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Aidan sat motionless in the Conn-Pod, eyes closed, consciousness swimming through an ocean of stolen memories. Centuries of experience compressed into data streams, flooding his neural pathways faster than his brain wanted to process.
One detail kept surfacing, demanding attention: the Toxin.
The memories painted a clear picture. One meter long, light blue coloration, roughly 4.5 kilograms. Structurally similar to a facehugger from old horror movies—many-fingered appendages for gripping, a tail that doubled as reproductive apparatus, and blood so corrosive it could eat through metal.
The Toxin wasn't an invasion force. It was native. A natural organism that had evolved alongside the Precursors, adapting to the same hostile environment. But somewhere in that evolutionary arms race, the Toxin had developed an advantage. It became parasitic, aggressive, impossible to eradicate without destroying entire ecosystems.
That's why the Precursors wore those carapace helmets constantly. Protection. Prevention. Terror made manifest in cranial armor.
That's why they'd built the dungeon cities. Not as monuments or fortresses, but as shelters. Sealed environments where the Toxin couldn't reach.
And that's why they invaded other worlds. Not for resources or conquest or ideology. For survival. When your homeworld becomes a death sentence, you either find new territory or go extinct.
Aidan opened his eyes, staring at Magician's internal displays without really seeing them. The strategic implications were staggering.
He scrolled through more memory fragments, searching for technical data. Medical technology—advanced, but not revolutionary by his standards. Nano-lightsaber construction—interesting, possibly useful. Smart rifles and combat armor—pedestrian, nothing he couldn't replicate or improve.
But the biological engineering? That was extraordinary.
And their matter-antimatter annihilation research? That demanded serious attention.
He focused on the Kaiju development program, mining Achilles's memories for every technical detail. The commander's expertise meant this section was remarkably complete—schematics, genetic templates, cultivation protocols, all stored in crystalline clarity.
The Kaiju represented the Precursors' first attempt at biological weapons. Before the Toxin crisis, their civilization had been peaceful, focused on survival and adaptation rather than warfare. They'd developed evolutionary acceleration technology, environmental resistance engineering, biological modification at scales humanity could barely imagine.
Then the Toxin appeared, and peace became a luxury they couldn't afford.
The solution was ingenious and horrifying in equal measure. They'd studied the Toxin's genetic structure, isolated the genes responsible for its environmental impact, and weaponized them. Every Kaiju carried modified Toxin DNA in specialized organs—poison sacs that released terraforming agents when the creature died or bled.
Kill a Kaiju, and its blood would begin transforming the local ecosystem. Making it toxic to humans. Making it perfect for Precursors.
The biological weapons were cloned from Precursor genetic material. Higher-ranking Precursors produced more powerful Kaiju—social hierarchy literally encoded into combat effectiveness.
Elegant. Efficient. Absolutely monstrous.
Time passed. Aidan didn't track how long—minutes or hours, hard to say when you're drowning in someone else's memories.
Eventually he surfaced, mind returning fully to the present, and remembered: three Precursors, still frozen outside, waiting in magical stasis.
He should probably deal with that.
But hesitation crept in. The dove faction complicated everything. According to Achilles's memories, a significant portion of Precursor society wanted cooperation, not conquest. They'd watched humanity's technological acceleration, seen how quickly Earth adapted to the Kaiju threat, and reached a logical conclusion: alliance against the Toxin would benefit both species.
The math supported it. The Anteverse was toxic to humans—even if conquered, it offered minimal resources worth exploiting beyond technology. Earth was equally inhospitable to Precursors—different dimensional physics, requiring permanent wormhole infrastructure just to maintain access.
Neither side truly wanted the other's territory.
A trade agreement made perfect sense: Precursor technology for human military assistance against the Toxin. Win-win scenario, mutual benefit, species-level cooperation in the face of existential threats.
But humans wouldn't see it that way. How could they?
Cities destroyed. Millions dead. Entire coastlines rendered uninhabitable. You don't just forgive genocide because the perpetrators offer a good explanation. Hatred had roots now, deep ones, spreading through collective memory like poison.
Proposing alliance with the monsters who killed your family? Political suicide. Social impossibility.
Though maybe... maybe civilization's long-term survival outweighed individual trauma. War consumed resources neither species could spare. The Precursors had survived for hundreds of millions of years—their technological and industrial base dwarfed humanity's by orders of magnitude.
Fighting them was possible. Beating them was theoretically achievable.
But at what cost?
Aidan sat cross-legged in the Conn-Pod, thoughts spiraling through scenarios and consequences and calculations that had no clean answers.
Then he shook his head, dismissing the internal debate.
Not his decision. He wouldn't force this on either civilization. Present the option, provide the information, let both sides choose their own path. He'd get what he needed regardless—technology, knowledge, power to continue his own journey.
The rest? That was their problem to solve.
The purple gem on Magician's forehead flared, projecting Aidan's holographic avatar back into the Mirror Dimension. From the Precursors' perspective, they could only see the mecha's upper torso—that elegant chest design, the pulsing purple runic patterns like circuitry designed by a wizard.
Aidan gestured casually.
The magical compulsion shattered. The three Precursors jerked like puppets with cut strings, motor control returning in spasmodic bursts. Their fish-like eyes blinked rapidly, consciousness flooding back, awareness reasserting itself.
They spun around in panic, heads swiveling, trying to understand what had just happened. Time had... jumped? Skipped? They'd been standing here, then suddenly weren't, then were again, and nothing made sense—
Their eyes locked onto the holographic human.
"You woke up quickly," Aidan observed with a slight smile. "Pleasant dreams?"
"What..." Achilles's voice carried harmonics of fear and fury fighting for dominance. "What did you do to us?"
"You fell asleep," Aidan said, tone perfectly sincere. "Talked quite a bit in your dreams, actually. Very informative conversations about your homeworld."
Achilles's body language screamed that's not how sleep works, but what could he say? The entity in front of him commanded forces beyond Precursor science. Arguing seemed unwise.
"You command the Kaiju expeditionary force," Aidan said, pivoting the conversation. "Can you contact your planetary council? Arrange communication with your leadership?"
Achilles went very still. "Why?"
"Negotiation." Aidan's expression turned serious, holographic features shifting to convey gravity. "I need someone from your government—someone with actual authority—to meet me. We need to discuss the future of both our worlds."
Silence. Achilles's compound eyes were impossible to read, but his body language spoke volumes. Calculations running. Risk assessment. Political considerations.
Finally: "Yes. I can arrange it."
He was thinking of the dove faction. Achilles's memories surfaced in Aidan's mind even as the commander contemplated them—prominent council members advocating for peace, war-weariness spreading through the population after watching the Earth conflict drag on. And Ella Hayshiz, the supreme leader, who cared nothing for ideology and everything for results. If cooperation benefited the Precursor species, the head of state would support it.
"The meeting location will be here," Aidan said, gesturing at the Mirror Dimension around them. "Neutral ground. I'll arrange representation from Earth. You bring someone with decision-making authority from the Anteverse."
Achilles nodded slowly. "Understood."
"Good."
The purple crystal dimmed. The holographic projection flickered and vanished, leaving the three Precursors alone in the transformed space, surrounded by impossible geometry and the lingering presence of power they couldn't begin to comprehend.
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