When you held onto me
like I was your
little life raft,
Please know
that you were mine as well
The apocalypse has been cancelled, the Kaijus defeated, and the world saved and dealing with the aftermath. After eleven and a half years, the war ended, leaving disaster but a new hope in its wake.
The PPDC had no need for defending the Earth any longer, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t help in other ways, like rescue missions and rebuilding efforts. Now that the Kaiju threat was eliminated, research could be focused on the effects of Kaiju Blue, and finding countermeasures. So it seemed like it was back to the lab for Newt. But what he didn’t expect was for the baby Kaiju that Otachi had to still be living.
Being a viable source of research, Newt had managed to convince the new Marshal, Herc of the benefits of keeping the baby Kaiju alive. Newt left out a crucial fact: Kodachi, as the scientist had taken to calling her, had imprinted on him. And well, it was Newt’s first and probably only chance to raise Kaiju after all.
The world works in strange ways and some paths cross and recross until they’re a tangled mess. Newt and Raleigh had only crossed paths once, and from Newt’s perspective, it didn’t go well, having made a fool of himself. Therefore, the scientist was hardly expecting Raleigh of all people, in his lab, talking to a Kaiju, and surprisingly not attempting to kill said Kaiju.
People Invovled: Raleigh Becket (rgrrbecket)
Paras: What If This Storm Ends
Getting used to a kaiju-free world was odd. There were no more constant threats, the jeagers were properly destroyed or disposed of, and the need for jaeger pilots was non-existent. Raleigh was back to being a waste of space, but now at the Shatterdome instead of a tent in Alaska.
Mako had been kind about it. She felt his hesitation about going back to LOCCENT in the post-drift. She gave him space while also reminding him that he wasn’t alone anymore. She sat by him in the mess hall, sparred with him when he asked, dealt with the way he rambled about video games the few times they played together. He appreciated it, he truly did. But it didn’t deter from the fact he still had nothing productive to do. Herc let him stay at the Shatterdome, he knew how long it would take for most of the people who dedicated their lives to the PPDC to get their lives on track in the real world, but Raleigh knew he couldn’t depend in that forever. He had to get his ass in gear, even if he wasn’t sure how.
To calm his mind, he went on a walk. He had no real destination in mind, so when he ended up in front of Baby Otachi, it was all he could do to not laugh.
After Otachi, the kaiju mom, had died, the baby had inevitably imprinted on Newt while the scientist was still in the post-drift with the kaiju hive-mind. Somehow, he’d been able to weasel the baby kaiju out of the grasp of Chau’s men and into the Shatterdome, where he had to convince Herc to let the orphan take the empty spot where Gipsy Danger used to be. The irony almost always brought a smile to Raleigh’s face.
The scaffolding next to Kodachi - what Newt had named Baby Otachi - was strong, but it wobbled as the growing kaiju bumped it with her nose.
“Easy, big girl.” He reached out to tough the tiny patch of nose he could. Or, at least, he thought it was her nose. There was so much of her, it was hard to tell. “You know, I’m really sorry I killed your mom. Not Newt-mom. Your kaiju-mom. I know what it’s like to lose a parent, and it sucks.” He hand kept stroking the bit of Kodachi’s face he could reach. He found that it was surprisingly smooth, kind of like a snake.
“I still don’t know why I’ve stayed here. Guess we’re both a couple’a sore thumbs, huh.”
He wasn’t sure what possessed him to start talking to Kodachi, nor why it felt so therapeutic, but once he started, he couldn’t stop. He shared his life story with the kaiju, from the stupid things his older brother did to him when they were kids to how he currently felt as he wandered aimlessly trough the Shatterdome. Honestly, Raleigh didn’t know whether or not Kodachi could even under stand him, but getting all his feelings out while absentmindedly stroking the patch abode her nose somehow helped.
Maybe having a kaiju around wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
When the metaphorical storm ended, there was of course a feeling of immense joy all around the Shatterdome at the end of the war, intermingled with melancholy (at the death of two of the Jaeger pilots) and a sense of what do we do now? that all soldiers and governments faced after a war. Most of the jobs that the people in Shatterdome were rather specialised after all. Of course, there were common basics, like for the technicians to go into engineering and other electrical related jobs, and scientist to work on other projects if they had the qualifications. Jaegers were either scrapped or repurposed for rescue and rebuilding efforts, and didn’t require their pilots any longer, not there was much Jaegers left after everything.
By some miracle, Newt still had a job in the PPDC after all. This was only possible with Hannibal was dead, and him somehow managing to get a barely alive Baby Otachi into the Shatterdome and his lab. Herc, the new marshal, wasn’t too pleased with him, but after some persuasion (read: begging) he was allowed usage of one of the Jaeger Bays for raising and studying the Kaiju. Newt would have hugged the man if he wasn’t afraid that the privilege he had would be revoked the second he did just that. Herc and also discussed with him that the best course of action was to have the ‘rights’ of any Kaiju remains belong to the PPDC again (which meant him) and not the new man in Chau’s operation. The bonus in all this, apart from getting a Kaiju to raise, was that he had his own labspace, away from Hermann, who would not stand for a Kaiju in his lab. Sure the drift had regulated their hostility towards each other, and probably made them friends of sorts, but there was only so many times that two great minds wouldn’t clash.
He’d just been in Herc’s office, giving him the required weekly face-to-face update of the Kaiju’s growth, progress and more importantly homicidal tendencies. Included in the report was all the new research that he had done and other Kaiju related problems that they might encounter in the future and how to counter it’s effects. The most pressing still being Kaiju Blue, which Kodachi was useful for. Newt had ran blood tests and countermeasures against the toxic residue that the Kaiju’s blood had for the past few weeks, with varying degrees of success.
Kodachi, which meant small or short sword, was an apt name for the Baby Kaiju as Otachi was her mother after all. It was certainly better than 'the Kaiju that ate Hannibal Chau’, or 'the last Kaiju’, or something horrible like something Hermann would come up with. She was about a month old and growing fast, and didn’t look as round as she first did when Newt had saw and drifted with her. Right, drifted, and as a result was imprinted on. Not that Newt had any complaints, in fact he only saw this as something great and wonderful. The fact that it could be studied was a bigger bonus.
Newt returned to his lab following his meeting with Herc and he stopped short at the strange view before him. His heart skipped a beat. What was Raleigh doing here? Raleigh and Kaiju didn’t mix, (which meant that by that definition he and Raleigh didn’t mix, because they were polar opposites.) And then he frowned.
Newton didn’t care if Raleigh disliked him and could probably lift him up with one arm (and hurt him if he so desired, not that Newt thought that Raleigh would, but the fact that he could do it was scary enough). He also didn’t care that the pilot intimidated him or that he possibly had a crush on the Ranger. No one was going to kill this Kaiju before she was even half grown. (Even if they had good reason to.)
He mastered his sternest and angriest voice, “Back the hell away from the Kaiju.” Newt didn’t think that a taser, if he had one in the first place, was going to deter Raleigh so he didn’t see how he could. He probably didn’t even look scary or threatening but it was the thought that counted.