Jake and Nate struggled to block the particle beam assault with their chain sword.
“We gotta get out of here!” said Nate.
Jake thought fast. He reared up his fist and slammed it down! Gipsy imitated the motion—her fist slam cracked the ice at her feet. Gipsy tumbled into the water. Jake and Nate braced as the ice gave way under them.
Obsidian Fury walked to the edge of the hole in the ice that Gipsy had just created and looked down. FHOOM! FHOOM! FHOOM! Detonations bloomed deep below in the water.
WHOOSH! Missiles exploded out of the hole. They arced up and crashed down all around Obsidian, blowing out the ice under the metal beast’s feet. Obsidian Fury crashed into the water and started to sink.
Gipsy Avenger rushed up from the depths, propelled by maneuvering jets in her legs. She slammed into Obsidian Fury, driving the evil Jaeger up through the ice.
Gipsy and Obsidian Fury surged up through the ice, trading thunderous blows as they grappled. Obsidian started to get the upper hand, but then Gipsy blasted the Jaeger. Obsidian flew back and Gipsy rose to her feet.
“I think we pissed him off,” said Nate.
“Good,” said Jake.
Jake and Nate deployed Gipsy’s chain sword.
Obsidian reacted by deploying his chain saws, but this time they turned into whirling blades. Jake and Nate exchanged a worried look. The two Jaegers charged at each other.
“Follow my lead!” said Jake.
Obsidian swung his blades to cut Gipsy’s head off, but Gipsy ducked under the blow and sliced open Obsidian’s chest.
“He’s hurt!” said Jake.
“Go for his power core!” said Nate.
Jake stabbed out to destroy Obsidian’s exposed power core, but Obsidian dodged the attack. Instead, Gipsy’s sword sunk into Obsidian’s thigh. Obsidian chopped off Gipsy’s chain sword, sending Gipsy tumbling.
Obsidian Fury went in for the kill with his chain saws, but Gipsy caught the Jaeger’s wrists. Obsidian Fury pressed, its saws gouging into Gipsy’s head. The conn-pod was about to come apart! Nate and Jake strained with all their might to repel the attack.
Slowly, painfully, heroically, Gipsy Avenger forced the plasma chain saws away from her head and back into Obsidian’s own chest. Obsidian reeled and Gipsy Avenger pressed the advantage—raining blows down on Obsidian. Jake and Nate gave the other Jaeger a beating!
Obsidian tried to counter with its chain saw. Gipsy dodged the blow and ripped the broken chain sword from Obsidian’s leg, burying it in the Jaeger’s neck.
Jake and Nate completed the stab to the neck and went in for the kill: Gipsy Avenger punched through Obsidian Fury’s chest and ripped out its power core! The resulting energy surge fried Obsidian! The rogue Jaeger crumbled to the ground.
Jake surged forward. It was time to meet the pilots who had caused him so much pain.
Gipsy roughly grabbed Obsidian Fury and ripped the Jaeger’s face off. Then Nate and Jake’s expressions changed to horror. Inside Obsidian Fury’s conn-pod, there were no Kaiju worshippers. No pilots at all!
Instead, it was a mass of Kaiju brain tissue with nerve tendrils that webbed out into the conn-pod’s electronics! The brain, which was damaged in the energy surge, convulsed and died.
Jake felt robbed of his vengeance for Mako’s death. There wasn’t a human behind it, no one to blame. Just an even more confusing and ever-deepening mystery to solve . . .
Jake and Nate stood inside Gottlieb’s lab. Gottlieb set a goo-dripping chain saw down and peeled off his thick industrial rubber gloves.
“It’s definitely Kaiju,” he said. “A secondary brain. Used to control the hindquarters.”
“Like the dinosaurs?” asked Nate.
“Actually, that’s a persistent myth. Sauropods did have a sacra-lumbar expansion that was once thought—”
“How’d it get into our world?” interrupted Jake.
“Hasn’t been a breach in ten years. Sensors would have picked it up,” said Marshal Quan.
“I don’t think there was a breach. Kaiju flesh has a distinct radioactive half-life signature, particular to the Anteverse. This specimen doesn’t,” said Gottlieb.
“You saying it came from our universe?” asked Nate.
“The genetic fingerprints indicate distinctly terrestrial modification techniques. Probably engineered from Kaiju tissue left over from the war,” said Gottlieb.
Marshal Quan’s eyes widened. “Precursors didn’t do this. Humans did.”
“How’d a bunch of crazy Kaiju worshippers do all that?” asked Jake.
“Doubtful they could have. Only a dozen or so biotech companies in the world could even take a run at it,” said Gottlieb.
“We need to narrow that list down. Fast,” commanded Quan.
Gottlieb got to work. Quan nodded at Jake and Nate. “Good work. Mako would be proud,” he said. Then he distinctly turned to face Jake and said, “So would your father.”
Jake’s face twisted into thought. He wondered if his father would have echoed that sentiment.
Shatterdome security stood watch over Obsidian Fury, which lay broken and inert on the tarmac. Jules and a tech crew crawled over it like ants.
Amara, Jinhai, Meilin, and Suresh stared at Obsidian Fury in awe from across the tarmac.
“That hunk of Kaiju was part of a Jaeger?” asked Suresh.
“Really thought it was going to be ballerinas,” said Jinhai.
Amara looked at the strange Jaeger, mesmerized. This was technological catnip to her. “We gotta get a look inside,” she said.
“Inside?” asked Suresh.
“That thing’s part Kaiju. Come on, guys. When are we ever going to get a chance to see something like this again?”
“Never. Never would be good,” said Suresh.
“Stay here if you want. But I’m going,” said Amara. Her eyes blazed with determination.
The group followed Amara. Their flashlights stabbed through the gloom.
Amara concentrated her light on the Kaiju tissue striated through the advanced Jaeger tech.
“It’s fused all the way through the system. Like . . . muscle tissue,” she observed.
“That’s how it was able to move like it did. Cool,” said Jinhai.
“Yeah, cool,” said Suresh, who clearly wanted to get out of Obsidian as fast as possible.
An odd bundle of cables caught Amara’s attention. “Shine your light over here,” she said.
Jinhai aimed his flashlight at the cables as Amara wrestled
