The jungle was quieter than usual.
That alone made Unit 404 uneasy.
The fog rolled low like a slow, suffocating tide as the trio made their way back toward the basin — the site of yesterday's disaster. Kael kept Ravager to the rear, watching their six with a fusion rifle already hot. Oris led in Specter, scanners humming silently, while Tyren flanked left with Pulse Fang's claw arms half-raised.
Their objective wasn't glory.
It was leftovers.
---
"Specter confirms it," Oris said through the comms. "Target corpse still intact. No major scavenger signatures."
Kael exhaled. "Good. But don't relax."
They crested a ridgeline and peered into the clearing. There, crumpled between two stone pillars and half-submerged in blood-soaked soil, was the lizard Kaiju.
Dead.
Partially crushed. Ribs caved in. A broken leg bent the wrong way.
But the important part?
The body was whole. No signs of organ scavenging. No energy drain.
Tyren whistled low. "Guess big gorilla didn't want leftovers."
"More for us," Kael muttered.
---
They approached carefully, checking seismic sensors for any underground movement. Satisfied, Oris deployed his custom-built bio-siphon unit — a twisted hybrid of coolant coils, chemical converters, and Kaiju bone tubing — and jammed it deep into the creature's side.
Black-red blood pumped through the pipe, sloshing thickly into the distiller.
The cave-made refinery began its slow churn.
Condensation hissed. Filters pulsed. Radiant fluid collected milliliter by milliliter.
---
"It's working," Oris confirmed. "We're processing clean."
"How much fuel will we get?" Kael asked.
"Maybe half a liter," Oris muttered. "Same as before. Just enough for a test."
They worked for an hour — draining, monitoring, adjusting flow. The blood was hotter than the tiger's. Maybe more alive. That could be good... or dangerous.
By the end, they had 480 ml of usable Kaiju-fuel.
And a towering corpse still fresh.
---
The trio loaded the fuel canister into Specter's secure bay and hauled the rest of the lizard Kaiju back toward the cave using grappler hooks and booster tugs. It scraped a wide trench through the forest as it dragged behind their mechas — leaking slime, stinking of iron and rot.
But they didn't care.
This was progress.
---
Back in the cave, Oris powered the converter.
Nox-4 loomed in its support rack — its skeletal frame quivering faintly as the energy lines pulsed red.
The fuel hissed into the core chamber.
A low hum vibrated the floor.
The central eye flickered — once… twice…
Then Nox-4 roared to life.
---
For three full seconds, the cave blazed with red-blue light as the core surged.
Hydraulic limbs twitched. Power nodes activated. Optical sensors glowed with a low golden haze.
The armor plating shook.
And then...
Darkness.
---
The core faded. The fuel ran dry.
Nox-4 slumped again, its breath stolen once more.
But Kael was smiling.
"So it works."
"It works," Oris confirmed. "But it burns through the biofuel like jet-fire through silk. At this rate, we'd need a dozen lizards for just one sortie."
Tyren leaned against the cave wall. "Yeah, well, good luck finding a dozen of those without ending up a snack."
Kael turned toward the corpse. "Then let's use what we can find."
---
The Kaiju's skin was unlike anything they'd seen.
Layered scales fused with fibrous tissue, metallic filaments woven into every segment. It was dense, durable, and oddly elastic — more like organic armor than hide.
Kael ran a blade along the surface. Sparks flew.
"Try blending it with rad-metal sheets," he said.
"Already thinking that," Oris replied, pulling up design schematics. "If I reinforce existing shoulder armor with this scale layer, we might increase impact resistance by twenty-five percent. More if we weave it into the internal gel pads."
Tyren grinned. "Kaiju skin mechas. Now we're talking."
Kael nodded. "Don't just think defense. I want weapons, too. If their hide is this strong, maybe their bone can work for blade reinforcement."
Oris raised a brow. "Spine fragments might work. Especially if we use them to edge your vibroblades."
"Try it."
They worked into the artificial night.
---
By cycle's end, they had:
Four plating segments created from Kaiju hide-radmetal hybrid. Durable. Slightly heavier, but three times as resistant to plasma burns.
One limb test-blade mounted to Pulse Fang's forearm, made from lizard Kaiju's femur, reinforced with micro-carbon threads. It hummed like a vibrosword and withstood stress tests against alloy slabs.
Additional mecha coolant routing modified with bone fragment tubing — surprisingly stable.
A long strip of raw hide saved to be bonded onto Nox-4's chest armor once fully powered.
---
By the time they powered down, the cave looked more like a forge than a shelter.
The corpse was now a pile of used parts and empty skin.
Kael stood before Nox-4, watching its silent face.
"We're not scavengers anymore," he said.
"No," Oris agreed. "We're engineers now."
Tyren cracked his knuckles. "Engineers with giant swords."
Outside, the fog thickened once again. The distant ground rumbled faintly.
Something big had moved far away.
But it no longer made them freeze.
Because now, for the first time…
They had armor thick enough to stand.
---