A Dog Father Cannot Beget a Dragon Son

World 53: Part 8

The welcome back party for Fei Chuan and his detail was a little strange, to put it kindly. Before the landing, what looked to be the entire lab had piled up onto the landing decks, straining their necks as if to somehow see the passengers of the starship through several inches of vibranium.

Then, like the proper researchers they were, the first thing one of the lab technicians asked Fei Chuan was whether or not the Delant Outpost's funding had been cut. The Three Empire's Military Conference had been broadcasted to every station with a signal. It wasn't surprising, then, that the Delant researchers had seen what went down with Project SPOTS and were now besieged by worry over their own projects.

Fei Chuan shook his head, and the entire lab seemed to breathe out a sigh of relief. That relief twisted in on itself almost immediately when a mop of messy brown hair poked itself out of the starship's exit. A glance at the unnaturally long fingers clasped around the starship's hull for support, or at the feather-like scales protruding near the boy's collarbone, and there would be absolutely no doubt who he was.

The boy-hybrid gingerly shuffled down the stairs that were almost too small for his feet, and quickly reached out for Fei Chuan's outstretched hand.

Following the conclusion of the investigation at the International Conference, the boy-hybrid had reawoken, and was confused to see himself behind glass again. Fei Chuan, feeling an inkling, had asked the starship officers to give the boy-hybrid free reign until circumstances necessitated that the privilege be taken away.

If those officers felt anything off putting about letting a Zerg hybrid wander about their ship unhindered, they had poker faces remarkable enough not to show it. The boy-hybrid, however, proved himself to be an apt empath; he stayed clear of nearly everyone and attached himself to Fei Chuan like a limpet. Fei Chuan, in turn, ended up feeling a strange sort of fatherly protectiveness he could only ever claim to feel for the [Villain]. It might have been the same feeling that prompted him to set the boy-hybrid free in the first place.

When the boy-hybrid settled into his side, curling up and ducking his long neck as if to make himself look smaller, Fei Chuan found his attention called away by the clearing of a throat.

His supervisor looked at him and his tagalong hesitating. "Is this Project SPOTS, Dr. Vinyard?"

Fei Chuan shrugged. "In truth, he's more of a prototype--"

His response (and the boy-hybrid's general lack of) seemed to give the rest of the audience the cue they needed to ask their own questions:

"You really managed to combine Zerg and Human DNA?" (Yes.)

"Why does it look more human than Zerg?" (He was intentionally designed this way.)

"Are the long limbs also designed to be that way?" (No, that was more natural.)

"Why does it have feathers?" (The parent Zerg was an avian whose primary purpose was scouting.)

"Does it eat human or Zerg food?" (Both.)

"Did you name it yet?" (Him. And no.)

"Why don't you just call him SPOTS? It's convention, isn't it?" (Once again, he really is more like a prototype--)

Eventually, the outbursts began to put the boy-hybrid on edge, and Fei Chuan reached over, squeezing his hand to stop him from tensing. "I'll have to ask you all to leave this for another day. You're giving him too much stimuli, and it's disturbing him."

The remaining scientists obediently quieted their clamor; all of them knew that there was nothing quite as soul-crushing as your experimental data being discarded due to "external stimuli."