Archive of Our Own

The Beginning

The first Kaiju hit San Francisco on August 11, 2013.

Newt was studying in New York at the time. He saw a breaking news cast on the television set in the common room of his dorm, ran to the nearest ATM on campus, withdrew all his meager funds, and booked the next flight to LAX.

The airport was crowded when he arrived, though his flight was nearly cancelled and had been deserted. Everyone was in a panic, and when he tried to convince a cab to take him to San Francisco, all he got was wild looks in return.

In the end, he never made it there. He sat in the airport, surrounded by frantic people, and watched the shaky footage of the enormous beast crawling out of the Pacific Ocean on a small computer screen.

That night, he booked a room in a small motel—one with WiFi. He scrolled through news reports—anything he could find, really— and then pulled out one of the biology textbooks he had thankfully brought with him.

Then, he opened a blank post on the blog he updated occasionally and began to write.

When he returned to school, only after the Kaiju had been destroyed, he switched his focus to biochemistry. It meant adding on another two years, and it meant working two jobs, and it meant that he exhausted himself to the point of hospitalization more than twice, but he graduated only one year later.

He skipped the graduation ceremony, however, and instead snuck away downtown to a little known tattoo parlor and started the beginning of a sleeve on both his arms, just a little ring of color around his wrists that he hoped to fill in later.

Newton had lived his whole life feeling that he would know what to do when he saw it, and he had just saw his entire future destroy San Francisco.

---

Hermann heard the news on the shaky radio of the lab in London he was working in at the time.

It was a pharmaceutical company, and he was the so called "numbers man", and he hated every moment of it. But it was the closest thing he could get to a paid internship, and he was only a year from his doctorate.

 It wasn't even his radio he was listening to; it belonged to the man who worked next to him who blasted sports news every waking hour.

The newscaster interrupted the newest football scores for a breaking announcement, his voice trembling and rushed, and over the course of the next few hours Hermann and the rest of the lab assistants listened in stunned silence.

Hermann went back to his run-down flat that night and scoured the Internet for any information on the attack on San Francisco. He read news reports and watched blurry camcorder footage of the monster and finally stumbled across various blog posts about the attack. Some of them were preachy, some of them fear mongering, but there was one that struck him as... interesting, in a sort of 'mad scientist' way.

It called the monster a 'Kaiju', a name that he had seen floating around in some of the newscasts from Japan, and it claimed that the monster was probably some entity similar to the beasts already on earth, based on its appearance— the blogger called it paraphyletic, like it really had originated from the Pacific Ocean.

The blog post was short, and a disclaimer assured the reader this was all theoretical, but Hermann was hooked. He knew there had to be more, more on this creature and more on where it came from, and he knew that he could be the one to figure it out.

He was proud that he stuck out his job for another month, and then he quit to return to Berlin and focus on completing all his requirements for a doctorate as soon as he could.

He graduated with his doctorate the same day the Kaiju called Scissure attacked Sydney.

---

May 2014

By the time the attack on Sydney was over, Newt was just getting started. He had moved from New York to Washington, D.C. after hearing rumors of a secret project called the Jaeger program. Although the Pan Pacific Defense Corp had succeeded in previous missions with the use of nuclear weapons, the word was that the program would be an entirely new and safer method of fighting the Kaiju.

The project, however, was severely lacking in research on the monsters themselves—they were searching for competent scientists and had put out messages across campuses all over the US as well as other countries in search of promising candidates.

It was one of these flyers that Newt clutched in his hand as he entered the Pan Pacific Defense Corps’ office.

“Have a seat with the other candidates in that room, please,” the woman at the front desk told him immediately. Newton made a flustered gesture towards the room she had pointed at and she nodded without even looking up at him. Unnerved, he turned the sleek handle and stepped into the room.

There were about twenty or thirty candidates there, all in crisp pressed suits, and they all turned to stare at Newton the moment he entered.

He ignored the cruel murmurs that ran through the room as he shuffled off to sit in one of the corners, blushing bright under the gaze of all the no doubt MIT and Harvard graduate scholars. He fiddled with the cuffs of his suit jacket, which he had thrown over a tattered Godzilla T-Shirt that morning—probably a mistake, in hindsight, he thought, but he didn’t have the money to even rent a suit. As it were, he was staying with an ex in DC, and he had only had the money to buy a one-way ticket down here.

This was his last shot.

“Would you look at you,” a voice chuckled next to him. Newt turned and looked at the man sitting beside him. He was dressed like an old professor, but at least he wasn’t in one of the monotone suits the other candidates had on. His left hand was clutching the ornate head of a simple cane. Newt noticed the stares of the others and knew better than to do the same.

Instead, he turned away and bit back a comment. He had learned by now that the more people underestimated him, the more he succeeded. He was going to get this job, and he wasn’t here to make friends.

“What’s your name?” The man asked, clearly not giving up that easily. He looked older than the others in the room, who had clean shaven and smooth faces. This man’s face was worn ragged, like he had seen the cruelty of the world and had learned how to bite back.

Newt begrudgingly respected that. “Newton Geiszler,” he said.

“German?” He noticed the man’s accent now, British, probably.

“Yeah. I mean, I was born there but I’ve lived in New York most of my life.”

“Ah, I was born there as well. Only my family moved me over to London when I was ten, to get a ‘better education’ in the boarding schools over there.” He looked around the room. “I think it worked.”

Newton laughed at that. “I wish my parents cared half as much as that. I had to work my way through school—and even before college, my teachers thought I was a lost cause.”

The man hummed at that. “I respect that, working through college. I had to pay for the latter part of my schooling and found it quite a challenge. And I’m quite sure we’re the only ones in this room who have ever experienced that challenge.”

It was obvious, the way the others in the room clumped together, leaving their corner isolated. These people had clearly been given a leg up in society, had had a silver spoon in their mouth since birth. It made Newton shift uncomfortably in his chair.

“What is your field of interest?” The man asked, and Newton met his sharp gaze, understood that this man was looking for a challenge—was here with the same desperation Newton had.

“Biochemistry,” Newt answered, turning away. He caught a quick glance of the windows along one side of the room. Although they had their shades pulled down, Newton could see quite the scene unfolding through two of the slats. Through one, he saw that a woman in a white lab coat was speaking with one of the suited men, most likely a candidate. The other slot gave him a clearer shot of the man, who was pale as a ghost and obviously stumbling over his words. Newton smiled cruelly and when he turned his head, he found the other man staring right at him.

His face grew hot. “What’s yours?” He stuttered out. The man’s smile was all teeth.

“Physics. Specifically, using numbers to calculate patterns. Now, I believe—”

“Dr. Hermann Gottlieb?” The woman called, and the man stopped talking.

“That’s me,” the man—Hermann—said. He stood up shakily and Newton thought about offering help, but something told him it would only make Hermann angry.

“Well, Newton Geiszler,” he extended a hand to Newt, and they shook their farewell.

“Please, call me Newt,” he said, relinquishing the other man’s hand after a moment. “Hermann,” he added as an afterthought.

“Alright then, Newton.” Hermann said, grinning sharply when Newt frowned at the use of his full name. “Call me Dr. Gottlieb.”

---

Hermann had recognized the name; of course he had recognized the name. This was the man who had written all those blog posts a year ago, claiming to know the biology of the Kaiju. Even before he had said his name Hermann felt that he knew, he just knew that this wild-eyed kid with complete disregard for the wardrobe expectations of a job interview was the one who had flat out claimed to know what was baffling so many scientists everywhere.

Hermann had felt the whispers and stares when he entered the room, and those same whispers had only increased in volume the second Newton stepped in. He was glad when the man sat next to him, had worked up the courage to say something, even if it was only a snippy comment about the man’s appearance.

He had seen Newton bristle, though, and tried to make it up by introducing himself.

Now, he was in the other room, making his case to a woman in a white lab coat with sharp, sharp eyes.

“Your credentials surpass you,” she was saying, flipping through the resume he had brought in. “And I like your look,” she said, flashing him a quick smile. “You wouldn’t believe the candidate I just had in here, big Princeton grad. Thought he could buy his way into the Jaeger program, would you believe it.”

Hermann said nothing, simply let her do the talking.

“Well, Dr. Gottlieb, color me impressed,” she said finally. “Come back for a conference meeting in a month’s time, and we’ll let you in on what you’ll be doing here for us.”

“I will,” he said. He wasn’t overly happy about remaining in DC, though. “If I may ask, how long will we be staying in these labs? We can’t very well do research on the Kaiju, which are a Pacific-based occurrence, while we’re on the East Coast—”

“Dr. Gottlieb,” the woman interrupted, raising an eyebrow. “We are the Pan Pacific Defense Corps. We understand that this is a ‘Pacific-based occurrence’. We will schedule research missions once our primary mission is complete, but until then, you will help us with what we need.”

She stood up and motioned for him to do the same. He stood, favoring his leg, and followed her out the door.

“Go to London, sort out your affairs, and then come back,” she advised. She handed him his papers with a kind smile. “We look forward to seeing your work, Dr. Gottlieb.”

He was about to wish her a farewell, but she simply shouted, “Next! Dr. Thaddeus Marco.”

On his way out, Hermann caught Newton’s eye, caught the fierce look of determination flash over his face, and turned away with a smile.

He had a feeling he’d be seeing more of Newton Geiszler.

---

Newton wasn’t interviewed by Dr. Lightcap, the woman who had been taking candidates before. Instead, by the time they got to his name on the candidate list, nearly all of the candidates had been interviewed, and Dr. Lightcap was called away to oversee a part of the project she was apparently the head of. She was replaced by an older man with a very important looking nametag that said his name was Dr. Jasper Schoenfeld.

Still, Schoenfeld seemed to like Newt, even after he caught a glance of the edges of the work-in-progress that was Newt’s tattoos under his cuffs..

“You’re different,” he had said. “And I’ll let you in on a secret. We need the best and the brightest, but we also need funding. Those candidates you saw out there were not the best, but they were the richest. So, if I’m going to take a chance on you and put you in a spot where I could put someone who is going to fund our project, tell me what you’re going to bring to the table.”

Newton chewed back the theory he had been holding onto since the first attack. It wasn’t ready—the world wasn’t ready.

“Sir,” he started. “If you can give me access to any part of a Kaiju, maybe—maybe even let me see one up close, then I might be able to tell you its weakness. Nuclear weapons are only going to work for so long—we need to fight this thing head on, not with weapons that will only hurt humanity more. Also—”

He hesitated. Schoenfeld raised an eyebrow.

“Sir, I believe the Kaiju might be adapting to our defenses. We need to learn as much as we can about these creatures before we send anyone else out there to fight it. I can get you that information.”

Schoenfeld smiled slowly. “And how do you propose to do that? Do you want us to send you out into the field?”

Newton bit back a manic grin. “Sir, that is exactly what I’m looking for.”

“You might be surprised to learn, Geiszler, that our key mission here is exactly that—to fight the Kaiju with something a little safer than a nuclear weapon. I can’t guarantee that we can get you a research mission immediately, but maybe if you scratch our backs for a while we’ll let you turn around and scratch yours.”

Newton winced a little at that image.

“I think you’re going to be a great addition to our little team, Geiszler,” Schoenfeld continued, unperturbed. “When you see what we’re doing here, I know you’ll be very excited.”

June 2014

 “Listen up,” Dr. Schoenfeld said into his microphone.

They were seated around a long, rectangular table, and Schoenfeld and Lightcap had both been fitted with small microphones so that all those seated could hear them clearly.

Hermann was glad for it, because he had chosen a seat at the far end of the table. Newton had come in late, in a pair of tight dark pants and a wrinkled white shirt, minus the suit jacket he had been in a few weeks ago. He had sat directly across from Hermann.

They had yet to speak to each other.

“I am pleased to tell you that out of all the candidates, you twelve have been selected for the program,” Schoenfeld started again. “Now, I’m going to tell you all the truth, because you deserve it. We have yet to run the entire Jaeger program by the PPDC. We have a few kinks to work out before we present the entire project, and we’ll need all of you to iron out those kinks.”

“The technology we are working with is highly experimental,” Lightcap chimed in. “It will be a few months before we can present our research and gain the funding we need, but until then we will work hard to have all the technology developed so that we can get the ‘yes’ we’re looking for at the conference.”

A young woman at the front of the table raised her hand. “And when is this conference to be held?” She asked, her accent thick.

Lightcap and Schoenfeld shared a look. “Less than five months from now.”

Shocked murmurs broke out among the scientists. “And what exactly are we supposed to be designing?” A voice Hermann recognized rang out. He looked over to see Newton with his hand slightly raised, peering questioningly at their superiors.

Schoenfeld bristled, but Dr. Lightcap looked please. “I’m glad you asked,” she said. “Our hope is to create an enormous fighting system, capable of taking down Kaiju. We will be working with experimental technology to create a mindmeld for the pilots and these machines.”

“Wait, what machines are these?” A man with an upturned nose asked, leaning forward gracelessly from his chair.

“The Jaegers,” Schoenfeld spoke loudly into his mic. “German for ‘Hunters’. We will be building giant robots, piloted by someone trained specifically to fight using it.”

There was a shocked silence.

“And we need to build one of those in five months?”

“No, of course not,” Schoenfeld said. “We must design the mindmeld technology first.”

“They keep saying that,” Newton leaned over the table, whispering to Hermann. “I don’t think even they know what that means.”

Hermann nodded, but he was intrigued. From a mathematical standpoint, it would never work—melding man and machine together into one entity. But his physics background told a different story.

All in all, Hermann was excited to get started.

“We’ll spend the next few minutes getting to know each other,” Caitlin Lightcap was saying. “You’ll be working with each other closely, so I expect great things from your collaboration.”

It seemed like she was staring all the way down at their end of the table, Hermann thought. He frowned and looked over at Newton, who was picking at the inked edge of the tattoo on his wrist.

“We’ll start over here. Dr.—?”

---

“Are you not a Doctor?” Hermann asked Newton, catching the man by the arm as they left the conference room.

Newton looked surprised by the question. “Of course I am,” he bit out, eyes growing dark.

“Then why don’t you introduce yourself as such?”

“I—”

“When we first met, you gave me your name, but not your title. And in there, you only said your name. I know you worked hard for your title, so why don’t you use it?” Hermann smiled coldly. “You should take more pride in your work, Dr. Geiszler.”

Those dark eyes flashed again, and Hermann felt his smile mold into something different.

“Change of subject, then. Why the interest in Kaiju, Dr. Geiszler?”

“You can just call me Newton,” the man said quickly, almost as though it were reflex. Newton wasn’t about to take Hermann’s advice, it appeared—most likely would not take advice from anyone here. This was a man who knew how his own mind worked and who wasn’t about to let the world change it.

“I might ask you the same thing,” Newton was saying, and Hermann frowned.

“You might, but I wouldn’t have an answer. And I doubt you would, either.”

Newton mirrored his frown, and they stared at each other in silence for a moment, sizing the other up.

“I have ideas,” Newton said finally, his voice soft, his eyes wild.

“I do too,” Hermann replied, his smile growing cold and his voice harsh. “I’d like to think mine are better.”

Their grins were matched now, inches apart from each other.

“I’d like to see you try.”

---

November 2014

Their rivalry was short lasted as they found that working in a group effort made it harder for them to push their own ideas at each other. Too many people got in their way; too often they were working on the same project, striving for the same goal, pooling their efforts only to have those pushed aside when someone with more money offered up their own suggestion and provided the funding for everything.

Even more often, they were isolated in separate projects.

Despite the tension buzzing low beneath the surface of their relationship, they felt a kinship growing between them as well. They were their own island here, surrounded by Ivy Leaguers with numbers on the ends of their names. They had bitter conversations in German about their colleagues, spoken in their own corner of the lab or the cafeteria.

There were times when Newton overheard a comment about Hermann’s leg, and he would spit out something even more foul and accompany it with a punch just as often. Their colleagues learned to bite their tongues.

Newton didn’t. His temper and attitude became the new talk of the think-tank, and people like Schoenfeld considered throwing him out. In the end, it was Dr. Lightcap who saved him, and when rumors of the near-expulsion circulated to the labs, it was Hermann who forced Newton to change his attitude before Schoenfeld decided not to listen to Lightcap anymore.

Newton dialed his temper down around others, but when he was with Hermann, the fires still licked out from his tongue, and the two of them would hiss barbs at the other and then share an amicable meal five minutes later.

It was all very confusing for everyone, except the two involved. No one knew whether that day would be a good day or a bad one for Newton and Hermann, Hermann and Newton, but they knew to keep their distance all the same.

---

It was a long and hard journey to get the Jaeger tech developed. Every time there was a Kaiju attack, it was a bitter reminder to the scientists that the fate of humanity hinged on their research. For weeks after an attack, everyone would work at breakneck speed on their project until it was completed.

Newton was a different story.

“For God’s sake, Newton, Dr. Lightcap has been looking for you since noon! What are you doing here, holed up in your room like some kind of hermit?”

“Hermann, Hermann come look at this,” Newton ushered him over, his eyes smudged dark with lack of sleep. “I had an idea about the Kaiju, right? Once I get my hands on some pieces of them, I think I can use this to get out their DNA. I used the same kind of technology that’s used in—”

“What is it?” Hermann interrupted with a long sigh. This wasn’t the first time he had found the other man like this, fingers red from tapping wires together or tightening screws with his fingernails. The man really was a mad scientist when it came to tinkering with junk.

Not a mad scientist, Hermann, a rockstar!

“We know there’s something in their blood that’s toxic to us, so if I could use this to, I don’t know, milk the blood out I can maybe understand more about them!”

Newton turned to him, his expression serious. “Isn’t that what we’re trying to do, Hermann? Find more about them? Find their weaknesses? The Jaegers are good, but they can’t win just by punching until the Kaiju drops. We need to know more.”

Hermann knew he was right; of course this goddamn madman was right. “We have a job to finish first,” he said instead, because he believed that too.

“I’m calling it the Milking Machine,” Newton said, ignoring him.

Hermann sighed.  “That’s idiotic.”

“Your face is idiotic.”

“That doesn’t even make sense!” Hermann let out a frustrated grumble. “Why are you so childish?”

He didn’t have to look back to know that Newton was no doubt imitating him. “Those are live wires,” he added, before shutting the door. “Don’t fry anything you might need.”

---

January 2015

01.30.15. 1:09 PM  Are you alright?

01.30.15. 1:17 PM  Yeah.

01.30.15. 1:18 PM What happened?

---

Hermann was in the labs at the time. He had been fiddling around on his laptop, running a new program in some forgotten part of the crisp white labs.

The alarms began to sound a second before an earth-shattering crash shook the compound. Hermann tried to remember what could have caused it, could only think of one thing—today had been the test day for the Jaeger machine Yukon.

Immediately, he whipped out his phone and sent a quick message to Newton. He vaguely remembered the other man saying something about going to the testing sight today. Newton was fascinated with the huge metal machines, almost as fascinated as he was with the monsters they were meant to fight.

There was no reply for nearly eight minutes. Hermann sat in silence, nervously jostling his good leg. The alarms had been replaced by sirens—he knew he should leave, was just about to leave, when Newton replied to his message.

Hermann couldn’t explain the sharp breath of relief that rattled out of his lungs, but he knew that something was still wrong. Aching all over from nerves and something else, he lifted himself out of the chair and hurried as fast as he could down the hall.

“Newton!” He called when he saw the smaller man hurrying down the hall towards him.

“Hermann?” Newton sounded like he was just coming in to focus, his voice small and shocked. When he got closer, Hermann saw that his eyes were blown bright, and his breathing was shallow, and Hermann knew that something was not right.

“Tell me what happened,” he said, his voice commanding. Newton started, avoiding his eyes.

“Caitlin’s experiment—it’s not ready yet. The Jaeger is too powerful for one person.”

“What happened to the Yukon?”

Newton shook his head and set his jaw. He lifted his head up to meet Hermann’s eyes. “It crashed.”

“And the pilot?”

“Why do you think it crashed?” Newton hesitated. “They think it was a seizure. Probably caused by the machine—by our machine. Because it was too much—too much strain, or something.”

Hermann leaned heavily against his cane. “Christ,” he murmured. “But you’re alright?”

Newton bristled. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Doctor Gottlieb,” someone said at the end of the hallway. Hermann turned and saw one of the other mathematicians that worked with him in the labs sometimes. He waved to her and turned back to Newton, but the other man had already snuck past him and was no doubt making his way to his room.

Hermann let it go. He knew how stubborn the Newton was, how much he thought he had something to prove to the world. He wasn’t about to push buttons when he already knew exactly how Newton would react.

“Vanessa, right?” Hermann asked, approaching the woman.

“Yes,” she answered, and he detected a French lilt to her voice. She was very beautiful, he observed, feeling the color fill his cheeks.

“What was it that you needed?” He asked, and she motioned for him to follow.

---

May 2015

“So they’re sending you away?”

“They’re sending us away,” Hermann corrected, shifting awkwardly in the middle of the floor of Newton’s room. The room was startlingly bereft of chairs, and brimming with bits of metal and wires, and Hermann felt very offended by the mess and more than a little at risk.

“Nah,” Newton said, fiddling with the assortment of junk on his worktable. “I’m not going.”

“It’s not negotiable.”

“It’s in Alaska,” Newton said, as though that were the end of things.

Hermann bristled. “It is the only way to enter the Jaeger program.”

“We’ve been working here for more than a year, why do we need to take a class on what we helped develop?”

Hermann sighed. “The higher ups need us to work with the Jaeger pilots, and we need to learn how the Jaeger suits work. Just because we know how the neural handshake was developed doesn’t mean we know everything about the mechanics of the suits.”

“What are they going to have us do, learn combat? Like that’s happening.”

He motioned with his screwdriver to Hermann’s leg. Hermann bristled.

“Well, I’m taking the class. And so should you.”

“Next time it comes around, maybe,” Newton said, fumbling with two wires on the machine.

“So you’re just going to stay here and work on your… your silly Milk Machine instead?”

“Milking, Milking Machine. And yes, because it is actually more useful than teaching scientists what they already know.”

“I leave tomorrow,” Hermann said, turning away from Newton and heading to the door. He knew that arguing with Newton while the man was in the middle of tinkering was like bashing his head against a steel wall.

“Well, I guess I won’t see you for a while, then,” Newton said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Don’t freeze to death there,” he added, just before Hermann closed the door.

The next morning, while Hermann was packing up his things, he registered a faint knocking on the door. When he opened it, he saw only an empty hallway, but just before he closed it again he looked down and saw a plain cardboard box. He hefted it up and into his room and used his letter opener to cut through the shipping tape.

A note was on top. Inside was the largest, fluffiest coat he’d ever seen. He sighed when he saw the fur trimmed hood and packed it back in the box.

It was meant to be an apology, he knew, but one he could not accept. Newton was too brash, too hurtful, and any friendship with the other man would always end in disaster—they both knew this, felt it every time they were together.

Hermann knew he could be hurtful too, of course.

It would be a full year before they met again.

---

December 2015

Newton watched his colleagues leave for the Jaeger academy one by one. It was only a year long course, but many of the scientists were just as reluctant as Newton to leave their research unsupervised for that long.

There was no way in hell that Newton was leaving his work. He remained on, tinkering in his workspace, while the other scientists caved and went to train at the Jaeger Academy.

Newton and a few other scientists were there to see Romeo Blue launched from their compound, Lightcap and Schoenfeld looking on at their creation fondly.

 Stacker Pentecost returned to their compound that month, as well. Newton remembered seeing Pentecost strut the halls in those early months of testing Lightcap’s designs. The man had suffered under her hands, and yet he still upheld and fought for the Jaeger program against those in the PPDC who had yet to see its merit.

All they saw were monsters. In Stacker Pentecost’s mind, this was a way to fight monsters.

The rest of the world seemed to see it this way too, and as Jaeger after Jaeger was churned out all across the globe, taking down Kaiju whenever they appeared, the people became enthralled with the Jaeger pilots.

“Isn’t that just the way it always is,” Caitlin said to Newt one day, when they were alone in the labs. Her hair was a mess, her goggles askew, and Newton would never admit that he was more than a little attracted to her in that moment.

“You’re one to talk,” he chimed back, and he stared at the edges of ink around his wrists, the beginnings of a work of art he wasn’t sure would ever be finished now. “You’re going to pilot one of those things one day.”

Caitlin sighed, a little dreamily. “I already have,” she murmured conspiratorially to Newton, leaning close to him over the table they were sharing. “I found someone drift compatible with me,” she continued. “Let me tell you, Newt, it is like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. You see everything in the other person’s brain, every memory they’ve ever had at once, and you see yourself through their eyes. It’s astonishing.”

“It sounds like Hell,” Newton said, quirking his lip up when she frowned at him.

“You’re joking,” she said with a laugh.

“Yeah,” Newt lied.

Somewhere in the back of his brain, though, he memorized this moment, and the tiniest inkling of an idea came to him.

---

January 2016

“You,” a voice rang out through the hall Newton was walking down. He spun on his heel and found himself facing down Stacker Pentecost, in all his uniformed glory.

“Uh, hi,” Newton said. “Sir,” he added on for good measure.

“What’s your name?”

“Dr. Newton Geiszler,” he answered, tacking on the title, reminded suddenly of Hermann. “But everyone calls me—”

“Newt, I know,” Pentecost looked disapproving. “What do they have you doing here?”

Newt tried to keep the scowl off his face, he really did. “I’m a lab technician.”

“And that’s not what you’d like to be doing?”

“I’d rather be doing research out in the field. Sir.”

Pentecost raised an eyebrow at that. “Have you gone to the Jaeger Academy?”

“I—” Newton bit his lip. “Not yet, sir.”

Pentecost lifted his chin at that and made a humming noise. “I’d get on that, if I were you. The PPDC is only looking at candidates who have trained there.”

“Candidates, sir?”

“We need people like you to work our Jaeger missions. Jaeger pilots aren’t the only ones taking down Kaiju; they need people to monitor vitals, look at maps—and clear out the sites once the Kaiju has been defeated. I know the underground of Kaiju removal does their job very well, but I’m sure they leave a few parts behind that the most eager of scientists can get to.”

“I—yes, sir,” Newton said, his eyes growing starry at the thought of getting his hands on real parts of Kaiju.

“Promise me you’ll think about the Academy?”

Newton thought about it for a second, thought about it for another second, and then nodded.

“I’ll get right on it, sir,” he said, putting his hand up in an awkward salute before sprinting back down in the direction he had come from.

He thought he heard Pentecost’s throaty chuckle float behind him, but he might have imagined that in his excitement.

---

May 2016

“You hear about Tokyo yet?” Tendo whispered darkly to his roommate, flicking one of the earbuds out of Newton’s ear. Newton startled and pushed Tendo out of the way.

“No, what happened,” he asked in a rush, pulling over his computer and accessing the latest news recording. They watched the broadcast in silence, the footage of the enormous Kaiju named Onibaba devastating the city’s streets, and an iconic clip of a lone girl in a blue coat standing in front of Coyote Tango, and who else but Stacker Pentecost emerging from the Jaeger.

“They’re calling her the Survivor,” Tendo explained. “And as for Pentecost, well…”

“He flew solo?” Newton exclaimed, catching up on the broadcast. “That’s impossible—”

“Obviously not,” Tendo chimed in. “He’s bringing her here, you know.”

“Huh?”

“Pentecost. He’s adopted the girl. He’s bringing her to Alaska.”

“Oh. But not the Academy, right?”

“The Anchorage Shatterdome. Word is he won’t be there long.”

Newton chewed on his lip as he watched the giant Kaiju slink through the skyscrapers. His forearm itched.

“This is torture.”

“It is hard to watch,” Tendo looked old around the eyes, even though he was younger than Newton. Newt bit back his comment, remembering that Tendo had lost his grandfather in the attack on San Francisco, the same attack that Newton had tried so desperately to be in the middle of.

“Yeah,” he agreed, thinking no, that’s not what I meant. How am I supposed to stay here when I know they’re out there, and I haven’t even seen one up close yet.

“But hey,” Tendo said. “It’s only our first month here, maybe our classes will get more exciting. And soon we’ll be out and ready to fight these bastards. I think I’m gonna stay in Alaska,” Tendo added with a grin.

“You’re joking, right?” Newton laughed, shivering even as he thought about the thick flurries no doubt raining from the sky outside.

“Sure,” Tendo said, and they fell silent as the news anchor continued her broadcast in Japanese, her tone solemn and mournful.

---

Newton had been right in his assessment of the Jaeger Academy. Hermann had completed his course six months ago, and all of the information had been bland, and at one point Hermann had been expected to take a test on a system that he had designed.

Still, he had graduated, and he had been waiting for his assignment to one of the Shatterdomes across the globe when the Kaiju Onibaba made land in Tokyo.

It seemed that, in the confusion the PPDC had experienced in trying to get their newest graduates set up anywhere but Tokyo, Hermann’s assignment had been lost in the mail. And instead of accepting any of his phone calls, the PPDC had insisted that he should return to the Academy and receive his assignment there.

“I think there’s been a mistake,” one of the men in the office said, taking his resume. “The PPDC phoned and said you were to be assigned here, working with some of the recent science applicants and showing them the works.”

“What.” Hermann said, his voice dangerously tight.

“Well, many of our officers have been dispatched to Tokyo at the moment, and we need—”

“You’re asking me to be a substitute teacher?” Hermann asked, a manic laugh catching in his throat. The man behind the desk looked frightened.

“I… yes?”

Hermann let out a frustrated sigh. “Very well. I suppose I should head down to the K-Science labs and get started then, shall I?”

“Please?” The man asked, eyes blown wide, hands thrown up as though he thought that would protect himself. Hermann shook his head and left the office.

---

His knee ached the way it did before a storm as he made his way down the hallways he thought he would never have to see again, to one of the K-Science classrooms. He turned the handle, stepped inside…

…and came face to face with Dr. Newton Geiszler.

Hermann froze, remembering their tense farewell a year ago.

“Hermann,” Newton said, surprise tingeing his voice.

It’s Doctor Gottlieb, to you. “It’s Dr. Gottlieb,” Hermann corrected. “Dr. Geiszler.”

“Newt,” a man next to Newton said. “Who is this?”

“Tendo, this is Hermann,” Newton said, eyes brimming with a challenge. “Hermann, this is Tendo Choi, control officer extraordinaire.”

Newton really hadn’t changed at all, was all Hermann could think. He still had terrible taste in clothing appropriate for the setting, and Hermann could also see that he still hadn’t filled in any more of the design on his arms.

Newton seemed to follow his gaze down and crossed his arms, showing off the bare spots like he was proud of them.

“What are you doing here?” He asked.

“I could ask the same to you,” Hermann said. “I remember you calling the Academy a pointless waste of time and energy.”

I remember you mocking me, went unspoken.

“Ah, so you got that spiel too?” The man, Tendo, said with a laugh. “I don’t think there’s anyone on this island who hasn’t heard Newton rant about that.”

His gaze shifted curiously between the two of them. “How do you two know each other?”

“We met through the Jaeger program,” was all Hermann could think to say. He shifted his weight and felt the pressure grow in his leg—he had been folded awkwardly on a small plane all day and was starting to feel it.

“And you’ve gone through the Academy?” Tendo asked, motioning to one of the desks. Hermann took a seat gratefully.

“Last year,” he said. “They asked me to come back and teach.”

Newton laughed, suddenly and sharply. It took a moment before Hermann realized he wasn’t laughing at him. “Doesn’t that figure,” Newton was saying. “They teach us the things we teach them, and then they expect us to teach them to other people who already know everything!”

“I’m not sure that made sense,” Tendo said.

“On the contrary,” Hermann said, clearly surprising them both. “It makes perfect sense. I expected to be out in one of the many Shatterdomes opening up around the world now, but after Tokyo, it seems like everyone has gotten scared.”

“Only the higher ups are the ones running scared,” Newton said fiercely. “Haven’t you seen the news? People are treating the Jaegers like rockstars. The PPDC thinks they’ve created monsters, though.”

“Monsters fighting monsters,” Tendo scoffed. “You have to admit, that’s pretty much the gist of it.”

“It’s not,” Newton said. “The Kaiju are monstrous, but they’re not monsters.”

Hermann rolled his eyes. “Most people would defend the Jaegers as such.”

“I’m not defending the Kaiju,” Newton said bitterly. “There’s something we don’t understand about them. They came from somewhere—they didn’t just pop into existence one day.”

“The Breach—”Tendo started.

“The Breach leads to somewhere. Whatever the Kaiju are, they didn’t come from the center of the Earth. Well, they did, but that’s only what they came through.”

Newton scoffed. “If only I was out there, instead of stuck in this claustrophobic classroom!”

“I bet that’s how you felt about high school, right?” Tendo laughed.

Hermann felt like laughing too, but couldn’t quash the feeling that Newton was right for once.

---

Tendo excused himself halfway through Newton’s next rant, saying that he had a class to go to. Newton stared miserably at him as he left, before finally turning back to Hermann.

“You kept the coat,” Newton started, and Hermann refused to blush under his curious gaze.

“I did. It was cold in Alaska, and I lost my coat when I first got here.” He hesitated. “It’s a good coat. Comfortable.”

Newton sniffed. “It looks good on you.”

They were silent for a moment.

“Listen,” he started, circulating his hands in wringing motions. “I know I was an ass, but I did apologize.”

“You never actually apologized to my face,” Hermann responded, suddenly not in the mood.

“Oh yeah? Well you never actually thanked me for my… apology.”

“Because it wasn’t an apology. I accepted it as a farewell, not an apology.”

“Yeah, well, I meant it. As an apology. I shouldn’t have said what I did. So I’m forgiven, right? You can stop acting like I sicced a Kaiju on your dog?”

“I’m not familiar with that phrase,” Hermann said, pulling his lip up in a sneer. “But I will accept your apology, for the sake of an easy stay here until I’m reassigned.”

A loud noise in his pocket indicated that he had a message coming in.

He read it over with a smile. It was just a simple message from Vanessa, wishing him luck with his reassignment. He hesitated to tell her just how that had worked out.

“What’s that, a message from your girlfriend?” Newton joked, interrupting Hermann’s good humor. Hermann sighed.

“Maybe,” was his answer, and he got up to walk away before he saw Newton’s expression shift.

---

September 2016

Newton strolled past the litany of Jaeger propaganda posters that the PPDC had started filtering out to the streets of large cities, looking for a bar that was open this late.

Anchorage wasn't much for nightlife, but ever since Hermann's arrival, the academy had been way too stifling. Hermann may have accepted Newton’s apology, but he had not had a conversation with him since that did not end in hurt feelings.

When they were not trading barbs, Hermann had been roaming the halls with a stupid grin on his face, and Newton had caught him with a bright blush in his face, staring stupidly at his phone more than once. It was all so... stupid.

Two more months, he thought, one of the posters catching his eye. It was for the new production of an American Jaeger, Gipsy Danger. Newton knew that the Jaeger academy was starting to look for pilot candidates, but the Jaeger had not even made it past the design stage yet. Jaegers saved more lives than those just threatened by Kaiju... the new market had created job openings, too, a fact that the PPDC was milking for all it's worth.

Maybe if he had been a pilot, he could see a Kaiju up close. Newton shook that thought out of his head immediately. He could do so much more good with his research, if he could ever get out here to start it.

Sighing, Newton made his way into the bar to get very, very drunk.

---

December 2016

You can't do this to me," he said, throwing his arms out. "You can't let them send me to Hong Kong. I'll be a technician there, nothing more— they'll never let me get my hands on a Kaiju, and they'll certainly never let me see one up close!”

"Technicians are needed there," Hermann said, as though that explained everything. "I didn't get the assignment I wanted after Academy, so what made you think you would?"

"Because my research is actually useful," Newton said. "If they ever let me complete it, that is."

"There are people in Hong Kong that will help you if you just do your time," Hermann said. "You have to give back to the PPDC before they let you get what you want."

Newton noticed Hermann's clenched jaw and scoffed. "Don't try to convince me of something you don't even believe yourself," he said. "This doesn't work that way. I don't need to listen to you, we're not friends. I was just trying to see if you could recommend me for somewhere else but obviously you can't even do that."

"I may not believe that everything the PPDC does is correct," Hermann started, placing his hand down heavily on the desk. "But I do think Hong Kong is the right place for you. You are dangerous, Dr. Geiszler, and so is your research. I will not compromise the Jaeger program just so you can go get yourself killed by a Kaiju."

Newton sniffed. He was shaking with anger now, but he would not back down. "They're keeping you here, you know." He said. "You’re just a handy substitute teacher for them, someone who will train their Jaeger pilots and researchers to go out and do great things while you stay stuck here, while your research remains confined to those chalkboards behind you." Newton slunk closer, his breathing ragged, eyes focused on the tiny red vein struggling against Hermann's neck.

"But I know better," he said finally. "I know you're capable of more, and I thought you knew what I was capable of too. Don't tell me I overestimated you, Hermann, and don't tell me that I'll only be of use as a technician, because I sure as hell know that you're more than just a teacher."

Hermann stayed silent for a moment. "I will not write a recommendation," he said. "But I can talk to Vanessa. She works with the head officers, she could probably reassign you--"

Newton let out a short bark of a laugh. "Vanessa? You'd go to your girlfriend for help but you won't help me out yourself?" He shook his head, irrational sadness bubbling inside his chest. "Forget it," he said. "I'll find my own way out of Hong Kong. I don't need you, and I don't need... Vanessa to prove my worth for me."

"I was only trying to help—” Hermann sighed. "I forgot what an irrational creature you were."

"I may be irrational," Newton said, turning to leave. "But at least I'm not blind."

---

2017

It was only after Gipsy Danger took down Yamarashi that Newton knew what he should fill in his sleeves with. He started with his left arm, and had the tattoo artist fill in the giant Kaiju with green and brown ink.

When he got home, he stared at the red flush of his pricked skin, the ink pooling into the swirls that made up the Kaiju. He was in love.

But the rest of him felt bare, incomplete almost. He thought of what else he could do, and then it hit him.

---

2019

He would collect them, over the years, working his way to a full body tattoo, inking himself until he felt that he was truly half man, half kaiju, until his allegiances were questioned even more by anyone who caught a glimpse of the colorful swirls of ink.

Which gave him an idea, of course, the same inkling of an idea that had been festering in his mind since the first time he had heard Caitlin Lightcap explain the Drift to him in a hushed conversation over frayed wires on a lab table.

He worked on this idea, and he worked, and all the while he heard Hermann’s voice in the back of his head:

This is never going to work.

2020

Hermann and Vanessa had settled into a quiet relationship for the past three years. Hermann had thought everything had been going well; sure, she had to fly back to DC every so often to meet with the PPDC officers, and he was stuck going back to Alaska every few months to teach the next batch of Jaeger Academy rangers, but life was good.

Or, so he had thought. That was until Vanessa had come back from DC one day, walked into their London apartment, and had started sighing. Not crying, not yelling, just a small sigh every now and then.

It made Hermann worried.

“What’s the matter?” He asked her, pouring her a cup of tea. She was still in her raincoat, her umbrella left open right beside the door.

“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” she said. Hermann froze.

“What?”

“I think we may need to take a break.”

Hermann felt his heart beat go slow. “Is it… is it something I did? Is it…” he didn’t want to say it out loud.

Vanessa shook her head, her eyes growing soft. “It’s nothing you did, it was unavoidable. I… I just don’t know how to compete with you.”

Hermann was confused. “What do you mean? You’re brilliant—”

Vanessa laughed quietly. “I don’t mean intellectually, darling.” She leaned in, resting her hands around the warm mug. “Because don’t think I don’t have you beat there. What I mean is that I can’t give you what you want.”

“And that is?”

“You want a challenge. You don’t want safe, and you don’t want me. You want messy arguments that end in messier sex. I see it in your eyes.”

Hermann blushed. “I most certainly do not. I want you, Vanessa.”

She smiled. “I almost believe you, but not quite. You’re already starting to rise to even the slightest challenge I give you, and I can’t live like that. I can’t fight you on a daily basis, and I don’t want this to go any further if we’re just going to end up bitter and hateful at the end of it.”

She took his hand. “I love you, and I know the person you’re looking for is out there, but I’m not them.”

Hermann felt lost, felt upset, but deep in the back of his mind, he knew she was right. She was always right.

Vanessa left within the week, packing her things and leaving him her new address in DC, in case he ever needed her for anything.

Hermann was left to dawdle around his apartment alone, and for the first time in years, he caught himself wondering what Newton was up to these days.

---

2022

To N. Geiszler. 01.30.2022

I got your message address from Tendo. I hope this is okay.

To H. Gottlieb. 02.01.2022

It’s really not.

---

To N. Geiszler. 02.20.2023

Tendo told me about your research position. I’m glad.

To H. Gottlieb. 02.20.2023

Tendo told me about Vanessa. I’m sorry.

To N. Geiszler. 02.20.2023

That? That is in the past.

And why are you up at 3 AM?

To H. Gottlieb. 02.20.2023

it seems like everything is in the past now.

how did you know?

To N. Geiszler. 02.20.2023

That does seem to be the way the past works. And I am capable of keeping track of basic time differences. I am a mathematician.

You still haven't answered my question.

To H. Gottlieb. 02.20.2023

I've been working on something...

---

To H. Gottlieb. 03.14.2023

shit shit shit

To N. Geiszler. 03.14.2023

Is there a hidden meaning in this?

To H. Gottlieb. 03.14.2023

ppdc cutting all our $$. pissed at everything. shit cant even buy kaiju bits now

To N. Geiszler. 03.15.2023

You are still the same strange man you always were, aren’t you?

To H. Gottlieb. 03.15.2023

Tendo says I dress better now.

---

To H. Gottlieb. 04.01.2023

god, this wall is stupid do they really think its going to hold back a kaiju

To N. Geiszler. 04.02.2023

My father seems to think it will. It’s a point of contention in the family.

To H. Gottlieb. 04.02.2023

sorrry. foot in mouth disease, don’t blmae me for shit i say.

To N. Geiszler. 04.02.2023

I never did.

---

October 2024

Hermann received the phone call at 5 AM his time. He awoke in a frantic daze and rushed to silence his phone.

Five minutes later, it started to beep again. He answered it this time, prepared to give a harsh tongue wagging to whoever was on the other end, only to hear Newton’s voice breathe out one ragged word.

“Alaska.”

Hermann racked his brain for what on earth Newton could be talking about, and gave up. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“They’re shutting down the Anchorage Shatterdome.”

Hermann felt a chill go through his body.

“It’s gonna be a goddamn epidemic,” Newton was saying. “They’re gonna shut us all down. Lima’s going next, I know it, and Tendo knows it. The PPDC are trying to rattle Pentecost, he’s the only one with any sense around here—”

“Newton,” Hermann interrupted. He took a deep breath. “I know already. I’m going to be moved, I didn’t think anything of it until now—”

“Well, where are you going?” Newton said. “I swear, if you go anywhere that I’m going to have to pay even more to cover my messaging bills, I will stop speaking to you.”

“Hong Kong,” Hermann said, and he felt an unmistakable trill of pleasure run down his spine at Newton’s sharp intake of breath. “I’m moving to Hong Kong.”

“Fuck yes,” was all Newton said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Hermann bit out, blushing at the other man’s excitement. “I’m sure I’m going to hate it there.”

---

December 2024

"I... God," Hermann stuttered, coming to a stop in the doorway. Nearly three months sharing a workspace with this man, and this was the first time he’d ever walked in on a sight like this.

"Oh, Hermann," Newton said with a laugh. "You would not believe how hard it is to get Kaiju guts out of white shirts."

"That's..." Hermann was at a loss for words. Newton's entire chest was tattooed, a wild blend of colors and swirled lines, monstrous Kaiju faces peering out at Hermann from Newton’s very skin.

"Disgusting, I know. Don't worry though, none of it got on your side of the room." He looked up from where he had been mopping up blue viscera with his ruined shirt and met Hermann's gaze, followed it down to his chest. "Oh... yeah."

"Yeah," Hermann said, lifting his gaze up and blushing. "You finished it."

"Yeah," Newton said, his mouth slack and his face red. "It's kind of..."

"It looks good," Hermann added, before sidling over to his side of the room. "And you'd better make sure none of that blue gunk got on my side, Newton, or there will be hell to pay. I swear, if one of my equations was smudged—"

"I already told you that I didn't touch any of your precious holy number lines," Newton snapped back, and the tension in the air shifted.

"That sentence doesn't make any sense--"

"Oh yeah, Hermann? Well—"

"I've told you before, it's Doctor—”

---

January 2025

“They’re coming today, Hermann, they’re here!” Newton rushed around his side of their workspace excitedly.

“No one should be this excited about dead monster bits,” Hermann grumbled.

“Not dead, Hermann, oh no. I should have a live Kaiju brain coming in! I can’t wait!”

“This is unnerving me. I suppose I should be glad that you’re giving up on electrocuting yourself on whatever it is you’ve been working on,” he said, pulling on his coat. Newton took a break from peering down the hall for whoever was going to tell him the shipment had arrived to watch him do so. Hermann blushed when Newton raised an eyebrow at Hermann’s choice of coat.

“You still have it?” He asked, his voice calmer than it had been for the past few hours.

“I do. It’s still very… comfortable.”

“It still looks good on you,” Newton said with a grin. Look at us, went unsaid. Look where we’ve come from.

“Are we going to go out for your damn monster bits or what?” Hermann asked, growing uncomfortable in the silence. Newton smiled wildly and nodded.

“Here comes the guy now.”

They strolled out onto the launch pad, the thwack thwack thwack of helicopter blades ringing in their ears. Despite the fact that Newton was buzzing with excitement, he remained only one step ahead of Hermann at all times, sometimes falling back to his side to throw in a comment or two.

“There’s a lot more helicopters than I expected,” Newton was saying. “Do you think they brought me even more Kaiju parts?”

“It must be something more important, I doubt they would do that for you,” Hermann bit out, and he was glad when Newton rose to the occasion and threw out an edged comment in return.

Hermann felt the cool air whip the fur hood around his face, and he watched Newton wave his arms angrily back at him, asking him to please help organize the crates instead of standing there disparaging his research. And suddenly, Hermann could not help but agree with Newt—an occurrence that was becoming more and more frequent, to his dismay.

Look at us now, indeed.

---

The Beginning

It all happened so fast, so quickly that neither really realized what was happening until it was over. All of a sudden, their entire world changed—much like it had all those years ago, in San Francisco. Like it had when they had met in DC. When they had met in Alaska, when they had met in Hong Kong.

There would be no more Kaiju to deal with. But they still had each other.

“I can’t believe we did it,” Newton laughed nervously, his mouth inches from Hermann’s. The crowd around them shifted and cheered, a mass of ecstatically happy people.

“I can,” Hermann said, lowering his voice. “I’ve always known we’d do great things together Newton. Once you got over your inflated sense of ego.”

“My ego’s only ever been as large as yours, Hermann. Or do you still want me to refer to you as ‘Dr. Gottlieb’,” Newton sniped, pitching his voice in a mock British accent for Hermann’s title.

“No,” Hermann said, rolling his eyes. “I’ve given up.”

“Finally,” Newton said, and as his hand tightened around Hermann’s hand, the one gripping the cane, he leaned in even closer. “But I’m just getting started.”