It was a Tuesday and Vegis just managed to get enough free time to drop by the infirmary where clones are stored when they are imported or too damaged for the pod to fix alone. Vegis talked to the clerk and headed to the back of the building. In the back, there was a large garage with a couple of large cargo boxes. There was one that was different from the others. It had a different color and had a label on it that just said clone on it. Vegis walked to it, tapped on the box 3 times, and it opened up to reveal the skeleton of Vegis’s newest clone. The door soon opened behind Vegis and one of the doctors who specialized in clones came in. Vegis waved at them while they started to inspect the start of the clone.
They poked, prodded, and scanned the skeleton multiple times before they clapped their hands and turned to Vegis while speaking. “Hello Mr. Watt, I will be the technician doing the operations for you today. You may call me DD”. Vegis nodded this and asked, “when do we start?” DD opened a holo panel and started to look at the schedule before saying, “There will be an open room in 20 minutes. Just sit in the lobby and will come and get you when the room is set up.” Vegis threw them a thumbs up while walking through the doors and headed near the clerk and took a seat on one of the chairs near the door.
40 minutes passed and Vegis was passing the time by watching some old earth science videos. He was currently watching a video of a guy making some solid rocket fuel whilst having a strong hatred of the space agency of the times. It was a neat video but was interrupted by DD coming out of one of the halls and called for Vegis to follow them. Vegis got up and followed them to the door at the end of the hall. Inside the room, it had two large containers made of glass which were both filled with a grayish liquid. One had the bones already inside of it and the other one had a ladder for Vegis. DD started to instruct Vegis on all the steps for being prepped, like undressing, making sure he is clean, etc. It took Vegis 10 minutes to go through everything before he could start climbing the ladder into the large tube. The liquid felt cold as he climbed down the ladder.
The liquid was incredibly saturated with oxygen which allowed Vegis to breath when submerged but it still felt like drowning since it was still a liquid. Other than being oxygen saturated, the liquid was filled with nanites to slowly remove cells from Vegis and transfer them to the clone. This along with being filled with a ton of nutrients allowed the cells to be taken from Vegis’s body that would slowly allow the cells to attach to the new bones and survive after leaving the tube. DD was holding the tool that could damage Vegis’s soul and hold a fragment of it. They had to do this way since they needed to implant the fragment into the body before the flesh could be grafted on. It seemed that the presence of Vegis’s soul allows the cells to push past their original limitation and assimilate with the incompatible materials.
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The machine had the appearance of a mini gun but had the ends of the barrel shaped into drills and there was a clear cylinder on it. DD held the device to the glass closest to Vegis’s head and started to turn it on. It began to glow and gathered light around the tips of it and the barrels started to rotate. When the glow reached its full strength and the barrel was at full spin before the glow shot out and struck Vegis on the head. It stuck to his head and a crystal started to grow in the ring. After the crystal grew to the size of a baseball and shaped itself into a round cut diamond. The device then sucked in the ring and diamond was deposited into the cylinder. DD walked away from Vegis and took the crystal to a computer in the wall.
The crystal lit up for a bit before dimming and DD looked at the panel with the results. They looked at it with a frown and then received a call. Vegis could only vaguely hear who was calling and it sounded like Drake. DD spent some time trying to pull some information out of Drake but couldn’t. After a while of struggling, DD stopped and started to continue with the implantation process. They walked over to the tube with the skeleton and placed the cylinder with the diamond on a machine on top of the tube above the skeleton. The bottom of the cylinder opened and small arms grabbed hold of it. It moved the crystal down to the skull of the skeleton. When the diamond touched the bones, it started to spread and coated all the bones. The gem burrowed itself into the forehead of the skull and it started to glow as it spread. The more it coats, the more it glows.
Vegis started to sense the nanites starting to dig into him and stealing bunches of cells from him. It wasn’t Vegis’s nerves feeling it but his soul that could now detect them. The removed cells were being directed to pipes that connected the two tubes together. The cells slowly started to arrive at the crystal covered bones and as soon as they touched it, the cells started to divide. One could see the nerves, flesh, and organs growing at a noticeable pace. Occasionally, patches would die and be replaced with new cells from Vegis. Eventually, all the innards were grown and skin started to grow. On its left side, the skin was blue and scales of ice started to sprout while on the right side fur grew. Patterns started to appear on the body and on the back, two bulges started to expand. Soon, they burst and wings started to emerge from the wounds.
The clone was wolf-shaped but had the head of a dragon. The mixture of fur and scales did not look great at first but eventually, they mixed into having patterns of calls under all the fur. Vegis could feel the blooming connection to the clone and suddenly, its eyes opened.
