Japan understood the point of sea monsters. Mako's earliest memory was her father reading to her from a book of old Oriental fairy tales and sea poems.
"Massively you dwell, O dragon of the Triple World. In the great iron cage of the sea. But when the dead mists of the half-eaten moon stir the waters and open your cage. You rise in effulgent glory. A great flash of livingness, eye and wind, tongue, and water. To swallow the wayward sailor's floating world. Spare our ship O dragon, remain embedded in stone. Humbly we speak your name,Gojira."
The Americans had taken their sea monsters for movies and entertainment. The Kaiju had gone there first. Mako had always thought that was a pretty vicious little irony. Make light of the monsters, and they will eat you.
She found it considerably less ironic when the attacks continued.
Mako was twelve years old when she met Stacker Pentecost. It was the best part of the worst day of her life.
Pentecost had stepped down from the Jaeger. In the MK-1 Series, it was possible to do that. Nobody was quite sure how to be an expert in this kind of combat yet. He stayed with Mako until the helicopters came, and then sat her on the edge of the dumpster she'd hidden behind. The battle had spread out across a good third of the city, and Mako had a good view of him attaching the helicopter's grapnels to the Jaeger at various points.
Once the helicopters had managed to lift what was left of the war machine, and the Medivac choppers had taken his co-pilot away for treatment, Pentecost returned to the little orphan girl. Even then, she could tell he didn't want to be there. He wanted to be with his copilot.
She was not offended. She was grateful. Her father had believed in the old ways, of ancestral spirits and reincarnated souls. It was said by those that followed such beliefs that Jaeger Pilots had all found their Soul Mates. Not their true love, or anything so simple and tawdry as romance. A True Soul Mate was someone who's soul was tied to another's through dozens, even hundreds of generations, finding each other all over again in each new incarnation, to the point where the Universe demanded they be together unto eternity. If his was wounded, it would have been a supreme act to leave her side, for the sake of a little girl that could have been handed off to anyone else.
With the press, and the Medics, and the military, and the Shatterdome all demanding his attention, Stacker Pentecost came back to Mako first.
"I want to see it." She demanded. It was the first thing she had said to him.
"Do you know where the shelter is?"
"Not my family." Mako said tightly. "I know they're gone. I want to see it."
Pentecost hesitated for a moment, before he held out a hand and she took it, her tiny fingers threading through his. It was a long walk for them, through wrecked streets. Jaegers moved fast, and Kaiju moved faster; the battle that had saved her life had crushed plenty of buildings, including the shelter her family was in at the time.
But eventually, they got there.
War often had immortal moments.
That year, the famous photo was of a little girl, With one red shoe dangling from her left hand, her right holding the hand of a Jaeger pilot, as both of them looked out at the body of a massive Kaiju beast.
After Pentecost had taken her to the Shelter... what was left of it, she had curled up in a ball in his lap and sobbed. It wasn't just because of her family. It was because she knew he wasn't staying.
The other survivors were glad to meet him of course. His partner had returned to the Dome to receive medical attention and make her report, but Pentecost had stayed with Mako, personally taking her to the shelter, then the refugee centre.
He had carried her on his hip the entire time. She still hadn't put her shoes back on.
The other kids knew to give her plenty of room. The Press had somehow got hold of the Gun Camera footage. The whole country had seen little Mako Mori running down an empty street, with a Class Two Kaiju giving chase. There had been rumors that the Kaiju had been given specific instructions, searching for specific people. Those that believed such things were terrified of this five year old orphan. If the Kaiju had taken an interest in her for some reason...
Mako didn't care. She avoided the other kids too.
The Press had come for her, to do interviews. Mako was not agreeable.
"Do you have anything to say to the people at the Shatterdome?" The last interview tried to round it out with a heartwarming moment of gratitude from the little girl to the hero that had saved her.
Mako looked into the camera. "Tell him I'm still here." She said to the whole world, though it was a message meant for one man in particular. "I don't need anyone to look after me. I just need to be where the Jaegers are."
The woman interviewing her should have taken the hint, but was still trying to make this a softer human interest story. "Well, we all feel better when they're around."
"The Kaiju killed my family." Mako glared severely into the camera, the hardest a twelve year old girl could ever be. "And I'm going to kill every single one of them."
The woman interviewing her tried to laugh it off, make it lighter. "A future Jaeger pilot in the making, right here..."
Mako glared. "I am a Jaeger pilot." She declared. "It's not my fault nobody made a Jaeger my size."
They had played that clip over and over for almost a week. In that time, some of the orphans were placed into foster care, but not Mako.
A week after that, she had a visitor. A woman with red hair, a body in her thirties, a face in her fifties, and eyes in their eighties. "You must be Mako Mori."
Mako looked up at her. "Who are you?"
"You can call me Tasmin." The woman said, sitting down heavily on Mako's cot. "You wouldn't recognize me, but we've actually met before. I was Stacker's co-pilot. I'm half the reason you're still alive."
Mako knew she should have said 'thank you', but she and the grown woman were locked in a staring contest, as though they were weighing each other up.
"I saw the interview." Tasmin commented. "Stacker says that you're in pain, but you'll grow out of it." She pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her jacket and lit one up. "I don't think you will."
"Promise you and him will save some Kaiju for me?" Mako commented.
Tasmin found that hilarious and laughed around her cigarette. Then her nose started bleeding. She noticed the flow and scowled.
Mako noticed too. After Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Fukishima, and then the Kaiju, every kid in Japan knew how to spot certain signs. "Radi-shun?" Mako asked in worry, tripping over the complicated word.
Tasmin nodded. "Yup. That's where Stacker's been all week. He never forgot you, kid. But I think he's trying to decide if you'd be safer with anyone else."
"The Kaiju killed my family!" Mako protested.
Tasmin was not sympathetic. "Hey! I got news for you, kid: Every Jaeger pilot alive has lost someone. Including Stacker. His sister was one of the first Jaeger pilots around. He lost her." She gestured at her face. "And he just recently found out he's lost me, too. If you knew anything about what it's like; you'd know that losing me is gonna hurt him worse than his sister did. The whole godforsaken world's an orphanage. You don't get to jump the queue just because you're angry." She reached out and tapped Mako on the nose, hard. "And if you want to be a Jaeger pilot, the one thing you can't be is emotional. Stacker? His anger is cold. It makes him strong. Understand?"
Mako was about to scream, when Tasmin clapped a hand over her mouth. "If you want to control something like a Jaeger, the first thing you've gotta learn is to control yourself. Start with your mind. Your mind trains the heart. Your heart trains your body. You wanna be a Pilot, you need all three. Understand?"
It was the first lesson Mako had ever got in how to be a Jaeger Pilot, and she nodded; learning. "Like Samurai?"
"Big-Ass Steel Samurai, that's us. The Jaegers aren't the sword of the Human Race. The pilots are." Tasmin suddenly seemed exhausted. "Move over."
Mako did so, and Tasmin stretched out on the cot, sitting upright against the wall. "You haven't even unpacked your stuff."
"I've been... waiting." Mako excused.
Tasmin nodded. "He'll be here soon." She slid up her sleeve a bit, revealing a Medic Bracelet. "Just as soon as he figures out that I left the hospital, he'll do a scan for my bracelet and find where I snuck out to. He'll be here."
"And then... we'll go?" Mako said hopefully.
Tasmin sighed. "We will... apprentice."
Mako's official designation was 'civilian assistant'. It was the only way to get her out of the Orphanage.
Mako was welcomed by most in the Shatterdome. More than she thought she would. The Jaeger Program was on call, around the clock. The teams all had living quarters on the base, and only some of them were military. Everyone else had to make their lives work in the Dome. Everyone from the Biology Lab to the Kitchen Staff. They had daycare centres, they had schools, they had gyms and PX's.
Stacker was promoted out of the front lines, but nobody told Mako why. Tasmin was too, and they shared Mako for a month. Every meeting, a young Mako Mori would march along behind the pilots of Coyote Tango with a clipboard in one hand.
Stacker and Tasmin were part of the training for new pilots. Mako got to sit in on a lot of lessons. The adults all assumed the child would be bored out of her skull, but Mako was pleased. She was the first person to start her lessons at the age of twelve. As far as she was concerned, she'd be ready for combat a lot sooner.
Pentecost had tried to talk her out of it. He took care of the girl, making sure she ate, making sure she had fresh clothes, and was keeping up with her homework from the regular classes. He had taken the job of her father, but never tried to replace him. Mako was glad for that. Pentecost reminded her of her father. He was gentle with her, and hard with everything else.
Pentecost took care of the girl. Tasmin forged the sword.
Tasmin was not maternal in any way. She was a drill Sargent. She would take Mako to the gym, to the Dojo, to the Laboratory. She would make Mako run faster than any student in her school at the athletics try-outs. She would make Mako recite facts about Kaiju physiology. There would be pop quizzes at dinner, during bathroom breaks, during recess. On nights that she stayed with Pentecost, he read her bedtime stories. When she stayed with Tasmin, she recited Jaeger Ordinance.
The Dojo was Mako's favorite part. Her father had taught her about Kendo weapons, and even gifted her with a Hanbo Staff. He had told her that when she was older, he would teach her to use it.
Tasmin had no trouble teaching her now.
She was never overly harsh, and often tossed a sudden joke into the training, and every dojo match ended with a long hug. But she held Mako to the same standard as the adult recruits. Mako knew why she was doing it. Pentecost wanted her to let go of her anger toward the Kaiju; and Tasmin wanted to break her. Pentecost was trying to turn her back into a normal pre-teen, and Tasmin was trying to make her early training so hard she'd give up.
Neither of them succeeded, but they made her strong, and reminded her that she was loved at every opportunity.
The other pilots regarded Mako like a team mascot. Until their first debrief with Tasmin. Then they were terrified of her.
Tasmin slouched at the podium, reading through the manifests. Almost two dozen pilots were assembled in the briefing room, and Miss Mori stood at the front of the room, at sharp attention.
"All right folks." Tasmin called the room to attention. "The moment you're all waiting for: The Simulator Scores!"
The whole room catcalled and cheered. There were five teams for every Jaeger being built. The scorecard was the ultimate prize. The top ten got a Jaeger to pilot.
Tasmin hit a button on the podium, and the viewscreen lit up brightly with the teams score, ranked highest to lowest. There was a bright yellow line... separating the top nine, instead of the top ten.
"Now then..." Tasmin commented, slightly sharklike. "I was planning on making this morning's lecture quick. Put up the scores, and then show you some really gruesome shots of Boneslums popping up; and tell you why this is actually a bad thing. But it turns out, we don't need the theory." She gestured grandly at the screen. "One of our blessed top ten failed to hold the simulated Miracle Mile." Tasmin gestured to Mako without looking. "Who was this profound letdown, sweetie?"
Mako was still standing ramrod straight, stonefaced. "Captains Paul and Greg Koffey."
Sure enough, the Captains Koffey were on the list in tenth place. And for the first time, being in the Top Ten wasn't enough to qualify.
"Captain Koffey, front and centre!" Tasmin ordered, and both men stood up. "Care to explain your screwup? Were you distracted by something? Off chasing rabbits?"
"Due Respect, Ma'am; we killed the target, with minimal loss to the simulation." Koffey reported. "We were well within acceptable losses."
Tasmin was not nodding. "You're pleading your case to the wrong person." She said simply, pointing. "The one that bounced you out of the Winner's Circle is right there."
Everyone suddenly shut up in a hurry. If Tasmin was telling the truth, it meant that someone else was deciding their score. And she was pointing at Mako Mori.
Koffey was still facing Tasmin. "Ma'am, there's a hardline for acceptable damage on the simulator. Less than five percent damage is still an automatic passing grade."
Tasmin raised her voice to include Mako. "Miss Mori, that's how the simulator rates them. What's the real number?" She asked. "What is 'acceptable loss'?"
"Zero, ma'am." Mako answered promptly.
"Five percent of a city is code for thousands of people!" Tasmin barked. "I don't know what pencil-necked, pencil-pushing, bean-counting, bureaucratic bastard wrote that into the simulator code, but they're idiots. Apprentice: Educate the Captain."
Mako held up her tablet, which was replaying a CGI fight between a Jaeger and a Kaiju. "You went out too far. The Kaiju was fast enough to go around you."
Koffey was glaring at her tablet. "That's not the simulator."
"Nope." Mako nodded. "But if you can't beat my score, you're not getting a four billion dollar Jaeger." Her glare didn't lighten. "You left your post at the Miracle Mile. You took the bait, and the Kaiju laughed at you." Mako sounded as if she was personally insulted. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"
Koffey looked at Tasmin, as though expecting to be let in on the joke. Tasmin gave him nothing. Koffey looked back to Mako, who glared at him harder.
"I await an answer." The girl growled and the room murmured.
Koffey wasn't laughing. "Look, sweetie... Fighting in a Jaegers ain't like playing a video game."
"Really?" Mako was not forgiving. "Because the Simulator is supposed to be a 3D model that simulated Kaiju combat." She held up her tablet again. "If I can beat my videogame and you can't, I'm happy to switch." To make the point, Mako tossed her tablet at him.
The room was filled with barely restrained giggles. The Koffey brothers were as smug as any combat pilots, and now they were getting a sharp dressing down from a kid in knee-high socks. The younger of the team was smart enough not to pick a fight with the kid. Tasmin was the one making the choice, she was just having fun about it.
The elder of the team was not so insightful. "I'm not about to justify myself to to a little girl, even if the Marshall has a soft spot for her." He raged. "Comparing the combat sim to a free smartphone app is a joke."
Mako sighed. "I know. That's why I added a few points to your score. I was as forgiving as I could be."
That was the breaking point. Everyone else in the room burst into hysterical laughter.
Mako turned on her heel and marched back to her post beside the podium.
Her father taught her that forging a sword took work. Smelting away the impurities was an important part. If the metal had impurities, the sword was weak. Tasmin had told her that the Jaeger Pilots were the Sword of the Human Race, and she owed it to her family to keep the blade strong. When she grew up, she would be stronger still.
She was the sword. She was the swordsman. She was the swordmaker.
"Top Nine Qualify." Tasmin declared. "We're not here to kill Kaiju, we're here to hold the line; and the top nine were the only ones to do that. That's the line where people are." She jerked a thumb at Mako. "Anyone who can't see the difference? You can take it up with the girl who's only here because we failed to kill a Kaiju before it hit the Miracle Mile."
That one hit a little close to home, and two dozen Jaeger Pilots glanced uncomfortably at the young orphan.
Mako Mori stared them all down, hard as a Steel Samurai should be.
AN: There will be more chapters, but I don't know how many yet. The story will progress as far as the movie, but I don't know how many. The story will lead up to the movie, but I don't know how much of the movie I'll cover. That will depend largely on the reviews (Hint hint).