Mechanical Heart

"Ngghhh...." the dark figure among the sheets groaned. She--which was difficult to tell in the darkly lit room--was slim, tall and part machine. Bright orange "eyes" lit up on the pure black face. She was almost back from head to foot with the exception of four red strips on her shoulder armor and two red strips on her upper thighs. She also had a set of belts for her weapons which she was rolling on her stomach to get. This revealed four long structures attached to her back, which were wings.

After grabbing her belts and strapping them on around her legs she made a satisfied sound, only to be interrupted by the sliding door entrance to her room.

"Umbra!" the voice called, which was followed by a head popping in the doorway. He had a slim face, pointy ears, and two mismatched eyes of brown and green. The Arvian's ears twitched while waiting for the mech girls response.

"Oh... Adot," Umbra said in a very human, very groggy, voice. He was her apartment mate for quite sometime now, maybe two or three years, and he was still waking her up in the morning.

"You got a call, apparently Glory wants to speak with you."

Talk about waking up on the wrong side of the bed. "Just because I'm her successor and we both have organic components, doesn't mean we're chums," Umbra's hand clenched.

"Gee. you're acting like its a bad thing."

She through a pillow at his head, "You know what I meant!"

The metal gleamed in the sunlight, as the strange metal being stood in the middle of the metallic blue grass. Where was he? How did he get here? Had those people done something to him again? The Bishen dragon would have sighed if he could, but he should hardly be thinking about that.

What on earth would live in a place like this. He saw the tall city buildings from across the large shimmering lake. Looking at the different light spectrums he was surprised that anything living could make its home here, the atmosphere had been altered and was allowing excessive amounts of UV rays in. However, since this was a binary star system, so the inhabitants would probably be immune to UV rays, or even need them to function properly.

Idle speculations would not help him now. He looked around, he would find someone willing to take him to the city. Hopefully a mechanical dragon would not be that strange.

I hate her, thought Umbra.  She looks nothing like me! And neither does that man. 

"Are you listening?" Asked the mech named Glory. She was taller than Umbra, with one set of wings with thrusters, and mismatched eyes of red and orange, her face was completely black while the rest of her body was white with a faint shin. She had several dark black spots and red stripes for decoration--and she had hidden weapons, quite a few. However, Glory and Umbra had several striking similarites.

"No."

"Look--"

"You're not my mother and neither is Rio, and Snowflake isn't my dad," the black mech growled.

"Maybe."

"ARGH!"

Glory closed her mismatched eyes. What a strange successor she had been lucky enough to acquire. "There have been rumors of a dragon sighting. Tigerlily and I want you to investigate." Short. Simple. Final.

" Ma'am, yes, Ma'am!" The girl did her military salute but paused. "Wait--dragon? They don't exist."

"Yes, they do. It might prove that the native species were still living according to our scientists, but neither my sister or I think it's anything like that. She was informed that we are dealing with a mechanical dragon." The commander stood, "I am positive you are more than capable of dealing with this job."

"A mech dragon."

"Correct."

"No back up?"

"Your usual partner is working on an undercover mission, and no one else is capable of engaging a target without destroying it or screwing over our chance of making friends with this dragon, if it does exist."

"Peaches and cream," Umbra said with a snort, "And I don't mean the officers either." She bowed to the commander and left. This was one hell of a job.

Umbra sat in a tree surveying the area, there was absolutely nothing there, unless the dragon decided to climb a tree as well. This was a waste of time, probably some sort of bird was being spotted, and being mistaken. The angry officer slid down the tree and landed with an unsympathetic thump. How like the two ladies to shove her on a pointless mission.

There was a crunch in the bushes behind her, she spun around to see--

"I'll be damned. A dragon... at least I think it's a dragon."

The dragon would have looked indignant if he had facial expressions. He sat down. Her curiosity would over come her very shortly, he figured. All the other people were curious, but none of them quite had the stamina that this girl did. This encounter would at least be interesting.

Umbra debated on containing it or seeing if it was real. She smirked, she would see if it was real first, why bring in a something for those crazy people to analyze? It would be more interesting to ignore orders and investigate more closely. She took a few steps forward, testing to see if the dragon would move. Good, he wasn't going to run.

She was almost an inch away, her fingertips stretched out at the tip of the dragon's nose. They hesitated for a minute, and suddenly they made contact with the warm metal. Umbra blinked, was this thing for real.

I'm not a thing. I'm a Bishen dragon. She heard crackling on her comlink. He hand flew back and she feel to the ground with a thump.

"What in the name of Captain Jack?!" she yelped, trying to edge away.

How cute. She was afraid of someone "talking" through her communications system. Electrical impulses telling her brain what he was saying wouldn't work that well, either, would it? The dragon stood up and shoved his muzzle into the girls hand. Look. I am a Bishen dragon named Vegas Suvesi. I'd very much appreciate it if you let me stay somewhere in your city, since I'm out in the cold blah blah blah. You do understand what's happening right? I'm talking using electricity.

Umbra blinked. "And somehow I understand all of this because your impulses are suggesting what to say, or some such nonsense?"

The dragon nodded.

"I'm guessing you don't know that many spoke words, which is why you aren't yelling through my radio?" Lucky guess.

Vegas nodded again.

"Vegas, eh?" She held back a chuckle, "I'm going to take you to headquarters. Once there, you can talk to my superiors, and they can give you housing or whatever." She would have smiled if she had a mouth visible. You did good for once.

"No. I really can't understand him," Glory said with a wave of her hand.

"This isn't happening."

It is.

"Look, he's your responsibility, since you're the only one who--"

I'm no ones responsibility! I WANT TO JOIN THE FORCE WOMAN! AND MY NAME IS VEGAS!

"--can here him he's your partner."

"What?" Umbra nearly cried.

"Don't make me repeat my self, special unit officer Umbra Vicei," Glory said sternly.

"Ma'am, no, ma'am." Umbra could not understand what was happening. She should not be going through this. Dragons were not supposed to exist! She wasn't supposed to take care of one.

NOOOOOOOO. The dragon cried in vain. He didn't want to be stuck with some crazy woman he had just met. Why did fate decide to be so cruel to him?

"Don't be too sad about this Vegas," Glory said looking at him, "Umbra is a nice person, and she'll give you a nice room and treat you like a Queen. If you have any problems with your new partner, you can come to me and I'll punish her for you--or you can do it yourself."

Okay. Maybe this wasn't so bad.