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The Kaiju crisis on the Hong Kong coast was over.
Final tallies came in as dawn broke over the city:
Magician: Two Category-5 kills (Slattern, Leatherback). Combat duration: eight minutes. Pilot: Dr. Aidan Parker (solo).
Cherno Alpha: One Category-4 kill (Scunner), one Category-4 capture assist (Raiju). Pilots: Aleksis and Sasha Kaidanovsky. Minor structural damage, significant acid corrosion to rear plating.
Striker Eureka: No kills, sustained defensive engagement against Category-5 (Leatherback) until Magician intervention. Pilots: Herc and Chuck Hansen. Power reserves critical, requires full reactor service.
Crimson Typhoon: Conn-Pod severed but intact. Pilots: Wei Tang triplets, alive with multiple injuries ranging from minor to severe. Jaeger frame salvageable, requires extensive reconstruction.
The Seawall: Undamaged. Zero civilian casualties.
By any reasonable metric, it was a miracle.
The sudden appearance of the purple Jaeger had left everyone with more questions than answers, but those questions would have to wait. The second half of the night was all controlled chaos—Jaeger recovery operations, medical triage, coordinating the return of evacuated civilians. Nobody slept. Everything got pushed to dawn and beyond.
Magician had vanished the moment the fighting stopped. One second it was standing in the shallows with the other Jaegers, the next a scarlet portal opened beneath its feet and swallowed it whole. When the light faded, the mecha was gone.
Back in Bay Three, Aidan ran diagnostics on every system, cross-referencing combat performance data against theoretical projections. Magician's upper limits were directly tied to his mastery of magic and his understanding of this world's elemental energy structures. The initial field test had gone well—better than well—but there was always room for optimization.
By the time sunrise painted the Shatterdome's exterior in gold and orange, Aidan was filthy, exhausted, and absolutely certain he wasn't going to get any rest anytime soon.
The next morning, a crowd had formed outside Bay Three's entrance.
Not a small group. A crowd. Pilots, engineers, scientists, support staff—anyone with clearance and a burning need to see what Dr. Parker had been building for three years. They packed the corridor like concert-goers waiting for doors to open, buzzing with speculation and poorly-suppressed excitement.
"I'm just saying," Chuck Hansen was explaining to his father with barely-contained manic energy, "if we have tech like that, counterattacking through the breach isn't crazy anymore. It's feasible."
For once, nobody immediately shot him down. Several people were nodding, thinking, calculating.
"We captured Raiju alive," Pentecost said, arms crossed, his command presence keeping some semblance of order in the crowd. "Once we extract its memories, Dr. Ryan and the Security Council will make the call. This isn't a base-level decision anymore—it affects every nation on Earth. If we're going on offense, we're looking at a year minimum of preparation. Probably two."
Mako stood slightly apart from the main group, her expression complicated. Now she understood what Aidan had meant about only getting one chance at the pilot test. If Magician could be piloted solo, if it was that powerful... the entire Jaeger program paradigm had just shifted.
"Did anyone else notice Magician only had one pilot?" Raleigh said, breaking the thoughtful silence. "No co-pilot, no drift partner. Just Dr. Ryan."
"The entire machine violates conventional Jaeger design," Newton jumped in, unable to contain himself. "That teleportation effect—the big red circle it appeared from—that's spatial manipulation on a scale we can't even theorize about properly. We're talking wormhole-adjacent technology!"
"And the sword," someone else added. "That thing was on fire, but the flames didn't behave like combustion. More like... I don't know, contained plasma? Energy projection?"
"Space-folding tech that advanced puts us centuries ahead of current theoretical models," another voice chimed in.
Then Dr. Gottlieb spoke up, quiet but clear. "What if it isn't technology at all?"
The corridor went silent.
Newton turned to stare at his colleague like he'd started speaking in tongues. "I'm sorry, what? You—you, Hermann Gottlieb, doctor of mathematics, believer in numbers as the language of God—you think it's magic?"
"Magic is also a science," Gottlieb said defensively, pushing his glasses up his nose. "It's merely one that exists primarily in theoretical frameworks. Historically, magic was a rigorous discipline—a philosophical approach to understanding nature, the cosmos, and consciousness itself."
"That's ridiculous! 'Magic' is just what ancient people called science before they understood it!"
"You don't understand the actual study of magic! The theoretical models, the historical documentation—"
"Oh, I don't understand? Then explain to me what powers Magician!" Newton jabbed a finger toward Bay Three's sealed doors. "Space tech requires energy! What's the power source?"
"Exactly my point!" Gottlieb's voice rose. "Our sensors detected no conventional power signature. No nuclear reactor, no thermal output consistent with any known energy generation system. So either Dr. Ryan invented physics-breaking technology, or—"
"That's enough." Pentecost's voice cracked like a whip. "When Dr. Ryan comes out, we'll get answers. Until then, save the academic debate."
Newton and Gottlieb glared at each other, made identical disgusted sounds, and turned away in opposite directions like feuding siblings.
The other pilots waited with varying degrees of patience. Even the Wei Tang triplets were there, wrapped in medical bandages and probably violating about six discharge orders, refusing to miss this reveal.
Then, with a pneumatic hiss that made everyone jump, Bay Three's doors began to open.
The massive steel panels—each one thick enough to survive a direct Kaiju strike—slid apart on rails that made no sound. As the gap widened, light spilled out. Not harsh fluorescent work-lights, but something softer, almost ethereal.
And there, revealed like a gallery centerpiece, was the Magician.
Even knowing what to expect, seeing it up close was different. The purple-black chassis seemed to absorb and reflect light simultaneously, those luminescent lines pulsing with subtle internal rhythms. The swept-back pylons rising from its head caught the light, looking more like a crown than armor. Seventy meters of elegant, lethal artistry.
But nobody crossed the threshold. Despite burning curiosity, the crowd remained respectfully outside, like pilgrims at a temple entrance.
A platform descended from somewhere above—no visible supports, no cables, just a flat disc carved with intricate geometric patterns that glowed faint red. Aidan stood on it, looking tired but satisfied, still wearing his work clothes.
"Come in," he said, smiling slightly. "I know you've been waiting."
Another platform materialized in front of the entrance—same glowing patterns, same impossible suspension. It just... appeared, hanging in mid-air about waist-height.
Newton stared at it. His "space technology" theory was looking shakier by the second. Magnetic levitation didn't work like this. Magnetic levitation needed magnets, needed infrastructure. This platform had nothing. It floated like the world's most advanced magic carpet.
Nobody spoke. The platform was wide enough for about ten people. Pentecost, leading by default, stepped onto it first. The surface was solid, stable, slightly warm to the touch. Others followed—Mako, Raleigh, the Hansens, Newton, Gottlieb.
The platform rose smoothly, carrying them up to Aidan's level. Another platform extended to meet them, transferring passengers. Then another. Within two minutes, everyone who'd been waiting outside was inside Bay Three, delivered via a system that violated at least three laws of physics.
The interior made their jaws drop.
The walls were smooth white metal—not painted, not paneled, but seamless, like the entire bay had been carved from a single piece of material. No stairs, no scaffolding, no catwalks or maintenance access points. No tool racks, no workbenches, no evidence of manufacturing at all.
Just open space and the Magician standing in the center like a sculpture in a museum.
"Tuantuan," Aidan called to the empty air. "Load Magician's technical specifications."
Several people glanced around, confused, searching for whoever Aidan was talking to.
Then a hologram flickered into existence—a stylized panda made of light and geometric patterns, floating at eye level.
"Affirmative. Loading data... generating display."
The platforms carrying the observers began to rise and rotate slowly, orbiting the Magician in a gentle spiral. Holographic screens materialized beside each platform, displaying technical readouts, performance metrics, design schematics.
It felt like being inside a science fiction film. The kind set three hundred years in the future where everything was sleek and impossible and ran on technology that hadn't been invented yet.
"You built this?" Pentecost's voice was barely above a whisper, equal parts awe and disbelief. "In three years? This?"
"Yes," Aidan said simply.
"How—"
"Read the specifications first," Aidan interrupted gently. "Get familiar with the data. Then we'll do Q&A."
Holographic screens floated in front of everyone, waiting to be explored.
300 , 500 , 1000 Each milestone will have 1 Bonus chapter.