Chapter Text
When the first monster rose from the ocean and attacked San Francisco, Jean Prouvaire was so high he didn’t realise what he was watching on the TV. Neither, in his defence, did Bossuet, who was equally stoned at the time. They’d been flicking through the channels, looking for something funny to watch, and they’d settled on a monster movie.
They didn’t actually realise until the next morning, when the footage they’d giggled over the night before was being replayed on every news program in the world, that they’d been laughing at the real destruction of San Francisco. Jehan cried for an hour, and Bossuet sat in uncharacteristic silence as the impossible monster shrugged off military attacks and roared at the world.
It was still going sixteen hours later when they finally fell asleep, and it was still going when they woke up.
“Where the fuck did it come from though?” Musichetta shouted over the noise in the bar. She didn’t even know the name of the guy she was talking to, but she didn’t care. “Everyone’s talking about mourning the dead, but who’s asking where it came from?”
“It came from the sea, didn’t you watch the news?” the guy shook his head.
Musichetta bared her teeth in derision. “That can’t be it! They can’t just throw their hands in the air and say ‘it came from the sea’ and expect us to stop asking!”
“Who’s they?” the guy yelled.
Musichetta sighed explosively and knocked back her shot. She was as ignorant about it as he was, but at least she was angry about it. At least she wanted to do something.
All most people seemed to want to do was strip the thing’s body. Musichetta turned her shot glass upside down on the bar and wondered how something that had been so intent on destruction had stayed hidden for so long.
For the first time in several years, Feuilly returned books to the library without having finished them, and proceeded to check out every single book on giant monsters he could find. That they were all in the sci-fi and fantasy sections didn’t bother him – he knew fiction contained just as many lessons as textbooks, if the reader’s mind was open to them.
None of it was particularly helpful. He attended a candlelit vigil for the people who had been killed in the attack, and was glad when no one asked him who he’d lost, this too-thin teenaged drop-out who hadn’t known any of the hundreds of dead personally, but still felt like he’d lost part of his family.
He returned the sci-fi books and checked out the ones he hadn’t had a chance to finish. Advanced mechanic theory might come in handy one day.
Azelma drew pictures of Trespasser at school and got in a fight with another classmate who tried to rip them up. No one came to collect her, so she sat in the front office with the secretary and drew more pictures while she waited for Éponine to come and pick her up.
Her teacher didn’t bother calling her parents – she knew by now that the Thénardiers wouldn’t care if their daughter dressed as a Kaiju and went rampaging through the playground. But she mentioned it to Éponine when she came to get Azelma at the end of the day, and Éponine told her sister that if she was going to draw monsters, she should at least draw the monsters losing.
Azelma drew pictures of Trespasser being killed by airplanes and tanks, and one of her better ones got put on the board in her classroom.
“Holy fuck.”
Every head in the lecture hall turned to him, and while Joly would usually be mortified by the attention, right now he hardly noticed.
“Excuse me?” their lecturer looked scandalised.
Joly gaped at her and then gestured to his phone. “My friend, he just –”
“I don’t care if it’s an emergency,” his lecturer interrupted, narrowing her eyes. “Leave the room and don’t come back until you learn some manners.”
“Another one of those monsters just attacked Manila,” Joly blurted, and her expression went instantly from furious to horrified.
Every student in the hall went for their own phones, and Joly stared in shock at the photo Courfeyrac had sent him as cries of confirmation rang out around him. The lecturer dismissed them after five minutes – it was clear that no one was going to be able to concentrate on learning the intricacies of metabolism now.
Enjolras drove to the coast with Combeferre and they sat on the edge of the cliff together, staring out at the ocean. “Let it out,” Combeferre muttered. “It’ll help.”
Because for the first time, fighting against issues like sweat shops and corrupt politicians looked laughably small. Faced with monsters larger than any creature seen before on Earth, what did their little petitions and meetings matter?
Enjolras wanted to break something. Smash and tear and destroy, because thousands of people had died the first time, and that had been horrible enough, but then it had happened again, and again, and today the fourth monster – Kaiju – had attacked Sydney. And he knew with a conviction he couldn’t explain that it would happen again, and more people were going to die. Innocent people, guilty people. Old, young, rich, poor, good, bad, and just plain ordinary – a mixture of everything. All killed by mindless nightmares that took days to bring down.
“Let it out,” Combeferre urged again, but Enjolras shook his head. He wanted to contain his fury and frustration, so that when he did get the chance to unleash it, it would be as potent as it was now. Combeferre sighed, and pulled his phone out when it pinged. “Breaking news,” he murmured, showing Enjolras the screen.
“The Pan Pacific Defence Corps,” he read, and, “what the hell is a Jaeger?”
Luc Javert had always been a light sleeper, so Cosette’s footsteps on the stairs had woken him instantly, and he’d followed her down less than a minute later. It would be a nightmare – she’d had several since Fantine’s death in San Francisco (the two of them had been on holiday), and more since the second Kaiju attack on Manila. Jean was away at a conference, so his goddaughter – their new adopted daughter – was his responsibility tonight.
“Cosette?”
She looked up with watery eyes from the sofa. He turned the light on as he went in and sat next to her gingerly – he’d never been as good with the emotional side of things as his husband. To his relief, however, she seemed content enough to sit in silence, and after a while he put his arm around her and relaxed.
It would be alright. As long as his family was safe, it would all be alright.
Marius left his grandfather’s apartment in a daze, so angry he could hardly see straight.
Fuck the old man and his incredulous laughter. Fuck him for daring to ridicule the PPDC. If he honestly thought humiliating Marius would convince him not to volunteer, then Marius didn’t want to be part of his life anymore. He’d help defend the world from the Kaiju or die trying.
“Hey, look at this!”
Éponine looked round at her little brother, then at the TV screen where a picture of what looked like a Transformer was being pointed to by a man in a white coat. “What is it?”
Gavroche grinned. “They’re going to make massive robots to fight the Kaiju!”
That got Azelma’s attention away from her phone, at least. She’d been obsessed with the Kaiju since the first one reared its ugly head out of the ocean. Éponine made her way over to where Gavroche was sitting, picking her way between the rubbish on the floor of their shared bedroom. Azelma followed her, and they sat together on the floor in front of the battered TV.
“The mechas will be specially reinforced to withstand the blows a Kaiju can land,” the man in the white coat said, “and will possess nuclear weapons designed to pierce even the thickest Kaiju armour.”
“They’re calling them Jaegers,” Gavroche whispered.
Jaeger. Éponine rolled the sound round her head and nodded, deciding she liked it. Downstairs, something smashed, and Azelma leaned forward to turn up the volume on the TV to drown out the sounds of their parents screaming at each other. It was second nature by now to tune them out.
Grantaire only agreed because Bahorel had insisted they do it together. After all, his friend declared, they were both excellent fighters in peak condition – exactly what the PPDC was looking for. Why shouldn’t they go for it?
Honestly, the real attraction for Grantaire was the insistence the program placed on sobriety, and he knew Bahorel had seen that too. God knew he needed all the help he could get – maybe the incentive of potentially getting to be a Jaeger pilot would give him that extra bit of resistance he sorely needed. And if not, he could probably stick around as an instructor. The pay would certainly be better than his current job as a kickboxing teacher at the local gym.
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” he muttered as he followed Bahorel into the hall. Their applications had been accepted – now they needed to pass the practical assessments.
Bahorel gave him a wide grin over his shoulder. “Don’t lie – this is the most exciting thing you’ve done all year.”
Grantaire’s lips twitched and Bahorel winked.
He was paired off with other candidates, then the officials, and finally a professional instructor. By the end he was exhausted, but quietly pleased with his performance. When he and Bahorel were both passed through to the next round, it was impossible not to feel elated, if only for a moment.
‘Drift compatible’. That was what they called it.
Combeferre nudged Enjolras, just the slightest press of his shoulder, and Enjolras smiled, the barest lift of his lips.
Some of the other trainees were already muttering the term to each other in the mess hall, in the dorms. Drift compatible. The Jaegers were too large to be piloted by just one person. Two were needed to share the strain.
“I don’t want anyone else in my head.” One of the men shook his head. “No way.”
“Pleased?” Combeferre asked under his breath.
Enjolras’ smile grew. “You know I am.”
Fewer potential pilots meant less competition, after all.
When the tests began, neither of them was surprised when their instructor declared them the first drift compatible pair in the program.
“Can you move it at all?” Joly asked from his position on the floor. He looked up at the man sitting on the edge of the gurney and prayed he wasn’t blushing.
The man – Laigle, his name was Laigle – shook his head with a grimace. “I’m fucked, aren’t I?”
Joly rocked back on his heels and sighed. No point sugar-coating it. “You’ve severely damaged the ligaments. Realistically speaking, even with intense physiotherapy, you’ll never be at optimum level again, and before it’s healed you’re going to have to be very careful with it.”
Laigle groaned. “Just my luck. I make it all the way through to the actual pilot program, and then I injure myself. What’re the odds?”
“Not that slim.” Joly rose to his feet and avoided Laigle’s eyes in favour of pretending to continue examining his knee. “You’d be surprised how many people push themselves too far and hurt themselves. We’ve sent several people home already with broken bones.”
“I can’t go home now.” Laigle’s face fell. “You’re not sending me home, are you?”
Sometimes Joly hated being a doctor. “I can’t recommend for you to be put back on the program,” he said apologetically. “You can’t even walk. And…well, they’ve got literally thousands of people breaking the doors down to be Jaeger pilots.”
Laigle sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. “My luck,” he muttered, laughing, and Joly was horrified at how thick his voice sounded. “Just my fucking luck.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said, knowing as he said it how inadequate his apologies were.
A knock on the door made him jump, and it opened before he could even open his mouth. A man with a kind face poked his head round the door and bit his lip when he saw Laigle. “Are you okay?” he asked, coming into the room and closing the door.
“Sorry, visitors aren’t actually allowed?” Joly said.
The man turned to him immediately and stuck his hand out. Joly shook it automatically, and the man grinned. “I’m Jehan. Bossuet’s my friend – I won’t be long, I promise, but this was the only time I could slip away.”
“Bossuet?” Joly frowned.
“A nickname,” Laigle sighed. Noticing his tone, Jehan left Joly and went to sit next to him on the gurney.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m out of the program,” Laigle – Bossuet? – whispered. “My knee’s too fucked up.”
“Ohhhh…” Jehan’s face was the picture of pained sympathy, and Joly couldn’t bring himself to ask him to leave. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”
Bossuet sniffed and leaned into him. “What am I going to do now? I don’t want to go…”
“What else can you do?” The words escaped Joly’s mouth before he had time to think about them, but he pretended it had been totally intentional when Bossuet looked at him.
“What do you mean?” Jehan asked.
“Well,” Joly cleared his throat self-consciously. “You’re obviously physically fit, but can you do anything else? What were you before this?”
“I…” Bossuet sat up a little straighter. “I was a programmer. A designer for Microsoft.”
Joly broke into a smile. “Were you good?”
“I was alright.”
“He was brilliant,” Jehan said firmly. “Why?”
“Because I happen to know that they’re looking for programmers and engineers to help build the Jaegers you want to pilot. I have a friend in the operations department – I could put a good word in for you if you really want to stay.”
“Are you serious?” Bossuet’s eyes were like saucers, and something fluttered in Joly’s stomach at his tone of voice.
“Sure,” he said, a little breathless. “I mean, it’s ideal, really – you wouldn’t aggravate your injury if you’re sitting at a desk all day. And you get to stay here.”
“Hug him for me,” Bossuet told Jehan, and Joly only had time to squeak before he was being squeezed around the middle, almost lifted off the floor.
“I take it that’s a yes?” he managed to say once he’d been released.
Bossuet’s grin was blinding. “Yes, and thank you.”
Jehan nudged him with a sly smile and shot Joly a look that was entirely too knowing. “And who said you had rotten luck?”
Éponine was going to be a Jaeger pilot. She was going to gain the power and prestige offered by the position and use it to get Azelma the job she wanted in the Shatterdome, and get Gavroche as far away from their parents as possible. She would become a Jaeger pilot, or die trying.
Unfortunately, at this point it was looking more and more likely that she would die trying than achieve those goals. She wasn’t drift compatible with anyone in her class of graduates, and she knew it was only a matter of time before they stopped letting her try. She’d only lasted this long because she’d proved her strength and her smarts again and again. She’d jumped through every hoop and ticked every box, but none of that would matter if she couldn’t find someone who would drift with her.
It was infuriating. It was terrifying.
She was running out of time.
“Set me up with anyone,” she begged Grantaire. “You teach everyone – you know the combinations that work.”
Grantaire sighed and gestured for her to do some press-ups. “I can’t tell till two people are in the ring.”
“There must…be someone…I haven’t…fought yet,” she huffed, the strain in her muscles pronounced. She’d been training practically non-stop for nine hours already today, and she was nowhere near done.
Grantaire hummed. “Butt down,” he said absently. “Back straight. There’s a class of new recruits coming in next week. I can get you into their first session with me as an observer, and we can see if anyone catches your eye.”
Éponine grinned. “R, you’re the best.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere.”
She would be a Jaeger pilot if she had to spar with every recruit from here to Timbuktu.
“Don’t tell me,” Courfeyrac told the head instructor. “See if I can guess.”
She snorted and waved an arm at the kwoon floor. “Go ahead.”
There were five pairs. As the third began sparring, Courfeyrac checked their names on the clipboard and then jerked his head at the instructor. “That’s them, right?”
“How’d you guess?” she muttered. They watched the pair on the floor weaving around each other. They weren’t as fast or as fancy as the first two pairs had been, and they didn’t look as strong or scrappy as the others either. But they’d been fighting for over three minutes now, and neither one had landed a blow on the other. Courfeyrac had watched literally hundreds of trainees spar in dozens of kwoons. None of them had known their opponents the way these two did.
“Drift compatible if ever I saw it,” he grinned.
“Next!” the instructor called, and the pair stopped, grinned at each other, and cleared the floor for the next pair. Courfeyrac watched the other trainees dutifully, but he knew he was only taking away two names that afternoon – Enjolras and Combeferre.
“This is Grantaire,” Bahorel introduced him to Jehan with a nod of his head. “R, this is Jehan. Apparently, we’re drift compatible.”
“That so?” Grantaire grinned and shook Jehan’s hand. “You got a Jaeger yet?”
Jehan shook his head and smiled. “They’re still building them. But we’re definitely in the front line.”
Bahorel caught Grantaire’s raised eyebrows after Jehan left – visiting a friend in operations, he said – and grinned. “So, whaddya think?”
“I’m surprised,” Grantaire said slowly. “He doesn’t exactly look like your type.”
Bahorel snorted. “We’re going to be co-pilots, not husbands. Besides, he’s cool. Great, actually.”
“Didn’t you only meet him a couple of days ago?”
“But I’ve already drifted with him,” Bahorel reminded him. They started walking to the east rec room, passing jumpsuited engineers, pilot trainees, and uniformed technicians on the way. A few gave Grantaire friendly nods – he was staff like them, after all – and several paused to congratulate Bahorel on finding a drift partner.
Bahorel waited for Grantaire to ask, but it didn’t happen till they were in the rec room. Of the four available in the facility, this was the only one where alcohol was prohibited. Grantaire had never been in any of the others, and Bahorel intended to keep it that way. But when they sat down, Grantaire finally asked. “What’s it like?”
Bahorel leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Difficult to explain,” he said. “It’s…yeah, really difficult to explain. It’s weird. Really weird. But not as uncomfortable as I’d expected, actually. I mean, Jehan and I fought in the kwoon the day before, and we exchanged basic info after they said we were compatible – he has two step-sisters, he used to be a sales assistant, he really likes poetry…yeah, yeah,” he grinned at the amused expression on Grantaire’s face. “I know what it sounds like.”
“Sounds like you’d never be friends with him in real life,” Grantaire smirked.
Bahorel snorted. “I know. But today we drifted, and…I don’t know everything about him – it’s not like that. You don’t put on the Pons and get a guided tour of their life story or anything. It’s more like impressions. I know what some poetry makes him feel now, and I know what makes him tick.”
“So?” Grantaire raised an eyebrow. “What makes him tick?”
“He wants to protect people,” Bahorel said simply. “I mean, he feels everything so much – super-empathetic, this guy, I mean, he cries all the time. But I can’t…I mean, I get why. He’s not whiny or self-indulgent – he just feels so sad for everyone whose life has been ruined by the Kaiju attacks. He wants to make it stop.”
“Damn. You getting in a Conn-Pod with Jean Prouvaire or Jesus Christ?”
Bahorel laughed and reached across the table to swat his shoulder. It was a mark of friendship that Grantaire let him. “He’s got flaws too. But they don’t matter so much, in the grand scheme of things.”
“I wonder what he saw in your head?” Grantaire mused.
“Plenty,” Bahorel shrugged. “It’s hard to be buttsore over letting someone in your head when you can see right back into theirs. You kind of…the first few seconds are crazy. Like the most intense mental storm you can think of, almost like a trip, but without the weird. You get this huge blast of exactly what’s in their head, and the only way you can get out is by letting it wash over you. And you come out on the other side knowing they’re in exactly the same situation as you, and you…I could actually feel him in my head. It wasn’t physical.” He gestured aimlessly, trying to explain in terms Grantaire would understand. “It wasn’t like he was a separate voice in my head or anything. He was just there. It’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
“You’re compatible though,” Grantaire said softly. “You’ve got a real partner now.”
Bahorel nodded, and they sat in silence for a minute or so. Everything was about to change. They’d been slogging it out for so long, for months, over a year, and now it was all going to be one big push towards the goal. And Bahorel would be up in the Conn-Pod with Jehan while Grantaire could only watch from the ground, and there was nothing either of them could do to change that now.
Fuel shortages since the last Kaiju had managed to hit an oilfield off the coast of Alaska meant that Jean was walking home today. “Any news?” he asked as he walked in. From his seat at the kitchen table, Luc wordlessly handed him a letter. The seal of the PPDC was stamped on it, and Jean’s heart sank. “She got in?”
“Of course.” Luc sounded about as pleased as he did. “I’ve been teaching her self-defence since she was a toddler. She’s always been a natural. They would’ve been idiots not to take her.”
Fantine’s daughter, their Cosette, headed off to war against monsters too big to comprehend. Jean pulled out the chair next to Luc and sat down slowly. “There’s no guarantee she’ll be a pilot,” he muttered. “How many built so far?”
“Five. And Japan, New Zealand, and Australia’s programs have confirmed pilots now.”
“God.” Jean dropped his head into his hand. “I hope she’ll be alright.”
“At least she wasn’t in the first wave,” Luc murmured, and Jean nodded. The thought of their angel exposed to deadly radiation was awful. But at least then, a treacherous part of him whispered, she might die with them, not killed by a Kaiju, so thoroughly destroyed they wouldn’t even have her body to bury.
Fantine had trusted them with her child. Jean wondered sometimes whether she had made the right decision.
“I feel like I should be piloting them,” Feuilly admitted to Musichetta in the Shatterdome hangar.
“I know what you mean,” she sighed, gazing across at the Jaegers. Liberty Blaze, Indigo Fury, and Typhoon Strike stared back, dark and empty.
“What do you think the real pilots will be like?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Cocky, probably. Macho boys playing with giant robots.”
Feuilly sighed and swung his legs where they dangled over the edge of the walkway. The pilots would arrive tomorrow and take centre stage. He wondered whether they would even think about who had designed the Jaegers; who had engineered and built the behemoths they were sending out to fight the monsters. He didn’t want to hope for too much. And really, he couldn’t even lay claim to having played that great a part in their creation – he and Musichetta were just minor mechanics and Drivesuit technicians.
Musichetta leaned her head on his shoulder and lifted her beer. He smiled and clinked his bottle against hers, and they each took a gulp. “Here’s to our giant hunters,” she muttered. “Let’s hope the Kaiju don’t fuck up all our hard work.”
Courfeyrac grinned at the new liaison, who rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “You’re just as excited as I am, don’t lie.” He leaned over and poked Marius’ shoulder.
“I’m excited,” Marius laughed, “but I’m not as excited as you. You’re actually buzzing.”
“You will too when we see this.” Courfeyrac bounced on the balls of his feet and nodded in front of them. Liberty Blaze’ head was level with the command centre window, and the pilots were about to step into the Conn-Pod for the first time.
“What’s so special about them?” Marius asked sceptically. “I’ve seen pilots drift before.”
“Not these two, you haven’t. Trust me, it’s something special.”
“What’re their names again?”
“Enjolras and Combeferre.” Courfeyrac pointed as they emerged from the walkway and approached the Jaeger’s massive head. “Enjolras is the blonde, Combeferre’s the brunette.”
“Alright, gentlemen.” Lamarque said loudly. “Let’s see what the academy’s best and brightest can do. Who’s their liaison?”
“Me, sir.” Courfeyrac stepped forward.
“Then get to a booth. Pontmercy, you too – talk to our techs. Let’s get them hooked up.”
Courfeyrac followed Marius to a computer terminal and watched as he hooked up the comm.-link. “Feuilly, Chetta, you there?” he asked.
“Where else would we be?” A woman’s voice, amused.
A man’s – “How’s it look from your end, Marius?”
“Looks great to me,” Marius grinned and offered the chair to Courfeyrac, who accepted gratefully and patched into his pilots.
“How’re my delicious muffincakes?” he sang. “Everything good?”
“Do you really have to keep calling us that?” Enjolras’ voice came through clearly, pained though it was. Courfeyrac laughed.
“Not my fault you’re blondie and brownie. Keep me posted, yeah? We want this to go well, remember?”
“We’ll be fine,” Combeferre assured him. “Everything’s great so far.”
It took the Drivesuit technicians over ten minutes to get Enjolras and Combeferre into their suits, and Lamarque clapped his hands. “Make a note, Pontmercy – we need to practise suiting up to get that time down. The more time we waste, the more time the Kaiju have.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Helmets on and ready to go,” Combeferre said.
“Clearing the Conn-Pod now,” the woman – Chetta – confirmed. “Locking in.”
“Okay, guys, nice and easy, just like in the test centre.” Courfeyrac’s eyes flickered over the data on the screen.
“Relax,” Enjolras told him. “We know what we’re doing.”
“Then let’s show off a bit, shall we?” Courfeyrac grinned up at Marius. “Prepare to be impressed. Initiating neural handshake.”
They could hear the hum of machinery through the command centre window, and Lamarque came to stand behind Courfeyrac as Enjolras and Combeferre slipped into each other’s minds. “Stabilising,” Courfeyrac said. “And we’re in. Talk to me, Liberty Blaze.”
“This is incredible,” Combeferre sounded like a little kid at Christmas. “Enjolras –”
“Can we –” Enjolras started, and Courfeyrac looked up at Lamarque.
“Can they move?” he asked.
Lamarque didn’t reply for a moment, too busy drinking in the numbers streaming across the screen. “With a handshake like that, I’d say they’re safe to twitch a little.”
“Movement permitted,” Courfeyrac grinned. “Keep it basic, guys – arms only for now.”
There was the groan of metal, and everyone stared as Liberty Blaze’s two massive arms rose up and the hands curled into fists, opening and closing slowly.
“This is better than the test centre,” Enjolras said, breathless.
“We’re actually moving together,” Combeferre agreed.
“Like we’re actually one person –”
“In the same body.”
“Feeling good?” Courfeyrac’s face was beginning to ache from grinning so hard.
“Fantastic,” they said together, and he laughed, looking up at Marius.
“So?” he smirked at Marius’ gobsmacked expression. “Impressed?”
“That’s the steadiest, smoothest neural handshake I’ve ever seen,” Marius started to smile. “Yeah, I’m definitely impressed.”
Cosette spun on the mat and narrowly avoided a kick in the face from Éponine. “Careful,” Éponine cautioned, but when Cosette found space to look, she saw that Éponine was grinning.
“Careful yourself,” she retorted, advancing into Éponine’s space again.
“Cool it,” the instructor – a brawny man with black curly hair – called from the sidelines. “Keep your movements controlled, Cosette.”
“Yeah, Cosette,” Éponine teased, trading sharp, powerful blows with her fists and feet. “Cool it.”
Cosette narrowed her eyes and attacked fast and hard, driving Éponine into a corner and speeding up her punches until Éponine eventually missed one and caught it on her side, hard enough to send her staggering back, almost off the mat.
“Good!” the instructor praised. “Éponine, speed it up.”
They sparred until they were panting, too tired to keep it up. Cosette bounced in place and watched Éponine carefully, wary of another sudden attack. This woman favoured wide, sweeping kicks and sweeps that forced Cosette to expend more energy than she’d like ducking and weaving.
“Okay, take a break,” the instructor ordered. “Twenty minutes, then you fence.”
“She can fence?” Éponine looked over at him, surprised. Cosette straightened and lifted a shoulder when Éponine looked at her with a calculating expression.
“I like swords.”
Éponine brushed hair out of her eyes and grinned. “Me too.”
They talked as they stretched, keeping themselves ready for when the instructor decided they were going to fight again. To her surprise, Cosette found herself telling Éponine about losing her mother in the first Kaiju attack, and her determination to keep her dads safe. “They didn’t want me putting myself in danger, but I’m pretty stubborn when I want to be.”
“I know how that goes,” Éponine nodded.
“Ladies,” the instructor called, gesturing to the fencing gear he’d brought in. “Let’s see what you can do.”
They had jarred with their bare skin, but with an épée in each of their hands, they were electric. Every strike and shift was smooth, and Cosette felt like she was dancing. Éponine landed the first hit, Cosette the second, and they whirled around each other like flames, like tornados, crackling lines of lightning.
The instructor stopped them by clapping his hands loudly. He kept clapping even after they’d stepped away from each other and pulled off their helmets, both breathing heavily. “Ladies,” he grinned, “that was something. How’d that feel to you, Éponine?”
Cosette looked at Éponine and caught her eyes. Éponine smiled hesitantly and nodded, still panting a little. “Like I found a drift partner.”
“Cosette?” the instructor asked her.
“When can we start?” she asked eagerly, and he beamed.
“I’ll talk to Courfeyrac. Obviously you need to go through the tests, but I think we just found the final piece of the puzzle.”
Marius liked his job – liaising between technicians and commanders came easily to him, and he knew he was liked by both sides. It didn’t hurt that the perks included drinking with both sides either. Officers had the swankier bar, but the techs had better gossip.
It was nice to be the one with the news for once though.
“Are you serious?” Musichetta was ecstatic.
“It’s confirmed,” he nodded. “Indigo Fury will be piloted by the first all-woman team in the Jaeger program.”
Musichetta crowed and twisted to shout over to Feuilly at the bar. “Feuilly! Celebration drinks on me!”
He lifted a hand in acknowledgement and came over a minute later with three tall glasses held between his hands. “Take them quick before I spill them!”
“Thank you,” Musichetta kissed his cheek when he sat down.
“What’re we celebrating, by the way?” he asked cheerfully.
“My baby’s going to be driven by the first women-only team in the program,” Musichetta boasted.
“Yeah?” Feuilly grinned at Marius. “Confirmed?”
“Yep.” Marius laughed at Musichetta’s fist-pump. “Cosette Fauchelevent and Éponine Thénardier. Now we’ve got a pilots for all three Jaegers, they’ll relocate to the Shatterdome permanently, along with a core team to work with them.”
“They need fancy treatment?” Feuilly raised his eyebrows.
Marius shrugged. “It could be a good thing – these people will know them, and they need to be as comfortable as possible to drift at optimum. Besides, you liked Courfeyrac.”
“He was alright,” Feuilly admitted. “I just don’t want them pushing us around, that’s all. We’re the ones who’ve done all the hard work.”
“Preach.” Musichetta held up her fist and Feuilly bumped it with a laugh.
“As your liaison, I’ll do my best to keep everyone in line,” Marius said smoothly, and grinned when they lifted their drinks in a toast.
Gavroche ran down the street, fourth-hand trainers splashing through puddles from last night’s rain. The stolen paintings were under his arm, and the backpack full of stolen statuettes was heavy on his shoulders. He ducked into an alley and behind a bin, going absolutely still. He was pretty sure no one was coming after him, but it was always better to be safe than sorry.
His sisters kept telling him to stay out of trouble. But he had to eat, and no one hired kids for legit work.
There was a big difference between practising manoeuvres in the Conn-Pod and actually being called out for a real Kaiju attack.
Combeferre forced himself to listen to Courfeyrac’s voice through the comm. as he and Enjolras were locked into their Drivesuits by two stone-faced technicians. “Thank you,” he managed to say just before they left. The man gave him a surprised smile, and the woman nodded.
“Kick its ass,” she told him, and then they were alone.
Though really, you couldn’t be alone in the drift. Combeferre craved the connection for the comfort and relief it would bring – he felt stronger with Enjolras in his head.
“Initiating neural handshake,” Courfeyrac said in his ear the moment after they were dropped, Liberty Blaze’s head joining onto the rest of its gargantuan body.
And there it was, like sinking into a hot bath. Enjolras’ determination washed over him, and Combeferre breathed deep, accepting the fear that came with it; the fear that Enjolras could hide from everyone but him. There were no secrets in the drift.
“Liberty Blaze, online,” Enjolras’ voice was clear and strong, and Combeferre started to smile, excitement growing. They were in this together, and together they were unstoppable.
“Liberty Blaze, you are looking good,” Courfeyrac crooned through their earpieces, and Enjolras and Combeferre laughed together in harmony. “Okay, we’re gonna drop you two miles beyond the shoreline. Remember, this is a category one, but we think he’s got an extra pair of arms.”
“What’re we calling it?” Combeferre asked.
“Jaikaan,” Courfeyrac replied. “You ready for this, guys?”
“One hundred percent,” Enjolras confirmed.
“Then let’s do this.”
They were dropped in the ocean, and only had a minute and a half to get accustomed to moving the Jaeger without having to worry about accidentally crushing anyone. “This is amazing!” Combeferre shouted for Courfeyrac’s benefit.
“Everything’s working fine at our end,” Courfeyrac said. “Jaikaan’s approaching fast – get ready to intercept. Backup’s on its way, but don’t let Jaikaan get into the Miracle Mile.”
“We won’t need them,” Enjolras said confidently.
“Better safe than sorry,” Courfeyrac cautioned.
Combeferre understood both of them. He felt as invincible as Enjolras did, fear so far buried it was hardly there. He also reminded Enjolras silently of the sheer size and strength of a category one Kaiju – better to err on the side of caution, at least for their first mission.
Enjolras’ thoughts aligned with his immediately – better to make absolutely sure that the coastline was protected than risk lives unnecessarily.
“Send the backup,” Combeferre said. “Kaiju ETA?”
“He’ll be right on top of you any moment now.”
Combeferre felt Enjolras see it the moment before he said, “There.”
There was a wave approaching them. Foam and spray rising up as Jaikaan emerged from beneath the water and bellowed a challenge.
“Jesus Christ,” Combeferre breathed. He was still confident, but…
Enjolras was thinking that he’d never been so close to a Kaiju before. Combeferre reminded him without speaking that no one who got as close to a Kaiju as they were about to made it out alive. It was a good thing they were in a three-hundred-foot-tall Kaiju killing machine then, Enjolras pointed out. They were in Liberty Blaze. They were Liberty Blaze.
Jaikaan screeched, beak-like jaw stretching wide. Combeferre wasn’t actually sure which one of them had the idea first, but they were of one mind as they shouted their own challenge at it and raced forward. Liberty Blaze moved like a dream, plunging through the waves like they were butter – their legs were narrow at the front, sharp like a knife to cut through the water with ease despite their size.
Combeferre’s lips pulled back over his teeth in a snarl as he and Enjolras worked in perfect synchronisation, him operating the left arm, Enjolras the right, and while Jaikaan was still shrieking, they inserted their hands into its beak and pulled. It was taken by surprise, and its jaw broke almost immediately, its scream turning from angry to agonised.
They were strong. They were powerful on a physical level no human had ever been before and it felt good.
Jaikaan attacked ferociously, but Liberty Blaze was more than a match for it, distracted as it was by the pain of having its jaw practically snapped off. They had to stay with the body to make sure it wasn’t washed away before the cleanup crew arrived, and both of them breathed evenly, in a kind of trance. In the drift, it was just the two of them.
Combeferre had known Enjolras since childhood, and he loved him as fiercely as he would have loved a blood brother. More, probably. Friends were the family you chose, after all, and he and Enjolras had always chosen each other for everything. Lonely only children, too smart for their own good. Enjolras charming their teachers, Combeferre outwitting them. They were the perfect team even before they were given the ability to get inside each other’s minds.
“How’s the oven?” Courfeyrac chirped as they started to make their way back.
“The oven?” Enjolras asked, a little fuzzy. It was strange speaking out loud – so slow compared to mental communication. So one-dimensional.
“Yeah. You’re blondie, Combeferre is brownie – obviously Liberty Blaze is the oven. Even got fire in its name.”
Combeferre groaned, and Courfeyrac laughed. “That’s awful.”
“That hurts, Combeferre. I spent the last ten minutes coming up with that.”
“You’re a terrible liar,” Enjolras grinned, and Combeferre felt rather than saw it.
“Probably a good thing in the long run,” Courfeyrac said, and Combeferre smiled, a wave of affection for the man rolling through him. Enjolras caught it and amplified it – they wouldn’t be where they were without Courfeyrac. He’d been the one to insist on their potential and pushed them through every stage of the program, supporting them even though they weren’t the best in their physical classes. At the end of the day, drift compatibility was what counted, and Combeferre and Enjolras had that in spades. Courfeyrac had seen that from the moment they met, and took great pride in telling people.
Enjolras in his head, Courfeyrac in his ear. Combeferre sighed and added exactly one mark to a mental tally – Kaiju kills: one.