Chapter Text
Alarms blared, jerking Luo Binghe out of a slumber that had already been fitful and restless. He stared at the ceiling overhead for a moment as he tried to piece together where he was.
Cang Qiong Shatterdome. (He'd made it.) The base from which the Jaegers were based, standing sentinel against the incursion of kaiju from the demonic realm. Those otherworldly monsters driven to relentlessly seek out and ravage human settlements, unless they were stopped. (They must stop them.)
They're coming. They're coming now.
Luo Binghe rolled out of bed and dressed himself in record time; he was long in the habit of sleeping in most of his clothes, so he only had to pull on an outer robe and his boots to be decent in company.
The hallways of Cang Qiong Shatterdome were never fully abandoned -- at any hour of the day, even the middle of the night, you could find late-shift technicians or insomniac personnel roaming the halls. They would have been the ones to sound the alarm, to raise the whole Shatterdome and send everyone scurrying to their stations. Already people were rousing, rooms opening up as people trickled into the corridors, hurrying and intent on their goals.
They all had their stations -- the places they needed to be -- and he had his. Luo Binghe skidded to a halt outside one of the bedrooms and hit the control pad to the door; it beeped green, affirming his right to be there, and hissed open to reveal a set of private quarters. On the far side of the room, a man was just now sitting up in the bed. "Shizun!"
Shen Qingqiu must have been woken from a sound sleep by the alarm, same as Binghe, yet he seemed perfectly calm and unruffled by it. "It's all right, Binghe. No need to be worried. The kaiju won't arrive for hours yet," he reassured his young assistant.
"I know," Luo Binghe said. "That's the detection alarm, not the proximity alarm. Not until the proximity alarm is triggered will the base really be in danger."
Shen Qingqiu looked faintly surprised that Luo Binghe had learned the meanings behind the different tones of the alarm. But Luo Binghe had been in the Shatterdome for four years now, and he had made it his business to learn everything that was part of the fight against kaiju.
Luo Binghe couldn't remember a world without the kaiju -- the alien, gargantuan monstrosities that had broken into their world from some unknown hell had arrived twenty years ago. The world had risen up to fight them, human and demonic societies putting aside their old feuds in the face of the greater threat, turning their arts of cultivation and war into that of desperate defense. From that uneasy alliance, the Jaeger Warden program had been born -- the building and fielding of equally gargantuan mechanical defenders.
Like the rest of his generation, Luo Binghe had been raised from childhood to respect and honor the Jaeger Wardens as the defenders of this world. And he always had honored them... in an abstract sort of way. The kaiju themselves had always been more of a lurking horror in the hinterlands, far outside the boundaries of the walled towns, a bedtime story to scare little boys into compliance. Much more imminent threats were the dangers that lurked within those walls -- angry masters, loose dog packs, gangs and enforcers were much more regular threats to his daily life.
Young Luo Binghe had revered the Jaeger Wardens, but -- like a naive fool -- assumed that they and the monsters they fought belonged to a world far away from him.
At least until the day that the kaiju Spinejackal defeated the jaeger Dou Niu Shi and raged unchecked down the Luo River Valley. And on that day, Luo Binghe had learned what it really meant to be scared. When his mother put on her shoes, wrapped her shawl around his face, told him to stay put and stay quiet. When his mother went out into the city, taking a desperate risk. When she never came back.
Another Jaeger had been dispatched and Spinejackal had been defeated... but there was nothing left for Luo Binghe in the valley. He'd made a vow that day that he would make his way to the Jaeger Wardens, and do whatever he could to help push the kaiju back into the hell that they came from.
It had taken him ten days to walk to the nearest Shatterdome. By the time he made it to Cang Qiong he was half-frozen, three-quarters starved, penniless and shoeless -- but he'd made it.
And at Cang Qiong, he'd met the man who would one day become his guiding light.
"Even if it's only the detection alarm, I'll need to get down to the War Room," Shen Qingqiu said. "Whatever images they have of the kaiju, it will help me get started on identification."
"And they wouldn't be foolish enough to even try launching an attack before receiving one of my shizun's strategies," Luo Binghe filled in.
Everyone in the the Shatterdome knew -- most likely, everyone in the jianghu knew -- that when it came to the kaiju, there was no one more knowledgeable than Cang Qiong's Senior Science Officer, Shen Qingqiu. Not only did he have a vast index of knowledge about kaiju they had faced in the past -- their names, their attributes, their dates and locations and the swathes of damages they had wrought -- but he had an uncanny talent for identifying new ones in record time. A quick study of a new specimen was all he needed to be able to diagnose its strengths and weaknesses, likely attacks to defend against as well as clever strategies to take it down. With Shen Qingqiu advising on their defenses, no kaiju attack had gotten past the Cang Qiong Jaeger line in three years.
Shen Qingqiu heaved his legs over the side of the bed, swung them experimentally, and then grimaced. Luo Binghe perked up, alert as ever to that grimace. "Binghe, could you fetch my clothes over here?" he said.
Shizun's pain was bad today, then. Luo Binghe hurried to fetch the requested set of robes -- far more elaborate, with more badges of rank and accomplishment than his own -- and to help his master into them. Shen Qingqiu turned his back to him and Luo Binghe made short work of combing and pinning his hair -- much less attention than the task deserved, but needs must drive.
It was quickly done. Shen Qingqiu -- once more every inch the accomplished and invaluable scholar that advised the Cang Qiong division of Jaeger Wardens -- gave Luo Binghe a small smile (which he immediately buried within the safest chambers of his heart, to take out and review later) then reached out and grasped the handles of his forearm crutches, heaving himself up to his feet. He swung into balance between them, and set off at a brisk pace for the War Room.
Luo Binghe, as ever, followed behind. He would far rather be in this shadow than anywhere else, especially on a day like this one.
By the time Shen Qingqiu was ready to go, the trickle of people in the corridors had turned to a throng. It made navigation a challenge, but it could have been worse -- people tended to melt out of the way when they saw Shen Qingqiu coming.
The conversation dropped as Shen Qingqiu swung his way into the War Room, Luo Binghe following behind, to find most of the senior officers already present. Qi Qingqi, one of the other Division Heads whom Luo Binghe only passingly knew, looked up as he entered the room and said "Ah, who would have thought? It's the human spider, come to grace us with his presence."
Luo Binghe bristled at the insult, but Shen Qingqiu was unfazed. He made his way to his station chair and dropped into it, setting his forearm crutches aside, and gave them a little pat. "Shimei, even if you count these, that would still be six legs at a maximum. Arachnids have eight. Call me a human stick-bug, if you must."
Qi Qingqi rolled her eyes. "Of course that's the part of it you object to," she scoffed. "Heaven forfend that anyone be incorrect about disgusting creatures in your august presence."
Shizun's grace really was incomparable, Luo Binghe mused; if it had been up to him, he would have slugged the other officer for her insult. But Shen Qingqiu, as was usual these days, merely let it roll off his back and even managed to smile and laugh about it.
Shen Qingqiu tapped the tip of his crutch against the leg of her chair, then returned it to his side. "That is indeed what you all pay me for," he reminded her cheerily, and looked around the rest of the room. "Well? What have we got? Don't tell me this was a false alarm -- to be woken at this hour I expect at least a category three."
The atmosphere in the War Room was tense, but not rushed. Today's sighting was a goodly ways into the wasteland, it seemed, still several hours away. It would take some time to prepare and get in position, but they had at least an hour to get a read on the new enemy and decide the best tack to take.
An argument had broken out between the Engineering and Logistics departments over the best transport they could use for jaeger deployment. Luo Binghe's shizun ignored the scuffle in order to page through the clips delivered in a folder to his desk -- aerial shots of the new kaiju taken by their Eagle Eye drones. Most of the shots, from what he could see, were not very good. This monster seemed to be kicking up a lot of dust as it moved (it had been weeks since the last rain passed through the Wasteland) and its constant restless motion meant that many of the shots were blurred. But from one shot to the next -- whether the picture was of a flailing limb, a heaving flank, or a mysterious shadowy line that could be a tail, maybe? -- Shen Qingqiu narrowed his gaze in on the new foe.
"Unquestionably a terrestrial," Shen Qingqiu muttered under his breath; even Luo Binghe, stationed at his elbow, barely caught it. "I can't imagine this thing in the air. We don't get many aquarials, as far from the water as we are. A Burrower?" He narrowed his eyes, turning one of the photos ninety degrees, then ninety degrees again. "Hard to tell... I don't any signs of armor plating, nor shells, nor quills. Hmph. These odd mottled patches, though..."
He stopped at one picture, staring down at a clear shot of the kaiju's neck and one enormous leg. "Oh yes, a Burrower for certain; those eyes would never work above the surface. Don't like the look of those claws. And teeth! Ooh, a very nasty set of chompers to be sure. Better stay out of the range of these things, look like they could punch right through even grade three armor..."
Luo Binghe loved listening when Shen Qingqiu got lost in his work like this; as horrific as the things he was describing was, the clinical curiosity with which he dissected them made them seem almost... everyday. Like they weren't nightmares from beyond the boundaries of the world, come to ravage and ruin all they touched, but more like discussing the neighbor's naughty dog who kept getting in over the fence. He made them seem so... manageable.
"Looks like a fairly standard tank and spank, but things can never be that simple." Shen Qingqiu leaned on one elbow, toying absently with his folding fan in his free hand. "Claws and teeth, they've all got claws and teeth; what else? The tail? Scorpion's sting? No, the spine's going all the wrong way for that. Acid spit, maybe? Venomous spurs? Flamethrower breath?"
Luo Binghe quietly took back the thought about the kaiju seeming manageable.
Shen Qingqiu returned to the picture of the head and neck and went over it again, examining the shot closely for any clues around the mouth area. "No other teeth," he muttered. "Highly suspicious, that; what else is he hiding?"
The room was packed full; as well as the division heads, there were at least as many assistants hovering around the walls and the consoles, supporting their seniors in this discussion without being part of it. He didn't know most of them at all, though he was technically one of their ranks. One of them, a tense-looking young woman, waved a hand in Luo Binghe's peripheral vision to get his attention, then passed him another folder. He opened it and took a quick glance; the latest shots from the Eagle Eyes. "Shizun," he called softly, not wanting to break his teacher's concentration. Shen Qingqiu held out an absent hand in his direction, and Luo Binghe put the new photographs in that hand.
Shen Qingqiu leafed through the new pictures, then went through the first set again; then he put four of them in a square, stared at them, and let out a sudden thoughtful oh.
"-- get the lifters to start moving San Xin Shu towards the drop point." The one speaking was salt-and-pepper bearded Ruan Qingruan, the head of logistics, and Luo Binghe tuned back into the discussion with a start. San Xin Shu, one of the three Jaegers stationed full-time at Cang Qiong -- he remembered mostly that they were remarkable in that they were piloted by a trio of siblings instead of the usual two. "I've alerted their pilots --"
Shen Qingqiu cleared his throat, timing the noise together with a snap of his fan that had everyone in the room looking over at him. "Gentlemen," he said, fanning himself lightly. "I believe that in this case the unit best suited to fight this foe is Qie Dai Tao."
A dozen pairs of eyes turned on him in astonishment.
The first one to object, surprisingly, was Mu Qingfang -- the head of the medical division, Luo Binghe had met him in the infirmary a few times over the years. "Liu Qingge and Liu Mingyan are on rest rotation," Mu Qingfang objected. "They fought an engagement near Hua Yue City only three days ago. They're not ready to return to the field!"
"But they have had a chance to rest since that time, have they not?" Shen Qingqiu pointed out. "They should be the ones to go."
Several other protests broke out between Medical, Logistics, and (predictably) that one lady from Public Relations who seemed to really have it out for Shizun and made a point to object to him whenever the opportunity presented. Shen Qingqiu waited, fanning himself in a show of idle unconcern.
A tall man in black robes, collars weighed down by silver bars, stood up and the conversation died down instantly. Yue Qingyuan, the Commander of the Cang Qiong Shatterdome, usually let his lieutenants debate among themselves -- but when he choose to step in, everyone deferred to his aura of authority. "Mu-Shidi," he said, momentarily blocking out the other two in favor of their primary physician. "In your medical opinion, are the Liu siblings fit to fight?"
Mu Qingfang hesitated, looking torn. "Yes," he said.
"And is there any chance that entering another fight so soon would bring harm to them?"
"It shouldn't do any physical harm, no," the doctor said reluctantly. He followed up with: "But the pilot rotations are meant to ensure optimal performance -- they should not be overturned on a whim!"
"Of course," Yue Qingyuan said, relinquishing a nod. "I understand the importance of protecting our pilot's well-being in both the short and long term, and we would not lightly impose upon their recovery periods. That said. Shen-shidi."
Yue Qingyuan was looking over at him. Shen Qingqiu put on his most serious, professional face. "Yes?"
"Do you truly believe, speaking as our resident expert on kaiju, that San Xin Shu would be in danger if they fought this opponent?"
"I do," Shen Qingqiu replied. "Given the cloud of reduced visibility and the speed of its movement, San Xin Shu would be at a distinct disadvantage in this fight. They have a weakness to close combat."
"And what about Tianlang-jun's team?" Yue Qingyuan said. "Jing Wang She is in the reserve rotation, behind San Xin Shu, and close combat is their specialty."
Shen Qingqiu shook his head. "It has to be Qie Dai Tao."
For a moment the room seemed to hold its breath; everyone stared at Shen Qingqiu, waiting to see if he was going to explain himself any more than that. Luo Binghe seethed over their skepticism; when had Shen Qingqiu ever been wrong? Why bother to have an expert, if you weren't going to listen to him?!
"Very well," Yue Qingyuan said at last. "Alert Liu-shidi and Liu-shizhi that they are needed in the docking bay. We will deploy within the hour."
Round 2 of navigating the hallways, this time with twice as much hubbub and rushing bodies. Even the wide berth the staff gave them couldn't fully protect them from getting crowded and jostled on the trip to Mission Control. Once they reached Shen Qingqiu's station there, the sight of his crutches propped against the console -- bright fluorescent blue, with ridges and ropy coils winding from the handles down the shaft in glistening detail -- ensured some amount of personal space.
(Luo Binghe had always suspected that was half the point. Shizun really didn't like it when other people touched his mobility aids. Even he -- in his early days at the Shatterdome -- had suffered his fair share of bruises when he got in the way of Shizun's cane one too many times.)
While the War Room was centered around a broad table, Mission Control was dominated by a large screen at the front of the room. At the moment, it showed the feed from a single drone. Once they reached the interception point and the jaeger and kaiju closed in on each other, the views would split as a dozen different Spirit Eagle drones circulated in the air. Right now what the camera feeds were showing was mostly a lot of swiftly passing scenery.
Admittedly, the scenery of the Wasteland was far from boring. The Wasteland -- the vast, desolate stretch of karst that took up the center of the continent here -- was a real mayhem of rock and water. Nothing but rock and water; there were few plants that grew there, and fewer animals. The topography threw sheer cliffs and piercing spires of rock above deep, vast caverns whose roofs crumbled under the weight of the edifice overhead, throwing mountains down into caverns and then pouring in a sea's worth of chemical slurry on top. The result was a maze of caves and tunnels, cliffs and gullies that was impossible to build any kind of base in and which provided endless amounts of cover for any approaching kaiju.
Somewhere out in the Wasteland were the Abyssal Rifts that brought the kaiju to their world in the first place -- but so far, nobody had been able to venture deep enough into the no-man's land to find them. Someday, maybe, if they had the right Jaeger -- if they had the right team, with the best strategic minds behind them, they could mount a real expedition. Maybe -- if he played his cards right -- he could be a part of such an expedition...
"We're coming up on the interception point." Liu Qingge's gruff voice came from the speakers, jolting Luo Binghe out of his daydreaming. "I have eyes on the kaiju."
"Do you actually have eyes on it, or do you have eyes on the traveling dust cloud it's kicking up?" Shen Qingqiu asked dryly, leaning forward to be in range of the mic.
Liu Mingyan's voice came over the channel next, matching him for dryness. "Shen-shibo. Do I understand correctly that we have you to thank for rousting us out of our down time to climb back into the cockpit?" she asked. "Remind me to find a proper way to thank you later."
Some muted laughter echoed around the channel, but Shen Qingqiu took it in good part. "Well, I didn't think your brother would forgive me if I passed up the opportunity for him to get into another fight," he said.
"Clear the channel. It's almost on top of us," Liu Qingge cut in sternly.
The video feed began to divide into different angles and perspectives as the Spirit Eagles peeled away from the escort, rising up and circling the approaching kaiju in order to get the best vantage. Beyond the narrow walls of the passage, the ground opened up into a wide, fan-shaped canyon, a broad flat expanse of tan stone that sloped away downwards towards the far end before rising abruptly into shallow cliffs. It was as clear an arena as one was likely to get in the Wasteland, and not surprising that the Liu siblings would pick this as the place to make their stand.
The Liu siblings' jaeger, Qie Dai Tao, moved out of the bottleneck into the open space and struck up a firm stance. In their left hand they held a blast rifle at ready; in their right, the side controlled by Liu Qingge, was a sword. Well, it was simplest to call it a sword, anyway -- no single piece of metal forged at that size could possibly hold up against a kaiju's side, so this was more of a machine of its own. What Qie Dai Tao wielded was an amalgamation of razor-sharp edges braced into a titanium framework, with engines built-in to propel it.
The Jaeger was a beast of wires and weaponry, sixty meters tall and a hundred tons of reinforced armor plates. But against the beast which burst shrieking from the ground in a spray of pulverized rock, they looked small.
The kaiju -- they were calling this one Gnasher for now, though no doubt it would be cleaned up in the press releases -- clawed its way out of the ground as though it had dug its way straight up from hell. This one had huge, heavy claws on its front feet, which served to break casually through rock and shovel its way through earth. Its maw opened to unsheathe a pair of deadly outsized incisors, top and bottom, like a bear trap ready to spring closed. The Jaeger's armor could stand up against any blow up to and including a plane crash, but these deadly tusks looked like they could punch right through. The skin of its head was raw, pink and shiny, and its tiny eyes were sealed shut with a membrane of filmy white.
Qie Dai Tao opened the fight with a blast shot. A burst of flame blossomed from the side of its head, and Gnasher shrieked and scrabbled forward. Qie Dai Tao lurched to the side, backing up rapidly as they loaded another shot, but Gnasher rapidly closed the distance, powerful front feet churning up rock and earth in its path.
Seconds before collision the jaeger jerked to the side, barely clearing the ravening path of destruction. There was no chance at this close range to get off a shot; Qie Dai Tao moved in with the sword instead, slashing at the monster's massive flank. Rocket boosters flared on the jaeger's legs as they darted in, then up. One slash, up, on the upswing; another, down, on the downswing, carving two trenches into the kaiju's side.
Gnasher turned on them and Qie Dai Tao turned with them, still hacking, hacking away at the wound they had opened in its side. Ichor spattered and white bone glistened inside the wound, revealing a weirdly striated pattern of ribs. The sword stabbed in between two ribs, deep, and the jaeger wrenched it to the side as the kaiju roared and lashed out.
This time, Qie Dai Tao wasn't able to dodge in time; the monster's lashing claws knocked them from their feet, then pinned them before the mech could get away. The kaiju's squat legs, bulging with muscle, tried a rake that would have opened the mech like a tin can -- Qie Dai Tao threw themself to the side and kept rolling, getting out from under its belly barely in time.
The two opponents scrambled for footing, coming up to face one another again in the barren gully. Gnasher screamed in rage, lowering its head and scrabbling its massive claws into the dirt, and then lunged forward again without warning. This time Qie Dai Tao was ready; they met that massive charge head-on, left arm clamping onto the side of the monster's neck as their sword flashed in the harsh sun.
For a moment the combatants struggled for footing, for grip, with Gnasher straining its jaws to bite to the side while Qie Dai Tao struggled to find a mark for their blade. But the kaiju far outweighed the smaller machine, and with a heave it sent them both lurching to the side, lumbering up to a charge that slammed Qie Dai Tao against the side of the cliff.
The impact broke a crater into the wall of the gulley; cracks spread out, then upwards, as rock splintered beneath the weight of the two behemoths. Then all at once there was a gush of water as the edge of the gulley began to crumble, a river beginning to pour rapidly into the basin.
Gnasher seemed confused by the sudden change of terrain, off-balance, and Qie Dai Tao took advantage of its uncertainty; with one hand it reached out to seize one lashing, off-balance leg, and with the other the sword arced overhead and came slashing down. Ichor spurted, mixing with the flowing water to flash a weird fluorescent blue in the bright light, and a long strip of meat and several gnarled toes separated and fell writhing into the growing puddle of water.
The kaiju screamed, a bellow that washed over Mission Control with a flood of static; it twisted and fought its way free of Qie Dai Tao's grip, and then in a sudden heave and flash of massive claws, it vanished.
"Where'd it go?" someone in the room yelled.
"It's a burrower, all right," Shen Qingqiu said grimly.
Water was pouring in fast, mixing with the kaiju's toxic blood. Qie Dai Tao turned for the edge of the cliff and began to climb rapidly, jamming giant metal gauntlets into the side of the cliff to make handholds.
The video feed dissolved into a kaleidoscope of viewpoints as the drones scrambled to keep up, hurrying out of the way of the rushing flood and crumbling avalanche. Most of the drones followed Qie Dai Tao; Shen Qingqiu's was one of those that hunted around for the missing kaiju, instead. With its monstrous strength it could claw through solid rock like drywall; it really could be anywhere.
"Is it running?" asked Ruan Qingruan. "Maybe the pilots should retreat, protect the Shatterdome."
"Kaiju do not run," Yue Qingyuan said, with a deathly calmness. "It will return. Liu-shidi, Liu-shizhi, watch your feet."
"Copy," Liu Qingge said tersely. The Jaeger was still making for higher ground, seeking solid stone that wouldn't crumble underfoot.
With every nerve pitched to a hair trigger, it was actually Luo Binghe who saw it -- a flicker in the corner of the camera view where a section of the rock suddenly and silently vanished downward. "Look out!" he cried, jumping forward to point at the screen. "On the left!"
Qie Dai Tao jumped away to the right just as the ground exploded right at their feet, heralding the return of the kaiju to the surface. It lunged forward out of its self-made burrow with a primal scream, and for a moment the entire Mission Control was treated to a camera view straight down the thing's gullet. There was a writhing darkness there that was nauseating to look on.
Shen Qingqiu sat tense, literally gripping the edge of his seat as he leaned forward. Luo Binghe wasn't even sure his shizun was breathing.
A black streak shot across the camera's view, then another, leaving only fragments of the white sky and dusty rock between them. Then -- blackness.
There was a moment of confusion before the main viewscreen switched over to a different drone's view, one that had been circling higher and out of reach. From there they got the full picture: from Gnasher's open maw stretched a long tendril of blackness, like a frog's extended tongue, which had wrapped itself around Qie Dai Tao's upraised left arm.
Metal screamed against rock as Qie Dai Tao braced against the wrenching pull. But unlike a frog, the monster was not limited to only one tongue. Another black ribbon shot out from the kaiju's mouth, questing for Qie Dai Tao's other arm; they managed to evade the grab, but a third one wrapped around their right leg, and then another around the mechanical torso. Qie Dai Tao resisted the pull, but an insistent yank on their leg broke their stance. Qie Dai Tao stumbled, and began to be dragged forward across the churned-up ground.
The jaeger was too large to actually fit itself into the kaiju's mouth. But once they were pulled into range of those guillotining teeth, they would find themselves in much smaller pieces soon.
Before the kaiju could get in biting range, however, Qie Dai Tao recovered their equilibrium; their sword arm was still free. The motors on the back edge of the blade whined and burned hot as Qie Dai Tao set the sharp edge against the first tendril and fired.
The motorized sword cut through the black ribbon like a hot knife through butter. Shen Qingqiu sat back, exhaling at last, as Qie Dai Tao deftly maneuvered the sword around to cut every seeking tendril, leaving them flopping and leaking black ichor into the wind. Ribbon cutter, indeed.
Now Luo Binghe saw his shizun's strategy. San Xin Shu wouldn't have been able to keep this kaiju at range; it would have rushed them, and those terrible tendrils pulled them down. Even Jing Wang She wouldn't have been able to break out of its grip. Only Qie Dai Tao had both the close-in grit and the agility to finesse it.
His Shizun had been right! Again. Luo Binghe couldn't help but preen, caught in the glow of secondhand accomplishment.
The battle was still going strong. Having lost its bid to drag Qie Dai Tao into biting range, Gnasher had pushed its way out of its burrow and was lashing out at the jaeger with its massive claws. Qie Dai Tao feinted and slashed, cutting through tendons and chipping claws, but was unable to make much headway from this angle. The kaiju was simply too bulky; it was losing blood, black liquid spurting tarry puddles across the stone, but not fast enough. Unless Qie Dai Tao managed to get in a lucky hit on a critical spot, they'd just have to try to wear it down by attrition.
Of course, Gnasher could always get in a lucky shot on a critical spot, too. This wasn't over yet. Shen Qingqiu was locked in on the battle, his hands tight on the edge of the console, his gaze fixed.
"Shizun, there's nothing to worry about," Luo Binghe told him, in a whisper that was not quite loud enough to be heard over the frenetic chatter of the mission control room. "Liu-shimei will be sure to get it done, even if Liu-shishu gets too excited. She never loses her head."
The bid for distraction worked; Shen Qingqiu looked up at him with an expression of mild reproof. "Binghe! Don't talk about your shishu that way," Shen Qingqiu chided him. "Anyway, of course I'm not worried. The pilots have the situation well in hand. I'm merely concerned that their energetic style will leave no whole parts of the beast for me to study."
"What part of it do you want?" Liu Qingge said abruptly.
Someone in the audio channel groaned, and Liu Mingyan huffed a breathy laugh. "Surely by now Shen-shibo has at least three of every possible monster part imaginable?" she said.
"The tail, if you please," Shen Qingqiu said. "I'm very interested in making a closer examination of those ridges along the ventral side."
"Science, don't clutter the channel. This is live fire," one of the communications officers said warningly, and Shen Qingqiu rolled his eyes.
But Liu Qingge said: "I'll get it," and the jaeger suddenly shot forward as the jet-powered sword flared to life.
Of course, Liu Qingge's antics drew attention back to Shen Qingqiu, who looked momentarily taken aback at all the stares; he cleared his throat softly and fanned himself ever more languidly. "Liu-shidi's contributions are extremely welcome," he said in explanation. "There really is no one in the Shatterdome more helpful in advancing Cang Qiong's kaiju research --"
A metal-rending shriek from the speakers grabbed most everybody's attention, and thankfully turned it towards the gory spectacle onscreen. Gnasher was on the ground thrashing and spraying blood -- on two separate monitors, the tail now severed from its body with the clean sweep of a rocket-driven blade.
Two stations over, Wei Qingwei -- chief of the mechatronics division -- burst out laughing.
"...That will do nicely, thank you, well done Liu-shidi," Shen Qingqiu said primly, over the continuing laughter.
Liu Qingge merely grunted in acknowledgement, while Liu Mingyan let out a soft groan. "Please save this for another time," she grumbled.
"Yes, please do," Qi Qingqi said crankily. "Shen Qingqiu, must you use the public channels to flirt?"
"I'm not!" Shen Qingqiu squawked, then hastily switched channels to keep some of this drama out of the public ear. "I am not flirting with Liu Mingyan!" he hissed, glaring at Qi Qingqi from across the aisle.
"I didn't say you were," she said dryly, but her expression told another story.
"Of course you weren't," Luo Binghe jumped in. If no one else would defend Shen Qingqiu's honor, he would! "My Shizun wouldn't be so crass as to try to sneak courting gestures in the middle of an important battle."
Someone else snickered. Shen Qingqiu glared impartially around at everyone, turned back to face his station, and pulled the headset back over his ears with a huff, locking everyone else out.
Truly, despite the stern warnings about staying on task and not cluttering up the radio channels, the atmosphere in mission control had grown easier. Qie Dai Tao had fended off the monster's worst advances, and was now keeping up a relentless meticulous rhythm; feint and slash, seize and stab, drop back and fire the blast rifle whenever possible. Kaiju blood splashed in gory profusion around the barren landscape, and Gnasher was beginning to flag. From there, it was only going to be a matter of time. A few folks were beginning to relax at their stations, turn around to chat in low voices to their fellows.
Shen Qingqiu, however, stayed laser-intent. Luo Binghe watched over his shoulder as he directed his Spirit Eagle to circle around the kaiju, getting shots from the flanks and rear. The viewline dropped down, nearly brushing against the blood-spattered rocks as the drone circled again, angling for shots of the creature's underside or different angles on the joints. The footage wasn't great -- the sun flashed directly in the camera's lens at some angles, dust clouds obscured the battle from others, and both the jaeger and its prey kept moving -- but he kept at it.
From his new angle, low to the ground and shot from behind, Luo Binghe noticed that the ugly mottled patches on the kaiju's hide were -- shifting. At first he thought the skin was peeling off, maybe sheared from the monster's flesh by earlier cuts from Qie Dai Tao, but -- no, the shreds of hide were still firmly attached to the body by strips of tendon. But they were moving, first shaking and shifting and then lifting away from the monster's legs entirely.
That... was weird? Luo Binghe glanced up to compare it with the central camera view, wondering if their his signal was distorting. No, you could see the same movement from other angles, it was just less obvious. The... frill? Scales? were definitely shifting into position, each one with an oily black mark in the center, lifting up and overlapping. "Threat display?" Shen Qingqiu muttered, mostly to himself. "A little late for that, wasn't it?"
"That frill would be awfully inconvenient to deploy underground, wouldn't it Shizun?" Luo Binghe offered uncertainly. "Isn't Gnasher a burrower?"
Gnasher was a burrower --
Shen Qingqiu slapped his comm button so hard he nearly cracked it. "Qie Dai Tao! Close your eyes!" he snapped into his mic, making the order as fierce and forceful as he could. "Now!"
"Shibo, what are you --" Liu Mingyan started to ask, before her voice cut off in a strangled scream.
In the same instant, as all the strange dark scales of Gnasher's frill spread wide, the black centers of each scale suddenly let out an actinic violet flash. The center camera feed went white.
And stayed white, a frozen afterimage of the kaiju's silhouette staying imprinted on the display, a burnt echo of the blazing flare.
As screens all around Mission Control cut to black, or to pixelated noise, as the Spirit Eagle drones burnt out.
"Shen Qingqiu!" someone shouted. "What did you do?"
"I --" His shizun looked shell-shocked, all the blood drained out of his face, gripping his fan in a white-knuckled fan -- but he retained his air of academic poise, even then. "The kaiju had a unique ability, a, a photovoltaic discharge -- an offensive ability developed for fighting other, other low-light creatures --"
"Then why didn't you say something earlier?!" Qi Qingqi demanded, rounding on him. "Why didn't you give them more warning!"
"Qi-shimei, that's enough," Yue Qingyuan said, his carefully controlled tone dropping over the room like a weighted blanket, calming the panic. "Qingqiu gave warning as soon as he knew. We need to focus on the situation at hand. Wei-shidi, can we re-establish contact with the pilots? Are there any drones still up?"
"I've got signal!" one of the techs cried, and that wrenched the attention of Mission Control back on the screens again. The man's screen showed a clear, though far-off view of the same rocky lea that the battle had been taking place in. Gnasher's bulk -- toylike from this size -- was unmistakable, and still standing against it, sword flashing in the glaring sun... "Qie Dai Tao is still up!"
A sigh of relief ran around the room, and the hostile scrutiny that had been focused on Shen Qingqiu dropped away. The cold breath of terror eased with renewed hope, circulating throughout all the stations. Still up!
The feed from the surviving Spirit Eagle was patched to the main screen now, though all the other feeds were still dead. As it drew closer Luo Binghe noticed that Qie Dai Tao, though still standing, was sluggish on their left-hand side. Gnasher, too, was moving slower as the long battle and multiple bleeds finally caught up with it. Even as the spirit drone moved into close range and began to circle, the kaiju abruptly turned on its severed and bleeding tail and vanished again into the earth.
One of the techs groaned. "This again?"
"I still can't raise the pilot channel, sir," the communications tech reported. "This isn't one of the drones that was set up for communications. We'll need to get another relay drone out there."
"Then we'll just have to trust in the pilots," Yue Qingyuan replied. "They know what they need to do."
When Gnasher disappeared into another cloud of dust, Qie Dai Tao did not attempt to follow. Instead the mech turned and made for one of the columns of rock that littered the landscape, dotting the valley like the ancient stumps of felled trees. Maybe they were the remains of petrified trees, Luo Binghe didn't know, but Qie Dai Tao scaled the rock side with relative ease and managed to perch precariously on the flat top of the column. From there it kept turning from one side to another, craning its neck to watch the terrain below.
"Are they just going to hide up there?" Wei Qingwei said under his breath. "Dispatch! Get another relay tower out there!"
"No need," Shen Qingqiu said, beginning to recover his equanimity now that it was clear the pilots were all right.
The video feed of the valley was patchy and grainy, thanks to the long-distance degradation of the feed. They couldn't clearly see the cloud of dust that appeared on the ground at the base of the stone tower, but Qie Dai Tao did.
The kaiju resurfaced from its burrow with a deafening roar, slamming its shoulder against the stone pillar hard enough to fracture it from the base. The tower began to topple to the side, sending jagged splinters of rock against everything within the impact radius, but Qie Dai Tao was no longer there. The moment before the kaiju resurfaced, the jaeger leapt straight up -- tumbling in the air as it rose to its apex and reversed itself, descending like a meteor with the sword point first.
Gnasher, still half-buried in the earth, was unable to dodge -- and Qie Dai Tao's aim was unerring. The sword drove straight down through the kaiju's skull, and the point emerged from the underside of its jaw to drive into the churned earth below.
The kaiju thrashed for a second -- the rest of its body too massive to realize in that instant that its owner was dead -- and then stilled, sagging into a pool of slowly spreading neon blue.
Cheers erupted throughout the Shatterdome, and Shen Qingqiu let out a slow sigh and eased back in his chair, closing his eyes. His lips moved, soundlessly without air, but Luo Binghe thought he could still make out the words: Not yet.
- Art by hordeofcorvids -
Not this time.
The crew of Mission Control celebrating -- cheering, pumping arms in the air, getting up from their stations to hug or exchange high-fives with one another. But Luo Binghe only had eyes for his shizun. To him the tiny, relieved smile that passed over Shen Qingqiu's face when he opened his eyes again and looked at Luo Binghe, was brighter than all the celebratory fireworks in the world.
~to be continued...