Chapter Text
October 7th, 2040
Torna Shatterdome
“Time to wake up, sleepyhead.”
Jin’s eyes shot open, pale blue meeting warm brown. Lora, face pressed incredibly close to his, grinned widely and poked his cheek. “We’re up. There’s a Level Three Kaiju heading towards the Torna border. We’ve been called to push it back.”
“A Level Three, huh?” Jin mumbled. He sat up and swung his legs off the bed, settling his feet on the ground. When they had moved into the compound six weeks ago Lora had begged for the top bunk, and – as it was every time it came to Lora – Jin was unable to say no.
Not that he truly minded where he slept, as long as it was close enough to his companion to keep her safe.
Lora hummed, fluttering around the room as she pulled on her battle gear. “The biggest one so far, according to the summons. We’ve got about an hour until it makes landfall. Hurry up!”
“I couldn’t be more excited,” said Jin drily, hauling himself to his feet. Still, there was a faint upwards turn to his lips as he got himself dressed, his mind clearing from his previous sleep more and more with every passing second. Once he had succeeded in pulling on his shoes, he ran a brush through his hair and moved to stand behind Lora, taking her long locks and pulling them back with practiced ease as she focused on clasping her jacket on properly. She finished and turned to beam at him, touching one hand to the ponytail now swinging at her neck. “Thank you,” she said, the sincerity shining through her words.
Jin nodded in return, pulling his own jacket on. At last they were ready, and they exited from their room and down the hall to the elevator as quickly as they could without running. Even with an inbound Kaiju, there was a certain professionalism that Jaeger pilots were expected to exude – at least, that was the Marshal’s belief, and around here his word was law.
Lora’s words from minutes before finally caught up with Jin as they were exiting the elevator and heading out to the Drivesuit Room. “Hold on – did you say a Level Three?”
“Yep. It emerged from the water about halfway between us and Gormott, and decided to head this way.” Lora’s voice was serious, but Jin could still sense the tinge of excitement that thrummed throughout her body. It would be undetectable to anyone else, but he was her co-pilot – he knew her better than anyone, and she him. Her voice dropped in volume so that only he could hear her. “Can you imagine, Jin? The biggest Kaiju to appear yet, and we get to destroy it. How’s that for a Sunday morning?”
Jin swallowed and didn’t answer. He didn’t need to; Lora could sense his reluctance just as easily as he could feel her enthusiasm. Without looking at him, without slowing down, she reached out and grabbed his hand in hers, squeezing it tightly. “I know it’s not your cup of tea,” she murmured, “but we’re in this together. There’s nobody I’d rather face this monster with than you.”
Although he stayed quiet, the white-haired man squeezed her hand back gently in reply. Lora smiled, and they remained connected as they entered the Drivesuit Room, where their J-tech team was waiting for them.
From that point on there was very little discussion as they underwent the normal pre-battle drill; they were separated, prepped, hooked up to a thousand different wires and cables, and finally pushed into the cockpit of their Jaeger, Midnight Sun. She was a Mark-3 Tornan Jaeger, specially designed for enhanced speed and agility in all types of weather and combat situations. She wasn’t the largest Jaeger around, but she was for sure the fastest, exactly how Jin and Lora liked her. Brute strength wasn’t their style; they excelled in evading and trapping their enemies, a tactic they had used to defeat over half a dozen kaijus in the three years they had been drift partners. As Minoth often told them, it wasn’t a bad thing to be underestimated. They were a young pair of rangers, and their Jaeger wasn’t all that impressive – to others, at least – until you saw it move.
“Pilots, prepare for calibration.” Speak of the Devil. Minoth’s voice filtered through the speakers in their helmets, calm and composed as usual. The LOCCENT Director was certainly watching their neural readouts from the command room across the hangar.
Jin took a deep breath and allowed his mind to relax, waiting for the moment when he and Lora would be mentally connected. When it finally happened he felt it instantly, the way both his and her memories flowed through his mind. His own memories always felt cool – there was no other way to describe it – as though a layer of ice was settling over him, grounding him, steadying him for the force of Lora’s own memories – as hers were much the opposite, a fire that encompassed him from the inside out, flames licking at his skin and warming his heart. He knew the inverse was true for her, because at this moment he was her; he could feel how his own thoughts and memories drifted like snowflakes around her, a counter to the fire that burned from her heart outwards. In this way they were balanced: fire and ice, hot and cold.
Alright there? Lora asked playfully, not looking at him but nudging his mind with hers.
Better than ever he returned, captivated for a moment by a memory forming around him – both he and Lora young, still at the orphanage, her sneaking into the kitchen in the middle of the night for a snack, him following along both on lookout duty and to assist her with reaching the top shelf where the cookies were stored. The memory faded to wisps around him only to be replaced by another: Lora, fifteen years old and beaming brighter than the sun as she read through her acceptance letter to the Jaeger Academy. Jin stood beside her, his heart swelling with pride and his own acceptance letter clutched tightly in one hand.
You’re so sentimental thought Lora, but her words were filled with genuine affection. Now enough reminiscing; we have a job to do.
In unison they refocused just in time to hear Minoth’s next words: “Both hemispheres fully activated. Neural outputs are within range. Midnight Sun, you are clear to depart.”
“Good luck!” a second voice, much more cheerful than Minoth’s, popped up through the speakers. “Stay safe out there; I don’t want to have to patch you up when you get back, got it?”
Jin sighed and Lora laughed. “Got it, Haze” they responded in unison, and with that they shifted Midnight Sun so they were in position for a vertical launch to the surface.
“Launch commencing in ten seconds,” a calm programmed voice announced.
They waited patiently, listening as the voice counted down to zero, and then they shot into the air. Just before breaching the surface, Lora’s mind brushed with Jin’s again, flooding his consciousness with warmth. I’m with you she spoke into his head, forever. You know that, right?
Of course Jin returned, and then they were aboveground and speeding towards the ocean, and no more words were said.
Later, Jin would think back over that day and wonder about all the ifs.
If they had left even five minutes earlier and therefore met the Kaiju further out from shore -
If they had been quicker about dispatching it, or at least stabbed it a couple more times to make sure it was fully dead -
If Lora hadn’t spotted the small refugee vessel not a hundred meters away after Knifehead sank between the waves, stuffed to the brim with people staring up at them in awe –
If Jin hadn’t agreed with her to go scoop up the boat and bring it to shore –
If they had heard the sounds of water rising behind them as they headed towards the boat even a second sooner and turned around in time to block Knifehead, which apparently still had some life in him –
If they had raised the sword that Midnight Sun held faster so they could slice it through the Kaiju’s chest before he had his claws in their Jaeger and was pulling, tearing, breaking, and Lora was screaming –
Later, Jin would ponder all these ifs and dozens more, turning over every agonizing moment of that day in his head hundreds, thousands, millions of times, trying to answer to himself: If any one of those ifs had occurred, would Lora still be alive today?
But that was later, and this was now, and right now Jin couldn’t think of anything else but the pain in his head and the salty air streaming in through the gaping hole in the spot to his right.
The Kaiju was dead, Jin was certain of that at this point. He wasn’t sure how – his right arm, and by extension Midnight’s right arm, hung limply as his side, though the pain racing through it was explosive. His head felt like it was about to split open, which didn’t make any sense because it was also silent. He couldn’t feel Lora’s presence, couldn’t pull up her memories, couldn’t sense her warmth in the way he knew he should be able to because he was in his Jaeger, and that meant that so was she. The silence pressed in on him, and before he knew it he was screaming, slumped against support bar before him.
I’m with you forever she had said, barely ten minutes before. It was the one thing he knew to be true, the one certainty he held in life, had held for seven years now: wherever Lora was, Jin was. Wherever Jin was, there was Lora too. They were always together, always united, since they had met all those years ago. Until now.
Now, Jin was alone.
Midnight Sun creaked suddenly around him, stumbling as though finally realizing that one of its two pilots was missing. Jin was thrown against bar he had been leaning on, and the shock brought all of his senses back to him – namely, the pain he was in. Everything burned. He felt both hot and cold, and though his right arm still wouldn’t move, it was giving off the physical sensation that every single bone it encased was breaking into pieces. He stared down at, tried to flex his fingers and nearly blacked out from the spike of pain that ensued. I can’t do this, he thought to himself, and once he had finally thought it his body seemed to accept it. He couldn’t pilot a Jaeger on his own. He couldn’t swim to shore with one arm. Above all else, he couldn’t return to life without Lora.
So what else was there to do? He knew what came next, and he whispered the words to himself, bringing his left hand, his working hand, up to his chest. “I am going to die,” he said softly, and the thought didn’t scare him, because dying meant reuniting with Lora, and there was nothing more important than that.
A voice whispered gently in his ear, so soft he barely heard it: Not yet, Jin.
“Lora?” he gasped, eyes snapping open. He looked around wildly, but nothing had changed; he was still alone. “Lora, please, if you’re there please talk to me!”
The boat, Jin. Your job isn’t finished yet.
The boat? Jin glanced around until he caught sight of the refugee vessel, still bobbing in the water beside him. Though the people on the boat were tiny from where Jin stood, he could make out their expressions. Most seemed shocked; some appeared scared; a few were pointing at the Kaiju remains that still drifted in the water and clapping in joy.
What do they have to be joyful about? Jin wondered, even as he strode towards them. Lora was dead. She was dead and Jin was alive, and that wasn’t the way things were supposed to work.
If she was dead, he should be dead as well.
But although she was dead – and Jin knew it like he knew his name, like he knew how to draw breath, he could feel her death like a gaping chasm in his chest – although she was dead, he still heard her voice, heard her encouraging him in that light, lilting tone of hers. I know it’s hard, she was telling him, but you have to get them to safety, Jin. For me.
And how could Jin ever say no to Lora?
He wasn’t sure how he managed it. His body felt out-of-sync with Midnight’s, and every communication he tried to make with her was excruciatingly painful on his mind and body. He somehow managed to lift the boat and balance it in his Jaeger’s open mouth, careful to keep his head steady as he moved. He started towards shore, grabbing the late Kaiju’s tail in his left hand as he trudged past it. He knew without even trying that he would be unable to fly back to shore; one piece of his cargo was too delicate, the other too heavy.
The walk took what felt like ages but must have only been a couple of minutes. By the time he could spot the sand, he felt as if he were about to collapse into a million little fragments with how much pressure was being put on both his body and his neural connection with Midnight Sun. He dropped the Kaiju about fifty meters from shore and continued on, and finally, finally, made contact with the ground and was able to halt.
He had enough self-awareness to reach up and gently grab the boat from his Jaeger’s mouth, depositing it in the sand. He blinked down at all of the refugees, who now peered up at him with admiration and gratitude and, a few, with concern.
Great job Lora whispered. I knew you could do it.
“Sure,” said Jin. He blinked and the next thing he knew he was lying on the sand himself, bits of shell and glass digging into his back and the looming face of Midnight Sun towering over him. A moment later, he sensed a person next to him – a boy, perhaps newly a teenager, with blonde hair and wearing a faded red and black coat. The boy said nothing at first as he leaned over Jin, but his blue eyes peered down intensely at the white-haired man for several moments. Finally, he let out a deep breath and dropped his head onto Jin’s chest, one hand curling into the man’s suit. “Thank you,” he mumbled, and started to cry.
Thank you, Lora repeated to Jin, and with the boy lying on him, and Midnight Sun perched almost protectively above him, Jin’s eyes slid shut as he finally fell unconscious.
Hours later and thousands of miles away, across a vast stretch of the ocean, deep underground in the cafeteria of the Indol Shatterdome, dozens of rangers and J-tech specialists sat in a stupefied sort of silence as they watched the news coverage coming from the many TVs placed around the large room, the stations different but all discussing the same story:
“Early this morning, the Tornan Jaeger known as Midnight Sun was heavily wounded during an ocean showdown with a Kaiju-“
“Initial reports indicate the Kaiju was a Category Three, one of the largest on record so far-“
“Though unconfirmed, it is rumored that at least one of the pilots was killed in the battle-“
“A refugee vessel from Gormott was rescued during the skirmish-“
“Waiting on an official update from the director of the ADC-“
“Breaking: The Tornan government has just confirmed that the pilot Lora, no known last name, died during the Kaiju attack-“
“The status of the other Midnight Sun pilot, Jin, is still unknown.”
The screeching of a chair against the ground made everyone in the room jump. A tall, black-haired man stood from his table; his food was untouched, and his expression was hard as he tossed his lunch into the trash and exited the cafeteria without a word.
The door swung shut behind him, and the news reports played on.