No sooner had Shiro completed his transformation, and roared, then I heard a high pitched —if modulated— squeal.

“Big metal kitty!” Beju shrieked as she ran over to Shiro, completely leaving her brother to fumble with carrying the barrel by himself. To his credit, after a bit of a stumble, he managed to adjust his grip and walked the rest of the way on his own, setting the barrel down next to me.

Beju had her arms around Shiro’s neck and was rubbing her face against his lion face. “Oh he’s such a good kitty! Yes he is! Prime, I love him! I want to keep him forever!”

“Um.. Beju.. That’s Shiro,” I said crossing my arms and covering where my mouth would have been.

Beju froze mid-nuzzle and looked sideways into the eye of the lion, then at her brother who looked like he was about to explode with laughter.

“Um... yes... hello Miss Beju,” Shiro said while trying not to move.

In an explosion of movement, Beju was off of Shiro and behind the barrel. “Please excuse us Mister Prime, Mister Shiro, we have to go hunt something for father’s breakfast,” Beju said from behind her hiding place. Then she abruptly grabbed her brother around the waist, and physically picked him up and ran away. Yani laughed uncontrollably the entire time and I couldn’t repress a fit of giggles myself. Poor Shiro just looked uncomfortable.

“Sorry about that Shiro,” I said as I tried to regain my composure. “Let’s start with a simple leap test.”

I had Shiro work his way up from small hops to big leaps, both with and without his wings deployed. Once he got a feel for the difference the wings made, which at this height wasn’t much, we added some wind magic. The difference allowed him to hang in the air and glide for several yards in a simple ground-to-ground leap.

In no time, Shiro was out pacing my suggestions and had leapt straight from the middle of the Range and onto the roof of my workshop. When he stuck the landing, he let out a big roar, to my surprise and delight.

“Wow! Shiro, that was a great leap! And using the roar too, color me surprised.”

“It felt appropriate,” he said, sounding far more confident now.

Shiro readied himself for another leap off of the roof and I was reminded of house cats when they prep for a big jump and you can see their paws tapping and their backend wiggling as they line up their trajectory. With a blast of wind magic, he vaulted off of my roof and sailed completely over my head, over the Range, and into the trees beyond the boundary of the village.

I laughed and ran after him, when I got to the edge of the Range, I could see him in his humanoid form standing on a branch high in a tree looking down at me.

“This is a lot more fun than I thought it would be!” he admitted with a big smile.

Shiro jumped off of the branch, transforming with the motion, and glided down to me before shifting back when he touched the ground.

“Shiro, you are so much cooler than I will ever be,” I laughed.

I watched as his eyes looked up and to the side before he answered, likely looking at something on his HUD, “Cooler? I don’t think so. My systems seem to be pretty heated right now.”

I laughed some more and gently pulled at his sleeve. “No, I mean, you know what? Nevermind.”

Shiro bent over and hugged my head to his chest, “I know I said I wasn’t too interested in this form, but it feels fast and powerful and is a lot of fun. Thank you for giving it to me.”

“Aww, you’re welcome buddy,” I replied, patting his elbow. “You’re going to make me cry.”

He just laughed and let go, resting his hand on top of my head. “That was fun, but I have breakfast to make and you owe me some eggs.”

“But I haven’t tested my stuff yet,” I complained.

“You hardly need my help for that, Master Prime,” he said, regaining his butler-like professionalism.

“Fine...” I grumbled as I brought out the clutch of basilisk eggs and handed them over.

He took the eggs from me with a curt nod, then turned and walked off, back to the Inn. I humphed. It was no fun testing by myself, if it worked then who would be impressed, and if it failed, who could laugh with me? Ah well.

I held out my arms and legs in a spread eagle stance and — because I’m a dork I set up a verbal trigger for using the [hotSwap()] spell with the Centurion Armors — called out “[Power Extreme]! [CloudBurst]!” From my [inventory], the set components materialized around me and snapped into my connection ports. Leg armor with stabilizer fins on my shins and wind magic turbines on the sides locked into place. Forearm plates clamped down with shield plating and razor edged fins. A heavy backpack that contained the cockpit, Blink Engine, and large wings connected to my back as stylized chest armor attached at the front.

I had considered adding a helmet to change my look with each armor form, but right now the addition would interfere with my transformation so I left it out. I bounced around a bit to get a feel for the extra weight and nearly fell backward.

There were so many transforming robots that carried a huge amount of kibble or vehicle parts on their backs, but clearly the designers never had to actually try to move around with it. Myself included, I supposed.

I took a deep, metaphorical breath and fired up the wind turbines with minimal power at first and gradually increased the output until I could feel myself lifting up. I remembered the scene from Ironman when the main character was trying out their jet boots and needed to include stabilizer jets in their hands to stay balanced. I was worried that I might have to do the same but I found that without human-error wobble I was able to balance perfectly, once I found the balance point.

Gently, I increased the output and started lifting higher, but the jet wash was throwing sand and dirt everywhere so I cut the power and dropped back to the ground. Okay, not bad so far, now the part that really made me nervous; testing the Blink Engine.

I looked up and saw an open blue sky above me. “Three. Two. One. [warpFactor(1)].” Instantly I shot up into the sky, the movement was like blinking your eyes rapidly and each time you opened them you were another meter higher in the air. There wasn’t any sort of momentum built up and the strobe effect of my position shifting would be highly nauseating if I had a stomach and an inner ear.

I let the function run for exactly five seconds and shut it off. As soon as I stopped, gravity kicked in and I was falling from a height of 50 meters.

“[Transform()].”

The nose and canopy moved on a hinged arm up to my shoulders and over my head as shutter doors closed around my face. My senses shifted like when I was in Cyclone or IronHide to the extra “cameras” I had for my directional views and I became more aware of the extra parts as they changed positions. The Blink Engine and vertical stabilizer fins on my back folded down and connected with the armor on my legs. The large wings on my back folded into flight position and my arms tucked out of the way.

It felt pretty amazing that I was now able to transform myself and not just a proxy around me, I was a tiny jet fighter! I was also still falling. I pitched my nose down and dove until I could feel the wind buffeting my wings and I could angle upwards. The wings were large enough that I could effortlessly glide through the air, though probably not for as far as a proper glider. I engaged the wind turbines which were now at the back and pointed behind me.

With the wind magic engaged, I sailed forward slicing through the air and into the sky. Below me I could see Beju and Yani walking back to the village with a small furry animal on the end of a sharpened stick. They looked up and waved and I did a barrel roll to wave back. Over the trees and buildings I flew, catching the eyes and gasps of anyone that saw me. It was possible that some sort of manned flight was possible in this world, but it certainly wasn't common just yet.

I could feel slipstreams and thermal pockets around me by the effect they had on my flight path. Sometimes I would get knocked to one side or suddenly drop in altitude. I made a mental note to look into some sort of visual overlay that might allow me to see where they were and be able to react and use them properly.

I increased the turbine output to full thrust and shot through the sky. I had no clue how fast I was going though, and none of my past knowledge included how aircraft gauge their speed. Maybe I could write a program that would watch from my underside camera and determine a relative point position against ground markers? But then altitude would need to be considered as well... Thinking about the calculations required made my head hurt a bit and I abandoned the thought.

Of course, if I had mapping software then I could determine relative speed based on map coordinates at fixed time intervals...

It was time to try out the Blink Engine in flight.