Jaegermeister or how the PPDC learned to stop worrying & drop the bass

by VictoriaPyrrhi

With the PPDC cutting funding at the behest of GorCo, the corporation funding the Wall of Life, it's up to Marshal Spirit Albarn to gather his resources-some of the finest minds and pilots on the planet-to make one final assault and neutralize the kaiju menace for good. Pacific Rim AU; For Soul Eater Resbang 2014

Jaegermeister

(Done for Resbang 2014; Art for story by Peregr1ne and can be found: post/104720812878/so-this-only-took-months-but-yeah-heres-all-the )

---

It wasn't as though the news was surprising. Spirit had known going into the meeting that the odds of getting more funding for the Jaeger program were slim to none, but he hadn't let that stop him from trying. This Wall-of-Life bullshit that Medusa Gorgon and her GorCo cronies were selling to the PPDC wasn't going to work. Anyone who had seen a kaiju or been in a city that had suffered a kaiju attack-hell, anyone with half a brain could tell that no wall, no matter how large and thick and strong it was sold on being, was going to stop the kaiju.

He could feel the twitch in his neck starting back up, but he held his position until the conference call ended and the screens went dark. Only then did he reach up to rub his hand against spasming muscles. The other hand flicked off blank screens in a futile gesture that none the less made him feel a little better.

Wes pushed off the wall as the door opened and took one look at his boss.

"So it went that well, huh?"

"We're all going to die and it's because of a bunch of money-grubbing politicos."

"Situation normal, then."

Spirit sighed, slowing his gait, and Wes hid his scowl. "What we've got now is pretty much all we have left. If we get any more money, it's not going to be from the PPDC."

"Fuck."

"Couldn't have said it better myself."

---

When the kaijus first attacked, the world hadn't known what the fuck to think. It was all something out of a Godzilla movie-like badly written science fiction, not science fact. Except then there were thousands left dead, hundreds of thousands left homeless and sick with a special brand of radiation poisoning, and that was the new reality.

When scientists found the source of the attack-traced it back to seismic activity in the Pacific where no seismic activity ought to have been-they assumed it was a one-off, a fluke of nature and science that no one quite had a handle on.

When there was a second attack, and a third, all originating from that same point-well. Nervous didn't begin to describe the way the world felt-constantly teetering on the edge of paranoia and panic.

With the swiftness that only a global crisis can encourage, top scientists created an early warning system and then the Pan Pacific Defense Corps, and Spirit had to occasionally remind himself that he'd never intended to get involved with any of this. But it hadn't taken long for the PPDC to come calling on Suzume's doctorate in engineering, and Spirit had felt so helpless, so useless sitting at home and watching Maka while Suzume helped find a solution to save them all.

He didn't question signing up to be a test pilot-just read the recommendations for Drift compatibility and went. Sometimes, when the Shatterdome was as still as it got and there was time for things like thinking and regretting, Spirit wondered if he would do it all again. If he knew then what he knew now-but those moments were few and far in between, and Spirit had always been a man of action.

Maybe not always the right action, or the wisest, but no one could accuse him of sitting on his ass and not doing something that needed done.

Spirit stood on the LOCCENT bridge and took stock of what was left. After nearly ten years of fighting and rebuilding and more fighting, it wasn't much at all. Especially with that fucking leech slowly but steadily sucking out all their resources. In that strange not silence, Spirit kept his post and watched as skeleton crews buzzed around the remnants of two broken jaegers, trying to cobble together something functional and strong. There were still hints of familiarity in those parts; he felt it humming with a strange insistence in his bones.

There was little time for sentimentality though, no matter how his soul ached, and Spirit slowly turned his back on the hangar bay. He had a list in mind at least, of what and who he needed and what he was going to have to do to make sure he got them.

---

Soul hated working on the Wall, but he did enjoy eating, so ultimately he considered it a fair trade. It wasn't that he minded the heights, in fact, that was probably the part about working on the Wall that he minded the least. He didn't even mind the manual labor; for all of his fault-and he could admit that he had a rather lot of them-not working with his hands wasn't one of them.

He hated the Wall itself, hated what it meant, what it stood for. Every time he went up and looked out over the water to breathe the bitter salt air, all he could feel was failure. Which, well, failure was what had driven him up here in the first place, so Soul supposed that was really just what he should have expected.

What he didn't expect was the helicopter flying in over his little chunk of the Wall of Life, familiar buzzing growing louder and louder. Soul stared at it for nearly the entirety of its slow, steady approach. By the time it landed at the slapped-together corrugated steel hut that had been serving as the base of operations for this segment of wall, Soul wasn't at all surprised to see a head of bright red hair slip out of the chopper. For a long moment, he debated going ahead and starting the trek to the bottom of the Wall or continuing to work until someone bothered to radio up to him. He wasn't feeling particularly charitable towards Spirit Albarn, but then again, they'd never had the best relationship to begin with, and whatever had the Marshal hauling his ass out to the Wall had to be pretty dire.

The call crackled through the radio when Soul was about three-quarters of the way down his section.

"I'm on my way," he replied, a little gratified by the startled silence on the other end. It still took him enough time that Spirit had the opportunity to be shown around the base. Soul didn't know what BJ was thinking by giving a tour to the head of what was left of the Jaeger program- a man who, in Soul's estimation, would do anything to keep the Wall of Life initiative from draining away the last of his funding. But then, BJ had always been weirdly optimistic.

Soul was rewarded for his trip by the sight of Spirit looking like he was about to blow a gasket and struggling to maintain a thin veneer of politeness.

"No, thank you. I really don't want another cup of coffee."

"You sure now? It's awfully cold up here," BJ smiled like he had no idea where Spirit had spent the majority of his career-like everyone even vaguely associated with the PPDC didn't know where Spirit had made his name a household brand. Even Soul, used to BJ's moods, couldn't tell if he was deliberately trying to fuck with Spirit or not.

"Albarn," Soul said, leaning against the doorway and doing a pretty fucking admirable job of not laughing. He watched the older man visibly collect himself.

"Evans."

He absolutely did not flinch, just corrected, "Soul," as flatly as he could. Flat as fucking Kansas. Spirit made a noise under his breath, but nodded once in acknowledgment.

"We need to talk… Soul."

"So let's talk." He looked between BJ and Spirit, then jerked his head. "I'll show you to my office."

BJ snorted, but Soul didn't look back, just started walking towards the little space he'd carved out as his own. It wasn't much, but he liked the ruined pipe, liked the way the concrete felt at his back, liked how it still stood and still functioned in its own way. He liked the way it felt like his. Not much did, these days.

He popped the lid off a little cooler. "Beer?" Soul grinned. "Or I could go get you some more coffee."

"Jesus, no. Give me a goddamned beer."

Soul tossed him a can and popped the top on his. It wasn't exactly ice cold, but one of the advantages to being up in the ass-end of Alaska was that he didn't really have to spend a lot on ice. Spirit took a long swallow, and grimaced.

"Ugh, piss water."

"Can't really get the good stuff up here." Or anywhere, and certainly not in the Shatterdomes, but he kept his mouth shut on that one.

Spirit rolled a shoulder. "We've got a couple of Russians who do a mean homebrew. Not," he added, "that I sanction or know anything about that."

"No, of course not," and god help him, Soul couldn't quite stop his smirk. They drank their beers in silence. It wasn't uncomfortable, which, well. There had been a lot of uncomfortable silences for Soul in the last couple of years. But comfortable or not, Soul wasn't about to be the one who broke it. Spirit had come to him.

Let him do the talking.

It took him longer than Soul had anticipated, but finally Spirit cleared his throat.

"I'm not going to beat around the bush. We need you."

"No you don't." The response was ingrained at this point.

Spirit scowled a little. "Yes, we do."

Soul crossed his arms. "You don't. I've been out of the whole of it, and even I know that the PPDC isn't going to give you any more money. You haven't got anything left to need me for."

"We have one thing," Spirit countered, and Soul braced himself for a sob story about his brother needing him, or, or...or anything. Anything except, "We have Bass Hunter."

---

It wasn't the first time that Maka had been to the Hong Kong Shatterdome. She'd spent a good chunk of her career as an Assault Specialist bouncing between Hong Kong and Vladivostok, with the occasional foray to Sydney and Tokyo.

She'd been to every dome at least once, and it wasn't hard to determine that Hong Kong was definitely her favorite by far. It was one of the oldest Shatterdomes, still cobbled together from sheer grit and desperation and a giant dose of ingenuity when she was in junior high, and the dome just had a feeling to it that Maka couldn't quite put into words. Every time she slipped through those enormous blast doors and into the hangar was a little like coming home.

She sat on the edge of one of the mechanic bays, feet dangling in the open air over a ten-story drop, and tried to reconcile Hong Kong and home and the knowledge that Spirit would soon be invading her territory. It wasn't as though they hadn't worked together since Maka had enlisted, it was just that she had done everything in her limited power to make sure it happened as infrequently as possible. It was one of the few times she didn't mind bandying her father's name around. Maka appeared conscientious when she demurred and indicated that she didn't want to be near Spirit lest it be seen as nepotism or favoritism.

It just also happened to work out that she didn't want to see Spirit, period.

It looked like that was going to be unavoidable for the near future, however. They had moved down the last of the Anchorage Shatterdome yesterday. She'd seen the pictures-nothing but stripped metal bones left. They had taken every piece of equipment, every spare scrap of metal and wiring. Anything that might prove useful or that could be reused to stave off the inevitable. Spirit's right-hand LOCCENT man had come down with the last of the dregs, which, okay yes that was probably pretty uncharitable-Wes seemed like a decent enough dude-but at the moment Maka was having a hard time not demanding that they slam the hangar doors shut and ignore Spirit when he knocked.

The reaction was a childish one, and wasn't going to help anything at all. As much as she didn't want to work with her father, he was pretty much it if she wanted to keep working with the Jaegar program, to keep trying to find a way to save the world. Down on the hangar floor, Maka spotted two familiar heads of hair-one hideously blue and the other jet black and long-and well, the world might be about to end, but at least she was going to be able to spend it with some of the people she cared about most.

Maka checked her datapad and pulled her feet back in. She had a meeting in fifteen with what was left of the science department. Hopefully they could find something from the most recent attack down in Sydney that would result in a breakthrough.

Stein and Marie were waiting when she finally made it to the little area they'd claimed as their lab. It wasn't much, which Stein was particularly fond of complaining about, but Marie was always quick to point out that at least they still sort of had funding. Even if it was just for the two of them in a dingy little basement lab. Though they were forced to buy the electrical tape to divide the room in half themselves. Ostensibly, it was to prevent Stein from dragging kaiju bits through Marie's carefully crafted equations and her carefully hoarded caffeine supply. Not that it did much good because Maka was pretty sure, knowing Stein, that he didn't bother dragging kaiju bits. Instead, he tossed the extraneous pieces in precise mathematical arcs to land deep within Marie's lab territory.

Maka knew that Marie got him back, but she could never figure out how, exactly, and she didn't particularly care to delve into the mysterious chalk dust prints Stein occasionally ended up with and the possible implications therein. Frankly, she had known Stein for far too long to want to know any details.

Marie handed her a mug of tea before she could even say anything, and Maka refused to think too long about where the woman produced a piping hot drink from on such short notice, just nodded her thanks.

"Any news from Vladivostok?" Stein asked.

Maka shrugged. "You'd probably know better than I would at this point. I haven't heard anything out of Russia since the last time I talked to Dve Pushkis. I'm assuming it's all been cleared out. I was hoping you guys would have something out of that last attack on Sydney."

She didn't like the disgruntled look on Stein's face. "We haven't got a thing more than what we had last time. I'm still waiting on my goddamned samples to come in."

"That was a week ago!"

"I'm aware," he drawled. "Next time, I'm going out and hauling my kaiju in myself." Marie shot him an indecipherable look. "Our best results so far have been the pulse cannon/plasmablade combination, but-" Stein adjusted his glasses. "I can't be sure that's going to continue to be the case."

"How so?"

"I'm going to need my samples from Sydney before I can confirm at all, but I think they're adapting to our methods." Maka felt a shiver crawl up her spine.

"Are you sure?"

Stein made a noise. "No. That's why I need my samples. But it would follow the trend that we've seen-"

Marie interrupted, "Meanwhile, I have been hard at work with the hard data I got from the last event. The long and short of it? If what we've seen so far is any indication, and it is, then we are going to see a triple event, and we're going to see it within the month."

"So if we start to see these events come faster-" Stein started.

"No, not if. I told you this already. When. It's going to happen. It's been happening. It's just a matter of the timeline." Marie crossed her arms, daring Stein to contradict her.

Maka ignored them. "So what are we looking at?"

Marie sighed. "Given the last attack, we could be looking at something-ten, twenty days out if we're lucky. I would not count on us being lucky." She cleared her throat. "We might-there is a chance, however slim, that if we're prepared for the triple event, the Breach might stay open long enough for us to send a nuke through and collapse its throat for good."

Maka hadn't been expecting good news. She had hoped, sure. Hope was kind of a requirement for survival and sanity these days. However she also hadn't been expecting all of that. Maka thought about Shadow Star and Reaper Troika sitting in the hangar bay and of her father on his way from Anchorage and wondered how the fuck they were going to survive this.

---

Wes was waiting for them when they landed, toque pulled down around his ears and jacket zipped up to his chin. It was less for warmth at that point, and more a vain attempt to stay dry in the blustering rain of a Hong Kong spring. The wind from the Jumphawks flung soaked, stray bits of bangs into his eyes and Wes bit back a sigh.

Fucking figured.

He directed the crews to unload everything they'd managed to scrape out of Anchorage, bits and pieces of equipment for the techs to salvage. They dropped off the final remaining jaeger out of Anchorage last, and for a long moment, all Wes could do was stare at it. He knew they'd been rebuilding it-Spirit had told him in low tones once they'd started, and he'd seen it for himself a few times-but it was different watching the Jumphawks carefully lower it onto the transport carriers, almost whole again.

His hand ached. Wes released the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and unclenched the hand gripping his cane before getting distracted by the last chopper. His grip tightened right back up reflexively. Spirit was the first to disembark, eyes immediately scanning the landing area; he frowned a little. If Wes hadn't been paying attention, hadn't known in advance what -who-Spirit was looking for, he wouldn't have even noticed.

Then there was a familiar head of white hair ducking out of the helicopter, and Wes took a half-step forward before he even thought about it. His leg protested the sudden movement, but he had already stopped.

Soul caught sight of the movement and froze, barely out of the doorway. For a long moment neither of them moved, and then Spirit was there, slapping Soul on the back hard enough that he stumbled forward.

"We don't have all day, little Evans, shake the fuckin' lead out." And that was that. Soul shouldered his duffle bag and moved towards him, and Wes straightened slightly. He hadn't seen Soul in several years-he'd up and disappeared while Wes was still stuck in his hospital bed, and as much as he wanted to be mad at his brother, Wes couldn't find it in him to be too pissed. He wasn't entirely sure that he wouldn't have done the same thing had he been in Soul's position. He could barely stand being in the bed, much less being out of it and feeling completely helpless.

That being said, there was no way that he wasn't going to give Soul enormous amounts of shit for it.

"Little brother," Wes exclaimed, arms out and wide. He didn't miss the way Soul's eyes darted to his cane, held in one outstretched hand. "Where's my hug, you little fucker?"

There was a beat, then the familiar roll of red eyes, and Wes felt something in his chest unknot a little.

"Jesus you're so embarrassing," Soul muttered. But he moved forward anyway and let Wes give him a bonecrushing hug, and didn't say anything about the cane or the pronounced trembling that started up in Wes's leg.

"Only to you, kiddo," Wes grinned, ruffling Soul's soaked hair with his free hand. "Where the hell's your jacket, dumbass? Didn't you just come from the fuckin' Arctic or something?"

"Alaska, dipshit, and it's like a billion degrees down here. When did you get to be such a wimp?" Soul plucked at the knit cap on his head, and Wes shook him off.

"It's been raining for like, a week straight."

"You're getting old, I know," Soul shot back as Wes tugged at his arm a little, leading him towards the dome.

"Still able to kick your ass," Wes replied cheerfully. "Come on, let me show you around some."

Wes finally caught sight of Maka Albarn as they entered the Shatterdome, her ever-present datapad tucked away in the crook of her elbow, and her eyes locked on the landing pad. He jerked his head at her, "I think someone's looking for you."

Startled, she looked up, and Wes felt his brother tense at his side just a little. "What?" she asked. Wes rolled his eyes back towards Spirit. Maka made a face. "Yeah, I know." She hesitated before smiling a faintly. "Thanks."

"No problem."

Soul waited until they were out of earshot before asking, "Who was that?" Wes was honestly surprised he had managed to wait that long.

"Name's Maka. She's an Assault Specialist, travels-traveled a lot between Domes."

"Assault Specialist, huh? Figured I would have met her at some point."

Wes shrugged a shoulder. "She enlisted right after-" he cut himself off, swallowed. Next to him, Soul had completely stopped. Wes cleared his throat.

"Right after Big Foot?"

Wes felt strangely proud of his brother for being able to say it. "Yeah, right after Big Foot."

Soul nodded and they continued toward the barracks, tension dissipating.

---

Maka took a deep breath and stepped out of the leeway of the Shatterdome. No sense in dragging it out. "Marshal."

Spirit's eyes were warm as they locked onto hers, and he gave her a smile that she could tell he was working hard to restrain.

"Maka," he said one arm reaching out. And well, it wouldn't hurt just this once, she figured, letting herself be pulled into a brief hug. For a long moment, she was ten again and about to go to school and there are no kaiju, no jaegers, just the dry heat of a Las Vegas morning and her classes waiting for her. She pulled away; the familiar weight of Spirit's arm dropped and the particular smell of his cologne faded, and Maka had a new-old jaeger to help outfit and a new pilot to find for it still.

"Marshal," she repeated, and stood straighter. Spirit's smile dropped just a little, but he straightened as well and nodded.

"Ms. Albarn. What do you have for me?"

---

Soul didn't particularly want to deal with the noise and the crowd of the mess hall his first day back. For something that had been his life for nearly three years, it suddenly felt completely foreign-too many people compared to the wall, too much sweat and human stink, too much constant noise, too much everything, too much-well, too much Wes.

He loved his brother, he absolutely did. Everyday he was grateful for the fact that Wes was here and alive, but there was a reason he had left the Jaeger program, hadn't seen or spoken to anyone from it in years. He let Wes lead him to the mess and through the lines. Wes didn't bother asking what he wanted, just loaded up both their trays with the same mashed potatoes, beans, and pork they'd eaten on a regular basis in Anchorage together, despite the local offerings available. It was completely unconscious and made something in his guts clench.

Soul took the tray and gave his brother a smile that felt just a little off, but followed him to a table populated by a man and woman who were deep in a heated discussion. Wes sat down without pausing, seemingly without concern for the conversation. The blonde looked up as soon as Wes sat, and gave him a brilliant smile, her one golden brown eye crinkling in good humor.

"Wes! Long time no see!"

"Marie! You still letting this windsack boss you around?" Wes leaned over and let Marie plant a smacking kiss on his cheek, grinning the whole time. Across the table, her companion rolled his eyes and pushed up his glasses.

"You must be Soul," the man said, pinning him with an intense stare. Soul swallowed his mouthful of mashed potatoes as quickly as possible, holding a hand out.

"Ah, yeah, that's me. You are-?"

"Dr. Frank Stein." He shook Soul's hand.

"You can just call him Stein," the woman interjected. "He's our kaiju expert these days. I'm Marie-I run the numbers." She turned that smile to him and also shook his hand enthusiastically.

"She thinks numbers are the fingerprints of God," Stein supplied, and Marie flushed, but held her ground.

"Stein and Marie are our K-Science Division," Wes said, interrupted, still smiling.

"What, all of it?" The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, and Soul could feel his face heating up because you didn't just say stuff like that. No one wanted to be reminded that the rest of their division didn't fucking exist anymore, much less that they were the remnants. The last thing he was expecting was Stein to burst into laughter.

It was awful, loud and piercing, and Soul didn't think that anyone actually laughed like a mad scientist in real life, but here they were anyway.

"They don't need anyone else," Marie added, smiling at Stein.

"We're the best of the best," Stein said. Soul shot his brother a look, but Wes shrugged.

"No false modesty here. There's a reason we fought to keep these two. If anyone can figure out how we can stop the kaiju and close the Breach once and for all, it's them."

"If they can ever get me my samples," Stein muttered.

Dinner, Soul decided, was going to be weird. He listened the the ebb and flow of conversation around him, Marie and Stein going right back to the conversation Wes had interrupted initially. His brother occasionally chimed in and Soul took a moment to bask in the easiness of it. He wasn't a part of it, still felt too disconnected from it all, but this-this ready-made camaraderie between people from all walks of life-that was the part he missed. It wasn't hard to remember hundreds of other meals just like this, sitting across from his brother as they laughed and shot the shit and ignored the proverbial kaiju in the room.

It was so close to what he remembered, and yet just different enough that the cognitive dissonance was starting to give Soul a headache. Wes looked up and met his eyes, and for a second it was as though they'd never stopped drifting. Wes's mouth twisted and he gave Soul a little nod.

While the scientists were still arguing, Soul slipped away before he could fall too far into a feeling that he had hoped he'd forgotten by now. He bussed his tray and meandered into the main hangar bay. Soul felt calmer the further he moved into the bay and away from the noise of the commissary.

There were only three jaegers in the Shatterdome. Soul recognized by reputation the hulking masses that were Shadow Star and Reaper Troika. He'd only ever seen Troika in action-one rendezvous with the Russians too close to the breach for comfort and before everything had gone to hell. Shadow Star was a Mark-5, still shiny and new compared to what Soul was used to. Still, it was supposed to be the fastest jaeger built so far-the first and last of its kind.

He hadn't intended to end up in front of Bass Hunter. He still needed work, still wasn't fully complete. Really, he wasn't the same at all. Spirit had called the jaeger Bass Hunter, but he was something more now-different in ways that Soul couldn't quite explain.

"She's something, yeah?"

Soul jumped a little, not expecting the voice behind him. Aside from the skeleton crew of techs, he had assumed that everyone else was still eating. He turned and found the same woman Wes had pointed out to him earlier, datapad in hand. For all that she spoke to him, her gaze remained trained on the jaeger in front of them.

"He," Soul corrected unthinkingly. Her gaze snapped down to meet his, green eyes assessing, and he braced himself for an argument. What he got was a crooked smile.

"You're Soul Evans, right? The pilot Marshal Albarn brought in?" She looked like she was just expecting confirmation, and Soul wondered briefly if everyone he would meet here already knew him.

"And you're Maka, right?" That startled her a little, and he couldn't help but follow it up. "You were in the hangar when we arrived earlier. My brother pointed you out." She shifted uncomfortably, but nodded, holding out her hand.

"That's me. I'm going to help find you a new partner."

"I thought you were an Assault Specialist?"

She shrugged and gave him that smile again. "We all wear many hats these days, Mr. Evans." He gave her a long, appraising look that she met, gaze steady and open. She didn't flinch, didn't push, just waited for him. It put him at ease in a way that he hadn't felt since he'd first caught sight of Spirit's chopper at the Wall.

"I don't know if I can drift again," he finally confessed. Saying it out loud felt a little like defeat, despite the fact that he'd been thinking it for years now, but Maka didn't shy away from him or scowl or reassure him with false platitudes.

"We'll find someone," she just said with that same steady smile. She said it with confidence, like finding him a new Drift partner was merely a small formality and not some huge hurdle. Then, without missing a beat, she switched conversations, nodding at the jaeger. "You said, 'he'?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah." They're close enough that he had to crane his neck back to see the Conn-Pod. "This is Bass Hunter-my brother and I were his pilots."

She shuffled her feet and coughed. "Well, sort of," Maka said.

"What do you mean, 'sort of'?" he asked, eyes narrowing.

"Back when the Jaeger program was just getting off the ground, one of the first jaegers they sent out was called Demon Scythe. She was the last of the Mark-1s, and the only one that survived long enough to be decommissioned. When they brought in Bass Hunter, well, there wasn't much left."

"I know."

Her mouth twisted into that rueful smile again. "Yeah. We rebuilt Bass Hunter, and we used Demon Scythe to do it."

Once again, Soul was left feeling caught between then-and-now. He'd seen pictures of Demon Scythe before-everyone who'd come through the academy had. It was a wonder he hadn't picked up on the pieces of design that were foreign-little bits of wrong in the familiar structure, certain parts that would be considered relics by the standards of a jaeger like Shadow Star. Then again, he hadn't really wanted to see. There was a part of him-a pretty large part, he recognized-that wanted the last few years to be a dream. Seeing Bass Hunter like this, almost whole again, brought it all back. The missions, the adrenaline spikes, the familiarity of him and Wes in the Drift.

"It's not the same," he said finally, and next to him Maka visibly bristled. "Thank you." And just as quickly as she'd tensed, he saw the fight go out from her, shoulders relaxing almost completely.

"You're welcome, Mr. Evans."

"Call me Soul."

Maka looked back up at the jaeger, eyes fixed on the exposed chunks of machinery, so close to being done. "You're welcome, Soul."

---

Morning came at 4am and with a blaring klaxon that startled Maka out of her bed and out her door before she'd fully woken up. It wasn't the kaiju alarm, she registered that much, but she still hadn't been expecting it. Across the hall, Soul stumbled out of his bunk, blinking blearily and wearing nothing but a pair of pajama pants and his dog tags. For a brief moment, she was distracted before her brain caught up with the rest of her body, and she realized she was still in nothing more than the oversized shirt she'd fallen asleep in and that the alert noise was for an incoming Jumphawk detachment.

Shadow Star and Reaper Troika were still in the hangar, there was no way that Soul's jaeger had been moved without her knowledge, and there simply weren't any other jaegers anymore, which ultimately meant one thing.

"Samples," she muttered, and Soul glanced over at her, rubbing absently at his chest.

"What?" he shouted.

"The kaiju samples!" she yelled back-just in time for the alarm to cut out. Maka flushed with embarrassment as her voice rang through the barracks. "Shit. Ah, the samples that Stein has been waiting for-pretty sure they just showed up."

Soul scowled, cheeks pinking as he looked away. "Was the fucking fire alarm really necessary?"

Maka scrubbed a hand over her face and through her hair, fingers automatically untangling the sleep knots. "Ugh. It's a built-in precaution-kind of a standard all hands on deck alarm whenever there are incoming Jumphawks. Usually, they're bringing in a damaged jaeger for repairs, but, well-"

"Urgh," he groaned. "What are the odds I get to go back to sleep?"

She didn't bother to hide her grin. "Only one way to find out. Don't worry, Stein'll call as soon as he has something for the Marshal. Plus, we're finding you a partner tomor-today. Better catch your beauty sleep while you still can."

Soul flapped a hand tiredly. "I need all the help I can get. 'Night."

She watched for a moment as he turned and went back to his room, then caught herself staring and shook her head. She reached her door just as she heard his close and sighed. Her heart was still pounding, and she resigned herself to a quick shower and starting her day. Sleep was not going to be happening again anytime soon.

The tech crews were already in full morning swing by the time she had showered and grabbed something to eat. The sounds of welding and hydraulics were soothing in a very particular way-they sounded like progress and promise. Even at 5am-and no matter how frequently she had to keep morning hours, Maka was never going to enjoy them-the bustle of the hangar was familiar, steadying to her brain.

As long as the hangar was still going, they were still moving forward, still alive, still fighting. She pulled out her datapad, moving towards Soul's jaeger. She didn't quite feel comfortable calling it "Bass Hunter." She understood why Soul did, but to her, all of the pieces of Demon Scythe were too noticeable, too prominent for her to overlook. Demon Scythe was too much of an old friend to ever be ignored. Her eyes skirted the familiar mechanical arms, the salvaged torso paneling here and there. The guts she knew by heart-an amalgamation of nuclear fusion and upgraded shielding-the raw power of Demon Scythe and the lighter, stronger bones of Bass Hunter. She had approved the majority of the restoration herself, even before they were positive that this would be the last jaeger project they'd be able to fund.

Today, they would find Soul a pilot; she checked her datapad for any updates regarding the build progress-95% complete-and she ignored the way her stomach clenched unpleasantly at the thought of Demon Scythe being piloted again-by someone who wasn't her father, by someone who didn't know her like Maka did. She shook her head, pigtails whipping back and forth. It didn't do to dwell on the impossible right now, even if she couldn't help but wonder if Soul felt the same way about anyone who wasn't his brother piloting Bass Hunter.

---

It wasn't as though this was the first time that Soul had undergone the BEAT. He had just never assumed that he'd be back here again. He also hadn't quite anticipated the audience he'd be subject to. He'd barely entered the room and acknowledged the Marshal before he was clapped on the back hard enough to make him stumble.

"Welcome back to the fold, brother!"

Behind him, Maka exhaled noisily. "Black*Star, for fuck's sake."

"What? I just wanted to give him a warm welcome!" Soul could see now that he'd been assaulted by a stocky guy with a bright blue shock of hair and what appeared to be a complete lack of volume control. He grabbed Soul's hand with no compunctions and shook it hard. "I'm Black*Star and this is my partner, Tsubaki. I can't believe you're finally meeting us!"

"Um."

Maka rolled her eyes. "Ignore him. Black*Star and Tsubaki are Shadow Star's pilots." Standing just behind Black*Star was a tall, graceful looking woman who just smiled serenely and waved. Soul...Soul was not prepared for any of this.

"I've heard a lot about you, man. I can't wait to see what moves you're gonna bust out. This is the most exciting thing to happen here since we arrived. Place has been dead since Sydney. Hell, everything's been dead since Sydney." That pinged something in the back of Soul's brain-that Shadow Star was the jaeger that had taken down Monstroso in Australia, just after GorCo had hailed the Wall of Life as the nigh indestructible savior of the world.

That kaiju had bought them all some time but not any more funding, despite clear evidence that a piddling pile of metal wasn't going to stop a kaiju for long, and well, here he was, slipping on his slick-soled shoes and loosening up his joints in a way he hadn't done in years.

Soul rolled his shoulders a few times and stretched through his legs, feeling his tendons lengthen just to the point of unease before he relented. Dimly, he heard Maka speaking, and it took him a moment before he realized she was speaking to him.

"-will be judged on how well you counter each other's moves, in addition to how complementary your styles are."

"I have done this before," he said, lips quirking just a bit.

Maka raised an eyebrow. "It has been a while," she countered haughtily. Soul grinned outright.

"It has," he agreed. He sobered for a moment, dropping his voice for her ears only. "Don't get your hopes up, ok? I-" even when he and Wes had drifted together, he'd never been the easiest of partners. A little too wild, a little too unpredictable. He and Wes had primarily worked because they'd grown up together, and because Wes had known him so well already.

Maka cocked her head to the side and searched his face. "We will find you a partner," she said finally, ignoring his incomplete thought. She kept saying it with such conviction that Soul wanted nothing more to believe her.

"All right," he replied. "You're the boss."

She smiled then, wide and knowing. "First up, Kilik."

Soul and Kilik didn't last a full song. They were out of sync from the start as Soul dropped into his favored jerk style. Kilik countered with what Soul could tell was an astonishingly skilled bout of breaking, but they were completely at odds with one another, just a half a beat off at any given moment. Kilik shook his hand as he rotated out, laughing quietly.

Ox Ford was next, and Soul barely got started before Ox jumped the gun and began a rousing rendition of the cabbage patch that had the rest of the room trying desperately to cover up their laughter with muffled coughing. Even the Marshal looked suspiciously red in the face. Maka had her datapad up as far as it could go and still have it look like she was working and not hiding.

The next few candidates worked a little better. He exchanged several rounds with both Anya and Meme, achieving a decent back-and-forth balance, but Anya was ultimately too stiff in her movements, lacking the kind of fluidity he exuded. Meme was fluid in her movement, but too unpredictable even for Soul-switching between styles rapidly and with no real cohesion. He watched her drop into a spin and immediately come up into the Charleston and it threw him off so much that he stopped in the middle of the session and stared. Throughout the entirety of the BEAT, Soul's eyes kept drifting back to Maka, who was diligently taking notes. He thought at first that it was just a small tic-a twitch of her eyebrow. But every time he didn't mesh with another partner, there it was again.

Finally he stopped, leaving his most recent partner Hiro bent over, panting, and halfway through a complex original move.

"What, are you writing a novel over there or something?"

Maka looked up, eyebrow raised. "What?"

"You keep making this face, like you don't like what you're seeing and scribbling shit down." He watched her flush and her eyebrow twitch again. "It's making me nervous."

She set the datapad down and crossed her arms. "Maybe you should be nervous. You're not even trying."

Soul bristled, maybe because it felt like an insult, maybe because it rang a little too true. "I am," he insisted. "What, you think that you can do a better job?"

He wasn't sure what he was expecting, issuing a challenge like that, but he probably should have expected the haughty tilt of her chin and the confident, "Yes." From behind her, the Marshal made a noise in the back of his throat, just barely audible, and for the first time, Soul saw Maka look indecisive. It only lasted for a second before she leveled him with her piercing green eyes.

"So, what, you're a pilot, too?" he asked, crossing his arms to mirror her.

"I did say I wore many hats." Her smile was small and sharp.

He felt himself straighten in response. He gestured to the dancefloor and Maka rolled her shoulders and cracked her neck before unzipping the top half of her coveralls. She tied them off around her waist and stepped onto the floor.

"You ready for this?" she asked. He swallowed, throat suddenly dry.

"Let's do it." He didn't miss the tight press of the Marshal's lips as he signaled the music to start, but Soul was focused on the woman in front of him.

He heard Black*Star mutter behind him, "Oh, he is so not ready for her jelly," but the music kicked in and he had to focus.

As soon as the bass started, he dropped into a spin, and Maka didn't wait for him to finish before countering-except what she did was less countering and more riffing off his moves. It didn't make sense-that wasn't what you did in BEAT, but it fucking worked. He watched her more closely than he had any other person he'd partnered with, and found himself adapting to suit her.

He could feel the recursivity of their dancing, weaving in and out, shifting from complementary to matching and back seamlessly. He met Maka's eyes, sucking in air, and it took him a long moment to realize that the music had stopped and they were breathing together. It was also really, really quiet until suddenly it wasn't-the silence broken by a resounding holler from Black*Star and a smattering of applause. For all of her earlier bravado, Maka looked just as surprised as he felt. She exhaled slowly and straightened.

"You felt that, yeah?"

She smiled, shaky, but still there. "How could I not?"

The moment was broken by the Marshal stepping forward. "Ms. Albarn." Soul's gaze snapped to Spirit because Albarn, seriously, but the older man was already beckoning Maka to follow him. He didn't miss the furious look on her face, but she stooped to retrieve her datapad. "I think we've seen enough for today."

"What?" Soul had been expecting something from the Marshal, but that sure as fuck wasn't it.

"You heard me, Evans. We're finished for today." Spirit's voice was deceptively level, too even to be labeled irritated, despite the tenseness in his shoulders.

"For today? Did you miss the fact that we're Drift compatible? Like, ridiculously Drift compatible?"

Spirit's eyes were hard in a way that Soul couldn't remember having seen before as he let Maka pass him into the hallway. "You'll hear from me later regarding your new Drift partner. Dismissed, Evans." Maka shot him a look over her shoulder, jaw tight with frustration, but she went.

---

"I understand that you're frustrated with me." Frustrated didn't really begin to cover what Maka was feeling at the moment; Spirit wasn't completely dense, no matter what his ex-wife might say. "We've discussed this before." He barely resisted the urge to pace. There was hardly enough room in his "office" as it was, and Maka seemed intent on being the one who did the pacing.

He watched her bite her tongue. "It's just-you know how your mother and I-" Spirit knew the moment the words left his mouth that it was the exact wrong thing to say. He watched Maka's face grow red, right eye twitching slightly, and just knew.

He also knew he had effectively asked for it.

"You don't get to do that," Maka hissed, coming to an abrupt halt. "You can't be my CO and then pull rank just because we're related."

"I'm not-"

"Yes, you are! That is exactly what you're doing!"

"Maka, you are our top specialist when it comes to designing and implementing ways to kill kaiju. You're an asset that we simply cannot risk," he started.

"Well you're going to have to risk me," Maka said. She crossed her arms, and the stubborn set of her chin and jaw were all her mother's, Spirit noted with a sinking feeling in his chest. "No one is too valuable to risk for the safety of the world." He saw her falter just a smidgen, and he wanted in that moment to exploit that crack, thought that he maybe could.

But as much as the father in him wanted to, wanted to keep his daughter-his strong, beautiful, smart, capable daughter-safe, as Marshal he knew he didn't have that luxury. It was the one thing he had been hoping to avoid since Maka first enlisted with the PPDC. He remembered being so shamefully relieved when she completed her training as a pilot and hadn't been able to find a person capable of drifting with. He'd been thrilled when she'd become an assault specialist, if only because it kept her a little further out of harm's way.

She kept giving him that stubborn look, and Spirit sighed. He wouldn't ever get used to this feeling-simultaneously proud and terrified-like he could dance around, crowing about his daughter's accomplishments, but also puke.

"You will report to Bass Hunter's Con Pod at 1500 hours, Ms. Albarn."

The feeling only grew worse as he watched her straighten and salute. "Sir." There was something soft in her eyes and Spirit thought that, if he couldn't do anything else for her, he could do this and maybe give her a reason to be proud of him, even if it killed a part of him.

She paused at the door and stood there for a long moment, looking like she might say something. But she just swallowed and nodded, and that was that. Spirit didn't watch her close the door behind her.

---

The message he received from Wes was clipped and to the point. "Conn-Pod, 1500."

Soul looked up, brushing sweaty hair away from his forehead. With a sharp cackle, Black*Star stole the basketball right out of his hands, and he grunted, irritated. "What, now?"

Wes shrugged a shoulder. "Conn-Pod, 1500."

"Okay, yes. I heard you. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"It came from Marshal Albarn, so, uh," Wes mocked, "fucking guess, nerd." Soul scowled and resisted the urge to throw his hand towel at his brother. He'd never get the damn thing back and he'd never get issued another one.

"Means the Marshal found you a partner," Black*Star sing-songed, dribbling the ball around him in a ridiculously complex pattern, and fuck he was fast. Soul half-heartedly reached out to try and smack it away from him, but 'Star was already passing to his partner. Tsubaki caught it mid jump and dunked it gracefully. Soul tried not to be disgusted because the two of them together were nearly too much. Who dunks gracefully?

Tsubaki gave him a smile. "I bet it will be Maka." The thought made Soul frown-not that he didn't want that because god he wanted that. He'd never felt that kind of connection outside of the Drift before, not even with Wes, which-

"There's no way. Albarn isn't going to let her pilot," he said. Tsubaki just shrugged serenely and seemed completely unphased by his statement. Soul turned his scowl onto Wes. "Speaking of which, you couldn't have told me Maka was 'Maka Albarn'?"

"Oh, I didn't? Huh. Could have sworn I did." He was full of shit, and they both knew it, judging from Wes's unapologetic grin.

"You are the worst."

"I know, little bro. Lady Albarn or not though, you've got an appointment at 1500."

Soul sighed, but flapped a hand in acknowledgement. "Yeah, yeah, I know."

Despite Tsubaki's assurances, he really didn't expect Spirit to relent and let Maka pilot. He figured the Marshal might have settled on Anya. He wasn't really looking forward to the prospect, but he figured he might be able to at least make it work.

Stepping into Bass Hunter's Conn-Pod felt like coming home after years away-the frame was the same, familiar bones surrounding him. On the surface, there wasn't much that had changed. It was the little things-the rigs were new, more streamlined, the panels updated, controls just slightly off. He inhaled, and even the smell hit him with the sensation of old-familiar-wrong. He shifted uneasily in his drivesuit, and even that felt off-too new, more efficient and compact (though putting it on had still felt like an exercise in futility). It felt like looking into a funhouse mirror that shifted everything 3 centimeters to the left.

Soul hated funhouses.

He was so caught up in the pervasive feeling of being wrong-footed that he almost missed the tell-tale clonk of boots on metal grating.

"I'm going to take the right side," he said before he even looked up. Might as well head off any confusion at the start of things. "My left shoulder is still a little jacked up when it comes to piloting."

"I know," his copilot responded, and Soul felt his breath stutter. He looked up and into amused green eyes.

He didn't bother trying to hide his smile, wide and genuine. "So the Marshal let you out, huh?"

Maka grinned, smug as she pulled on her helmet. "Like he could have stopped me."

The thing was, he had no trouble believing her. Soul locked his own helmet in place and together they stepped onto the platform. He felt, rather than heard, the clamps locking their boots in, distracted by being on the wrong side of the interface. Next to him, Maka exhaled long and loud, and he couldn't miss the flash of nervousness on her face.

"How many drops have you done?" he asked, rolling his shoulders as the docking process started.

"45 successful sim drops," she said. The words sounded forced, but still steady.

Soul cleared his throat. "It's gonna be-" he wasn't sure what he wanted to say, exactly. She knew it was going to be different than drop simulations, because she wasn't stupid, but he- "It's gonna be weird," he finally said. "The last time I drifted, with Wes-"

"I know," she said again, eyes cutting across to look at him.

"It just might be weird in there."

"Only one way to find out, right?"

He returned her smile as the jaeger's A.I. announced that they were locked in.

Wes's voice crackled through a moment later, at once comforting and strange. "You ready to do this?"

"Let's go." He wasn't expecting Maka's confirmation with his own, but it felt-natural.

"Initiating neural handshake…" Wes' voice faded as Soul felt the connection snap into place; he blinked and-

---

Maka Albarn is ten and sitting in her 5th grade social studies class when the kaiju attack San Francisco. It's still early-early enough that most of her classmates are still blinking blearily, and her teacher's still got one hand wrapped possessively around her coffee mug when she turns on the TV for the morning announcements.

Someone's stuffed the third floor men's room toilets with paper towels again, recess will be held in the gym due to soaring temperatures-all things she feels like she's heard a thousand times before and will hear a thousand times again. She wonders idly if she can finally force a confession out of Black*Star for at least one of the paper towel incidents, when there's a stifled noise and the picture flickers and switches to a live news feed, and that, that's different.

For a long, still moment, she's sure that it's another prank, that someone-maybe even Black*Star-switched the AV feed to show an old monster movie or something for a laugh. Her brain is processing the images, but it doesn't really mean anything. Distantly, she hears a gasp and the sound of a coffee mug shattering as she watches a giant monster smash through the Golden Gate Bridge. It doesn't look real. There's no way that it can be real.

The broadcast transmits the muted sounds of carnage, and finally, long minutes later, the shaking voice of the news anchor cuts through it all, and she knows that it isn't a hoax.

"...no effect. We have no accurate information as of yet regarding the number of casualties. The government has deployed all available military resources, but so far there hasn't been any appreciable effect. Officials are advising everyone still in the Bay Area to remain calm-"

It takes five days. Five days of her mother staring at the TV and the computer as she tries to keep up with the flurry of emails she gets, five days of packed bags by the door just in case, five days of her father working overtime to try and keep panic and looting to a minimum on the streets. Five days until the military finally uses tactical nukes to kill the monster.

It's another week before estimates on the damage come out. Suzume and Spirit both try to keep Maka from finding out, but it's futile. She wants to-needs to know, and besides, it's plastered all over the place-the death toll is enormous and unavoidable, and no one knows what to make of the whole thing other than to try and move on with life. School starts back and there are at least three different charity drives thrown together to help those affected by the attack.

Maka doesn't know who coined the term, but it isn't long before her friends and her parents are calling the monster a kaiju. She recalls those first moments, watching the attack on the TV, and privately thinks that it's a pretty appropriate name. Her father stops working overtime every night and the phone calls for her mother begin to pick up, and even though everything is slowly returning to normal, it all still feels tense and different in a way that she can't quite pinpoint.

In February, it happens again, this time in Manila. School doesn't grind to a halt this time, and Black*Star finds her, tucked away in the library during their lunch break.

"What's up, nerd?" He nudges at her shoulder and she scoots over on the bench enough that he can sit down. She has a book in her hands, but she isn't even reading it, and Black*Star is a lot of things, but he's not dumb. She thinks about paper towels and bathrooms flooding a little hysterically-well, mostly not dumb.

"Nothing," she says. He makes a noise that he would insist wasn't a whine and nudges at her again.

"Nothing, huh?"

She's pale as she glances over at him. "I'm just-I'm really glad it wasn't here again," she finally says. She cringes because it's one thing to think it and another thing to say it and she feels like the worst person for doing either.

"Yeah, I know." Black*Star's voice is soft and understanding and that's somehow better and worse. "Mira's making some kind of nasty veggie lasagna tonight, you in?"

It's so normal it hurts a little, and Maka can't stop the weird giggle that bursts out. "Miss one of Aunt Mira's cooking experiments? No way. I'll be there."

Black*Star sighs heavily. "That is not how this is supposed to go. I'm supposed to tell you that Mira's cooking, and then you're supposed to offer to have me over for dinner instead."

"Oh no, no way. Mom's got another mystery meeting tonight and who knows when Dad'll be back. All we have are leftovers and like, freezer burned dinosaur nuggets and you know how Dad is about me using the oven by myself. I'll take my chances with Aunt Mira's veggie surprise."

"I'll supervise."

Maka rolls her eyes. "I don't think that's gonna change his mind."

"I'm totally responsible."

"One, you are barely a year older than me, and two, weren't you the one who lit that firecracker off in the-"

"Once, and that was comedy genius."

"You nearly got kicked out of school."

"But I didn't. Also, worth it."

It's normal, she thinks as she lets her cousin draw her out of the library with the argument. She didn't think that anything could ever feel normal again.

Out on the east coast, it barely seems real-the destruction of San Francisco is like a really crappy end of the world movie. Soul knows, understands the seriousness by the stressed faces of his teachers, by the way his parents speak around the whole thing and whisper like they think he and Wes can't hear them or understand what's going on.

They understand enough-that everyone is scared, that no one knows what the attack was-if it was another country or aliens or science fiction come to life in horrifying reality. It just doesn't feel real.

Wes, three years older and a junior in high school to Soul's measly 8th grade status, says that the attack had to be an alien, and that all the scientific reports pouring in confirm it. Soul doesn't necessarily disagree, but he also knows that Wes tends to be full of bullshit more often than not.

Then there was Manila, and Soul hadn't fully realized the tension that had been boiling between their parents until their father pulls them out of school with no explanation. Soul's not complaining; he hadn't really wanted to go to piano practice, but the fact that his father is okay with him missing it shakes him, and he spends the whole car ride home feeling awkward and uneasy.

Turns out that's nothing compared to the awkwardness of getting home and being seated with Wes on the antique sofa in the formal family room and being told by their parents that they're moving, effective immediately. Do not pass go, do not make it to high school. For a long moment, he doesn't know what to say, mouth open and gaping wide. Wes doesn't have the same problem.

"You can't be serious!" Judging from the look on their parents' faces, it is perhaps the wrong thing to say. Soul's not really sure that there's a right thing to say at the moment.

"I assure you, Wes, your father and I could not be more serious."

"But what about school? Our friends? Our music?"

"There are plenty of prestigious schools that are not as close to the coast as New York."

"Bullshit."

"Westland David Evans."

"What! It is! You can't just run away-"

"We are not running away, we've got nothing but the safety of our family-of you and your brother-in mind. We have no idea what's going on with these-these kaiju creatures. The only way to make sure that we're not affected is to move inland, away from the water."

"People are dying," Wes says.

"People die every day. Why would you care about it now?" Soul watches his brother freeze, face slack with shock, and he thinks he understands then Wes' impotent rage-understands the desire to strike out, strike back, to do something. "It is awful and it's tragic, and we can't do anything about it. What we can do is keep our family safe. We can't be too careful," his father adds and it rings in the quiet of their family room with finality.

They're out of the city within the week, house packed professionally and set to follow them out to Kansas City.

Maka finds just what all the phone calls and trips her mother has been taking have been about when Suzume announces it at one of their rare family dinners.

"They want me to work on a new project. Something that's going to put a stop to the kaiju attacks." She says it with the same firm conviction that she says everything, and Maka isn't scared. She isn't. She's proud of her mother.

The skin around Spirit's eyes is tight, but he smiles and reaches across the table to clasp his wife's hand. "We're so proud of you."

"I think I can really help," Suzume says, and that, more than anything is what sticks in Maka's head.

"I know you can, Mama," she says. Suzume smiles and Maka thinks that maybe she can help too. When Spirit goes to follow her a few months later, she pulls her pride in her family around her and turns her fear and worry into determination.

Wes says that he's going to wait for him-pulls Soul aside after he graduates and whispers, "Finish out school and then we're gonna go, ok?" It feels like a fucking eternity to him-three years of high school stretching into forever. "I'm not going to do this without you, little brother."

Soul nods and gives his parents a sneering smile because Wes is about as subtle as a ton of bricks, and Soul doesn't want to give anything away. Three years and the academy waiting at the end. He can do that.

She watches the live feeds religiously, studies rigorously and tries not to roll her eyes when Black*Star flips the bird at his books and proclaims, "Fuck school, I'm going to be a pilot."

"And what about after?" she asks once. They're in the cafeteria and she's pushing soupy peas around on her plate while 'Star shoves another piece of square pizza slathered in ranch into his mouth.

"Live fast, die young, bad girls do it well," is all he says. She doesn't ask again. They're going to graduate soon, anyway. Later that month they watch together as Big Foot rips open Bass Hunter and-

-fuck he's never felt anything like this. Wes screams and he doesn't just hear it, it's saturating every pore in his body as Big Foot tears into their Conn-Pod like it's fucking butter on his grandma's dinner table. Wes is ripped out and away and Soul feels his leg-Wes's leg and then he doesn't feel anything. There's a gaping static hole in his head where Wes had been and the Drift is shattered except he can still feel Bass Hunter and Wes is dead has to be dead and he has to hold it together because there isn't anyone else out here. The next closest jaeger is so far, too far stuck somewhere en route he can't even remember who it is. All there is is searing pain and fear and desperation and rage and fuck-there is a fleeting moment when he swears he can still feel Wes and then everything is crackling-white-hot.

He swings, can feel his brain start to melt from the neural overload, from cajoling Bass Hunter into moving both arms. Someone screams, high pitched and feminine but it can't be him, it can't be-

Together, they tear off Big Foot's head.

---

"Jesus fucking christ."

No one was quite sure who said it, hushed in the crowd of personnel that had gathered to watch Soul Evans climb back into the Conn-Pod and to see if Maka Albarn, as notorious in her abilities as a pilot as in her inability to successfully drift with anyone, could really make this work.

"Their stability rate is off the fucking charts," and that was definitely Wes. He stared carefully at the monitors, tracking each fluctuation.

"He's going to drag her down the RABIT hole," Spirit hissed next to him, eyes just as sharp. For a moment, Wes was tempted to agree, except the waves stabilized again and he exhaled with something like relief and something like jealousy.

"You want me to pull them?" he asked.

Spirit slowly relaxed his shoulders, "No," he said. "Let's wait it out, see where they're going to take this."

He was so focused on the Drift that he didn't immediately notice the commotion behind him until the shrill, panicked pitch of Marie's voice cut through everything else.

"Goddammit let me in."

"The Marshal is-"

"I know what the Marshal is doing you pimple-faced little cretin and this is more important. SPIRIT I know you can hear me!" Spirit winced and glanced over at Wes, who gave him a little grin and waved him off.

"I've got this, boss."

Spirit reached the door in time to see an extremely offended Officer Hiro about to lay into one of his incensed K-Scientists.

"Look, Ms. Mjolnir-"

"That is doctor to you and if you think for one minute that you're going to keep me out-"

Spirit put a quelling hand on Hiro's shoulder. "Dr. Mjolnir, what seems to be the problem?" Spirit tried to keep the smile off his face as he turned to Marie. Any lingering amusement disappeared as he took in the state of his normally composed scientist. Her blond hair, usually pulled neatly back, frizzed wildly around her face and-was that blood?

"It's Stein-I told him he was fucking crazy to start with, and nothing good would come of it, but him and his fucking samples-"

"Marie." Spirit barked. She stopped, shoulders still vibrating with tension. She exhaled, pulled herself together, and glared at Spirit with one piercing eye.

"He made a fucking Pons system out of crap and drifted with his precious spare kaiju parts because he's insane, and if he survives I swear to god I'm going to kill him myself!"

For a moment, Spirit was certain that he'd heard her wrong. "Wait, he did what?"

"He drifted with half a fucking kaiju brain and had a seizure and-" Marie choked. "He's lucid, kind of, but he found something-"

---

Wes glanced away from the readouts long enough to see Spirit stride out of the command center with Marie on his heels. The computer blipped a warning and he had to return his attention to monitoring Soul and Maka's Drift. Their readouts remained steady, and Wes flipped the com on.

"Looking good. Let's go for physical sync in 5...4...3...2...1-" Bass Hunter was elevated for testing purposes, but Wes felt himself startle even still as the groan and creak of gears and servos began. His leg spasmed a little, and he grit his teeth. Through LOCCENT's command bay, he had a perfect view of the jaeger.

The jaeger that wasn't moving.

"Uh, guys? You're clear for physical sync." He eyeballed his readouts again. Everything seemed fine.

"We're trying," Soul snapped over the com.

Maka's irritated grunt followed his statement. "Well, we would be moving, except someone keeps trying to lead with the WRONG LEG."

"It's a hard habit to break," Soul whined. "I'm tryin'."

"Stop trying! That's the problem. You're still acting like you're hooked to the left hemisphere!" Maka exhaled noisily. Wes choked down the urge to laugh a little hysterically. "You need to relax," she added, voice calmer. "Your memories are mixing and you're letting it fuck you up."

If there was one thing that Wes remembered-that he knew about his brother-it was Soul's stubborn streak. It mirrored his own-their mother had forever rolled her eyes at them and said they'd gotten that from their grandmother-and more often than not that stubbornness had pushed them both to be better. Wes wasn't expecting Soul's silence, much less the way, a moment later, Bass Hunter began to move in place, one foot in front of the other. He could almost hear the smugness radiating over the com.

---

Stein was almost exactly where Marie had initially found him which, at this point, she couldn't tell if that was a good sign or not. On the one hand, he had listened to her. On the other, he had listened to her, and she could count on scant fingers the number of times that had happened in their years of working together. She wasn't hallucinating the fine motor tremors still running through his nervous system, and her chest ached.

Spirit's jaw clenched as he watched his one-time copilot try and fail to sip from the glass of water Marie had left on the table.

"Dr. Stein? You found something?" It sounded too formal, too impersonal coming from him, especially in this situation, but Spirit had to hope the authority in his tone was enough to focus the scientist.

"It's so much more than what I thought," he said, blinking up at them owlishly.

"What are you talking about?"

"I thought they were just learning, adapting to us, to our strategies, and they are, but it's so much more than just that. They're connected. I thought it was weird that the tissue samples I'd gotten were similar considering each kaiju was so different, but they're not different at all, they're clones all of them-hiveminded clones I can't believe that I didn't think of this sooner," he rambled, tripping over words here and there, but Spirit was pretty sure that he grasped the gist of it all. Next to him, Marie looked like she might throw up.

"Hivemind?"

"That's how they're learning even though nothing's going back through the Breach. They're all fucking connected."

"Did you get anything else?"

Stein shook his head. "I had a piece of a half-rotted brain to work with. I need more-something new, something fresh that I can drift with." Marie made a noise in the back of her throat.

"Fr-Stein you can't. You can't do that again! You barely survived this time, what's going to happen when you try it with a fresh brain?"

Stein looked at her for a long moment, one eye nearly completely red with hemorrhaged blood vessels. His hand twitched up, so fast that she almost missed it. She smoothed her bangs back, fingertips brushing her eyepatch.

"Do you have any other suggestions? If your nuke plan is going to work, we need every advantage we can glean from them. Dissections aren't enough anymore, Marie."

Spirit watched Marie's fists clench, and he swallowed. "Go into the city and find The Diehl. If anyone can get you the fresh parts, it'll be them. Those vultures are all over fresh kaiju kills, ripping carcasses for profit before our guys could ever hope to get there. Tell them we've got a line of credit with Dve Pushkis if they give you trouble."

Stein nodded and staggered to his feet. Spirit clasped his hand once, and turned to go. Marie refused to meet either of their gazes, but as he shut the lab door, he could hear her sharp words.

"You fucking asshole-" He did his best to ignore the sob at the end of them.

---

Maka was smug. Soul was feeling fairly smug himself, but he was pretty certain that the vast smug-majority was emanating from Maka. There was definitely a smug-feedback loop happening, and he couldn't stop smiling-didn't even want to try. He couldn't deny that, despite his misgivings, their Drift had gone much better than he could have anticipated, movement snafu aside. Maka practically bounced next to him as they made their way to the commissary.

The smugness lasted until they sat down with their food and were almost immediately joined by the Russians. He'd never had the dubious pleasure of meeting them in person, but the one mission they had run together had left a hell of an impression. They were called Dve Pushkis, and Soul had no idea if they had started that, or someone else-he blinked because no. He did know, knew with a sudden and complete clarity that they had called themselves that on the street before they'd ever met DK.

Soul exhaled. That hadn't been his to know before, but it definitely was his now. The Drift had gone well, and he had just made the mistake of forgetting how easy it was to slip in and out of memories that weren't yours-especially after a first Drift with as high of a resonance rate as he and Maka had experienced.

He forced himself to relax. Next to him, Maka shifted slightly, her forearm coming to rest against his. She rubbed absently at a spot just below her collarbone.

"We are so proud of you, kiska," Liz said, carefully lined red lips grinning huge. Maka flushed, and Soul knew from a half buried memory how far her blush would extend, and the whole thing was so distracting that he almost didn't register Pat slipping into the seat next to him, blue eyes equally bright.

"They said you couldn't do it, but we knew better," she added, snatching an extra roll from DK's tray. He had already pushed it closer before she started reaching, and a moment later Liz forked an extra helping of rice from her plate to his.

"You guys are assholes," Maka muttered, but it was more fond than irritated. Soul had only gotten the barest glimpse of Maka's fear regarding her Drift compatibility before they'd slammed into one of his memories.

"We're the best," Liz corrected, and Maka hid her smile behind her mug of coffee.

"Actually, I think you mean that we're the best," Soul said, slipping into the conversation. "What was it Wes said?"

"I think he said that we had the most stable connection that he'd ever seen," Maka chirped. Liz scoffed.

"And yet you still couldn't get your jaeger to walk." Across from them, DK's face twitched in something like a smile.

"Hey, that was one time-"

"And we fixed it!" The banter felt normal, and Soul felt himself relaxing in a way that he hadn't been able to yesterday.

"Greetings losers!" Black*Star all but slammed his tray onto the table on the other side of Maka. "I heard my badass cuz just had her first successful Drift!" Before Maka had a chance to shake him off, he had pinched both of her cheeks and smooshed them together. "Ugh, LOOK HOW PROUD I AM! DK WHERE IS THE WODKAH?"

DK blinked once as Tsubaki deftly disengaged her partner's grabby hands. "What?"

"The WODKAH don't even front, I know you guys are hoarding that shit, and this deserves a celebration."

Liz stared soulfully into her immaculately painted nails. "Delusional," she announced. "We have given all that Russia has to give to the PPDC, even our best vodka." She looked up, "There is nothing left."

He pointed a greasy limp French fry at her, "You are full of shit." He scowled a little. "I respect that about you guys. I always know where I stand with you."

"About three steps up from a cockroach," Maka snapped, still trying to massage feeling back into her face. In typical fashion, Soul realized, Black*Star brushed her off.

"What about when we have something to really celebrate?" Black*Star wheedled.

Pat shrugged one thin shoulder. "It isn't completely out of the question."

"They think we might be able to close the Breach," Tsubaki finally spoke. There was a long moment of stunned silence before Maka finally said what they were all thinking.

"What?"

"K-Science thinks they might have found a way, but they've got to get more information and some fresher kaiju bits."

"What, did they fucking interrogate a kaiju?" Soul asked, rolling his eyes.

"Naw man, don't be dense." Black*Star was unbearably smug as he looked fondly at his partner. "My girl has her ways of getting info. Stein drifted with some kaiju bits and a PONS doohickey he made out of junk."

Maka choked on air. "He did what?"

"He's fine," Tsubaki added quickly, shooting Black*Star a glare. "I talked to Azusa, and she said it didn't seem like he had any permanent damage."

"I'm shocked they managed to get a qualified medical professional to look at him at all," Liz said.

"I don't doubt Marie had something to do with it," Maka said. The news was unsettling at best-she knew that Stein was the kind of person who would do whatever it took to find a solution to the kaiju problem. She hadn't been expecting something like that, but they all still had a job to do, and if Azusa said that Stein was fine, she had to believe it.

Maka made everyone promise to keep the information to themselves, which Black*Star had rolled his eyes at a little.

Surprisingly quietly, he'd said, "Well, duh. I was only going to tell the people that needed to know, and we're all right here."

They parted ways for the night, and next to her, Soul brushed his fingers along the back of her hand just once. She stopped in front of her door, only to realize half a beat later that it was actually Soul's door, and he smiled at her a little crookedly.

"It's a little weird at first, but you get used to it," he offered.

Her first inclination was to say that she knew because in a way, she did, but those weren't her thoughts, weren't actually her experiences. She took a deep breath, still in front of his door. "How?"

He reached past her and unlocked the door; she followed him inside, lingering close to the door. Even without the Drift, he thought that he would have been able to read the skittish curiosity writ in every line of her body.

"It's not really-" he struggled. "It's not something you do consciously," he said, watching her shoulders slump. "I think it might have been a little different for me the first time. Wes and I grew up together. We had different memories, but we still had a shared experience." He thought back to dinner, thought about the sudden influx of knowledge about Dve Pushkis. He hadn't tried to access the information, it had just been there. He pressed a hand to his chest, rubbing lightly. "Sometimes you just have to let the memories happen. They kind of wash in and out, but if you concentrate too hard on one of them, it gets harder to figure out if it's yours or your partner's."

She screwed up her face in a frown. "That is…singularly unhelpful."

Soul laughed. "Yeah, I know. You wanna-"

"Yeah, sure." She came the rest of the way into his room and slipped off her shoes in the process.

She fell asleep about three hours later, somewhere between picking carefully through each other's memories and watching an old show he'd seen before and she hadn't on his tablet; Soul tucked his spare blanket over her.

---

The klaxon screamed through her consciousness and Maka woke immediately, reaching for boots that weren't there and with Wes' name on her lips before her brain slipped back into her own memories.

"Maka?" His voice was rough with sleep, but his eyes were alert when she looked back at him.

"Kaiju," she all but whispered, and he nodded.

"Did you-"

"Yeah, I thought for a second that it was Big Foot." Her chest ached, and she pressed a hand to it. Soul blinked, startled.

He sat up, warmth radiating off him, and scrubbed his face. "I'm sorry about that."

She stood, leaving him on the bed. "No, don't be. We should-"

"Yeah," he agreed, joining her. Their jaeger wasn't finished, but they both knew that that might not matter if things went all pear-shaped. They shoved feet into boots and hauled ass down to LOCCENT, Wes's voice loudly reminding them that this was a double event.

Spirit was already there, and Maka wondered if her father had even gone to bed. He didn't look like he'd slept at all. Wes-she was beginning to think he just slept in LOCCENT.

"Reaper Troika and Shadow Star are prepped; awaiting Rangers." Spirit nodded, eyes focused on the display.

"As soon as they're loaded, deploy," he instructed Wes. He flipped the com on. "Reaper Troika, you're going to be taking the point on this one; Shadow Star, you'll secure the coast and provide ranged combat as necessary. The scanners can't seem to decide on whether or not we've got a double event, but we've at least got a Category 4 registering, codename Ragnarock. Keep a sharp eye out for visual confirmation of a second kaiju."

"What about us?" Soul asked.

"De-Bass Hunter stays. We can't risk our entire force here."

Maka had her mouth open before the Marshal could even finish, and Soul didn't have to drift with her to be able to read that look. He reached out and touched her wrist, and Maka turned her glare on him for a moment before subsiding. Of course she understood the risk, understood why they needed to stay back. She watched, eyes lasered onto the display as Reaper Troika and Shadow Star finally deployed.

She was getting really sick of watching her friends go out to meet their deaths.

Maka was still intent on the display as Wes called out various readings, when Marie burst into LOCCENT, frazzled and panting.

"Is this it?"

Wes turned long enough to give her a look. "We-we don't know. We can't get a proper reading out of our instruments."

She bit her lip. "It has to be," she muttered, knuckles white. It was a long, tense few minutes as they waited for anything to come back from the Rangers. When they finally did hear something, it was Liz's voice, crackling and spitting through the coms.

"There-one kaiju-ugly ass moth-"

"Reaper Troika, you're breaking up."

"ONE KAI-" Pat added a moment later.

More static followed, and Wes slammed his fist into the console. "We can't get anything. Something is jamming the signal."

Maka a shot a look over at Marie, who was still focused on the display. Her breath hitched for a moment. "It has to be the kaiju," the scientist whispered.

"What?" Spirit asked.

"Stein said they're adapting to us-just as fast, if not faster, than we're adapting to them. This has to be part of it."

"Fuck."

Whatever the source, it wasn't affecting as much the visual footage they were receiving The feed flickered in and out, but mostly remained steady. Watching, her heart crawling into her throat, she almost wished that they were running completely blind.

Almost. They watched the kaiju burst from the water, glowing with a sickly reddish/purple light. Maka had never seen a kaiju quite like this one. It was huge, looked larger than any other Category 4 that she'd seen, markings unlike anything else. It opened its mouth and she watched as the bulky Mach 1 body of Reaper Troika staggered under what had to be a sonic blast of some sort. Two of Reaper's arms windmilled for balance as the other arm came to bear on the kaiju. It fired, staggering Ragnarock back and allowing Reaper to spin and regain its footing.

"It looks like-" Wes started, squinting at a second display. "No way."

"It's doing a sonic blast," Marie confirmed, intent on the replay. "But it looks like it's coming from two different origin points."

Ragnarock was stunned for a moment, and Shadow Star took that opportunity to dart in, wickedly fast, plasma knives swinging. They stuttered for a moment before slicing through the skin that Maka knew to be nearly impenetrable. It wasn't going to be nearly enough. Ragnarock swung around, heavy and screeching, and Star dodged backwards, far too fast for something of its size, but still they were caught in the blast and stumbled. Ragnarock was on them in an instant, and if Shadow Star was impossibly quick, Maka feared that the kaiju was even faster.

Next to her, Soul shifted, the back of his hand brushing against hers. She didn't lean into the contact, but she was ridiculously grateful for it, regardless. Reaper didn't waste any time attacking Ragnarock's unprotected flank, though "unprotected" was pretty relative. They were close enough to fire directly into the kaiju, but it didn't do much more than knock it off of Shadow Star.

The coms staticked through and she held her breath, but all she heard was Tsubaki's voice telling Reaper to go for the tears in its hide. The message must have gotten through to Reaper Troika as well because both jaegers began digging mechanical hands into flesh and ripping.

Judging by the way Ragnarock thrashed, it was at least moderately effective, but even with the two of them, they couldn't hold the kaiju for long, and it managed to throw the lighter Shadow Star away. The coms kicked on again long enough for LOCCENT to hear the sound of Black*Star screaming. Soul tensed, and Maka grabbed his hand without thinking.

Ragnarock tossed Shadow Star's right arm towards the city like an after thought. Reaper continued to fire, drawing Ragnarock away from where Shadow Star was attempting to stagger back upright. They were taking on water, had to be between the rain and the sea, and they hadn't heard anything but static since Black*Star's scream. She looked over at Spirit. He met her eyes and nodded once.

They were going to have to risk it.

They didn't even pretend calm, running full force to the prep room and getting into their drivesuits as fast as possible. Maka felt the hammering of her heart, the adrenaline and excitement at her-at their-first real test warring with the pulse of nausea at the knowledge that her cousin, her friends, people she considered family, were in grave danger.

Soul and Maka stepped into the Conn-Pod together, machinery whirring lightly around them as they moved towards the dock.

"Are you ready for this?" Soul's voice was quiet, but not hesitant.

She didn't have to think about it. "You know I am." She could practically feel his smile.

"Yeah, you are."

They locked into the dock together, relay gel sluicing through their helmets. For a moment, she instinctively held her breath, but pushed through the feeling. Bass Hunter-Demon Scythe-their jaeger enveloped them as they slid into the Drift between one breath and the next.

She felt his echo of fear as they linked-remainders of his last Drift with Wes, something that she understood would always be with him whether they drifted fifty more times or never again; she felt him try to sublimate it again, but she dragged it out this time, more aware of their connection, more in control of the ebb and flow of memories and feelings. She offered up her own fear, felt him poke and prod it, walk into it unflinchingly.

He relaxed into the Drift as Maka pulled gentle fingers through his memories, let her massage at them even as he stepped into her own fears-still so fresh at the top of her mind. He hadn't missed it before, but it had been kind of buried in the onslaught of everything else that made up Maka.

She was so fierce, so determined, and under all of that was a constant simmer of fear that she wouldn't be able to do this-couldn't make the difference that she needed to make, wouldn't be enough, that (until Soul) she would never be able to drift, that she would be forced to sit back and research while everyone she loved died. All of that drove her forward though, and Soul tugged carefully at that feeling, showed her her bravery.

Wes's voice broke through, "Neural handshake established and holding steady."

"We can do this."

Maka glanced over at him, green eyes calm and determined. "Yeah we can."

"I've got some good news, kids," Wes said. They both rolled their eyes.

"What's up, Wes?"

"Looks like Bass Hunter's mostly complete. Techs've been working major OT on your baby."

They exchanged another glance, and Soul nodded once. Maka responded. "Not Bass Hunter."

"What?"

"Demon Hunter."

"Locked, cocked, and ready to rock," Soul added. Next to him, Maka sighed, but he knew she was smiling. The com was silent for a long moment.

"Demon Hunter, you're on deck and moving out."

---

The ocean roiled beneath them, and it was somehow worse that Maka had expected. Sims couldn't prepare you for everything, terrain included. Fortunately, they didn't have very far to go. Ragnarock was impossible to miss even in the rain and the dark.

Bright flickers of red and purple marked the kaiju's movement, and they could feel the ripples of sonic activity as it made every attempt to incapacitate Reaper and Shadow Star. They dodged as much as possible, trying to avoid rending claws and the vicious screaming, but Shadow Star was worse for the wear and Reaper was struggling to get into a position where they could fire without hitting Shadow Star and without leaving themselves open to attack more than necessary. So far, Ragnarock didn't seem to have noticed Demon Hunter's approach.

Their coms crackled and popped the closer they got and Soul could just make out DK's thick accent.

"...hold...Death Cannon...still have to…"

And they both knew what that meant. Soul remembered seeing their particular version of the Death Cannon in action before, and it was effective. Unfortunately, it needed a still target and about 30 seconds to charge. 30 seconds would mean death out here, and without even the guarantee that they'd be able to get the shot off.

They didn't speak. As one, they moved, wrapping massive arms around Ragnarock, wrestling the kaiju. A moment later, Shadow Star staggered into them, one good arm anchoring itself into the broken flesh of Ragnarock. The kaiju screamed, piercing and ruinous, and Maka was glad that both jaegers were out out of the blast's target zone. She could still feel it in her bones, in the way Demon Hunter shuddered around them.

They could just make out Reaper Troika, far enough away to be out of range of Ragnarock's thrashing, but not far enough to avoid that sonic blast if they couldn't keep it occupied. The jaeger's three arms were already assuming the pyramid formation that would combine the plasmacasters, and Soul could see the beginning glow of the Death Cannon warming up. They just had to hold Ragnarock in place.

It was a near thing; holding onto a thrashing kaiju was no mean feat, much less one of this size. They had yet to see another kaiju, and they both spared a thought to Marie's prediction of a double event and thanked the universe that she'd been apparently wrong. They never could have managed if they had a second creature to worry about. A moment later, they heard the sharp whine of the Death Cannon fire, sending a piercing white hot plasma blast straight for them all.

Shadow Star wrenched its entire body to the side and back, letting go at the last possible second as Demon Hunter twisted the kaiju. The beam slammed into the already rent flesh of Ragnarock. This had to be it-the Death Cannon was the kind of weapon you brought out when you had a surefire kill, or you didn't have any other options-a one off that left the jaeger drained for several minutes.

They watched Reaper Troika stagger a little, braced for recoil but clearly too damaged to hold steady even as Demon Hunter began to topple under the weight of a falling kaiju. They scrambled out from under it before they were pinned to the fucking ocean floor, and Ragnarock let out one last scream-lacking all of the sonic power it once had-and unceremoniously died.

The coms crackled back to life, crystal clear, and Soul caught the tail end of Tsubaki radioing to LOCCENT.

"-dead. Confirmed dead. Shadow Star heading into base; we're taking on too much water and Black*Star is injured," her voice wavered for a moment. "It feels bad."

"'m fine, 'Baki," Black*Star slurred. Maka felt the pulse of relief from her partner through the Drift, and though the source was different, it echoed her own. She hadn't let herself think past hearing his last scream and the relief between them was palpable.

"You go ahead, we'll wait for clean up," Soul replied. They got a little half salute with Shadow Star's remaining good hand as the jaeger slowly made its way back to the base. Later, she would remember watching Shadow Star limp away like it was in slow motion, and she wasn't sure if that was because of the Drifting feedback loop, or what.

They heard the com pop and Pat's frantic voice and then they watched as Ragnarock began to writhe.

"Fuck, how is it still alive?" Maka hissed. They all watched in horror as the kaiju corpse lifted itself up from where it had fallen.

A beat too late their radar pinged and the A.I. softly announced, "Kaiju detected."

"Fuck are those-wings?" Liz yelped. They had to be, there wasn't anything else they could be. There had never been a kaiju with fucking wings before, and Soul felt his stomach drop. Stein had been right, they were adapting. He watched as the kaiju detached itself from Ragnarock before he keyed the com on.

"LOCCENT, I think we found the second kaiju."

There was a moment of dead quiet as the kaiju spread its enormous wings and then Wes's quiet, heartfelt, "Shit."

It wasn't as big as Ragnarock. Maka wasn't sure that that was going to matter because it was clearly fast as hell. In one smooth motion-more graceful than she'd ever thought something of that size could be, it took off, still dragging Ragnarock's corpse with it. With a screech that was a pale echo of the sonic boom Ragnarock had emitted, it flung the body at Reaper Troika.

The jaeger couldn't dodge in time, instead taking the full brunt of Ragnarock's weight. Before either Reaper or Demon Hunter could respond, the kaiju flung itself upward, towards Hong Kong proper.

"Go, we're fine," Pat snapped. "Get that motherfucker."

Soul and Maka didn't hesitate, just starting hauling ass after the kaiju. "Codename on the second kaiju is Chrona," Wes said in their ears. "It's heading towards the city."

"No shit," Soul muttered.

"We're turning around," Black*Star and Tsubaki came through in unison.

"That's a negative, Shadow Star. If you're not going back to base, help Reaper Troika," Maka said.

"We've got this," Soul added. Neither missed Black*Star's dissatisfied grunt. Ahead of them, Chrona's flight pattern dipped shakily. Its wings were impressive and functional, but it looked as though they'd never been used before. Demon Hunter would never be as fast as Shadow Star, had never been intended to be a striker, but they pushed it as hard as they could to reach the docks before Chrona took off again and they lost the kaiju to the sky.

Except it didn't take off again. Before they could reach it, it had slithered off between enormous industrial high rises.

"We've lost visuals," Maka said. They weren't totally blind, but even with radar tracking the kaiju, it was hard to get a completely accurate reading on location. The thing that bothered her the most was the way the kaiju kept moving. It wasn't blindly attacking Demon Hunter, and 90% of the damage so far seemed to be incidental.

It was almost like it was searching for something.

"Hey, you wanna?" Soul asked her as they hit the docks. Maka grinned at him and grabbed one of the thousands of shipping containers that surrounded them.

"Oh, yes."

They finally caught Chrona tearing nonsensically into a street, and Demon Hunter wasted no time. In one swift motion, Soul hurled one of the shipping containers at the kaiju, slamming into its back before it knew what hit it.

It stood, ignoring the hole it had dug to turn towards them and shriek. Demon Hunter shifted its grip on the other shipping container and stepped into the swing. The makeshift bat slammed into Chrona's head, snapping it back.

"Home run," Maka said, and Soul didn't need the Drift to know the smirk on her face.

Chrona shrieked again, and it didn't have to have the full weight of the sonic scream behind it to stagger Demon Hunter back a step. It took that moment of hesitance and sprung forward, slamming into them, claws trying to sink into the jaeger's protective plating.

"Fuck," Soul hissed. Maka growled in frustration, bringing one hand up to try and grab the kaiju.

"Fucking wings," she agreed, failing to get a grip. Before they could regroup, Chrona shifted, scrambling up and over, too quickly for the pair to react. A second later they both felt its claws sink into the back of Demon Hunter, somehow working beneath the crevices in the jaeger's armor. They bit back agonized screams and tried to focus on what Chrona was trying to do.

It beat its wings once, twice, and despite the fact that they were probably significantly heavier than the kaiju, Soul and Maka could feel the strength in those wingbeats, the way that each flap commanded a little more lift. Then, with a giant heave, they were definitely airborne and climbing.

In a matter of moments, they were going to be too high to survive the fall.

"Can you grab a wing?" Maka wasn't sure if there were talking or if she'd just picked that thought up from the Drift, but she could see what Soul envisioned.

"Yeah, I'll get mine first," she confirmed. Is she could do it, they should be able to effectively direct Chrona to the ground without immediately falling there. She waited one beat, two; on the third she snapped Demon Hunter's hand out and grabbed hold of Chrona's wing.

The kaiju screamed again as Maka wrestled with the wing. She dug in harder, felt the bone and cartilage tearing as though she were holding it in her own bare hand. The simulators never prepared her for that experience. She felt them begin to fall, Chrona desperately beating one wing to try and keep itself aloft, too stubborn to release its grip on Demon Hunter.

Maka was pretty sure they'd survive if Chrona did let go now at least. Pretty sure.

Mostly.

"We're fine," Soul reassured her. A second later, they hit the ground, Maka still clinging to one wing and Chrona still clinging to their back. Soul waited another beat before making his grab for Chrona's other wing. "Ready?"

"Always."

As one they pulled, kaiju bones cracking under their combined mechanical strength. Chrona roared, finally trying to shake itself free. As long as they kept their grips tight, it worked to their advantage. With a shout, they poured every last bit of power into this final push and ripped the kaiju apart.

For a long moment, all Maka could hear was Soul's breathing, deep and steady. Before them was their first kaiju kill together-her first kaiju kill period, insides strewn around them, body cavity torn asunder and steaming faintly.

She wanted to throw up.

Through the Drift, Soul showed her the aftermath of his and Wes's first kill-he'd felt much the same and it was ok, normal even.

"Nothing about you is normal," she joked. It came out a little weak, but Soul smiled. It was all weirdly soothing, she thought.

"-good job." The com popped back to life, and Marshal Albarn's voice was calm and level. "Standby. We're sending Dr. Mjolnir out to your location."

"What?"

"Why?" their voices clashed.

"She's bringing the neural spike. Dr. Stein will be there momentarily, probably with the Harvesters right on his trail. Make sure they don't hassle him or prevent him from getting to that kaiju brain."

"Sir," Maka acknowledged. She felt Soul rolling his eyes.

"Nerd."

"Slacker." They stared at each other a moment longer, still smiling, a warm pulse of affection washing through the Drift.

---

It was still dark when they exited Demon Hunter, though at least the rain had mostly tapered off. Soul could have lived without the oppressive humidity, however.

"It may as well still be raining," he grumped. Maka socked him lightly on the arm.

"Don't tempt fate, jackass." She didn't have to mention that they already tempted fate quite enough.

They exited through the escape hatch that had been installed in the Conn Pod during the renovations and left Demon Hunter kneeling in the muddy wreckage, carefully picking their way down to the ground.

Stein was already waiting for them. Next to him stood a diminutive woman, shock of bubblegum pink hair framing a pixie face and calculating eyes. She looked them over for a moment, blew a bubble with her gum, and popped it before holding out a hand to Maka.

"Kim Diehl," she said. "I heard you want my kaiju's brain."

Maka felt herself immediately bristle at the woman's tone, Soul echoing the movement beside her. Stein, however, just rolled his eyes.

"I've told you before, Diehl, there isn't anything that your people can do with a kaiju brain. It would be a complete waste of time. However, we-"

"Can what? Drift with a fucking kaiju again? You wanna bring down more of those bastards on the city?"

"You TOLD her?" Maka gaped.

"I didn't exactly have a choice if I wanted her help," Stein said, dry as dirt.

"If he doesn't do this, you do know that the kaiju are just going to keep coming anyway, right?" Soul asked. "At least this way we might all manage to stay alive."

Kim looked between them skeptically, running rough hands through the enormous fur collar that lined her coat. Maka shifted and tried not to roll her eyes. It was far too warm out for a coat like that.

"You do realize that no more kaiju is actively working against my business model, right? I don't want anymore of those fuckers hunting him," she jerked her thumb at Stein, "in my city."

"If we don't stop them, it's not going to matter who they're hunting. We're all going to die, and I think that might make more of a dent in your business plan," Maka countered.

"Can't spend all that money if you're dead," Soul added.

Kim sniffed, seemingly completely unconcerned. "Yeah, sure. Whatever. You can have the brain if you can get to it. I get everything else, per the usual agreement."

"Of course," Stein said, shifting impatiently.

The familiar steady thumpthump of a helicopter shattered the quiet a moment later. It was dingy and a little banged up, and even without the emblem emblazoned on the side of it, Maka would have recognized it as coming from the Shatterdome. It had barely touched down when Marie stumbled out of it, clutching what Maka identified as a homemade neural spike.

"Is it still good?" She asked, making a beeline for Stein.

He frowned. "As far as we know. How did you get out here so fast?"

"The helicopter," she said, neatly dodging the question. "Let's go."

"Go? You're not going in there."

"Excuse me?"

"I can do this. You don't need to."

Marie smiled faintly. "I know-I want to." It wasn't exactly the truth, but it wasn't a lie. Mostly, she didn't want him to do this alone.

Stein cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. "You misunderstand. I don't NEED you."

Despite everything going on around them, Maka would have sworn there was a beat of total silence. Marie narrowed her eyes and dropped the neural spike with a startling thud.

"I want you to know that I understand what you're trying to say to me, and I appreciate it." Her hands crept up to rest casually on her stomach. Her voice remained deceptively calm and friendly. "But if you ever say something like that again, I will punch your ass, and it will come out the top of your head. And then I will hand you a shovel and you will start digging."

From the sidelines, Soul and Maka glanced at each other, then back at the bickering scientists. Marie stepped closer to Stein, and for the first time in her life, Maka watched Stein back away from someone. Still, she has to give him credit, he did try.

"It isn't necessary. The bridge only needs one person to work."

Marie snorted. "Oh, yeah, because that worked so well last time."

"It was fine."

"You had a seizure!" And that was the end of Marie's carefully calm demeanor. "I can't do this alone! If you go in there again without someone else to help share the neural load, you're going to die."

Stein chose that moment to step forward, hands brushing against hers. "You know why you can't do this. Why you won't do this."

"You can't either," she whispered, dropping her head against Stein's shoulder.

Maka had to look away from the two. It felt far too intimate a moment to witness. Soul looked at her, then glanced over at the neural spike. Then back. She knew Marie and Stein were distracted, could guess why they were both being so stubborn about this. She didn't want them to have to be stubborn about it.

Maka nodded at Soul's unasked question.

---

By the time Marie and Stein had stopped their quiet argument, Maka and Soul were being led by a passing Harvester they'd snagged into the gaping cavity they'd carved into Chrona. Neither of them were particularly familiar with kaiju anatomy, but Maka had been around Stein long enough to be able to recognize the important things. They relied on the Harvesters to do the rest.

They were in some luck at least. Despite the rather complete ass kicking they had delivered to Chrona, the secondary brain they needed to get their hands on had remained intact and undamaged.

Maka tried not to think about how unsettling it was, moving through the insides of a creature that had been alive so recently, that she had killed. Something shifted under her feet, and she stifled a full-body shudder.

"This is it?" Soul asked. It didn't look anything like what he would have considered to be a brain, but until now, he'd never been this invested in what was actually inside a kaiju. Maka and the Harvester-Soul hadn't gotten his name, just a glimpse of dark skin and darker hair, both nodded. "And you're sure that you know how to use this thing?" He was pretty sure that he already knew the answer to that.

Maka studiously ignored the question. "Shh. I need quiet if I'm going to get this thing going before the brain dies completely."

He wanted to protest, but decided the might be better served keeping his mouth shut for now.

Maka more than understood the theory behind everything in the cobbled together PONS device. Between her mother's research and her own tech studies, she was pretty confident. She just couldn't be positive that Stein hadn't done anything really fucked with this thing when he was making it.

She jammed the spike into Chrona's secondary brain and fired the device up. Picking up her transmitter, she looked over at Soul. He nodded, going ahead and placing his over his head. Stuck by a sudden bout of nerves, she lingered on his shock-white hair-still clearly visible even at night and in the bowels of a fucking kaiju. It stuck up wildly around the sensors, looking completely ridiculous.

Whatever happened here would change everything. Her chest throbbed and she rubbed at it carefully, deciding abruptly that she was about two seconds away from making shit really weird. She looked away and plopped her transmitter onto her skull. The clamps locked immediately, and Soul reached out, fingers brushing the back of her hand. She took a deep breath and initiated the neural bridge.

---

It was nothing like drifting with each other-everything was shifting color and light, dizzying and sickly, and with a sudden surety, they knew that Chrona wasn't dead, that it had still been alive when they initiated the neural bridge. They didn't walk among each other's memories, just in Chrona's. They felt nothing but Chrona's pain and fear-its determination to succeed, its connection with Ragnarock, somehow more than clones, more than the concept of siblings or family-two halves meant to share the same space, the same soul, together even when separated.

It washed through them, consumed them, burned them up until it was the only thing left-the only thing except the faint touch of skin against skin, a hint of warmth that held steady as they weathered Chrona's despair, saw its home, absorbed just what it would take to travel safely through the Breach.

A sharp heat blossomed in their chest, different and painful, searing them from collarbone to hip, bisecting, dividing, trying to shear them in two, breaking them as it had been broken. They struggled, but the heat wormed its way in, in, in, until it was all they could do to hold together.

Maka-because she was Maka, not Soul, not Soul-and-Maka, not kaiju-focused on that last fleeting touch, that faint skin on skin brush of Soul's fingers, careful but so, so sure, against her hand.

She pulled herself away a little, just enough to pull Soul back with her.

Together, but separate, they burned, laid bare in each other's minds, clinging to one another in a bid to keep from being completely overwhelmed again. They felt the last bit of Chrona's life drain out and away.

As soon as it had begun, it ended, and Soul and Maka stumbled forward as one, never minding the organic floor. They fell to hands and knees and in unison, puked.

Stein stood over them, face stuck somewhere between supremely judgmental and overwhelmingly curious. Marie hovered next to him, arms crossed and looking decidedly furious.

"Are you happy, now?" Maka wasn't sure if Marie was asking them or Stein. She didn't respond, just tried to spit out the rest of the bile lingering in her mouth.

"Did you learn anything?" Stein prompted. Marie made a noise in the back of her throat and glared.

Soul wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "Bomb's not gonna work."

---

The debrief was mercifully short. Soul's head still pounded-a constant throb since the Drift with Chrona. Next to him, Maka rubbed at her chest, caught herself doing it, and stopped with a frown. Soul flushed darkly and kept his eyes trained on Spirit.

Except that was actually so, so much worse. Abstractly he'd known what Maka looked like naked-those memories had been stored in among everything else the first time they drifted, but this was different somehow. He felt like he knew her body, as though he had run his hands over deceptive curves and soft flesh, over that weird patch of skin on her left knee that always stayed rough no matter how much lotion she used on it.

Fucking christ.

He looked over at Wes instead. If anything could keep him from popping a boner, that ought to do it. Wes just smirked like he could still tell what was going on in his brain, which, no. That was unfortunately one of the dangers of drifting with the jackass you grew up with. Soul scowled and looked at the floor instead.

"It won't matter if the Breach stays open longer with the triple event," Maka laid out. "Nothing we send will get through unless it's a kaiju or has kaiju DNA."

"There's something encoded in the wormhole. We never thought to try and make the connection," Marie added. She looked pissed. Soul couldn't tell if it was because of earlier still, or because she hadn't thought to look for what was effectively a genetic key to hold the Breach open.

"For all my research into the clone aspect of kaiju biology, I never thought to look for it, either," Stein said mildly. "It's fascinating, though. With the same genetic coding, the Breach can react instantaneously to let the kaiju through or to block everything else."

Spirit scowled. "Yeah. Fascinating." Wes carefully smothered his smirk with a cough. "What can we do about it? Are you telling me that we have to clone a fucking kaiju and strap a nuke on it to destroy the Breach?"

Stein looked unreasonably excited, and Marie slapped a hand over his mouth. "NO." Stein deflated slightly. "The thing is, we can't do anything right now except be ready for when the Breach opens next. If my calculations are correct," Marie winced, "it will be a triple event, and it will only keep getting worse. If we can't close the Breach next time it opens, I'm not sure we're going to live long enough to try again."

Spirit pushed his hair back off his forehead. It wasn't exactly long, but it was just shaggy enough to remind him that he hadn't had the chance to get it trimmed in months.

"Put everyone we've got on fixing our jaegers. I need them fully functional and able to fight. Pull parts from wherever you have to, just get it done. When the Breach opens again, we'll be ready."

Soul's head still hurt. He didn't remember Maka's hand, caught at the back of his neck as she lead them back to his room, until she told him quietly to open the door. He did so, then practically collapsed on his bunk.

Maka didn't bother trying to hide her worry. Not that he was sure she actually could anymore. It felt like there was a Maka-shaped space permanently etched into his head now. He felt overfull. Maka left, and he was 98% sure that it was to go and get him some food. He was about as positive that she hadn't bothered to articulate any of that out loud.

Somewhere between the door shutting and the door creaking back open again, he fell asleep, head still pounding and buried deep into his arms. He was just so tired.

---

Soul dreamt. He was back in his parents' house-the one he had grown up in, before everything had turned to shit-the familiar checkered floors of the music room, the deep red curtains. Everything was just like he remembered it. Everything except the record playing. He recognized it as one of Wes's favorite pieces to play, but it kept skipping, and Soul had never really liked Bach anyway.

He shook his head, the tension returning. But ultimately it was just a dream, so he tried to let it go. He went to go sit in the armchair that he had claimed for his own since he had been old enough to be allowed in the music room. His mom had been fond of reminding him that it had once been his grandmother's.

Except there was already someone sitting there. He stiffened, caught off guard.

The little man sat there, scaled and angry-red. The longer Soul looked at him directly, the harder it was to pin down-a tuxedo, board shorts, a onesie, horns, glasses, jeans, red, kaiju blue-

"What the fuck?"

The little man smiled, mouth lined with comically sharp shark teeth. Soul ran his tongue over his own teeth, just a hair too sharp to be normal. The little demon's eyes flashed, alien and unfamiliar-except no, not unfamiliar at all-

"Soul?"

He came to with a bitten off shout. Maka hovered over him, fingers firm on his shoulder and green eyes concerned.

"H-" he cleared his throat. "Hey."

She didn't ask if he was okay, which he was strangely grateful for. Next to his bed sat a beat up tray-the kind he had been eating off of for years-that said Maka's trip to the commissary had been successful.

"I could feel you from the mess hall," she said finally, voice hushed.

"It was-" he still wasn't sure what it was. Dream wasn't right, but neither was nightmare, exactly. It had felt more like a hallucination. "-weird," he finished awkwardly.

"I could tell." She shifted, and Soul moved over a little bit so that she could sit down. "This is-" she gestured between them. "This is not normal, is it? I mean. I know about ghost drifting and psychic echoes, but we've only drifted twice."

"Three times," he corrected, voice cracking. Soul hauled himself upright and Maka handed him the tray. It was filled with everything they served in the mess hall that he would have picked to stuff in his face.

"Three," she echoed, snatching up a piece of cheese. Soul shovelled rice into his mouth, still warm and covered in salt and butter exactly how he preferred.

"This is too much," he offered.

Maka rolled her eyes. "You know full well that I'm going to eat some, too."

"Yeah." He paused, shoving more rice in his face. "You know they're probably celebrating out there." They both well remembered the buoyant air that seemed to fill Shatterdomes after a kaiju kill-memories years and miles apart and yet still so similar.

"It's pretty quiet. I think I'd still be here anyway," she offered.

"Have you heard anything?"

She shifted, looked away. "Black*Star has a couple of broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder. Insists he's going to train tomorrow, the hell with everything else. Tsubaki's fine, unless you count having to nurse Black*Star. Dve Pushkis are all a little bruised, but otherwise seem to be intent on quietly drinking up the last of their vodka supply."

Soul snorted into his beef. "Doubtful. They always say it's their last. They've been insisting that since the last time I fought with them."

She shrugged. "Russians. Hard to argue when they're supplying us with a lot of scrap metal and nukes." She stopped. Sighed. "Everyone knows what's coming. Some people are celebrating because I think they think they're not gonna get another chance. Lot of people are already working."

Neither particularly wanted to continue that line of thought. Maka stole a few more pieces of cheese and for a long while, they just sat together. They'd have to deal with everything else soon enough.

---

There was a strange kind of calm that fell over the Shatterdome in the following days. They were both used to the weird downtime between kaiju attacks, if from somewhat different ends of the spectrum, but as familiar as this all felt, the whole dome was still thrumming with the knowledge that the next time the alarm sounded, it would be do or die in the most literal sense.

No one knew just what was going to come through the Breach, but it was a safe bet that they were going to need the weapons fully functional and as fast as possible. Everything else took a back seat to that. Everyone pitched in, wherever it was needed. Maka spent her days stuck between J-Tech and the pilots working out what the most necessary repairs would be. Tsubaki had tried to keep Black*Star confined to their quarters to help rest his shoulder and prevent him from puncturing a lung, but within an hour of her leaving, he had escaped. Tsubaki found him fiddling with power tools about ten stories up, sighed, and gave up trying to keep him in one place.

Dve Pushkis kept wandering in and out of the Shatterdome, usually carting or directing crates. Maka had tried to pry out of them what they were bringing in, but the most she managed to get out of them were vague hand waves and a lot of smirking, Oh, you knows. She had her suspicions, that was for sure.

She kept finding herself outside of the wrong door every night, though. And every night, Soul promptly opened the door and pretended to be surprised that she was on the other side of it. She didn't see a whole lot of him during the day.

"You know," she said three days after their battle and late enough that she wasn't about to look at the time lest she feel guilty. "I tried to go back to my room."

"Did you?" he was carefully neutral in his response.

Maka stretched her legs out on the bunk, thigh pressed lightly against his as she rolled her ankles. They crackled loudly and Soul grimaced. "Felt weird," she finally admitted. "Nothing feels right." She didn't quite meet his gaze. "And you keep-you feel weird."

He stiffened. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know," she said with a frown. "I don't like not knowing. You just feel different than you did after our first Drift."

"Could be that we drifted longer this time." He didn't think that that was it, and he was pretty sure Maka didn't think that either. The skeptical look she shot him confirmed that.

"Could be Chrona," she countered and Soul winced. Maka reached over and gently brushed her fingers against his chest. "What is this?"

She knew that the skin under his shirt was smooth. She'd seen it in passing more than once as Soul started on his nightly routines or those few moments when he managed to wake up before her and decided that what he needed to do was shirtless push-ups. She hadn't meant to stare like a creep, and that was probably going to be more than a little embarrassing the next time they drifted.

"It's-" he stalled out, fingers brushing against Maka's as he traced the invisible scar. "It's kind of a psychic scar?"

"I thought it might be from Chrona, but you've had it a lot longer, haven't you?"

"Since Wes and I last piloted." His lips twisted into something that wasn't quite a smile.

"It's not just that, though, is it?" Soul slumped further, his body a long warm line against hers.

"I keep having these really weird dreams. They don't make any sense."

Maka threaded her fingers carefully into his hair and he sighed, relaxing in a way he hadn't been able to since they had drifted with Chrona. Abstractly, he understood that Maka was unsettled by the residual drifting effects, but he couldn't help but be grateful that one of those side effects led her to his room every night. It was about about the only time that the pounding in his skull receded.

For the fourth night in a row, they fell asleep like that.

---

When the alarms finally sounded, it was almost a relief. It came late in the night, nearly morning, startling them both out of a dream that Soul knew was familiar, if not the same as the ones he had been having. His headache was back in full force, worse than it had been since that first day after the kaiju Drift, and it was too much effort to try and remember what had happened. Maka seemed just as out of sorts as he did, but neither bothered to bring it up. It was just a dream, and they had shit to do.

As she untangled herself from the blankets and Soul, Maka couldn't help but find it fitting. This would have been about the same time the Breach opened for the first time. Hours later, a completely unaware San Francisco had been attacked. This time though, they knew. This time, they could protect people. This time would be the last, one way or another.

The drivesuit room was already crowded when they arrived, and Maka frowned when she saw Black*Star suiting up. She looked to Tsubaki, who just shrugged.

"I couldn't ask him to stay," she said quietly. "You know him; you know what that would be like for him."

Maka did know, and she nodded, swallowing. Around her stood her friends, people she had come to know as her family, and there wasn't anything she could do to keep them all safe. They all had volunteered for this. Like her, they had wanted to be here, to be the last defense, to make a difference. Together they finished suiting up, the mood understandably sober. Maka didn't think that she had ever seen Black*Star so quiet.

They'd all already lost so much. The least the could do was make sure that this was where it all ended.

Pat was the first one to move, jaw tight as she grabbed as many of them as she could, pulling them into a bone-crushing hug. At least half of them couldn't understand the Russian she spouted, but the feeling behind it didn't need translation. Black*Star stood just on the outside.

"What, nothing for me?" He looked offended, an over the top expression, but one that Maka could tell hid at least a little genuine hurt behind it.

"You get one when we get back," Pat said. "You have to be not-broken for a proper Russian hug."

"Eh, fuck you too," he said cheerfully.

Maka let herself be hugged and squeezed back as Liz and DK got in on the action, though their version of a hug involved more emphatic back slapping that might have staggered her had she not already been propped up. When she finally got free, she found herself face to face with Black*Star. For a long moment they just stared at each other.

"You ready?" he asked, grinning.

"Are you?" She didn't point out the obvious-that he was injured fairly severely, that their chances for survival were already minimal at best and that his were even lower.

"Pft. I was born ready and you know it. We're gonna go fuck 'em up, just like we said we would."

She hesitated for a beat. "I always thought we were going to pilot together. I thought we would have been Drift compatible." She had never voiced that thought before, too afraid of sounding bitter and not wanting to begrudge her cousin-one of her best friends-the companionship he had found and all that he and Tsubaki had accomplished together. Right now though it felt like too much to keep to herself.

Black*Star shrugged carefully. "Eh, come on, now. You know we would have murdered each other. You already know too many of my secrets, and I don't want to know what goes on in that giant nerd brain of yours. Gives me a headache just thinking about it."

"Fucker," she said fondly. She made a solid, A+ effort at keeping her voice even. They knocked their foreheads together lightly. "Let's do this." Maka looked over at Tsubaki-tall, strong, and somehow able and willing to put up with all of Black*Star's bullshit.

She nodded once and gave Maka a quick hug. "I'll keep him safe," she whispered.

"Yourself too," Maka replied, just as quietly.

"We will watch each other. We always do."

It wasn't goodbye. No matter how choked up they all felt, everyone refused to believe that this would be goodbye. That belief-in themselves, in each other-had to be enough.

Marshal Albarn met them in the hangar, Marie and Stein close behind him. Wes was nowhere to be seen, and Maka glanced at Soul, who just shrugged.

"We don't have to say it," he murmured. "We said it years ago, and everything since then has just been bonus time."

She made a little noise in the back of her throat, and if her fingers found his, neither needed to acknowledge it.

"Listen up, Rangers," the Marshal's voice boomed throughout the hangar. "You all know what today means. This is the thirteenth hour and it's all or nothing. You are our best hope, our last hope, and you wouldn't be here today if you weren't. You have to get this done, and get it done right. We don't get another chance.

"Shadow Star will be delivering the payload. Reaper Troika and De-" he stumble for a fraction of a second, expression completely unreadable, "-Demon Hunter will be running interference while Shadow Star makes its way to the Breach. We've already detected two Category-4 kaiju so far, codenamed Noah and Giriko, who are hovering around the Breach. We have no reason to believe that Dr. Mjolnir's calculations have been incorrect. The Breach is still open, and there will be a third kaiju before all of this is over."

"What are they waiting for?" Liz asked, arms crossed as though she could challenge a kaiju for being cowardly, for not coming out to meet them head on.

"We're not totally sure," Marie said. She glanced over at Stein, who pushed his glasses up.

"We think that they're waiting to see what we do. They may know the basics of what we intend thanks to the Drift." Soul shifted uncomfortably, and Maka shared a guilty look with him. "That being said, if I hadn't-if we hadn't drifted with the kaiju, we wouldn't have any chance at all to end this."

"Who the fuck cares if they know," Black*Star shouted. "Like that's going to stop us."

"You have to get that nuke through the Breach, and you will have to get a kaiju corpse to do it," Stein said. "You both have to go through at the same time, or it won't work, and all of this will have been for nothing."

The Marshal stood a little straighter. "Failure is not an option, Rangers. This is it. This is humanity's last stand, and we're all counting on you. Now get the fuck out there and kick some kaiju ass!"

Maka caught Spirit's eye. For a moment, she thought about running to him. She wanted to hug him, to bury her face in his uniform and smell the familiar scent of the cologne he'd used for as long as she could remember. She wanted her mother there. She wanted them to tell her that it was all going to be all right.

She clenched her teeth and tamped down the impulse. Soul nudged her a little, letting go of her hand, and Spirit was the one who broke first. He set his hand on her shoulder, and it wasn't quite a hug, but it was enough. He cleared his throat.

"I know-I know that this isn't why you joined the PPDC, why you've done any of this, but I'm proud of you. We both are. I'm so glad I got the chance to be your father, even if I wasn't always very good at it."

"I-" she wasn't sure what to say, throat tight and eyes burning.

The hug when it came was short, barely more than a quick press. "Go. We'll be here when you get back."

Maka nodded and didn't trust herself to speak. Next to her, Soul grabbed and squeezed her hand again. They stayed like that until they walked into the Conn-Pod.

"You good?" he asked as they stepped up, servos whirring softly around them.

"As good as I'm going to be. You?" she tapped the side of her helmet with one finger.

His headache was still there, but he was starting to get used to it. Soul shrugged. It wasn't anything that he wouldn't be able to work through. "I'll be fine."

"Pilots are locked," the A.I.'s even voice filled the Conn-Pod. Maka looked over as the start-up sequence began.

"Initiating neural handshake," Wes said.

"Let's go save the world."

---

Something was wrong. The Drift had never felt like this before, never felt like it was about to rip open his skull. He might have screamed, but he couldn't be sure.

"Soul?"

And this wasn't a memory, this was Maka standing in his childhood music parlor. Maka dressed in her drivesuit, helmet still on and looking around like she was lost. Which, really, why wouldn't she be? She'd never been here before.

"Is this-" she licked her lips, staring intently at the walls, the floor. "Is this our dream from last night?"

And that was what he had been missing this morning. They'd been sharing his dream with the fucked up little demon and-oh.

"Hello there." It was still sitting in his chair, just the same as every time he'd had this dream so far. Except it had never spoken before. The longer they both stared at it, the less and less it seemed to shift between clothes and colors and features.

Finally, Maka was the one who snapped. "Can you just… not?" She waved her hand at it, and it smiled back, shark teeth the one thing that continued to remain unchanging.

"Maybe. What's in it for me?"

"I'm not going to punch you," Maka snarled. Soul couldn't help the chuckle he tamped down on. Through the Drift he could hear the "probably" in her mind as clear as if she'd said it out loud.

"I would think you've already punched me enough," it said with a put-upon sigh. "But fine." Slowly its skin settled into a dusky red, small horns sprouting and staying for once. It wore a suit that they both knew Soul used to wear to music recitals before he had graduated high school and enlisted.

"I haven't touched you," Maka said, eyes narrowing.

"You killed me," it rejoined, crossing one short leg and steepling overly long fingers together. "Or don't you remember?"

And oh, he thought. Everything suddenly made a lot more sense, but in the worst way possible. The demon-Chrona?-smiled horribly again and Soul understood why the Drift was all wrong.

"No, not quite. I mean, pretty close really. If you want to think of me as that, then you can, but I'm so much more."

Not-Chrona seemed to grow in place, expanding to fill more of the chair, and they're both staggered for a moment by an emotional cocktail of fear-pain-rage.

"How-" Soul gasped, and just as it had started, the onslaught died off and it shrunk back into its regular space.

It twisted its head a little. "I didn't want to die, so I grabbed onto you," it said, "You're psyche was wide open. I like 'demon,' by the way." It nodded to itself, flicking the horns on its head. "Deeemon. Weird word."

Maka stared. "You didn't want to die."

"Why, do you?" It sounded genuinely curious. "You're going to, if you do what you're planning on doing, you know."

"We have a plan," Maka insisted.

"Yeah, and it's not going to work." It held up its hand and examined its fingers in a practiced gesture. About halfway through it looked at them and held out its hand. "What are these, anyway?"

"Fingernails," Soul said. "What do you mean? We know we can't go through without kaiju DNA-"

"You can't get through without live genetic coding, dumbass."

"HEY ASSHOLES. You still with us?" And just like that, the music room was gone, replaced by Demon Hunter's Conn-Pod, displays flashing. They could see Shadow Star to their left, stuck between them and Reaper Troika. Black*Star's voice was pissed, but Maka heard the worry there. She didn't know how they had gotten out of the hangar, and Soul couldn't remember either.

"We-we're fine," she said finally. We suddenly had a very different feeling to it. She could feel Soul worrying over the same information that she was thinking of again, and against it all the knowledge that they weren't alone in their Drift, that there was a third party slipping in and out of their thoughts that they couldn't do anything about. "Sort of."

"What is 'sort of'?" Liz's voice snapped. "Sort of going to kill us?"

"Ah. Maybe?" Soul glared at Maka. She winced, but stood by her statement. "Do we know that a dead kaiju's going to get us through the Breach? What if it doesn't?"

"It has to," DK said. That didn't exactly make either of them feel much better.

The Jumphawks dropped them soon afterwards, Wes informing them that all ports are sealed and that Giriko and Noah are holding their positions near the Breach. Steadily, the three jaegers sunk towards the ocean floor. Around them the metal exoskeletons of their jaegers creaked and groaned, but all held up under the pressure.

Maka didn't even feel her ears pop.

Just before they hit the bottom, the display sensors switched. At just about any other point in her life, Maka would have been fascinated with what she was seeing-that she was able to see something like this so clearly and in person. Instead, she had to push back a wave of nervousness before she realized that she was partially picking that up from Soul.

"Watch those fuckin' sea pillars and shit," Black*Star called out. Maka shivered. For every foot that they could see, there was only so much terrain down here that was open with a clear line of sight, and the radar was barely function and little help.

"There's something at your four, Demon Hunter," DK snapped. Maka caught a flicker behind one of the rock formations, but couldn't track it visually. Their radar hadn't really been on her list of priorities for fixing.

"I can't quite get it," Soul said. "Eyes out, everyone. We're getting close." Maka could practically hear Black*Star rolling his eyes.

She kept trying to stare into the surrounding water, looking for glimpses of the kaiju she knew had to be stalking their progress. She didn't think it was too ridiculous to believe that they knew the PPDC's plan anymore. She swallowed as a horrible thought occurred to her, flickered into existence and then away. She had hoped Soul hadn't caught it, if only because she desperately wanted it to be untrue.

Soul's quiet, "We could," disabused her of that notion almost immediately. "I don't like it, but we could ask."

There was always the inherent danger of going down the RABIT hole when two people drifted through a jaeger-the fine line between a steady Drift and going too deep. You didn't deliberately try to push that line.

There was the demon to think about, too. Maka could feel him still there, lurking in their minds, using their jaeger as a conduit, just as they did. Soul had been seeing the creature in his dreams every night since they initially drifted with a dying Chrona, and this had been the first time it had chosen-no, been able to speak with them. Demon Hunter and the presence of an active neural bridge seemed to make all the difference.

"I can do it, Maka."

"We should do it," she corrected.

"No. If you're right, you need to stay up here. You can't risk going down the RABIT hole, too."

"This isn't supposed to work this way," she frowned. But they both knew there were no precedents for having the fragment of a kaiju's hive mind attaching itself to human psyches as it died and effectively haunting them.

"I'm going to go talk to the demon. I need you up here."

Maka made a noise, nearly subvocal, but she didn't argue. The demon was waiting for him when Soul let himself be pulled further into the Drift. Distantly, he could still sense Maka, still tied to them both and all of them tied together through Demon Hunter.

"Can the other kaiju feel your presence?" he asked bluntly. The demon looked up from its chair.

"I like it down here," it said. "Feels homey. Moist." Soul crossed his arms and the demon shrugged. "I dunno, maybe? A little? I'm not-" it frowned for the first time and looked like it was thinking. "I'm not really part of them anymore. Not really separate, but I'm not whole, either." It slumped as though that admission had sapped its strength.

It looked… depressed.

"You're a part of us, though." Soul snapped his mouth shut a moment too late. He hadn't really intended to say that, wasn't sure where it came from, and decided that he would definitely blame it on Maka's influence. He ignored the irritated, distant poke he could feel from her. The demon cocked his head, and this wasn't what he had come here for at all, but maybe- "You said it yourself, we're going to die down here."

"Yeah, so? You fuckin' killed me."

"If we die down here, you're going to die down here, too, you know. This will be it, and clawing your way into my head-into our heads, will all have been for shit."

"I'm listening."

Soul didn't stop to think; if he thought too hard about it, it might feel like a trap, and he wasn't really trying to trap the demon. All he wanted to get out of this was closing the Breach and maybe, maybe if they were all lucky, living to see the surface and maybe-

"Demon Hunter."

---

Maka heard Soul's breathing pick up the moment before he dragged himself out of the RABIT hole. She exhaled shakily.

"We're still being stalked by these fuckers and I had to pretend we had a malfunction," she said, ignoring the pulse of relief that came through the Drift. "I can't believe you did that and it worked," she added, flipping the coms back on. "Is it working now?"

Soul knew the panicked note in Wes's voice better than he wanted to. "Levels are returning to normal. What the fuck happened down there?"

"I think the pressure is fucking up the receptors," Soul said. "I'm fine, everything's fine." For the first time in a few days, it actually felt like the truth, too. His head didn't even hurt.

"That's good because you're about to be up shit creek," Wes replied. "Your six-" They had just enough time to brace for impact as Giriko finally made its move and rammed them. The jaeger staggered forward, and both pilots could feel the echo of the demon in the metal around them.

"Oh that's fuckin' weird," the voice that filled the Conn-Pod was no longer the familiar soothing A.I., but the same voice they had heard in Soul's music room.

"The hell was that?" Wes asked.

"A.I. malfunction," Maka hastily replied. "We've been hit."

"We're here," Pat shouted, Reaper moving in their direction.

"Shadow Star, stay on target for the Breach," Wes demanded.

No one could quite ignore the frustration in Black*Star's snapped, "Acknowledged."

"Ten o'clock, Reaper!" Noah engaged the other jaeger with a roar and a set of enormous snapping jaws. They held it off with two arms, DK working the third to fire his plasmacaster directly into the kaiju's belly. It didn't seem to do much good.

Demon Hunter twisted and crouched, waiting for Giriko to come back for another strike. "No," the demon said after a moment. "Wrong, wrong. It's gonna go for your buddy with the nuke." Sure enough, they could just see the kaiju flicker between the stone formations. At this distance, with it focused on Shadow Star, Maka made out the razor sharp spines that covered the kaiju. With how fast it was travelling, all it had to do was get close enough to graze the other jaeger and its body would act like a fucking chainsaw.

"Shadow Star, incoming behind you." They turned just in time to dodge the first drive-by. It wasn't going to be anything close to an even battle. Maka looked between the two other jaegers. They weren't going to be fast enough to help either of them, but the payload had to be delivered. "Shadow Star, we're coming."

"We've got this," Liz grunted. "Little fucker can't hold us for long." As if to prove her point, the two arms finally gained enough leverage to rend the enormous pincer mouth useless. Maka gritted her teeth and tried not to worry about the bladed tail or the pincer arms or-

"Focus, Maka. We're almost there."

Soul's voice was steady and much calmer than either of them felt through the Drift. Ahead of them, Shadow Star had deployed plasma knives and was swinging, strategically dodging closer and closer to where they needed to be. They could already see that it wasn't going to be enough. There were increasingly larger pieces of the jaeger sloughing off after every pass Giriko made, and the jaeger was starting to slow down. At least, Soul thought, the kaiju wasn't exactly unscathed.

"They're not gonna make it," the demon said, unhelpfully.

"That's what we're here for," Maka growled. "Ready, Soul?"

"Upgrades?"

"Upgrades," she confirmed, slamming the red button next to her.

"Ooooh, scythe deployed, fuckers," the demon shouted. Individual links spun out through the water and snapped quickly into place, diamond sharp blade curving neatly in front of them.

Soul whistled. They swung.

Giriko's tail sunk neatly to the ocean floor and settled in the sand. It roared, off balance and flailing as it tried to attack Shadow Star again.

"Why won't it attack us instead?" Maka hissed.

"I think you know the answer to that," the demon replied. "I told you they knew."

"Ugh, I know." They swung again and again, trying to hit or at least keep the attention of the kaiju. It dodged, clumsy but still surprisingly fast, and all they managed were a few deep cuts. Shadow Star staggered toward the Breach.

"Movement in the Breach!" Wes's voice rang through their jaegers, and Maka's heart sank. They were so close. "C-," he stuttered, and she swore that she could hear him swallow. "Category-5. Codename Asura."

It was the last thing they heard out of LOCCENT. Asura was-enormous didn't really cover it. Soul rather thought that the demon's whispered, "Oh, fuck," about summed it up.

A moment later, the water around them was filled with tentacles. There was no dodging them, and they sent Demon Hunter twisting and turning to try and slice through them. It worked to an extent, their jaeger's reflexes aided by the kaiju ghost that had inhabited their machine. They lost track of everything that wasn't dodging.

"Shit," Tsubaki yelled. "We're hit-I can't tell if it's Asura or Giriko. We're losing system functions quickly, and we're immobile."

"We're still up," DK's voice floated through. "We're going to try the Death Cannon."

"Acknowledged," Soul replied. He glanced and Maka, and she nodded, lips pressed tightly together. "Shadow Star, we're going to grab some tentacles and make for the Breach."

"We can't give you the nuke. Even if we could reach it, we can't detach it manually."

Maka smiled. "We've got this. We're a walking nuke."

"Aw, shit, really?" the demon whined. "I just got here, goddammit."

"Stay with us just a little while longer. We've got you," Soul promised.

"What the fuck. It's more than I had."

"That's the spirit," Maka smiled. "Can you get us through?"

They heard the sound of the Death Cannon firing up even through the forest of Asura's tentacles. "Yeah, I've got us covered. We get to the Breach and we get through."

The cannon fired, and the beam just missed them, superheated and searing through Asura's flesh. It didn't even flinch, despite the fact that it was now missing half its tentacles. The silence over the coms was deafening.

"We're going to detonate." Black*Star's voice was calm and sure. "Reaper, you've still got your pods. There's nothing else you can do. Demon Hunter? Go fuck some shit up for us."

"You've got it." They replied as one, already moving. Asura shifted and rolled, grotesquely fast for something of its size, and managed to wrap several tentacles around Demon Hunter's left leg. Maka bit back a yell and they lurched forward, scythe swinging. They got a few of the tentacles and scrambled forward a couple more meters, hands clawing at the edge of the Breach. They lost the scythe in the process, but they were so close.

In the end, it was the blowback from Shadow Star's nuclear payload detonation that threw them the final few meters they needed, and then they were falling. It was surprisingly quiet, and Soul wasn't sure if it was because of nature of the Breach itself, or because the blast had not only knocked them in, it had also managed to knock out half their systems. Too many flashing lights, but no alarms. Just the quiet voice of the demon.

"Woah. That was-wow."

"Yeah."

"Also you know your life support's about to be gone, right?"

Soul sighed, "Yeah, I thought as much. Maka?"

"She's out. Alive, but woooo," it made a whooshing noise that Soul wasn't sure quite how to interpret. He still felt her in the Drift, but it was muted. He nodded and unstrapped himself.

"Can you transfer the remaining power to her pod?"

"I got it," it came out sluggish, and Soul smacked the Eject button and moved as fast as he could to the manual override. It was jammed and he had to push back the nervous rush of terror. A second later it popped open. "I got you, too," the demon slurred.

Soul felt something in his chest tighten. "Thank you."

Red numbers flash. Thirty seconds. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight. Soul stumbled back. He could do this, he could make it. It was just getting harder to breathe a little, that was all.

"Thank you," he said again.

"Eh, it was-" the demon paused. "It was something else. It was more than I expected."

"We'll find you in the Drift," Soul promised. The servos whirred sluggishly.

---

"We're tracking another pod," Wes bit his lip, eyes glued to the display screen. "Hitting the surface in...3...2...1...vital signs all appear healthy." Next to him, Spirit's knuckles were white against the command console.

---

Maka blinked awake to a bright blue mid-morning sky, and for a long moment, she wondered where she was and why she could hear the ocean. Soul wasn't next to her, and it had only been a few days, but she was used to the way he took up part of the shitty PPDC bed.

Soul. Soul. She bolted upright, the escape pod tight around her. "Soul?" Dimly, she heard a faint cheering and realized that she was connected again with LOCCENT, but she didn't see Soul's escape pod, and she should, he should have been right behind her, but she couldn't remember getting in the pod in the first place.

"You stupid fucker, where are you?" She clambered out and on top of her pod for a better view. "Soul, I swear to god," and oh god, her voice was wrecked.

"Tracking another pod. We're not registering any vital signs." She barely registered Wes's voice piping through the com in her pod. "Maka, there's a Jumphawk close by and on its way."

It's another few seconds before the pod finally broke the surface, and she let out a sob. The hatch didn't pop open, but she was already diving into the water. It was close; she could get there before the exhaustion hit her. It wasn't too late, it couldn't be too late. It was just a malfunction. It had to be.

She hauled herself up, breathing hard as she straddled it. Trembling hands popped the manual catches and with a depressurized pop, it flew off. He was there. Still and silent, but there. He wasn't breathing. There was a response from Wes, but she didn't hear it. She hadn't even realized she'd spoke out loud.

"You asshole, come on. Soul, come on, wake up." She grabbed him, hauling his limp body upright, and she couldn't stop the broken sob from escaping. "Soul, you stupid jerk, what did you do. Come on, come on, breathe, goddammit." She held him close, buried her face in damp hair that tickled her nose.

"Maka, I can't breathe."

She hiccuped as he stirred against her chest, and she released him as if burned. "Soul-"

"Hey." He smiled at her, a little lopsided, but alive.

She returned it, pressing one shaking hand against his chest, his living, breathing chest, and pushed lightly. "You ass," she murmured.

"Yeah. Sorry, not sorry." He leaned into her touch until their foreheads touched. Maka didn't need the remnants of their Drift to feel the tremors that wracked his body. She could hear the Jumphawks close in, but the noise paled against the feel his heartbeat, steady and strong. They moved together, her fingers tightening against his drivesuit, his hands cradling her face, her neck. Their lips pressed together, soft and warm and right.

Distantly, they heard a familiar voice shouting that they should 'get to the choppa', but Maka had been ignoring Black*Star since before she could walk, and it was no struggle to do so in favor of losing herself in their kiss.

---

The vodka, they discovered later, never ran out because the Russians kept making more.