Inside the armory, engineers were busy assembling a large mechanical suit, which stood over three meters tall. It had built-in weapons mounted on both wrists: the left limb sported a rapid automatic rotary cannon, a murderous tool designed to mow down infantry, and the right wrist held a bulkier anti-armor cannon, a slow-firing but incredibly destructive and precise weapon at long to medium ranges. The square-shaped backpack on the rear housed a missile launcher. A single red lens decorated the round head, blinking in and out as a technician tested it.

"What beauty…" Aranea said dreamily and paused, staring at the suit's belt. "Why in the Abyss are there knives in sheaths?"

"Heat-cleavers." A gray-haired engineer came closer, wiping sweat from his brow. "Never meant to be used in actual combat, unless things go the way of the Old World. Pay no attention to the equipment; it's a theory craft prototype of the future warform model and not meant for mass production."

"Why waste resources on building it?" Leila asked.

"Eggheads," the engineer said, as if that explained everything. "Wolf Hag, Junior Officer Leila, after me, if you would. Our colleague..."

"We hear." Grinned Aranea. Way to go, buddy.

Sly's agitated shouts echoed through the place, reaching them long before they saw him. Dressed in orange engineer overalls, he argued with a man dressed in a green uniform and a white lab coat.

"This prototype is nothing more than a glorified combat suit! Missile launchers, cannons… You know what a nightmare it is to power it all up with such a small frame. Where do you suppose we should stick the primary generator? If the backpack goes boom, so does the energy source. And what about its staying potential? What, is it supposed to return for a resupply after every single scuffle? It needs a stable weapon, one capable of supporting it for a long while. The frame must be larger to provide adequate protection. The days of kinetic weaponry are long over; we need to diversify it and equip it with either laser or plasma to handle opposition immune to conventional warfare. Unless you can guarantee that projectiles of this prototype are capable of achieving Mach 18 velocity, its current loadout is worthless," Sly told the second man, stabbing his finger at the pinned blueprints depicting a square suit.

"Sly, I value your input. With all due respect, we are merely in the early development phase of the warform class," the man responded, sipping coffee. "Will there be unforeseen negatives? Sure, that's why we will test this design and improve upon it. I fully admit that you have reasons to be concerned, but some of the best minds of the Third had developed this suit. It'll be fine; our little boy will shine in time."

Sly threw his paws up in frustration and whirled to face Aranea. His snout bore fresh scars and still-healing gashes, yet his amber eyes pulsed with fire. Food scraps lay in trays on his workspace, right next to a watch imbued with Yuki's scent, and meticulous order had replaced the usual chaos of unsorted instruments, with every tool staying in its assigned place. Paper books and journals were gathered on a shelf above Sly's table and held together with strings. Most were about physics, engineering guides to maintain laser rifles, technical manuals, and such, with one named 'Wyrms and Their Biology' sticking out like a sore thumb, making Aranea wonder why he would need one.

"Aranea," Sly said cheerfully, shaking her paws. All his former clumsiness and hurriedness washed away; he moved with purpose, holding himself steady, and in his eyes she read he didn't fear punishment or care about breaking traditions anymore. His look matched hers, full of determination. "I have been waiting for you. Now you'll have a thunderbolt capable of pulverizing Blaguna. But safety first."

"Sly. How are you?" Aranea tried to start a conversation, and he gave her a fake smile.

"All is well; the people here are awesome. I've learned so much!" He wasn't lying, but they both knew that wasn't what she had asked. "Ignore my fuming. I'm just pissed off about the waste of resources on the initial warform prototype."

"What is this warform thingy?" Leila inquired on their way to the armory's corner.

"Oh, it's a genuinely sound idea of our lord," he said with genuine enthusiasm. "You're aware of our losses in the past few months, right? New Breeds just aren't cutting it anymore, not alone. The age of technology is coming back, baby…"

"Baby?" Aranea snorted.

"…And we need to keep up. Wyrm Lord had studied the Iternian military and ordered the creation of new combat armors for his troops. The warform is a code name for mobile frames meant to be wielded by wolf hags to preserve their precious experience and also put it to further use in reducing the casualties by giving them various tools to tackle every situation, instead of relying on a single piece of archeotech. Now, since the project has just started, it's shit."

Sly gestured back at the assembled armor. "Look at our mess. We opted…"

"We?" Leila tilted her head.

"Hey, Sly is a valuable member of the team," a mechanic said, distracting himself from placing a plate over cables. "He might be a funny bozo preferring to do everything with his hands rather than letting us handle the task, but he ain't a bad kid. Don't let those white snobs confuse ya."

"Appreciate it, Mike." Sly waved to him. "We opted for a smaller target when we hit a bottleneck. Where should we place the generator? The team is still arguing over it, but it should never have passed the planning phase. MK. 1's weapons are too slow, and its mobility depends entirely on a wolf hag's reflexes to pilot the thing. Rather than complementing, it leeches. It lacks a proper radar system because of its size. We don't operate that closely with the regular forces, so what's the point of entertaining this design? Sure, a skilled wolf hag can make it work, but the armor should be tailored to the average person instead of the cream of the crop."

"As an average wolf hag, I approve. Mass warfare is the future." Aranea nodded.

"Precisely! There are many medium-level fighters among our leadership; if they all are assigned adequate gear, it'll bring impressive gains rather than having one or two wolf hags carry the entire burden and letting the remaining suits be an overall waste." Sly's watch buzzed, and he pulled a candy bar from his pocket and ate it in two bites. "But ah! What do I know? I'm nothing but a country bumpkin who used the eggheads' devices in the field and saw their flaws."

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"But how did you end up here?" Aranea asked. "Sly, you're a bright guy, but how in the Spirits' holy names did Janine allow you to…"

"The scientists requested a Wolfkin to provide input on adjusting modern gear for the Wolf Tribe members," Leila told Aranea. "I signed the necessary papers, and Sly is now a proud member of the Engineer Corps for a while. Janine didn't object to my decision, since he needs a few weeks to restore his strength."

Sly brought them to an array of metal capsules standing by the wall, with each being longer than Aranea. An assortment of weapons was secured on the tables in front of them. Shardguns, sniper rifles, laser guns, and melee blades waited to be used. To the right stood a stone slab covered in blackened gunshot marks and melting spots. Above the capsules, mechanical arms hung from cranes. Sly operated them to extract a pitch-black power armor from its harness inside the capsule and carry it closer.

"Ignore my bitching," Sly said, running a paw over the smooth surface and demonstrating its curvatures to the women. "The personnel here are competent; they listen to what I have to say, but we have different opinions on the matters. Look at what they have created for us! The previous models were meant to operate for an uninterrupted period of three weeks. This gorgeous mistress right here can be in action for four months, without any need for recharging." He raised a metal sleeve, pointing at the small holes for claws. At his touch, these openings widened to permit even Aranea to use her natural blades without risking her fingers. "No longer do fiber muscles enhance your physical aptitude by a mere three-point-one times. Now, that number has increased to 4.7. But the best part is!"

Sly stepped to the table and took a shardgun, putting on protective goggles. He motioned for Aranea to stand back as he directed the cranes' arms to carry the precious object to the bullet-riddled stone slab.

"Leila, I think you should put on…" Aranea started, remembering the important thing.

Sly fired at the center of the suit, disappearing briefly in a flash of white. The shards rang upon the plates, ricocheting off them and raining onto the floor. When the noise subsided, Aranea prepared to reprimand the soldier for ruining a ready piece of equipment, but then she saw it. She leaned in, unable to believe her eyes. There was not a trace of damage—not a dent or even a scratch marred the plates. The armor-piercing rounds had failed to do their job.

"You ass!" Leila screamed, reaching for her headphones. "You could've warned me! It really screws my hearing."

"Silverium alloy," Sly explained, taking off the goggles. "Something our people in the Core Lands are preparing for an invasion into the Living Lands. It's not in its pure form; we don't need it, and for now we barely have enough to outfit our warlords, shamans, and several wolf hags. But still!" He beamed. "Imagine how many lives it'll save in the future! No bandits will ever be a problem, and the greenies will go extinct once we're able to mass-produce it to outfit the Normies. And that's not all! We can use this alloy for augmentation and…" He glanced at a crate covered with a gray cloth. "…other matters."

"Enough of it, Student Sly," said a man in orange overalls and a white lab overcoat. As he approached the group, Aranea noticed that both of his eyes had been replaced with green lenses. Wrinkled, elderly, and hairless, he had twin crisscrossed scars on his forehead, and through the thinned layer of skin, red and green circuit lights of a device inside his cranium flashed. An elegant, silvery metal arm replaced his natural limb up to the elbow. "You've had your fill of entertaining our guests. Don't forget to take a scheduled rest in half an hour. You're Aranea," he stated.

"You have me at a disadvantage, sir…"

"Till Igno, the mere person in charge of educating this young man here." He interrupted Sly's explanation. "That's all you need to know of me; I'm not that important. Student, it is fruitless to waste efforts on explanation when actions would suffice. Assist her in donning the armor and head to the testing area."

"Master Till." Leila smiled awkwardly. "It hasn't even been half a day since Aranea was freed from the recovering pod…"

"Do you dare doubt my designs? You have so little faith in the ideas and care of my student?" Till sized her up, scowling. "I suppose I should not expect better from the daughter of…" The half-wyrm slammed her leg into the floor and dented it, cutting the speech short.

"Don't lump me in the same basket with him," Leila hissed, baring her needle fangs. Her calm and friendly appearance disappeared, her wings flapped, opening to full length, her arms and legs ballooned with expanded muscles, and the tail slapped at a table. A mechanic rolled her eyes and caught a wrench before it could fall. "I'm nothing like the old demon. And never will be. Got it?"

"Hmph. This much is self-evident. At least he can act civilly in the presence of his betters. It'll be years before you're even close to being half the person he is," Ingo responded haughtily, and Leila clenched her fists. The silver arm snaked out in a blur, extending and wrapping itself around the half-wyrm's biceps, then tightened its hold, causing the woman to blink in surprise. "Your theory was correct, young man. Her size does indeed increase in response to rage. Adjustments are needed. I'll borrow the book from you and digitize it later." Sly stood at attention, smiling proudly at the man's calm voice.

"What are you playing at?" Leila snarled. "Why are you provoking me?"

"Because I need to know your true size…"

"Excuse me?!"

"Of course I pardon you," Till said. "You are leaving the fortress soon. Do you expect to last long in the field without protection? Wyrms." He shook his head. "Your kind always prides itself on being invincible, right up until the moment that it's not. Join me. There's a uniform waiting for you. Does every emotion cause your body to change?" He asked, keeping his arm around Leila.

"Never gave that much of a thought," Leila admitted.

"She didn't grow bigger from disgust," Aranea pointed out.

"Hey, you're right!"

"Tests are needed, then." Ingo nodded. "You're fat and sweaty like a lizard."

"Your pillow talk needs work, Doc," Leila told him.

Ingo pulled the frustrated and perplexed Leila after him, while Sly assisted Aranea in putting on the gear, exhibiting utmost caution to the point that she had to ask him to be braver. When the helmet projected information onto her retinas, her first impulse was to check the connection. After being one with the pack for so long, the lack of updates about its members and their status now filled her with unease.

The new lenses had better zoom, picking up specks of dust at the other side of the hall. The rest of the systems were pretty standard: heat vision, night vision, enhanced hearing, the ability to relay and accept information from several cameras and project it straight onto the retinas without obstructing eyesight. A new feature appeared in the menu: an emergency adrenaline shot. The suit's basic intelligence sent a distress call to the medical team, alerting them to her poor physical condition. Fiber muscles closed around her limbs, tight yet unobstructed and not restricting her movements in the slightest.

"Will we be in trouble?" Aranea asked about the incoming call.

"One thing I've learned here is not to stress over small things and to let my superiors handle the consequences of their poor decisions. Sorry, by the way," Sly said. "I didn't expect the teacher to leap at you right away. I included personal touches in your suit to accommodate for future growth, should you ever want to use your power. Not that I insist that you should use it. The point is, I took your measurements after you grew and compared them to your previous size. I then calculated the results based on average transformations occurring in us. You also lost a lot of weight because of…" His expression darkened. "…of that incident." He tried to turn away, and Aranea placed a paw on his shoulder.

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