2025, January 12 – 01:19 – Hong Kong Shatterdome, Hong Kong, China
The Shatterdome was back to buzzing not a few hours after the Breach opened. The only form of solace Greyson felt was that their two remaining Jaegers were functional and ready to go. The heaviest form of dread she felt was that they only had two remaining Jaegers functional and ready to go.
There was anxiety and excitement and exhaustion filling the air. Everyone from pilots and researchers to LOCCENT staffers and displaced techs whose Jaegers were in shambles at the bottom of Victoria Bay had one singular thought on their minds: They were all going to die if they fucked this up.
Greyson went over the flight plans with the Jumphawk pilots down in the middle of Scramble Alley. The Marshal wanted to commence Operation Pitfall, and that meant starting the offensive and dropping the nuclear warhead in the Marianas Trench. (She made sure to send a thank-you to the fallen Russian pilots, wherever they were. Maybe drinking vodka in solidarity up there.)
She caught Chuck entering from the main door of the 'Dome, shoulders squared, with his bulldog Max at his heels. The Lieutenant paused briefly when she overhead Tendo's exasperated, "You're not suited up." Turning to the helicopter pilots, she excused herself.
"Yeah, I'm aware of that, Elvis," Chuck bit back sarcastically. Her boyfriend threw a look over his shoulder at Mako and Raleigh, already donning their DriveSuits. "I need to know what's going on."
"He said 'suit up', so suit up," the Tech Chief responded.
"Tendo. I can't pilot Striker on my own, now can I?"
Greyson tucked the holopad under her arm as she approached them, head tilted at his assumption. "Baby, who said you were going at this alone?"
Chuck's brows knitted together in confusion. Only the touch of Greyson's hand to his cheek lessened the disgruntled look on his face. "Well, Dad's hurt, so who's gonna be my co-pilot?"
A distant cry of "Marshal incoming!" had them averting their attention back to the opening bay doors. Almost like they were summoned, Herc Hansen and Stacker Pentecost walked through, one of which was decked out in full flight suit. Astonishment and curiosity passed between everyone in the moment, and Greyson had to force down the feeling of trepidation.
No one said a word as the two men approached.
The Marshal was the first one to break the silence, making an attempt to diffuse the thick tension. "Funny. I don't remember it being so tight," he mused. Stacker shifted the front of his suit, shiny new with the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps emblem on its shoulders. Greyson rolled her eyes.
Pentecost's gaze flickered above their collective heads before he moved forward. Mako pushed past Raleigh and Tendo, going after him. Greyson's head pivoted between them and the Hansens, who were pulling off to speak in hushed tones — and mildly angry ones. She took a step to them, but Raleigh's light hand on her forearm kept her grounded in place.
"…this wouldn't be a problem if you hadn't unhitched yourself from the rig," Chuck had started.
"You think I could've known it would happen?" countered Herc. "I'm lucky enough to even be standing, and besides—"
"Dad, the old man's off his rocker. What in God's name makes him think this'll work?"
"You're put off — son, I get it. It's your first deployment without me, but you have to trust the Marshal."
Chuck sent a hard look to his father, mouth pressed into a thin line. "All I care about right now is coming back from this alive, you know, for her."
"And you will."
Marshal Pentecost's presence was heavy, and the rush of footsteps in the facility seemed to stop as he climbed up the broken hand of one of the recovered Jaeger mechas. His focus was up towards the opened petals of the Shatterdome ceiling, the early morning skies still dark as pitch with twilight looming hours from now.
All eyes were on him as he uttered, "Today…"
Within seconds of him just looking over them all, Greyson could see the tension in his posture despite his head held high. It was almost obvious now, with the whole world settling on his shoulders. He was their Atlas, keeping the world safe despite being abandoned by the countries they had sworn to protect to their dying breath.
He raised his voice so the crew up on the LOCCENT mezzanine could hear him as well as the pilots and techs nearby. "Today… At the edge of our hope, at the end of our time…" Stacker turned then, dark eyes roving over the crowd. "We have chosen to not only believe in ourselves, but in each other."
Though her attention remained on him, Greyson felt Chuck's calloused hand grasp hers. His eyes were focused forward until she turned to look at him.
"Today, there is not a man or woman in here that shall stand alone. Not today."
Their fingers laced together, natural and practiced over the years, and the corners of Chuck's lips turned up in a smile.
"Today, we face the monsters that are at our door, and bring the fight to them! Today we are canceling the apocalypse!" There was an immediate uproar of cheers. When Marshal Pentecost stepped down, it all but urged the staffers in the 'Dome to get down to business once again. Excited chatter soon buzzed in the air.
Before running to the DriveSuit Room, Chuck had left Greyson with a firm kiss. And then another, just because he could. With a wistful smile, she watched him leave with Herc. Tendo pulled her out of her reverie with a swift smack to the head.
2025, January 12 – 01:43 – Hong Kong Shatterdome, Hong Kong, China
Greyson had bolted out of the LOCCENT once Raleigh and Mako were finishing up their pre-deployment checks, preparing for their drop into Gipsy Danger. She worried that she'd miss Chuck and Pentecost by mere seconds if her legs didn't move fast enough.
The Filipina Lieutenant all but skidded around the corner to the main corridor of the deployment area, out of breath, watching Chuck walk towards the open freight lift where the Marshal stood in wait. Their eyes met down the length of the corridor, but neither of them moved.
Herc's back faced her, and he held Max's leash with a shaking hand. "Stacker. That's my son you got there. My son." The quake in his voice wasn't masked. If Greyson had tears threatening to pool over her eyes, then Herc must have had them too. For as tough and as strong as he was, he was still sending his son out to war — without him at his side.
Please, turn around. I'm here. Baby, please, turn around.
Chuck must have caught the look on Stacker's face because he did throw a glance over his shoulder, eyes flickering to Greyson's form in less than a second. Her heart ached seeing the appearance of absolute sorrow painting his normally contented features. His shoulders visibly slouched, and he dropped his helmet onto the ground before taking a few steps forward. She ran down the hall, all but jumping into his arms.
Greyson wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him as close as possible. Chuck's hands rested on the small of her back, his face buried in the crook of her neck. They both sniffed simultaneously; she closed her eyes as tight as they'd go, hoping to prevent any loose tears from escaping.
"Hey." He pulled back and touched his forehead to hers. Chuck let out a shaky breath. With a gloved finger, he brought her gaze to him. "Hey, Sonny, look at me."
Greyson pressed her lips together, but she could feel the corners of her mouth turn down. When she opened her eyes, her cheeks became wet with moisture. His thumbs brushed them away carefully. "Promise me you won't do anything stupid. You come back to me. Okay, Charlie?" She asked him the question in an octave just above a whisper. Didn't trust her voice with anything more.
Chuck let out a humorless laugh, keeping an arm around her while the other continued with thumbing away the wetness on her face. "I promise," he whispered back, breath ghosting her cheeks.
"And — and don't you go falling in love with any mermaids at the bottom of the ocean. No matter how pretty they are," Greyson joked, barely able to hold back a sob. Her throat felt like it was constricting, and the pressure in her eyes wouldn't stop. Even then, she forced her lips into a small smile.
"I'd rather have you, love," Chuck answered with a broken voice, looking solemnly into her eyes. His own were glistening with moisture. "You, and our kid, and a white picket fence."
It was her turn to wipe away his tears when one escaped and rolled down his cheek. Even through her own blurred vision, she and Chuck found each other's eyes; memorized the contours of each other's faces. Greyson's tears caught on her lashes when she blinked them away, but she didn't care. Her gut was twisting, and her heart was in her throat, and she wanted to lead him away from this corridor. She wanted to take the suit off of him and tuck in beside him in bed and stay there.
Their time was short, it always was. There was so much she wanted to say. So many dreams she wanted to share with him. But Greyson was able to see him off, and it wouldn't be the last time. He would come back. He will always come back to her.
Chuck Hansen never broke his promises.
Greyson leaned up and captured his mouth with her own, tasting the remnants of their salty tears. Chuck returned it with trembling lips, pouring all the emotion they were capable of into the gesture: sadness, devotion, relief, fatigue. Love.
Someone cleared their throat, and only then did Chuck pull away from her. He pressed a firm kiss to her forehead, brushing his hand gingerly over her stomach. The look of grief still painted his face, but he had long perfected the expression as he backed into the lift beside Pentecost.
Herc walked up beside Greyson, raising a hand to her shoulder in his own comforting way. It grounded her, kept her from sobbing when the Marshal gave one final nod in farewell, looking emotional himself.
Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks, and she let them. "I love you," Greyson said suddenly, looking at Chuck one last time.
As the freight doors closed, Chuck smiled sadly, taking in a breath. "I love you, too."
And then, they were gone. Greyson rarely prayed anymore, but for her love she prayed.
2025, January 12 – 06:58 – Hong Kong Shatterdome, Hong Kong, China
Both Neural Handshakes from Gipsy Danger and Striker Eureka were strong, tight — enough. The Super Sikorskys that carried the enormous Jaegers across the Pacific Ocean were making good time to the Marianas Trench in the southeast.
There had been minimal chatter on the line between both sets of Rangers, but the Lieutenant figured a lot of the conversation was easily happening within the Drift. If it were me in Gipsy, I'd probably be—
"Quit it with the shibuya pop," Raleigh complained aloud.
Mako snickered. "Don't deny yourself free entertainment."
"Spare me."
"Unnecessary chatter, you two," came the voice of Marshal Pentecost. Greyson could've sworn he'd rolled his eyes when she glanced at the heads-up displays on the holoscreens.
All Mako did was laugh through the open comm channel.
Tendo frequently glanced at the monitors that projected the strength of the neural connections. He had been doing it regularly for the past few hours, which unnerved Greyson a bit. Aside from his obvious concern for the two pilots of Striker Eureka, everyone was grateful things were still going to plan. Herc had been hovering behind their LOCCENT station from the very beginning, and if something was amiss, he would have mentioned it by now.
It was also safe to say that these may have been the longest six hours of Greyson's life. The knots in her stomach hadn't gone away since they'd flown out, and she knew the anxiety probably wasn't good for the baby, either.
"Both Neural Handshakes at one hundred percent," Tendo said, for the benefit of the rest of the LOCCENT crew.
Greyson observed the readouts herself. Mako and Raleigh were strong and well-faring; Chuck and Stacker doing just as well (even considering their neural linking for the first time). Despite the slight fluctuation of activity in Chuck's frontal lobe and the general knowledge that Stacker's mind and body were on the decline, all four Rangers' vitals were perfectly normal.
But Greyson Darcy knew her boyfriend almost as well as she knew herself. Chuck Hansen was as veteran a Ranger as they got with the amount of kaiju kills under his belt, present company included. Raleigh was probably strategizing like he always did, Mako was probably hyper-focusing in lieu of nerves, and Stacker was probably bringing nothing into their Drift — but Chuck? Greyson didn't need to be in Chuck's head to know that his mind was reeling.
Chuck was an emotional mess, steeping with anxieties and grudges related to his father. He was outwardly jaded and sometimes brash, but he was also generous and caring. And when he cared, he cared deeply, even if he showed it differently to different people (something she and Herc could attest to).
There were still a lot of ifs regarding Operation Pitfall but looking at the remote satellite tracking feeds of the helicopters stomped out some of the fears. Greyson could see the nuke strapped onto Striker Eureka like a backpack (one made of pressure-resistant casing that had enough power to level an entire city block).
When the large holoscreen depicting the grid map of the Pacific Rim blinked at the half-mile mark from the Breach, Tendo leaned over to press the comms. "Jaegers. Time to seal up and get ready to go swimming."
Greyson glanced at the Sikorsky feeds momentarily, switching to the internal cameras. "Disengaging transport," she signaled.
Raleigh and Stacker simultaneously hit their cable release buttons, and both mechs dropped into the ocean, displacing the waters. The helicopters unhinged the holds to the Jaegers and maneuvered up as they let go of some three thousand tons.
Chuck came online over the radio channel. "LOCCENT, all ports sealed. Ready to submerge." Mako relayed the same message, stating alike about Gipsy Danger.
Greyson watched the status screens as the external ports were shut. She wasn't so worried about the underwater pressure like she was with Gipsy's nuclear reactor core. With no ports to exhaust the energy, the heat would undoubtedly build up… but then again, they were dropping a good seven thousand meters into deep, cold waters. Maybe it would work out.
Herc came up to the console, slipping easily between the Lieutenant and the Tech Chief. Having been relegated to the commanding position in the Marshal's absence, Tendo moved to acknowledge him next. "Neural Handshake confirmed and steady, sir."
The Sergeant's eyes scanned the holoscreen. For the sake of the overcommunication that Stacker always liked to hear, Herc read off, "Two actives still in circle formation in the Guam quadrant. Codenames: Scunner and Raiju. Both Category 4."
"Roger that," Stacker called from inside the Conn-Pod.
"How long until we reach the ocean floor?" Chuck questioned. His HUD feed was darker now without the twilight from the sky seeping in from the front-facing windows.
Greyson hit the comms, smirking slightly. "Likely fifteen minutes, give or take. If I were you, I'd just sit still and look pretty, babe."
"Don't I always?" he responded, grinning up at the camera.
Tendo stifled a laugh when the Marshal groaned out an exasperated, "Chatter."
Both Jaegers' operating lights blinked on as they neared the bottom of the ocean, the cameras getting blacked out as their slow impact shifted the watery sand. Raleigh started toggling with switches on their overhead console. "Visibility's zero. Switching to instruments."
The Marshal's voice erupted from the comm channel next: "Half a mile from the ocean cliff, we jump! It's three thousand meters to the Breach."
"Half a mile?" Chuck asked in clarification. Moving across the ocean floor proved less difficult when both Jaegers moved in a forward-leaning half-jog, but even that stirred up more clouds of silt. "I can't even see a damn inch ahead! How are we supposed to deliver the bomb?"
Tendo's eyes caught a kaiju signature near the Jaegers on the holoscreen. "Sir!" he called to attention.
Herc comm'd through immediately, realizing that the pilots hadn't gone to defend themselves. "Gipsy, you have movement on your right. Three o'clock, three o'clock!"
They watched as Raleigh and Mako shifted in their motion rigs, looking around in the Conn-Pod. The Jaeger AI supplied, "One hundred feet radius: clear."
"Right flank's clear. I got nothing."
Greyson's eyes widened as the remote sensors fed in more data about Raiju's calculated measurements. "Left now!" she warned. "And moving fast. It's gotta be the fastest kaiju on record."
Raleigh, focused on moving the Jaeger's limbs through the water, shook his head. "We don't see anything. It's moving too fast!"
She and Tendo nearly knocked into each other as they rolled closer to Gipsy Danger's instrument readouts. It was true, and incredibly concerning. The sensors beaming down from space gave them a better visual than Gipsy had in the murky depths. Raiju kept circling them, almost like it was tracking, waiting.
"Eyes on the prize, Gipsy," Chuck hollered from ahead of them. "Six hundred meters from the drop." To keep the techs updated, he added after they had slid off one side of the trench: "Four hundred meters and closing."
Tendo and Greyson pushed off from the ground and slid to face the main console, keeping track of any and all movement. He zoomed in statistics when the kaiju hovered ahead of the Jaeger crews, past the trench by a hundred meters. Their longitude and latitude markers were clear. Herc stood close to Greyson's side, also scrutinizing the visuals.
Her brows knitted together as she relayed, "Bogeys are… stopping." Her eyes roved over the Jaegers' signals on the screen, noting the two blinking kaiju dots across the chasm.
STRIKER EUREKA – STATUS: ACTIVE
GIPSY DANGER – STATUS: ACTIVE
"Striker." Herc communicated through the comms, "Bogeys are stopping. One o'clock."
The large mecha suddenly braced to halt; Stacker had forced Striker Eureka to stop at a short jump from the edge of the Breach. The Lieutenant heard her boyfriend's voice over the open comm: "Marshal, what are you doing!?"
"They're stopping," he responded, as if it was glaringly obvious. "Why the hell are they stopping—?"
"I don't give a damn, sir! We're three hundred meters from the jump!"
From the screen showing the inside of Striker's Conn-Pod, Greyson saw the Marshal shake his head. "Something's not right."
Herc's grip around the comm mic was vice-like. "Striker, the bogeys aren't following. Take the leap now!"
Greyson physically flinched when she heard a shrill voice shout from behind, "Don't do it!" The owner of it skidded into the LOCCENT, arms flailing about. Dr. Newt Geiszler shouted, "Don't do it! It's not gonna work!"
Max had perked up from his spot on the floor, enticed by the new presences. Hermann Gottlieb was close on Geiszler's tail as they made their way closer. They were both out of breath and disheveled, and absolutely reeking of kaiju guts. Herc held up his good hand, asking, "What's not going to work?"
"Blowing up the Breach!"
Herc turned to Gottlieb to confirm.
"Newt's right!" he said.
Greyson felt her mouth drop. Everyone within earshot seemed to have frozen for a second on the collective realization that they had actually agreed on something. Stacker's voice, modulated through the comms, pressed, "LOCCENT, what's the problem here?"
"Move, you fascist!" Newt hissed.
The Lieutenant turned in her seat in time to see him forcibly shove Herc out of the way. Slightly shocked but still with her bearings, Greyson pushed herself away from the center console before the doctor had a chance to, making room for the science squints.
Newt grabbed for the comm, punching the button down. In a rush, he said, "Sir, just because the Breach is open does not mean you're gonna be able to get a bomb through."
Hermann picked up where the other left off, having run out of breath. He followed through with an explanation just as hurriedly: "The Breach genetically reads the kaiju like a… barcode, at the supermarket, and then lets them pass."
"Okay, so you're going to have to fool the Breach into thinking you have the same code!"
For a moment, there was a stunned silence.
Then, Mako asked, "And how are we supposed to do that?"
"You have to lock onto the kaiju, ride it into the Breach," Hermann explained, leaning for the microphone once more. "The Throat will then read the kaiju's genetic code, and then let you pass."
"If you don't do it, the bomb will deflect off the Breach like it always has, and the mission will fail!"
The time it took to relay all of that information to the Jaeger teams two thousand miles away was only under thirty seconds. Greyson shared a look with Tendo before seeing from the Conn-Pod feeds that Stacker and Chuck had done the same. She wondered how the hell they were able to learn that tidbit of information, realizing half a second later that Newt had brought his shoddy Drift equipment out to the city.
With a huff, Herc gave a soft glare to the K-Science squints, brushing them away from the console and comm. "Alright! Now that you've heard all that, Striker, take the leap!"
And because the world had a wicked sense of humor, the kaiju alerts sounded, popping up on the holoscreen. Greyson's heart dropped when she turned to the display, voice tight, "Herc, I have a third signature emerging from the Breach." The man relayed it to the pilots.
"It's a triple event," Newt muttered under his breath.
Hermann sighed, shaken, "Oh, God. I was right."
"How big is it?" The question came from Stacker Pentecost.
Greyson rolled closer to the screen. She reached out to widen the range of the hologram and examined the water displacement. The look on her face when she turned to Herc was grave, bordering on horrified. "It's a Cat 5."
"Say that again, love?" Chuck balked.
Stacker repeated, "What category?"
Herc exhaled a deep sigh, his jaw going taut. "Striker. It's a Category 5. The first ever."
2025, January 12 – 07:29 – Breach Zone, Marianas Trench, Pacific Ocean
Chuck ground his teeth together, feeling his throat burn with bile that threatened to come up. He avoided looking at the LOCCENT feed because he knew — he knew — that everyone's faces would just look as terrified as he felt.
What made things worse was that Marshal Pentecost was in his head; Stacker could see everything, but Chuck couldn't see him. At least nothing insofar as his memories, because his thoughts felt overwhelming, like he was drowning in it. The young Ranger could feel the other man's resolve, his acceptance that this was going to be his final battle, and that was louder in their Drift Space than Chuck's own fear of dying.
No. Not dying. Dying was probably going to be quick for him, if it came to that. What he feared was heartbreak and mourning and leaving holes in the hearts of his loved ones that were shaped like him. That pain reverberated between them enough that the Marshal looked at him in silence.
A harsh shiver ran up Chuck's spine when the already dim Conn-Pod darkened still. The Cat 5 monster emerged, blocking the glow of the Breach behind it. The kaiju was easily twice the mass of anything that came before it, looking to be three times the size of their Jaeger, nothing but a wall of flesh.
"My God," Pentecost managed before it roared, a gut-wrenching sound that made Chuck wince in pain.
He followed Pentecost's lead, a subtle thought passing between them, as they unsheathed Striker Eureka's Sting Blades. The superheated, carbon-nanotube-edged weapon lit up in the darkness, reflecting the light from the gauntlets.
Tendo Choi's voice came through the comms. "Bitch is big."
"Really?" Greyson's voice piped up. "'Bitch' is the best codename you can come up with?"
"Use 'Slattern' if you must," put in a disgruntled Gottlieb.
"Chatter!" Pentecost choked out as they backpedaled to avoid the first blow from the kaiju. The cliffside was sturdy enough that Striker was able to move with ease, but the further back they went, the more silt they kicked up.
"Striker, we see him," called out Raleigh. "We're right behind you, about a hundred meters. We're gonna come around your three o'clock, try to flank him. Standard two-team formation. Just keep him busy for a few mi—!"
Chuck and Stacker both thought what happened before Slattern suddenly was on them, throwing them down into the sea floor to crash into an underwater volcano. Voices were coming in and out of the channel giving updates about Gipsy. Lights inside the Conn-Pod were flashing red, and the Jaeger AI was spouting system updates, and Chuck sputtered for a moment as water started spraying inside.
There's no way Striker Eureka can stand against a kaiju of this size. They're all going to die because we're gonna die.
Frustration radiated from the Marshal. You keep your damn hopeless quitter's thoughts out of this. You didn't come down here to give up because the monsters got bigger. You didn't come down here to quit.
Oh, fuck you, sir. I didn't come down here to die like this either. Chuck's mind involuntarily flashed past images of Greyson's face, smiling bright, and his heart ached a bit because he was never going to see her again. He was never going to see his own kid born. He was never going to properly reconcile with his father.
Somehow that was enough of a push for him to continue fighting, swiping out at Slattern with the blades as he followed the Marshal's movements. If they were going to lose their lives, Chuck was damn sure going to give his family one to continue living.
Good. Keep that.
Striker swung up towards the kaiju, which caught their left arm. Chuck felt its claws piercing into the limb as it wrenched it tight. An electrical discharge from the circuitry flared in the waters around them. Someone was screaming, and Chuck didn't know if it was him or Pentecost, but his arm was burning with the overload.
"Left arm offline!" the Marshal yelled. They held the kaiju's jaw closed with their free arm, groaning as it continued to twist and tear at the other.
Chuck glanced at their console, frowning. "We ain't got the torque to hold on!"
But then his right arm was reaching for the toggles, the whisper of missiles coming from his co-pilot. The blasts were enough to disorient Slattern and release their arm, but the water kept coming in. To both their chagrin, it wasn't even the worst of it.
"The release is jammed. We can't deliver the payload, sir!" Chuck announced. "We're still armed. But the hull is compromised. Half our systems are offline, sir."
"We need to override the—"
Slattern had hit them from the side, and they went toppling across the sea floor before Striker was able to adjust and slide into a crouch.
Mako's voice cut through the comm feed. "Hang on, Striker!" she shouted. "We're coming to you!"
"No!" Stacker countered. Alarms continued blaring as the sensors showed both Scunner and Slattern converging on their Jaeger. "Gipsy! Do not come to our aid! Do you copy?"
"Hang on!" It was Raleigh this time, desperate.
Slattern bit down on their damaged arm, crackling it before piercing across Striker's torso. They landed a punch straight into its eye, leaving behind a bubbling of Kaiju Blue gushing into the waters. The two pilots barely got Striker to her feet before Scunner was attacking them in similar fashion.
Stacker grunted out to the other crew, "Stay as far back as you can!"
Chuck swallowed the lump in his throat, turning his head to stare at the Marshal despite the strain in his arms. He knew what options they had, but that didn't mean he had to like it. Even if one of them could manually override the nuke's release sequencing, neither of them was going to make it out of the Conn-Pod with malfunctioning escape pods.
Gipsy Danger's right side was all but crippled, but Chuck could see from the feeds that they were still trying to get to them. "We can still reach you," Raleigh gasped. "We're coming for you."
Mako must have been crying because she sounded like she was about ready to sob. "Listen to him!"
"No. Raleigh, listen to me. You know exactly what you have to do. Gipsy is nuclear! Take her to the Breach."
"I hear you, sir. Heading for the Breach."
Feed from the LOCCENT flickered, and he saw a glimpse of his girlfriend, looking worried and panicked. The fog of denial that had been filling Chuck's head lifted, in place of a blanketing resignation. "There's…" Greyson hesitated, but he could still hear the pain in her voice. "There's got to be another way. You can't…"
"Mako," Pentecost began. "You can finish this. I'll always be here for you." His voice was strained but clear. She wouldn't have a problem hearing it through the comms. "You can always find me in the Drift."
Raleigh's voice came through the channel as he said something to her, but Chuck didn't pay attention. His heart felt too heavy, and his mind wanted them to fight even if the interior of their Conn-Pod looked like a hurricane had torn through it. The red alert lights had flooded the walls in the angry color, and the compromised rigs and hull were letting in gallons of water at a time.
Scunner was back in their line of sight, and through the condensation of his helmet, he turned to his Marshal. "What can we do, sir?"
"We can clear a path." He was met with a small smile. "For the lady."
"Marshal." Mako was crying, or at least he thought she was. "Sensei. No…"
Chuck unhooked his helmet in order to see clearly. He looked up at the console one last time, catching the expression that Raleigh and Mako mirrored. Before the LOCCENT video feed blinked out, he noticed Greyson clutching tightly onto Herc. At least they had each other.
It was always going to be a suicide mission. They all knew it from the very beginning, even though nothing had hit hard until this very moment. Chuck normally would've said something like, "We knew it was a snake when we picked it up," but be it the sleep-deprivation or the overloaded stress, he felt a sense of calm. Or perhaps it was Stacker who was the calm one.
"Well, like my father always said…" God, he hoped their comms were still intact. Chuck took a breath, preparing himself for the inevitable. "He said, 'If you have the shot, you take it!' So, let's do this!"
For them.
Chuck felt fresh tears slip down his face, but the ocean spray masked them. With a steely voice, he said to Stacker, "It was a pleasure, sir."
The both of them toggled the switches to the bomb on Striker Eureka's back. The detonation alarms were loud within the Conn-Pod. Chuck's vision blurred for a moment as even more tears came; his teeth clicked together as his mouth started to tremble. I never got to propose to her, to give her the ring tucked somewhere in my room. He felt Stacker's empathy bloom.
"Hey, Raleigh?" It shocked even him, using the Ranger's real name for the first time without a bite in his tone. Tears and snot ran down his face. Chuck's voice wavered, a harsh sob creeping up his chest. "Take care of them for me, will you?" Take care of the monsters, take care of my love, take care of my child. If Raleigh survived this, Chuck knew he would be there for Greyson. And that was enough.
His question was a plea, a favor, a dying wish. It was his last goodbye.
"I promise," Raleigh answered hoarsely, crackling in through the comm feed.
Chuck had made Greyson a promise too, one that he no longer could keep. But he was able to keep one, an important one: He'd promised to love her until the day he died.
Stacker flipped open the detonation switch on his side of the console, and Chuck reached up to do the same. They looked at each other, heads swimming with a million different things, but always going back to They'll be safe.
"Sensei, aishitemasu."
"Chuck, I love you."
The last thing he heard was the wailing of the detonation alarms. The last thing he tasted was the saltiness of his tears.
He couldn't help himself then; in his last moments, he chased the rush of memories as the Drift crashed into him. The last thing Chuck saw in his mind was Greyson's face.
A/N: I was literally crying the entire time I wrote this, so any mistakes is due to me being unable to see anything, LOL. This was heavily re-written from the first version I posted many years ago, mostly changing the last part into Chuck's POV for the angst. Reviews give me life, please let me know your thoughts!