Rainbow looked at Luna as she ordered the other three Jaegers out the doors to cover the miracle-mile, the last possible chance to stop a Kaiju before it hit Japan. The Russian Jaeger Alpha Canterlot stood at the front of the line, according to the plan, piloted by two Pegasus Ponies, whose names Dash hadn’t paid attention for. Just behind and to the left, the Neighponese Jaeger Everfree Crimson stood just behind it, piloted by the brother-sister Cake twins, a Pegasus and a Unicorn. It was the only Jaeger to have both wings and a horn, which according to schematics, held a chain-sword. In her opinion it was rather ugly, but the twin’s supervisor, Pinkamina Pie, had assured Dash that the bright pink camouflage with what looked like melted party streamers was in-fact camouflage. She must have been colorblind.
Furthest back stood Mother-Bucker, piloted by the brother-sister team of Applejack and Big Mackintosh. At least theirs was painted in a reasonable camouflage scheme, greens and browns and blacks. And with Storm-Breaker standing back in the Shatterdome, she and Scootaloo were trying to work through the issue with the Drift. They had drifted twice since that night, in the lab, using the head-mounted Pons, with Dash teaching Scootaloo how to control her memories, to keep them back, and at the same time suppressing her own.
As part of that, they had built a mental meeting place, rather than the conn-pod as Dash and Fluttershy had used, they instead met on a bridge, over a swirling pot of memories. The two grew closer, and, despite Fluttershy’s memories surfacing at inopportune moments, managed to form a solid bond. One that would last in the Jaeger, without triggering another collapse.
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“Alright, we’ve got a Class Three, working together with a Class Four. Three’s your standard Gorilla. Four’s a bit of a mystery,” Red Alert scowled at the console, alongside Hong Kong’s controller, Radiant Acorn. There was almost nothing they could figure out about the second Kaiju. The main problem was that there was two. First time, ever, that there had been a double event. And with Twilight and Rarity out in the city, trying to get ahold of another Kaiju brain, for some secret project of Celestia’s, that meant they could not, under any circumstance, allow the Kaiju past.
“So, what we need to do out here,” the Russian stallion, Soarin’ Skyburner, spoke briefly, “Is stop these two Kaiju.” Not too hard, since one was always enough for a one-on-one, “Spitfire, honey, would you mind pre-loading the shock-hooves? I think we’ll need them.”
“Pound, We’re gonna need some airtime. Gotta plant the Chainsaw in the right place,” Pumpkin cake focused on her magic, using it to control the wing waldos, “And Flap!”
The twins flapped together, the massive Jaeger going airborne as the first Kaiju arrived. The sea-serpent one, the Class Four grabbed for Everfree Crimson, tearing into it, even as the Cake twins drove the Chain-horn into its arm. They threw it at Alpha Canterlot, where Soarin and Spitfire caught it and drove it head-first into the water. It got an arm around Alpha’s head, pressing the stylized cranium against its back. “Bite me,” Spitfire spat at the Kaiju, who proceeded to do just that, burying its teeth in the head, through the massive tank of napalm where the Conn-pod should have been, “Light it up!”
Soarin’ smacked his wing against the ignition switch, setting off the entire tank all at once. The Kaiju leapt back, howling. The gorilla-like Kaiju leapt up and ripped the flaming head off with a single sweep.
Everfree Crimson darted over, using its magic enhanced speed to drive the chain-horn into the Kaiju’s back. Horn stuck, it was, unfortunately, unable to avoid having the other Kaiju come up and drive its tail through the back of the Conn-pod, ripping Pound out first. Now lacking the capacity to hold the great Jaeger in the air without something flapping the wings, Pumpkin started to fall. The neck snapped, and the gorilla Kaiju snapped the horn off with a sweep across its back. It grabbed the head of Everfree Crimson and smashed it.
Pinkamina screamed as she watched the feed from Alpha Canterlot, the brilliant red splotch in the middle of the crushed metal. Those two had been under her care since their parents had died in Cabo back at the beginning.
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Dash turned away from the screens and started back out of the room when she heard a crackle. Everything went dark, and she closed her eyes, remembering the feeling of an EMP from the first time Storm-Breaker had overloaded and EMPed the helicopter escort. It burned, but it wouldn’t stop the analog computers in Storm-Breaker, with their immense vacuum tubes and wires that were more tolerant of the fluctuations in current load. “Scootaloo, C’mon. We’ve got to save them. They’re all dead in the water.”
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Soarin’ dug his hooves into the control boots, wings forcing themselves up against the waldos, even as his partner held hers down, “Soarin’, we can handle this. It doesn’t know where our Conn-pod is. It can’t hurt us, and we’ll re-boot in a minute.” The ape-like arm that punched through the glass and just barely missed Spitfire’s nose made the prior Wonderbolt snap. The analog backup system, which was somewhat less effective than the digital primary, was still up, and it was enough for him to headbutt the Kaiju before taking to the air and howling gleefully as he turned the afterburners on the Kaiju’s back. Beside him, Spitfire was lying on the deck, her wings having slipped their harnesses. Probably the reason his vision was turning red rather rapidly. He landed and dropped the wings to the Jaeger’s side, “Spitfire, honey, can you hear me?”
The yellow Pegasus looked up at her husband through a shattered face-mask, “Yeah. I’ve got glass in my muzzle though. Hurts.”
“I’ve got you. Can you at least stand up and help me get to shore? There’ll be a medical team waiting for us,” he left out the ‘I hope’.
The serpent Kaiju wrapped around Alpha Canterlot’s waist and started crushing it in, compressing the reactor, and the back of the Conn-pod. The weight of the Kaiju began to crumple the Jaeger’s spine, pressing it down. Just from the feedback, the two pilots were practically collapsing, and Soarin had pried his wings loose of the harness just in time, as the feedback system snapped away when the wing servos were torqued by the Kaiju’s tail.
“Come on honey, The mains’ll be back in a few more seconds, and we can stomp this Kaiju,” Spitfire was struggling, even Soarin’ was struggling, but he tried not to show it, locking his legs in place to keep the Jaeger upright, even as everything he knew, and the screaming of his back muscles told him to stop. He finally gave in when the Kaiju broke one of the rear legs. The feedback dropped Spitfire and him to their knees, and with them, the Jaeger dropped. Water gushed into the conn-pod through the broken glass, and Soarin’ tore himself free of his harness. There was no ejection pod, and with a broken leg, even he was limping.
He grabbed Spitfire off the deck and freed her from the boot locks, lifting her head to the air pocket at the top of the Jaeger’s Conn-pod. He was still using the integral air supply, running through a hose attached to the back of his helmet, even as the air bubble grew smaller.
This was the end, he knew. Their Jaeger was finished. Storm-Breaker was not going to be ready in time, and even with the reboot, there was no chance Mother-Bucker was going to be any help, being disabled, more-so, he knew, because it had no way to force a reboot. He tore off his helmet, letting the air flow out into the small pocket they had left, as he wrapped his wife in his arms, “Goodbye, dear. Kick their bucking flanks for me!” He kissed her and shoved the helmet over her head, holding it down until he was certain she wasn’t going to pull it off, before he let go and slipped away into the cold water.
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Every Jaeger had a back-up system, but it was clunky at best, and it was all Applejack and Big Macintosh had left. They used their immense strength to pull on cables through lever systems that allowed them to move the gargantuan Jaeger slowly towards shore, backwards. Very slowly, and it was hard on both of them. More so on Big Macintosh, since he had to both pull as hard as he could, and not move more than his shorter sister. The digital systems compensated for that, but the manual control couldn’t, and if he moved too far, he could seriously injure her.
He kept both eyes on the Kaiju circling around, knowing that Applejack was so focused on controlling the Jaeger that she couldn’t take the time to look up. It was why he stopped abruptly, dropping fully to the floor, and ignoring the painful sounding crack as Applejack’s jaw hit the deck. The Kaiju flew over-head and he growled at it, “Jack, disconnect. I’ve got this!”
“’shure bro. I’mma taka nap,” she unhooked from the control harness and rolled over into a corner, hooking her fore-hooves through the rungs to hold herself in place.
Now no longer assisted by his sister’s strength, but no longer burdened by her size, he stood, powerful muscles rippling as he hauled back with as much force as he could, and stomped the Kaiju in the face. His reaction time wasn’t stellar, and he was taking more than he was dishing, but it was enough to hold the Kaiju off.
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Storm-Breaker dropped into the ocean Fore-hooves first as it drove them into the Kaiju’s neck, disabling and removing it from the fight. Dash hollered out over the external speakers, “Mother-Bucker, this is Storm-Breaker, Call-back!”
Applejack bit the megaphone and hollered into it, “’Bout time you got here! Could certainly use a hand.”
The weak, lung powered voice barely made it to Rainbow Dash’s ears, even with Storm-Breaker’s enhanced audio, “Call-back confirmed. Both of you alive in there?”
“Yeah. Watch your back!” Storm-Breaker spun around, driving a sharpened wing tip into the Kaiju’s side. It lunged and wrapped its tail around the right fore-leg, on Scootaloo’s side.
“Vent coolant!” Dash hollered, even as Scootaloo moved to do just that. The vents flared, blasting coolant into the Kaiju’s tail, freezing it and the sea spray over it, “Twenty minutes. We have twenty minutes to end this!” She didn’t mention what would happen in twenty minutes, she didn’t have to. Just the thought of it was enough for Scootaloo to see her and Fluttershy sweating as components overheated and shorted out.
The Kaiju flung them at the ape-like one, still not quite dead, though sporting deep burns like those from Alpha Canterlot’s thrusters. “Well, this is just great!” Dash growled, bringing her wing to bear, and grabbing. The bony wings were mimicked by powerful hydraulics that forced the end of the wing to wrap around the Kaiju’s brain, where there was a glowing blue orb, still outputting the familiar, and greatly disliked, EMP signal. She wrenched it back, disliking the feel of the pull on her wing-root, and she knew Scootaloo could feel it too, even as the Kaiju dropped.
“Can you help Alpha Canterlot?” Dash hollered to the radio, watching as the digital circuits came to life again. It was almost nightmarish the way Alpha Canterlot stood up again, water pouring out through a hole in the chest, where the Conn-pod was split wide open. Its spine was nearly broken, and it was limping heavily, like one of its legs wasn’t working, but Mother-Bucker was moving towards it at a decent clip, though clearly still on backup power, being non-nuclear.
Dash braced as she was interrupted by the serpentine Kaiju flinging Storm-Breaker over a bridge, into a shipping yard. It tumbled across the storage boxes, bouncing to its hooves and skidding another few hundred feet before it stopped.