Atlas' Burden

Charlie was in the Kwoon when she heard the groan of metal and the whirring of engines. There were cries of alarm and she sprinted towards the source. Out in the main hangar, Gipsy's core had started whirring violently, and she was screeching like nails on a chalkboard. Her Plasma Cannons emerged from her arms and began to spin and spark by themselves.

She zeroed in on her father's voice immediately and made her way towards the sound, "Raleigh, you need to calm down."

"Calm down! You heard what that bastard said! You heard what he wanted to do with me. Isn't my head scrambled enough already? And –" the other man snarled, cold voice cutting over the noise and she saw them. The crowd had backed away from them in a large circle and Charlie pushed through to the front of the spectators.

Her dad interrupted softly, "And we never would have gone through with it. Never."

Ray let out a shaky breath and ran a brisk hand through his hair. He pinned her dad with his eyes and seemed to find what he was looking for, because he did a complicated motion with his arms. Gipsy copied the movement and her Plasma Cannons stopped spinning and disappeared. Charlie's eyes popped open in shock. She hadn't known it was even possible to be so connected to your jaeger that you can mirror movements from across a room.

The Ranger sighed and said, "I'm going to calm Gipsy down. Please tell the Marshal I apologize."

"Mate, any of the pilots would react as you just did, including the Marshal and I," her dad growled with steel in his voice. Charlie would need to find out what had set them both off.

"He's right, Raleigh," the Marshal's voice cut through the crowd. Okay, Charlie would need to find out what had set all three of them off, that the Marshal would admit to almost losing his legendary composure.

Raleigh calmly collected himself as if he hadn't just lost his temper and almost caused an explosion in the Shatterdome. His eyes went cold again, and his face became that same calm commanding presence he had been before. He walked towards his jaeger and the crowd scrambled to get out of his way, though some looked concerned and sad, and others looked like they wanted to find who had set their beloved Ranger off and kill them slowly.

The Marshal watched him go with rarely seen compassion on his face, and then barked, "As you were." The crowd dispersed, people going back to their tasks, though many went out of their way to avoid 'Temperamental Gipsy', especially those who hadn't worked with her previously. Those who had just brushed gentle fingers over her plates, as though soothing her or just greeting her with their presence.

She pulled her dad out of the way, into an empty storage room, and said, "What was that? The bloke looked a half minute from homicide."

"Less than. Newt proposed having him Drift with a kaiju to learn about the Breach because he'd be more likely to survive the neural load and because he was already damaged goods," he growled.

"What? That crazy jumped up bastard has no tact," Charlie screeched.

"Raleigh told him that if he tried anything like that, he wouldn't need Gipsy to paste him against the ground and remove his head from his body."

She raised her eyebrow, impressed, and said, "Damn, I want to see that next time we Drift."

Her dad gave her a knowing look, the kind he always gave her when she was being particularly obtuse or had done something stupid and he knew about it. What? What had she done? He sighed heavily and said, "Well, if you've decided to crush on someone, you picked a good bruce to crush on."

Her mouth opened and closed in shock, and she said, "You're off your rocker, old man. I haven't been interested in a boy since before I joined the Academy. Pilots don't do relationships, you told me that."

He raised his brow skeptically, and said, "Don't call me that. You haven't looked at boys, but that's not a boy. That's a man, and a damn good pilot too. I told you Rangers don't do relationships with civilians. I didn't say anything about pilots with other pilots and you know it. It's not like I'm telling you to marry him and create a gaggle of blonde, stubborn-as-fuck little ankle biters. Don't make that face at me! I'm just saying you might want to give it a go. Look at the Kaidonovskys and tell me I'm wrong."

"Okay," she drawled, "So technically pilots can date. You know, all ten of us left which is such a big pool, but I don't even like him, old man."

"Don't call me that!" he chastised, but teased, "Yes, you do, Charlie. I bet you already thought about getting him in the Kwoon to see what he looks like shirtless."

Her cheeks betrayed her with their blush, and she hid it with the palms of her hands and whined, "Well, I hadn't yet, but I am now!"

He roared with laughter, pulling her hands away from her flaming cheeks, but said seriously, "Charlie, you're a smart, confident sheila, and that's the first time I've seen him smile about something other than Gipsy or killing kaijus since Yancy died, so if anyone could get Raleigh to date, it'd be you."

"Isn't it supposed to be the dad convincin' his daughter not to date?" she asked dubiously, shifting from one foot to another, leaning down to scratch behind Max's ear.

"Charlie, if it's about jaegers and kaijus, you and Raleigh are two of the smartest, most competent people I know, but if I waited for the two of you to see that you liked each other on your own, I'd die of old age before you two wombats figured it out, much less acted on it," he said.

Damn. He had her pegged there – of course he did he'd been in her head. And now she was just thinking of getting Ray shirtless. Again. Ugh.


Gipsy had calmed under Raleigh's touch with barely a shake of metal plates like the rattle of a rattlesnake's tail. He had stayed with her for thirty more minutes, sitting on the top of her foot, just talking to her, and singing into their ghost Drift, waiting until she was relaxed enough to sing back before he patted her foot and went to find his room.

It took him a while and asking directions of a few wandering people, but eventually he had found the right place – Shatterdomes were mostly built the same way, so it wasn't that hard, especially since he could understand the directions written in Mandarin on plaques bolted to the wall. The Rangers had their own hallway – they had all claimed a rather isolated row of rooms for their own territory. Each room was basically a cubicle with a bed, dresser, desk, a TV that doubled as a kaiju alarm, and an attached bathroom.

There was a sticker slapped on the front of each claimed room. Cherno Alpha's married pilots shared a room marked with a brown, gold, and red sticker of a two-headed bird of prey behind a gold shield marked with a red star. Crimson Typhoon was next: one brother had taken the room across from Cherno, one to Cherno's right, and the last one diagonal to Cherno. They were marked with a red and gold sticker of a traditional Chinese mask with the tassels untied and curled next to its cheeks like the whiskers of an eastern-style dragon. Katana Indigo's pilot's rooms were across from one another and marked with a black katana glowing with deep blue flames. Striker Eureka's was of a bulldog that looked like Max holding a missile in between its teeth in white, brown, and green.

At least now he knew why Tendo had given him that sticker with Gipsy's plain logo on it and a promise that he'd know when he'd need it. He placed it on the front of the cold metal door under the peephole, next to one of Striker Eureka's pilot's doors – though he had no idea whether it was Herc's or Charlie's. His was a golden star like Gipsy's reactor on a purple shield that matched his beautiful lady's paint job, surrounded by plain silver wings. He secretly liked to think that those were angel wings – maybe even Yancy's.

He walked in, leaving the door open, and began unpacking his things. His changes of clothes – mostly sweaters and jeans, though he had a few t-shirts, a Jaeger Academy hoodie, and two pairs of sweatpants as well. He carefully folded Yancy's jacket and the knit beanie that he kept that they had hand-made together for his mom and placed them in the drawer. He set his stack of well-loved poetry books, bristling with sticky notes, highlighted passages, and scribbles of writing, on the top, along with a plain metal bowl that he filled with candy.

He pulled the rubber bands off his stack of worn photos and taped them above the dresser in a collage. There were pictures of him and Yancy as boys, then as teens. There were pictures of his sister, of his mom in her hospital bed, and of three graves with flowers laying on their crests and of three graves covered in snow. A picture Tendo had taken of just after the Becket Brothers' first kill – Yamarashi – was gently taped up; they were leaning on one another with huge smiles on their faces in their pristine new Gipsy Danger jackets with no kaiju patches to speak of except the ones they cradled in their palms. There was a selfie that Ilisapie had taken of them in a rinky-dink old diner that served fantastic fish and chips – and he and Yancy and Zeke were smiling in the background.

There were even a couple of newer pictures. There was one of himself covered in bandages and bristling with machinery in a hospital bed after Yancy's death, another of he and Gypsy's J-Tech's lined up in the shadow of her battered frame, one of himself with Hydra Corinthian's pilots, and with Tendo and some of the other J-Techs in LA's LOCCENT. There was a snapshot of him with Caitlin and Sergio in front of Brawler Yukon, sitting on Brawler's shoulder and frozen halfway through what Raleigh knew to be a debate in Russian over a late-night picnic. Raleigh bent over a poetry book perched on a rafter, pencil behind his ear. Raleigh by himself in his new drive suit in front of Gipsy.

It was like seeing his whole life taped to a wall.


Tendo Choi arrived at the new Shatterdome and heard what had happened with Raleigh and Gipsy from three concerned J-Techs within the first ten minutes. He immediately went searching for Hercules Hansen, knowing he or maybe Stacker Pentecost were the two most likely to have any idea what could cause Raleigh to snap so badly. He found him finishing a workout in the Kwoon with Charlie. Striker's pilots saw him and placed their staffs back in their places, though Charlie couldn't help but get one more whack in, causing Herc to swear and cradle the newly forming welt high on his shoulder. Tendo held in a snicker as the Ranger's disgruntled glare landed on his copilot.

"G'day, Tendo," Herc said, turning with a smile and a solid slap on the back.

Charlie grinned and waved at him from her spot leaning against the wall, "G'day, Tendo."

Tendo smiled back and greeted them both but remembered why he was here and asked about the earlier incident. Charlie immediately growled and slammed her fist into a nearby punching bag, causing it to bounce and jiggle wildly. Herc grimaced and shook his head. He led them both to a secluded room out of the way and explained tiredly.

"Our research team is eccentric at best and utter dipsticks at normal social cues. One of the scientists got caught up in a crazy idea of his and suggested that Raleigh Drift with a kaiju for more information about the Breach, because he'd obviously have a better chance of surviving the neural load. It was accidentally, but heavily implied that it would be no great risk because he'd already been messed up in the head by his brother's death," he said bluntly.

Tendo Choi, who was normally a very laid-back man that got along well with the pilots, swore up a blue streak that impressed both Aussies in the room. He hooked his thumbs around his suspenders and said, "You know why the Marshal assigned me to wherever Raleigh was? We were worried that he'd pull away from other people – his personality changed completely, and he's been ghost Drifting with an empty hole in his head since Knifehead. I heard him describe it once as half of his soul being shredded and his mind torn to pieces and saying that he had to remake pieces of his personality because it wasn't just Yancy that died. When jaeger pilots Drift, they become one, right? So, when the two were ripped apart, pieces of Yancy remained while pieces of Raleigh were torn off and died with his brother."

Charlie shuddered at the description and Herc paled. He asked concerned, "Did he make friends over the years? We kept in communication, but did he make new connections?"

"Yeah, he did. Hydra Corinthian's pilots – who are dead – Chrome Brutus' pilots – who are dead – and Brawler Yukon's pilots – who are once again, you guessed it, dead. Did you keep in contact with Dr. Lightcap before she died?" Tendo listed grimly on his fingers and Charlie winced.

"Yeah, nice woman. Real smart sheila," Herc nodded.

"Did she mention anything about him?"

Herc shook his head, confused, and said, "No, but I snapped at her once for letting him get so isolated once as a senior pilot who should have noticed the signs of stress and agitation in their Shatterdome that are common in younger pilots. After that, we never spoke of it again. I wouldn't expect her to, and I wouldn't have asked unless Raleigh seemed to be getting worse, which he didn't."

Tendo hesitated and said slowly, "The Becket Boy… he still has bad days. Don't spread this around, but maybe discreetly let the other Rangers know? It doesn't affect his piloting at all, but his left arm gets twitchy, and he tends to not use his right side, he has nightmares, and then he goes down to the Kwoon late at night to beat his knuckles bloody. I have a feeling this will be one of those days."


Charlie was wandering this new Shatterdome, contemplating Tendo Choi's words sadly when she came upon Raleigh Becket himself. He was wandering just as she was and neither of them were looking very carefully at where they were going, though they had walked in from two separate directions. Charlie slammed into his chest and fell back with a yelp, only saved from spilling on the ground when Ray caught her around her waist and dragged her upright.

He stepped away respectfully and said, "Sorry, Charlie."

"It's fine, Ray," she was cursing up a storm in her head because her dad was right for once. She hadn't wanted him to step away, and shook her head, saying, "I'm sorry, I got distracted. Where are you headed?"

He shrugged, "Just wandering. I like to familiarize myself with the Shatterdome so that I know where everything is."

"Same for me. So… do you want to wander in the same direction?" she asked with a grin, and shit she was terrible at flirting. She had been a soldier for a lot longer than she'd been a girl whose biggest problem was a crush, and hell, give her a kaiju any day over social interactions. At least you could kill a kaiju. You couldn't kill pushy journos or politicians or crazy kaiju-worshipping cultists, no matter how much they were asking for it.

"Sure, the company's not so bad," he said, a slight twinkle in his eye as they began to walk together.

She relaxed slightly as he ribbed her and protested indignantly, "Oh rack off, I'm brilliant company."

They strolled the hallways a long time, quickly locating the Kwoon from where they were and working their way out to the cafeteria, LOCCENT, their rooms, the quickest way to the jaegers, and other such passages. Sometimes they passed a J-Tech or a K-Scientist, and every time it was someone who'd been through Anchorage, Panama, or the LA Shatterdome, Raleigh knew their names and had even kept track of some details of their lives.

"Hey Grace, how is your daughter? Has she had her baby yet? …Oh really, what'd they name her? Irina? That's a beautiful name."

"Hey Marcos, how are you? Did you fix the laptop yet?"

"Was the transport okay? I know you can get motion sick, Anya."

Every time, they greeted Raleigh by his first name, or by "Ranger Raleigh", and smiled widely, babbling excitedly about whatever he had asked. He asked appropriate questions, and each continued on their way, beaming and continued their tasks with a skip in their step. When they had passed, Charlie would curiously ask how he knew them.

"Oh, Grace and I go way back. She's always been on Gipsy's crew. That's her third grandchild, you know."

"Marcos is really nice. He was one of Hydra Corinthian's J-Tech's in Panama, but transferred to Lima, and then to LA after they died, and now he's here, I guess."

"Anya is a K-Scientist who recommended a couple of books for me. She's really funny, and her sister, Thalia, always makes fun of her because she's an expert on kaijus but gets terribly seasick, so she mostly stays in the lab and waits till the others have collected the samples."

He stopped a few of the Techs from Sydney and a couple of Scientists from Russia, introducing himself, asking their names – in Russian for the Scientists, who smiled happily – and asking for directions to certain places Charlie was sure he knew the general location of already. Each time he thanked them in their native language with a nod that made them practically glow, and each time she felt was more adorable than the last.

Eventually, they split their separate ways and Raleigh disappeared – most likely to find the Marshal. And Charlie couldn't banish the smile from her face. It didn't fade until she remembered the way his left hand had twitched and how stiffly he had held his right side.


Late that night, all the jaeger pilots were informed and waiting when they heard their last screaming for his dead copilot. Charlie jumped completely out of her bed, throwing her blanket on the floor, and scattering her pillows, hearing Ray calling out next door. They all poured out of their rooms, and Iwa was shivering at the normally hidden agony and loneliness that was revealed in the desolate wails. The Wei Tang triplets had wide eyes and Aleksis Kaidonovsky leaned into her husband's side fisting her hands tightly in his shirt.

Herc opened the door and went in, and the rest hid in the shadows around the edge of the door. It was dark and Raleigh was screaming his brother's name repeatedly, shivering and shaking like he was taking the neural load of a jaeger solo for the first time again. Herc shook him awake slowly, aware of how sensitive some soldiers and pilots were and how quickly some attacked when woken up.

Raleigh sat upright and jammed his back into the corner of the room, panting and quivering. He was up and running out the door before Herc had time to form a coherent thought. Charlie began following him and the rest followed her, wondering when their newest member had the time to memorize the path to the Kwoon and thankful that they hadn't lost their own loved ones in such a manner, to have it leave a permanent mark on such a formidable man for so long.

Unknowingly mirroring the past actions of Mammoth Apostle and Brawler Yukon's fallen pilots, the Rangers lined up by the door and watched with sad eyes as Raleigh began a brutal workout that was so smooth that it must have been memorized and performed frequently. He struck the bag like a viper landing technically perfect punches with the power to rattle the bag on its hinges until the bag split with a soft whisper of sand pooling on the floor and his knuckles were all bloodied and bruising.

He abruptly began sprinting around the Kwoon, following the curve of the wall with a stride and speed that none of the other Rangers could match, and for a duration of time that none of them could compete with. His breaths were rattling in his throat before he slowed, and he did pushups at a breakneck pace. After that, he sprung up to demolish their salmon ladder next with an aggressive display of discipline and balance. He lifted all the way up over the bar and hooked it in the crook of his knees, beginning curl ups at the same ridiculously demanding pace. Sasha could see his stomach muscles shaking through his shirt by the time he stopped.

He fell from the bar and rolled to his feet with barely a sound. Removing his shirt as most male Rangers did when they sparred, many of them sucked in deep breaths at the story his body told. The first thing to draw their eyes was the bioluminescent kaiju blood burns from his neck to his right hip, pouring across his ribs. The faint glow of the sparsely lit bulbs shone on the shockingly white burns traveling from his shoulder to his fingers in intricate patterns of circles and straight lines branded into his skin. There was a faint silver line on his abdomen and still puckered pink claw-like marks from the bottom of his right shoulder blade to his tailbone. That along with the scar through his eyebrow, the still-stitched crescent on his face, and his burned and bandaged palms proved that there was obviously a price for so many kills.

Hu winced at the circuit burns – one of Crimson's arms had been ripped off below the elbow once and even that had been excruciating, but only solo Rangers had those sorts of markings. Iwa felt the burning of kaiju blood sizzling against her ankle as though Onibaba's attack was happening all over again. Aleksis and Herc brushed delicate fingers over their own similar scars, but no one had taken the type of damage that Raleigh's body conveyed.

He twirled the staff gracefully like a baton and began a slow simple drill they all knew by heart, though they could tell exactly when he braced to receive a strike that would never land and the sting of remembered loss hit him anew. Charlie was moving before Herc could catch her, marching across the matts and grabbing a staff of her own. She joined the drill as the next set finished, and she could pinpoint exactly when Ray woke up and began matching her increase in speed blow for blow.

An expression of fierce concentration grew on his face, and she matched it with an aggressive scowl of her own. And there it was, she added another blow, lightning fast, but blocked just as swiftly and they began an entirely freestyle spar within the same breath.

Herc choked, "They're… Raleigh and Charlie are Drift Compatible."

He wasn't even jealous as his daughter and young friend's movements blurred, striking and counter-striking with a fluidity that only came from pilots with years of instinct and control on their side. It was beautiful, and Raleigh had confessed to him how much it had hurt when he had overheard a student when he was searching for a copilot say that he could theoretically be so broken that no soul could match his own.

A stumble and it was all over, Charlie's staff rolling out of her grip and Raleigh above her, holding a finishing blow to her neck from landing. She leaned back on her elbows and Raleigh held out a hand, pulling her to her feet.

There was a look of shock and awe on his face, and they all enveloped him in their midst and walked back to their rooms in silence. They needed no words among one another, but that night, a family was forged in the dark of a sleeping Shatterdome.


The cafeteria was perhaps the best place to see the lines drawn in the last Shatterdome – though it felt ridiculously close to Raleigh's old high school when he looked at it that way. J-Techs and the K-Scientists sat at different tables, and when they couldn't do that, they left two or three chairs empty between their groups.

The Jaeger pilots were a tight knit group of their own. Who else could hope to understand how it felt to carry tons of metal on your shoulders, to share every bit of yourself with another, how it felt to come face to face with the monsters that nightmares were made of and be the only thing standing between their claws and teeth and populated cities?

They had all been close when there were dozens of them all over the world. When jaegers patrolled from Shatterdomes in LA, Panama, Alaska, Peru, Japan, Russia, Australia, and Hong Kong. Before there were just five Jaegers left: Cherno Alpha, Crimson Typhoon, Striker Eureka, Katana Indigo, and Gipsy Danger. Only ten active pilots left. Even the most oblivious of people knew something had changed among their elite and wondered at their new dynamic – no longer soldiers drawn together by terrible fate and a losing battle, but to fight a last stand and to herald the dawn of a new day. As a family.

Sasha Kaidonovsky was a large man with white-blonde hair who was aggressive but dependable on the battlefield. He had a contagious belly laugh and adored his wife, Aleksis. His other half was tall and blonde – though her husband still towered over her by a head – and the quieter of the two, but no less aggressive, and many were surprised to learn that it was she who commanded their jaeger. So much older than the other Rangers other than Herc, they naturally slipped into the place of guides, or advisors, and provided a listening ear for their younger comrades.

Crimson Typhoon's Rangers were identical triplets named Cheung, Hu, and Jin. They were playful and active, often pranking each other to lighten the mood around the dutiful Shatterdome. They acted within the roles of nosy little brothers or rambunctious cousins to all the pilots. They had a wicked sense of humor and were always excited for a new challenge.

Their female doubles – Iwa Hidaka and Mako Mori – were best friends and the adopted daughters of Marshal Stacker Pentecost after both had survived Onibaba's devastating attack. Mako was rather quiet and Iwa bright and bubbly, but both were quite cheeky when they felt they could get away with whatever mischief they had cooked up. Like Herc, and now Raleigh, they were frequently seen helping their adoptive father, as the man often delegated heavily to the other Rangers. They became the supportive sisters of the group with quiet ease.

The oddly effective combination of older, more level-headed Herc Hansen, and his hot-headed, courageous daughter, Charlie Hansen easily became the grouchy uncle and the baby of the family – though she'd be mortified if she realized that most of them thought of her that way.

Most of them because it had only been three days and they were all already done with the dancing around and awkward flirting – usually involving trying to kill one another through blunt force trauma in the Kwoon – that was common between Raleigh, their resident brick wall when it came to emotions, and Charlie, who'd spent so much time obsessing over becoming a soldier and a pilot that she had no idea how to 'act like a shiela' as her dad said.

Gipsy Danger's pilot had naturally gravitated to the spot of unofficial leader of the jaegers – not because Raleigh was the strongest, or the deadliest, or because he had the most kills. It was because he walked with a quiet command and confidence that made people notice, and was a kind man, even when his eyes were cold, and he was on the others like lightning in the Kwoon. He scared the shit out of some of the J-Techs and K-Scientists who didn't know him as well, but the rest were in awe of him as a pilot and utterly adored him as a caring commander, who knew their names and their jobs and their stories.

The Rangers gleefully babbled in their native languages when they found out that Raleigh had learned Japanese, Spanish, Mandarin, and Russian in his free time. The pilots, who had been close before, drew even closer to rally around and follow their last member. Even Stacker Pentecost was softer around the blonde Ranger who still woke up screaming Yancy's name.

It was not a team that would close the Breach.

It was a family.


Marshal Pentecost watched with satisfaction as the pilots gravitated around one another, with Raleigh at their center. It was only his daughters, Herc, Tendo Choi, and Raleigh himself who knew for certain that he had cancer, though he was sure the Kaidonovskys had a good idea what was going on, especially after Tamsin's sickness and death, and Charlie had to know after Drifting with her father.

He took the elevator alone and stared with fascination at the drops of ruby red blood on his fingers, dripping steadily from his nose. He opened a metal box marked with his name and took a long thin pill. All too soon, he would need a successor, and it seemed that the Shatterdome had chosen one for him.

He could not find it in himself to be disappointed.