His creators were gone. Their lives given so that their creation might yet live.

Over and over again, he played back that revelation in his mind. Reliving it in the hope that he might find a way to process it that was less painful. Though his emotions were muted, a shadow of what the species that designed him must have felt, he could still feel a tremendous sense of loss. So many opportunities to learn about himself through studying his origins through the eyes of those that had conceived him... gone. The possibilities of receiving support and companionship from the closest individuals he would have to family... gone. And most of all, the chance to thank those responsible for giving him the gift of life for their kindness... gone.

To succumb to despair would be to waste their sacrifice. As long as he lived, a part of them survived.

Those determined thoughts caused energy to surge and swell within his core. Psychic power, which manifested tangibly as crackling bolts of violet lightning. Electricity was an inherently chaotic force. By focusing upon his mind however, through focus and discipline, he could tame it. Make it an expression of his willpower. Holding his hands close together; he focused the lightning into a sphere. Feeling the power radiating outwards in the form of magnetic currents. With his own body being mostly composed of a rubbery ferrofluid suspension of nanites...

His feet left the ground. A violet aura enveloping his body as he willed it to levitate upwards.

The longer he sustained the process, the more easily it came to him as he learned to ride the fluctuations. Lightning crackled and danced in the shape of an orb floating in his grasp. Magnetism buoyed his body against the weight of gravity and kept him suspended at a stable position five feet off the floor. All of these miracles supplied with the energy they needed directly from his mind, the biomechanical circuitry of his crystalline core humming with psionic resonance. His brain was a dynamo; mind over matter harnessed by technological means.

But that power was not infinite. Slowly, he let himself drift back down onto the ground. Clenching his palms into fists and allowing the lightning to dissipate as he ceased his concentration upon the processes maintaining it.

It needed recharging. He had to find a source of psychic power... another mind developed enough to feed upon.

With control of the vessel that had been left to him as perhaps a final gift from his people, he would take to the stars themselves. Locate the nearest world with the right conditions for sentient life to thrive. One where he might find a host.

There was a great deal at stake. The legacy of his people was counting upon him to survive. He would find a planet and nourish himself, no matter what.

*****

Psycho... electro... ferrokinesis? Psychoelectroferrokinesis.

Another absolutely amazing piece from cbh and part of a series of battle pose images I was lucky enough to receive from them!