Adventures of an Employed Planeswalker

(Matt's POV)

As I leave this room for possibly the last time in a while, it's easy to see the increased activity in the base. People are going this and that way, rushing to prepare everything that they need.

This scene should be happening around the Pacific as I walk toward the deploying bay. Pentecost might be a Marshal at a niche division, but he has a lot of contacts, and people pay attention to what he has to say. 

Perks of leading the division fighting against a threat to humanity, I guess.

The "upgrade" just now was all-encompassing. Walking, thinking, planning, seeing, smelling... everything feels much more pronounced. Fusing deeply with Symby feels like an overall upgrade. Although the focus this time was a better integration with my neurons, I feel a bit stronger, faster, harder... better, even without the full symbiote coverage. 

I can also feel things better now, as what Symby feels is getting passed to me faster. We are more of each other in pretty much every way possible. 

Getting to the deploying bay, I see staff getting the four Jaegers at this base repaired and ready to go. I still need to teach people something because of my drawbacks. I haven't felt anything detrimental about it for now, but I don't want to wait until shit happens to do what I already said I would do.

That'll have to wait for after this day. 

"Stacker, I'm ready," I say, as the Scarab armor flows around my body and sets itself ready.

"...Good. I'm coordinating the final details. You should head there and be ready. The order will be the Bering Sea, East of Japan, Marshal Islands, Hawaii, and West of California. All Jaegers will be there in 2 hours at the latest for the most remote places."

"I'll do that. Never too sure." I nod to the guy in the cockpit that controls the descending bay, and he nods back, opening the bay to me. He doesn't lower it because there's no need for me being so tiny. 

Plopping into the water, I quickly dart away to the Bering Sea.

For some reason, I'm getting kinda nervous. I wonder what they're preparing on the other side, especially if the time-dilation exists and they have a time advantage.

That... thing they did, was so weird. Yeah, the Scarab armor adapted to it so I should be ok but...

Whatever, no use getting jittery now. I have several alien labs to blow up, after all.

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Meeting up with Cherno Alpha and Crimson Typhon in front of the dormant rift, I nod in greeting even as they say their greetings in their native language.

Pentecost's keeping my "alien" identity on a need-to-know basis, so these pilots probably think I'm a (very) short king on a state-of-the-art prototype. It works best this way, I don't want to deal with any more xenophobic or racist (or would it be speciesist?) pricks.

They were already waiting here when I got here, so all I have to do now is get close to the Rift and show a bit of the Kaiju material I have stored.

As expected, the Rift starts opening and... also as expected, we were expected. 

I dash in there immediately engaging all my tentacles and four spider-like appendages from the Scarab armor itself. The spider legs I control while I leave the tentacles with Symby for now. With the canons in my arms already deployed, I face against a sea of gigantic monsters.

There are Kaiju of all shapes and forms. While some do seem "wrong" or missing something, basically incomplete, this time they are the minority. These motherfucker look mean as fuck from where I'm standing, but it is what it is.

Let's see if size really is just a detail.

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Despite their number advantage and preparations, I could still delay them long enough that the bomb was pushed through the Rift. Caby was collecting as much information as he could from their comms as I was fighting. With the updated dialect that I brute-forced into my brain, we now understood their messages.

[Intruder detected on Lab 330, engaging defensive lasers. Sending reinforcements.] 

Huh, so these comms were from automated AI sending out information and distress signals. That makes a lot of sense.

Knowing they are sending reinforcements here messes with my plan to stay behind for a while to get more data on them... Actually.

'Caby, can the Scarab Armor withstand these nukes?'

|With reservations.|

... That makes things much, much easier. Next Rift I'll come in guns blazing and finally try to get into their servers.

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Swimming out of the Rift and seeing it twist and turn and finally snap shut concludes the first Rift of the gauntlet.

Nodding towards the Jeagers, I boost towards the next location. 

"Pentecost, this is Matt. Warn the pilots I'll need some extra time on this next Rift." 

"Their defenses are that bad?"

"Yeah..." I'm not lying, that one was intense. "I'll even let loose a bit more. Tell the pilots to wait 3 extra minutes, to be extra safe." 

Even if I can survive the nuke, it doesn't mean I want to be stranded in another dimension when they blow up whatever machine they use to keep the Rift open.

"Understood. They are already waiting for you at the location. I'll relay the request."

"Thanks."

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Going through this Rift I encountered just as much resistance as last time. Kaiju were everywhere, the Lab was already sounding its alarm, and the lasers were starting to shine everywhere. I raised both my arms and they shone brighter than ever before.

VOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

A pillar of energy cleaved through pretty much all the Kaiju in front of me, leaving only the ones that were either too off to the side or those that kept coming for me even with more than half of their bodies missing.

The point is: this fight is over.

Finishing off the stragglers took barely any time at all and I was soon only dodging the lasers. 

Flying towards the nearest access door-looking thing, the lasers intensified their attacks but after training how to dodge so much and not having at least 3 different appendages to control at the same time, dodging them is way easier now. I still had to tank a few while I forced the entrance open.

Inside was a hallway filled with technological apparatuses that blinked red, along with an annoying pressure on the back of my mind. Ignoring it all, I see a few alien beings fleeing the hallway as they see me. I don't know if I'm supposed to kill them or not, so I'll just let them go for now. 

I had to check a few rooms until I found what, according to Caby's sensors, was most likely to be their servers. It's a strange room, with rows of green walls written in their language. I see words like "Storing", "Information", "Safety" and the like. The impressive thing is that it appears that some energy is pulsing through these letters. Is this language also used and their circuits? 

|Connecting safely with these data repositories will take time. As reinforcements are coming this way, I wouldn't recommend doing it.|

'Every time we get into a new Rift they will be alerted. I don't know how they know when we cross over to their labs, but if even the humans on the other side have a way of knowing it isn't surprising. The longer we stall, the longer we stay in the dark.'

I extend my left arm towards the server. I may be strong with the armor and the symbiote, but not knowing what these aliens can do is my greatest weakness. 

The armor arm physically changed to make something like a blade that... ok, this is weird. Instead of cutting into it, it's almost like the blades diffused within the machine. 

|Probing defenses... defenses engaged, counter-attacking...|

'My nanites have a passive effect of adapting to external threats. Can you use them to expedite the process?'

|Doable, but too dangerous.|

'Last resort then.'

I settled in to wait as Caby did the hard lifting. As a final bit of cautiousness, I tried concentrating on that feeling of danger I associated with Observation Haki now. Every time I'm in this dimension it seems to always be there faintly, something that I only noticed after a few times coming here. It did get easier to feel it after a few times using it to dodge lasers and unexpected attacks.

Fighting a lot of things at the same time seemed to help develop it too.

What bothers me (even though I'm happy I got it this early) is the fact I can seemingly only use it as a Danger Sense for now. I wish I could feel auras, it would make this lookout I'm trying much more comfortable.

|Counter-attack successful. Cleaning up remaining defenses.|

After a minute and a half, Caby won against their initial defenses. The alarm is still going and the tingle at the back of my neck is growing more noticeable. 

'Caby, I don't know what's giving me this feeling, but hurry up if you can.'

|Estimated time to breach into systems: 42 seconds.|

'Symby, pay close attention to our normal senses and be on the lookout. I'll try something.' 

I kept my eyes open and looked towards the door, but stopped paying attention to what I was seeing. I started to try to focus all I could on the tingle.

I felt like I was always expecting something; like someone or something was watching. Similar to the feeling you have sometimes, that something is wrong and that you should look around to try and see what it is.

I tried expanding the tingle, "seeing without my eyes", reaching out to feel other "people" and whatever exoteric thing I could think of to try and unlock aura reading. Unsuccessfully.

'No such luck. Whatever, focus Matt.'

|Data repository breached. Analyzing files and copying them into the database.|

I wonder what I would have done without the Scarab Armor.

Two tense minutes later (with my tingle being the strongest it has ever been) Caby finished copying whatever was in this server. I disengaged quickly and dashed as fast as I could back towards the Rift.

As I passed the Hallway I did see that some of the aliens had returned, but they all ran away (floated away?) as they saw me flying by.

I reached the Rift and went through it. As soon as I was on the other side, the comms reconnected and I hurried the Jaegers to push the nuke inside.

They nodded, activated it, and pushed it in.

As Caby reconnected with the internet on this side, the 5 minutes we spent on the other side were only 1 minute here. That is definitely a big time difference. Good thing it helped me this time.

I can't help but wonder if all the aliens - Oh, they call themselves Precursors - did was finish the development of their already growing Kaiju. Were they waiting for us to invade again so they could wipe out whoever came in? That seems... oddly passive to me.

I'll sift through the data as I go towards the next Rift. There's gotta be something there.

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Yeah, I knew that wasn't all there was to this. 

I learned a few things from the information I got from that server. One thing is that the Kaiju are indeed machines, but they seemingly were made in the image of another alien race. Those from that race are machines but also are... alive?

This other alien species (labeled Cybertronians in the servers) was once their target for colonization. They fought and won against the Precursors, who drew back and started studying what they could of the Cybertronians. 

They started making prototypes of what now is the Kaiju and, thinking that they could now defeat the Cybertronians, invaded their home world, Cybertron, again.

While they were defeated again, this second time was a more even fight, something the Cybertronians also realized. Not wanting to wait until their attackers were stronger, the Cybertronians sent a little army of their own to the old homeworld of the Precursors. 

It was a very messy fight, with millions of casualties on the Precursors' side, until they finally realized that it wasn't a winnable fight. Those Cybertronians were fighting to kill, to wipe them out. 

Trying out a desperate maneuver, the Precursors fired off a project of theirs; an opening in the fabric of space itself to dramatically shorten travel times. The experiment went awry and they managed to warp their whole planet into another dimension.

Most of their population died because of the difference in atmosphere and gravity, leaving only a few in protected facilities to survive. Luckily for them, the Cybertronians also died during the warp, as they were mostly on the planet's surface and were torn asunder as the less-than-gentle space warp tore through them.

The Precursors managed to alter their own bodies enough to survive in this new dimension and, eventually, found the remains of the Cybertronians. These guys literally learned the hard way why we humans don't poke tigers with short sticks and now that they were finally safe? They again began to study the anatomy of the Cybertronians and evolve their Kaiju program (they call it Robotic-Organic Self-Sustaining Lifeform). 

With their pet project of a giant (literally) army, they went back to their portal project, seeing the potential it had. This time they were searching for ways out of their new dimension. 

They eventually got it (I'm skipping generations of research) and started probing the other side of their portals with their Kaiju. They found several inhabited planets that they used to get more materials for their projects. They also found a few populated planets (Ain't that a sobering thought) that they colonized in a very similar way that they are doing to Earth now; constant attacks with the Kaiju, enslavement of the race, the plundering of resources, the works. 

The latest info I managed to analyze is that they have the required technology to warp back into this dimension (Also, knowing that this Cybertron is in this dimension is also a good catch), but they don't want to. They found out about the time dilation and concluded that it was better to keep it that way. So they stay here and open these Rifts to this Dimension looking for resources and doing what this race apparently always wanted to do: conquer.

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Knowing all that (and a few tidbits of information here and there) paints a better picture. If these Kaiju are based on the Cybertronians, I think it's safe to assume that the Cybertronians are at least as strong as the current generation of Kaiju, if not stronger. I can't say which one would be more advanced since the Kaiju project has been going on for centuries, but just the thought of a whole planet filled with robotic beings that could equal that...

I'm not usually a pessimist, but I have a feeling that a race so strong has got to be involved with whatever anomaly I'm going to have to deal with. 

Anyway, those servers had a lot of information about the Kaiju and some history behind how they came to be but ultimately it was a research lab and it had information about their research topics rather than information about themselves. 

This certainly helps but it wasn't what I was looking for.

I can at least conclude that the time dilation exists and it's 1:5, 1 being Earth's dimension and 5 being theirs. I also have access to their dimensional breaching technology, but the machine that opens the Rifts is so large and requires so much preparation and resources to build and maintain... it would be a nightmare to create it on this side. And I'm not even going into the time it would take to do it.

Knowing how it works at least will make it easier for me to sabotage it and destroy it from their side. 

I didn't get any information about whatever they were preparing, but my Haki warned me of danger. Me, with the Scarab Armor and possible Symbiote coverage. 

I might have to do more than just destroy the labs that have active Rifts here to stop this invasion.