The square in San Francisco's ruins held its breath. Thousands of people, tens of thousands, stood frozen in anticipation. News drones circled overhead like vultures, their cameras capturing every angle for global broadcast. The whole world was watching.
"The trial begins!" The commander's voice boomed through mounted speakers, echoing off the skeletal remains of skyscrapers that still bore Kaiju damage scars. "Raise your weapons!"
Mako Mori stood in her designated position on the platform, lifting a Type 56 assault rifle to her shoulder. The weapon was deliberately chosen—older design, heavy, reliable. High muzzle velocity, devastating stopping power. One shot would be enough, even for a three-meter Precursor. Quick death. As merciful as execution could be.
The rifle's weight felt like the weight of history itself. She wasn't just an executioner. She was the final punctuation mark on an era of terror.
She drew a deep breath, steadying herself. Her sights aligned perfectly with Achilles's head. The Precursor commander had retracted his bone crown armor, leaving his skull exposed. His two pairs of fish-eyes—glowing faint blue, pupils invisible—stared out at the sea of human faces.
No fear showed in those alien eyes. Just acceptance. Strange, dignified, incomprehensible.
The world held its breath.
"Fire!"
CRACK!
The gunshot shattered the silence like breaking glass. A dark hole appeared in the center of Achilles's forehead—neat, precise, instantly fatal. Dark blue blood mixed with reddish ichor trickled from the wound, alien biology responding to catastrophic trauma.
Thud.
Achilles's body tilted, knees buckling, and three meters of mass crashed onto the wooden platform with floor-shaking force. The entire structure trembled. The sound seemed to pass through the crowd itself, a physical wave of finality.
The trial was over.
Mako lowered the rifle, her hands trembling slightly. Impossible to tell if it was adrenaline or profound grief for everything the past had stolen from her. From all of them.
Marshal Stacker Pentecost walked onto the platform, moving to her side. He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder—paternal, protective—and guided her away from the body, shielding her from the flashing cameras and hungry media attention.
Behind them, soldiers in hazmat suits moved with practiced efficiency. They collected the body, exiting through the rear of the platform. Achilles's corpse wouldn't be buried. It was too valuable—biological data, xenobiology research, genetic samples. Multiple organizations were already fighting over who got primary dissection rights.
From that moment, everything changed.
The blood debt had been paid. Cooperation between humans and Precursors surged forward, a new era born from the ashes of the old.
Ten Years Later.
Location: Planet Anteverse (Also called "Andis" by locals). Edus Star System, Jump Point 67.
The Precursor homeworld was harsh, alien, beautiful in ways human aesthetics struggled to comprehend. Grayish-brown rock formations dominated the landscape, interspersed with glowing veins of bioluminescent blue flora that pulsed like exposed arteries. The vegetation—if you could call it that—moved with tidal rhythms, responding to the artificial sun's energy output.
This was the heart of the Precursor Empire.
For millions of years, the Toxin parasite had driven them underground. Entire civilizations retreating into dungeon cities carved ten kilometers deep, hiding from a threat they couldn't defeat.
Then, ten years ago, everything changed. After sacrificing most of their advanced technology in deals with humanity—specifically with Aidan Parker—they'd achieved something unprecedented: cooperative coexistence with another species.
Over the past decade, Earth had continuously dispatched teams through the wormhole. Brilliant researchers, elite Jaeger pilots, military advisors, biotechnology specialists. They came not as conquerors but as allies in a war for mutual survival.
The results were staggering. With human assistance, the Precursor Empire had reclaimed significant surface territory. They'd developed effective protocols against the Toxin parasites, turning a losing war into a winnable conflict.
Forty kilometers northeast of the new capital, Fancheng, lay Fancheng Canyon—a massive natural trench carved into the planet's crust by geological forces humanity didn't fully understand. It served as the primary defensive line, perfect terrain for Jaeger deployment against Toxin-controlled Kaiju.
Fancheng itself was miraculous—the first surface city the Precursors had built in millennia. It anchored a triangular defensive formation designed by Fan Jing, a legendary human engineer from the first wave of support troops. The three points: Capital Fancheng, Alex Base (Jaeger deployment), and Thor Yak Base (Kaiju research and containment).
At this moment, in Fancheng Canyon's shadows, nearly ten Jaegers stood at alert status, weapons primed, sensors sweeping the toxic landscape for threats.
"...So Hog, how are things progressing with Elma lately?" A teasing voice crackled through the Jaeger corps secure channel. The speaker piloted a sleek green mech designated Hunter-7.
"Not bad," came the reply from Hog, whose black heavy-assault Jaeger Cerberus was built like a tank. "When we rotate back to base this time, we'll finally be able to... make things official."
"Progressing that fast? Damn, impressive!"
"Heh heh." A different voice, older and lewder, cut in from another unit. "Hey Jeffrey, didn't I hear Mel dumped you a while back?"
Silence from Jeffrey's channel.
"Jeffrey? Why so quiet? It can't actually be true, can it?"
"Shut up!" Jeffrey snapped.
"Hahahaha!" Multiple pilots laughed. "I told you Mel likes Lin better. The man can actually cook. Jeffrey's never even been in a kitchen—of course he can't compete!"
The laughter rippled through the communication network, breaking tension, maintaining morale. It was ritual. Pre-combat banter to push away the fear, because none of them could guarantee they'd survive the next engagement.
"Zeus Squad, attention!" The base commander's voice cut through the joking like a knife. "Hostile Kaiju group detected two thousand meters southeast. Multiple contacts. Intercept immediately."
"Received!" The laughter died instantly. Jaegers shifted into combat stances, reactor outputs climbing, weapon systems activating.
Then, just before the channel cleared, a soft female voice spoke on a private frequency: "Hog... if you can come back this time... I can agree to what you said."
Inside Cerberus's Conn-Pod, Hog—a young man with fashionable stubble and curly golden hair—brightened instantly. His grip on the controls tightened with renewed purpose. "Then I must return this time! No matter what! Even if my body is crushed, my soul will crawl back to your side, my dear Elma!"
Back at the deployment base control room, Elma—a beautiful Palestinian woman with dark eyes and steady hands—smiled, pressing her lips together as she watched his signal blip on her tactical display.
The pre-battle atmosphere had been light, joking. Now it turned grim.
The Toxin parasites were nightmare fuel. They could invade wild Kaiju bodies, enhancing strength and aggression, driving them berserk. Worse, the parasites would devour each other to grow stronger, creating super-charged biological weapons. Any Kaiju they faced could be exponentially more dangerous than expected.
This was why the Precursors had lost their homeworld in the first place.
Soon, enemy contacts entered weapons range. Precursor artillery emplacements lining the canyon walls opened fire—energy beams lighting up the toxic atmosphere in brilliant colors. Under that covering fire, the Jaeger corps charged.
Zeus Squad was named after its leader: the bio-metal Jaeger Zeus. To date, only one Stellar Harvester had been constructed on the Anteverse, and its output was severely limited. A single bio-metal Jaeger weighed 2,000 tons—producing enough material for a full army would drain planetary resources to dangerous levels.
So each squad received one elite bio-metal leader with traditional mechanical Jaegers as support units. Expensive, effective, the best they could manage with current infrastructure.
The battle began with the screaming of alarms and the roar of weapons fire.
Meanwhile, on Earth.
Ten years of peace and cooperation had transformed the planet beyond recognition.
Aidan's Life Evolution Equation had been popularized globally—not the complete version with magnetite integration, but enough to dramatically enhance human cognitive capacity and physical potential. The results were staggering. Geniuses were emerging in every field at unprecedented rates. Breakthroughs that should've taken decades happened in years.
Fueled by technology from both Aidan and the Precursor trade agreements, human civilization had leapfrogged centuries of development.
Massive space cities now orbited Earth—rotating habitats housing millions, O'Neill cylinders and Stanford tori gleaming in reflected sunlight. Luna had permanent settlements. Mars expeditions were being planned.
And every major nation had organized stellar navies.
The European Fleet: Flagship Zeus, three capital ships total, dozens of support vessels. Specialized in rapid-deployment assault tactics.
The Asian Fleet: Flagship Tiangong, four capital ships, most powerful fleet by significant margin. Built on the foundation of Aidan's "South Sky Gate" initiative, years ahead in development.
The American Fleet: Flagship Maya, two capital ships, focused on carrier-based strike craft operations.
These were just the beginning. Initial stages. Within another decade, humanity would field dozens of capital ships, hundreds of support vessels, true interstellar military capacity.
The deep-space probes Aidan had launched years ago remained silent. The neutron stars he sought for his ultimate projects—whatever those were—hadn't been located yet. But the search continued, automated systems
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sweeping sectors methodically.
Kaiju breeding technology had fallen out of favor. With bio-metal Jaegers and space-capable warships, massive uncontrollable bioweapons seemed obsolete. Inefficient.
The new focus: Bio-Engineering Kaiju Integration. Using the monsters' biological advantages—regeneration, adaptive evolution, extreme durability—and incorporating those traits into Jaeger designs. Hybrid systems. The best of both approaches.
Humanity stood on the threshold of something unprecedented. A spacefaring civilization armed with magic-enhanced technology, allied with an ancient alien empire, pushing into the cosmos with the kind of reckless confidence that had always defined the species.
The Kaiju War was over.
The age of stars had begun.