When It Rains It Pours
“Alright boys, how do those new suits feel?”
“A lot smoother than the old ones,” Hiro answered Marshal Callaghan. He swung his arms back and forth to test his range of motion. He was enjoying the whole procedure. Unlike his brother.
The Marshal cast a concerned eye over Tadashi. “Any thoughts?”
“It’s like he says. Smoother. Easier to move around in,” Tadashi replied. He tried to smile reassuringly at the older man. He really tried. Judging by the look on Callaghan’s face it didn’t seem to be working though.
He wished he was as confident as Hiro about all this. It had been years since he’d hooked himself up to a jaeger. The last time he had….
His hand slid up the left side of his face. For a moment the rest of the world faded away, and he was taken back to a time much darker, where rain thundered down in great sheets, until everything burst into fire and light.
“Mr. Hamada?” Callaghan’s voice brought him back to the present.
He cleared his throat and turned to accept his helmet from one of the jaeger techs. He could feel the Marshal’s gaze boring into his back, but thankfully he said nothing.
Hiro kept up chatter with the other techs while they puttered around making last minute adjustments. Tadashi focused on taking deep breaths and not getting lost in memories. For fuck’s sake he wasn’t even hooked up yet.
Focus. Just focus , he told himself. He continued to take deep breaths while the rest of the staff filtered out of the jaeger and back to LOCCENT control.
“Alright, ready to sync up, pilots?” Wasabi’s voice boomed out through the speakers, making Hiro and Tadashi flinch. “Sorry, sorry,” he apologized, adjusting the volume so it was quieter. “That better?”
Hiro laughed giddily and shook himself out. “I was born ready, man. Let’s do this!”
Tadashi took one look at the blinding smile on his little brother’s face and pushed away all his fears. “All set on this end. Let’s get this show on the road.”
Down on the ground floor Fred was also thinking about the last night Amaterasu Bold and her pilots had been together.
He wasn’t the religious type- being a shapeshifting alien tended to affect your views on such things. However, that wasn’t about to stop him from praying to every god or deity he could think of. He was pretty sure no one had worshipped some of the gods he was praying to in thousands of years. Still, it was the thought that counted. What was that saying? There are no atheists in foxholes?
“Look- the techs are leaving the conn-pod. That means they’ll be making the neural connection soon, right?” Honey asked, pointing up at the jaeger’s helm.
“Yep,” Gogo answered, popping a large pink bubble uncomfortably close to Fred. “Now we wait and see if they crash and burn.”
“Gogo! Don’t say that! I’m sure they’ll be fine,” Honey reprimanded, smacking her lightly on the shoulder. Wow, Fred wished he could be that optimistic. He better keep praying.
“Initiating drift,” Wasabi said. Hiro and Tadashi snapped back when their suits attached to the jaeger and the mind melding began.
Tadashi had almost forgotten how strange it was to experience memories that weren’t his. The weirdest ones were the ones they had shared- memories where he looked at himself through Hiro’s eyes. Their whole lives spun past him in a flash, bits and pieces coming into focus before disappearing. He could reach out to grab them, to live in that moment again, but he knew he couldn’t afford to do that. He had to focus on moving beyond all those. He couldn’t chase the rabbit.
It worked until he saw rain pouring down outside the thick glass of the conn-pod. Just for a moment, he forgot where he really was, what he was doing, how the scars on his body ached in phantom pain.
From the crashing waves it appeared, skeletal and scaly and tremendous. His heart pounded in his chest, and he forgot how to breathe.
Distantly he could hear shouting. Hiro was cursing, and they were grappling with the kaiju- but that wasn’t right. He could also hear Wasabi and Marshal Callaghan yelling at him not to follow the rabbit.
The rabbit? No not the rabbit. The R.A.B.I.T . The Random Access Brain Impulse Triggers.
This wasn’t real. Or rather, it was real, but it wasn’t happening at that moment. It was a memory. It was over and done. He was fine. He had to move on.
The rain and the waves and the terrible beast were stripped away, leaving him panting in the conn-pod as he tried to calm down.
“-ashi is back in sync. Tadashi can you hear me?”
“Yeah, I- I can hear you, Wasabi,” he gasped. “How-how long have I been out?”
“Approximately 8 minutes. Hiro is still out of sync though. Can you try and reach him?” Wasabi asked with a hint of desperation.
Now that Tadashi was starting to normalize his breathing he realized Wasabi was right. Hiro was chasing the rabbit, just like he had been seconds before. He swore he could hear a little radio announcer talking in this back of his head. This just in: the Hamada brothers are idiots.
“Hiro. Hiro ,” he called to his brother. It was harder to see with their visors on, but he could make Hiro’s profile out in the flashing lights. His brother was wide-eyed and unmoving. He had to reach him somehow. Had to bring him back to the present before something bad happened.
And then something bad happened.
Hiro raised his arm, the jaeger copying his movement. The spectators in the hangar started to scatter. They really should have started when the alarms started blaring that the pilots were out of sync, but everyone had been so curious about Amaterasu’s reemergence into the field. Not everyone moved fast enough.
Before Tadashi could try to stop him Hiro had reared back his fist and swung a punch out in front of him. The jaeger’s massive fist hit a catwalk, sending it and a group of screaming onlookers tumbling into open air.
“NO!” Tadashi cried, reaching the jaeger’s other hand out to try and catch them. Some of them were fortunate enough to land in his open hand, but a few were unlucky enough that they continued to fall and hit the ground. The screaming increased, and Tadashi felt his heart go cold.
The bodies lay still where they fell.
Fred grew worried when he saw the blinking warning lights reflecting in the LOCCENT windows. A tinny, mechanical voice rang out across the intercom that said both pilots were out of sync. Concerned whispers broke out amongst the crowds of onlookers, and Fred did his best to appear unperturbed.
“Well, that’s...to be expected isn’t it? After all, they haven’t drifted with a jaeger in years. It’s bound to be a little rocky at first, right?” Honey said. She looked nervously between Gogo and Fred, shifting from side to side on her feet.
Gogo and Fred shared a look that made it clear that it was not in fact to be expected.
Gogo was the one to break the news to Honey. “Actually, no. Jaeger pilots are all trained not to do this. Most times pilots aren’t allowed to create a neural bridge without LOCCENT being sure they won’t go chasing rabbits. To have it happen to both of them at once…”
“Chasing rabbits?” Fred asked. He remembered hearing about that before, but he couldn’t remember what it meant.
“It’s when you get lost in a specific memory,” said Luke, walking up to stand beside them. Luke Castellan was another jaeger pilot. He and his partner Thalia piloted Kronos Albion, a towering contraption of white trimmed with gold. He walked a fine line between being a cool guy and being an asshole.
“Marshal should have had psychiatrics analyze them before sending them back into drift. Who knows what could happen with them like this.” Fred resisted the urge to glare at the blond man for making such an annoyingly logical statement.
“But if they’re out of sync that means they can’t do anything with the jaeger doesn’t it?” Honey said, brows pinched in worry.
“ ‘Fraid not. They’re connected to the jaeger still, it’s just that they’re not really connected to the outside world. They’re living a different moment in their lives than the one the rest of us are,” Luke explained. He opened his mouth to say more, but was cut off by the sound of Amaterasu Bold’s arm raising and clenching its fist.
“Oh shit ,” was all he got out before the people up on the catwalks started to take off in all directions as the jaeger struck out, hitting one of the catwalks.
People were screaming and falling, and Fred felt his stomach crawl up into his throat. Amaterasu’s left hand had reached out to try and catch the falling people but didn’t succeed in saving them all. There were sickening thuds when the bodies hit the floor.
His heart stopped beating for a moment as he processed what had just happened. People were shouting frantically and running and pushing and he continued to stand there staring.
It was a nightmare.
What was happening inside that conn-pod? He knew Hiro piloted the right side and Tadashi the left. That meant Tadashi was probably the one who had caught those people.
And missed , a cruel voice hissed in the back of his mind. He forced it aside.
If Tadashi had been trying to save those people that meant the one doing the damage...was Hiro. What kind of memory was Hiro experiencing that had such an effect on him that he was attacking? What foe did he think he was facing?
Wait a minute...a dangerous foe...a memory with enough emotion behind it to make him lose himself...the first time they had drifted in years…
He knew what memory Hiro was reliving.
The scar cutting across his chest ached and he clutched at the fabric of his shirt that covered it.
Oh Precursors, this was all his fault.
“Hiro. Hiro, please ,” he croaked, reaching his right hand out to his brother. Beyond the cries of pain and terror he could hear the members of LOCCENT frantically trying to shut down the jaeger, but it wasn’t working. He didn’t know what was wrong, but he knew the only way to stop more people from getting hurt was to stop Hiro.
The panic around the jaeger, the shouting, the sirens, the flashing lights, everything melted away until he was standing in the conn-pod next to his brother as the wind and waves roared around them. There were different but all too familiar sounds of distress in the air. The window in front of them was melted in ripples and the metal edges were glowing from the heat.
"Stay calm boys, help is on the way,” Marshal Callaghan’s voice broke through the silence.
Deep breaths , they thought. In...and out...in...out...in...out .
Odokuro raised itself onto its hind legs and roared, flames spewing from its mouth.
Tadashi looked to his left to see himself take a step forward and move the jaeger just as the fire hit the helm, blasting through the window to engulf him. He heard his own screams of pain, felt his skin bubble and burn in the heat from Hiro’s mental link with him.
“TADASHI!” Hiro screamed his name over and over, but his body lay unmoving on the floor, the neural link silent.
“Hiro,” he whispered. He wanted to shout, wanted to reassure his little brother that he would be alright, but he couldn’t. He’d never- he’d never asked Hiro what happened after he went down in the flames. The mission report Marshal Callaghan had handed him to explain things was as far into the matter that he’d looked. He hadn’t wanted to address the topic. He was a fool.
He should have talked to Hiro about what happened with Odokuro. Instead the two of them had avoided the topic, unwilling to face what had happened to them.
He felt sick. This, what was happening now to his brother, to everyone in the hangar...it was his fault. He shouldn’t have agreed to this without making sure he and Hiro were ready for it. He should have known better.
“Hiro,” he said, voice a little louder, a little more controlled. “Hiro, you have to stop this. This isn’t happening right now. It’s only a memory. You have to get back in control.” He grabbed his brother’s shoulders and tried to get Hiro to focus on him, but it was no use. Hiro only had eyes for one other being.
Odokuro had paused, and Hiro took the initiative to strike. He yelled wordlessly and charged the kaiju, right arm activating the sword hidden within to swing down at the beast in mindless fury.
“ HIRO NO !” He shouted, scrambling to keep his little brother from causing further damage. He gripped Hiro’s arm in both hands to keep it from striking.
The wind whipping around the helm and the rain pelting their faces disappeared, and they were standing warm and dry, still hooked up to their jaeger. The alarms and the flashing warnings had gone out with the rest of the power in the jaeger, but he could still hear them muffled from outside.
He flung himself away from his station, disconnecting the suit from the jaeger and caught his brother as he fell to the floor. Hiro lay passed out in his arms, and Tadashi stayed there like that until the LOCCENT officers and jaeger techs came flooding in to collect them.