Chasing the Rabbit

           A scream echoed from the din of the Drift, piercing the silence he was struggling to cling to. The silence was safe, the silence meant the neural handshake was stable. But the scream was heart-wrenching and demanding. Images flashed in his brain, inevitable: unsteady ground, punches flying through the air, blood splattering up against metal. Despite his best efforts, the horror of it all gripped him tight and left him stranded in a memory that wasn’t his own. 

           He was in a Jaeger. That much he was sure of, at least. Two pilots were hooked up to the machinery that controlled it, moving in unison: left jab, right hook, an X across their chests as they braced themselves. The ground beneath Hotaru lurched and rattled. Metal moaned from the strain of an impact. Words bounced back and forth between the two pilots, their meaning lost to him amidst the sounds of sirens blaring through the chamber, warning of the Jaeger’s critical condition.

           Ta….oo….

           A pincer pierced through the protection of the Jaeger’s helm. Blood splattered the cockpit in thick drops of red. A pained scream reverberated in his skull, chilling him to the bone.

           Horrified, Hotaru found the source of it first: Ikazuchi, with blood trickling through her suit. Red lines descended from her stomach and pooled onto the ground. She screamed again, more agonizing this time as she glanced to her left. As he followed her line of sight, he felt his heart drop to his feet.

           Her copilot had been skewered with the Kaiju’s pincer. 

           The Jaeger lurched again, and Hotaru couldn’t help but notice the ragdoll-like qualities of the copilot before his attention was drawn to the Kaiju’s retreating maw. Ikazuchi was on the offensive again, unsteady on her feet and rage leaving her throat in a ragged roar as her fists slammed forward, pounding the air repeatedly. The screams of the Kaiju went in tandem with her own, a warring duet that fell flat into a solo as one, two, three punches connected with exposed viscera.

           …Taru…. You hear me?… out of it...

           Hotaru felt a familiar tug on his conscience, words echoing in his brain as he watched the Kaiju become swallowed by the ocean. He felt the swaying of a Jaeger fall dormant as a sobbing Ikazuchi split his attention.

           Hotaru!

           The voice pierced through the chaos, crystal clear this time. Hesitating, his gaze stayed trained on the girl frantically trying to stop the bleeding in her copilot’s chest.

           Don’t go down the rabbit hole, Taru, come on. Come back to the drift. Ika can’t haul you out of there on her own.

           Shiba. Shit. He should have known better than to get caught up in a memory like that. They had one shot at this three-way drift; he wasn’t about to be the one to fuck up the one shot they had. Ikazuchi was eerily silent, perhaps trying not to get wrapped up in the memory on her own. Shit. Alright, time to backpedal.

           He took one last look at the scene that had unfolded before him before closing his eyes, focusing on the anchor that was Shiba’s voice. Follow her, and he could find the Drift again. The memory melted into nothingness, until nothing but two familiar presences stood out against the cacophony of days long past. The memories were faint now, flickers that danced before his eyelids and left just as suddenly and quietly as they came.

            This was more like it. When he opened his eyes again, he was back in –insert Jaeger name here-, staring out at the Shatterdome. They did it- they successfully drifted, their minds were melded.

           They moved the Jaeger forward.