First Drift.

[dontchaserabbits]

Pentecost is an idiot. It's the only truth that keeps coming back around to Raleigh's mind as he's getting suited up for his first test run with the new and improved Gipsy Danger.

It won't just be him, though - it'll be Raleigh plus whatever half-witted Academy 'prodigy' who passes all the tests without an ounce of combat skills --

"Am I piloting this by myself now?" Raleigh asks the air, running through all the pre-Drift procedures for a test run. Even as he asks not expecting an answer, the computer's robotic female voice intones, "Pilot Two onboard."





"Mako?"

Maybe Pentecost isn't an idiot.

"You look good."

Comments

[dontchaserabbits]

"Okay. But can you handle mine?"

Because she's going to see all of them, all at once, immediately.

When he finally notices Mako's hand on his arm, she pulls back almost instantaneously. This is going to be --

"Okay, Gipsy," Tendo calls in their ears. "Lining up nicely. Get ready."

The HUD displaying the test-run diagnostics pops up, better and clearer than he remembers. "Great job on the restoration, Mako."

[co_pilot]

She pauses before answering, lets his words sink in as she quietly withdraws. The holofeed spawns and she can see Mr. Choi's face, Stacker standing close by. It's something of a comfort, at least.

"Mr. Choi was the leader on this project," she points out, feeling the need to clarify.

[dontchaserabbits]

"Modest is good but take your credit." Please. You did this.

"You can't count on others to always offer it to you."

[co_pilot]

She opens her mouth to answer, and then -

Neural bridge initializing.

Outside, in the Shatterdome, everything stills to a stop. One could, quite literally, hear a pin drop. Mr. Choi begins the countdown.

"Initiating neural handshake in ten, nine, eight..."

[dontchaserabbits]

Inhale.

"Here it comes."

Exhale. Remember to breathe. It always sucks the first time back.

"Watch the memories go by, like they don't belong to you."

Inhale. Exhale. "Don't chase the rabbit."

[co_pilot]

Confusion strikes in her features; she looks at him again, the countdown fading into background noise.

[dontchaserabbits]

"Random Access Brain Impulses. Memories.

"Don't get attached to them in the Drift. Keep in the flow -- the Drift is silence."

It's harder than it sounds, Mako. Be careful, he thinks at her.

[co_pilot]

"... two, one."

( find the three steels: hochotetsu, tamahagane, nabegane )

( could use a piece of gum )

( fold-forge-weld, sixteen times sixteen )

( was that an earthquake I never felt an earthquake before )

( we have forged steel and it has forged us, Mako-san )

( never never believe that )

Memories rising, consciousnesses overlapping; she can hear everything in his mind, see it swirling to the surface.

[dontchaserabbits]

(When I grow up I want to be

Spike Spiegel - Neil Armstrong - Winston Churchill - Towa Tei - Paul McCartney - a Sasuke champion)

Mom
Dad

What is that alarm?

Red shoes one of my laces broke Mom Dad ---

But then Raleigh's head comes back into it again: Yancy where are you?

[co_pilot]

She feels his fear, and remembers to breathe.

( whoa we're here now, we're here )

In the silence, they both twitch ever so slightly.

Gipsy Danger raises her right arm.

"Neural handshake one-hundred percent. Holding strong and steady."

Gipsy Danger lifts her left arm.

[dontchaserabbits]

"Do you feel it?"

At the moment, Raleigh isn't sure if he's talking or thinking at Mako. Either way, she's hearing/feeling/understanding him.

"The Jaeger is an extension of yourself."

Like swords. Masao Mori, swordsman, and his daughter. Had he died?

Yancy again. And again.

Right hand meets left.

[co_pilot]

She can feel it, like the sword being drawn from its scabbard. Strength and steel and power.

She can feel him too, at the fringes of her consciousness, a small nudge here and there - but not enough to sway her focus yet.

He steps into the defensive stance, and she mirrors him.

[dontchaserabbits]

The brothers Becket flying through Jaeger Academy as fast as they could --

Gipsy belongs to Yancy and Raleigh Becket. Nobody else.

Flickering connection on the HUD handshake display. Oh no.

Mako I didn't mean that --

[co_pilot]

She pulls back, recoiling, but the apology is there, quickly and in her head - and she finds herself accepting.

Peace rolls over her, and Gipsy performs the first initial move set perfectly.

[dontchaserabbits]

"One step at a time, Gipsy Danger." Tendo, a solid voice, "You know the drill."

He does. So does Mako.

But he knows already he's about to see more of her head than she's prepared for.

[co_pilot]

There is a tale that circuits about Jaeger pilots dreaming, of Jaegers feeling the dream somehow and moving with them. She can tell Raleigh's thinking of it now, and in their heads, she scoffs quietly.

Gipsy Danger stutters in the transition from an offensive to a defensive move.

[dontchaserabbits]

Okay, smooth out, no distractions...

Raleigh hazards a look to Mako, to check up, but all he sees is himself.

He is Yancy now, here, in his head - their head - Gipsy's head.

No no no

[co_pilot]

Half of the pod is torn away, ripped open.

She's there, watching helplessly, as the kaiju yanks him out of sight.

Gipsy spasms, as if fending off an invisible opponent.

[dontchaserabbits]

Raleigh is piloting on the right.

Gipsy's right arm tenses and lifts, ready to defend against long-dead Knifehead.

Raleigh saw it - sees it all the time - but now Mako saw, and this is all new.

But then it starts to snow in the Conn-Pod. Snowing grey ashes.

"Mako, we have to get it together. Don't get stuck in a moment. Don't follow it -- "

But now the ground underneath their feet is asphalt, and not chasing the rabbit is advice that's too little, too late.

[co_pilot]

She isn't hearing him. The smell of ashes in the air, strong and thick.

Her stockings are dirty and torn - they're brand-new, she thinks. Her mother and father had told her to dress nice for today.

The red shoe in her hand is broken, laces trailing past her fingertips. She glances back behind her, down the street, at the rumbling that sounds like an earthquake.

The kaiju explodes into view, roaring, crushing a building with a sweep of its hand. Mako screams, scrabbling to get away.

She can't outrun it. She can only try to hide long enough to survive.

[dontchaserabbits]

If Raleigh weren't in Mako's head, he would never think this fragile child in front of him had ever been Mako Mori.

"Mako, this isn't real. You have to snap out of it. This -- "

-- is a twenty-story crab with a segmented yaw of a mouth roaring through Tokyo streets, and Mako thinks - thought - hiding behind a dumpster would save her.

Jesus.

[co_pilot]

There is a man in a suit standing there, but her father always told her never to talk to strangers.

And yet she cannot help herself.

"He told me to wait for him. He said - he would be right back."

The street quakes with each step.

"He said monsters aren't real."

She hides. There is nothing else she can do. She hides and holds tightly to the shoe.

[dontchaserabbits]

"Mako, this isn't real!"

But he is just a man this child doesn't know.




In the Conn-Pod, the weapons cannon powers up.

[co_pilot]

The kaiju fills the alleyway. There is nowhere else for her to go.

She raises her arms to protect herself.

WEAPONS SYSTEM ENGAGED.

Then something snatches the kaiju out of sight. From where she crouches, the street is empty, and she slowly gets to her feet, covering her ears at further deafening sounds.

[dontchaserabbits]

Mako does not know him here.

(A million miles away, he can hear Tendo and Herc and Stacker yelling in the LOCCENT, trying to disengage power.)

All he can do is be a specter over her shoulder, and follow her when the tiny (she's so tiny) moves out from behind the dumpster.

[co_pilot]

There's a flash in the street like lightning, and then everything goes quiet seconds before the kaiju falls into her line of vision, hitting the street with enough of an impact to send her sprawling.

When she rises to her feet again, she walks out of the alley, towards the street.

The kaiju is dead, its wounds still smoking. And then she sees the giant robot towering above it all, larger than even the kaiju.

One of its arms is damaged, and she gasps as a hatch opens at the top of its head, a man crawling out to look down on her -

Sensei.

[dontchaserabbits]

Pentecost?

It all makes sense - out of everything else here, this makes the most sense.

And then out there - someone pulls the plug.

WEAPONS SYSTEM POWERING DOWN

[co_pilot]

Her father had said there was no such thing as monsters.

The neural handshake breaks apart, and she slumps to her knees, arms limp by her sides.

[dontchaserabbits]

Raleigh practically throws his helmet off in a whiplash-effect jerk, disengaging from the pistons and machinery all around him.

Gipsy Danger is shutting down (again) around him.

But that's not the problem.

Raleigh springs over to Mako's hemisphere controls, pulling her (still tiny) body into his lap. He doesn't even notice he is rocking back and forth.

"It's okay, Mori-san. Come back. It's okay."

[co_pilot]

When she wakes, when she realizes what she's done, she won't be able to look any of them in the eyes.

But she's still coming out of the Drift, overwhelmed by sense and memory, and she just blinks up at him.

It is not okay.

[dontchaserabbits]

"Mako." It comes out in kind of a wheeze, like Raleigh can't quite breathe easily until just now.

"Don't move just yet. Please?"

[co_pilot]

Only now does she realize she's trembling, full-body shudders that make her grit her teeth with the force of it.

She eases onto her side and closes her eyes against the pricking of tears.

[dontchaserabbits]

"I'm sorry."

For a million little things.

"It's my fault - you shouldn't have had to see that. You shouldn't have had to see Yancy -- "

Or what could happen to either of them, when and if they ever get deployed.

[co_pilot]

He is as much a part of the Jaeger as they are, Yancy, his ghost felt here.

She would've had to be naive not to realize that, and yet the suddenness of the memory, with its grief and death, still grips her tight.

[dontchaserabbits]

They don't have much more time to themselves here; Raleigh can hear the tech crews moving the gangplank into place to enter the Conn-Pod where they are.

"I saw." She has to be aware of that, at least. "Marshal and Onibaba and you. The red shoes.

"Don't regret me seeing it."

[co_pilot]

She can't manage anything in the way of words, but she shakes her head once, a slight movement.

No regrets. But if she said she wasn't apprehensive about what lies ahead, it would be a lie.

[dontchaserabbits]

Raleigh doesn't get a chance to speak again before Tendo comes in, along with two different tech crews and a medic.

The medic gets glared at; Tendo waves him off.

"Marshal wants to see you ASAP."

Of course he does.

It's going to be a long day.