for gipsy_danger

[striker_eureka]

timeline divergence. 

Comments

injury.

[striker_eureka]

Hercules has run probably more continuous missions than anyone in the Jaeger program, Cherno Alpha's team excluded. So he knows what he's doing.

He should know better than to try to unstrap himself from the conn-pod before he's absolutely certain that the kaiju is dead, but recent events have left him a little...emotionally compromised where his Jaeger is concerned, and having his only son be trapped in a Jaeger that's basically frozen immobile isn't helping matters much.

He walks away from the battle with Leatherback and Otachi with a nicely broken arm, one that needs to be set and wrapped in a cast, effectively putting him out of commission for the foreseeable future.

At least that's his only real injury.

no injury.

[striker_eureka]

Maybe it was seeing Striker Eureka suddenly stop moving, or maybe it was seeing how Leatherback circled his son and his old Jaeger, but Hercules is pretty sure he's never been so in the moment when he's been battling kaijus before.

Mako's exhilarated nerves only fuel his determination to pound that sucker into the ground. Chuck is all the family he's got left, and while he would rather not have his son resent him the way he does, he'd take sullen anger over death any day.

He'd also rather not fight two giant category four kaijus in the middle of a city of ten million or so people, but he's not going to stand back and wait for the rampaging monster to come back to him. No, Herc follows the kaijus onto land — and if anyone dares say that his "checking for a pulse" was overkill, he's going to deck them; that monster nearly killed his son goddammit — and unleashes all his paternal fury on them. How dare they try to take away what's left of his family. How dare they come and attack his planet. As long as he's standing, he will not stand for this bullshit.

...But then he's not standing, he's flying, and he spares a moment to wonder how the hell Otachi is able to carry Gipsy like this when it has no tail to stabilize its flight, but then most of his worry is diverted to his Jaeger and his copilot.

It's only sheer dumb luck that they land in the middle of a sports arena. Even a few feet to the left would have meant near-guaranteed injury. Instead, he's left laughing with a sudden release of endorphins, sagging in his conn-pod.

I think we did it, ladies.

[gipsy_danger]

There is little more on this planet that Gipsy enjoys more than bashing Kaiju bone into dust beneath her giant, metal hands. It’s what she’s built for, it’s what she’s programmed for – and the task comes with fluidity and as much ease as possible, considering her movements aren’t really her own. The one thing she does enjoy more is spending time with a specific pilot, but that’s neither here nor there at the moment.

Right now? What’s important is making sure that her two pilots survive the encounter with no injury. Gipsy will also interject and confirm that there is nothing wrong with ‘checking for a pulse’. If there is anyone that understands the necessity of making sure those fuckers are dead, it’s Gipsy Danger.

Mako’s enthusiasm and Herc’s rage fuels her onward – she can feel how angry he is and she allows it to filter through to Mako, knowing that the girl will only pick up on it and push faster and harder to win.

She hadn’t been sure they would even be allowed out after the stunt with Mako, but Gipsy’s analog systems eventually guaranteed them fight time in the ring, as well as the inevitable (to Gipsy, because losing? Not an option) victory as she crash lands in the middle of the ball field, hunkered down and bracing for impact like the complete and utter badass that she is.

Also, you can thank her later for the boat as a weapon idea, Hercules. You know that was all her.

Is everyone alright? Hercules speaks though she’s a little more worried about Mako, but upon a gentle prod, she finds Mako is pumped up on adrenaline and pleased as punch with their success. Yes, Gipsy can see herself adapting very well to this copilot. Jaeger approval: obtained.

Let’s go get your son, Hercules.

[gipsy_danger]

Gipsy is a little pissed at Hercules for unstrapping himself and disconnecting from his Jaeger. She’d screamed at him Don’t do that, because she hadn’t been able to tell if the damn Kaiju was dead or not yet and the readings Tendo was feeding her were scattered and unclear. It had happened too fast for her to do anything about it either, but in the end, Gipsy understands the emotion involved, though she’s still clearly very annoyed with him about his arm.

He can’t pilot her with his arm like that. She knows it, and Mako knows it.

Gipsy leaves the fight banged up and dented, but her injuries are hammered out and reparable – from her talks with Hercules, she’s learned more about human physiology and it’s the injury that has her damn agitated.

There’s another question now, though – who will pilot Gipsy Danger with Mako?

[striker_eureka]

Gipsy is pissed at him, Chuck is pissed at him, Stacker is furious with him... Yeah, okay, Hercules knows he fucked up. He's sorry. (Except that he's really not; he would have done it again in a heartbeat if he had the chance, no way was he going to not try to rush to his son's aid.)

His only real regret is that his little screw up has cost him the ability to pilot Gipsy.

It's a worry that plagues him pretty much the instant his arm gets broken, and it doesn't stop niggling at the back of his mind until he steps out of Stacker's office to come face-to-face with a familiar rugged blond face.

Someone's come back at the eleventh hour to help save the day.

[gipsy_danger]

Gipsy knows Hercules isn’t sorry. She can’t blame him, except she does. She forgives him, though – because he’s her pilot, and he’s hers.

The real bitch is that he can’t even properly drift with her now, with his arm like that. It has to stay in that sling and stay set and that makes getting into his suit nearly impossible. She doesn’t even know if he’s going to be able to talk to her anytime soon – everyone is so damn mad at him that Gipsy isn’t sure they’ll let the idiot near her.

What she isn’t yet aware of is that the prodigal son has returned, and is not standing outside of Stacker’s office, arms crossed and looking bedraggled and a little irritated that someone has been piloting Gipsy in his absence, necessity be damned. Gipsy is his -- though that’s something she would quietly ponder about these days. His and Herc’s, yes.

So he stares at Hercules, eyes a little cool, before he brushes past him and shuffles inside Stacker’s office, door slamming shut behind him. He’s heard about your robot girlfriend, Herc, and he’s not happy.

[striker_eureka]

Hercules is too damn old to care what Raleigh really thinks about him and what he's been doing with Gipsy Danger while Raleigh's been hiding on the wall of all places, so that little snub doesn't merit much more than an aggrieved sigh before he head back off to the medical wing so they can check up on his neural functions.

Someone raised concerns that running so many missions was putting too much of a strain on his poor aging brain, and he'll be damned if he lets some jumped up quack tell him whether or not he's capable of doing his job.

(Hercules is not the best patient. He can't help it, he hates being benched. He likes to be doing things, okay.)

[gipsy_danger]

There’s some shouting that comes from Stacker’s office, but what’s done is done and if Raleigh hadn’t been crawling around like a rat scavenging for food on that shitty wall, then maybe Gipsy wouldn’t have latched on to and connected with another pilot.

No one’s fault but yours, Raleigh.

As far as Hercules goes? Jumped up quacks or no, they’ve got him on the sidelines and watching from afar. With that arm, there’s no piloting any Jaegers – at all. Not Gipsy, not Striker, none of them.

Gipsy’s got to learn to reconnect with Raleigh, though it’s not nearly as tumultuous as it was when attempting to calibrate with Mako. Gipsy falls easily back into sync with Raleigh and despite it all, her old pilot is forgiven. It’s Raleigh – how could she not? He was hers long before she’d met Hercules and despite the deep connection she has with the older pilot, there is respect and affection for her original, too. They’d been through the ringer together, her and Raleigh. She’d felt his brother die alongside him – she’d felt the fear and Raleigh’s rage and his wild and unstable grief, and that is a bond that cannot be broken, new pilot or no.

It feels a little like cheating on Hercules when she drifts with Raleigh and does some catching up, but it’s necessary for them to sync back up so that the plan can commence. Testing with Raleigh and Mako is seamless and without any errors, and the day the plan is to go in effect creeps closer and closer.

[striker_eureka]

Raleigh can just stop being such a primadonna already, Hercules doesn't have time for this and neither does Stacker, if the shouting coming from behind closed doors is any indication. Hercules knows that his friend is a little concerned at how much he and Gipsy Danger have connected, considering no other Jaeger in the history of the fleet has latched onto a pilot quite the way Gipsy does, but in true friend fashion, Stacker sticks up for Hercules and instead turns the blame around onto the younger pilot — if you hadn't run off to hide she wouldn't have "abandoned" you, I wouldn't have had to break up my best piloting team, etc.

It's a little heavy-handed, but it seems to do the trick, because the next time Hercules sees Raleigh in the halls, the American pilot stops him and quietly thanks him for looking after his Jaeger.

Hercules doesn't have the heart to tell him that he's pretty sure Gipsy considers herself his too.

Herc spends all his time now up in the control room with Tendo, monitoring the Jaegers and the other control panels, making sure everything is in working order from their end. It's pretty much the only thing they can do. Thankfully nobody brings up the fact that he's letting his "girlfriend" go out with another man. He'd probably hit anyone who brought it up; now is not the time for joking.

[gipsy_danger]

The reconnection is established; Mako and Raleigh make a phenomenal team, that much most people can acknowledge. They seem to suit each other, and Gipsy responds well to their combined commands and moves through routines easily and without any hiccups. Gipsy’s lilting AI is the only thing the pilots hear, though – and the only thing that anyone in the command room hears once they’re connected with her and she’s able to communicate over the speaker.

Pilot to pilot connection established. Are you ready to activate the jaeger?

Entirely robotic, Gipsy Danger is exactly what she appears to be – an enormous machine built for the death and destruction of the Kaiju. She’s deadly in her precision, pilots and jaeger performing with the usual excellence and often exceeding at the tests set before the team.

Gipsy’s thoughts about Hercules are completely shielded from Raleigh though, and Mako wisely doesn’t bring it up outside of the Drift.

The day dawns and Herc’s arm is still hurt, though he’s allowed to talk to her before she leaves with Raleigh and Mako to help defend Striker in the mission.

[striker_eureka]

Clambering up onto Gipsy is a lot harder now that Herc only has one arm, but he manages by taking his time and resolutely pretending this isn't weird. He lets himself into her cockpit and makes himself comfortable on her floor, leaning back against the gently-curving wall and sighing quietly.

"Hello, love," he murmurs, safe in the knowledge that the control room can't hear him when he's not hooked up to any microphones. It makes it easier to talk to her this way. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

[gipsy_danger]

It's good to hear his voice out of 'work' context. Gipsy's internal systems expand a little - nothing he can see, but it's similar to a sigh. She's happy to see him, to hear him, to feel his familiar weight again.

One beep; Yes. Yes, it has. Too long.

She wishes they could drift, but there's to be none of that. Not when she's so strongly reestablished with Raleigh. They can't have her distracted. Not now. Not when there's so little time. Chuck and Mako and the others - they're probably suiting up now. He'll have to go find Chuck, soon -- before the boy slides into Strikers cockpit with Stacker.

[striker_eureka]

"You take care of Raleigh out there, okay?" He knows he's telling her things she already knows. But he needs to say something, and he's not the greatest with words. This feels like a pivotal moment, and he doesn't know what to do. "He's been out of the game for a while. He needs a gentle hand."

Herc has been running missions for the better part of his career, really, he should not be getting nervous. But this is the first time he's been benched when people he cares about are getting sent out, and anxiety is churning in his gut, making him feel a little sick.

"...And watch out for my boy, please." This part is a lot quieter, and little choked off; someone is struggling with his emotions right now. "Somebody needs to do it, lord knows he won't do it himself."

[gipsy_danger]

One beep – Yes. Raleigh will be safe. It’s all she can assure him, though. His next request is impossible, and internally? Gipsy feels like something inside of her is dying. It feels like a piece of her heart has been broken, never to be repaired again. She can only guarantee the safety of her pilots and even then, in this mission, she’s not sure that’s a possibility, either. Hercules asks the impossible – but he gets one beep, a soft thing that’s almost a quiet, whispered caress; yes. I will try, for you.

[striker_eureka]

He lets out a quiet, broken laugh, the sound getting a little strangled by the lump in his throat as he wipes a shaky hand over his face to keep himself from crying. He has to keep it together. He has to.

"Thanks, darling. I know, I know it's not fair to ask that of you, you're going to be busy enough as it is. I just—" he drops his head back against the cool wall of her helm and tries to take a steadying breath.

"I can't lose him too."

[gipsy_danger]

Gipsy aches to hold him and comfort him – but she can’t. They aren’t drifted and she can’t even use her avatar to pull him in and tell him that she’s here, she’s right here for him. He’s breaking her heart – every mechanical and hard-wired piece of it.

An idea occurs to her and it’s not exactly the best option, but it’s the only one at the moment. Jaegers have limited mobility – they can walk on their own, move their hands. It was a system put into place by Tendo in order to assist with moving them around the Shatterdomes without having to move the entire body, put it on a tank, and move it to the next pod.

One of Gipsy’s enormous metal hands comes up – it’s half the size of a damn train car – and with the tenderness of a mother handling a newborn, it gently covers his form on her shoulder, a protective gesture she’s extended to no one else, ever – not even Raleigh.

[striker_eureka]

He can hear the creak of metal as she starts to move her arm, and it really says something about their relationship that he doesn't even think to be alarmed as her massive metal hand comes up to carefully cradle him against her side. He's miniscule compared to her — one of her knuckles is larger than he is, forget the whole hand — but that doesn't stop him from reaching out with his good hand to curl his fingers around the edge of one of her plates, holding on as she covers him gently.

"Thanks, Gipsy."

It allows him a brief moment of privacy to lose his shit before he manages to wrench his emotions back under control. God, he's going to miss this giant machine.

"Don't think I'm letting you out of this so easily, though. If you don't come back in one repairable piece, I'm going to be furious, you got it?"

Because reverting to gruff affection is always easier than trying to communicate how devastated he'd be if everyone he cared about was killed in one fell swoop.

[gipsy_danger]

Gipsy hums softly; a little you’re welcome. She can hear him briefly fall apart under the cover of her hand and the barricade stays there, granting him privacy and a moment of peace.

Unfortunately, after that hum there are no further beeps from Gipsy; these are not promises she can make. The only thing she can do right now is continue to keep him hidden from view, and allow him this moment in case he needs to lose control again – because they both know that she is not coming back from this. There isn’t any coming back in one piece – or even in multiple pieces. Raleigh and Mako, Chuck and Stacker – they can be jettisoned in escape pods. Gipsy is sluggish at best in water. If things go wrong, she won’t be able to move fast enough to get out of the way.

[striker_eureka]

She's silent and he knows what that means. He knows the chances of the Jaeger teams coming back from this mission are slim to none, and he's furious with himself for fucking up his arm so badly that he can't go out with them.

"God, Gipsy..."

She's built to handle combat underwater, so a few tears dripping down her plates won't hurt anything. They probably won't even be noticed, really, thanks to her giant size.

His throat has closed up and he can't continue babbling to her anymore, not that he really had that much to say anyway. Nothing that would make a difference. He leans his forehead against the giant finger closest to him, taking a moment to try and get his breathing back under control before he pats the joint under his hand.

"I need to let you go, love. You've got an important job to do." He swipes at his face angrily, trying to wipe away the remnants of his breakdown. He needs to remain strong, needs to remain a symbol for people to look up to while Stacker is away.

[gipsy_danger]

He thinks she doesn’t notice, but she does. She knows what human tears are, what they mean.

For once, Gipsy is glad they aren’t in the Drift together. She can maintain a calm and stoic demeanor outwardly for him like this, but on the inside? Gipsy Danger is screaming her pain, and the helplessness that she feels eats her raw.

Soft, barely audible music filters through; a quiet, classical piano melody for him and him alone.

It’s just a few bars but it’s enough for Gipsy to get her point across; as well as hack into the song itself, and send him a quiet message at the end, just before the music fades.

You can always find me in the Drift, Hercules Hansen.

[striker_eureka]

He sobs out a broken laugh, startled that she'd think to do something like that, and then incredibly moved by the gesture. He needs to get out of here or he won't be able to hold it together anymore.

So he struggles to his feet, stroking his hand over hers as she lets it fall back to her side and, in a fit of nostalgia, he presses a quick kiss to her helm. He doesn't expect her to feel it, but it makes him feel a little better.

"Goodbye, Gipsy Danger. You're a really special girl, you know that? I'm glad we got to know each other."

And then he has to leave, because the real world doesn't run on his schedule and sometimes things need to be handled like a bandaid being ripped off: all at once. He climbs off her back onto the support structure around her and goes off to nurse his wounds in private. But first, he needs to say a few things to his son.

[gipsy_danger]

Gipsy’s hand moves back down to her side and she waits resolutely for her pilots as Hercules leaves. That goodbye was one of the most painful things that Gipsy has ever experienced. She’s left feeling hollow and empty, though when her pilots arrive she’s shelved all of her emotions and locked them up in her memory banks; precious files that she holds very near and dear to her.

She takes nothing into the drift with Mako and Raleigh, and as they leave the Shatterdome and move on, Gipsy thinks maybe she can feel Hercules watching from afar, counting the minutes until something goes wrong.

Which…ultimately, it does. It was something Gipsy was prepared for – and expected. Her pilots hoped otherwise, that much she could tell, but Gipsy knew better. She’d known better all along.

And – she’d tried. She’d tried so hard to protect everyone, to keep them safe, like he’d asked her.

But when Striker self destructs to clear a path, something in Gipsy’s heart shatters.

[striker_eureka]

Watching the battle unfold from the sidelines is one of the hardest things Hercules has ever had to do in his life. Is this how Stacker felt all the time? No wonder he was so grouchy all the time. If Hercules had to feel this helpless every day, he'd want to chew people's heads off too.

He winces every time Gipsy or Striker gets hit, has to grit his teeth against a pained noise when her arm gets ripped out of its socket — he knows how much pain the Jaegers are capable of feeling now and that...that's something he never wanted her to feel again — and though he can see it coming from miles away, he's still blindsided when Stacker suggests detonating the missile on Striker's back to clear a path for Gipsy to make it into the rift.

No.

That's his son in there, dammit, his last remaining tie to what life was like before the kaiju came and ripped his life to shreds. And then Chuck — god, Chuck, his stupidly proud, arrogant, heroic son — has the gall to quote his dad with his final breaths and it's all Hercules can do to just close his eyes and wait. He knows what's coming, he's said his goodbyes. But that doesn't stop him feeling like he's dying too, like his heart has simply stopped functioning and it's just a matter of time until his body shuts down as well.

He sobs once when he hears the detonation of the bomb, but then ruthlessly shoves everything down, deep down where he can't feel it anymore. He can't focus on that right now. He has to help Raleigh and Mako and Gipsy get down into that rift otherwise his son and his best friend killing themselves will have all been in vain.

[gipsy_danger]

Gipsy argued with Striker wirelessly about the explosion and tried to get him to jettison the pilots first, but he wouldn’t listen to her. It required a manual override, and there was nothing Gipsy or Striker could do – the idiots had disengaged themselves and Striker had no power over them anymore. Even if Gipsy and Striker had always sort of been at odds – she stole one of his pilots, he was as arrogant as Chuck – he was a Jaeger. He was like her. She didn’t want to see him die.

But she had to listen to him self destruct with Chuck, Herc’s goddamn son, inside. Striker was gone; it was up to Gipsy now – the last Jaeger.

For a moment everything was quiet – there was a distinct ringing in the air as the aftermath of the bomb left pilot and Jaeger rattled. Kneeling low, she braces herself on the ground, and waits for the crash of water to come back. They’re lucky Gipsy’s not crushed by the sheer weight of it, but she holds her ground, missing arm, crippled leg and all.

And now – now she’s angry, and the fury of Gipsy Danger is a terrifying thing indeed. Enraged, she snatches the body of the Kaiju Striker took out and starts to drag it to that fucking breach, pilots working in tandem with her movements. It was as much her will as theirs – they had to finish this now. How dare these things come in here and murder the population of this planet. How dare they touch Herc’s son. If anyone is going to finish this, it’s Gipsy.

They fight to get into the breach, wrestling the Cat 5 (Gipsy refuses at this point to bestow any kind of name upon the Kaiju, that tells her they’re deserving of recognition when they are simply scum) until Jaeger, Kaiju, and pilots all fall into the drift.

From there, she knows it’s only a matter of time. There is too much wrong with her form, too much damage. Raleigh isn’t going to be able to drop the bomb and get them all out of there – she knew that already.

When the time comes and it’s just her and Raleigh, Gipsy is resolute. He’s loathe to leave her – but there’s no choice.

For the second time today, someone Hercules loved self-destructs, and closes the breach. Gipsy’s blip on Tendo’s radar flickers out, and the room erupts into cheers.

[striker_eureka]

Hercules watches the blip on the radar that is Gipsy Danger fall into the rift attached to the category 5 kaiju with a sense of detachment that makes him feel like he's watching a movie. He's seeing everything that's happening, hearing what everyone is saying, but it's like there's a screen between him and the real world, and it almost doesn't feel real.

Almost.

He sees Mako's escape pod start the arduous trek out of the Throat and he knows Gipsy's trying to force out her pilots to save their lives — he can't say he's surprised, that's his girl right there, behaving just like he knew she would, putting her pilots first and herself last. And then, after a long few minutes of nail-biting anticipation, the detonation at the bottom of the Throat appears on Tendo's screen, just before Raleigh's pod blinks into life, traveling mere seconds ahead of the blast.

Herc doesn't allow himself a moment for anything other than scrambling the choppers; they need to rescue their pilots. Whatever soul-crushing agony he feels can be put off until later, when he's alone and there aren't two lives hanging in the balance.

He watches as Mako's pod registers her life signs, watches as it reads being opened, knows that at least Stacker's child survived this even if his didn't. Raleigh's pod is on the screen but either it's broken or he's already dead, because it's not registering any vitals at all. The entire control room gets to listen to Mako frantically try to awaken her copilot, gets to listen to her cry into his shoulder and then...

That cocky bastard.

If the cheering before was bad, now it's almost deafening, with the entire crew of the Shatterdome lifting their voices in jubilant relief. Hercules feels like he's treading water as he leaves the control panel and walks across the room to grab the microphone, his limbs sluggish to obey his commands, the celebration around him leaving a ringing in his ears like he's underwater. But still. He has a job to do.

"This is Marshal Hercules Hansen." Marshal. Stacker is dead. There's nobody left for him. "The bridge is sealed. Stop the clock!"

Even Max joins in when the cacophonous cheering starts again, but Herc doesn't have the heart for it. Everyone he's ever loved has been killed by the kaiju menace, and now that it's over, he feels utterly drained. It's far too easy to grab Max's leash and slip out of the room, to head down to the barracks and climb into his bunk and lock the door behind him.

Everyone will be busy celebrating but Hercules wants to be left alone with his grief.