Archive of Our Own ^beta

One would have thought that piloting a Jaeger was easier when you didn’t have a body to be strained by the huge machine.

When giant creatures first attacked the Ganma World, they were…

…it was dangerous, too dangerous for a world that should not have had death. The Gundari could only slow them down, so Magistrate Edith came up with a new plan.

The Jaeger System.

Which needed more involved control, instead of what the Gundari had.

Obviously, Alain was a good pilot.

No, not only good.

The best.

And he and Specter worked together spectacularly. The two of them have one mind, sharing the weight of their Jaeger, the Will-O’-The-Wisp between the two of them, and they could keep their world safe.

Until Specter left.

Specter left, because Kanon was important, and Alain understood. Of course he did - he had his own siblings, after all, albeit none of them were younger than him, he imagined if he had a younger sibling, he would have done the same.

And it was alright.

Everything was fine.

Alain could pilot Will-O’-The-Wisp alone.

But fighting the kaiju that attacked their world was only a temporary solution. They needed to continue working, and for this, they needed another world.

They needed to help the human world reach utopia.

What they didn’t expect was that them opening gates between the two worlds would lead the kaiju over to that world.

…it was fine.

Both worlds will be saved. Both worlds will be protected and then experience Utopia, and Alain would do it with his own hand if he needed to, piloting Will-O’-The-Wisp alone.

What he didn’t expect was Specter to betray him.

“How come the humans are making a Jaeger? That is Magistrate Edith’s invention!”

Specter winced a little, his hand tightening on his bike, not looking at Alain.

(He used to know Specter so well. Even outside of the Drift that kept the Jaeger pilots together, he knew him, he could tell what Specter was thinking. Right now, he didn’t look at Alain, and Alain felt like there was a schism opening up between them.)

“I do not know. Takeru said it was something… an old man had helped them work on. I’m not sure who that old man is, and why— but Takeru can also pilot alone. Just like you.”

“He is nothing like me!” Alain snapped, stepping closer to Specter, who finally looked at him, upon hearing it. “He cannot compete with me.”

Specter didn’t argue.

But Tenkuuji Takeru was stealing Specter away from him.

Especially when Specter was piloting Tenkuuji Takeru’s Jaeger with him.

“Listen—” Specter started, but Alain saw red.

“You are my partner,” Alain hissed, letting his power engulf Specter. “I’ll remind you of this.”

The Drift worked perfectly fine after.

That’s what the Drift means right? Complete agreement. Working together seamlessly.

That was it used to be - Specter and him gelling perfectly, their thoughts beating together. It was just right.

Specter had to remember it, right? It was just like that now, with his power pulling Specter along.

His best friend.

The one who would agree with everything he said, and would never betray him, would never team up with anyone else.

The Drift was quiet.

The Drift was—

…

How thoughtful of his best friend.

Muffling his own memories, so not to overwhelm Alain.

Truly.

They were best friends.

Until things fell apart.

Until he was called a murderer, until Specter broke free, and the Will-O’-The-Wisp crashed in the human world, and Alain screamed.

And then it just—

It became worse and worse.

When he fell now, he felt pain, his body weak and—

…

Specter left him, and now, that he had his own body, and when he tried to pilot Will-O’-The-Wisp, it burnt his body, until Specter had to dig him out of the wreck, even though he was badly hurt himself, and he smiled.

I believe in you, Specter said, before his body disintegrated, and it was a mess.

It was absolutely —

It was—-

It was Alain’s fault.

“Are you really going to let this go out of your hands?”

“What do you expect me to do?” Alain snapped, sitting next to the mess that was the Will-O-The-Wisp now. “My Jaeger is broken, and even if it wasn’t, I cannot pilot it alone anymore. My partner is gone, and if he would be here… he isn’t my partner anymore, is he?”

Akari, that strong-willed woman stood over her, eyes so sharp - Alain truly had never seen such the same energy from anyone. His family was full of hard-headed and driven people, but this woman was harsh in an odd way that Alain couldn’t put his finger on.

“Help Takeru to go save Makoto.”

“Huh? You are aware that he can pilot alone.”

“But he cannot take the Quantum Wisp over to the Ganma world,” Akari insisted, crouching down next to Alain, and he found himself unable to look away from her eyes. “You can open up the doorway. And you can’t pilot alone. So you two need each other to save him.”

“...that’s not how the Drift works.”

“You could pilot with Makoto, and Makoto could pilot with Takeru,” Akari shook her head. “The least you could do, is to try.”

So they did.

For Specter.

For the truth.

Drifting with Specter was almost like a dance - the two of them used to sparring together, and their thoughts swirled around each other like they did, when sparring. (Normally, that is. Specter pushed as much as Alain pulled, and… Alain missed it.)

Tenkuuji Takeru was different.

It was like the first time he arrived to this world, a warm breeze hitting his now-human skin, gently pushing him forward, and Alain found himself agreeing.

Come on. Let’s save Makoto.

He remembered Akari’s sharp words digging to his brain, and Takeru’s kindness, and Specter smiling before disappearing.

And Alain sighed, letting the warm breeze carry him forward.

Do not hold me back.

And Takeru laughed through the Drift.

Specter - or rather Just-Call-Me-Makoto was kind of infuriating after being saved.

“Human bodies definitely can’t handle the strain of piloting a Jaeger alone,” He was lying on the ground, after sparring with Alain, like they did so many times. “Eyecons… can do it better but it’s limited. I think that’s why Magistrate Edith pushed us together to pair up.”

“And he just couldn’t be straightforward about it.”

And Makoto laughed a little, and Alain realised he heard him laugh so rarely, especially since Kanon’s condition got worse. But now—

…bodies were annoying.

He didn’t understand why there was a tightness in his chest.

“I have not known Magistrate Edith for as long as you have, but that man had never been straightforward, the more I think about it. He was all stoic and sounded no-nonsense, but…”

“You fear there might have been some nonsense.”

“Yeah.”

Things have changed.

Alain was in the human world. Things were bad in the Ganma world.

And Alain, he realised, didn’t have a partner anymore.

Makoto and Takeru worked better together, that was the truth of it. They—

…

And Alain didn’t even like to pilot the Quantum Wisp. It was less sturdy than Will-O’-The-Wisp was, but Alain’s Jaeger had been still broken, since falling over to the human world.

So. It was a moot point, right?

He still liked to visit the Will-O’-The-Wisp.

And that’s where he found Akari one day, in work clothes, standing over it.

“Hey! What are you doing?!”

And Akari looked down at him, before pushing her work goggles up.

“This Jaeger won’t fix itself, if you just come out here every day to stare at it longingly, while you eat takoyaki,” Akari said, one hand on her hip. “So I figured I better get working on it.”

“You will ruin it!”

“Do not underestimate me!”

“That’s not what I— agh!” Alain threw his hands in the air. “This was built in another world! Your expertise in this world! You are just studying the Ganma world—”

“Well then why don’t you help me, if you are so clever?”

“---huh?”

“Then help me. You get Will-O’-The-Wisp the most. Help me fix it up, so you can fight again.”

There was no point, Alain figured.

And yet, he couldn’t stop his body from moving forward.

Akari…

She picked up the pace quickly. She had been studying the Ganma world ever since Takeru had died, and it showed. She very quickly understood Will-O’-The-Wisp quite well.

“It’s a very similar design to Quantum Wisp, but there are differences. Quantum Wisp is… it’s quicker. It’s almost like it was ironed out since Will-O’-The-Wisp.”

“Are you calling Will-O’-The-Wisp a prototype?!”

“I wouldn’t know that. And we don’t know if— but it feels like whoever made Quantum Wisp looked at how Will-O’-The-Wisp was made, and decided to make some adjustments.”

“...you don’t know who made it?”

“We just assume that it was the old man who helped Takeru from the beginning,” Akari shook her head. “But getting straight answers from him is like pulling teeth, and as he isn’t exactly corporeal, we can’t exactly pull his teeth.”

“Reminds me of the one who made Will-O’-The-Wisp,” Alain muttered. “But our worlds had had connections before. Any one of those people could have sneaked the plans through.”

“True. And it doesn’t quite matter now,” Akari shook her head. “Let’s get back to work.”

Alain quickly found themselves—

Akari didn’t have to finish a sentence before Alain handed over what she needed, and she understood Alain’s explanations so quickly. It was so… seamless.

There was a memory, in Alain’s mind.

Of Alia looking over them, slight annoyance on her face.

“Do you two really have to keep roughing each other up?”

“That’s what Drift Compatibility is,” Alain said, and Alia shook her head.

“It’s not about that. It’s understanding.”

Alain didn’t want to think about why he suddenly remembered this.

But, he would be soon forced to.

When there were two kaiju breaking through the human world, and of course Takeru and Makoto would go out to fight, but—

The odds weren’t great.

Alain’s hands grabbed onto his shirt, as he stared up at them.

“They are being overwhelmed—” Onari shuffled on his feed, running back and forth between Alain and the others, clearly about to pass out. “Oh, if only we had a way to help—

“The Will-O’-The-Wisp is—” Alain didn’t finish.

He knew.

He looked at Akari, who looked back at him, her eyes wide.

“It could be deployed,” Akari said carefully. “But Alain, you still can’t pilot alone, you have a body now—”

“...let’s get it ready to go out.”

“Alain!”

“Come on, we have no time to waste.”

And he turned around, and started running.

It was right there, at the foot of the Will-O’-The-Wisp, where Akari caught his wrist.

“You cannot,” Akari insisted. “Piloting the Quantum Wisp - maybe, you could, it’s a sleeker one, and you are not human, but the Will-O’-The-Wisp would burn you up. You cannot— you know I cannot.”

“I know. I need a partner,” Alain interrupted her, before turning around, looking deep in her eyes. “...pilot with me.”

“...huh?! Huh?!”

“Pilot with me.”

“I’m not—”

“You understand Will-O’-The-Wisp,” Alain cut her off again, before grabbing her hands. “You know it as well as I do. We can pilot it together. I know it.”

Akari’s eyes were wide, before she sniffled, raising her chin a little.

“Nobody beats me, when it comes to science.”

The drift with Akari was different from how it was with Takeru or Makoto. It was noisier than either of them, but not in a bad way. It was full of thoughts and questions, and almost immediately trying to make sense of the Drift, and when she sensed Alain’s mind, she calmed down, as if she immediately understood.

Drifting with Makoto was a dance, drifting with Takeru was like a breeze, and drifting with Akari was like two beings on water, holding each others’ hands - knowing they wouldn’t lose each other, because they knew the current and knew each other.

And it was time to fight kaiju to help Makoto and Takeru.

Really, it was all infuriating after.

Takeru was beaming and Makoto was also smiling at him, his eyes shining.

Alain wanted to argue, to tell them to wipe that look off their faces. But instead, he just sat there.

Mainly because Akari got exhausted, and her head was on Alain’s shoulder.

He couldn’t really move, being trapped by her now, could he?