Chapter Text
The Rig is a bustling military town in the middle of the ocean, far enough away from land that there is nothing but open water, rusting metal, and helicopters. In nautical miles L'Manburg is only a few steps of a Jaeger away and the outpost is barely even in international waters but to Niki her home might as well be on the moon. The sounds of welding and sloshing water are what she falls asleep to every night. She curls up in her bunk, Wilbur already snoring below her, and imagines she is on the shore of L'Manburg's lake and then counts frogs until she's out.
That is not where she is tonight. Instead of being tucked away in the safety of her cabin or playing cards with the other pilots, Niki is sprinting down the halls to the prep room, alarms blaring from her walkie. Wilbur is at her side with a skip in his step and a morbid grin on his face.
"No rest for the wicked!" He shouts, banging on doors as he goes. "Come watch us bag another kill!"
"Shut up, Wil!" Tommy's voice says from behind one of the doors.
Tubbo pokes his head out of the door. He's wearing pajamas and a sleep mask. "Yeah, shut up, Wilbur.”
"I'm going to make sure your only meals are gruel for the next week, worms!" Wilbur says back as they round the corner.
Niki laughs. "You can't even get them to make you pasta for breakfast."
"Shhhhh, they don't know that."
"Right. Of course."
"You're late," Quackity says when they get to the prep room, looking them up and down. "The Kaiju could already be at the wall by now."
"Is it?" Niki asks, pulling her hair up and letting the techs drill the armor plates to her body.
"No. But it could be!"
Wilbur rolls his eyes. "You don't know anything about anything, man."
"I've been here longer than you!"
"Arms up," A tech says to him. He obliges but continues to argue passionately with Quackity.
"I'm going to make sure you get booted off this rig someday, dickhead," Quackity says.
"Is that so?"
"You—”
This is Niki's favorite part of her job. Watching Wilbur shout and joke, teasing the techs, it's all his way of steeling himself for the fight ahead. She sees it when they drift. He has fires lit all over his brain, nervous and emotional and enormous. When he tells her bet you can't make that headshot, they get doused, just for a moment, and the two of them relax in sync. He's good at speeches. He likes to tell the other pilots how much they matter, says they're the first line of defense against the Kaiju and nothing would work without them. And somehow? He really believes it. He believes in all of them, even the new recruits who will probably die on their first day out.
"You ready?" Wilbur asks with a smile.
"As much as I can be, I think.”
"Good. Let's go."
They walk into the elevator together. Niki exhales, clearing her mind and turns to face him. He does the same. The elevator stops and opens to reveal the inside of their Jaeger, the Lady L'Manburg. She's a bit older than the other Jaegers, more scuffed and lacking the fancy gadgets of the MK6's. But the Lady is theirs, chipped paint and all. There is a tiny spot on the floor where the two of them carved their names, Niki's on the right and Wilbur's on the left. Despite all the years it's been in commission, that panel still hasn't been destroyed or replaced.
Niki and Wilbur lock themselves in place. The radio crackles and the Jaeger boots up, its lights blinking and gears whirring.
"Category two Kaiju, codename November," Quackity recites. "He's pretty small. Should be a simple job that gets you home in time for breakfast. Good luck, assholes."
Wilbur presses the radio button. "See you, big Q."
"Initiating neural handshake."
Niki closes her eyes and the drift begins. She feels her mind filling with memories that don't belong to her and she lets them wash over her. Fundy's birth, holding Sally's hand as she screams— Dumpster diving with Tommy in L'Manburg— Phil pinching the bridge of his nose and pointing at a toy Niki? Wilbur? They? Clearly just broke— All of it tumbling around together in a weird and familiar flood. When she opens her eyes she knows instinctively that Wilbur is doing the same exactly in time with her. They each raise an arm and motion a fist bump. Technically not regulation and it probably looks silly from outside but they're allowed.
"Drift at 100%. Jaeger is good to launch."
The huge bay doors of the launch zone creak open. Tiny workers scramble like ants below them and the vast open ocean roils ahead. Helicopters latch onto the Lady's shoulders and carry them out, out, out, leaving the Rig behind in a matter of minutes.
"It's a nice night out," Wilbur says casually. "Wouldn't you say so?"
"Seriously, Wil?"
"C'mon, look at the stars!"
She does. Light pollution fills the sky no matter how far from shore they are but a few bright lights twinkle out in the distance, not a cloud to be seen for miles. Niki laughs, wishing she could lean over and push him.
She feels his warm presence in her mind and knows he wishes she could, too. The Lady sways on her cables and the GPS in front of them reads fifteen miles to target.
Wilbur taps the screen. "Should be a while before we drop."
"Yes."
"Pass the time with me."
She turns her head to look at him, feeling the slight pressure of the drift halo on her temples. He grins at her from across the cockpit, his face distorted slightly by his helmet visor. They only have ten minutes, maybe less, but it might as well be a thousand years in the fast-paced midst of the Kaiju war.
Wilbur reaches out to her with his free hand and she returns the gesture, feeling their fingers brush from both her side of the room and his. This is the drift: Having four pairs of hands, two bodies, one mind. She feels her callouses, her sweat, sees the smile lines on her face in a way she can't in the mirror.
Wilbur scrunches up his nose. "Okay, a year ago. December. Go."
"You thought Sally's dress was beautiful," Niki says, pulling the memory from his mind. "You were supposed to play guitar for the party but you forgot to get new strings so you lied and said you lost it— Wait, that's why you didn't play?"
"Gonna be honest with you, I forgot about that."
"I cannot believe we fell for it."
"My turn," Wilbur says. "Pick something good, yeah?"
"L'Manburg, the day I opened the bakery."
"Shit, I don't even need the drift for that. Your apron was covered in flour and you smelled incredible, god, incredible, I say. Aw, you woke up early to make brownies for me and Tommy. There's a song playing on the radio— Something you like. It's so warm outside."
Niki's shoulder is starting to hurt from stretching it across the room but she doesn't care. She can taste the ghost of chocolate on her tongue and the sheer unadulterated excitement from opening the bakery. Wilbur is basking in it too; She can sense him turning the memory over in his head, playing it like he doesn't want to let go of it.
"Stop being cute, I'm going to be sick," Quackity interrupts. "Disconnecting the tethers now. Kaiju within one nautical mile."
Niki and Wilbur pull their hands back which dissolves the connection. They focus up, scanning the horizon for Kaiju signs, and Niki makes sure to keep flicking her gaze back to the GPS monitor because she knows Wilbur won't do it for them.
They get the Lady to start walking through the waist-high ocean. The heavy machinery grinds below, gears and steam turning to help them move the impossibly huge mech. Still no sign of the Kaiju.
"Where is it?" Niki worries.
"It'll show. Relax, alright?"
She gets a strange read from him, a bump in the drift so brief it barely registers. What is it, tension, anticipation, annoyance? Niki shrugs it off. Sometimes the machinery bugs out and fumbles in their brains when it shouldn't. Even Niki and Wilbur's perfect drift has its shakeups in the old scrap metal of the Lady.
A few more minutes pass by with no Kaiju and then--
"There!" Instinctively, Wilbur points at a dark shape in the distance with his hand and the Lady L'Manburg's arm follows his motion.
The pitch black sky obscures most of its body but the movement in the water is unmistakable. It powers forward using a long, spiked tail as a rudder and a head the side of the ship to cut towards the Lady at unimaginable speeds.
"Brace for impact," Niki bites just before it crashes into them.
It's practically a baby: Barely taller than the Lady L'Manburg, dripping neon blue slime from its mouth, and angry spines marching down its back. Stood at its full height, level with the Lady, Niki has to swallow the fear that rises to her throat and focus on the task at hand.
It's her and Wilbur's job to kill it.
It rakes a huge talon across the Lady's chest, the distinct sound of tearing metal filling Niki's ears. They react with a kick to its hind legs but that does nothing to break its stance.
"Let's go for the legs, Wil! Pull back! Legs!"
"Got it," Wilbur grunts.
He's slow on the draw but he gets it done. The Lady takes a step back to stabilize herself and then reaches to hold November by the shoulders while Niki uses her side to kick, hard. The feedback hits her and she knows she's just taken off a chunk of flesh.
"Good," Wilbur says. "Good, you're doing excellent."
"Thank you, thank you."
Before Wilbur can open his mouth to say another word, three things happen:
One. The Kaiju breaks free of the Lady's hold.
Two. It swings a talon up, up, up to connect with the Lady's skull and doesn't let go.
Three. It starts to pull, the cockpit groaning from the stress and Wilbur's side caves in as the Kaiju squeezes more and more.
"Wilbur!" Niki screams.
Wilbur wrenches his harness loose so he's dangling by mere wires, thin strips of copper holding him to Niki's mind. He grabs her by the forearms and his skin is slick with sweat, a wild glint flashing in his eye.
"Listen, Niki," Wilbur chokes, pressing a kiss to her hand. "I love you. I want—”
His grip loosens and the Kaiju roars, ripping Wilbur all the way out of the head and tearing the drift away with it. The last thing Niki feels from him is an overwhelming wave of peace washing over her before it's gone, it's gone and she's alone. November crunches the hunk of metal it stole in its massive claws and tosses it aside. Rain pelts Niki from the hole in the hull and she forces herself to turn the Jaeger around to face the monster. It lashes its tail.
"Wilbur— My copilot is dead," Niki says to the intercom. "Help can't get here fast enough. I'm going to kill it."
"What? Do not engage, Nihachu! I repeat, wait for backup, Niki please!"
Niki makes the Lady raise her arms and brings them down hard on November, eliciting a scream of pain. It retaliates with a swipe at the Lady's chest. She kicks out with a leg, tearing something in her hip, but managing to trip the Kaiju up.
Foamy blue blood pours into the ocean. Four horrible eyes track the Lady and Niki knows deep in her gut that it's looking at her in the cockpit.
"Nihachu!" Someone on the radio that isn't Quackity snaps. "This is Marshall Schlatt ordering you to not touch that goddamn Kaiju!"
Niki continues to ignore the radio. She advances on November; Its gullet opens wide, exposing rows of long yellow teeth, and Niki knows it's her only shot.
She strains her fingers towards the command panel, dislodged by the Kaiju attack but still functional, shaking with the effort and her hip now searing with pain— All she wants to do is die— But her hand connects with the button and the Lady L'Manburg's gun powers up.
It only needs a few seconds to charge but that's too much to leave up to chance, too long for Niki to wait. She lifts the Lady's other arm, trying not to think about who's supposed to be controlling it, and shoves it into November's mouth to make sure it stays open. Twenty percent, thirty percent... Crunch!
November is gnashing through the Lady's arm fast, nearly ripping it off of the mech entirely.
Fifty percent.
Niki locks the torque and pushes November under a wave. Another dot blinks onto the GPS— More pilots eager to feed themselves to the Rift, too far to help her—
Eighty percent.
"Arctic Bird inbound," Phil's voice cuts clear through the intercom feedback. "Lady L'Manburg in our sights."
The ocean churns, November using its powerful legs to kick up off the bottom and ripping the Lady's arm off at the elbow joint. Warnings blare inside the cockpit but the command voice says ninety-five percent and Niki is so close to being in the clear. Just a little longer, She thinks desperately.
Slam! November shoves at her but makes the mistake of opening its mouth to bite the Lady's head just as the green one hundred percent flashes on the console. Niki doesn't hesitate; She fires the gun right into its maw three times causing an eruption of flesh and ooze.
A hole sizzles where its brain used to be and then the entire world crashes around Niki. Her lungs burn, her body is racked with cold, and Wilbur is gone. She feels the gaping wound in her mind where he was just a few minutes ago, the valve blown wide open with nothing but vacuum to fill it. She looks outside of the cockpit to the ugliest sunrise she's ever seen: Pink and gold mixing like watercolors on canvas and delicate floating clouds on top.
The short-distance walkie comes to life with Technoblade's voice on the hook. "Niki, answer the darn radio! Is it dead?"
"It's... It's dead. I killed it. It's dead."
"Aight, we're comin' to get you. Stop the drift with the Lady before it kills you."
It doesn't take more than half an hour for the helicopters to pluck the Lady L'Manburg out of the ocean and whisk her back to the Rig, trailing Kaiju gore and seawater.
Numb, wet tar slides down Niki's spine. She doesn't say a word as the Jaeger techs rip her out of the cockpit, frantically unscrewing her armor and fussing loudly over her wounds, her copilot, her everything. She lets them half lead, half drag her away from the Lady. Quackity— Yelling and arms outstretched— Is there one moment, gone the next as Niki's team shuffles her through endless hallways.
Her skin feels sticky. She doesn't really pay attention to what they do to her in the medbay. How did she get to the medbay? Time is a honeyed blur. It's too-fast-too-fast and horribly, painfully slow at the same time.
Eyes in the corner of the white room, familiar, but too far away to tell whose they are.
"I dream of the hills in L'Manburg," Wilbur says. "Remember when we were kids and rolled down them to see how fast we could go? And how you kind of wanted to throw up but went back again and again until we had to go back inside?"
Niki smiles. "I remember."
A sharp pain in her arm, a doctor cupping her cheek, and Niki succumbs to sleep.