Mako's thirteen and so many months and she sends in her application to the PPDC Jaeger Academy. Where it asks, in the event of her acceptance, which Academy she'd prefer to attend, she numbers the locations, from greatest to least, by the Marshal's deployment schedule. Anchorage at number one – Kodiak is near enough, nearer than Hong Kong at any rate – and Tokyo at the bottom.
It's not a secret she's applying, she and the Marshal has spoken about it extensively – over dinner and sleepless nights, during her training in the Kwoon and the quiet moments in his office, looking over jaeger blueprints. He started training her for this, so she can be ready, so she can be the best.
He doesn't try to stop her.
The day she gets accepted, she goes to every convenience store in the town by the base looking for a very specific shade of hair dye. She gives up when all they offer are a range of brown and blonde and gives in and spends her stipend on a salon another town over.
She picks the chunks of hair framing her face, showing the stylist how where she'd like the color. The bleach makes her a little dizzy, something she'll eventually get used to, and she flips through the color palate.
She picks a color that's crass and bold. 'Kaiju Blue' is gauche and perfect. She makes sure to order more and the stylist gives her a small look when the address she gives is the Jaeger Academy in Kodiak.
Later in the Kwoon, the Marshal is waiting for her and she bows, "Sensei."
The blue streaks fall forward when she bows, presenting itself to the Marshal.
He raises a brow a bit. "And how was your day, Miss Mori?"
She picks up the corresponding eskrima sticks by his feet and spins it a bit, "Productive."
He gives a non-committal nod, "Hmm. Little dizzy perhaps?"
She wonders if he can smell the peroxide. She grins a little bit, maybe she is a little dizzy, but it's not from the bleach.
A corner of his mouth lifts a little and he shakes his head, "I never knew how Tamsin got used to the bloody smell."
She flips her hair a little bit and looks at his shaved head, "Perhaps you should try it."
He laughs and so does she.
"Are you ready?"
She gets in position. "Hai, Sensei."
In four days time, she will only know his as Marshal Pentecost, fighting every instinct to call him Sensei. But in this moment, as she blocks his attacks, she is content.
There are irregularities in her simulations.
She completes them perfectly – reasonable collateral damage, clean kills with no excessive kaiju blood spilling the simulated city streets. Perfect. The only person near her record is Chuck Hansen and she still has four simulations on him.
Her connection with the Marshal isn't widespread public knowledge, but anyone with a high enough pay grade knows – anyone with a high enough pay grade would've been one of the people who questioned the adoption. They know what happened in Tokyo; they know who she is, even if the world never bothered to find out. It's an open secret to the top brass, but, they tell themselves, there's too much potential in the Mori girl.
By her seventeenth drop (and subsequent kill), the irregularities are becoming common. There's a spike in the otherwise consistent readings, suggesting a slip in her control. A slip that can start a landslide if she were drifting with another person. A slip that did.
By her thirty-fourth drop and thirty-fourth kill, the irregularities are a trend.
Maybe, on someone else, a different person, it could just be adrenaline or exhaustion. But she's not. She was the girl chased by Onibaba in the streets of Tokyo after losing her parents moments before.
By her fiftieth simulation, she gets a summons.
She supposes that they think it kind to have the Marshal speak to her instead of the review board.
She knows what's coming. She's seen the readings – kept trying to avoid repeating it, which only resulted in an even bigger spike.
The Marshal tells her, "It's concerning."
"I can get better."
"This isn't about getting better."
"The Psych staff cleared me!"
"This decision is still up to me."
At some point they've switched to Japanese without Mako noticing. It's not something that's happened in a while.
"Then what would have been the point of this? What would be the point of me?"
"Mako," his voice is stern in a way that hasn't been since she tried to continue training on a sprained ankle. "Your control is slipping in the simulation. The risk of a destabilized handshake on the field is too high. You didn't live just to die in battle. Until you learn that, this isn't going to work. There are more ways to honor you family than being in a Conn-Pod."
"One more. Just give me one more chance."
Her fifty-first drop becomes her fifty-first kill. The Marshal is there, monitoring the readings and she doesn't need to see them to know.
When she passes him, she can't meet his eyes, so she bows low, the weight of the disappointment heavy. His hand is on her shoulder the moment she's up. "Mako."
He's right, though. Her memories could destabilize any neural handshake she manages to forge with someone. Maybe it'll work the first time, or even the second time, but it'll be like waiting for a time bomb.
"Things change. Maybe one day."
It tastes like disappointment.
Her first year as a Ranger, Gipsy Danger turns up on the shores of Anchorage, miles from the contact point with Knifehead, with a left arm hanging in bits, a hole on the right side of the Conn-Pod, and one pilot short.
The pieces of the Jaeger and Raleigh Becket are flown back to the Shatterdome.
It comes out that Becket managed to pilot Gipsy Danger back to shore after finishing off Knifehead, all this after having his brother ripped from the Conn-Podd, disconnecting the handshake prematurely.
The entire base is tense for the two days Raleigh Becket slips in and out of consciousness. When he wakes up, he refuses to sign a waiver to be studied. There's only one other pilot that's been able to pilot a jaeger solo, but Becket's body isn't trying to kill him from radiation poisoning.
Gipsy Danger is to be retired to San Francisco with the other destroyed jaegers.
A day after Medical clears him physically fit, Mako watches Becket try to leave the hangar in the middle of the night, duffle bag over his shoulder, with a wild look no one's willing to meet.
She wonders if there's an Oblivion Bay for pilots.
She argues with the Marshal about a lot of things, in private and (semi) public spheres. If there's a debate to be had, they have it. Respect, after all, doesn't mean submission.
When Chuck Hansen becomes the youngest pilot in PPDC history she reserves the Kwoon on the Marshal's least busiest day and knocks on his office door after his last meeting.
She bows low when he opens the door. He's still in his uniform, pressed and neat, and she stands before him in a tank top and loose pants. He takes one look at her, bows back and says, "Give me an hour."
After fifty-five minutes, they both stand outside the Kwoon, waiting for the last match to end. It's not a strange sight, Mako Mori and the Marshal training in the mats. People know well enough to stay out of their way.
At the hour, the room is cleared except for them, both in their training gear, picking up a hanbō by the wall. Stacker spins his by his wrist and Mako stretches her neck. They stroll to the middle of the room and he says, "Heard the news, have you."
She gets into position, her stick extended, "I'm as good as Chuck Hansen."
She gives him a pointed look that said, Better.
He moves into the starting position, then, in a series of movements, he arrives four steps to her left and taps her ribs lightly.
"Point."
He gives her a pointed look that said, We'll see.
Sometime after the irregularities in her simulation readings were considered concerning but before alarming, someone gets the idea to test the two youngest students for drift compatibility.
Chuck was in the class below her even though they're the same age. He'd never admit it, but he played catch up with her for most of his career during the Academy.
Mako was quiet and kept to herself and nice enough to help you if you asked for it, but had sim scores that nobody was able to scratch. Chuck was an asshole who knew how good he was and hassled the ground crew more often than not. When people argued about the lowered enlisting age of the Academy, the debate boiled down to, 'Have you seen the Mori girl?' which is easily deflected by, 'Yeah, but the Hansen boy.'
Their EKGs matched up and they were taught to fight by men who are compatible. Most importantly, they had history. From Lima to Hong Kong, they are both familiar faces to each other. They treaded the same hallways and got kicked out of the same hangars, but they never stayed in one place long enough to be anything but suspicious of each other.
The Kwoon fight went fine until it didn't. Ranger Hansen and Marshal Pentecost were present for the match and it ended with a sharp call of their names just as Mako retaliated with a swift and hard hit to Chuck's ribs after he knocked the air out of her with a hit to the gut.
Statistics say they're compatible; angry with something to prove, but compatible.
So they hooked themselves up in the simulator for two with the whole world watching. She heard the Marshal's voice, "Prepare for neural handshake."
They looked at each other, eager and still suspicious of each other. The AI replied, "Neural handshake, initiating."
They're pulled in. It started with things they share –
– dinner at someone's off base apartment, both of you tearing up the vegetables, kneeling on chairs to reach the table –
– unpaved streets in Lima, when you fall on the ground, the dirt stings the cut –
– an incredulous look after a kiss –
She heard the Marshal, "60% to full handshake."
Then, something tripped. In her or him, it's something she'll never be sure of.
The AI's voice filled the Conn-Pod, "Handshake disengaged. Would you like to try again?"
They stripped off the suits and both vomited in the locker room. Chuck punched a locker and Mako washed her mouth. They looked at one other. They blamed each other and themselves and Mako thought, maybe they can drift with all the hate they seemed to be sharing.
By lunchtime, everybody knew.
Mako went in the simulator, for one, and added three drops and three kills to her tally. Chuck, as far as she knew, punched a few more lockers and got into a fight with a LOCCENT operator.
As she prods the Marshal's shoulder for a point, all she remembers from the drift was the taste of ash and the desperation to find a mother.
Was the memory hers?
Is it clear this is mostly me trying to flesh out head-cannons yet? And the plot is basically, I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN ONIBABA AND MAKO SWEEPING RALEIGH OFF HIS FEET. Which, I think is an extremely underrated genre. And, again, if anyone needs a girl crying over Pacific Rim on their shoulders, hit me up on tumblr!