Modifications and Attack—Please Keep Reading

Eight months passed in the blink of an eye.

Although the Wall Faction's Life Coastline Project had yet to be fully completed in some places, it had entered its final stages. During this time, while the Jaegers' victory rate against newly emerging Kaiju had improved, it was obvious that the Wall Faction, now beginning to seize power, would never give the Jaeger Program any chance to rise again.

Even though Shao Industries had unveiled many inspiring technologies, under the Wall Faction's tacit coordination, few of them made the news or became known to the public.

Eight months later, financial aid was cut off completely, and all the major member nations abandoned the PPDC together.

Fortunately, Stacker Pentecost and the others had never placed their hopes on them. Over these eight months, Stacker Pentecost had become a master scavenger. He visited the Jaeger Graveyard alone more than three times. Each time, he took away a discarded, scrapped Jaeger.

With the Single-Pilot Drift System provided by Luke Field, a well-trained and strong-willed person could already operate a Jaeger independently with the Intelligent System sharing the load. As for veteran Jaeger pilots, with the Intelligent System handling the burden and information processing, they could even perform more effortlessly than they had in two-pilot Drift combat.

No matter how in sync two people had been, no matter how they had seemed like one person under the Drift System's bridge, close and inseparable, it had only been an illusion of seeming. The Single-Pilot Drift System allowed faster reactions and more efficient attacks while piloting a Jaeger.

In the words of the veteran pilots, although two-pilot Drift System users could pilot a Jaeger into battle, they could not fully bring out the machine's capabilities at first. Only as their Drift bridge deepened, their coordination grew more seamless, and their focus became sharper could they unleash more of a Jaeger's combat power.

The Single-Pilot Drift System lowered those thresholds. With a single pilot and the Intelligent System's assistance in sharing the burden, veteran pilots displayed combat power that rarely surpassed what they had shown in two-pilot operation. By their own description, they had nearly reached a state of Man-Machine Unity, where the Jaeger was them, and they were the Jaeger.

Deus Ex Machina?

No. The veteran pilots said, "At that moment, I was like a God of War!"

This was a good thing.

That was how Stacker Pentecost saw it.

The only bad thing was that the once desperately scarce veteran Jaeger pilots were now actually in surplus!

To increase the chances of success for the Final Plan in his heart, and to maximize the value of those veteran pilots, the first thing Stacker Pentecost needed to consider was acquiring new Jaegers.

Yet that was impossible. Although the Wall Faction still transferred money to the PPDC on schedule every month as before, the amount was only enough to keep the bases running and maintain the active Jaegers. Any application to build new Jaegers would undoubtedly be rejected outright. Most supporting factories had shut down, while the major bases had either closed or been transferred away. The once-thriving Jaeger industry chain now had only Shao Industries still operating. To build new Jaegers, they would either need to reopen the supporting factories or place an order with Shao Industries.

Either option would require an enormous financial expenditure.

Unable to build new Jaegers, Stacker turned his flexible mind toward old, retired, damaged, and abandoned ones. So over the past few months, he had practically become a scavenging maniac. Whenever he believed a Jaeger still had value and potential for repair, he made a huge effort to haul it back to the PPDC's main base. Even knowing that outsiders had begun calling him the scavenger general did not stop him.

To him, the plan in his heart was the final battlefield where he would break the cauldrons and burn the boats. For it, he was willing to gamble everything and stake all he had.

Shao Industries—or rather, Luke Field—had also become an excellent Companions in Stacker's eyes. No matter how badly damaged the Jaegers he brought back were, they could give them a complete overhaul and upgrade them to a new generation. Although the PPDC's already limited funds hemorrhaged away during these repairs, Stacker no longer cared.

In the original timeline, the PPDC had only four Jaegers left at this point: the fifth-generation Striker Eureka, the fourth-generation Crimson Typhoon, the constantly patched-up and upgraded first-generation veteran Cherno Alpha, and Gipsy Danger, which Mako Mori and Cai Tiantong had recovered, repaired, and upgraded into a fourth-generation Jaeger.

The strongest, Crimson Typhoon, had even been lost before the final battle. The veteran pilots were either dead or injured, ultimately forcing Stacker to take the field himself at the cost of his life.

Now, with Luke's involvement and technical support, Stacker had far more cards to play. At the very least, Shaolin Rogue had not been destroyed. Combined with the past three months of upgrades and maintenance for those intact Jaegers, as well as the repairs to three more damaged Jaegers, seven Jaegers had moved into the PPDC's main base, which could hold thirty, over these eight months.

Among them, the earliest-built first-generation Jaeger, Cherno Alpha, had undergone a drastic overhaul by Luke in everything except its outward appearance: the energy system, shield system, Intelligent System, and weapons system. If Cherno Alpha's actual combat power had previously been comparable to a fourth-generation Jaeger after all its patches and upgrades, then the current Cherno Alpha could fully bear the title of a fifth-generation Jaeger.

At least, the two old Russian pilot spouses loved the newly modified Cherno Alpha. They felt that Luke's style was exactly the style they liked; the modifications had struck straight at their hearts. Ever since the latest upgrades had been completed, after familiarizing themselves with the new machine, the two had been impatiently hoping for a Kaiju to appear so they could test it in real combat.

Of course, since the two had fought together for ten years and were already accustomed to two-pilot Drift combat, they had no desire to separate. Therefore, Luke Field had not made major changes to the cockpit. He merely set the Single-Pilot Drift System to activate automatically when one of them went offline.

Crimson Typhoon, Shaolin Rogue, and Gipsy Danger, the other Jaegers at PPDC headquarters, had likewise received new modules and modifications, generally raising their actual combat abilities by one generation. At the very least, Crimson Typhoon's three pilots said that with the current Crimson Typhoon, they could definitely take down Huoda, the Kaiju that had previously forced them and Shaolin Rogue into a desperate situation.

"A new Kaiju has appeared. It has landed outside the Sydney Life Wall."

The base alarm suddenly rang out as Cai Tiantong rapidly reported the information.

"Ask the Sydney authorities whether they need us to dispatch Jaegers," Stacker Pentecost said.

Cai Tiantong sent the message as Stacker instructed and quickly received a reply.

"They said that with the Wall of Life, they don't need our Jaegers." Cai Tiantong's eyes widened.