The skies over R22 had thickened.
Dark clouds churned like boiling oil, and the winds screamed in distant, echoing tongues. As the dropship pierced through the atmosphere, Ryssa's team braced themselves, their harnesses creaking under sudden turbulence.
The planet had changed.
What was once a semi-hostile world with manageable threats had now morphed into something unpredictable. Radiation levels were spiking in pulses, the terrain warped like bruised flesh, and even the Kaiju signals coming from the scanners moved... differently.
As her boots touched the jagged ground, Ryssa's brows furrowed.
Her instincts were never wrong.
And right now, they were screaming.
---
Kael stood at the edge of their newly formed base—an old canyon hollow converted into a temporary command site. The wind tugged at his cloak, his back straight, and his eyes fixed on the horizon.
He didn't say a word when Ryssa arrived.
She didn't expect him to.
The silence between them was familiar now, a language of its own.
Behind Kael, Ravager Mk III towered like a steel beast, black armor glinting under the planet's unnatural dim light. Tyren stood nearby, leaning on the knee joint of his newly upgraded mecha, Brawler, his eyes locked onto the newcomer strike squad as they disembarked.
Five elite soldiers, polished, efficient, with none of the scars that Kael or Tyren wore like second skin.
"Looks like the aristocrats finally decided to join us," Tyren muttered.
Ryssa didn't rise to the bait. Instead, she walked up to Kael and said evenly, "We need to move out. One of the Kaiju herds was spotted near the uranium trench. Small group. Scout class."
Kael's lips barely moved. "They're not scouts anymore."
She paused. "You think they're evolving?"
"I know they are."
---
The mission began at dusk—though R22 didn't really have a night. Just layers of thicker shadow.
The group moved fast. Kael and Tyren in their mechas; Ryssa and her strike team providing perimeter control in auxiliary walkers.
The target was a Kaiju resembling a scaled bear, hunched forward, its body rippling with muscle and thin glowing lines like molten veins. It stood motionless beside a jagged deposit of glowing ore, chewing slowly—watching them.
It was a trap.
They knew the moment the first missile missed.
Kael's plasma cannon let out a roar, but the Kaiju dodged—not flinched, not recoiled—dodged. It rolled sideways and leapt behind a boulder, sending a shockwave into the rocky ground.
"Kael—what the hell—" Ryssa's voice snapped through the comms.
"It's baiting us," Tyren called out, circling. "This one's got brains."
Ravager and Brawler split directions, flanking from opposite sides. The Kaiju charged Tyren but feinted at the last second, spinning around and smashing Kael's shoulder plate with a forearm blow that cracked his armor.
"Armor breach! Minor hydraulics—compensating!" Kael hissed.
"Not good," Tyren muttered. "Not with those claws."
The Kaiju howled and pounced—straight at Kael.
He sidestepped, twisted Ravager's body and let loose a point-blank rail strike, but the creature used the blast to propel itself into the air, landing on top of Brawler.
Tyren staggered, "It's on me! It's on me!"
Kael didn't think—he launched forward.
He knew the creature would turn.
It always turned.
Kael cut engine power for a second, fell low—and jammed Ravager's energy blade through the Kaiju's underbelly as it turned to counter.
The Kaiju let out a horrific screech—not pain, not rage—frustration. Like a soldier being bested.
Its death was slow. Controlled.
Strategic.
---
By the time the carcass was hauled back to base, the team was silent.
Ryssa walked up to the corpse, inspecting the head. "Kael… look at this."
She pulled back a flap of the thick skin. Beneath it was a layer of metal fragments fused to bone—embedded like armor, but not artificial.
"What the hell is this?" one of her soldiers muttered.
Kael stared. "It's absorbing metal. Rebuilding itself."
"That explains the uranium clusters," Tyren added. "They're not just drawn to it—they're using it."
Ryssa's voice was tense. "They're not evolving anymore."
Kael looked at her, eyes cold. "They're adapting."
---
Later that night, under the dim-red sky of R22, Kael sat alone beside Ravager. He traced a scar across the mecha's chassis with a gloved finger.
Tyren approached, tossing him a ration bar. "Hey."
Kael didn't respond.
Tyren sat down anyway, chewing silently.
After a while, he chuckled. "That thing moved like it had read our playbook."
Kael nodded slowly. "Next time, it might have."
They both fell into silence again.
Ryssa watched them from a distance, arms folded. Her private comm buzzed in her pocket, but she igno
red it.
She was staring at Kael again.
Something inside her twisted, but she didn't let it rise.
Not here.
Not yet.