Chapter 3: Red Lizard
It was about the size of a wall gecko, small but bulkier. Flaking metallic scales covered its feeble looking body, half-melted and patchy with a dull, rustic red coloring along the sides and a strip of black running down the middle.
It had a slightly oversized head, a blunt snout and two bulbous yellow eyes that blinked as they stared at David. Short legs supported it, and atop its big skull, a pair of tiny horn nubs poked out, barely formed, while its thin tail twitched constantly, like a wire with a short-circuit.
David’s first thought was that it was such an ugly beast. But it had the kind of ugliness that reminded him of abandoned strays— pitiful, awkward, yet somehow... quietly endearing.
It nodded its head at him.
David frowned. "Just my luck."
"Haha!" someone cackled amongst the failed Aspirants. "He hatched a Gutterling! That’s a mere pest control beast! It’s not even used for combat!"
"He drew the weakest possible in the Gray Rank!"
"The weakest in all Ranks!"
Some of them— the ones who lacked self awareness —laughed as David glared at the Lizard, which continued to do nothing but nod.
He was frustrated that he had somehow gotten the mechbeast he least wanted. But the frustration could wait.
Now, he was experiencing the contract bond between beast and tamer; the pact that allowed tamers to use powers gotten from their beasts and also share the aether in their core.