Chapter Text
Hans remembers the Anteverse kaiju, REALLY remembers them, when he’s a little under a year old.
Hans had already done his fair share of digging around in both Newt and Hermann’s memories at that point, poking around when he was curious about something, or just simply for curiosity’s sake. It’s one day though that he finds the memory of Newt and Hermann’s drift and starts to follow a strange blue trail of memories that seems to go on and on and on. And as he goes, the colors change from the bright neon blue to a swirl of fiery reds and yellows and pinks and Hans has never felt so angry and scared in all his life!
Newt, meanwhile, was quite unaware of the depths the Anteverse kaiju had latched onto his mind from the drift (he had often had nightmares of the alien realm and of massive shadows that would prowl on the edges of his mind, but that’s just remnants of trauma from the war, right?) so when he feels Hans sniffing around in his mind, he pays it little mind. That is, until the explosion of fear and anger and rapid flickers of memories that weren’t his own or Hermann’s bombard him, and Hans’ terrifying screeching roar too.
Things get out of hand very quickly after that, with Hans on a rampage in the lab and Newt close by and in immediate danger. Attempts at consoling Hans are met with a blank wall of rage, and it takes Hermann personally piloting a mini-jaeger to immobilize Hans long enough for Newt to administer tranquilizers strong enough to knock him out.
The two are forced to lock Hans down in a reinforced cage until they can figure out what’s wrong, which Newt tries to do while Hans is unconscious by delving into the current chaotic mess of the hivemind. It takes a while, but eventually they figure out the trigger and also find out that the presence of the Anteverse kaiju within themselves was far greater than they had thought. It seems Hans poking around woke up the slumbering shadows of dead kaiju and their memories latched onto his young mind.
By this point Hermann’s convinced it’s the end of the project (they already had to lie to the other people on the base that they were doing a small experiment with Hans and really it was all under control!) and Newt’s just worried out of his mind that they’ve lost Hans forever. But, miracle of miracles, when Hans finally wakes up, he’s back to himself (mostly anyways).
Hans becomes much more protective of Newt after the experience and, to both Hermann and Newt’s surprise, gains a deep dislike for the Precursors because he remembers how they commanded Otachi to hunt down Newt and no one hurts his mother! That, and Hans becomes much more aware of how dangerous he is to humans, and is very careful in his movements around them, specifically Newt and Hermann (he can never quite forgive himself for his rampage that put his mother in danger).
After this, each subsequent generation of Newt’s kaiju end up going through a similar experience, though each becomes much less intense because of the older kaiju acting as anchors to keep the younger ones from getting out of control when they come in contact with the old memories of the Anteverse.
