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jedibuttercupGen; Pacific Rim, 700 words, slice of life ficlet.
None of them may see the end of this Year of the Dragon, if the Marshal is able to implement his newest plan. But it is their year, and this is who they are. What they do.
Title: thunder cloud formation
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Spoilers: Pacific Rim (2013)
Notes: This began life as my first attempt at an exchange fic for NPT 2014. I ultimately went with like there's no tomorrow instead; but I kept the fragments of this one, and I found it again turning over my working files this weekend. So. A Day in the Life, During An Ongoing Apocalypse, For Your Contemplation.
Summary: None of them may see the end of this Year of the Dragon, if the Marshal is able to implement his newest plan. But it is their year, and this is who they are. What they do. 700 words.
The sight of Marshal Pentecost moving through the Shatterdome, another newcomer in his wake, brings the basketball back out of hiding; Cheung bounces it once or twice to test its surface tension, then passes it behind his back to Jin and kicks Hu's ankle to draw him out of his video call with his girlfriend. When they can, they like to put on a show for the Marshal's tours; partly because it's fun, and partly to show off their synchronicity and skill to introduce themselves to new recruits.
The Wei Tang brothers never needed that tour to tell them that the Hong Kong Shatterdome once held space for thirty Jaegers, which frequently surprises newcomers not well versed in PPDC history. Since 2018, Crimson Typhoon has always occupied one of those bays. Unlike most Jaeger teams, they've never done a tour at another Shatterdome, and now never will; the local connections that got them off the streets and into the Academy in the first place have always been too valuable to the Marshal to risk by stationing them overseas.
But not too valuable to keep them out of the water. Which is as it should be. They have defended their homeland from Kaiju eight times in the last six years-- as many in that sixth year as in the first four together. Their crew has the most longevity, and the greatest depth of experience, of any in the PPDC. Their Shatterdome is not only the first and largest, it also carries the most successful record in the entire Corps, in no small part due to their contribution.
They have seen many Jaegers come and go over the six years of their service, not just the two whose names are often spoken in concert with theirs: Horizon Brave and Shaolin Rogue. Just as they have made many more drops than those that appear on their record with a Kaiju kill. The newscasters never seem to remember that every time the Breach opened in the early days, every Shatterdome on the Rim held its breath and called a Jaeger team on deck, until the Kaiju picked a continental shelf to cross and announced its line of approach. No few of the early Jaegers never saw active combat; accidents and mechanical problems felled more of them than the Kaiju did, before Knifehead.
(Hu and Jin had kept figurines of Horizon Brave in their room at the Academy, but Cheung's favorite had been a sleek Mark II painted the same crimson that he had later requested for their custom Mark IV. It had been piloted by a pair of identical sisters from the mainland, who had never mistaken him for either of his brothers-- but they had transferred after a year, and like so many others, their Jaeger now rests in Oblivion Bay. Unlike Lady Danger, there was not enough left of her to reconstruct: wrecked in a quiet tragedy that had never made the evening news.)
Even with the influx of the Cherno Alpha crew, and the promise of Striker Eureka and a new crew for Lady Danger, the Shatterdome still feels emptier than it should. Sounds echo strangely hollow under the five hundred foot ceiling of the Dome-- though slightly less so now that the Kaidanovskys have arrived with their obnoxious music. Cheung and Jin dislike it intensely and Hu only finds it tolerable in small doses, but they never do more than toss a few insults the Russians' way; the two teams have dropped together often enough to know it had been as lonely in Vladivostok, the last year and more, as it has been in Hong Kong.
The Kaidanovskys blast Ukrainian hard house loud enough to rattle the armor of their Jaeger; the Weis play endless games of basketball. The Hansens have their dog. They all have their coping methods.
Or-- had. None of them may see the end of this Year of the Dragon, if the Marshal is able to implement his newest plan.
But it is their year, and this is who they are. What they do.
The ball bounces back to his hands, and Cheung lofts it over his brothers' heads.
Above them, the war clock ticks on.
(x-posted at AO3)
None of them may see the end of this Year of the Dragon, if the Marshal is able to implement his newest plan. But it is their year, and this is who they are. What they do.
Title: thunder cloud formation
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Spoilers: Pacific Rim (2013)
Notes: This began life as my first attempt at an exchange fic for NPT 2014. I ultimately went with like there's no tomorrow instead; but I kept the fragments of this one, and I found it again turning over my working files this weekend. So. A Day in the Life, During An Ongoing Apocalypse, For Your Contemplation.
Summary: None of them may see the end of this Year of the Dragon, if the Marshal is able to implement his newest plan. But it is their year, and this is who they are. What they do. 700 words.
The sight of Marshal Pentecost moving through the Shatterdome, another newcomer in his wake, brings the basketball back out of hiding; Cheung bounces it once or twice to test its surface tension, then passes it behind his back to Jin and kicks Hu's ankle to draw him out of his video call with his girlfriend. When they can, they like to put on a show for the Marshal's tours; partly because it's fun, and partly to show off their synchronicity and skill to introduce themselves to new recruits.
The Wei Tang brothers never needed that tour to tell them that the Hong Kong Shatterdome once held space for thirty Jaegers, which frequently surprises newcomers not well versed in PPDC history. Since 2018, Crimson Typhoon has always occupied one of those bays. Unlike most Jaeger teams, they've never done a tour at another Shatterdome, and now never will; the local connections that got them off the streets and into the Academy in the first place have always been too valuable to the Marshal to risk by stationing them overseas.
But not too valuable to keep them out of the water. Which is as it should be. They have defended their homeland from Kaiju eight times in the last six years-- as many in that sixth year as in the first four together. Their crew has the most longevity, and the greatest depth of experience, of any in the PPDC. Their Shatterdome is not only the first and largest, it also carries the most successful record in the entire Corps, in no small part due to their contribution.
They have seen many Jaegers come and go over the six years of their service, not just the two whose names are often spoken in concert with theirs: Horizon Brave and Shaolin Rogue. Just as they have made many more drops than those that appear on their record with a Kaiju kill. The newscasters never seem to remember that every time the Breach opened in the early days, every Shatterdome on the Rim held its breath and called a Jaeger team on deck, until the Kaiju picked a continental shelf to cross and announced its line of approach. No few of the early Jaegers never saw active combat; accidents and mechanical problems felled more of them than the Kaiju did, before Knifehead.
(Hu and Jin had kept figurines of Horizon Brave in their room at the Academy, but Cheung's favorite had been a sleek Mark II painted the same crimson that he had later requested for their custom Mark IV. It had been piloted by a pair of identical sisters from the mainland, who had never mistaken him for either of his brothers-- but they had transferred after a year, and like so many others, their Jaeger now rests in Oblivion Bay. Unlike Lady Danger, there was not enough left of her to reconstruct: wrecked in a quiet tragedy that had never made the evening news.)
Even with the influx of the Cherno Alpha crew, and the promise of Striker Eureka and a new crew for Lady Danger, the Shatterdome still feels emptier than it should. Sounds echo strangely hollow under the five hundred foot ceiling of the Dome-- though slightly less so now that the Kaidanovskys have arrived with their obnoxious music. Cheung and Jin dislike it intensely and Hu only finds it tolerable in small doses, but they never do more than toss a few insults the Russians' way; the two teams have dropped together often enough to know it had been as lonely in Vladivostok, the last year and more, as it has been in Hong Kong.
The Kaidanovskys blast Ukrainian hard house loud enough to rattle the armor of their Jaeger; the Weis play endless games of basketball. The Hansens have their dog. They all have their coping methods.
Or-- had. None of them may see the end of this Year of the Dragon, if the Marshal is able to implement his newest plan.
But it is their year, and this is who they are. What they do.
The ball bounces back to his hands, and Cheung lofts it over his brothers' heads.
Above them, the war clock ticks on.
(x-posted at AO3)
no subject
Date: 2019-12-01 05:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-02 11:23 pm (UTC)Anyway; glad you enjoyed the fic!