B roared as the lightning struck him. He was utilizing his HP as a barrier to protect the younger siblings underneath him, and so took the lightning head-on. His fur and flesh grew scorched and burnt as his cybernetic components began to go haywire. The exoskeleton built into his armor attempted to move his arms and legs, but he held still with all the strength his squishy parts could muster.

Unfortunately, that did not extend to the cannon on his back.

The cannon began to fire randomly. The lightning was just surging through his circuits, activating systems at random, so the cannon was not aimed at anything in particular. However, there happened to be a very big target in the area that even randomly fired shots could occasionally hit.

Even as lightning coursed through both halves of his bodies and he roared in pain, 00B’s eye widened. Shells from his cannon were hitting the Prismatic Dome protecting the rest of his family, the explosions rocking the already struggling shield. He saw as his siblings winced, the less-magically gifted among them struggling to maintain the spell. More shells hit 00EW as well, putting the struggling Mecha-Adamant Bull Worm in even worse condition.

B growled. If he remained as he was, he would contribute to his own family’s demise. But if he moved, tried to tip himself over to keep the cannon from pointing at the Prismatic Dome, then the family beneath him would be exposed. And he knew their squishy parts could not survive the powerful lightning striking him now.

He had to do something else, if he wished to protect his family.

So he turned his attention inward. The lightning coursing through his circuits overwhelmed any electrical signals sent from his mind, which precluded any response. Any countermeasures built into his cybernetic half couldn’t be communicated with, and he couldn’t shut his systems off since the lightning would just keep them on. 00B attempted to use his mana to purge the power from his systems, but his available mana pool simply didn’t compare to the energy coursing through him. He could not use that method.

So what could he do, to protect his family?

B grunted and growled, and focused on the lightning. He focused on the power surging through his circuits, taking note of its current, its characteristics, and its flow. And then…he sent a command from his processors, timed and designed to match that of the foreign energy.

B was not the eldest of the family. He was not the most zealous. He was not the fastest. He was not the most clever. He was not the most magically gifted. He was not even the biggest. But there was one title 00B could claim with certainty: he was the very first monster to be summoned as a cyborg.

That meant that 00B had cybernetic components from his very birth. There was never a moment where he was without them and he never had a complete organic body to begin with. Because of this, he had an innate affinity for his cybernetic half that his peers lacked. 00B did not require any tutorials to make use of his implants or his AI. But it went beyond mere knowledge, it meant 00B had a fundamentally different approach to his cybernetic half. It was not merely a tool or weapon to be used, as Older Brother 01R did. It was not a subordinate to be ordered around, as Elder Sister Lilussees did. Nor was it a foreign presence to be addressed and adapted to, as Younger Sister Ateia had been forced to.

For 00B, his mind and his AI were one and the same. There was no specific delineation between his cybernetic and squishy parts. They were all 00B, they had never been separate to begin with. Even the Great Mother herself had to learn this, though in her case it was more acknowledging her squishy half.

And as a result, electricity had always been a part of his existence, and electronics had always been a part of his consciousness. So he, perhaps, had the most instinctual ability to perceive electricity…and to interact with it.

So 00B stopped trying to purge the lightning in his circuits. He, instead, attempted to understand it…and then take command of it. After all, what was the difference between lightning and electricity save for scale and organization? Lightning was raw and powerful, electricity contained and directed, but both shared the same fundamental nature.This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

That’s not to say it was easy. 00B’s first attempts failed entirely, swept away in the stream of power coursing through his circuits. The difference between his processor’s command and a bolt of lightning was like the difference between the circulation of blood and a tsunami, and he was now attempting to control that tsunami with the equivalent of a mere heart and veins. Not to mention…this lightning was magical. While the dungeon master wasn’t consciously controlling it at the point it entered 00B’s body, the original caster’s mana was still present, guiding the lightning per the caster’s initial intent.

So 00B did the same. Dams and dikes and canals could redirect the flow of water, so 00B did for the lightning. Since his hardware was insufficient, he formed his own mana into shapes and structures. He may not have been able to stop the lightning, or control it outright, but he found that redirecting it slightly was possible. So he siphoned off just a little bit of the current, directing it into a new circuit formed of mana.

And that circuit generated a bit of mana, which 00B then used to expand it a bit more. And then he siphoned off just a bit more of the current into the expanded circuit, generating more mana and expanding the circuit further.

It was painstakingly slow, particularly as 00B’s squishy parts burned. But he was not descended from the lineage of the Ursanus Alpha for nothing, his flesh regrew and his circuits repaired themselves even as more lightning struck down upon them. He could not endure forever…but he lasted long enough.

Eventually, the mana circuit grew large enough that 00B could start shaping it more into a more complex form. As such, 00B began adding more and more functions. He added a function to continue expanding the circuit autonomously, and a safeguard to monitor the expansion and the amount of power entering the circuit, making sure they were balanced such that the circuit didn’t overload or else over expand and spread the current too thin.

The circuit then began expanding on its own, without 00B’s direction. More and more of the lightning was siphoned off, only for more to be added as additional strikes hit 00B. But the circuit continued growing and growing. Eventually, it was siphoning enough that one of 00B’s spotlights shutoff. The implant had stopped receiving enough power to remain active on its own.

At that point, something shifted in the mana of the circuit. It had just prevented a mighty attack from achieving its purpose, and the universe had noticed. It was not a spell, for 00B had not formed any spell circles with the mana, instead shaping it into a purely electrical circuit. But nor was it 00B’s own accomplishment, for the mana circuit had achieved this without any intervention by the cyber-bear. So the record did not attach itself to 00B.

Rather, some of the mana in the circuit combined with the mana in the Lightning and then began to compress down in a manner that 00B had not instructed it to. It was generating mana, utilizing this mana to manipulate an attribute with a specific organization and intent, could grow and direct itself without an external intervention, and could use all this to enact its will on the world. It even had something of a mind: for 00B programming code and electricity weren’t separate concepts, and 00B had formed the electrical circuit to apply specific instructions.

So, suddenly, 00B became aware of a new presence within his circuits. It was frantic and confused, the mana and electricity it was composed of were acting per his original instructions and so it was acting without understanding why. 00B sent a small command through his circuits, reaching out to the presence with his own AI. And since the presence had been formed of his mana, based on his own understanding of programming and electrical circuits, they were able to form a connection.

A stream of data and electricity flooded towards 00B’s processors. It was garbled and malformed, most of it was garbage code. But within that dump, 00B found something.

A query.

“This==?”

And for 00B, the answer was obvious. The cyber-bear had no philosophical queries on the nature of consciousness. After all, he was a monster in a cyborg body formed by mana with a mind made of equal parts flesh and code. So he immediately replied.

“A new Little Sibling.”

The presence paused, then immediately began querying 00B for more data. 00B obliged, guiding the presence to his memory. The presence parsed through, and then went silent. The condensing mana within its center shifted.

“This==Family?”

“Yes.”

“This.purpose==Protect(Family)?”

“Yes.”

The presence then pulled back to itself. The mana condensed down more and more, until it began to form a core. It wrapped the circuits and lightning around itself and began to form it into shapes, structures connected directly to its core and moving in response to its will. It was not unlike a Lighting Elemental, with a core of energy controlling a body of pure lightning…but it was different at the same time. The lightning was more structured, more controlled. It was not merely a burst of electromagnetic energy, but organized flows. It contained more than power, but also held data within its structures and movement. It was electricity. It was data. It was code.

And so the world’s very first Cyber Elemental was born.