Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Now

It only took three knocks for the door to explode open.

“Ruby! I’ve missed you so much!”

“Oof-! Yang!”

“Come on, can’t I be excited to see my baby sister?”

It was like being hugged by a hurricane. Blonde hair, soap, and the red dust of an Australian road tickled her nose. Ruby felt herself be lowered back to the ground and gave a possibly genuine wheeze. She didn’t bother wiping the smile from her face when Yang released her, a zealous, loud kiss dropped to her temple. Her hands lingered on her sister’s arms.

“Broken ribs in the name of excitement isn’t a valid excuse,”

Yang’s grin didn’t waver, her lilac eyes glittering.

“Lies. Besides, didn’t you already break a few during training?” she slung an arm over Ruby’s shoulders and muscled her into the house, “No one I know graduated basic training without at least two, if fractures count,”

Ruby smiled under Yang’s arm. She had missed her sister a lot.

“Well if fractures count,” Ruby’s voice rolled nearly to the ceiling, “Then you’ll be happy to know I made it out with three,”

Yang laughed, big and warm, ushering Ruby into the kitchen and seating her firmly at the table.

“That’s my sister,” she winked, turning to the fridge, “I’ve got beer, vodka lemonade, and spiked iced tea,”

“Water?”

“Not on my watch,”

Yang filled a glass from the tap anyway, Ruby settling in as her sister shuffled around the small kitchen. She hadn’t been here in six months. Yang had driven her to the airport when she left for basic, and it was strangely nice to come back to the same place when she felt so changed.

“Because if you’re here you either graduated, or you flunked. And both occasions call for alcohol,”

Ruby laughed shortly, Yang smiling as she poured herself into the opposite chair, a beer and two slices of chocolate cake accompanying her. Ruby groaned.

“I have got to get myself a girlfriend,”

Yang snorted, cybernetic fingers popping the top from her bottle.

“It definitely doesn’t suck,”

Ruby dug in, six months of cold turkey sugar withdraw rearing its head with a vengeance. She hummed through a full mouth, shame absent in front of the woman who changed her diapers as a baby.

“Where is Blake, anyway?”

Yang’s eyes went light they way they always did, turning to glance through the window like she’d be able to see her. Ruby’s smile tuned light and private at the expression. Some things never changed. After the 180-degree whiplash-inducing turn her life had taken in the past six months, constants were good to have.

“The shop,” Yang waved dismissively, “Emergency, DEFCON 1, crisis of Mach 5 proportions or something. She’ll be back though,” Ruby nodded, understanding. Yang tipped her head, “So, little sister,” her nose wrinkled, “You didn’t tell me you graduated. What’s up with that? We wanted to come!”

Ruby swallowed. The moisture in the cake dried in her mouth.

“Well, I wasn’t necessarily part of the regular graduating class,” she started. Yang’s eyebrows raised and lowered quickly, a clear question as to whether this was good news or not. Ruby played with her fork, “In fact, I wound up doing really well. Top of my class, actually,”

Yang’s pride seeped outwards, her posture leaning, “Ruby, that’s great! I knew you were going to be amazing! Well done! We should celebrate,”

The smaller woman nodded, grateful.

“Thanks, Yang,” she shrugged halfheartedly, “But they asked me to hang around instead of going to the graduating ceremony. To see if I’d be interested in… an alternate route after graduation,”

Yang’s elation ebbed, Ruby’s careful tone finally seeming to sink in. Blonde eyebrows drew as she took in her sister’s bracing posture, her hesitant verbal steps. She sighed quickly through her nose, suspicion and something close to dread stealing into her chest. Ruby watched it all roll across Yang’s features. She swallowed again, dropping her fork; dropping pretense. Yang drank her beer, setting it down like a gauntlet thrown.

“Who’s ‘they’ Ruby?”

A light moment, and then the plunge.

“General Ironwood,”

“And?”

“Jacques Schnee and Ozborn Ozpin,”

Ruby watched Yang’s features carefully, her lavender eyes hardening in degrees, locked on her own. Her sister was nothing short of highly intelligent on a lazy day, and brilliant on a good one.

“Just tell me,”

“The UN brought back the PPDC three months ago. And they’re bringing back the Jaeger Program,” Ruby sucked in a breath, “They’re recruiting me to go to the Jaeger Academy opening up, and I want to go. They wanted me to ask if you’d consider coming too. Coming back,”

Yang didn’t move. Ruby prepped for the final drive, a splinter shoved deeper down.

“They… They told me that they fixed Ember Shroud,”

When the beer bottle exploded, Yang looked just as surprised as Ruby. The blonde swore, her left hand opening a panel on her robotic right arm’s bicep, jaw locked. She made several taps, closing the lid and manually prying her right fist open.

“Sorry,” Yang mumbled, “Haven’t recalibrated in a couple months,”

“It’s okay,”

The sisters sat in tense silence, Yang’s arm finally cooperating. She breathed through her nose, fixing her sister with a solid stare, mouth set.

“Why are they bringing the program back?”

Ruby had been told explicitly not to, but Yang’s balled left hand, the rigid slope of her shoulders, and the intense honesty in her eyes decided it. She reached to her pocket and shook out several papers, edges ragged out and tightly folded, the ‘CLASSIFIED’ stamp inked red and ignored.

“The Grimm left for no reason,” Ruby started, turning the papers and spreading it for Yang’s devouring eyes, “and the Mariana Trench has been quiet. Until three months ago,” She pointed to a grainy, night-vision scrambled photo, “When a G-researcher took that,”

Yang picked up the photo, eyes narrow. It was undoubtedly the breach. She’d seen it in countless briefs. Seen it in person.

In her nightmares.

And in this shitty, world-ending photo, it was glowing. She worked her jaw, glancing back to her sister’s worried expression. Ruby pointed around some more, data and readings flying past. Yang quickly turned her head to the front door, the unmistakable sound of tires on gravel crunching into her ears. She frowned, and caught the guilty look on Ruby’s face.

“I uh, brought guests?”

Yang breathed through the ball in her chest.

“Next time, just walk them in. I hate serving drinks twice,”

Ruby smiled, relieved. Yang threw her a forgiving look. She knew how the Pan Pacific Defense Corps worked. Their invitations usually came with an ‘or else’ chaser. Like a cue had signaled, a firmly polite knock rapped on the door. Ruby looked to Yang, who rolled her eyes, heaving out of her chair.

And got another beer.

She pried off the top, winking at Ruby as the door suffered the efficient attention of their uninvited guests again. Yang leaned against the fridge languidly, Ruby breaking, smiling at her sister broadly.

The house was quiet for a second, the air confused and waiting.

Ruby’s scroll chimed in her pocket, a ringing Yang apparently found hilarious, as she snorted and drank her beer. The smaller girl checked the ID and held up the unknown number to her sister, who, after a squint, gave a maniac grin and ripped her jacket off, throwing it across the kitchen. Ruby jumped, following her sister’s tank top as she ambled down the hall, completely bewildered.

Yang swung the door open, beer in hand, to find the surprised faces of two men, one with a fist raised to knock. Yang smiled.

“Afternoon,” she cheered, “If you could come back with your boss, that’d be great. Sorry, but after 10, I only let Global Leaders in the house. Thanks!”

And slammed the door.

Ruby raised her eyebrows, Yang smiling fondly with her back to the front door. She lolled her head to look at her sister, holding a finger up, waiting, and nodding with purpose on the down stroke.

Precisely at that moment, a staccato knock sounded against the door. Ruby leaned against the foyer, watching. Yang pushed off, and opened the door once more, wide and welcoming. On the other side, a stylish woman in her 30’s looked pissed. She couldn’t have been more than a year older than Yang. Beautiful, pinched features with disciplined snow-white hair subjugated into a severe bun. Her eyes were icy.

“Winter!” Yang crowed, “I’ll be damned. Who knew Ironwood would send such a warm, affectionate, and charismatic minion to leverage my baby sister? A charmer, that man,”

The woman seemed to suffer a seizure while holding completely still. Yang plowed on, stepping back and bowing, “Can I welcome you in? Take your coat? Kiss your ass?”

Ruby smiled. Yang had never liked anyone who wore a badge at their waist.

Ignoring her completely, Winter stepped into the house like Yang was renting it from her. The blonde shut the door in the faces of both men flanking her. Winter’s jaw jumped.

“May we speak privately?”

Yang’s grin spilled like paint.

“What, trying to get me alone already?” she sidled up to the tight-shouldered woman, slick as an oil spill, “Winter, why didn’t you just lead with that?” Yang extended her right hand to plant against the wall near Winter’s head, her musculature defined. Ruby bit her bottom lip, Yang going so far as to bring her left hand’s nails to her face, inspecting and flexing in the same movement.

“You changed your hair,” Yang tossed her a devastating, too-keen smile, “I like it,”

Winter Schnee looked like she wanted to hit her.

“Stop this at once,”

“You know, I’ve missed you these last five years,” Yang turned to stare Winter in the eye, “Haven’t known what to do with myself. Any suggestions?”

A sub-zero narrowing of Winter’s eyes let Ruby know exactly what she’d like Yang to go and do.

“This is a matter of global emergency,” Winter grit, “I would appreciate your full attention, Ranger Xiao Long,”

Yang’s playful façade fell away with her arm, her eyes darkening, Winter not flinching. Yang’s jaw squared. She drew to her full height, chin tipping up. She nodded, leading the way to her kitchen.

“Give us a minute, alright, Rubes?”

The smaller woman nodded at Yang, her chest tightened. She wondered faintly when the last time anyone had referred to Yang as ‘Ranger’. Watching them go, Ruby saw Winter glance over the house, pictures and Spartan décor, all smelling of a hominess no candle could comprehend.

She remembered when she’d first set foot in this house. After everything, the US had given Yang indefinite leave, Blake released completely. They spent most of their time that first year settling down and helping to build New Sydney. Ruby smiled at a picture on the wall of herself in a half-nelson-half-hug, Yang victorious and grinning as she held the lifted camera. Blake had a hand on Yang’s right arm, human and whole. They all smiled, a towering metal structure looming behind them. She touched the next one, a familiar, silver-haired corporal corralled between Blake and Yang.

Ruby sighed, her head turning toward the kitchen at the sound of low voices. It was a small house. She couldn’t help but eavesdrop. She crept the necessary steps to the kitchen door, her breath stilling as she put her ear against it.

On the other side, Yang had leaned against the stove, watching Winter circle her kitchen. The woman flickered eyes over pictures and post cards on the fridge, a scribbled grocery list, the remnants of a cake plate. Glass on the floor. Her eyes landed on the pictures sitting innocently on Yang’s kitchen table. Winter’s lips went tight, her voice dry.

“That information is highly classified,” she said, gaze flicking to Yang, “You are sisters, then,”

Yang’s lips twisted humorlessly, “Isn’t that what you’re hoping for?”

Winter straightened.

“I’ll cut to the chase,”

“Thank God,”

“The breach is opening, Xiao Long. We don’t know when, and we don’t know why,” Winter held her gaze, “You’re not the best. Not any more. But you’re very good, and General Ironwood wants you. Ozpin wants you even more. We’re seeing activity we’ve never seen before, and it has the potential to destroy or end life on this planet as we know it,”

Yang bit her cheek, looking away.

“Blake will never go for it,”

Winter let a small frown mar her tone, “We’re well aware,”

Yang looked back, surprised. She watched Winter’s unmoving figure, her thoughts spooling out.

“But you’re not here for Blake, are you? Or else you would have come when she was home,” Yang’s mind sped as her voice slowed, her blood curdling in her veins, “You want me to pilot Ember Shroud… without her?”

“Ruby’s test scores are good. You’re her closest relative. Blood sisters, too,”

Yang closed her mouth, her chest beating heavily at the idea. Thinking back to before; another lifetime. A million images flashed through her mind’s eye, her chest balled and burning. Scenes eras long uncoiled in her memory. She imagined wiping Blake out of them. It turned her stomach. Her jaw wired shut, throat tight in effort to keep the sickness down.

“I won’t pilot Ember Shroud without Blake,” Yang’s eyes turned to spark dangerously, “Not only because I don’t want to, but because the neural network won’t hold a handshake with me that isn’t hers. It’s coded into the interface. Blake did it herself,”

Winter frowned, “We haven’t completed repairs yet. I’m sure it can be dismantled,” she dodged coolly, “That machine is your legacy. You know it better than any other pilot would be able to train for,”

“I said no,”

“To Ember Shroud,” Winter parried, “We can give you a new Jaeger. Mark-V, if you want,”

Yang’s hand tightened to a fist. Her ears rang with echoes. With thought. God, she wished Blake were home. Her mind flashed toward Ruby. Her younger sister, a grown woman now, older even than Yang had been when she’d first set foot in a Jaeger.

“Ranger Xiao Long,” Winter lifted her chin, “The Grimm are coming back. The only question left is this: Would you rather die here, or in a Jaeger?”

It was an impossible question; a rhetorical question, and they both knew it. Winter’s posture waned.

“We’re prepared to promise you compensation of your choice. As incentive, if you will,”

Yang wanted to deliver the derisive laugh bubbling in her throat.

“Provided I live?”

“Not at all,”

Yang glanced to the blank, meaningful rise of Winter’s slender brow. Yang looked away, feeling the boil of her temper start to build. Her jaw ground into the stretch of silence.

“Your wife,” the first hint of a smile glinted through the woman’s tone, Yang instantly glaring at her, “will be taken care of for the rest of her life, your performance disregarded,”

“And I suppose I’ll need to get that in writing?”

“It would be wise,”

Yang snorted derisively.

“Good thing I keep my lawyer on speed dial just in case I run into any federally-funded bureaucratic bullshit on short notice,”

A twang of the past simmered between them. Yang gave a tight, honest smile, Winter clearing her throat and averting her eyes. She reached into her jacket for her scroll, opened it, and handed it off to Yang.

“Name your price. That goes directly to General Ironwood,”

“I thought it was a reward, not a price,” Yang muttered, taking the fragile glass and resisting the urge to grind it to sand in her hand.

“Whatever gets you in a Jaeger,”

“How about a promotion, then?” Yang said darkly, typing into the open window, “General Ironwood, Special Agent Schnee,” she gave a nasty smile, “Share the wealth,”

Winter paused, assessing, “You’re joking,” she finalized. Yang huffed, rolling her eyes.

“Yeah, I’m joking,” she ground, “You’d think a promotion would come with a standard issue sense of humor,”

“I’m afraid not,”

Yang hummed, handing the device back to Winter. She looked it over, a white eyebrow slowly rising. Yang lifted her chin, eyes flint. Winter nodded.

“I don’t believe the General would have a problem with this. It seems… fair,”

“You know, I don’t really care what Ironwood thinks. Besides, I made a promise,”

Winter’s mouth parted, uncharacteristic surprise in her azure eyes. Yang would have laughed if her mouth didn’t taste more bitter than day-old coffee.

A soft tap at the door caught their attention. Ruby slowly poked her head around the corner, seeing the coast clear, absent broken glass or bruises. She cleared her throat.

“Uh, Blake’s home,”

Yang breathed sharply, the rigid posture immediately dispersing. She grimaced a smile. Winter only lifted her chin. Ruby fully stepped into the kitchen and waited with them in silence. She played with her fingers.

The front door opened, and Yang closed her eyes. She couldn’t help the periodic flicker of a smile as she listened to the familiar rhythm of her life’s light in motion. All the while, it was a cacophony of Lasts.

The jingle and slick grind of a sticking key Blake always complained about exiting the lock. The door closed. Dead air. Blake could feel the house was too still. The arm of the military had never touched it, this chunk of safety they’d carved for themselves. Yang was sure that walking into it was as foreign feeling as stepping into cold storage.

A shuffle, a clack, and Yang knew Blake had set her briefcase and bag down under the table in the hallway. A heeled step, two, and a third. A pause. Blake backtracked; punctuated the steps with something close to a bang, another thud following it from where she was throwing Yang’s shoes up the stairs and to the landing.

Sharp clicks resumed, and Yang opened her eyes at the soundless swing of the kitchen door. She had lucked out, that’s for sure. Blake was dressed in a simple black pencil skirt, charcoal heels setting off the dark gray piping of her lilac blouse. Her hair tumbled free and royal midnight, face with only the faintest touches of make up. Yang didn’t fight the smile the sight of her drew up.

That afternoon Blake had gotten ready in a rush, the physical therapy center they owned, affectionately named ‘The Body Shop’, having encountered an issue with the facilities management. She had dabbed on concealer over the bathroom sink, grumping at the bags under her eyes. Yang had laughed at her.

“Leave it,” she’d crooned, stepping up to fit Blake’s perfect ass into the cradle of her hips. She kissed into the black of Blake’s hair, “I really want you to answer people when they ask why you’re losing sleep,”

Her smile had been wolfish, Blake’s eyes rolling.

“Your ego can starve,” she replied, voice dry as kindling, “Especially after you did this to me,” her head tipped, a sweet, strawberry-blue colored oval sitting beneath the skin revealed, “What are you, 17?”

Yang cackled faux-madly, cuddling Blake deeper into her.

“Sorry,” she replied, another kiss planted to the top of Blake’s spine, “I was a big fan of your work that last round. Got distracted,”

Blake only chuckled, resuming her make up, “I’m a 29 year old woman, and I have a hickey,” she sighed, “What will the neighbors say?”

“Hopefully anything, while choking on something,” Yang wrinkled her nose, “Diane can kiss my ass after that hedge debacle. How dare she measure our fucking shrubbery. Two extra inches. Two. How can I take someone like that seriously?”

Blake made direct eye contact with her in the mirror, a storm of amused desire roiling across her features.

“Relax, babe. The only thing you should be concerned with taking is two extra inches tonight,”

Yang froze. And then her spine crackled, fizzing warm and loved. It clamped heavy in her stomach, pulling behind her belly button, but she pushed it away. She had laughed and laughed. Buried her face in Blake’s hair and waited for her to finish.

Blake’s smile was a crook at the corner of her lips, Yang’s warmth constant behind her. She clattered around her make up bag. Selected an eye shadow palate. She held it up and pointed to different circles.

“One and two, or two and three?”

“With the grey heels?”

“Mhm,”

“One three,”

Blake obeyed, continuing. She finished and paused critically, eyeing her reflection. Yang pushed until Blake’s thighs hit the countertop.

“You can stop there,” she whispered, eyes locking with her girlfriend’s, “You look beautiful,”

Blake’s smile was softer than satin. She dropped her head, pleased in her quiet way. She put her make up back in the bag. Yang had told her countless times how much she liked her natural look. It was a favorite, amongst all the other favorites Yang had told her about.

So she had worn it to work. Yang smiled at her across the kitchen. Blake really was too beautiful.

“Hey, babe,” Yang said cheerfully, a small, brittle sort of plead in her tone. Blake’s eyes jumped to Winter. Ruby. The kitchen table. Back to Yang. The blonde took shelter behind an impressive appeal of a smile, “I invited some friends over. You look great, by the way. Is that a new shirt?”

Blake sent her girlfriend an unimpressed look. Ruby buried a laugh as Yang’s smile broadened, her shoulders relaxing. Blake shifted focus to the standing woman.

“Winter,”

“Blake,”

Blake let a small twitch take her lips, “Has she tried to hit on you yet?”

“She allowed me five minutes first,”

“She’s thoughtful like that. Did she offer you anything to drink?”

Yang watched Winter’s eyes go truly light for the first time since entering the house.

“I don’t require one anyway,”

Blake hummed, crossing to the counter next to Yang and depositing her keys in a dish. Her hand rose to let fingers linger under Yang’s jaw. She lifted an eyebrow at the blonde, “Thoughtful like that,”

Yang sent her a reckless smile. Blake broke, her eyes going amused and fond. Yang wiggled slightly, Blake immediately scoffing as if this had been a full sentence. Ruby only smiled when Blake leaned in for a short, welcoming, kiss. Yang pulled away with the grin of a champion, heart fluttering in what could only be the last lights of an era.

Blake turned around, a mild, friendly look on her face, “What can we do for you, Winter?”

Winter’s small almost-smile died like a flower wilting in the sun, and Yang sigh deeply. She looked to Ruby quickly, her sister tense and staring at Blake. Ruby had once laughingly told her ‘thank God for Blake’s eyes’. It took actual confusion for Ruby to clarify. Yang could read Blake without even looking at her, but everyone else saw a stone wall if that’s what Blake preferred. After all these years, Ruby had only been able to find Blake’s real emotions in her eyes, her thoughts locked behind the beautiful visage’s vault.

Winter drew herself taller, her mouth set.

“You can return to the PPDC and pilot Ember Shroud. The breach is active once again. If you cannot do this, you can allow Yang to. Ruby has been selected to attend the Jaeger Academy and will accompany her,”

Blake didn’t move, her jaw set and eyes narrow as she returned Winter’s hard gaze. The air was still. Tense. And then, slowly, she turned to look at Yang.

Yang, her life’s partner and greatest devotion. Yang, who she would support through war and famine, through heartbreak and joy. Yang, whose face was set in tired, heart rending, apology.

Blake’s eyes were steel.

“Winter,” she said, eyes unmoving from the weary lilac, “I think it’s time you see yourself out,”

“Ms. Rose,” Winter said quietly, “If you’ll come with me,”

Ruby nodded, swallowing. Winter cleared her throat.

“We’ll be in touch,” she said, not bothering to wait for Blake or Yang to look away from the other. Winter stepped out, Ruby following slowly. She wanted to say something, anything. Make it better. Make it work. But she knew not to intervene. Once she was gone, the kitchen door closed softly behind her.

Yang’s gaze hadn’t left the darkening amber desperation in front of her.

“You promised me,” Blake’s voice was a sheathed dagger. Silk brushed the ears, the timbre low and sweet and dangerous, “You promised me, Yang,”

Yang’s shoulders were caved, expression fragile and lonely. The sound of that voice cracked her chest, reached in and pulled her heart from the cavity.

“You told her yes,” Blake’s velvet tones, like black fur brushing skin, came out hollow and realizing. Like her misery had been jarred and opened again. Her eyes danced over every inch of Yang’s face.

It hadn’t been a question, but Yang knew it required answering.

“I told her I needed to talk to you,”

Blake’s head lifted, “Meaning you plan to,”

Yang’s heart ached, her throat dry when she tried to swallow. She flexed her jaw, sure the guilt was clear in her eyes. Blake broke eye contact, looking away and shaking her head faintly. She looked out the kitchen window, unseeing.

“We did our time,” she said, her tempo a steam engine gaining speed and heat, “We did our time, Yang. We saved what we could, and we almost lost everything,” Blake was shaking, vibrating with compressed anger, her voice quailing, eyes burning, “We were the minority who didn’t die, and that was only through arrogance and sheer, stupid, luck. Don’t you dare tell me I’m crazy,”

Yang looked closer to crying than Blake did.

“You’re not,”

“This is one of those times, Yang, where I know I’m not wrong, and everyone else is confused,”

“It’s not about being wrong,” Yang’s jaw set, the shimmer of her violet eyes pleading understanding. She stood, stepping carefully from the stove. Instinctively, Blake’s spine eased, Yang’s mere proximity settling her, “It’s about what’s right,”

Blake sagged against the countertop, her eyes closing. Her voice was near grief.

“I can’t protect you like this,”

Yang breathed, entering Blake’s personal space. Her chest brushed the woman’s shoulder, reaching to take Blake’s hand gently. Blake immediately returned pressure, a frantic grip on reality as she knew it.

“That’s why we protect each other,” Yang said softly.

“How are we supposed to do that here, Yang?”

The blonde swallowed, thumb rolling over Blake’s knuckles.

“We’ll love each other. Like always. And then we’ll be together again,”

Blake’s free hand came up to smooth over her own brow, shaky and severe.

“You promised me,” Blake’s response was through water.

“And I’m going to keep that promise,”

“I don’t want your promise if you aren’t around, Yang!” her head swiveled, eyes flashing through her tears. Yang’s didn’t rise to the reaction. She lifted a metal-plated hand, brushing a traitorous tear away and curling behind her head. Blake’s breathing came jerky and labored, her eyes closing once more.

“I’m not strong enough not to fight,” Yang whispered, her tone begging understanding. Blake’s eyes opened, and Yang knew the shattered look reverberated from her chest.

“I can’t,” Blake swallowed, “I can’t do that again,”

Yang’s jaw clamped. It was only in the past two years that Blake had stopped waking up in a cold sweat, crying, gasping like she had to breathe enough for two.

“I know,” she swallowed sand, “I know. You don’t have to,”

“Ms. Schnee?” Ruby started in.

“Special Agent,” the woman corrected blankly. Ruby nodded. No one took exact offense for mistaken ranks and titles inside the UN. It’s why the PPDC started their own. Winter tapped at her scroll grimly, Ruby realizing that General Ironwood may or may not consider this a success, depending on the woman’s wording.

“Sorry,” Ruby said, “Special Agent Schnee. Can I ask you a question sort of… personal?”

The woman sighed, putting the device down and nodding. Ruby cocked her head. In the time she’s been exposed to Winter Schnee, she’d realized that Winter wasn’t explicitly unfriendly, just tense. Everything about her was tense.

“Why is it you like Blake better than Yang? I mean, besides the fact that Yang’s probably the only officer I know who has a problem with authority,”

Winter’s indomitable posture twitched.

“It’s not a matter of ‘liking’ either of them,” Winter didn’t break professionalism for a moment, “But I’ll respect Blake Belladonna until I die,” she looked annoyed at herself, “Not to be trite,”

Ruby smiled smally, waiting. Winter roused herself.

“When Ozpin created the neural connection, it killed the first pilot to attempt to control a Jaeger in 10 minutes. Much later, a Grimm named Spinejackal landed a killing blow to the Mark-II Jaeger Arkos Valiant. Unfortunately, it killed only one of its pilots, Jaune Arc. His partner was forced to pilot solo. She lasted 14 minutes, and barely escaped with her life. There have been others, but none as long,” Winter’s rundown was clinical, “Five years ago, when the breach quieted; when Knifehead was defeated. Blake Belladonna solo piloted Ember Shroud for 72 minutes, getting her and her co-pilot to a shoreline. She had a 3-foot long piece of rebar impaling her abdomen, and she wasn’t certain whether her partner was dead or alive,”

Winter snapped her scroll shut, Ruby’s eyes wide.

“Yes, I respect Blake Belladonna,” Winter paused, an eyebrow jumping briefly, “That, and she’s much quieter about her rebellion than your sister,”

Ruby smiled lightly.

“I didn’t know that part,” she said, “About Blake solo piloting,”

Winter nodded.

“We’re not clear on how it was possible, only that the neural Drift was inexplicably intact for those 72 minutes, while Yang was no longer connected to the PONS,”

Ruby frowned, “What’s that mean?”

Winter picked lint from her uniform, “It means that Blake somehow managed to delve so far into the Drift, she could create and project Yang’s neural network in her own mind, using it to shield herself from the entire force of the Jaeger’s weight,” she looked at Ruby squarely, “It would be the equivalent of holding a bridge aloft by determination alone. It shouldn’t have been possible,”

Ruby felt her insides glow, pride and awe warming familiar and comfortable.

“They don’t really talk about it,” Ruby finally responded after a while. The countryside flew by them, everything happening too quickly for Ruby to pin point the features clearly, “But they always seemed happy here, away from everything. I feel bad. Like I’m taking it away,”

Winter watched her with isolated interest.

“Ms. Rose,” she said, “Unless you activated the breach, your feelings are unfounded,”

The younger woman looked surprised, a small smile touching her lips.

“I guess you really tell it like it is, huh?”

Winter didn’t seem to deign this worthy of a reply, instead opening her scroll and continuing to work. Ruby smiled to herself. She kind of appreciated the woman’s style.

“So, when do we get to Russia?”

Then 

Yang shifted her weight, craning her neck to try and glimpse the top of the Shatterdome.

“Well that’s pretty humbling,” she muttered to herself.

The Shatterdome was a rough-hewn fortress. It had been made out of shipping containers pulled apart and welded back together into a gigantic, sky-scraping behemoth of ugly, twisted metal. The Vladivostok Shatterdome was an architectural cachophany of bulky function. Most impressive, though, was the massive central structure that served as the garage and domicile of the Jaegers.

“Lieutenant, if you’ll follow me,” Winter crisped, “Reception is this way,”

Yang nodded, following the corporal’s smart stride into the hangar, silvery white hair trimmed to her jawline fluttering in the breeze. It was with awe Yang noted it; this place was big enough to house its own breezes. The inside of the hangar took her breath away.

Jaegers. They were monsters of human will incarnate. They stood in dispersed pieces; suspended from cranes; half-constructed on platforms; but Yang could see what they would become. Metallic defiance of a civilization unwilling to go without a fight. Desire flamed in her chest as she walked. Need and want, rolling competitively through her rib cage.

They were trying to create a way to punch a Grimm in the face.

And damned if Yang didn’t want to be the woman behind that fist.

Grimm.

They had first been called ‘Monster’; ‘Dinosaur’ in San Francisco. ‘Kaiju’ when spotted off the coast of Japan. ‘Strange beast’ the Japanese had called it. Then, after Sydney, the name ‘Grimm’ had stuck as the world realized they wouldn’t be going away.

Yang’s eyes roved over a football field-sized hand. She recalled the newsreels with a grimace. San Fran in 2013. She’d been in one of the F-22 jets they had scrambled to cover the nuclear missile carrier that sixth day. The Grimm had plowed a three mile wide, 35 mile long path through San Francisco all the way to Oakland. Two armies and tens of thousands of people, dead. She still remembered the chilling crawl up her spine when six months later, Manila fell to another Grimm. Four months, Cabo. The United Nations came together to form the Pan Pacific Defense Corps and resigned itself to the phyrric realization that nuclear missiles were the only things capable of taking the creatures out.

After Sydney in 2014, Yang had been called into her commander’s office after a strange new battalion-wide physical assessment. The two figures behind him had spoken words she’d never heard before, and would never forget.

Jaeger Academy. Mark-1. Neural load.

Drift Compatibility.

She hadn’t even packed, just nodded, shot a text to her sister, and jumped into a Blackhawk bound for Russia.

“Yang?”

“Holy shit, it’s Yang Xiao Long,”

“Look, they got Yang!”

She tore her eyes away from the mechanized giant, turned, and realized a small following of hangar technicians had pressed a daring distance closer to her. Her stomach dropped slightly. She cleared her throat and shot them a smile, waving.

“Great job you guys are doing,” she said, not breaking stride. Winter looked back and blanched. Yang kept on, nodding at the personal scrolls discretely produced and aimed at her. The voices grew a little louder in their muttering, ripples of a chain reaction as people passed the word on that Yang Xiao Long had come to the Shatterdome.

“Yang, are you here for the Academy?”

“Is it a PR thing?”

“Yang, can you sign this?”

“She’s taller than I thought,”

Winter’s clean stride quickened, her annoyance clear. She pushed through a double door, the crowd following faithfully. Yang made it through the entrance, and Winter had apparently had enough.

“To your posts!” She snapped at the crew, the military ring of her voice reminding them of where they were and who, exactly, they had just stalked 200 feet.

Yang looked up, finding herself the center of attention to nearly forty sets of turned faces, the most prominent being Colonel Ironwood at a center podium, midsentence and unamused. Yang drew tall, hand rising to the air with her smile, “Sorry about that, Sir,”

Ironwood leaned back into the microphone.

“As I was saying,” he said, “You all have been endorsed by your home countries and come together now in the interest of global security under a banner of international peace. There will be no hostility between nations over old grudges. Compared to the threat we face now, those disagreements are weighed as petty. Your leaders have all agreed,” his low voice was a drone of authority, “You are the finest personnel capable of Drift in the world. You will be trained and weeded out in order to become this planet’s only defense,”

He paused, letting the message trickle through the stillness.

“The official language on base will be English in order to reduce confusion. Your handlers will translate if necessary. Your handlers also have your itinerary and room assignments,”

Yang leaned toward Winter and whispered too lowly into her ear, “I didn’t get one of those,”

Winter didn’t jerk away, but Yang could tell by the sudden stiffening of her shoulders that she had wanted to, “I sent it to you last week,”

Yang was about to reply, but then she looked up. And stared.

Leaning against a pillar, arms folded over her chest, was Circe. An Enchantress. Yang was not a romantic. She liked to credit herself as being a pragmatist. But this girl had hair deeper than black; it was the color of the sky between the stars. It curled and waved, dodging order and light. Her face was too pretty to be a genetic accident. Like someone, somewhere, possibly dozens of someones, had been deprived of beauty just to lend it all to this girl. Her eyes roved curiously over the speaking colonel, but touched more frequently on the others littered through the room.

Yang had never seen a color so hypnotizing. It was a startling honey; burnished gold; a promise of trapping a would-be gazer into the amber and fossilizing for thousands of years. It was sudden, and punched into her chest with the force of a freight train, but Yang needed to hear her voice.

Wanted to see her face change, split, smile, frown, twist. Wanted to know what things could be done, what words could be said, to get her to make those expressions.

Because the girl was looking at her now, drawn to the gaze already on her. And Yang had seen pretty girls before. She’d been with beautiful women. But this one leveled her with just a millimeter of an eyebrow raise.

It nearly buckled her knees.

Yang couldn’t stop herself from winking and looking away, her heart beating too hard for just an eye exchange. She pushed down the need to look again, to check and see if the girl took it the right way, if it cracked into the cool countenance. Yang nearly rolled her eyes at herself. She was second-guessing a wink. What was wrong with her? Duty before libido.

Colonel Ironwood cleared his throat, wrapping up his brief.

“I won’t conduct a back brief in the interest of time, so I’ll reiterate. This week will be standard trials and the physical, followed by the Kwoon rounds. After partner selection, we’ll share itineraries with who makes it,”

“Dismissed,”

Yang looked to the pillar again, her Goddess gone.

“PT is set for 05,” Winter’s brittle voice stabbed, “Uniform is PTU’s you’ll find in your barracks. Breakfast at 08, physical at 09, lunch, and then your day is yours,”

Yang shook herself, “Psh,” she responded airily, “Obviously. I was listening,”

Winter glared at her, hands behind her back.

“Is that so. Which way is the barracks, Lieutenant?”

Yang paused, glancing to the four doors available. She smirked, stepping to just inside Winter’s personal space, “You know. Why don’t you show me? Seems a lot more practical,”

Winter’s cheeks actually filled out in a blush, eyes casting over with panic for a fraction of a second. Another second passed, and she jerked backwards. Her blood-suffused ears ruined the magnificent glower she shot Yang.

“I’ve sent you a map. If you can’t find it, your name is on the door. Good evening, Lieutenant Xiao Long,”

With a spin on her heel, the girl strode out of the room. Yang chuckled to herself. She wasn’t being malicious. The corporal hadn’t even shook her hand in the Blackhawk, professionalism ironed into the very starch of her posture. It was a chew toy Yang couldn’t help but tease.

Yang pulled air in, letting it fill out her lungs as she looked around, hands joining to stretch over her head. Somehow, she could still smell the sea. This place tasted like salt and electricity; a buzzing, panicky flavor. It left a tickle in her fingers, a crawl in her spine.

She exhaled, snapping her arms down from the luxurious extension. A few lingering candidates shot her alarmed looks before returning focus to their handlers.

Yang wrinkled her nose while she thought, hands on her hips.

“Now. Where to find food,” she mused.

The first two days had been brutal.

Winter had warned her that Week Zero was planned to be taxing. Yang had waved her off, morally opposed to anyone who used the word ‘taxing’ instead of ‘hard as shit’.

She was a good enough soldier to be in the right place at the right time, in the right uniform. Everything went to shit after that. Forty candidates were pushed through time trials, obstacle courses, agility and accuracy tests, max weight assessments, and even coherency checks. Never in her life did Yang think she’d be Romanian deadlifting at the same time as singing her multiplication tables to the tune of Mary Had A Little Lamb.

It was without pause, without stops, and without water.

Grueling.

Yang loved every minute. The only thing she regretted was not being able to catch sight of the beautiful mystery girl she’d seen earlier. The pace was too intense for her to do anything but focus on willing down the lactic acid scorching her legs. No wonder they scheduled breakfast after this, and not before.

By the time 07 rolled around, she could have cried from happiness. Her entire body was leaden, the fibers of every muscle crying their own individual scream of agony. Air had never before been in such short supply.

In her own quarters, she collapsed in the shower, folding down without an ounce of dignity. Yang laughed, on her ass and stark naked, facing the spray. She’d missed the clean satisfaction of testing the limits of her own body. Dressing and continuing on, she could only hope the next day would be better.

It wasn’t.

It was the same. Same tests, quizzes, exercises, everything. And then came the medical physical. Yang shuddered to remember. Her patented ‘what? No dinner first?’ joke had lost its sheen after the ninth delivery and a spinal tap.

It got better after the third day. Partly because the scientific sadists seemed to be satisfied with the data they had collected and left the candidates to a more conventional training session. But mostly because Yang got lost in the Shatterdome.

Whether she missed a left turn, or should have taken the stairs, she didn’t know. But now it seemed like fate had reached out and yanked on her ear until it lead her here. Here, where Circe was tucked into the corner of what looked like a lounge, a book on her lap and peace in her shoulders.

She looked up at Yang’s presence in the doorway.

Static had shocked the blonde to her core at the discovery. Yang tightened hand on the doorway.

“Hi, I’m Yang,” she blurted out, “I’m super fucking lost, but my handler might actually have an aneurism if I ask her to help me again. Where are we?”

The girl’s vivid golden eyes peered at her; laughed at her, her mouth not matching. Yang breathed into the beating air. The seated girl smoothed her hand down the center of her book, holding the page.

“As far as I know, we’re in the Vladivostok Shatterdome,”

Her voice, her voice! God, what a voice. It was higher than Yang had expected, clear and light. But with gravity deep as the echoes of church bells. Control curved every corner, no syllable undisciplined to the svelte tones. She had a slight, hard to place accent, but spoke in perfect English.

Yang didn’t try to trap the laugh she let loose, eyes sparkling. Delighted.

“If you’re wrong, we’re both fucked,” she grinned, wolfish and playful, “Which, I might not mind,” she flickered over the girl’s form, pointed.

Circe’s eyebrow shot up, Yang’s breathe hitching at the unruffled surprise, praying, hoping, wanting. The black curtain of her hair shifted over slim shoulders as the girl tipped her head.

“The past couple days haven’t been enough for you?” she asked, dry melody and flat merriment, “I’d have thought most people here were tired of being screwed by now,”

Yang’s entire body laughed. Her insides danced with pleasure. The sort of pleasure you found when something you hoped desperately for, wound up exceeding all expectations.

She shoved off the doorframe and powered into the room like a restless wind. Smooth steps saw her falling onto the opposite side of the couch, one leg curled to allow her body to turn and face the other occupant. The girl gave a feline blink of tolerance, echoes of a laugh tucked into the corners of those beautifully-formed eyes.

“Let me guess,” she said, “American?”

Yang grinned.

“I’ll try not to take offense to that,” she responded, arm throwing over the couch’s back. Something struck her then, “Wait. Do you know who I am?”

It was honest, and clear, and not at all conceited. The girl ticked an eyebrow.

“From the way you shouted it, I’m guessing… Yang?” she said, irony loud in the single syllable.

Yang looked surprised; felt a thrill, “I don’t usually have to say my full name,” she said. Shortened, frowned. Rolled her lilac eyes, smiling fully, “Wow, am I a douche or what? Happy to be here, the full name’s Yang Xiao Long, narcissist extraordinaire,” she gave a self-deprecating bow of her head.

The girl breathed through her nose. Yang tried not to imagine a laugh slipping through her fingers. Mourned it anyway. Circe fixed her with a forgiving look, Yang’s heart stuttering.

“Blake,” the girl wryed, “Blake Belladonna,”

She actually held a hand out, and Yang took it before she could get nervous. Her mind flickered, wanting to turn Blake’s hand over and look at the rough patches she could feel on the palm. She let go after a second too long.

“Nice to meet you, Blake Belladonna,” Yang said, grin firm and infectious, “What do you think of the Russian Radisson?”

Blake’s lips bowed; threatened a smile.

“Strange. And getting stranger,” the rest of her thoughts died in her mouth, her head swiveling to the sound of footsteps in the hallway. Yang looked, Ironwood’s expansive stature appearing in the lounge.

“Lieutenant Xiao Long, Segen Belladonna, good evening” Colonel Ironwood said, voice naturally too harsh in the already rough bounce of the cast-iron building’s construction.

They both stood, positions of attention half-hearted and flagging. Ironwood waved, dismissing the obviously disingenuous respect. They both relaxed, weight shifting.

“Good evening, Colonel,” Blake said.

Ironwood nodded. He looked to Yang and narrowed his eyes.

“Lieutenant. It would be wise to carry your scroll with you. You’ve been ordered to report to my office,”

Yang bristled. The scroll was a dust-light technology piece of metal whose basic function, if she understood it correctly, was to record everything the candidates did, said, heard, or thought of doing. She’d thrown it on her bunk after considering the merits of her bed versus a garbage disposal.

Apparently it was also a dog whistle.

“Sorry, Sir,” Yang said.

Ironwood waited a beat for some kind of explanation, and realized none was forthcoming. His face didn’t change.

“Your presence here has made it to the news in spite of the PPDC’s efforts to suppress such information. The public now knows of the Jaeger program. You have received what can only be called fan mail, and your personal communications are flooding. We have intercepted both and don’t intend to pass them onto you. Now,” he broke his steamroll for maximum dramatics, “Did you inform the press?”

Yang received the information with cool detachment, quelling the barbed wire unspooling rapidly in her chest, digging tight around her ribcage, “No, Sir. I was told not to,”

“Indeed,” he said, flat and dispassionate. Steel eyes narrowed, “It bears mentioning, Lt Xiao Long, that your presence here is due to your ability and character displayed in combat. Not your personal image or 3^rd party fame. I would appreciate if these events were never repeated. Am I understood?”

Yang’s jaw jumped, eyes boring into the iron blue of the colonel’s, mindful of the girl at her side. It was patently bad form for superiors to ream people out in front of peers. This was punishment.

“If you’d point out where I was in the wrong, I’d be happy to correct myself. Sir,”

The man frowned deeper into his sunken cheeks.

“Your celebrity status has no place in the Shatterdome,”

Yang nearly rolled her eyes. Was this prick serious?

“Yes, Sir,”

Ironwood nodded, his message apparently conveyed. He straightened and turned, the women watching him stride off. Yang breathed harshly through her nose, rage thrumming in her veins. She looked away and noticed Blake’s eyes locked on her, a sparkling kind of enjoyment in the tip of her head.

“What?” Yang said, her temper quailing.

“Nothing,” Blake sent a curling look to the blonde, “I’ve just never met anyone who could make ‘Yes, Sir’ sound so much like, ‘Fuck you’. American training, I assume?”

Yang’s anger went out like a flame under wet sand. Her grin blew huge across her lips, lilac eyes rolling, “Nah,” she replied, “That’s natural talent. Didn’t you hear I was kind of a big deal?”

“Maybe in America,”

“As opposed to-?” Yang’s smile softened, openness in her eyes. Blake tipped her head.

“Israel,”

Yang’s eyebrows shot up. Blake shrugged.

“I was shuttled between my parents growing up. Canada, Israel. The Israelis won the citizenship bidding war,”

“Ah, I see. That explains the accent and,” Yang gave the girl’s svelte, standing form a once-over, “the… jujitsu?”

“Krav maga,” she looked wholly amused.

Yang huffed, “Of course. Israeli Defense Force. That’s what you IDF guys do. Ninjas of kill-a-man-with-his-own-teacup, and blackest-ops sneaky squirrel shit, right?”

Blake blew air through her nose, taking her seat once more. Yang followed her, an elbow on the back of the couch, planting a fist on her temple as she looked at Blake.

“Well not anymore,” Blake’s voice coiled, “I was just informed there’s been a massive security breach. Who knew all it took to bring down a global organization’s confidential intel was a rabid fanbase?”

Yang’s eyes flashed.

“So you do know who I am,” she said, victory in her tone.

Blake lifted an eyebrow, a corner of her mouth accidentally coming with it.

“A vague recollection. Might have seen you in line at the bank, right?”

“Yep. That’s where I usually trawl for women. They’re the ones with the money, you know,”

“Women?”

“Is that a problem?”

Blake scoffed, “Since I’m not in the habit of hypocrisy, no,” Yang’s chest thrilled through, Blake casting an unreadable look to the blonde, “I only thought I would have heard about the US’ defender of kittens stuck in trees being gay,”

Yang’s eyes didn’t budge from their lightness, but her tone deepened playfully.

“And still, you refuse to acknowledge that you stalk me,”

Blake’s eye roll was monumental, blank and beautiful. It wasn’t fair for someone to be so overwhelmingly pretty.

“Your face is on television, even in Canada,” she returned Yang’s scanning look, head to feet, “Funny. You’re smaller in person,”

Yang’s laugh ruptured the warmed, tightened air they had created. She dropped her fist and threw her head back, her chuckling a glitter of echoing mirth against the grimy walls. Blake’s eyes roved over the phenomenon, unreadable and feminine. She made Yang’s head go light, like the honey irises could see right through her. Yang collected herself, the room seeming brighter than when she had walked in.

“I heard PPDC enlistments have gone up 40% since you signed your contract publicly,” Blake commented, smooth and wondering.

“42%,” Yang replied absently, resting her chin on the lofted forearm. Blake’s lips flickered a smile. Yang wished it would just catch and hold for a moment. The brunette only held the studying gaze. Yang chortled.

“You’re not intimidated by me,” she accused. Blake blinked, tipping her head like the thought had never occurred to her.

“And why would I be intimidated by you?” Blake responded, “The combat rounds are next week. There’s no use in being scared of someone I’ll get to see on their back,”

Yang laughed once, loud and derisive.

“Me? You think someone’s going to get me on my back?” she gave an arrogant flip of her hair, “Hate to break it to you, but I spent four years being the USAF kickboxing women’s champ, and you think someone’s going to take me down?”

Blake’s eyes devoured.

“Not someone,” she said, lips curved enough to wrap Yang around her little finger. Blake watched her words sink into Yang’s brain. She gave a small tip of her head, Yang’s smile bright and awed. Blake collected her book and stood, looking down her straight nose and offering a small smile.

The movement of her lips had been small, but the amber of her eyes shimmered with fire. It struck with the speed of a cobra, venom coating slow and life changing. Yang was paralyzed. Blake’s carriage was purebred aristocrat.

“Goodnight, Yang,”

“Night, Blake,”

Yang watched her go, smile gentle as a breeze. Blake walked away, and Yang swore every step against the iron grating timed to the beat of her heart.

Forty cadets formed a tight rank and file in the training hall. Mats, gym equipment, weapons on racks, and a mirror wall littered the area in precise haphazardness.

Colonel Ironwood paced in front of the arranged bodies.

“At ease,”

Forty figures shifted to stand shoulder width, hands behind their backs. More importantly, they could now move their heads. Ironwood straightened.

“Each one of you has been selected from across the globe because you are the best. Whatever competition that entailed, however you came to be standing here, it ends now,” he waited a beat, his words sinking into his audience, “You have seven months in this Academy. Seven months to learn everything you can about these machines, to perfect yourselves physically and mentally to ensure they’re the deadliest force on the planet. But your seven months start only after this week. Because this week, you must find your co-pilot,”

He swept an arm to the room behind him, a line of people standing near one wall with clipboards.

“These are your evaluators and graders. They will be measuring interaction and staying onboard for training. They’ll be judging the Kwoon battles. Doctor Ozpin?”

A thin, shorter man with prematurely gray hair stepped from the wall. He had ridiculously small glasses perched on his nose. Yang would have bet 20 dollars she could replace the lenses with quarters. He peered over the glasses with bright eyes, but his voice came coolly.

“As you’ve been briefed individually, the Kwoon combat rounds are a system our researchers have developed in order to find and finalize partners. You have all tested high in Drift compatibility, so the next step lies in the subconscious,” he stepped backwards and motioned for two demonstrators.

Yang felt her eyebrows raise when Melanie and Miltia Malachite were introduced. They stepped forward, a pair of identical twins, looking bored and agile. They each grabbed a bo staff from a rack and took places on the mat facing each other.

Dr. Ozpin cleared his throat.

“Now, as you’ll see, the purpose of a Kwoon battle is not to defeat your opponent. Instead, it is to find like-mindedness. Instinctive similarity. This is done in a four-point spar. Now, if you please,” he nodded to the two.

Yang watched as Melanie or Milita nodded back. And then engaged in the weirdest round of combat Yang had ever seen. It looked like a dance of some kind. Miltia would swing, Melanie dodging to drop and spin a kick to where Miltia had already jumped. It looked choreographed; rehearsed. Like they were simply going through the motions. Yang frowned, the corner of her eye seeing similar dissatisfaction on her peers’ faces.

But it wasn’t a parlor trick. Yang looked harder. Melanie was breaking a sweat, rapid-fire kicks blocked by a flourish of Miltia’s staff, the woman planting it for leverage to jump into a flying kick Melanie dropped under, seemingly without looking.

They went on in an explosion of frenetic movement, and then froze. Yang blinked. Melanie had stopped her bo staff directly on top of Miltia’s head centimeters before it hit. Doctor Ozpin cleared his throat, stepping back into view.

“That’s one point. Thank you for that,” he nodded at the women, the pair looking unmoved but compliant. Ozpin turned back to the waiting cadets.

“Now, to reiterate, this is not a spar for damage. Or victory. It’s about compatibility. Please see your handlers for further details, they’ve been briefed by our science team,” he pushed his glasses up, staring at them.

“Oh!” he chuckled strangely, “Yes, right. Er- you may go. Uh, fall out or however you will,”

Yang wanted to snort. The term ‘military science’ should have counted as an oxymoron. A few cadets shot each other concerned looks, some cautiously stepping backwards out of formation. Yang scoffed, crossing a mat and walking away to where Winter was glaring at the gray-haired man. The corporal hated unprofessionalism, but nothing so much as elected inefficiency.

Not to mention, poor manners.

“On the agenda?” Yang asked, immediately raring to go. Watching the Malachite sisters had put an itch between Yang’s shoulders. Winter looked away from Ozpin’s mousy posture in disgust.

“Yes. The science team has tasked me with questioning your own impressions for the first round,” Winter held her hands behind her back, “If you’ve found anyone you’d suspect could be a suitable fit for you. The team will collect data and use it to further the search amongst cadets in later rounds. Does anyone come to mind?”

Yang’s grin was monumental, Winter immediately bracing.

“I know just the one,” she rolled, reaching for the hem of her long sleeved shirt. She peeled it off, leaving her in a tank top and the loose, cargo-style pants issued to them. She tossed the shirt to the ground, smirking as Winter’s eyes traced the curling ink over her right arm, the ‘O NEG’ etched over her left pectoral. By the time Winter had found her eyes again, Yang was preening like a cat. She let it go, conscious enough of the other handlers around them.

She liked Winter. Liked messing with her, but liked her in a professional sense, too. She’d never confirmed she was related to the global dust conglomerate, but had flatly refused to be referred to as ‘Schnee’. Yang respected a woman making her own name.

Yang reached behind Winter to pluck a bo staff from the collection along the wall, “Happen to know the Israeli handler?”

Winter blinked, tapping at her handheld shortly. She glanced up, expression empty.

“Segen Belladonna has already requested you,”

Yang’s stomach fluttered as she hefted the bo staff between her hands, testing the weight. She stepped backwards, onto the nearby mat.

“Hm. Winter, do you think an invite to beat the hell out of me counts as a date?”

“No,” her handler pointedly avoided looking at her.

“Harsh,” Yang sighed, spinning the staff, “I’d have tried to buy her a protein shake dinner. Maybe see if we could have fought by candlelight. Watched an old movie about the Israeli-American conflict. You know, romance,”

“I think the movie’s a little contrived, but I’d be an idiot to turn down a shake dinner,”

Yang’s smirk flourished into a grin, turning around.

Blake stepped forward, bo staff held light and parallel to the ground. Incorrectly, Yang noted mildly. She wondered how many people would underestimate Blake for it today. If the calm set to her shoulders was anything to go by, it was going to be a lot. And entirely intentional.

Already, Blake was clever. Strategic.

“You sure?” Yang spun the staff over her wrist, laying it over her arm and behind her shoulder. The low ready, “I’m a lot to handle,”

Blake’s eyes flashed, planting her weapon next to her foot, her other sliding backwards to settle into a side-stance.

“You let me worry about that,” she replied, “Besides, it wouldn’t be the worst thing to end a first date on your back,”

“Would it be weird to say you’re turning me on?”

Winter’s whistle blast was pointed. Immediately, Blake kicked at her bo staff, Yang reflexively downward blocking. Blake took it back and thrust with the velocity of a viper. Yang spun, dodging out of the way and swinging her staff like a baseball bat at Blake’s head. The woman dropped to the ground, her bo flying at Yang’s ankles. Yang instinctively jumped, twirling her staff and bringing it back down over her head with momentum and might on her side.

Blake had already back-flipped upright, her staff flicking to both hands and above her head in a block. Yang gave a grunt of effort, and felt a painful vibration echo into her palms at the sudden stop to her blow. Still pushing, Yang met Blake’s eyes.

Electric.

Blake huffed.

And ground her staff sideways, her hands overlapping Yang’s weapon as they met and dropping to the ground, the force enough of a pull against Yang’s constant push that Yang instinctively locked her arms. Blake shoved to one side, tipping Yang off balance and yanking backwards. The staff came out of her hands easily, Yang stumbling to the side, weaponless.

“One-Zero!” Winter announced, “Reset,”

Blake smirked, tossing Yang her staff back. The blonde growled as she snatched it out of the air. Her heart was beating rapidly, the pure joy of a challenge thrumming through her veins.

Yang spun the staff experimentally, disliking the reach but loving how Blake mimicked her, switching hands and spinning lazily behind her back. Krav maga her ass. Blake would be lethal with a paper clip.

Yang jumped forward, her bo staff aimed for a lunge straight to Blake’s abdomen. The brunette spun her staff, smacking the wood away and launching into a rhythmic overhead/underhand series of hits utilizing both ends of her staff Yang then blocked in each turn. She didn’t so much watch Blake’s staff as her torso. No matter what the hands and feet were doing, it was hard to move your core.

The blonde knew Blake would have read her gaze, knowing Yang was planning something. Blake stepped backwards. Or so Yang thought. Blake stepped back, bending her knee only slightly, before a powerful jump off the same leg helped her get airborne, twisting her body and bringing that leg around in a whip. Yang dodged backwards, a hand catching Blake’s foot and jerking her off-center. Yang flicked the bo upwards, the staff awkward and too long for real control.

Blake had already planted the bo staff to create a new fulcrum to the ground, Yang’s wild hit missing completely. Blake corkscrewed, eyes never leaving Yang as her body rotated to allow her to land on her feet once more, staff suddenly appearing near Yang’s ear, the blonde having barely moved out of the way.

She grabbed her staff at the ¾ line and swung at Blake’s knee, instantly blocked, only to spin the staff in her hands and try the other side, Blake blocking again. Yang started up a rapid-fire barrage of strikes to the head, knee, abdomen, foot, anything. Every time, Blake was there to parry and try to slip in a thrust, Yang twisting out of the way easily.

It was hard to move the torso.

For some people.

Blake apparently realized this, as her quick, jab-like thrusts suddenly whirlwinded into utilizing the staff’s whole length, Yang ducking as an end came flying to her head. Just in time to see the other end slide through Blake’s hands and tap at her weight-bearing knee. Her collapse was immediate, as well as the hand she flagged up to her face in time to catch Blake’s finishing strike.

The staff met her palm nearly gently, the back of her hand bumping her temple. Blake’s smile was wild, on full display. Yang’s chest heaved, her eyes alight.

“Two-Zero! Reset,”

Yang gripped the staff, pulling herself up and into Blake’s personal space on the way. Blake never flinched. Yang smirked, stepping back to her place. Blake watched her carefully, twirling her staff with both hands and cocking an eyebrow in challenge.

Yang wanted to laugh. Instead, she looked to the staff in her hands distastefully. Blake knew how to play her already. She was, very publicly, a kickboxer. Jujitsu and muay tai came with MMA territory, weapons included. But hand-to-hand, close-range, melee fighting was her home field advantage. Whereas Krav maga was the martial art of ‘how to kill your opponent with basically anything’. She’d run Yang into the ground from a distance.

Yang gave the staff a little toss, her eyes fixing on Blake’s interested observance. She brought her knee up, and slammed the bo across her thigh, the 2-inch thick wood snapping in half. Yang grinned, hefting the two hanbos she had just created. She didn’t bother to check if this was allowed, as Blake’s eyes burned, her stance deepening directly before she lunged.

Yang blocked a swing with one baton, belting out a strike with her other. She laughed aloud. This was more like it.

From then on, it was even-grounded warfare. Blake would swing, and Yang would block. Yang got inside for a rapid, double strike, and Blake beat them both down. Yang felt her muscles burn with exertion. She was bending, twisting, spinning, and swinging with everything she had. She lost her sense of time, relishing in the heat.

And then she knew she’d gotten the upper hand.

Blake wanted her backpedalling and out of baton-reach. So Yang reeled back in a feint, expecting Blake’s follow up blow. Yang blocked, dropping her hanbo and clamping down on the staff, Blake’s eyes narrowed as she caught Yang’s reciprocating strike with a free hand at her jaw. Her lips quirked. Yang winked.

“Two-One!” Winter called, “Lieutenant Xiao Long, would you care to replace your weapon?”

Yang didn’t leave Blake’s eyes, Winter’s voice edged and irritated.

“She’ll be fine,” Blake replied, expression bright and dazzling as Yang released her bo.

“Very well,” Winter finally gave, “Reset,”

It was hell. It was heaven. It was a dream of a fight. Yang gave everything she had, reactions lightening quick and burning her synapses. Every fighting instinct she had, she gave into, pulling straight from her gut. She thought in flashes, not sentences or words. The crack of wood on wood wasn’t nearly as loud as her own breath in her lungs, her heart a wild tattoo. All Yang could see was Blake; her hands, staff, sweat, eyes. God, Yang might be in love.

And then she realized she was moving too quickly forward on a jab, and it instantly clicked that the fight was over one way or another. No sooner did it occur to her that she’d made a mistake did Blake have a hand on Yang’s tank top, one end of her staff slipping under Yang’s stepping foot. In a split second, Yang flipped, her back hitting the mat hard. She spun out a lash of a leg sweep, Blake’s first flash of victory dipping out of her eyes as she went down.

Yang nearly laughed at herself.

Yeah. Great. Grapple the Krav maga babe.

Blake coiled, reached, and-

“Three-One! Final score,”

Yang turned her head, Winter’s dour expression sideways in her view. She looked like she was barely containing the need to roll her eyes before a clipboard holder was taking her attention. Yang looked up, Blake’s shadow passing over her as she leaned up on her elbow.

The brunette had an open smile painting her lips, breath dragging just as much as Yang’s.

“But nice try,” the girl said, delight in every syllable. Yang couldn’t stop smiling.

“I don’t care what any of these fucking geeks say. Please, God, be my partner,”

Blake’s head tipped backwards in a laugh, getting to her feet and extending her hand down. Yang took it.

Upright once again, Yang caught her breath, not letting go of Blake’s hand.

“I’m serious,” she smiled, Blake flushed and phenomenally beautiful, “I want you,” Yang leaned, her head lowering, nearly tapping the girl’s in the only move that felt right to her. Magnetic.

“Don’t try to tell me you didn’t feel that,” she said, lilac crystals burning, “That was better than sex,”

Blake smiled, barely controlled but so graceful, “I felt it,” she said, soft and secret and too good to be true. Her smile cracked wider, “Keep it in your pants, won’t you?”

Yang threw her head and laughed.

“Already concerned with what’s in my pants?” she gathered herself and smirked, “Knew we were destined for each other. My number one fan,”

“Stop, you’re too humble,” Blake’s tone shifted laconic, “I might fall in love,”

“Lt. Xiao Long, a word?” Winter was standing next to Yang, an elegant, oiled man at her side, his eyes beady on Blake. He said something in roiling, clicking, Hebrew, Blake nodding. She squeezed Yang’s hand, a feeling in her eye as she dropped it.

Yang watched her step away, snapping a look to Winter.

“I want her,”

Winter nodded, apparently not at all surprised. She consulted a few papers in her hand.

“Fine. But in the interest of research and thoroughness, you must try at least two more partners out,”

Yang rolled her shoulders, pretending to deliberate in distain. Winter practically raised hackles. She smirked, lolling her head.

“I’m kidding, Schnee,” Yang stretched her tired muscles out, willing the acidic build up away, “Point me and I’ll fight, just remember you promised,”

“I did not promise,”

“Who am I flirting with before the geeks give me Blake?” Yang plucked a paper from her hand, Winter immediately taking it back.

“No not flirt with the other candidates,” Winter grit. She didn’t seem able to stop herself from flitting her eyes over Yang sweating in her tank top. She jetted air through her nose, “At the very least, don’t flirt with the Russians or the Chinese. They’re the primary funding force,”

Yang grinned.

“Got it. No piroshky, no kung pao,”

Winter looked close to exploding, her eyes closing momentarily. Yang hummed in appreciation.

“So who’s next?”

Winter glanced again to the papers.

“Doctors Ozpin and Goodwitch are satisfied with Ms. Belladonna, Doctor Port would like to see you spar the French candidate, Amelie Lacroix, and Doctor Oobleck chose Japan’s Kiryuuin Satsuki,”

Yang nodded, stretching some more.

“Any of them dudes?”

Winter looked at her, blank and deadpan.

“You’re asking if Amelie Lacroix is a man?”

Yang shrugged, “It’s not Amelie’s fault the French are so... French. I’m cool going either way, just wondering,” she stopped, reconsidered, “Well, I don’t go either way,” she chortled to herself, “Know what I mean, Winter?”

The specialist straightened as best she could, her pale skin a traitor to her own blood.

“I’ll be setting up the bout soon. Please rest,”

Yang laughed.

“Sure thing,”

Yang smirked to herself as Winter marched off, shaking out her arms and catching her ankle in a quad-stretch. She looked around at the various fights; shouts, whistles, and the high, reedy crack of wood bouncing off the walls. There were about four going on all at once.

She twisted, her spine popping. Yang stopped, her eyes landing on a dark head of tied midnight. Blake was nodding politely, her handler patting a tall, blonde-haired man on the back. Yang quirked an eyebrow. She’d never understood guys who needed to take off their shirts to do any kind of physical activity.

Still, she stood back and admired the scene.

Blake really was beautiful. But there was something so much more magnetic about her than the flawlessness of her features. Blake had a weight; a gravity; an icy kind of fire that lived behind her eyes. She was quick, and sarcastic, and kind. Yang felt herself smile at no one, Blake perfectly still but somehow outwardly uncomfortable.

In an instance of luck or divine intervention, Blake looked up, straight at Yang.

And smiled.

Briefly, just a flash, but a pleased, delicate bloom of dye at the edges of amber eyes. Yang was a goner. She smiled and shook herself.

Blake Belladonna.

The name felt like honey on her tongue.

They gave her Blake.

A list was published and distributed to the handlers, information trickling down to the parties actually involved. Yang had immediately sought Blake out. They reintroduced themselves over a coffee and tea, respectively. Yang had buzzed with temperate satisfaction that Blake wasn’t simply witty. She was intelligent in a well-rounded sense.

She liked books and music, challenged the mechanics of philosophy as a passing hobby. Talking with her was fulfilling. Over the rest of the weekend, Yang met with Blake everyday and found out new things about her. Her favorite had been when Blake accompanied her to one of the gyms in the Shatterdome and showed her how to actually use a bo staff.

In a short two days, Yang learned the delightful complexities of Blake’s personality. But mostly, Yang realized how much comfort she could find in companionable silence. She’d never met someone who felt less of a need to fill a space with white noise. Yang spent a good couple hours marveling at how well matched they were.

It was during one of these introspective periods that Yang’s inkling was reinforced.

“What’s up, loves? I’m Lena!”

Yang smiled, Blake looking up and nodding welcome. The newly arrived British girl slid her tray across Yang, sticking her hand out cheerily. Yang took it, surprised at the firmness in the shake. The mess hall was a two-tiered echo chamber hewn out of the same wrought iron as the rest of the compound, cafeteria-style tables lining the room in neat rows.

“Yang Xiao Long,” the blonde nodded at Blake with pride, who closed her book out of politeness, “This is my new life partner, Ms. Israel 2014,”

Blake scoffed along to Lena’s clear, hearty laughter, rolling her eyes and holding her hand out, “Blake Belladonna, Israeli Defense Force, Engineering Division. Yang’s from the American Air Force. She flies,”

Lena smiled, all lightness and friendliness.

“I’m RAF myself! Mostly do test runs when I can though, fixed wing. None of that rotary wing nonsense,”

“Hear hear,” Yang nodded emphatically. Lena grinned.

“We’ll have to talk sometime, yeah? Wouldn’t want to bore your lovely other half with airframes and engines, godknows I’ve near brought Ame to tears already, poor thing. Have you seen her?”

Yang’s smile deepened as Blake’s eyebrows rose. Lena spoke a mile a minute and didn’t apparently have the human urge to breathe.

“Who?”

“Oh! Lord, sorry, here’s me jabbering on, and I haven’t even introduced you proper. Oh- there she is. Ame! Am, over here!”

Yang saw Blake nearly flinch at the sheer volume of Lena’s calls, her secondary offense of a dual-armed, standing wave drawing the attention of the entire mess. But it did the job.

A tall, slim woman glided to the table, her eyes half-lidded in irritation. Her eyebrows were amazing. Where did she even get lip liner in Vladivostok?

“Am, meet Blake and Yang!” Lena crowed. She flourished a hand, “Ladies, this is my partner, Amelie Lecriox. She’s a ballerina! Can you believe that? Not everyone’s military. Got a fair amount of athletes here, you know. Mad, eh?”

Lena breathed, smiling at the stiletto-figured woman.

“Your… partner?” Yang asked, eyes jumping between the two. Amelie’s expression didn’t so much as twitch.

“Trust me,” her thick accent melted out, “I was just as surprised as you are,” the woman set her lunch down next to Lena, mumbled something in French, and picked up her fork.

Blake coughed, Yang quirking an eyebrow. Blake sent her a ‘later’ look, a grin behind her spoon. Yang smiled.

Drift Compatibility was a funny thing.

After the Kwoon trials and a room change, forty cadets had shifted down to twenty; ten Drift Compatible partners. They were told there would only be seven Jaegers made. Though seven didn’t sound like much, each Jaeger took around fifty billion US-equivalent dollars to manufacture.

True to the threat of refining partners’ Drift Compatibility, they gathering the now-cadets in a training hall. They were ushered onto classic ballpark bleachers, Yang sitting comfortable, arms splayed across the two seats on either side of her. Blake crossed her legs beside her partner, listening to the instructor as he pace in front of them.

“Now,” he said, “You have chosen your partners. You will next be assigned a Synchronization Training and Development course with your co-pilots. The Synchronization Training and Development classes are multifaceted and must be taken seriously, as it will be a shared strengthening of the neural handshake’s potential,”

Yang dipped her head, her lips murmuring at Blake’s ear.

“I can’t wait to share an STD with you,”

Blake had to cover her mouth, her shoulders spasming with a poorly concealed laugh. She gave a feeble attempt of a throat clear for shelter. The instructor stopped and glared in their general direction before carrying on. Blake kept her eyes forward, left hand slapping at Yang’s stomach.

“After which,” the instructor continued, “comes the technical courses surrounding G-Science, Jaeger engineering, and Drift science,” he nodded at himself. Turning, he produced a dust-tech stereo system.

“Today’s Synch Training maximizes physical coordination, and harmonious thought,” he opened a scroll and tapped a button. The stereo was quiet, but grew. It swelled out a structured, high brass intro. A string accompaniment joined the fray. Classical music.

“Ballroom dancing,” he said over the music, “Let’s begin, shall we?”

The pilots paused, half wondering if he was serious, the other half deciding he was stupid.

To everyone except Yang’s surprise, Blake stood first. It was palpably interesting. From the little interaction the rest of them had probably had with Blake, they most likely assumed her shy. The dark, mysterious quietness of her confused them.

But Yang knew better. Shyness was a side effect of cautious nerves; fearful reluctance. And there was never so far removed a concept as fear from Blake Belladonna. Blake was quiet not because of nerves, but due to a supreme, tranquil, confidence in what she could and could not do. She simply felt no need to prove any of it.

That, and she was a natural introvert. Yang smiled at her partner’s back.

Blake stepped forward. She turned and offered her hand to Yang, her movements smooth and sure of the blonde’s reach to meet her. Yang felt her grin spread to Blake, seemingly from the very contact of their hands.

It was autonomic for Yang to take the lead position, taller and less sure of doing everything backwards. Blake looked up at her through eyelashes thick as molasses, equally as syrupy in a slow drizzle of trust. Her hand slid up Yang’s shoulder, settled on the muscular join to her neck. Yang’s brain short-circuited, the pounding of her heart drowning out the downbeat of the music. She stepped off on the wrong foot, but Blake was ready to catch her fall.

She felt a slight pull, and Yang tumbled headlong into the infinitesimal joy in Blake’s eyes. The hand on her trapezius flexed slightly, and she stepped off the diving board. Blake tugged, and Yang followed, her mind clearing until the simple box step was easier than walking.

It was a fraction of an error, and Blake had stepped high, sweet and serene.

Yang’s smile twisted playful. She strengthened her hold around Blake’s hand, bore it a little higher, taking the weight. And glided. She stepped with Blake, a creature of movement and sleek grace, and felt her heart soar. Yang turned fast, pacing quicker, tighter.

Blake never missed a beat.

The hall-turned-ballroom had filled, and Yang realized they weren’t alone any longer when she needed to spin Blake to avoid a gingerly waltzing Sun and Neptune. Blake openly laughed, keeping time. She tipped her head, and Yang slowed them.

“You’re a very… physical person,” Blake’s tone was curious, “In an expressive sense,” she corrected, a lifted eyebrow warding off an inevitable innuendo.

Yang wrinkled her nose at the foil, but considered this, “I guess,” she shrugged, “I’ve never really been a words girl. Woman of action and all that,”

Blake laughed lightly.

“Makes sense,” she replied, taking a moment. When she made direct eye contact with Yang again, it was evaluative, “I’m a words girl,”

Yang’s eyebrows lifted, “A little vague for a words girl, then,”

A huff of a laugh.

“I like knowing,” she said carefully, “I can get in my own head sometimes, and my imagination is a scary place. Clarity. Honesty. Talking… is important to me,” Blake’s thumb swept a sooth a half an inch up Yang’s neck. She felt it shock all the way to her toes. Blake’s eyes soaked in Yang’s flickered smile, “I can learn to be more physical. It really won’t be difficult with you,” she said quietly, face changing to that lovely vulnerability.

“I’m asking if you can get used to telling me how you think and feel,” Blake said, “It probably won’t be comfortable, but-“

Yang stepped closer, jarring and a tiny bit invasive, Blake’s attempted apology dying. It was the first time Yang had seen the girl be anything but self-assured. For whatever reason, it made Yang want to kiss her quiet. The thought registered without influence, an unavoidable conclusion easily tucked away.

“Blake,” she said into the tender space between them, “I trust you. I think I’d have a harder time not telling you everything I think or feel,” she readjusted, her entire forearm pressed to the small of Blake’s back. It was more of an embrace than a waltz position.

“If it’s important to you, it’s important to me. From here on out, okay?”

Blake blinked into the unfiltered light of Yang’s conviction. She smiled.

“Okay,”

The Drift.

A mind meld of two pilots. Two, because alone, a Jaeger was too heavy of a neural load. It was a channel; sharing memories, emotions, and instinct. Drifting created a joint headspace where communication, thought, and control were united completely. This was achieved through the PONS system, a revolutionary dust-light technology connection system.

The cadets were schooled through it for four straight days in mind-numbing five hour marathons at a time. There had only been one day worth remembering.

“Our studies are clear in the data collected from the Malachite twins; the number one cause for failure in a functioning algorithm-paired neural handshake is sexual discomfiture,” Dr. Port took every potentially fun syllable out of it, his baritone voice plain and admonishing, “We warn you that you must not try to control or judge the imagery you see while in the Drift. This is called the Modesty Reflex, and it is antithetical to the neural connection. Psycho-sexual embarrassment is unfortunately hard-wired into most societies,” he grumbled, holding his hands behind his back.

“It is as serious a variable in the Drifting function as Trust and Familiarity. Today, you will engage with your co-pilot and sort out these issues prior to entering the PONS lab. Do this now. Report back at 1900,”

Yang groaned. That meant they were skipping dinner.

She sighed, Blake looking her way and nudging her head in signal to lead the way out of the classroom. They meandered together quietly, winding up at their secret lounge. Yang strolled in, perching half way on top of the couch’s arm. Blake followed but didn’t sit. The room felt slightly ominous; like it could sense the uncomfortable nature of their assignment.

The blonde sucked in a breath, and plowed into the suddenly clumsy air. She’d never felt awkward around Blake, and she wasn’t about to start.

“I’ve had a threesome,” Yang counted off on her fingers, trying to remember, “I’ve been skinny dipping, I slept around for a while, uhm, I’ve had sex all over public places,” she crumpled her forehead, thinking hard, “On certain days, I kind of have a thing for being pushed around. Others, I like to do the pushing. Never had the misfortune of being with a dude, never sent nudes, never been choked,”

She nodded, satisfied. Her expectant look hooked around Blake’s belly and pulled. She stepped closer without thinking, Yang’s eyes bringing thoughts of hearths and heavy nights.

Blake hummed, “I had a boyfriend for a long time. Then a couple girls. The girls were more important, though,” she leveled Yang with a deep, sucking sort of look, “I’ve thought a lot about tying you up. And now I might think about choking you later. Not a lot after that,”

Yang’s breath caught in her throat, stunned.

“Are you fucking serious?”

Blake’s lips curled, the mystery shroud pulled up like a collar to protect her from Yang’s wide eyes. She sent her partner a droll, exasperated smile.

“I am kidding. But you’re beautiful, Yang,” she said, low and sweet and so unknowingly devastating. She lifted a hand, a single fingertip light in tracing the apple of Yang’s cheek, “I’d have to be blind not to see you. I’d have to be asexual not to think of you naked at least once,” she went light with gentle humor, “Twice, just to flatter you,”

Yang smiled in reflex, so breathless she couldn’t even laugh.

Her body was buzzing. She cleared her throat, caught Blake’s hand in both her own. Held it like a broken-winged bird.

“You do know you’re gorgeous too, right?”

Blake glanced at her, a little surprised. Yang mustered every sincerity she could stand. Blake made it easy, her eyes open and accepting of anything Yang was comfortable enough to give. Her expression cradled Yang’s heart. She felt her throat constrict and knew she was about to take this to a place Port probably hadn’t intended. Her thumb rolled over the delicate bones in Blake’s wrist.

“Listen,” Yang said, low and longing. Her eyes met Blake’s, full of that towering honesty Blake was so fond of, “I don’t know what it’s gonna be like in there, but I think you already know that I’m… crazy about you,”

Blake’s breath stilled. Yang smiled tightly up at her.

“I don’t mean to ruin anything, but I figured that one, you already know. And two, you were going to find out anyway,” she shrugged, “So I thought I’d tell you. Once,” she trailed off, quiet. Blake was still; a marble-carved look of disbelief frozen half way between conflict and pride. Yang smiled, still caressing the pale skin in her hands, “I don’t have to tell you I’m serious. But I will anyway. I’m fucking over the moon for you. I think about you so much, I can’t focus sometimes. We mess with each other, and we’ve got a duty, I get it. But. You just feel… so much bigger to me. Like it all can go to hell as long as I’d get to talk to you after breakfast everyday,”

Yang breathed.

Her blood felt hot in her veins, but it felt too good to finally pour out the simmering in her soul. Like if she held it in for a second longer, it would boil over and burn.

“And honestly?” she said, aware Blake hadn’t blinked the entire time she’d been speaking, “I think you’ve got it for me too,” her inhale was shaky, ground a lot less firm underneath her, “I mean, I hope you do,” she swallowed, “Do you?”

And it was all so classically Yang.

A cannonball into a pool without looking to check the depth; a rock climb to a peak you couldn’t see; playing chicken against someone composed only of adrenaline and stupid, lovely, beautiful courage. Her meaning thrilled deeper than her words, talks of moons and crushes. Blake could feel the imprint of a subterranean shift just underneath. Yang’s lyrics were topsoil over tectonic suggestion. There was so much more. But not yet. For now, it was moons and crushes.

Honest but safe.

And looking into the violet of Yang’s eyes, Blake’s fingers gently cradled in hands she knew to be the most powerful in the world, Blake breathed again.

“Yeah,” she said, soft and decisive, “I do,”

Yang smiled, her lips full and too beautiful. She stood, and for a moment, Blake was worried she might try to kiss her. Worried, because she knew it wasn’t the right time, and she’d happily go along with it anyway. But Yang knew her better than that.

A small press of her hand, and Yang had her arms around Blake’s middle. It was the natural order of polarity for Blake to slip her own around Yang’s neck. Her eyes fluttered shut. Pressed against Yang, every hesitation, every fear, every burning question threatening to spiral out into an explosion of ‘what-if’, suddenly quieted.

Yang pulled away.

Held her hands.

Brought the left one up and ran the knuckles along the dry silk of her lips. It wasn’t even a kiss, just an odd, soft, pressure between the first two bones of her hand. It made her heart jolt.

“Thanks,” Yang said simply, releasing that hand but keeping hold of her right one, “That should make this a lot easier,”

Blake didn’t bother restraining her smile. It was bright, and near manic with disbelief. Yang’s grin reflexively copied her.

“Easier?” Blake asked, finding the spaces between Yang’s fingers and lacing to the second digit gently. Yang’s amethyst eyes burned with pride. She stood to her full height, left hand curling to pull Blake’s slim fingers further into her palm. She smirked.

“Way easier,” she said gamely, “Now I don’t have to worry about who you’re thinking about when you take extra long showers,” she heckled a brow, “It’s me,”

Blake scoffed, groaning and adoring the glimmer of Yang’s being. She didn’t resist the indulgent instinct; she stepped, and bumped her forehead to Yang’s collarbone. Stroked her thumb into the space of Yang’s palm. The slight twitch told her it tickled.

“You’re the only one who does that, Yang. I can go two months without getting off. Or at least hiding it better. Like everyone else here,”

Yang’s chest thrummed with her laugh, and Blake had never heard such a sweet, cavernous sound. Like Yang’s heart was bigger than the rest of the world’s. She snuck a kiss to Blake’s silk black hair.

“I’ve wanted to do that for months,” Yang said, gentle and electric. She raised a brow, resuming, “And I highly doubt that,” she grinned, her heart beating a victory march against her rib cage, “Let’s take a poll,”

Blake pulled away, stepping back without dropping their hands. Yang couldn’t stop smiling. The brunette hummed, amber eyes calm and sure once again. Bright, thrilled emotion naked in their depths, but sure. She cocked an eyebrow.

“I’d watch you take a poll any time,”

Yang threw her head back and laughed.

The Drivesuits were cool. Yang wasn’t going to lie.

The base layer was reminiscent of a wet suit, black and skin-tight polymer laced with electro-impulse readers to ensure the circuitry sensors picked up every shift of neural activity in a pilot’s muscles. Over it went a precision-engineered polycarbonate shell of battle armor. It provided life support necessary for the wear a Jaeger absorbed in battle, a magnetic interface at the chest and all major limb joints.

All in all, not only was piloting a Jaeger cool as shit, you looked cool as shit while doing it.

The Drivesuit Room was the first stop for a pilot. Yang was fitted by team of technicians, eyeing the dude currently pulling Blake’s circuitry suit over her spandex-clad ass. They were given their helmets and entered the PONS lab. In a real situation, they’d go to their Conn-Pod, link up, and be dropped into their Jaeger.

But first, they had to link.

Blake entered the PONS lab before Yang, the simulator set up to look exactly like a Conn-Pod. It was a circular room, no larger than a small house’s kitchen area. One entire wall was clear, a window for the pilots to see out of; the ceiling decorated with overhead displays for communications with LOCCENT mission control, as well as to get zoomed views, Jaeger status readings, and other information. Most notable though, were the two sets of upright looking chairs.

Blake took the closest position. The left hemisphere. She rolled her eyes when Yang smirked, striding past her. There was a Jaeger superstition that the right hemisphere pilot was the dominant pilot.

Yang took her place. She stepped into the foot braces, avoiding the giant gap in the floor. The braces clamped down on the Drivesuit seamlessly, the rest of the rig reaching down to hard-link to her arms and shoulders. The kicker was the ‘chair’s’ back. It sealed to her back and lay directly over her spine. Yang shivered through the sparking, tingling feeling. She looked to Blake, who instinctively returned the sure glance.

LOCCENT crackled into the PONS, Ozpin’s voice steady.

“Initiating neural handshake in 15 seconds,” he said, beginning his countdown, “Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen,”

“Ready?” Blake asked. Yang’s smile was wolfish.

“Absolutely,”

“Six, five, four, three, two, one. Neural handshake initiated,”

Yang gasped, her spine superheating and sending sparks to her fingers and toes. Her vision didn’t go out, but suddenly all she saw was white. She tried to move, and then the world went to hell.

A flood of sensation streamed into her consciousness; scent, sound, touch, taste –sight. Images played in sickening loops of ever-shifting color, movement, quick and distorted. It was a typhoon of experience, Yang helplessly thrown through the manic gale. A lifetime of sensory experience exploded in a single detonation inside her brain.

She felt like she was going to throw up.

Wild, her mind cast out a helpless call.

Blake!

As soon as she tried to focus on any one thing, everything settled. Yang had somehow found a fixed point, and she could breathe again. She remembered her corporeal body and flexed her fingers. Something angry in her spine twinged, but the pain was grounding.

Not dead. The entire thing lasted possibly a half of a second.

The point she chose was a clip of some kind. It played out of focus, changed, played something different. The color scheme seemed inverted. Yang squinted mentally. And suddenly, she was someone else.

She looked out and saw- herself. Blake walked through a café, her glance passing over Yang’s soot-blackened face on a muted television. A flicker, and Blake was watching Yang walk through the Academy doors, Yang’s expression tipping irritated at the crawl of people subtly crowding her. Another flicker.

And then Blake was shaking the hand of a heavily mustached man that Yang somehow instinctively knew to be the President of Israel. A table in front of them had the hand-held weapons system she had designed. She was 19. Flicker. Blake was 14 and running through the streets of Tel Aviv, a redheaded boy holding her hand and laughing. She was 5, tears streaming down her face as a tall, slim-figured man boarded a plane for Quebec and her heart cracked in half. Her mother’s hands were claws on her shoulder. She twisted, shaking loose, and ran away into the crowd. She was 21, one hand on the bathroom door in the dead of night, the other working between her legs. Yang wasn’t a light sleeper, but she’d respond to the sound of her own name cried through grit teeth. She was 16, and the redheaded boy, Adam, slapped her in the face, fury in his eyes, Blake’s phone in his hand. She was 18, curled into a ball in her basic training barracks, Adam coughing up blood around the pencil in his throat, hand still clamped down on the ripped fabric of Blake’s skirt. She hadn’t meant to, she had just reacted. Blake scrambled up, and ran. She was 20, Ilia taking her patrol cap off and stammering out a love letter, Blake’s heart heavy and tired, but sleeping with her anyway.

Flicker.

Yang’s breath drove out of her lungs as her spine flowed with magma once again. She gasped, feeling her eyes go wide but seeing only white. In a spin of desperation, she cast her thoughts toward Blake.

And the world rightened itself.

No, it was too… low? Yang blinked, looking up at her father’s cooing face. Her mother’s a raven-haired wash of forgotten memory beside him. Yang blinked, tears suddenly in her eyes as she relived Summer’s funeral. She blinked, Mason Rift flat on his back at recess, a shining white and red mark on his cheek that she knew would quickly bloom to purple and green. Her knuckles were red. Yang looked back and made sure Ruby was all right. Her little sister sniffled, hands scraped from where Mason had shoved her. She was 7, and it was the first time she’d felt rage. It felt like the opposite of helplessness. It felt good.

Yang blinked.

She was 12, hiding under the bleachers with Raine Whethers. He kissed with a pursed mouth and sweaty, greedy, hands. The very next week, Marisol Vallara’s lips had been softer than silk, her chap stick tasting like apricot and the Fourth of July. Yang’s stomach glowed. She was 16, signing her life away under her father’s consenting, gin smeared signature, the Air Force recruiter nodding approvingly. She was 18, the youngest pilot ever to lead a platoon, making direct eye contact with a blushing girl across a smoky bar. Yang turned, the girl naked against her sheets. She changed shape into a different girl. Another one. One after the other, and then Yang looked away, out her window to see the Jaeger Academy’s looming entrance. She was 22, and Circe lounged against the entrance’s pillar, her eyes smelt gold and impassive. She had skin like moonlight, and Yang wanted to know everything about her.

Yang blinked, 20 and angry. Rage fired like a 12-cylinder engine up her spine. She kicked the door in and bum-rushed a burning building. 21, and smiling tepidly at a stranger’s camera. Crumpling the photo when it printed in every newspaper.

Then, her spine was on fire once more.

It would have brought tears to her eyes had she been given her own vision, but for now, Yang merely gasped, back white-hot and searing. Faintly, she heard high, electronic beeping. Emergency alarms, most likely. In the mean time, her vertebrae screamed.

And then she could open her eyes.

Yang gasped, her stomach roiling, sweat running down her face but somehow she felt freezing cold. She was back in the PONS pod, the overhead display flashing with [LOCCENT OVERRIDE]. Yang snapped her head to the left, and her chest thudded. Blake still had her eyes closed, every line of her body tense and twitching.

Yang ripped the helmet off her head, reaching and punching the emergency release in the ceiling with a leaden arm.

“Blake!” she yelled, knowing it was most likely useless. She darted to Blake’s side, ripping wires from the helmet and praying.

“Blake, come on, come on,”

Yang slammed the release, catching Blake easily and lowering her to the floor, “Blake,” she grit her teeth, patting at Blake’s cheek and checking her pulse. It fluttered under her fingertips.

“Come on, please just be unconscious,” Yang said, her heart racing, “Come on, Blake. Come on!”

Blake gasped, her eyes flying open. Yang caught her from rising up too far, cradling the woman carefully. Blake breathed in heaving rushes of air, her hands immediately finding Yang’s shoulder and arm around her.

“Hey, hey, look at me,” Yang whispered out, something instinctive telling her Blake didn’t like loud noises, pissed at the sirens and flashing lights, “Breathe with me,”

Blake’s liquid amber eyes locked, and moments of greedy breathing filled in, getting slow and shallow. Blake’s eyes jumped between Yang’s, her mouth slightly parted.

Yang felt herself trying to pour her soul into the woman in her arms. She urged strength through her veins, hoping it would transfer through their very skin. Eventually, Blake swallowed, inhaling through her nose once more. She sat up, hand to her head. Yang held her other one like a lifeline.

“How do you feel?” she asked, quiet.

Blake swallowed again, brows drawing as she looked over Yang’s face.

“Fine. Good,” she said, confused and cerebral, “I feel… nice,”

Yang smiled softly.

“Good,”

And in truth, she felt the same. Without the panic of Blake’s limp body clouding her thoughts, Yang felt her mind clear. And be replaced with something warm. It sat in the middle of her chest, small and golden and whole.

And undoubtedly a side effect of tearing her own heart open in front of someone, and not feeling a shred of pity. Instead, she felt clean. Like she had torn the paper off the walls, and had Blake reverently touch the deep, rich color underneath. Run her fingernails over the chips, liking them for their texture.

Yang pulled in a deep breath, sagging slightly as she exhaled. She closed her eyes briefly, relaxing into the pull of her chest. The next thing she knew, Blake had leaned up slowly and pressed her forehead to Yang’s temple.

The air was hot between them, but it was a fresh heat. Like steam and wood fire.

“You alright there, champ?” Blake murmured.

Yang laughed gently, nodding, “Yeah. That was just… a lot,”

“I’ll say,” she aired.

Yang chuckled, eyes fluttering shut and reaching to pressed Blake’s knuckles to her mouth. When she pulled away, Blake’s eyes were tender. God, she wanted to kiss her.

But Blake’s gaze finally flickered up, her brow immediately crumbling.

“LOCCENT override?”

Yang twisted, focusing on the flashing words. They finally registered.

“What the fuck?” she growled. She stood, Blake coming with her. Yang tread fury, slamming open the pod’s doors and pacing a warpath around the cubicle-like barrier. She threw her helmet onto Ozpin’s keyboard with half the strength she wanted to. It still smashed a coffee cup.

“What the fuck was that?” she yelled, “You overrode our handshake? What the hell for?”

Oobleck’s eyebrows had climbed high and stayed there, but Ozpin looked mildly calm.

“We detected data we had never seen before. We simply thought it best to terminate the connection,”

“New data’? Are you fucking joking? You could have killed her, you grimy little shit!”

“Yang,”

Blake’s hand lighted on her elbow, and she wrenched straight, breathing hard. Ozpin had only leaned backwards, slightly put out. He glanced to the monitor and back to the pilots. Pursed his lips.

“Yes, I see I should apologize for that,” he whirred, adjusting his tiny glasses, “I would honestly have preferred to study this… phenomenon. But with how far you are in the Jaeger training, it would be very difficult to replace you,”

He grimaced.

“Yes, I apologize,”

Yang’s head reared back, incredulous smoke filling her lungs. Blake’s grip on her elbow tightened.

“We’ll be leaving,” she said, frosty disgust coating her tone. Yang’s exhale screamed of missed opportunity, but she turned to follow Blake out and back to the Drivesuit room. Yang was furious. Blake could feel it in the air. Her stride was sharp, all angles and pointed force.

“That won’t happen again,” she said quietly, Blake mesmerized by the snarling jungle cat that stalked beside her, “Not to you. Not to me. I’ll make sure of it,”

Blake halted, catching her hand.

“Hey, stop. Come here,” she pulled Yang to a forcible pause, the girl’s eyes a violent violet and narrow. Blake dipped her head to catch her gaze firmly, “We’ll make plan,” she said, decisive and arctic analysis, “Maria will be pissed about this. I actually bet Ironwood, too. But hey,” she dipped again, Yang having looked away, “I’ve got an idea,”

Yang focused on her, her heart rate loud but declining.

“We know how the Jaegers are hardwired,” Blake’s eyes flashed, “Once we get our Jaeger, we can rewire her any way we want,”

Yang’s jaw flexed. She tried to hold onto the anger, Ozpin’s weaselly face swimming before her eyes. Blake unconscious. Thin, capable fingers interrupted the reel of images; tipped her chin up.

“I’m alright, Yang,” Blake smoked, sweet and placid as a lake.

After that, staying mad was near impossible. She huffed.

“He’s still a grimy little shit,”

Blake’s smile pressed into her cheeks, her hand skimming down Yang’s wrist to twine their fingers.

“Without a doubt,”

“And I’m gonna imagine his face on a punching bag later,”

“I’ll paint it on, if you want,”

Yang grinned. Rolled her eyes.

“Stop being so levelheaded. People will think we’re a good match or something,”

Blake laughed.

“Can you imagine?”

Yang hummed, walking backwards down the hall. She lifted an eyebrow.

“So the bathroom, huh? Do you have any idea how hot that is?”

Blake’s laugh was pointed.

“As opposed to the shower? Subtle, Yang,” she sent her a flat, unhappy look, “Do you know how awful that was? To know?”

Yang shivered, a pleased little grin turning her attractive features devilish and starved.

“Fuck, how am I supposed to sleep now?”

Yang lay sprawled out on the lower bed in their barracks room, her head pillowed on her own arm behind her head. She scratched her stomach. Yawned. After the successful Drift, all the pilots had been moved into a better version of their shared room. It had a small kitchenette, their bathroom, and an added sink. Nothing extravagant. The bunk beds, pre-cracked mirror, and rusted iron color palate didn’t let them get so arrogant to consider luxury.

But she’d sweet talked Winter into getting them a TV.

The corporal had stammered, grit her jaw, and flatly told her ‘no’. When it appeared in their room days later, Blake had rolled her eyes nearly out of her head. She muttered something about ‘that poor girl’.

Currently, Yang was turned, staring at a paused title screen, Blake rummaging around in the kitchen. She smiled at the low, self murmur-talking Blake streamed. It was a beautiful habit, sweet and pure. Blake talked to herself. Mostly in French Canadian, but sometimes in English.

She was reading the instructions on the back of a popcorn bag when Yang craned her neck to look.

“Hm,” Blake quietly read aloud, “’Place in microwave… side up... do not use the popcorn button’. Hm,” her mumblings ratcheted higher, intrigued, “No popcorn button. Preneur de risque.

Yang smiled to herself. She didn’t speak a lick of French, or of the Canadian bastardization. But she was pretty sure Blake had just called a bag of popcorn a risk taker.

She closed her eyes, completely content.

“Maria made fun of us when I went to see her,” she said aloud.

“Really?” Blake called, “What for today?”

Yang smiled to herself, “Our Drift data. She said she didn’t blame Ozpin for freaking out. I mean, still called him an asshole, which was satisfying,”

Blake chuckled, the microwave running.

“We were basically Drifting on a fucking warren of RABITs, she said,” Yang continued, “She says that Random Access Brain Impulse Triggers are not supposed to be chased on a first Drift, and that we ‘shot that idea in the face’. Her words, not mine. My favorite part was when she said we were supposed to be pilots not ‘god damn RABIT huntresses’,”

“Then she made a pretty good joke about me saving her from the fire I’d put under her ass,” Yang nodded to herself, “Which I respect,”

Blake chuckled over the popcorn’s violent awakening.

“She loves you. I’m surprised she hasn’t asked for an autograph yet,”

Yang groaned.

“That’s not funny,” she grumped, “the Jaeger techs are starting to get bold,”

“No sympathy. You sign one uniform, you sign them all,”

Yang rolled her eyes, distinctly recalling the awkward situation she’d been cornered into at dinner last week.

“I really should have let the fucking place burn,” she grumbled.

Blake was laughing by the time she brought the steaming bowl of popcorn over.

“Now that’s not funny. The public venerated you because you represented an idea,” She pushed the stacked books on the floor where she wanted them, setting the bowl on top, “I’ve always been impressed by the trend your fame started up. Where the world realized the entirety of southern California was a moral wasteland, and there were people much more worthy of admiration out there,”

Yang wrinkled her nose. The broad side of the bed faced the room, pushed against the wall just for movie nights like this. Blake sat on the edge of the bed, facing Yang.

“I’m famous because I got pissed, and the Air Force capitalized on me,” Yang arched.

Blake laughed. She tipped her head.

“The public determines who is famous and who isn’t. You saved ten people from burning to death. In any culture, that’s heroic. People wanted a celebrity like that,” she locked twinkling eyes on the blonde, “Though, it helps that you’re stunning,”

Blake patted Yang’s thigh, ignoring the smear of flattery touching her lips.

“Come on,”

“Hold on- yeah, got it,”

Yang wiggled back into her adjusted pillows, stomach fluttering as Blake crouched over her, languid as a panther. She lowered herself like she was stepping into the luxury of a hot tub. Blake’s head was supported on Yang’s chest and shoulder join, to allow her to see the TV. She shifted to the side and slipped her arm under the arch of Yang’s back, comfortable without putting the limb to sleep. Yang rewound their legs and reached to put the popcorn on her stomach. Her left arm settled over Blake’s hip, fingers dipping inches below Blake’s yoga pants to colonize the heartbreaking hollow of her ilium.

It was practiced. Simple routine.

Mundane.

It had cratered into Yang’s chest like a meteoroid, never to fill until Blake’s lovely warmth took her place back up again. Her exact weight and size made Yang remember the soul-searing satisfaction of things nature designed to perfectly fit together; tides and eclipses. But the hand on Blake’s hip was easily her favorite part of this position. It let her feel the pull of Blake’s laughter, the twitches of her gasps. It was three inches, and felt like a lifeline.

She hit play.

Blake nuzzled further into Yang’s chest.

Her palm was warm and heavy. It grounded her, cementing her against Yang’s body. Blake marveled at the blonde’s unconscious sensuality. Yang instinctively knew when to move, when to stop. The delicate balance between when, what, and where of appropriate physicality had always felt like such a tenuously thin triad to Blake. But with Yang, it was suddenly something absent. Not changed; not new; but gone. Missing completely.

She breathed, Yang’s rich citrus and leather smell nearly overwhelmed by the clean cider and spice of her hair. Blake settled her free hand on Yang’s stomach, toyed with her shirt’s hem. It would be so easy to lift it, touch Yang’s jaw. Draw her face closer. Finally kiss the perpetually smooth lips.

It churned desire deep in her stomach and sinking lower. She nearly went breathless with the ache of it.

But Yang shifted under her, sighing and pressing her lips to Blake’s hair as if she could sense her discomfiture. Blake relaxed, ignorant of anything on their television’s screen.

Not yet.