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"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."
-Sun Tzu
Word Count 1234
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Through the high-end lenses of the Drone's camera systems, the two men were able to observe the kaleidoscopic environment that was kind of a makeshift home of the Precursors.
"It looks like something straight out of a Sci-fi movie," Stacker Pentecost exclaimed wondrously.
"You aren't wrong, marshal," Kal said while thinking, 'Your world is in fact a sci-fi movie.'
"This separate dimension you are, uh, currently seeing…" Kal pointed at the holographic screen.
"Can't you believe that it runs on a different temporal flow than ours?" He then smiled.
Marshal Pentecost was hit by another train of wonder and shock.
"That is… phenomenal." He shook his head in amazement.
"Since time flies faster there, a long and arduous session of Kaiju creation is shortened significantly. This means that they can swarm humanity with as many Kaijus as possible. But… you never know what aliens are thinking in the end," Kal casually said as he slowly maneuvered the drone past seemingly complicated alien structures.
And behold there they were… the Precursors. Standing at 12 feet and with features that resembled aquatic insects, the Precursors pretty well embodied the word 'alien'. Their heads were typically huge but still incomparable to the xenomorph from Alien covenant. They also had quadruple arms and multiple tiny eyes on their faces. It looked as if they were wearing some sort of religious hats. Kal had read from the net that they followed some sort of cleric hierarchy.
They are creating Kaijus as expected, marshal Pentecost sighed internally when he saw what was going on through the screen. Anyway, what did he expect?
The Precursors were colonists and they wanted to use Earth as a disposable and then after that, continue spreading the Dao of Conquest and Ruination to other planets. That's what they normally did.
Far away from the Precursors doing the creation jobs, was a containment facility that was used to weed out the 'weak', the unneeded, the odd one outs - and ultimately at the end of it all, to pick the strongest survivor of them all.
"The cloning and grafting technology that they are using is some pretty good stuff," Kal found himself saying after witnessing what was happening from the screen.
Marshal Pentecost cast a weird look at him. "Pretty good stuff, are you for real? Why does it feel as if you are planning some robbery or something?'
Kal merely chuckled. "I feel offended when you say something like that. Jeez, It was just a random comment."
"These Precursors are truly diligent. I can't begin to imagine the 'what ifs'." Marshal Pentecost's expression turned grim while he narrowed his eyes at the brutal depiction of survival of the fittest happening.
Kaijus were killing each other left and right, blue blood and gross entrails were splashed all over the place. It was like an open battle royale.
"It is what it is, marshal. This is the reason why Jaegers don't usually last… longer. Give them enough intelligence and 'boom'... humanity will be pretty much busted." Kal zoomed in. The Precursors seemed to be communicating with each other as they swang their upper hands in gesture.
"What could they be talking about amongst themselves?" He talked to himself in a low voice but marshal Pentecost still heard him.
"Don't tell me you also understand alien language, Mr. Kal?" marshal Pentecost grumbled while his mouth twitched momentarily.
Kal removed his gaze from the screen and looked at the marshal.
"Do I look that alien to you, marshal?"
Marshal Pentecost pursed his lips tightly then opened them before saying jokingly, "I can't rule out such a thought from my mind. You seem to be capable of many inhumane things."
"I don't know if I should feel flattered by your words or not." Kal just shrugged nonchalantly.
He then smiled knowingly. "But worry not. I created and then installed the universal translation code inside the drone. It can pick up the sonic frequencies of any living organism and then decode it into something understandable like a text."
"Of course," Marshal Pentecost replied exaggeratedly, "as expected of Dr. Kal!"
Kal looked at him through the corners of his eyes before returning his gaze to the screen.
"Oh."
"Interesting."
He touched his chin while looking at the English text being written on the screen.
"They plan to attack in quick succession."
"This is bad. Very bad." Marshal Pentecost scrunched his brows.
"What's this unknown Jaeger that they are talking about, Dr. El?" He asked when something caught his interest.
Marshal Pentecost wanted to know since the tone coming from the Precursors seemed pretty much agitated. As if what they were talking about had somehow terrorized them.
Kal pretended not to know a thing. "I think they are referring to Black Widow's ferocity even though she had been incapacitated."
Truthfully, they were definitely talking about Void Primus' solar beams, something that he intended to keep a secret for now. He needed to first have a few contributions to his name and later on, give them a huge surprise.
"Oh." Marshal Pentecost didn't think much about it. The most pressing matter at hand was the Kaijus currently being mass-produced by the Precursors.
It was downright terrifying to the core.
"We only have a few months before they hit other cities again," He said grimly with worry showing on his face. Stress lines could be seen on his forehead. He was truly a man with lots of responsibilities on his shoulders.
Kal lightly bit his lower lips while in thought. 'I can really see the butterfly flapping its wings. The effect of my interference is making events go faster than the previous timeline. It isn't that… bad.'
'Even if they attack, humanity will be here waiting for them. In hell.'
"We don't which cities will be targeted but that gives us enough time to prepare ourselves for them. We won't be caught by surprise anymore," Kal said reassuringly.
"We are now no longer ignorant. As the saying goes, know thy enemy as you know thyself."
"Hmm." Marshal Pentecost nodded.
"Do you have some idea or anything that could help us in dealing with them in this short period? From what I am seeing, they seem to be making Kaijus with some sort of innate advantage over Jaegers. This makes things very difficult as it is."
"You trust in my abilities very much, marshal. I think I have something in mind that could prove helpful in curbing those fuckers." Kal smiled smugly, not caring about his language.
Marshal Pentecost chose to ignore it since Kal was an important asset for humanity.
"What is it? Tell me." He asked abruptly in an anticipatory tone.
Kal stretched his palm outwardly while smirking. "Hold your horses. I am not going anyway. It's not good to get clingy, marshal."
Dropping down his hand, he then smiled at him.
"What do you think about weaponized smaller Jaegers capable of devastating a city and supporting the main characters?"
"What do you think about, Project Armoured Core?"
A mad glint shone in his blue eyes. He was a devastator!
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