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Bonus Chapter.
The waters off Hong Kong had been scrubbed clean.
Two days of intensive cleanup operations had removed every chunk of Kaiju biomass, every fragment of destroyed armor plating, every trace of the battle that had nearly torn the city apart. The ocean looked almost normal again—just water and waves and the occasional patrol boat.
Except for the cage.
It sat about a kilometer offshore, a massive steel construct the size of a city block, half-submerged in the shallows. And inside, bound by crimson energy cables that pulsed with internal light, was Scunner.
The Category-4 lay motionless, wrapped in what looked like glowing rope but behaved more like solidified light. The restraints didn't just hold the Kaiju—they suppressed it, locking down neural activity, preventing even the most basic motor functions.
People had theories about those energy bonds. Some of the engineers insisted they were exotic particle fields, some kind of electromagnetic containment. Others—especially after last night's demonstrations—were quietly using words like "sorcery" and "magic bindings" when they thought nobody was listening.
Either way, having a living Category-4 this close to a major population center made everyone nervous. Orders from the Shatterdome were clear: nobody touches it, nobody kills it, we wait for further instructions.
So the navy formed a perimeter—destroyers and frigates creating concentric rings of security, weapons hot, everyone very aware that if those red cables failed, they'd have about thirty seconds before Hong Kong became a war zone again.
After the tour of Bay Three concluded—after the mind-breaking revelations about magic and bio-metal and the entire paradigm shift that was Project Magician—Aidan and the core team took a helicopter out to the containment site.
The landing pad was on a destroyer that served as the operation's floating command post. The moment the helicopter's skids touched down, a figure in an aggressively loud outfit came striding across the deck.
"Marshal Pentecost! My friend!" The man wore a crimson suit that probably cost more than most people's cars, paired with a golden tie that caught the sunlight like a mirror. But the real statement piece was the shoes—actual gold, polished to a mirror shine, absolutely impractical for shipboard operations.
He looked like a game show host who'd gotten lost on the way to Vegas.
"This is Hannibal Chau," Pentecost said with barely-disguised distaste. "Black market dealer. Specializes in Kaiju parts."
The look Pentecost gave Aidan was loaded with resentment and exhaustion. After you disappeared with all the funding, I had to sell corpse parts to this peacock just to keep the lights on.
Aidan could only shrug apologetically.
"What are you doing here, Hannibal?" Pentecost's tone made it clear the man wasn't welcome.
"What do you think I'm doing here?" Hannibal spread his arms wide, grinning like he'd won the lottery. "That's a living Kaiju! Category-4! Do you have any idea what that's worth? Intact organs, functional biology, living tissue samples—I could sell this thing for more money than most countries see in a year!"
"We still need it," Aidan said flatly, not even looking at him. "And after we're done, it won't be alive anymore."
Hannibal's smile faltered. He squinted at this stranger who was casually dismissing him. "And who the hell are you?"
Aidan ignored the question entirely. "Get the equipment deployed. Let's move—the Security Council is waiting for this data." He walked past Hannibal like the man was a piece of furniture, heading toward the cage structure visible in the distance.
For a moment, Hannibal just stood there, expression caught between outrage and calculation. Nobody ignored Hannibal Chau. He owned the Pacific Rim's black market economy. Even Pentecost, who clearly hated him, maintained professional courtesy.
But a living Category-4 was worth swallowing his pride. At least temporarily.
He followed, gold shoes clicking on the metal deck.
The cage was connected to the surrounding vessels by a network of floating pontoon bridges—industrial-grade construction that swayed gently with each wave. The team crossed single-file, the platforms shifting underfoot, spray occasionally misting up from below.
Scunner filled the cage like a monument to alien evolution. Easily forty meters long, built like a fusion of turtle and gorilla, armored plates covering most of its body. Four compound eyes stared at nothing, pupils dilated and unfocused. The crimson energy cables wrapped around its limbs and torso, pulsing rhythmically.
Up close, it didn't look particularly vicious. Those four eyes gave it an almost gentle expression—docile, even. Of course, that might have been the magical restraints doing their job.
"I still can't quite believe it," Pentecost muttered, tilting his head back to take in the whole scene. "When you said 'magic,' part of me thought it was metaphorical. Advanced science we don't understand yet."
He gestured at the energy cables. "But looking at this? I don't think science does this. Not our science, anyway."
"It's a lot to process," Aidan agreed with a slight smile. "Your worldview gets rewritten pretty dramatically."
Newton and Gottlieb arrived carrying the memory extraction device between them, huffing from the effort. Newton paused, glancing back at the pontoon bridge. "Hey, who was that guy in the ridiculous outfit arguing with security?"
"Black market dealer," Pentecost said dismissively. "Don't worry about him."
"Let's get started." Aidan climbed onto the cage structure, finding handholds in the reinforced steel, and swung himself closer to Scunner's head.
"Um." Newton looked up at the Kaiju's armored skull. "We didn't bring drilling equipment. That cranial plating is like thirty centimeters of reinforced bone. We'd need industrial tools to—"
"I'll cut it," Aidan said simply.
His hands moved in front of his chest, palms facing each other about shoulder-width apart. A line appeared between them—perfectly straight, shimmering like heat distortion, visible only because of how it bent light around itself.
Everyone stopped talking. This was different from watching Magician deploy on a battlefield. This was right there, happening three meters away.
Aidan's hands began to move—slow, deliberate gestures that looked half like martial arts and half like conducting an invisible orchestra. The line between his palms followed his movements, bending, curving. His hands drew a circle in the air, and the line became a loop. Another gesture, a whispered word in a language nobody recognized, and the loop solidified.
What emerged was a blade made of nothing. Or rather, made of the space between things. Transparent except where it distorted light, irregular edges that seemed to exist and not-exist simultaneously, held in Aidan's grip like a sword forged from physics equations.
"Holy shit," Chuck breathed.
"Space Blade," Aidan explained, like that clarified anything. "Cuts through material by separating spatial coordinates rather than applying force. Should work fine on Kaiju biology."
He took a few steps back for distance, raised the impossible weapon, and swung.
The blade passed through Scunner's skull without resistance. For a moment, nothing happened. Then a glowing blue line appeared where the blade had traveled—marking the cut, outlining the separation.
The marked section of skull and flesh opened, peeling back like a grotesque flower blooming. Scunner's brain was exposed—grey-blue tissue glistening with bioluminescent cerebrospinal fluid, still pulsing with life, completely active.
The Kaiju didn't react. Didn't flinch, didn't roar, didn't even twitch. The magical restraints kept it locked in perfect stasis, unable to register pain or respond to trauma.
Blue blood dripped steadily from the wound, pattering into the seawater below. After a few seconds, the flow stopped—natural clotting agents doing their work.
"Okay," Aidan called down. "Connect the device."
"Right! Yes!" Newton shook himself out of his stunned trance. He and Gottlieb scrambled up with the hexagonal module, moving carefully on the wet metal, and positioned themselves under Scunner's exposed brain.
The connection ports went in smoothly—designed for Kaiju neurology, sliding past tissue barriers and embedding in the cortex. Newton gave the interface cable one final check, then activated the system.
The device hummed to life. The center panel opened, projector core glowing, and a hologram materialized above the cage.
This time, the memory playback wasn't fragmented. It started at the beginning.
The projection showed the Anteverse—that same toxic blue world, atmosphere thick with chemicals, surface covered in organic structures that looked more like cancer growths than architecture. But the camera perspective was different now. Lower, smaller.
An embryonic Kaiju floated in a cultivation vat—flesh-colored, translucent, looking disturbingly like a massive fetus. The fluid around it glowed with energy. As everyone watched, the embryo grew, accelerated development visible in real-time. Cells divided, organs formed, skeletal structure developed.
But it wasn't natural growth. Throughout the process, one of the Precursors—wearing that distinctive red bony crown—manipulated tentacle-like machinery connected to the vat. Syringes the size of telephone poles injected substances into the growing Kaiju. Each injection caused visible changes—armor plates thickening, muscle mass increasing, specialized organs forming.
This wasn't evolution. This was engineering.
The Kaiju was being built. Designed. Custom-grown for specific combat parameters.
The memory progressed. Scunner grew to maturity, its form guided by those constant genetic interventions. The Precursor with the red crown—clearly some kind of engineer or scientist—adjusted variables, modified the creature's development, shaped it like a sculptor working clay.
The revelation was undeniable, captured from Scunner's own memories:
The Kaiju weren't just weapons.
They were manufactured bioweapons, products of an advanced civilization that had turned organic engineering into an art form. The Precursors didn't just use the Kaiju.
They made them. From scratch. For one purpose.
Planetary invasion.
Reach 500 powerstones for bonus chapter.