A/N: So, one thing I should probably clear up is my visual imagination is not that great. Because of that, and the fact that my ability to transcribe pictures into words is not great as well, I wanted to state that for the Jaegers, Knuckleduster is based on Cherno Alpha but without the reactor on the head, Freelance Centauri is supposed to be a slightly less advanced version of Striker Eureka, and Decadent Rage is based off of Gypsy Danger; I know the PR and TR Jaeger's have different Mark ratings. I will try to do better when it comes to detailing them, but I might just completely forget.
Also, I do not own MHA or PR.
"Kaminari, Jiro, we have a sighting. Report for deployment of Freelance Centauri immediately."
"Affirmative," Kaminari spoke into the walkie. He began running down the halls he had memorized ages ago. Ran past other Dome inhabitants, through doors that only a few had clearance to go through and down hallways that stretched for hundreds of yards.
Soon he entered the fitting room where technicians ran to and from consoles, clearly preparing the war machine for use.
Kaminari came to a stop beneath suspended armor plates with Jiro running in and stopping beside him beneath another collection of plates. Two more technicians began grabbing the plates and securing them to the pilots. The familiar sounds of components clicking together lasted only moments.
From beneath the floor, everyone heard the recognizable sound of Freelance Centauri's nuclear reactor firing up. The last few armor plates clicked into position and slid the helmets onto the deploying pilots.
"Drift Units are ready," Kaminari's technician announced with a pat on the pilot's shoulder. Kaminari gave the man a nod of appreciation and prepared to return to a cockpit he had been in so many times before.
A thick door opened in front of the two. From outside they could see the familiar hookups that their Drift Units connected to.
"Let's make this quick. The girls and I were in the middle of a game of poker."
Kaminari chuckled and stepped in front of the dangling contraptions. Kaminari took the one on his left and Jiro took the right side. More technicians followed the two in and made sure all connections were secure and working properly.
"Everything's good, let's move."
The two pilots grabbed their handheld controllers and tapped through the screens to begin startup.
"Pilot to pilot drift initiating."
Both of them were prepared for the Drift sequence and were greeted by the almost comforting feeling of their minds melding into one.
Memories of happiness, grief, hope, and regret flooded to and from the pilots, each seeing the other's most private moments. Not for the first time, but still it was still awkward to see some of the most intimate moments they had.
Then they were connected in full, and Freelance Centauri was lifted by several helicopters to be transported near the Kaiju's last known location.
"Eyes open you two, this is expected to be a category four. Codenamed Orochi."
"Copy. We'll make this quick," Jiro replied. She and her boyfriend walked in perfect unison, getting deeper and deeper into the water until it was just above the Jaeger's knees.
"Kaiju signature approaching fast. Brace for immediate confrontation."
On cue, an incredibly long, snake-like monster emerged. Three bright blue eyes on each side glared angrily at Freelance Centauri, eager to rip the machine to less than scrap.
The lower mandible dislocated to allow a thundering hiss, powerful enough to shake the Jaeger to its core.
"Let's kill this thing," Kaminari urged, and the two approached the oversized serpent.
Orochi slithered in the water, seemingly defying physics in the way it moved.
"Engage plasma bolter!" At his command, several segments of the Jaeger's left forearm unfolded into a flowerlike shape that crackled with energy. Burning blue streaks of plasma raced from the edges of each petal and converged into the fist, where a cannon-like barrel had extended between the knuckles of the middle and ring fingers.
"Fire!"
The gathered plasma rocked out of the barrel and impacted with the target. Each of three shots, fired nearly exactly a second apart, burned into the Kaiju's hide and left scorched flesh when the viscous plasma scattered from the force of impact.
A single shot would gravely wound a category one Kaiju, and Orochi had just taken three along its long, serpentine body.
The monster roared with a hiss unlike any earth reptile and went limp, sinking into the murky abyss from where it came. The plasma bolter folded back around the arm and left wild heat distortions in the air as it initiated a cooldown timer.
"I think we got it," Jiro stated, a notable tone of relief in her voice. "C'mon, let's get back and grab a cup of coffee."
"The signature is moving, it's still alive!"
Pure instinct was all that drove them fast enough to return to a combat position, but was not enough to prepare them for where the monster would attack from.
Suddenly, the entire Jaeger was thrown towards the left as incomprehensible weight threw itself onto them. An impossibly long mass of flesh, muscle and hardened skin wrapped around the midsection of Freelance Centauri and constricted unlike any python could hope to.
"It's taking out the reactor. Too much more pressure will result in an uncontrollable breach!" Jiro warned as she tapped several holographic screens. Damage warnings were flying in as more of the Jaeger was wrapped and crushed by Orochi.
"Left arm is still free, we just need a little longer for the bolter to cooldown!" Kaminari set the bolter to deploy automatically as soon as it was ready while activating a preemptive recharge of plasma.
"What if we use-"
Out of the corner of the Jaeger's HUD screen, the two could see the maw of their foe open and clamp down on the head with incredible force.
Metal stronger than titanium screamed as it gave out like cardboard under the massive fang that cleaved into the cockpit between the two. Both pilots looked towards the sharp fang, longer than both of their heights combined.
The left arm of the Jaeger unfolded once more, already prepared to fire the first shot and charging the second.
"I got it!" Kaminari pointed his arm at the creature's neck and fired.
And Jiro was gone. The monster reeled back from the sudden burst against its body and took a large portion of the cockpit with its fangs. Including the machinery that she had been tightly secured to.
And for a moment, everything just stopped for him. He did not see the failings of several consoles or the warnings from the few that worked. He did not hear the Kaiju screeching in pain. He did not hear the voices in the radio telling him that the Kaiju was preparing to attack again.
Everything just stopped mattering. Everything except the echoes of a terrified scream that only someone being dragged to their death could scream.
He could have stayed like that forever, paralyzed. The only thing that brought him back to his senses was the sudden surge of the Drift clawing into his mind, trying to compensate for a lost pilot by focusing solely on him.
It hurt like hell, like every neuron in his brain was being overstimulated. But that was the nature of his quirk; so many times he had temporarily fried his brain by overusing his quirk.
This was not the same, but similar enough that he was able to force himself to realign his aim and fire one last bolt of plasma into the mouth of Orochi, which had been ready to take another bite from the cockpit.
Dozens of gallons of Kaiju blood and hundreds of pounds of flesh rained into the ocean from the gaping hole that had once been the top half of the monster's head. The pressure released as the Kaiju's body once again went limp.
It would never move on its own again.
Kaminari shot up in his bed, cold sweat soaking his clothes. His breathing was unusually fast and shallow. His senses felt slow and behind, but soon caught up and felt normal.
The nightmares had always been strangely few and far between despite how traumatic the event had been. But when they hit, they hit hard.
Moisture on his cheeks, likely a mix of sweat and tears, was wiped away as he checked the alarm clock on his desk.
It was three in the morning.
Kaminari took a few minutes to completely gather himself before getting out of bed and grabbing a change of clothes from under his bed and heading to the shower.
A long, hot shower later and he looked in better shape than when he woke up.
It was his fault. If he had been more careful or aimed lower on the body, maybe Orochi would not have reeled back so hard, thus potentially not taking Jiro to an early death as well.
If he had paid attention or kept his guard up, they might have been able to dodge or counter Orochi's attack.
If he had aimed for Orochi's head at the beginning, the fight may have ended then and there.
So many ways he could have prevented Jiro's death. But he had taken none of them, and now Kyoka was dead.
It was his fault.
Midoriya, Todoroki, Arai, and Suzuki quickly arrived at the simulation room they had been in just the previous day.
Kaminari was already waiting for them with Kendo by his side; Tetsutetsu stood on her other side.
"Today you will watch Tetsutetsu and Kendo run through a few simulations. They will be using Freelance Centauri, but with the same weapons restrictions you faced."
"The point of this is for you to observe how seasoned pilots handle different situations. As you know, the Kaijus follow a basic formula: Strong, large, and hard to hurt. But no two have been the exact same. Some have had natural weaponry such as sharpened claws or extra limbs. Some have been faster and more agile at the cost of strength and durability. But no matter what you face, you need to be prepared."
Kendo had stepped forward to deliver the explanation as Tetsutetsu started the simulation and set the same parameters that all four pilots in training had been locked into.
The grey-haired boy took a spot on the rightmost side of what would become a virtual cockpit. He was determined and focused, and his stance hinted at his experience as a pilot. Kendo quickly joined him, her own grit showing as the demonstration began.
Right off the bat, the two were thrown into a fight against Raiju, a monster that resembled a bipedal crocodile or alligator. The fake kaiju roared and displayed its true face. A barely noticeable split down the nose and up the forehead of the creature expanded as the upper half of the jaw split in two, each half peeling back to reveal a fleshier copy of the head. The bottom jaw had a similar effect, making a total of three armor segments that stood back in perfect unison as Raiju roared, then snapped back into a covering position with the speed over several oversized mousetraps.
Kendo and Tetsutetsu, unfazed by the monster's display, quickly rushed towards the beast with a mechanical fist pulling back. Raiju hunched itself over its back legs then sprung forward far too fast for something its size.
The mechanical and unearthly monsters traded blows for minutes on end. After a drawn-out fight, the two pilots were able to rip off the protective plates and deal a fatal series of blows to the softer inner head.
And then Trespasser appeared, rising from beneath the water just like it had on the day that everything changed. Another roar from a monster, another fight between titanic brawlers, another Kaiju killed after multitudes of earth-shattering blows.
Arai let out a low whistle after seeing two defeated Kaijus turn to three with no signs of slowing down.
"Wow, they're really good," Midoriya muttered. He remembered how his first run with Todoroki had gone, and seeing Kendo and Tetsutetsu absolutely dominating Kaiju after Kaiju with the same restrictions took his breath away.
"Yeah, that's a little bit of an understatement," Arai replied brashly but not harshly. "Hey, Kaminari. When do you suppose any of us will be deployed?"
Kaminari turned away from the simulation for a moment, making eye contact just long enough for Arai to get the feeling he had made a small mistake in asking.
"When we think you're ready."
"Come on, guys, you need to pick up the pace! Take as long as you want!"
The speaker, a man wearing a black bodysuit with light grey accents, was no stranger to contradicting himself in an unnatural manner. For years he had suffered with this multiple personality disorder, and for years he had found a strange solace in his own lack of control.
"We're moving as fast as we can," Momo Yaoyorozu replied with her classic formality. Her quirk activated along her back, and lifting her shirt up allowed several components to fall to the floor.
Beside her, another identical woman copied the process until thirty components, each one exactly the same as the rest, sat in a pile.
The two Momos inexplicably turned a light brown and began to sag, as if they were losing a grip on their physical forms. Seconds later they were gone, piles of mud lay at the floor where they once stood.
Twice, ever persistent in his duties, raised his hands and dropped a thick substance identical to the piles left in the wake of the twin Momos. The new batch of the mud-like gel shaped itself into two copies of Yui Kodai. Each clone got to work and began spacing the components apart, then increasing them to several times their original size.
"You're doing very well, Twice."
"Thank you, Minato! Go screw yourself!"
Rin Minato laughed, being one of the few people to consistently find Twice's antics amusing. Putting aside his bipolar disorder, Twice had actually made great progress in terms of behaving. Part of that might have been the fact that there was no longer a hero society for him and the League of Villains to take down, but that was neither here nor there.
The point was, in Minato's eyes, Twice was disgustingly undervalued for his quirk. Within just a few months, the man had singlehandedly supplied and assembled nearly an entire Jaeger frame by himself, with only a little help from the best technicians and engineers at the Shatterdome that were privy to the project.
The other teams took nearly four times as long to make the same progress.
"I'd say that's enough for today, Twice. Why don't you and your friends go watch some television?"
"Will do, Boss-man! Don't give me orders, weirdo!"
Twice quickly ran off, leaving Minato alone in the room full of scattered mud piles. The frame of the Jaeger, tall and imposing even without armor and weapons, was a pinnacle of engineering. The damn thing was almost exclusively constructed of experimental technologies and materials, and his hopes were that the machine would be the one to bring the war to a grinding halt.
Victory, if anyone asked him, was only as far away as it took to finish the project.
Well, hopefully this wasn't too bad. Let me know what you think.
