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Finding a Jaeger pilot wasn't like recruiting soldiers. You needed someone whose brain could handle the neural load without burning out, whose nervous system could sync with fifty tons of combat machinery moving at inhuman speeds. But the real challenge? Finding another human being whose mind fit yours like puzzle pieces.
Drift compatibility—that's what the eggheads called it. Spiritual resonance, neural synchronization, pick your terminology. The bottom line was simple: you needed someone whose thoughts didn't feel like sandpaper scraping against your consciousness when you connected. Brothers and sisters topped the compatibility charts. Father-son pairs worked well. Married couples could be devastating in the field if their bond was strong enough.
But you also needed the body to match the mind. Raw physical strength, reflexes, the ability to take punishment and keep moving. That's why the world's three best Jaeger teams—the ones still standing after years of war—had been summoned to the Hong Kong Shatterdome. Each pairing represented the perfect storm of mental synchronization and physical capability.
Now Gipsy Danger sat in her maintenance bay, rebuilt and upgraded, waiting for her crew. Raleigh Becket had returned from his five-year exile. But Yancy was dead, and you can't drift with a ghost.
Which meant finding Raleigh a new co-pilot from the candidate pool.
The tryouts started at 0600 hours sharp.
The training hall wasn't impressive—a converted corridor beyond the Jaeger display hangar, industrial and functional. The sparring ring was just a raised platform with no ropes or barriers, a simple square marked out on the floor. Four candidates stood at attention, each gripping a bō staff, trying not to look nervous under the weight of so many eyes.
A crowd had gathered to watch. The Wei Tang triplets stood together like identical statues, while Herc Hansen and his son Chuck leaned against the far wall with the casual confidence of proven pilots. Marshal Pentecost positioned himself at ringside with Aidan beside him, both watching with the focus of men evaluating weapons. Mako Mori held a tablet, her role limited to scorekeeping and observation.
Raleigh stripped off his jacket, leaving only a tank top that showed arms corded with lean muscle. Five years away from the Jaeger program hadn't softened him. He rolled his shoulders, testing his grip on the staff, and something predatory flickered across his face.
The first candidate stepped up—Yamada Goro, Japanese, mid-twenties, moving with the practiced precision of someone trained in kendo. He spun the staff in a flashy one-handed flourish before settling into a classic two-handed guard position, wooden weapon held like a katana.
"Ha!" The kiai shout echoed as Yamada attacked, staff whistling down in a vertical strike.
The sharp crack of wood on wood rang out. Then three more impacts in rapid succession—block, counter, sweep. Four exchanges total. Then Raleigh's staff hooked Yamada's ankle mid-stance, yanked hard, and the candidate went down flat on his back with the wind knocked out of him.
The spectators applauded politely. Muscle memory was a hell of a thing. Even after five years of fishing boats and running away, Raleigh moved like the trained killer he'd once been. Every Jaeger pilot was a weapon before they ever climbed into a mech—superior reflexes, enhanced spatial awareness, combat instincts honed through thousands of hours of drilling.
Though physical prowess wasn't really the point. This was about drift compatibility. Reaction time, intuition, how your fighting style meshed with your partner's. Strength came second to synchronization.
"Four to one," Mako announced, her voice professionally neutral. But something tightened around her eyes. Disappointment, maybe. Or frustration.
The second candidate lasted six exchanges before hitting the deck. "Four to two," Mako counted, making a note on her tablet.
Raleigh caught the micro-expression that crossed her face—that same barely-there dissatisfaction. He glanced at the remaining candidates, then back at Mako with a frown. "You selected these people yourself, didn't you? So why do you look disappointed every time they lose?"
Mako blinked, caught off-guard. "What?"
"That expression. Soon as each match ends, you look frustrated. Like they're not performing up to standard."
"It's not them I'm disappointed in," Mako said, her tone sharpening. "It's you."
"Me?"
"Your strategy. You're holding back. You could finish each of them in two moves if you wanted to."
Raleigh's mouth quirked into something that might have been amusement. "And you know this how?"
"Because that's what I see." Her eyes narrowed with absolute conviction. "You're testing them, not fighting them."
"Well then." Raleigh pointed his staff directly at her. "Maybe I need a different sparring partner. You. Get up here."
Mako's head snapped toward Pentecost, excitement flaring in her eyes before she could suppress it.
"No." The Marshal's refusal was immediate and absolute. "Absolutely not."
Mako's face fell like a kicked puppy, but Pentecost didn't waver. She was the best candidate in the program, sure. But she was also carrying psychological trauma that could trap her in the Drift, drown her in her own memories until her brain forgot how to wake up. He'd seen it happen. Hell of a way to die.
"Follow the candidate list, Pilot Becket."
The dismissal was clear. Mako stared at the floor, jaw tight with swallowed disappointment.
"What's wrong, Marshal?" Raleigh's voice carried a challenging edge. "Afraid your best trainee might embarrass me?"
The silence that followed had weight to it. Pentecost looked at Mako's hopeful expression, then at the stubborn set of Raleigh's shoulders. The two of them were already acting like drift partners—pushing each other, reading each other's unspoken meanings.
"Fine." Pentecost took the tablet from Mako's hands. "First to four points. That's it."
Mako's face transformed—excitement bleeding into sharp focus as she moved toward the ring. She kicked off her shoes, stepped onto the platform barefoot, and stripped down to a grey tank top. The change from prim PPDC officer to barefoot fighter was startling. Lean muscle moved under pale skin, and a pendant swung into view before disappearing into her neckline. She looked dangerous suddenly. Capable.
"Huh," Aidan observed from ringside. "Didn't realize she had that kind of build."
"If you're interested in pursuing her, you have my blessing," Pentecost said, completely serious.
Aidan's expression went carefully blank. "That's... random?"
"You're not going to be a pilot. I don't want Mako to be a pilot either, no matter what she thinks she wants." Pentecost's voice was quiet, almost confessional. "Safest place for her in this whole damn war is wherever you are. Don't ask me why I think that. But I do."
"People make their own choices," Aidan said after a beat. "Safety isn't what drives everyone. And you can't protect someone from living their life."
"Maybe not." Pentecost conceded the point but didn't look convinced.
"Let's just watch the match."
On the platform, Mako and Raleigh faced each other, staffs at ready. Mako spun hers once—showing off, just a little—before settling into a low, grounded stance with the weapon held behind her back.
"I've studied your combat records," she said. "Watched all your match footage."
"Yeah?" Raleigh raised an eyebrow. "What's the assessment?"
"Unpredictable. You fight like you're making it up as you go." She shifted her weight, coiled and ready. "You take risks that border on reckless. The kind of risks that get your partner killed." Her voice didn't waver on that last part, but everyone heard what she wasn't saying: Knifehead. Alaska. Your brother.
"Maybe." Raleigh's expression hardened. "But when you're in the Drift, fighting a Category-3 that's trying to tear your Jaeger apart? You don't have time for safe choices. You make the call and you live with it."
Then he attacked—staff whipping toward her head fast enough to blur.
Mako didn't flinch. She watched the weapon come, timed her breath, and—
"One to zero!"
—blocked the return swing, redirected his momentum, and cracked her staff against his forehead with a satisfying thwack.
"One to one."
They separated, circled. Then chaos.
The staffs became blurs of motion—block, strike, counter, spin. Wood cracked against wood in rapid-fire percussion that sounded like a drumroll. Their feet moved in perfect synchronization, advance and retreat, testing and probing.
"Two to one. Two to two." Mako's voice was clinical as she narrated the score, watching with professional detachment. "Two to three. Three to three. Three to four."
The final exchange was brutal. Raleigh caught Mako's staff in a bind, twisted hard, and sent her flying with a shoulder throw that would've broken ribs if he'd followed through. She hit the mat and rolled, came up breathing hard but grinning like a maniac.
Raleigh extended a hand. Mako took it, let him pull her up.
"She's my co-pilot," Raleigh announced, clapping her shoulder and turning to face Pentecost. Not a question. A statement of fact.
"No," Pentecost said flatly.
Raleigh's face went stormy. "Marshal—"
"Not yet." Pentecost gestured to Aidan standing beside him. "You need to test drift compatibility with Dr. Ryan first."
Aidan blinked. "I'm sorry, what?