Chapter Text
‘Kaiju’ was a term that was foreign to so many – Aurora Talmadge included. Sure, she knew that kaiju translated into ‘strange monster’ from Japanese (her freshman year roommate in college had been into the kaiju movies of Japan). But that day it took on new meaning for everyone. She watched the footage of Trespasser going nuts on San Francisco. Like everyone else, she’d held her loved ones close and watched the news.
35 miles, 6 days, 3 cities destroyed and countless lives lost. And God only knew how long it would be before the water and land affected by the nuclear warheads and bits of monster would be safe for habitation and consumption.
Aurora was then hit with her own tragedy. Her own ‘K-Day’ as such events were bitterly called. Her boyfriend’s son, a boy she loved like he was her own, had died. Kaiju blue – the name the media had dubbed the poisonous blood of those monsters – had made it to a beach a couple hour’s easy drive from Charming.
No one knew then that besides dissipating into a poisonous mist, kaiju blue could float in more solid form on the surface of water, was practically the same color as the ocean in the right light.
Abel’s death tore Aurora and Jax apart. They did try, but everything culminated shortly afterward in this sound barrier breaking fight in which many things were smashed, broken and thrown.
Aurora left Charming behind, sold her house and enrolled in the Jaeger Academy. She wanted – needed – to channel her frustration, rage and grief into something.
The Jaeger Academy – to that end – was perfect for her. Every night she went to bed sore and aching and covered in bruises. But every night passed without dreams. No dreams of Abel. None of Jax. None of home.
Aurora graduated in the first class, that of 2015. She ends up being assigned to the Shatterdome in Russia, Vladivostok. Aurora had wanted to be a pilot but she was drift compatible with no one in her class. That had been hard, finding out none of the others in her class had any sort of drift compatibility with her.
So, for the next six years she works instead in the LOCCENT of the Vladivostok Shatterdome, providing support to any jaegers deployed in the field against the kaiju. Most the time it was the Kaidonovsky’s. Aleksis and Sasha had, for some reason, befriended her, taken her under their wing. She’s not too sure why since she wasn’t that much younger than Aleksis.
The quasi-adoption of her by the Kaidonovsky’s might have had something to do with her first birthday in Vladivostok. Though Aurora never found out how they found out, Aleksis and Sasha had turned up at her quarters that night with one of the (many) bottles of vodka they were rumored to have stashed in the Shatterdome. They declared that birthdays were something that should be celebrated, even in times of war. One bottle of vodka turned into four and found the three of them pretty damn drunk and rummaging through the kitchen well after lights out.
“I found oranges!” Aleksis declared, triumphantly holding one aloft. “Kitchen staff have been – Rory what is wrong?”
“Oranges were Abel’s favorite.” Aurora drunkenly sniffed.
“Who is Abel?” Sasha asked Aurora, the confused look on his face becoming more pronounced when Aurora burst into tears.
Both Russians are incredibly confused at this never before displayed behavior, and neither quite knows how to proceed.
“Is Abel dea—deceased boyfriend or husband?” Aleksis asked, positively gentle.
“No.” Aurora hiccupped.
In a rambling, drunk and teary way Aurora told Sasha and Aleksis the story. Some part of her knows she wouldn’t be telling this story if she were sober and another part of her hopes they’ll both have forgotten come morning. Especially when Aurora later foggily remembers she used names.
Aurora woke up the next morning in what she later termed a ‘Kaidonovsky sandwich.’ She doesn’t remember how (Aurora had been very drunk last night) but Sasha, Aleksis and Aurora had ended up back in the married pilot’s quarters and their bed; Aurora’s torso sprawled almost completely sideways over Sasha’s chest and Aleksis was hugged up against Aurora’s back.
Aurora’s head was pounding like it was the proverbial blacksmith’s anvil and her eyes were puffy and burning from feeling so dry after all the crying.
“I have never drank so much alcohol before.” Aurora moaned. It might’ve actually sounded more like “I h’v nevrr drank soo mush alkerhol befur.”
“We turn you into Russian, hangover will be no problem.” Aleksis mumbled, her voice gravelly from sleep.
For the next several years, when they weren’t fighting kaiju Aleksis and Sasha certainly tried to ‘turn Aurora into Russian.’
Aurora could now speak fluent Russian and she could cook a variety of Russian dishes (courtesy of Sasha who was an amazing cook) and her tolerance for vodka had gone way up.
And in recent years there had been reason enough to increase one’s alcohol intake. Aurora had felt then and still felt now that Knifehead represented a turning point in the war against the kaiju.
The kaiju were learning, they were evolving and they started losing more jaegers, more pilots. With every loss, no matter the Shatterdome they were based from, those based in Vladivostok did a toast in their memory.
Aurora even traveled with the Marshal of Vladivostok and a few others to the funeral held in Anchorage for Yancy Becket. His brother had not been there, still in the recovery wing at the Icebox.
Aurora ran into an ‘old classmate,’ if you will, at the funeral. She remembered Herc Hansen as a bit gruff, emotionally bunged up and 100% Australian. He remembered Aurora and introduced her to his son, Chuck, who apparently was a recent graduate of the Jaeger Academy.
“I’m going to be the youngest jaeger pilot, ever.” Chuck proudly informed Aurora.
Aurora had no doubt he would be, too, with that attitude.
“Speaking of jaeger’s, did you ever find a co-pilot, Talmadge?” Herc asked.
“Nope. I’ve been working in LOCCENT in Vladivostok.”
“Since graduation? They’ve not tried to reassign you?”
“Nah, I think Aleksis and Sasha would throw a big ol’ hissy if the PPDC tried. And trust me, you do not want to see the tantrum those two are capable of pitching.”
“You know the Kaidonovksy’s?!” Chuck interjected, his voice dripping with all the amazement a 16 year old (who’s just found out something incredibly shocking) can muster.
“Yeah, I’ve worked with them the last 5 years or so.”
Meeting Chuck when he was that young and starry-eyed was cute. Or, that’s what Aurora thought. Not that she ever would have told him to his face.
She ran into Chuck again at her hotel later on that night – it had turned out during their conversation that the Australian duo had checked into the same hotel.
Chuck was sitting in an empty corner of the lobby, bouncing a tennis ball off the wall while a little pile of wrinkles tried to catch it.
“What’s the puppy’s name?” Aurora asked as she sat down next to Chuck.
“Max. He’s an English bulldog. M’ dad got him for me when I graduated.”
“He seems a sweet puppy.” Aurora told Chuck as Max came over to investigate why the ball wasn’t being thrown anymore. “That must mean his owner is nice, too.”
“How d’you figure, Aurora?”
“Dogs reflect their owners, don’t they? A mean person has a dog that dog will be bad-tempered and mean. And vice-versa for a nice person owning a dog.”
“Oh.” Chuck said. “Hadn’t thought of it like that. It sort of makes sense. Are the Kaidonovsky’s here?” He asked, switching tracks suddenly.
“No. They’re still in Vladivostok, just in case, you know?”
“Totally.” Chuck agreed as Aurora lavished attention on Max, who reciprocated by slobbering all over the knees of Aurora’s sweatpants.
“They asked me to come for them. I think it’s rattled all of us – the way Yancy died.”
“I heard from my dad that he died still drifting with Raleigh.”
“I’ve heard the same. And that isn’t something I would wish on anyone in the world. No one deserves that kind of agony.”
“D’you think Raleigh’ll be okay?”
Aurora looked at Chuck. The kid had a clear case of hero worship going on. Maybe it was dampened by worry for his hero’s health and dampened by attending a funeral, but Chuck was definitely a Raleigh Becket fan.
“I dunno.” Aurora finally managed. “It’s up to the guy himself if he ends up being okay.”
Chuck and Aurora end up talking for so long that Max falls asleep stretched between their laps (front half on Chuck, his back half on Aurora). And before the Vladivostok party leaves to head back to their ‘dome, Aurora and Chuck exchange addresses – to keep in touch. They end up keeping up a pretty regular correspondence, interruptions to mail service notwithstanding. Every time Chuck killed a kaiju in the next five years, Aurora got an ‘excited’ play by play in the next mail delivery.
Aurora was happy for him, but she also worried for Chuck in the same way she worried about Sasha and Aleksis every time they went out to fight a kaiju. But Chuck’s letters were a bright spot as the UN kept slashing PPDC funding until one by one the Shatterdomes began to be shut down and sold to private buyers or allowed to fall into ruin and neglected. By the time of Vladivostok’s closure, Cherno Alpha was the last jaeger left there. And then Cherno and her pilots and crew and Aurora were seconded to the Shatterdome in Hong Kong – the only Shatterdome still open.
Aurora knew things were not looking good for the PPDC, she had heard the rumours same as everyone else about the budget cuts and funding issues. Aurora had seen the interviews where Lars Gottlieb denounced the Jaeger Program as an ineffectual and iniquitous waste of money that could no longer be justified. Aurora had thrown paper she had been using to cushion breakables as she was packing at the television. Sasha threw a hammer through the television when some pundit who’d been anti-jaeger from the beginning profusely and lavishly praised the Wall of Life.
“When has wall ever, in history, fulfilled purpose?” Sasha asked. “Morons. Wall of Life and Gottlieb will get us all killed.”
“At least they haven’t shut us down completely.” One of Cherno Alpha’s mechanics’ said.
“They’ve neutered us, which is almost as bad.” Aurora responded. “Moving the last three jaegers to one Shatterdome? That is just dumbass thinking. Anywhere that’s basically not China and Japan and bits of Russia are fucked.”
And then came move in day. Well, move in week actually. Aurora had seen the Wei Tang triplets at a distance as she had been moving boxes and unpacking her own things in her quarters (her room was actually slightly bigger than her room in Vladivostok had been, if one could consider that a bonus). Later on, Aurora headed into the mess in search of a snack to dull a hunger-induced headache.
Thoughts of food and snacks fly right out of her head as Aurora walks in on a brewing fight between Aleksis, Sasha and the Wei’s.