Series Note:

Sometimes I write short, informal fiction for Tumblr blog, Squad Six is Jerks (username: recurring-polynya), and here is an attempt to put them somewhere slightly more permanent. A lot of these came from prompts, and I have tried to credit the asker wherever possible. Many of these came out of a weekend when I was doing (allegedly) 500-word drabbles to celebrate making 500 followers, but you can send me asks anytime, although sometimes it takes me a while to answer them.

Chapter 1: PacRim AU

Prompt from some galaxy-brained Anon:
RenRuki Pacific Rim AU. Renji is torn up inside because he and Rukia used to be drift compatible when they were younger until ~something~ happened, and now she's fighting monsters and is drift compatible with this new orange haired kid she met like 10 mins ago. Rukia's in danger, Renji and Ichigo have to go and save her in their giant robot (and because they only have Save Rukia on their minds, miraculously, they can do it). Rukia and Renji talks things out, they kick ass in a giant robot. END.

"Ho-leeeee smokes," Ichigo breathed, staring up at the gleaming Jaeger. "She's gorgeous." The Jaeger was pure white, accented with a scattering of pink cherry blossoms. This was no scrapper like Snow Rabbit, she was shining and elegant, absolutely oozing power.

Renji pushed past him in order to boot up another control panel. "She better be. That's Sakura 1000, the finest (not to mention most expensive) Jaeger ever built. She belongs to Captain Kuchiki.

Ichigo let out a low whistle. "When you said you could get us a ride, you weren't kidding. Cripes, Byakuya can pilot? Who the hell is drift compatible with that old bag of wind in a fancy suit?"

Renji shot him a steely glance. "Captain Kuchiki is the most gifted pilot this Shatterdome has ever seen. Story goes, only one person's ever been naturally drift compatible with him. With enough training, enough years studying his moves, a person can learn to co-pilot with him. It's not true drift compatibility, it's more like… supporting him. He carries most of the neural load himself. He's amazing."

"Don't know who would sign up for that garbage job," Ichigo announced, watching Renji type access codes into a terminal. "Hey, how do you know all those…" As he looked back at his reluctant ally, Ichigo noticed for the first time that Renji's Drivesuit was white, splashed with pink flower petals. "Ohhhhhhhh dang. Uh, sorry, man."

"Don't worry about it," Renji grumbled. "It is a bullshit job. Come on." Sakura 1000's Conn-Pod slid open with a blast of steam and a loud hiss.

"You think we're really gonna be able to pilot ol' Hatchetface's personal Jaeger?" Ichigo asked, chasing Renji up the ramp.

"Nope," Renji replied. "But I'll be damned if I'm gonna sit back while Aizen tries to use Rukia to open a new breach."

"Now, that's funny," Ichigo grinned, "because it seems like we're on exactly the same wavelength." He paused from trying to buckle his feet into the straps. "Hey, when Rukia and I get in Snow Rabbit, the head is detached and then it goes down a big chute thing and–"

"Yeah, Sakura 1000's Conn-Pod is in the torso. She doesn't have escape hatches." Renji yanked his helmet down over his ponytail. "If she goes down, so do we."

"Coooool," said Ichigo. "Cool cool cool cool cool."

"Look, you ready to get this show on the road, kid?"

"Let me get my helmet on!"

Renji took a deep breath, his nose filling with relay gel. This was insanity. Fourteen years of training, of studying, of getting his brain waves to align with a man who was the epitome of self-control. And now, here he was, stealing Captain Kuchiki's finicky baby with this… this human tornado, this chaos-that-walked-like-a-teen that Rukia had just…picked up somewhere. This was never going to work. This was going to fail and it was going to set off a thousand alarms and then they were going to jail forever while Rukia–

"Ready!"

Banishing those negative thoughts, Renji hit the ignition sequence, and felt the spinal clamp lock into place.

"Beginning synchronization sequence," Sakura 1000's auto-monitoring system announced.

"Hey, does her voice sound a little like Rukia's?" Ichigo asked.

"Little," Renji managed. It was the voice of Captain Kuchiki's dead partner, actually, but Renji had always found it eerily close to his former best friends'. "What do you wanna think about?" he asked. "Something we can both get on board with."

"Pilotin' with Rukia, obviously."

Renji glanced at his co-pilot out of the corner of his eye, then closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Dark violet eyes, sparkling with violence.

"You ready to go kick some ugly monster butt, Big Guy?"

Leaping off a cliff into a boiling sea where their comrades were in desperate need of a rescue, their Jaeger's cape fluttering around them. (Why did a giant mech even have a cape?)

Beating a kaiju over the head with the melted ruin of their Plasmacaster, screaming in unison, screaming not because they were scared, but screaming because they were alive.

"Neural handshake complete," the auto-monitoring system declared. "Drift connection established. Preparing for launch."

"What th'heck?" Renji sputtered.

"Let's go save Rukia," Ichigo growled. Renji could feel his upper lip curling into a determined grin, echoing the teen's own facial expression.

"Yeah," Renji agreed. "Let's go save Rukia."