Let There Be Life [Haikyuu!! x Pacific Rim]

The First

"Blood pressure dropping!"

"Pulse failing as well!"

"Get me the defib, now!"

"Charging, sir! Thirty seconds-"

"Sir! Two more coming in; the pilots of Echo!"

"Goddammit! First Fury, now Echo? What the hell happened out there?! And where the hell is that defib?!"

"H-here, sir! Ten seconds!"

"Please tell me the drift hasn't killed you yet... CLEAR!"

***

Tanaka Ryuunosuke could only gawk helplessly as the recovery teams dragged the remnants of the legendary Jaeger into the Hong Kong Shatterdome's Bay Six.

Fury Alamo was a command Jaeger, piloted by the Tsukishima brothers at the head of Strike Group Beta. Tanaka had been a J-Tech on it since the beginning, having moved straight from training to working on Fury in its early years. It had been the first of the Mark III's, few physical differences between it and its later siblings. It had been so unique, the enormous nuclear core powering its authoritative movements and attacks. Few kaiju could land a sustainable blow upon its titanium armour. Tanaka was proud of that. He had been in among the team of two hundred that had reinforced the metallic plating and painted it until it shone like a blazing star in the dank Shatterdome.

Now, the bright silver and gold paint was almost unrecognizable beneath the horrendous damage the category four had dealt. Reaper, they had nicknamed it; fitting. The entire left hemisphere had been torn away and shredded, the conn-pod slashed down the middle, the elder of the Tsukishima brothers taken with it. The right side had been mauled afterwards, deep gashes all along the length of the remaining arm where Fury must have attempted to protect its second and final pilot. It could barely stand, so Echo Sterling, the second of Mark III's, had come to its command team's aid. It stood toe to toe with Reaper, similar physicalities to Fury other than the glossy black and orange paint it sported.

The J-Techs had known it had been a bad idea to send out Beta without their third Jaeger, Zulu Vega, who was currently under intense repair in the Bay Seven. Why not send out the fully prepped and ready pilots of Tau Grizzly or Endeavour Aurora from Strike Group Alpha as well? Just because their command team was currently out of commission didn't mean the whole division had to be.

That decision to leave two perfectly capable Jaegers to collect dust while billions of dollars in damages were landed upon Fury and Echo proved fatal. The veteran pilot of Fury was now dead and the remaining pilot was following suit, the pilots of Echo close on their heels after having to take down the kaiju themselves and protect Fury at the same time.

They wanted the techs to salvage everything they could from Fury for repairs on Echo. Tanaka knew there was no way to save the once glorious Jaeger he had sweat, bled and laboured over for years; not in this condition. But immediate breaking down of Fury? It was too soon, too open a wound for everyone. Hundreds of jobs would either be lost or transferred to the next Jaeger in development, the first of the Mark IV's. Strike Group Beta would need to be rebuilt, having lost its command team and one of its teams were out of commission. Tanaka had never met either of the Tsukishima brothers personally, the Rangers that had piloted his beloved Jaeger, but he knew the surviving one would want to at least have one more moment with the Jaeger before techs tore it down to scraps for Echo's repairs. He knew he himself would. How would the kid feel once his recovery allowed him out of the hospital and he found his subordinates' Jaeger having stolen pieces of his own?