Warnings: Kaiju Violence, Some Language
When Manhattan Bombshell dropped into the waves fifteen minutes later, the Jaeger strode by Banshee towards the Miracle Mile without so much as a wave. "Manhattan Bombshell is in position," Kowalsky told LOCCENT over their comms.
Poked by the lack of greeting, Jack cocked a grin as he leaned towards Carter. "You think they ever get embarrassed having to say Bombshell every five minutes?"
Carter's expression remained flat, with just a hint of a wince. "You could ask them," she delivered evenly, "considering they can hear you."
Jack froze. He struggled to find a witty comment to get himself out of the hole he dug, but none were forthcoming. Heat crept up the back of his neck, as the knowledge that he'd been busted sank in.
"Do you get embarrassed talking about beautiful women, O'Neill?" Kowalsky drawled over the open comms. "Because I have to say that's never been a problem of mine." Ferretti chortled over the line, and Jack flushed deeper when even Carter cracked a wry grin. "Now how about you cut the chit chat and get back to the half. We don't need anyone underfoot."
"You got it," Carter returned, granting Jack a brief reprieve to recover from the gentle ribbing. Together, they maneuvered Banshee back towards shore, and covered the distance easily, parking it at enough of a distance from Manhattan to keep out of their hair, but close enough to jump in if things went south. Jack was eager to fight, especially now that he no longer felt like he was walking with cement shoes on, but god, he hoped they weren't needed. Not the day after May Day.
There they waited, scanning the dark waves for any sign of movement. The Academy hadn't covered the pall of anticipation in training. The ominous shadow of imminent monsters weighed as heavily as drifting with Hanson. Before Jack felt it in his chest, pressing down on his lungs. They were lucky the beast hadn't made landfall before they could intercept, but there was something to be said for following a trail of destruction, on the hunt, rather than waiting for the kaiju to come to them.
By the time Cetus appeared on radar, Jack was so wired that the small blip jolted his entire system. Certain that Carter could sense the alarm through the drift, he slid a self-conscious glance in her direction but her eyes were focused on her own instrument panel. Jack fumbled the key to alert Manhattan, but paused when he felt Carter's urge to wait. He looked to her, and she murmured a soft "hold on" that wasn't picked up on the comms.
"Got it!" Kowalsky reported a moment later, with the distracted tone of a pilot getting to work. The right side of the Jack's vidscreen linked directly to LOCCENT, and through the uplink he could see Manhattan deploy its stanchions. Thick tri-bladed stanchions five meters long fired from the soles of Manhattan's boots, piercing layers of sand, silt and rock to anchor the Jaeger in place against the bedrock. As he and Carter watched, Manhattan seemed to shrink, its joints contracting to provide better protection against the impending attack.
"Juggernaut protocol engaged," Ferretti confirmed. Manhattan now looked less human and more rock; it would have limited mobility hunkered down like that, but it would be almost impenetrable, and not a moment too soon. The ocean at Manhattan's feet surged and parted to reveal six hungry eyes and a razor sharp beak. "Whoa!"
"Cetus engaged!" Tendo confirmed. Understatement. Cetus's scans on their HUD didn't do the beast justice. It was massive, almost impossible to see in the frothing waves. The bore a passing resemblance to a squid, particularly in the tentacles whipping continuously against Manhattan's hull, seeking purchase. Sharp hooks lined each arm, creating sparks when they met Manhattan's unyielding hull. It pulled furiously at Manhattan's arms, but their Juggernaut protocol held. When its attacks proved unfruitful, the beast changed tactics, instead wrapped all its tentacles around Manhattan's bulk to heave itself upward, and then slam its serrated beak down against their helm.
The sound of Manhattan's alarms echoed over the comm link. Kowalsky and Ferretti reported calmly over the headset, as yet unperturbed. Jack slid a glance towards Carter, only to find that she wasn't even watching the action. Her eyes were on her instruments, monitoring the radar.
"Engage!" Ferretti called in unison with his copilot. Jack returned his attention to the battle in time to see Manhattan relax one arm and snag a handful of tentacles. Cetus immediately wrapped almost a third of its appendages around the limb, correctly identifying its greatest opportunity to inflict damage. It surged backwards, trying to topple Manhattan into the waves. Manhattan's stanchions held. Ferretti and Kowalsky responded by firing their forward flamethrowers, incinerating the stems of the tentacles they held, and licking the face of the beast itself, aiming for the eyes. Cetus shrieked and writhed straining against Manhattan's grip. A second later the kaiju crashed into the waves, unexpectedly freed, leaving Manhattan with nothing but a fistful of writhing tentacles.
Manhattan lurched towards Cetus. Each step meant the retraction and redeployment of each stanchion, slowing their progress to a halting crawl. Still, it likely saved their lives when Cetus took advantage of their movement to barrel into the Jaeger from behind. It latched onto the back of Manhattan's hull, clawed tentacles scraping and pulling at any purchase it could find. Manhattan staggered under the weight, but remained upright. Its beak smashed again and again against Manhattan's connpod. Alarm fired through the drift, the first matching emotion JAck and Carter had experienced in the drift so far. However, Carter's concern settled a moment later, while Jack's flared onl brighter as Manhattan swiveled in vain to dislodge the kaiju.
Suddenly, there was a shower of sparks as Cetus found an opening in the Manhattan's left shoulder- the arm Manhattan had used to tear the tentacles before hadn't reset properly, and now those clawed hooks dove into the crevice and tore out cordons of cables. Manhattan cursed over the headsets, suddenly losing ground as more of Cetus' appendages lashed in towards the opening.
"We should help them!" Jack snapped. He'd had it with waiting. "Banshee can handle it!"
"So can Manhattan," Carter responded coolly. "We have our orders. We stay here-" She broke off suddenly, her eyes drawn to a gauge on her display. Jack felt alarm trickle through their connection, followed swiftly by exhilaration. "Control, did you see that pulse on the radar just now?"
"Affirmative, Banshee. Analyzing now."
"What? What is it?"
"Were any other signatures detected at the breach?" Carter continued over Jack, fingers tapping a command into the keypad.
"Negative," Tendo responded. "Remain in position."
Jack looked to Carter. "You said to remain vocal, ma'am."
Sam paused, blinking as though she'd forgotten he was there. "We have a second kaiju, closing fast," she told him, resuming her typing. "You might just get your fight after all."
"I'm not seeing anything on my sensors. How do you know?"
"Call it a gut feeling. Our instruments aren't picking it up consistently. Could be something about it that avoids our detection methods. Switching to visuals."
The screen projected the battle against the bulkhead. Jack spied the thrashing kaiju in Manhattan's grip, then moved on to the ocean roiling around the two. He saw nothing that couldn't be explained by the fight among the waves. Suddenly, Carter cursed.
"Prime the plasma cannon!" she ordered, then opened up comms. "Manhattan! You have another incoming!"
"Screens show nothing!" Kowalsky shouted over the speaker. "Get off my damn comms, Carter, and stay the hell back!"
"What do you see?" Jack asked, too alarmed to take issue with Manhattan's disrespect. He could feel it now, her certainty and apprehension. He just didn't see what clued her in.
"There." She zoomed Banshee's camera on the ocean less than 50 meters from Manhattan's position. Jack finally saw it- a wide swath of glinting ripples, fish the surface of the water in distress. "It's coming straight up. Manhattan won't see it coming."
The plasma cannon was already hot, and as one they hefted it up, zeroing on the point they anticipated the kaiju would peak- it would be moving too quickly when it breached, but the moment it was airborne could slow it down enough for them to hit. Manhattan only registered the active weapon leveled in their direction.
"Carter!" Kowalsky shouted. "I said-"
Suddenly the waves surged and bulged, erupting the biggest kaiju Jack had ever seen. He and Carter fired instantly without a word. The blast passed over Manhattan's right shoulder and tore into the broad side of their newest arrival, the force of the blow turning the beast aside to send it careening back into the waves.
"Control, second contact is confirmed," Jack reported through his repeat. "I repeat, contact confirmed. Belladonna Banshee is prepared to engage." He didn't need to even look at Carter to confirm. He felt her readiness in the back of his mind, like an itch niggling to be satisfied.
"We can see that," Pentecost returned dryly. "Codename Multo. You are clear to engage."
Carter re-opened the channel to Manhattan. "Manhattan, we've got this one."
Whether Kowalsky was bitter at having to eat his words, they didn't know, as Manhattan was too busy grappling with Cetus to respond.
"We've lost visual," Jack reported. He kept his eyes peeled, knowing that Multo's attention was now entirely on Banshee. A new beeping on his monitor sounded an alarm, pulling his attention away from the viewscreen. He blinked in surprise when he read the numbers. "You... redirected the core's output?" Jack shook his head. "We're still at full power! The core will overload!"
"Wait," Carter told him, scanning the waves. She'd requested they speak verbally, but the drift begged for trust. Trust me… Trust her… They had to do this together, or not at all. And not at all would kill them and Manhattan both, not to mention the millions of people behind them on the mainland.
Okay. Jack opened his mind. He stopped wondering, stopped questioning. He observed, and focused on Banshee. Her power levels climbed steadily into the red. They had 60 seconds before systems started to shut down automatically and they lost function. He felt Multo's return before alarms sounded.
"NOW!" he shouted with Carter, spinning Banshee and venting the excess energy. A torrent of heat and flames reached hungrily for Multo, and propelled Banshee backwards through the waves faster than they could have moved under their typical rocket boosters alone. The ocean began to glow faintly, stained with the blue ammonia of kaiju blood that dripped steadily from its side while it blinked the pain from its seared eyes. Jack felt Carter's instinct to press the advantage and followed readily.
Banshee charged forward and feinted towards an uppercut, but shifted into a right hook when Multo recoiled and exposed its injured side. Banshee's fist gouged deep into the wound caused by their plasma cannon and flexed its fingers for purchase in the kaiju's flesh. Multo pulled away with an unearthly shriek, leaving them with nothing but slippery blobs of dermis between their fingers.
Multo screeched, rattling their eardrums even through Banshee's layered hull. Shaking it off, they settled into a familiar fighting stance. Multo writhed pitifully on the surface of the waves, growing significantly weaker as Banshee advanced. They hesitated just out of reach, when Multo fell preternaturally still. They primed the plasma cannon rather than advance further. Before it could fully charge Multo lunged for them, snarling as it went straight for the exposed cannon. They retracted it before its jaws could snap shut and wrapped their arms around its bulk and squeezed. Banshee didn't have the bulk or strength to crush it outright, but it gave them a moment to breathe.
Jack grunted under the effort to keep Multo pinned. He had no idea whether Manhattan was holding up with Cetus. Multo's domeplate eclipsed their camera view, limiting their vidscreens to the two bony protrusions pushing through the thick hide. They were close enough to see the seam between the plates-
The realization came to Jack at the exact moment he called out. "The plates! Go for the plates!"
Banshee released one arm and dug its fingers behind the first of the beast's two armored plates shielding its skull. Multo struggled to break away, talons and teeth scraping against Banshee's hull. They locked their other hand on the remaining plate and twisted, grappling as they would a bull by the horns.
"Push and pull!" Jack shouted, and immediately they pulled at the right plate and pushed against the left, then alternated. Again and again they switched, gaining leverage with each pull. Soon Multo's thrashing became more desperate as it felt its hide start to split and tear. Then a sickening crack reverberated up Banshee's arm. With one last heave they threw all their weight against the loosened plate. Multo screamed as the plate came away as easily as a fingernail, taking a large swath of the skull with it, dripping blue and gristle.
They threw the plate aside and plunged their fist into the brain left exposed. With a massive shudder, Multo writhed, then fell absolutely, deathly still. Scooping a handful of matter from the cranium for good measure, Banshee dropped the carcass into the waves and turned to find Manhattan still struggling with Cetus. Without a second thought, they primed their plasma cannon once more.
"Manhattan, this Banshee. Multo is terminated," Carter announced across the open channel, breathless. "Do you require assistance?"
"Yes!" came the synchronous response. Manhattan managed to hook its arms around Cetus' mantle, and threw it bodily across their shoulder, leaving half a dozen tentacles still latched to their hull. "Light it the hell up!"
Instantly Banshee's cannon came up and fired, pulse after pulse, catching Cetus unaware. When it turned to face the new threat, Manhattan opened a barrage of rocket fire. Together they engaged on both fronts, and continued firing until Cetus was nothing but a smoking husk. When it finally fell still, they both moved in.
"Careful, Manhattan," Jack warned. "Multo tried to get sneaky on us."
Manhattan's response was to plant one foot on Cetus' shell, where the mantle met the more flexible tissue of the arms. Cetus didn't even flinch when the stanchion deployed, the long thick blade piercing the hide. Manhattan dragged the blade along the length of the mantle, just to be sure. The kaiju's body split in two, bobbing lifelessly in the waves.
"Control, this is Manhattan," Kowalsky panted over the comms. "Cetus is terminated."
"Confirmed. Both Jaegers are to return to the Shatterdome immediately." Pentecost paused. "Well done, Rangers. Excellent teamwork."