Chapter Text
Stacker and Chuck had tried the neural handshake twice.
Both times, it nearly tore the Conn-Pod apart from the inside. Sparks, feedback loops, bright red and flashing warnings, they barely made it out without cooking the system. Their brains just didn’t mesh. Like shoving two mismatched gears together and expecting the machine to run smooth. Too much static. Too much fight.
Too much history.
So Mako and Raleigh were forced to split up.
They protested, of course. Loudly. They’d trained together. Built rhythm. Understood each other without words. But there was no time. The Breach was opening again and whatever was clawing its way out was bigger than anything they'd ever faced. They had no choice.
And somehow beyond logic, beyond everyone's better judgment Chuck and Raleigh were drift compatible. It wasn’t smooth. It wasn’t easy. It hurt.
But it worked.
Raleigh hated it from the first second. The moment their minds linked, he felt it, the biting resentment Chuck carried like armor, the raw, furious grief under his swagger, the grinding need to prove something even when there was no one left to prove it to.
“I’m not taking Striker with you,” Raleigh said, arms folded across his chest like a wall he wasn’t sure he could hold up much longer.
Chuck stepped forward, jaw tight, teeth grit. “You think I’m letting you pilot my Jaeger after everything that’s happened? Dream on, cowboy.”
“Your Jaeger?” Raleigh snapped. “Funny, I didn’t see your name stamped on its ass.”
“Don’t ” Chuck’s voice cracked slightly as he closed the distance. “Don’t act like you have the high ground here. I am the senior officer and you are a washed up deserter."
Raleigh’s fist twitched, curling tight. “I lost my brother.”
Chuck didn’t back down. “We all lost someone.”
Before Raleigh could answer before he could say something cruel and sharp, Stacker’s voice cut through them like a razor.
“Enough.”
The room shook. Even the low hum of the base seemed to quiet.
Stacker looked at them both like a father scolding two overgrown sons, tired.
“I’ll take Striker. You two take Gipsy. Now move.”
Doomsday arrived in thunder and blood.
The mission went sideways in minutes. Kaiju didn’t just trickle out, they poured. Screaming, flailing, clawing things. Monsters with glowing veins and too many limbs. Chuck and Raleigh held their ground, teeth clenched in pain as the Drift ripped open old wounds and shoved them down each other’s throats.
They fought anyway.
Because that’s what Rangers did.
They held their own long enough. Long enough for Stacker to breach the core. Long enough to detonate the implosion device.
Light.
Pressure.
Silence.
When they woke, they weren’t in the Shatterdome.
The sky above them shimmered with oily purple clouds, swirling like bruises. The air was thinner, sharper, like it had edges. Every breath felt borrowed.
The Jaeger was gone. Torn apart. Nothing left but scattered armor and broken pieces. They were alone.
Chuck messed with the comms until his hands cramped. “No signal. No static. Nothing.”
Raleigh crouched low, brushing his fingers through the black sand. It looked like Earth. Kinda. The texture was wrong. Too soft. Too cold. The horizon flickered like a bad transmission.
“Maybe we’re not on Earth anymore,” he murmured.
Chuck looked at him like he’d grown a second head. “You hit something in the fall?”
“You got a better reason why home isn’t answering?”
Chuck didn’t. So he grunted, kicked a rock, and sat heavily against a twisted piece of armor.
The cold settled in quickly. Their carbon fiber and synthetic suits weren’t built for long-term exposure to whatever this place was. They sat in silence, shivering.
Eventually, Chuck muttered, “We’ll freeze if we don’t.”
Raleigh nodded slowly. “Yeah. C’mere.”
They scooted closer, stiff and awkward, each trying not to admit how much they needed the warmth. Or the comfort.
The silence was long. Uncomfortable. Heavy.
Then Chuck exhaled, voice barely above a whisper. “I used to look up to you.”
Raleigh blinked.
Chuck didn’t look at him. Just kept staring at the distant nothingness. “Back when you and Yancy were the gold standard. I thought... if you could do it, maybe we had a chance.”
Raleigh swallowed hard. His voice came out rough. “We all thought that.”
“You piloted solo. Took down Knifehead. Then poof. And when you came back, you were helping build walls.” Chuck's voice cracked. “You helped them make the things that were supposed to replace us.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” Raleigh said quietly.
Chuck turned to face him. “No one does. But we still show up.”
Raleigh looked down at his hands. “Maybe I didn’t want to anymore. Maybe I was tired of losing everyone I cared about.”
Chuck’s expression twisted. “Yeah. Welcome to the club.”
They lapsed into silence again. This time it wasn’t angry, just tired.
Eventually, Chuck said, “When we get back, if we get back I’m gonna punch you.”
“Fair,” Raleigh said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Chuck snorted. “Then you’re buying drinks.”
“Deal.”
They leaned into the armor behind them, shoulder to shoulder. The world around them was still cold, still alien. But for the first time since they landed, it didn’t feel quite so impossible.
They didn’t know if they’d see home again.
But at least, now, they wouldn’t die alone.