A/N: AU where Chuck's alive, I'm using the same basic premise of the story Lonely Ghosts by kearlyn, some edits. I don't own any part of that story, I found it after writing the outline for this one. I'm just using a similar premise for why Chuck is still alive. You'll see. This is set a year after the end of the movie.
Written conceptually similar to a play or musical. There are 4 acts, Book One being the first. Each chapter is a different "scene." Raleigh Becket is bi in this story, and suffers from some mild PTSD. It's a long explanation, and most of it's further in the story, so here ya go. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: Characters aren't mine, exception being OC (obviously). I don't own them or claim to, I'm just using them for this story, like toys. No part of this story is intended as canon. I'm also not an owner, in any part, of the story Lonely Ghosts, and I only use the same basic premise because Chuck is an important piece of this story, and otherwise Chuck wouldn't be around. So you know, not mine, full credit goes to Kearlyn, since she published her story and the premise first.
"There are things you can't fight - acts of God. You see a hurricane coming, you have to get out of the way. But when you're in a Jaeger, suddenly, you can fight the hurricane. You can win." —Ranger Raleigh Becket, Jaeger Pilot
In the final months of the world being safe and secure, Doctor Newton Geiszler said the sky was going to open, and the world as we knew it would change forever. The papers and media took to that like hounds, and distorted his mistaken words, spoken out of turn. Religious fanatics claimed this meant the Second Coming, the Revelation. They said it meant we would all be saved. The Kaiju fanatics whose religion revolved around the Kaiju said it meant the Great Coming of the Lord Kaiju, who would judge us all for our sins and spare those who had been loyal and done His work. The PPDC, on the other hand, discussed this with Newton themselves.
Newt said his "calculations" were inconclusive and he hadn't a clue what they really meant, and the PPDC's response was only to take his calculations further and figure out what it meant. The PPDC were upset, but willing to give him time to further his research and make more conclusive leaps of research and experimentation. He admitted to me that he didn't even calculate it. He'd faked the calculations to make the PPDC listen, because we were all in danger. Reality of the matter was, there were no calculations he could make because he hadn't any scientific proof, only a ghost of the Drift feeling telling him that something bad was coming, that had refocused to telling him, the sky was going to open up. Newt couldn't prove that through numbers and conjectures and complicated problems. How could you?
He told me that a time would come where the Kaiju would stop coming through the Breach, there would be a lull in activity, and we would believe ourselves to have won. He had the kind of feeling about what was going to happen that made everyone afraid, and he convinced Hermann Gottlieb to fake calculations to get more support from the PPDC. The PPDC, however, wrote everything off as a load of crap, a ploy for more funding. And well, what else would you expect a bunch of politicians to do?
Newt was scared. So were we. So we did what people do best -we prepared for whatever invasion was headed our way. We were fairly sure of the race coming for us - Precursors. And so with our limited knowledge of their technology, of their behavior patterns, based primarily on Newt's extensive Kaiju research, we reinforced our defences. The Artificial Intelligence Jaegers were given new technical capabilities. The older Jaegers were revamped, for land and sea fighting. We didn't know what we were preparing for, but we did what we could to be prepared for every possibility. And we improved our technology quickly while waiting. The lag in Kaiju was the signal we'd been looking for, Newt had said. And it came almost too soon.
Hope seemed foolish, but still, all of humanity was hoping, one way or another. And when it all came down, we still hoped, despite the events unraveling themselves in front of us.