Rainbow and Applejack took the lead, guiding their younger Drift partners along as they trotted towards the edge of the crevice, bright head-lights barely reaching fifty feet ahead of them. As they reached the edge of the gap, Rainbow spoke to the surface for the last time, “We are at the edge. Releasing radio antennae. Farewell, for now.”
She was just about to nose the button that would shear off the floating antennae when a loud voice, not a royal, but near enough in volume, broke onto the line, “WAIT! DON’T CUT THAT COMM!”
Dash froze, nose less than an inch from the button, “What?”
A calmer voice she recognized, Rarity the scientist, was next on the line, “The nuke won’t go through alone. They’ve got some sort of genetic passcode on the breach. You need to send it through with a Kaiju.”
“What?”
“We Drifted with the baby Kaiju. Trust us!” Dash heard Scootaloo shudder as the sound of someone heaving all over the console reached their ears. Good enough proof for her.
“Ok. Guess cooking them to ash is out then, y’hear that Apples?”
Applejack keyed the short-range radio, “Affirmative Storm-Breaker. We’ll just skin the little bastard.”
Dash swore she could hear a filly complaining about Applejacks language, in concert with Rarity’s whining about how unladylike that sort of language was, right before the radio was filled with the static sound of another pony heaving her guts out on the floor and microphone.
“Well, that’s just nasty. Surface out. Good luck Dudettes.”
Dash pressed the button, “Come along now Mother-Bucker. We’ve got a Kaiju to skin.”
“After you Dash,” Applejack commed back before leaping from the ledge, tailed closely by Storm-Breaker as they sank to the bottom. At the bottom, there was just barely enough light to see by, and they had to switch to the sonar system, which overlaid the main visor with a sonic echo map of what was around. Tracking was confirmed by the map directly lying over whatever became actually visible.
JaegerJaegerJaeger
Twilight wrapped her still bleeding forehoof over Rarity’s back, guiding the mare out the door, even as the two of them were intercepted by a medical team and ferried away, still dry-heaving and bleeding a trail along the metal decking. “Hey Rare?”
“Yeah Twi?”
“Remind me not to use last-ditch emergency spells unless I can avoid walking entirely afterwards.”
“Yeah. Remind me to never share your mind with a Kaiju again.” Rarity rolled onto her side and retched at the floor again, “My head feels like it’s gonna explode.”
“Probably hemorrhaging. Mine is too. That’s why the nosebleeds,” Twilight pulled the blood-soaked blouse up off her chest and blew her nose into it, watching in sick amusement as it dripped onto her matted fur, “I bet we die from this.”
“If we do,” Rarity looked at the medic pushing her stretcher, “Let Luna know to send us to a happy place.”
The medic grunted and shook his horned head, “You’re not gonna die on me! I haven’t lost a patient yet who was still breathing when we entered the operating room,” his horn started glowing brightly, “Looks like you two ladies overdid the magic a bit. As your immediate physician, I would advise not casting again at all, not even levitation, for at least a month. Maybe two.”
JaegerJaegerJaeger
Storm-Breaker touched down first, outweighing Mother-Bucker by a full three thousand tons, and started forward towards the breach, “Alright now where’re the Kaiju. The breach is open.”
“Do you think they learned of the plan? I know the Drift is two-way,” Scootaloo peered at the sonar map over the front of the console. There was definitely the breach. It was glowing bright orange, and looked somewhat imposing, but there were no Kaiju in the area according to sonar, “How are we supposed to get into the breach if there isn’t a Kaiju to ride the nuke back.”
Dash smiled, “I think I’ve got an idea. Mother-Bucker, you still have some of those missiles?”
“Yeah, but they won’t ignite this far under, why?”
“Fork one over here,” Dash smiled as the missile popped out, neutrally buoyant at this depth, and was batted towards her by a well-aimed giant hoof. The Pegasus Jaeger snatched the missile out of the air and trotted up to the edge, leaping deftly into the void, wings extended.
“Let’s ring their doorbell. See who answers.”
She shoved the tail of the missile behind one of the wing thrusters, starting it up in a roar of boiling water before dropping it nose down. Storm-Breaker landed on the other side as the thousand pound warhead hit the barrier with a crack. The force barely created a blip in the water, but it seemed to have woken something up.
The Kaiju that lunged out of the breach only had a moment to see the two Jaegers on opposite sides of the gap before Dash’s plan started to go wrong. The steel anchor-line wasn’t as firmly attached as it was supposed to be, and it wrapped around the dinosaur-like Kaiju, tearing Storm-Breaker off the ground. Dash rolled, letting Scootaloo stretch her wings, even though it hurt on the one that was still supposed to be bandaged. Had she actually told the pickup crew about the torn tendons, they probably would have prevented her from going along.
The thrusters roared underwater, pulling the Kaiju, even as the Kaiju flopped like a fish on a line, pulling the other way, neither giving an inch to the other. The Kaiju started towards Mother-Bucker, who was already getting in position, “Alright Stormy, gimme some fish-fillets.”
“Kaiju fastball in three!” Dash leaned towards the cable release handle, grabbing it with the hook on the bottom of her helmet, “Two, One!” The cable released, and the Kaiju shot right into the upraised blades, reciprocating blades chopping it smoothly into three pieces as the Jaeger did a handstand over it.
Dash brought the Storm-Breaker back down for a landing, “Alright then, Grab and drag, let’s get this nuke set off.”
Two more Kaiju tore out of the breach, one charging at each Jaeger. Mother-Bucker pivoted and launched a kick that Dash physically felt from six hundred feet away, and she was certain the no-longer moving Kaiju had a broken skull, based on the brains leaking out into the water.
“Why didn’t you do that before?”
“Couldn’t. Big Macintosh’s too tall. The feedback woulda’ broken my legs.”
“What about Applebloom?”
“Little stretched out, but I’ll be fine. Nothing a warm spa can’t fix.”
“Good,” Scootaloo pointed at the breach, even as the other Kaiju drove its teeth into Dash’s side wing. Both pilots winced at the feedback, and Dash gritted her teeth, grinding them against each-other as the wing was torn roughly off. Not a sound from either Pegasus. It would hurt too much to acknowledge it, so they didn’t. Dash rolled towards the torn wing, planting a plasma cannon hoof in the Kaiju’s belly and blasting away.
The Kaiju roared in pain, whipping at Storm-Breaker. The tail collided, jarring the Conn-pod and splintering the outer layer of the main port. Salt spray started dancing through the cracks, and Dash grumbled, “Mother-Bucker, get that nuke moving!”
The Earth Pony Jaeger stomped forward, getting a Kaiju to the hind-leg for its trouble. Applebloom screamed as the leg was torn off, and Scootaloo almost lost the drift to it, “Come on Dashie! We’ve gotta get this nuke in the breach.”
The similarity to what Fluttershy would have said made Dash think twice, unsure whether it was Scootaloo, or a memory. Deciding it didn’t matter, she started forward, the Kaiju beginning to make its move. She drove the plasma cannon into a piece of Kaiju on the ground and stomped towards the breach, and the damaged, and immobile Jaeger.
“Alright Applejack, I’ll drop it. Eject.”
“I can’t. The catch isn’t working. I think it broke my side of the Pod with that hit.”
“Buck. Wait, is Applebloom’s side working?”
“Yeah. Ok, you can handle this?”
Dash smirked and with Scootaloo, slammed the other fore-hoof into the Kaiju’s face, “I’ve got the football. Hike Hike!”
Applejack made a final move, flinging the nuke across the Kaiju’s back at Dash, even as she disconnected from the system. She grabbed Applebloom and hit the release catch on her side. The small pod burst out of the top of the Jaeger’s head and rocketed towards the surface, barely escaping the Kaiju’s claws.
Dash turned to Scootaloo, “Close your eyes kid,” the warheads still in Mother-Bucker went up as the trigger mechanisms timed out in storage, nopony there to pull the triggers. It was blindingly bright, and distracted the Kaiju long enough for the two Pegasi to jump on its back and drag it towards the pit, carrying the nuke, “Alright Eat THIS!” She forced the nuke down the Kaiju’s throat and pushed the thing into the breach, only for it to start climbing out faster than the timer could tick down. It clawed across Scootaloo’s side, tearing a gash into the wing surface, and setting off alarms, including one Dash hoped not to see. The Eject failure. Something had jammed, and water was leaking through the lid of the ejector pod. If Scootaloo was in there when it fired, she’d drown before she hit the surface. And the Kaiju was still not going into the breach.
“Kid, I need you to trust me. Take your hooves out of the controls, and get ready to jump on my back when I say.”
“Ok.”
The larger Pegasus braced for the impact of having the entire neural load dumped on her. She lunged forward, the last move still linked, as she shouted at Scootaloo.
The smaller orange Pegasus dropped out of the link and started squirming out of the harness, not bothering to take it off, even if that meant ripping out a hoof-full of feathers. She wouldn’t be flying again anytime soon.
Dash closed her eyes as the Kaiju met with the sheer weight of the Jaeger, the full impact feeding back into her already over-stressed mind. She could feel blood pooling in her mask, around her muzzle, as the overload severed quite a few neurons and forced her heart-rate up to keep up with the increased oxygen demand.
“Kid,” she spat into the helmet, “Pull that big red lever, the one I told you never to touch.”
Scootaloo obliged, yanking down on it with all the strength in her little body before leaping back to Dash’s side. Dash wrapped her wing around her partner as the two were lifted off the deck and pressed into a pod that was just barely too small for both of them. Dash squirmed into a better position, getting Scootaloo mashed against her belly and chest, orange hind-legs tucked between her own blue ones, and two pairs of wings intertwining on their sides. Two helmets shared the top space, ear to ear, where the two ponies could hear each-other breathing as they rocketed to the surface.
Rainbow counted down the seconds on the timer she had hit, preparing herself, and knowing that the bomb would trigger, and optimally, enhance, the explosion of the reactors going supercritical. At Zero, she wrapped her fore-legs around Scootaloo, squeezing the filly against her, and away from the pressure shell as the shockwave hit. The pod was flipped and tossed like a leaf in a hurricane, and she was almost glad neither of them had been able to eat before they left. Her eyes stayed closed, sticky blood drying into her muzzle fur and over her eyes, “Scoots, I don’t know if you can hear me still. If you can, just nod. I’ll feel it.”
Scootaloo nodded, pressing her helmet to Dash’s armored shoulder, “In a few moments, we’ll be surfacing. That means we’ll be leaving the water at about a hundred miles an hour. We’ll be airborne for a few seconds before we hit again, and it won’t feel good. Just don’t let go, and you’ll be fine.”
The pod surfaced, arcing through the air, and Rainbow squeezed her partner, cutting off the scream pre-emptively as they landed upside down, and stayed like that. The pod was designed to surface upright, but from the flip, the center of its mass wasn’t enough to flip it over the pontoon barrels. Dash found herself staring at the dark ocean below, hooves pressed against the ‘top’ of the pod to hold her weight up off the filly. “You alright Scoots?”
The small Pegasus whispered, “I’m scared Dashie. What if my feathers don’t grow back?”