Space Kenpo

"Are you sure you want to spar with me?"

Raleigh's suggestion piqued Natsuki's interest.

"Let's do it!"

"Of course, no turning into a giant." Raleigh picked up a staff from the floor and tossed it to Natsuki, then took his place on the other side of the ring.

When the pilots watching heard that Raleigh was going to fight an alien, their eyes lit up. They were dying to see what would happen next.

"Sure."

Natsuki caught the staff, weighed it in his hand, and walked onto the smooth floor of the ring in his flip-flops.

As the two stood on opposite sides of the ring, Mako Mori watched them.

Then she turned to Marshal Stacker again, her eyes seeming to ask, Why won't you let me go up there?

Marshal Stacker merely shook his head without answering, then focused his attention on the ring.

"He looks pretty skinny. Can he really fight?" Sasha, a striking woman with neatly combed white hair, folded her arms and studied the tall, lean Natsuki before asking her husband beside her.

"You can't judge a book by its cover."

"If he could save the marshal from a Kaiju, he must possess unimaginable power." Alexis, who sported a full beard, answered with his arms folded as well. The Russian stood there like an iron tower, much like the Jaeger they piloted.

In the ring, the two faced each other.

Natsuki held his staff in one hand, his posture relaxed, without any apparent fighting stance.

"You attack first. Touch me once, and you win." He raised a hand and beckoned provocatively to Raleigh.

To him, this was just a little exercise to help digest his meal.

"Then I won't hold back." Raleigh knew Natsuki wasn't being arrogant; he genuinely had the strength to back it up. After two deep breaths, he launched the first attack.

Gripping the red staff with both hands, he stepped forward and swung it sideways at Natsuki as though wielding a sword.

The force of the swing sent it whistling through the air.

Clack!

Natsuki raised his hand, lifting his red staff to block the sweeping strike with perfect precision. The two red staffs crossed, and no matter how hard Raleigh pushed, they didn't budge.

Then, the next move came.

Just as Raleigh tried to step back, Natsuki moved.

Whoosh!

The red staff in Natsuki's hand sliced through the air, instantly stopping half an inch above Raleigh's head. The gust it carried stirred his blond hair.

"One to zero," Natsuki said with a smile.

The rules were simple: whoever scored more points over five rounds won. Points were earned by striking the opponent's vital areas-though naturally, the blows stopped short of contact.

"Hiss..." Raleigh stared at the red staff above his head, only just coming back to his senses.

His opponent had moved far too fast.

He hadn't expected Natsuki to possess such extraordinary power even in human form.

"Again!" He stepped back several paces and changed his grip on the staff.

He stepped forward again, swinging the long staff.

Clack!

The staff was blocked once more. This time, Natsuki's counterattack stopped precisely over his heart.

"Two to zero."

"Again!"

Unwilling to concede, Raleigh put some distance between them and took several deep breaths, seemingly trying to get himself into peak condition.

He also kept his attention focused, hoping to catch Natsuki's movements.

"All right, then. Let me show you something different."

Seeing how serious Raleigh was, Natsuki tossed his red staff aside.

"Are you sure you don't need a weapon?" Raleigh asked, puzzled by the gesture.

"No need. The weapons I usually use are wheels with serrated edges. Those are more fun."

"But most of the time, I don't use weapons."

As he spoke, Natsuki spread his feet slightly and rooted his stance. He drew his dominant right hand back to his waist in a fist, slowly extending his left hand forward. To Raleigh, the stance looked very strange, but imposing.

"Xia, you attack first this time."

"I'm going to see your movements clearly." Raleigh held his red staff ready to defend, his concentration at its utmost.

"Then watch closely!"

The moment Natsuki spoke, his entire figure vanished!

Boom!

When he reappeared, he was already in front of Raleigh, his right fist extended just before Raleigh's chest. A powerful gust burst out behind Raleigh and swept toward the spectators.

The punch hadn't struck Raleigh, but the gust swept over everyone behind him, letting them feel its power and technique firsthand.

"Hah... hah..." Only then did Raleigh come to his senses, cold sweat beading on his forehead as he gasped for breath.

He collapsed into a sitting position.

He wasn't injured, but when that punch had come at him, he'd caught the scent of death. It had nearly brought back the sensation transmitted through their neural link when his brother died.

The spectators behind him were even more stunned.

"Did you see that?" Sasha smoothed down her wind-tossed hair and stared at the ring in disbelief as she questioned her husband.

"No." Alexis shook his head and frowned. "He moved too fast. And... that punch wasn't something a human could throw."

"Both his physical strength and the technique behind that move were far beyond human limits."

He wondered whether that punch would have gone straight through Raleigh if it had actually connected.

"I don't understand how it works, but it might have something to do with him being an alien." Alexis stroked his beard. "I heard he can also turn into a giant over fifty meters tall."

"Now I'm even more curious about what he looks like in a real fight."

If he could produce an effect like that in human form, Alexis couldn't imagine what would happen if a fifty-meter giant threw the same punch.

"Striking through the mountain!"

"Incredible!"

The three pilots of Crimson Typhoon were reminded of the martial arts legend of striking an ox through a mountain. They were the first to applaud and praise him.

The other spectators joined in the applause.

That move made them feel as though they were watching a martial arts film.

"Three to zero."

"Want to keep going?" Natsuki helped Raleigh up from the floor and asked with a smile.

At the question, Raleigh shook his head decisively.

"No more. I'm done."

"I expected this outcome, but only after facing you did I understand what despair really means."

That split-second exchange was still replaying in Raleigh's mind.

He would remember that punch for a long time.

"At least it opened my eyes. What's that move called?"

"Space Kenpo."

"Space Kenpo... I never thought aliens practiced martial arts too." He looked at Natsuki and teased him with a smile.

"That's perfectly normal."

"War is unavoidable in any universe. Those of us who frequently go out on missions have even more reason to learn combat techniques," Natsuki explained casually.

"That makes sense." Raleigh nodded thoughtfully.

Then he remembered that this was supposed to be his copilot selection test.

The earlier candidates hadn't been able to keep up with him, but against Natsuki, he hadn't been able to keep up at all.

Honestly, he felt the entire selection process had been something of a failure.

"Now I'm curious what it'd be like if you piloted a Jaeger," he told Natsuki.

He wanted to know what would happen if someone as powerful as Natsuki piloted a Jaeger.

What kind of partner could possibly work with him?

"Pilot a Jaeger?" Natsuki paused to consider it. The Jaegers at this base were all pretty cool. Now that Raleigh mentioned it, he really was a little interested.

"Speaking of which, do you have any idle Jaegers here?" he asked.

"Well... you'd have to ask the marshal." Raleigh had only just arrived at the base himself and didn't know much about its internal affairs. "Yesterday, he said there were only four Jaegers left, but I don't know whether there are any spares."

As they talked, they moved away.

They came to the edge of the ring.

Seeing the conflicted expression on Mako Mori's face, Raleigh asked, "Still hesitating?"

"You saw what happened in there. If you don't come up and spar with me, this whole selection process will have been meaningless."

"Or are you scared to face me?"

At Raleigh's provocation, Marshal Stacker and Mako Mori exchanged a look.

Neither father nor daughter would yield.

But faced with his daughter's determination, Marshal Stacker ultimately gave in as her father.

"Go ahead," he finally said helplessly.

Mako Mori's eyes lit up at once. She nodded happily and set her tablet aside.

"You're going to pay for taunting me." She gave Raleigh an enigmatic smile.

"Oh?"

"Then let's see you try." Raleigh was equally unwilling to back down.

After being knocked down by Natsuki, he still had some pent-up frustration.

Mako Mori picked up a red staff and followed Raleigh into the ring.

At last, the two stood on the same stage.

"Overprotecting someone won't help them grow." Standing beside Marshal Stacker, Natsuki watched the two in the ring. "You can't protect her forever."

"I know." Marshal Stacker nodded slightly.

"I just thought..."

He sighed.

"All right. It's time now."

He had wanted to say it wasn't time yet, but the truth was that the other candidates only matched Raleigh on the test data. In practice, they had barely any rapport with him.

They needed another pilot for Gipsy Danger, and from the looks of things, that person could only be Mako Mori.

In the ring, the two were evenly matched, trading victories and countering each other's moves. It was nothing like the one-sided sparring matches before it.

The result was obvious.

He could only accept that fact.

Once the selection was over, Marshal Stacker led Natsuki out of the training hall.

They walked down a long corridor lined with steel pipes.

"The laboratory is just ahead."

"Our three doctors will explain our detailed plan to you shortly."

Marshal Stacker spoke as they walked.

"We're ready to make our last stand."

"Everything is for the sake of ending this apocalypse."