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The moment the Mirror Dimension fully manifested, reality rewrote itself.
The tentacles—those massive stone-flesh appendages that had been surging toward Magician like a tidal wave—simply vanished. Not destroyed, not severed. Erased from this iteration of space, shunted into a different dimensional layer where they couldn't reach.
The entire landscape froze, caught in Aidan's constructed reality. The crimson sphere that had been dominating the sky disappeared from view, though its light somehow remained—the ground and Gobi outcroppings still painted in shades of scarlet and orange, like the world was lit by magma rather than sun.
Magician hung in the air at the dimensional center, the axis around which this pocket universe pivoted. Aidan was, quite literally, the god of this space.
His gaze dropped to the three Precursors still standing on their observation platform. With a casual gesture—barely a thought, really—space folded. The platform and its occupants relocated instantly, materializing directly in front of the seventy-meter mecha.
Up close, the size disparity was almost comical. The Precursors were short—maybe dwarf-height by human standards, four feet tall at most. They looked like insects standing before a skyscraper.
"Guru, hiss—kkt-kkt—" The lead Precursor made sounds like clicking mandibles, rapid-fire vocalizations in a frequency range that grated against human hearing.
Aidan had no idea what it was saying.
"Tuantuan, begin translation protocol," he ordered. "Cross-reference against Scunner's memory data. Decipher their language structure."
"Processing," the AI confirmed. "Analyzing phonetic patterns..."
While the translation algorithms worked, the lead Precursor kept talking—or shouting, maybe. Hard to tell with alien body language. The tone sounded aggressive, demanding. Either asking questions or issuing threats, possibly both.
Aidan didn't respond. Just watched, silent and immobile, as the Precursor's vocalizations became more insistent, more frustrated.
That silence seemed to enrage it. The bone crown on its head—that trident-shaped crest—snapped down like a helmet locking into combat position. The Precursor's posture shifted, muscles coiling.
Then it launched.
One second it was standing on the platform. The next it was a blur of motion, moving fast enough that afterimages trailed behind it. The thing accelerated like it had been fired from a railgun, closing the twenty-meter gap to Magician's chest in under a second.
"CRASH!"
The impact was tremendous—a freight train hitting a wall at full speed. The Precursor's entire body mass concentrated into a single point strike, aimed directly at Magician's torso where the Conn-Pod would be housed in a traditional Jaeger.
It knew where the pilot sat. It was going for the kill.
Magician didn't move. Didn't flinch. The purple runic patterns across its frame pulsed once with brilliant light—defensive wards activating, hardening reality around the impact point.
The Precursor bounced.
Not just stopped. Rebounded, like it had hit a trampoline made of force fields and spite. The kinetic energy of the charge reversed instantly, hurling the Precursor backward at the same speed it had arrived. Its translucent wings flared desperately, catching air, bleeding off momentum before it could slam into the distant ground.
It landed back on the platform, trembling, clearly hurt. The other two Precursors rushed forward to steady their leader.
Inside the Conn-Pod, Aidan was examining the impact telemetry, eyebrows raised in genuine surprise.
"Thirty tons of force," he murmured, reading the numbers displayed across his HUD. "That's... actually impressive."
Not Jaeger-level. Not Kaiju-level. But for a biological creature that size? That was superhuman by a massive margin. These things were dangerous in hand-to-hand combat.
The lead Precursor seemed to reach the same conclusion from the opposite angle. Its aggressive posture deflated slightly, body language shifting from attack to something more cautious. Whatever had just happened, it had hurt. Bad. Getting hit by twice your own kinetic energy would do that.
"Translation complete," Tuantuan announced. "Generating linguistic package for neural interface."
"Download it."
Data streamed directly into Aidan's brain—not comfortable, never comfortable, but fast. In seconds he had functional fluency in whatever passed for the Precursor language. Syntax, grammar, common phrases, cultural context derived from Scunner's memories.
Magician descended slowly, the mecha's movements deliberate and unthreatening despite its overwhelming size advantage. The purple gem set between Magician's horn-like pylons flared crimson, projecting a scanning beam that resolved into a holographic figure.
Aidan's avatar manifested in front of the three Precursors—life-sized projection, detailed enough to read facial expressions. Magician's internal lights activated simultaneously, flooding the Mirror Dimension's twilight with harsh white illumination that made the Precursors flinch.
"Greetings," Aidan said, the translation software rendering his words into their clicking, hissing language. "I represent Earth. I've come to negotiate with the Precursor civilization."
At this range, with proper lighting, he could finally see them clearly. They were... unsettling. Four arms, translucent membrane wings where arm met torso, exoskeletal plating covering vital areas. The bone crowns weren't decorative—they were part of their skull structure, growing naturally from cranial plates.
The comparison that jumped to mind was Xenomorph—the classic movie monster. Similar biomechanical aesthetic, similar segmented body plan, similar unsettling fusion of insect and predator. These Precursors were smaller than an Alien Queen, but they had that same aura of wrongness, like evolution had taken a left turn somewhere and produced nightmares instead of mammals.
Their faces were the worst part. No proper eyes—just bulbous, fish-like orbs without pupils or irises, reflective and empty. Staring into those eyes was like looking into a shark's gaze: intelligence present but utterly alien, impossible to read.
The lead Precursor straightened despite its injuries, attempting to salvage dignity.
"I am Achilles Ares," it said, voice carrying harmonics that the translation software struggled to render. "Commander of the Anteverse Expeditionary Force."
"Aidan Ryan. Earth researcher."
Then silence. Awkward, heavy silence as both parties tried to figure out what the hell came next.
For Achilles, the situation was clearly terrifying. This unknown entity had appeared from nowhere, demonstrated spatial manipulation on a scale the Precursors couldn't match, trapped them in a pocket dimension, and remained completely invulnerable to their best combat assets. And it wanted to "negotiate," which could mean anything from peace talks to extended torture.
For Aidan, the problem was simpler: he knew almost nothing about Precursor civilization beyond what Scunner's memories had shown. And this space wasn't even the colony proper—just a waystation, a dimensional pocket connected to Earth via wormhole. The actual colony could be anywhere.
The silence stretched uncomfortably.
Then Aidan made his move.
"If you have nothing constructive to say," he announced, materializing an object that floated toward Achilles, "put this on."
A silver band drifted through the air—sleek, metallic, covered in microscopic circuitry. It looked like a crown designed by someone who understood neurology.
Achilles caught it reflexively, staring at the device with visible suspicion. "What is this?"
"Memory extraction interface." Aidan's tone was matter-of-fact, almost casual. "I need comprehensive intelligence on Precursor civilization, capabilities, population, technology base, strategic assets. This is the fastest method."
Achilles looked down at the band, then back at the holographic human, those fish-eyes impossible to read but body language screaming alarm.
The silence stretched. Calculations running behind an alien mind.
"...Understood," Achilles said finally. "But I require information in exchange. The energy you manipulate—what is its nature?"
Ah. Of course. The Precursors had seen magic, recognized it as something outside their technological framework, and desperately wanted to understand it. Maybe even replicate it. Knowledge was power, especially knowledge of abilities that could bend space like tissue paper.
"It's called magic," Aidan said simply.
Then his hand moved. Crimson energy poured from Magician's extended palm—not solid, more like smoke given malevolent purpose. It flowed through the air like a living thing, wrapping around all three Precursors, invading their bodies through respiratory spiracles and membrane gaps.
Their eyes went glassy. Consciousness suppressed but not extinguished, awareness locked behind magical compulsion.
Achilles moved with jerky, puppet-like motions, slowly raising the memory extraction band to his head. His hands trembled—fighting the compulsion, maybe, or just responding to nervous system override. The band settled into place with a soft click.
Electricity hummed. Neural interface protocols engaged. Achilles's eyes rolled back, eyelids closing over those unsettling fish-orbs.
Then nothing. Just waiting.
Aidan checked the progress indicator: 2% complete. The extraction was going to take a while—apparently Precursor neurology was significantly different from Kaiju brain structures, requiring more careful data parsing.
He could stand here and watch a progress bar, or...
Aidan dismissed the Mirror Dimension's internal view and shifted his attention to the artificial star.
Outside the pocket dimension, the crimson sphere still hung in the Anteverse sky, that massive energy construct that kept this dying world minimally habitable. Aidan guided Magician closer, fascinated despite himself.
This was technology centuries beyond humanity's capabilities. A stellar energy harvester scaled to planetary needs, sophisticated enough to mimic a sun's life-giving radiation while remaining stable in a dimension that clearly had different physical constants than baseline reality.
He spent the better part of an hour examining the construct's architecture, mapping energy flow patterns, analyzing the collection arrays that pulled power from... somewhere. Another dimension? A true star in yet another parallel universe? The technology was remarkable.
Eventually, curiosity satisfied, Aidan returned to the Mirror Dimension.
The memory extraction device had shifted to green—process complete, data ready for review. The three Precursors remained frozen, still locked in magical stasis, breathing but not aware.
Aidan retrieved the band, connected it to Magician's data systems, and settled into the Conn-Pod's primary seat.
"Alright," he muttered. "Let's see what you people are really about."
The memories began to play.
300 , 500 , 1000 Each milestone will have 1 Bonus chapter.