticed this right away and huffed.
"That doesn't tell me anything…" She looked to Iris, who was having a harder time keeping a straight face, and her expression turned suspicious. She pointed a finger at the both of us "…You two are up to something."
"I don't have any idea what you mean, Lady Jane…" Iris said, looking away.
"You haven't called me lady Jane in over a week, Iris! Now I know you are up to something!" Jane snapped.
"HEY CHASE! STANDING BY AT THE CONTROLS!" Haws yelled from the control console, which sat on a platform under the large five evo maturation tanks.
"GOT IT! DRAIN IT!" I replied, making Jane cover her ears.
"God's above, you need to come up with a better way to communicate." Jane sighed.
"I'm working on it. Casting spells the telepathic link spell. Every time I come in here, it isn't going to cut it." I muttered.
A loud alarm started to sound as yellow flashing light started shining on top of the tank. The girls and I stepped back as fluid from the tank started to drain out of it, and the evo inside slowly sank to the bottom of the tank. Once all the fluid was gone, the glass of the tank lowered, allowing us access to the evo inside.
"You get it." I said, pointing to Jane. She looked at me and scowled.
"Why do I have to get it?" Jane asked indignantly.
"Is it not normal for people to open their own presents in Egypt?" I asked.
"Well yeah but…wait did you say present?"
I nodded and stepped over beside Iris. At that moment, the evo that had been growing in the tank made a soft squeaking noise as it struggled to stand up. Jane attention immediately turned to the small thing, and she rushed over and scooped it up in her arms, suddenly forgetting that it was soaking wet.
The evo was the combination of a raccoon, mink, and glass wing butterfly. It looked like a smaller, stretched out raccoon, thanks to its fur coloring aligning more with raccoons than minks. It had two large butterfly wings sticking out its back thar were so thin they were see through. This was thanks to the special membrane the glasswing butterfly had on their wings that helped them be so thing and see through.
The small evo clung to Jane's dress and shook itself dry, getting most of the tank fluid on Jane. I had expected her to freak out about it, but she seemed totally calm and helped brush off some of its fur.
"Who said that?" Jane asked, slowing her petting.
The voice replied. Jane's eyes widened and did as she was asked as Iris and mine's mouth dropped.
"It's a telepath!" Iris exclaimed, then turned to me.
"News to me! I didn't design it to be a telepath." I said.
Telepathic evos were a rarity. There have only been a handful of evos that could talk with only their mind, and the ability to create one has been a very sought-after piece of information. While my evos can talk to me telepathically, that is only because of the bond we share through my mana crystal. They can't do that with anyone else.
Thank you…are you to my new mistress?> The evo asked, looking up at Jane.
"Ummm…yes, yes I am." Jane replied. The evo made a chattering noise and climbed up Jane's clothes and to her shoulders, then wrapped its long and lanky body around Jane's neck, kinda like a furry shawl
"Well…okay. Jane, if you're going to have a new evo, you need to name it." I said.
"Ummmm... sorry about that. Name her." I rephrased.
"Chase, what's the word for regal in Torapos?" Jane asked.
"Tolulkra." I replied. Jane turned her nose up to that word.
"Well, that's not the exact translation. As far as I know, there isn't a word meaning regal in Torapos. It means noble beauty." I explained. Jane shook her head.
"That word is anything but noble or beautiful." Jane said.
"Then how about Ayia'liah. It means soft-spoken grace. You could call her Ayia for short, which means soft grace." I said.
"Ayia'liah…Ayia" Jane repeated. She nodded and smiled down at her new evo. "How does that sound to you?"
A crystalline structure formed around Ayia and flew into Jane's mana crystal. Jane smiled and reached back and touched the crystal at the base of her neck.
"Thank you, Chase. I didn't expect you to get me a new evo, especially after the big fuss I made after I lost." Jane said. I shrugged.
"Honestly, I wasn't sure you'd accept her. This is why I had Iris help me design the evo. She knows what you like better than anyone, so if she couldn't help me, no one could." I said, then pointed to Iris. Jane smiled at Iris, then touched her crystal again
"Chase, what was the type name of the evo? You never said." Jane asked. I nodded and crossed my arms.
"Yeah, I thought long and hard about its type name. I decided to use a popular name for Raccoons in America as a foundation. So, in honor of America's favorite trash panda, I'm calling that evo: Trash Fairy, the mystic." I said proudly.
Iris and Jane both blinked at me for several seconds and then shared a look. Jane's face became bright red before she turned to me and stomped her foot so hard the echo reverberated through the factory.
"CHASE GAELBOR KINGSTON! YOU ARE NOT NAMING THAT PRECIOUS CREATURE A TRASH FAIRY!" Jane roared as she approached me. Out of sheer will to live, I channeled float attribute mana then jumped into the air out of reach of Jane.
"Hey, that's the name I like, and it's staying!" I yelled down to her.
"Over your dead body!" Jane yelled and started casting an offensive spell sigil. Six stakes of ice formed around Jane's hand and fired at me in succession.
"Oh shit!" I exclaimed as I added blast attribute mana to my feet and bolted out of the way of Jane's attack, though I didn't really need to. Her aim had been off slightly so she wouldn't have hit me…or at least anything vital.
"Change it, Chase!" Jane exclaimed and cast another offensive spell, sigil.
"Make me!" I yelled back and dodged another volley of ice stakes. Jane growled and kept firing spell after spelling at me while Iris covered her mouth to hide her laughter and watched.
This was quickly becoming a common occurrence between me and the girls, usually it was me and Iris going back and forth like this; except Iris was trying to punch me; but in the last month Jane's become a little more open with her emotions and how she expresses them. Which just means she took a page out of Iris' book and starts trying to clobber me whenever I get on her nerves.
"Oh gods, they're at it again…" I heard Madilyn groan. I looked towards the sound of her voice and saw Haw, Louie, Madilyn, and Iris standing with Dean Baxter and the Ascred Brothers.
Hearing the noise too Jane turned and saw our audience, and her face turned bright red. She quickly canceled the spell she was in the middle of casting and turned to the group.
"Oh! I didn't see you all there." She said sheepishly.
"I'll bet. It seemed like you and Chase were having a very…heated discussion." Dean Baxter said with an airy chuckle. Jane blushed even more, and I could see her struggling look professional again. I floated back down to the ground and clapped my hands together.
"Well, we can bench that for now LPP. In the meantime, now that Madilyn is here, why don't we take a look at the beginning stages of shaping." I said to the group. Jane looked to me and shot a glare. I smiled and patted her on the back as I walked past her.
***
Now, back in the lab at the back of the factory, I was showing our guests the many blood samples and the few files that we had on evos that Louie, Madilyn, and I designed. A lot of them were based off evos from the files that Madilyn and I stole, but we weren't going to tell them that.
"…While the evos that Chase shapes are powerful, it takes a lot of planning and preparation before we can actually get to the point where he can actually shape." Madilyn explained, then walked over to one of the gene resonators. She pulled a lysdale script off a clipboard that was hanging on the machine and handed it to me. "Speaking of shaping, I finished the lysdale script for that evo you wanted."
I took the clipboard and looked at the script. It was solid work and honestly a waste of time. I had already created a lysdale script for that particular evo a few weeks ago but asked her to make one as a test of her abilities.
The evo in question was the Angarni, a close quarters combat evo made from the armadillo, fire ant, and mantis shrimp, that was created by justice technologies. Another one of the files that Madilyn and I stole. Based on the illustration in the file, it looked similar to a bi-pedal armadillo with large club like growths on its arms. Madilyn told me it attacked similar to a boxer hitting opponent with jabs that traveled at over two hundred miles an hour. It was a great frontline fighter if it survived long enough to get to its opponents.
"Looks good." I said with a nod.
"Good, now that you're done testing me, you can give me a real assignment." Madilyn said with a cocked brow. I arched a brow at her in surprise.
"So you realized it was a test?" I asked.
"Not hard to figure that out. All you've done this past month is test me. Which is smart, really, considering how I came into your employ. I figured you already made another lysdale script a while ago and was just using this to see if I could take an idea and improve on it." Madilyn said. I glanced over at Iris, who nodded slightly, since she was the one that proposed the tests over the last month.
"Fine, you passed. I'll clue you in on the project I'm having Louie working on later today." I said, then pulled the script off the clipboard and crumpled it up. Madilyn looked pleased with herself and nodded triumphantly. I turned to our guests and smiled. "Well, all of you are going to get a first-hand look at the beginning stages of shaping. I will be shaping the Agni Akinbo, the cannon. A front-line evo that I'm sure will be a hit with militant countries."
The Agni Akinbo was my shaped version of the Angarni. It looked similar to the Angarni. However, had four arms instead of two and put more of an emphasis on armor, which, thanks to the fire and dna, was a strong but light. While I had no idea what their mana attributes would be iwas hoping for blast od some other destructive type.
"Well, isn't this a treat?" Dean Baxter said.
"I wasn't expecting a demonstration…." Caspian said as him and his brother looked at me expectantly.
I clasped my hand together and started channeling flesh attribute mana through my hands, arms, shoulders, and upper body, creating a circuit. Once that was done, I added the crystal attribute to the mixture. Remember the lysdale script for the Agni Akinbo I made weeks ago. As I let the mana cycle through my hands in rotations, I felt a twinge of pain that was starting to become familiar and normal. After a few rotations, the crystal began to form in my hands.. After a few minutes, I had a mana crystal the size of a marble in my hand.
I stopped channeling mana then and opened my hands, letting everyone see the marble sized mana crystal. Caspian and Hideyoshi both looked a little underwhelmed by the mana crystal but kept their criticisms to themselves.
Louie and Madilyn both started preparing the gene resonator, already used to the steps it takes to shape. Haws left the small office to set up one of the tanks to house the evo.
"What size tank do we need, Chase?" Haws asked as he headed for the door.
"Small's enough, the Agni Akinbo only gets to five feet tall." I replied. Haws nodded and left to prepare the tank.
"Gene resonator's ready." Louie announced. I nodded and walked over and placed the crystal inside the resonator, and Madilyn turned it on. The three of us let the machine run while Iris and Jane explained to everyone what was happening to the crystal.
Our guests all nodded respectfully, the blank expressions on their faces telling me they had no earthly idea what they were talking about.
After a few minutes, the resonator was done, and I quickly plucked it out of the machine and carried it out to the main floor. I headed to the control console, which had a direct connection to all of the maturation tanks. Haws was already there, making sure all the last-minute preparations were done. He glanced at me as I approached them and pressed a button, opening the small hatch on the console that would shoot the crystal into the respective tank.
"Sml-03 is ready. Send it in." Haws said. I nodded and dropped the crystal into the hatch, and it was sent through the various tubes underneath the factory to the correct tank.
"Tank loaded….foreign DNA cells detected….successful evo transplant confirmed!"
I smiled and pumped a fist into the air. Haws clapped me onto the back and laughed. This wasn't the first time that we had put a new crystal in the tank, but if there was anything a techno-splicing scientist knows it would always celebrate a successful transplant into a tank.
"That was it?" Caspian asked. I turned and saw Louie, Madilyn, the girls and our guests standing behind me and Haws.
"Yeah, shaping is not as flashing as traditional splicing and takes a longer. It'll be about four days before that evo is ready to come out of the tank." I said.
"Set it and forget it." Iris added. I nodded in response, and Hideyoshi raised a finger to get my attention.
"Can you make an evo that is a navel combat evo? Something that is good at attacking underwater but also on attack on land. Do you have any evos that fight that criteria?" Hideyoshi asked.
I held a finger up and dashed back into the lab and went to the filing cabinet, and pulled a few files. When I returned, I had three files in my arms and placed them on the control panel. The files I pulled were for three aquatic evos that I made during the first few weeks after dealing with the high fire dragon situation. I pulled the illustrations for each of the evos from their files and held them up for Hideyoshi to look out.
"This fist evo here is: Hygladon Magnus, the council. It is a semi-aquatic Evi that biased off the hygladon hydris. It's is a serpentine evo that stands between twelve and fifteen feet long. It has a sea snake, a killer whale, and a bearded dragon as its bases. Like the hydris variant, it possesses multiple heads between two to six." I said, then handed Hideyoshi the illustration.
It looked very much like Hydra from ancient legend mixed with a little bit of leviathan. A massive sea snake with killer whale coloring, multiple heads that had reptilian frilled spines sticking out from behind the earholes, and multiple rows of venomous razor sharp teeth.
Hideyoshi looked at the illustration and nodded but didn't look too impressed.
"Next is Grex, last death. Another semi-aquatic evo, the grex, is based on the thrad. It is a bi-pedal evo that has alligator, swordfish, and viper. It stands at seven feet tall and possesses long curved claws for attacking and climbing on land. The long sail that runs from the base of its neck to the top of the tail helps it maneuver underwater." I said, then swapped Hideyoshi illustrations.
It looked more like an alligator in two legs with a massive sail on its back. The grey and deep blue scales on its body were made to help it blend in the sea. There were two fangs at the front of its elongated mouth, and two at the back of its mouth just under its eyes are connected to venom glands that can paralyze or outright kill prey with a bite. This one, just like hygladon magnus, Hideyoshi didn't look impressed.
"The last one is Lugaloth, the scourge. A semi-aquatic evo like all the others. It is a navel attack evo that can also double as an escort evo. It is a combination of komodo dragons, alligators, and viper. It stands at a massive forty-five feet long and takes most of its looks from the komodo dragon and alligator and but the massive flared hood that you see is retractable, so it doesn't pop open while swimming. It has a venomous bite, much like the Grex and powerful." I explained and swapped the illustrations again.
The lugaloth walks on four legs similar to the komodo dragon and has a shorter and more angular snout. The flared viper hood that it has was proudly displayed in the illustration. The back of it was colored gray and blue while the front side of it was colored bright red. Its claws were curved and thick to help it move faster on land by digging into the ground. Its feet were webbed to help it better in water, and it had a flat flared tail that acts as a paddle to increase swimming speed. Hideyoshi's eyes sparkled a little bit when he looked at the illustration.
"I see you like that one, Yoshi." Caspian said suddenly. Hideyoshi looked up at his brother and nodded curtly.
"It is a fine looking evo." He said. I nodded and took the illustration and put all of them back into their respective files.
"Gotcha, so you want a Lugaloth?" I asked. Hideyoshi paused for a moment, then nodded.
"If you would please." He said.
***
"That concludes the tour lf Sho'lajah artifact company. I hope you three enjoyed the behind the scenes look at our company." Jane said as she waved the dean and the Ascred Brothers off. They were riding off in a new carriage that the college sent after I had Bo send Gadget to the college to inform them what had happened
"We'll have your evo ready by next week, Hideyoshi!" I exclaimed.
"See you in a week then!" Hideyoshi yelled out the carriage window.
As the carriage rode off towards the college, I finally relaxed as it faded out of view. Jane, Iris, and I sighed audibly. Haws, Louie, and Madilyn stood behind the three of us, and I heard a chuckle from Haws.
"Well, that was almost a disaster." Haws said.
"Yeah, thanks to Bo." I grumbled. Haws chuckled and slapped me on the back.
"I was referring to whatever you said that pissed Jane off." He chuckled. Jane scowled and turned to me.
"Oh right, we need to talk about Ayia'liah's type name…" Jane said in a cold, low tone.
"Trash Fairy stays!" I exclaimed, then started running as Jane ran after me and started casting a spell sigil.
"CHASE GAELBOR KINGSTON!"