August 4: Welcome to the Shatterdome (K+; Pacific Rim)
Title: Welcome to the Shatterdome
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Rating: PG
Challenge: twistedshorts: August 4
Crossover: Pacific Rim
Spoilers: Post-series, no comics; pre-movie-ish
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Notes: 3rd in the Slayer Jaeger sequence.
Summary: It was a not so secret, yet often overlooked facet of the Drift that the pilots weren't just bonding with each other, they were bonding with their Jaeger, too. 1000 words.
"Hey, here they come," Yancy said, smacking Raleigh across the chest with the back of one hand to catch his attention. "The candidates for Kaiju Slayer. Forgot they were arriving today."
Raleigh looked up from his tray, glancing over at the crowd of young, athletic-looking people in jumpsuits filing through the cafeteria's double doors. There was no way to tell at first glance which pair would end up joining the ranks of Jaeger pilots, which might stay on as support crew, and which would be on the next plane back to wherever they came from; Marshal Pentecost liked to put all prospective rookies through additional sims first, get them used to the rhythm of the place and the demands on the crews before synching them up. They all looked competent, though, and--
"Wait. Are they all women?" he blurted, glancing back at his older brother.
The Beckett boys were still fairly new to the program-- Gipsy Danger had yet to make a kill, though she'd got her feet wet in the last incursion-- so he could be wrong, but Raleigh had been under the impression female pilots were kind of rare. He'd heard of a few married couples in service, or paired siblings, but unrelated matches tended to be male-male.
"Yeah. Didn't you hear?" Yancy shrugged. "The organization that funded Slayer made it a condition that they supply all the candidates. The Marshal wasn't too happy about that-- not a one of them have been through the standard Ranger training-- but the ISWC's had their fingers in everything from Drift tech to Jaeger design to siting the first Shatterdome, so he couldn't exactly tell them where to get off."
"Huh," Raleigh said, staring. Usually, it took several countries-- or companies-- working in tandem to build one Jaeger; the ISWC must be a real heavyweight. "I guess not."
The women ranged from late teens to early thirties, bracketing his and Yancy's ages; there were blondes and redheads and brunettes, shaded from ivory white to mahogany brown; and they varied in looks from leggy models to girls next door to stocky muscular types he wouldn't have wanted to run into in a dark alley. All of them seemed fit and walked like they'd seen action, but a handful really stood out, clustered around a tiny, lithe blonde who trailed after Choi asking question after question.
"Yeah," Yancy agreed. "Guess we'll find out if they're worth the price tag. And hey," he elbowed his brother. "You might get a date out of it, too, if you're lucky."
"Yancy," Raleigh rolled his eyes, finally breaking his gaze away. It was kind of difficult to find a woman who didn't begrudge the demands the program made on his time or mind his brother witnessing every memory they made together, yet wasn't after him for the rock star factor; life would be easier if he approached relationships from his brother's more casual mindset. But he wasn't going to hold his breath.
"Just saying, bro. Just saying."
He ran into the Slayer candidates several more times over the next week, usually at a distance-- flocking to meals, exploring the Shatterdome, or out in the bays, staring up at the Jaegers. The little blonde, especially, and her tight-knit clique; all of the women seemed to defer to her, but those few followed her everywhere. Raleigh figured the Mark Three's team would be drawn from that group; it was a not so secret, yet often overlooked facet of the Drift that the pilots weren't just bonding with each other, they were bonding with their Jaeger, too. That was why the final compatibility tests were always done live-- and fascination with their future weapon was a good early cue.
By far the most dramatic part of the candidacy testing, though, would be the stick fighting matches, and every pilot in the Shatterdome turned up to watch the girls put each other through their paces. Raleigh and Yancy had proven their candidacy on the mats in the Kwoon combat room under Marshal Pentecost's assessing gaze, and so had half the other Jaeger teams, all the ones that had come up in Alaska Shatterdome's hierarchy from the beginning. A good match was like a conversation-- a dialogue between two people who could read each other's signals like a book, and respond in kind.
And that was where a lot of potential matchups fell apart. It wasn't just about skill; it was about being able to synch up with your partner. And while each and every one of the Slayer candidates were obviously skilled-- more so than Raleigh had been expecting, to be honest, after what Yancy had said about their training-- they had a distinct tendency to go all out against each other, as if they were trying to conquer their opponent, not understand them. It was a little weird; he saw more sticks broken against each other or over opponents' backs in those matches than in all his previous time in the Shatterdome, and even the oldest Mark One pilots were exchanging disbelieving murmurs at the speed and furious power behind the girls' moves. And the Marshal's face grew more and more thunderous as more and more of them were checked off his overall list.
But then, last of all, the blonde gal stepped up, the one Raleigh had been seeing everywhere-- and opposite her, one of her closest companions followed her onto the mats, a long-haired brunette with a few inches on her.
"Ready for this, Bea?" the brunette asked her opponent.
"What's that you always say? Oh yeah; five by five," the blonde replied, grinning back in a distinctly predatory way.
They didn't bother with flashy or provocative gestures; they readied their staves, and then--
Raleigh gulped, half in love already as he watched the women blur into a dance together. That wasn't a dialogue; that was a duet, and if Marshal Pentecost chose anyone else, he'd be very surprised.
He was looking forward to working with them already.
-x-
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Rating: PG
Challenge: twistedshorts: August 4
Crossover: Pacific Rim
Spoilers: Post-series, no comics; pre-movie-ish
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Notes: 3rd in the Slayer Jaeger sequence.
Summary: It was a not so secret, yet often overlooked facet of the Drift that the pilots weren't just bonding with each other, they were bonding with their Jaeger, too. 1000 words.
"Hey, here they come," Yancy said, smacking Raleigh across the chest with the back of one hand to catch his attention. "The candidates for Kaiju Slayer. Forgot they were arriving today."
Raleigh looked up from his tray, glancing over at the crowd of young, athletic-looking people in jumpsuits filing through the cafeteria's double doors. There was no way to tell at first glance which pair would end up joining the ranks of Jaeger pilots, which might stay on as support crew, and which would be on the next plane back to wherever they came from; Marshal Pentecost liked to put all prospective rookies through additional sims first, get them used to the rhythm of the place and the demands on the crews before synching them up. They all looked competent, though, and--
"Wait. Are they all women?" he blurted, glancing back at his older brother.
The Beckett boys were still fairly new to the program-- Gipsy Danger had yet to make a kill, though she'd got her feet wet in the last incursion-- so he could be wrong, but Raleigh had been under the impression female pilots were kind of rare. He'd heard of a few married couples in service, or paired siblings, but unrelated matches tended to be male-male.
"Yeah. Didn't you hear?" Yancy shrugged. "The organization that funded Slayer made it a condition that they supply all the candidates. The Marshal wasn't too happy about that-- not a one of them have been through the standard Ranger training-- but the ISWC's had their fingers in everything from Drift tech to Jaeger design to siting the first Shatterdome, so he couldn't exactly tell them where to get off."
"Huh," Raleigh said, staring. Usually, it took several countries-- or companies-- working in tandem to build one Jaeger; the ISWC must be a real heavyweight. "I guess not."
The women ranged from late teens to early thirties, bracketing his and Yancy's ages; there were blondes and redheads and brunettes, shaded from ivory white to mahogany brown; and they varied in looks from leggy models to girls next door to stocky muscular types he wouldn't have wanted to run into in a dark alley. All of them seemed fit and walked like they'd seen action, but a handful really stood out, clustered around a tiny, lithe blonde who trailed after Choi asking question after question.
"Yeah," Yancy agreed. "Guess we'll find out if they're worth the price tag. And hey," he elbowed his brother. "You might get a date out of it, too, if you're lucky."
"Yancy," Raleigh rolled his eyes, finally breaking his gaze away. It was kind of difficult to find a woman who didn't begrudge the demands the program made on his time or mind his brother witnessing every memory they made together, yet wasn't after him for the rock star factor; life would be easier if he approached relationships from his brother's more casual mindset. But he wasn't going to hold his breath.
"Just saying, bro. Just saying."
He ran into the Slayer candidates several more times over the next week, usually at a distance-- flocking to meals, exploring the Shatterdome, or out in the bays, staring up at the Jaegers. The little blonde, especially, and her tight-knit clique; all of the women seemed to defer to her, but those few followed her everywhere. Raleigh figured the Mark Three's team would be drawn from that group; it was a not so secret, yet often overlooked facet of the Drift that the pilots weren't just bonding with each other, they were bonding with their Jaeger, too. That was why the final compatibility tests were always done live-- and fascination with their future weapon was a good early cue.
By far the most dramatic part of the candidacy testing, though, would be the stick fighting matches, and every pilot in the Shatterdome turned up to watch the girls put each other through their paces. Raleigh and Yancy had proven their candidacy on the mats in the Kwoon combat room under Marshal Pentecost's assessing gaze, and so had half the other Jaeger teams, all the ones that had come up in Alaska Shatterdome's hierarchy from the beginning. A good match was like a conversation-- a dialogue between two people who could read each other's signals like a book, and respond in kind.
And that was where a lot of potential matchups fell apart. It wasn't just about skill; it was about being able to synch up with your partner. And while each and every one of the Slayer candidates were obviously skilled-- more so than Raleigh had been expecting, to be honest, after what Yancy had said about their training-- they had a distinct tendency to go all out against each other, as if they were trying to conquer their opponent, not understand them. It was a little weird; he saw more sticks broken against each other or over opponents' backs in those matches than in all his previous time in the Shatterdome, and even the oldest Mark One pilots were exchanging disbelieving murmurs at the speed and furious power behind the girls' moves. And the Marshal's face grew more and more thunderous as more and more of them were checked off his overall list.
But then, last of all, the blonde gal stepped up, the one Raleigh had been seeing everywhere-- and opposite her, one of her closest companions followed her onto the mats, a long-haired brunette with a few inches on her.
"Ready for this, Bea?" the brunette asked her opponent.
"What's that you always say? Oh yeah; five by five," the blonde replied, grinning back in a distinctly predatory way.
They didn't bother with flashy or provocative gestures; they readied their staves, and then--
Raleigh gulped, half in love already as he watched the women blur into a dance together. That wasn't a dialogue; that was a duet, and if Marshal Pentecost chose anyone else, he'd be very surprised.
He was looking forward to working with them already.
-x-