First pulse

The sky above R22 was strange that morning—more still than usual, with clouds swollen thick like they were holding their breath. A strange metallic scent tainted the wind, and the soil underfoot hummed, as though the planet itself was aware something different was about to begin.

Inside the new Unit 404 base camp, silence hung like fog.

Kael stood at the neural console, his eyes steady, fingers gliding over the final switches as Tyren tightened the strap around the base of his neck, locking in the sync port. Nearby, Ryssa and Ziya were at the diagnostics station, watching their vitals, cross-checking energy frequencies, and prepping emergency overrides.

"You understand what this means?" Ryssa asked, her tone barely above a whisper.

Kael didn't look away from the screen. "We do."

Tyren exhaled. "If this fries our brains, I'm haunting you."

Kael smirked slightly. "You'd be the worst ghost."

Ziya gave a nervous chuckle, but no one else laughed.

The neural sync wasn't just theory anymore. This was it.

"Ready?" Ryssa's voice was flat now—commander mode activated.

"Do it," Kael and Tyren said in unison.

The final switch was pulled.

A soft hiss escaped the console, followed by the sensation of a brief static wave—like the moment before a storm hits. Then came stillness.

And then—

Everything.

Kael gasped.

He was no longer just in his body.

He was in Tyren's.

Tyren was in his.

Their sight overlapped, thoughts meshed. There was no "you" or "me." Their minds danced at hyperspeed, sharing instincts, memories, and reflexes. It was like having four eyes, four arms, two battle-hardened instincts aligned into one furious entity.

Kael's voice echoed inside the neural channel: "Ready?"

Tyren's reply was a pulse of reckless excitement: "Born ready."

---

The Hunt Begins

Within the hour, Ravager and Brawler moved side by side, cutting through the broken terrain of Northern R22. Both mechas had been reinforced—Kael's Ravager now possessed pulse boosters along the spine, and Brawler had a new rail-lance integrated into its right arm.

From orbit, Unit 404's drone fed them overhead scans. One blip. Moving.

"East quadrant," Ryssa's voice echoed in their shared comm. "Possible Class-5 movement. Fifty-meter height."

Kael didn't need to speak.

Brawler moved first, ducking under an arch of collapsed metallic trees. Ravager veered left, mirroring like a twin shadow.

They didn't talk strategy—they felt it.

The Kaiju emerged from a shattered mountain ridge. It was... grotesque. A centipede-limbed monstrosity, its back spiked with uranium crystals, eyes glowing not red but a sickly shade of violet. Its body pulsed like an exposed nerve.

It screamed—not from a mouth, but from somewhere deeper. A psychic howl.

Attack.

Brawler dashed in first. The ground shattered beneath its thunderous steps. Ravager launched upward, slicing through the Kaiju's upper flank with an energy katana that blazed cobalt through the mist.

The Kaiju countered, tendrils lashing.

Ravager flipped in mid-air—Tyren boosted his power to Kael's cockpit through the neural link. Kael used the extra output to redirect the descent and land behind the Kaiju.

"Go low."

"Already there."

Brawler surged beneath the beast's legs and drove the rail-lance into a weak joint.

Boom.

The Kaiju shrieked. Acid blood spilled.

But it wasn't done.

It twisted with unnatural flexibility, its tail wrapping around Brawler like a constrictor. Sparks flew. Power dropped.

Tyren's body strained.

Kael felt it. "Hang on—boosting."

Ravager slammed a charge module into the ground. A shockwave radiated outward, destabilizing the Kaiju's grip. Brawler broke free just in time as the Kaiju vomited a cloud of irradiated mist.

"Fall back!" Ryssa's voice snapped, but they didn't listen.

"Going for the kill," Kael sent mentally.

Tyren didn't reply—but he aligned the rail-lance.

Ravager leapt, bounced off Brawler's shoulder, and plunged its blade directly between the Kaiju's eyes with enough force to crack the skullplate.

The creature buckled, convulsed, and collapsed—rattling the very earth.

It was over.

For a moment, there was no sound but the mechanical exhale of two mechas standing amid destruction.

---

The Disconnect

The neural link disengaged with a soft pop.

Kael collapsed forward in his cockpit, lungs heaving. Tyren leaned back in his chair, arm trembling.

"I... felt everything," Tyren whispered.

"Same," Kael responded, wiping sweat from his brow. "Even your thoughts. Your... weird obsession with spice noodles."

"Shut up."

Outside, the Kaiju carcass steamed and hissed, its blood slowly crystallizing into unstable metal shards.

Ziya's voice crackled through the comm. "...That was... like poetry and death mixed into one."

Ryssa stepped forward toward the clearing, her boots crunching on scorched earth. Her eyes darted between the smoking husk and the two towering mechas.

"I've seen elite squads fall to lesser Kaiju than this," she muttered. "But you two... you're not pilots anymore."

Kael opened his cockpit and stood atop Ravager's shoulder.

"No," he said. "We're something else now."

---

Back at Camp

That night, the carcass was hauled in pieces to a temporary field lab. Ryssa ran blood samples through spectral analysis. Ziya watched the footage repeatedly on her holopad, her cheeks tinted pink as she lingered on a frame of Tyren catching Ravager mid-air.

Tyren, meanwhile, was lying on his bunk, one arm draped over his face. "My brain feels like it ran a marathon... while drunk... on fire."

Kael sat in silence, staring at his hand. He could still feel Tyren's thoughts. Not clearly—but echoes.

"It's like a ghost limb," Kael murmured. "Part of me still thinks like you."

Tyren opened one eye. "That's terrifying."

Kael smirked faintly. "Or tactical."

---

Final Thoughts

Ryssa sat alone on the ridge, her datapad beside her, the neural sync footage paused mid-fight.

Her gaze wasn't on the data.

It was on Kael, sitting silently across the field, staring into a small fire.

He hadn't spoken to her much since the hunt. His walls had returned. But she saw something else now. Something deeper.

He wasn't just a soldier anymore.

He was a weapon.

A weapon who had finally found someone—Tyren—whose soul was tempered enough to sync with his.

And that realization made her heart ache.

She clenched her fists.

"I'm not going to lose you, Kael," she whispered into the dark.