Once More Into the Breach

Return

Two minutes. Two minutes in the Shatterdome are all it takes for Oliver to realize that he made a horrible, disastrous mistake by returning to Starling City. He gave this life up two years ago when he lost his fourth and final partner. But yet here he is, lured back to Starling by pleas from his mother and sister. He always said he'd never come back, and it's because of them that he broke that promise to himself. He might have broken that one for them, but there is one he can't break, not even for them.

Because Oliver Queen is never getting back into a Jaeger again—not for anyone.

The specimens bother him immediately, and he stares at them while wondering why they're actually taking parts of those damn Kaiju into any base they consider to be a safe place. But even more disturbing is that his mother seems to be completely relaxed with the idea of bringing parts of the nightmare monsters that have been plaguing the world back into their homes.

He studies the parts like a hawk, not trusting the Kaiju to stay dormant for long—even if they are just pieces of one. He's learned better than to turn his back on anything Kaiju. Oliver is studying what he believes to be a brain when someone says from behind him, "Hey, be careful around that. Kaiju specimens are incredibly rare." Oliver rounds on him with raised eyebrows to find a kid who doesn't look much older than his sister, and he bites down on the urge to ask him where his parents are.

He offers a hand with a smile when Moira doesn't introduce him—probably because she doesn't remember his name. "I'm Barry Allen," the kid states as Oliver shakes his hand. "The Marshal calls me 'Dr. Allen,' but we're mostly informal around here. I'm head of the Kaiju Research team." He tilts his head toward another boy who looks even younger, one wearing a grungy red hoodie and looking as though he hasn't even completed high school. "That's Roy Harper. He's one of my best assistants."

Oliver is completely distracted by the conversation because, when the boy pushes the sleeves of his hoodie over his elbows, he exposes sleeves of tattoos up his arms. Normally it wouldn't bother Oliver, but it's the subject material: the kid is proudly displaying Kaiju on his arms. Unable to stop himself, he asks, "Is that Yamarashi?"

"Yeah," Harper replies with a partial smile, looking almost impressed by that knowledge. "He was one of the biggest Category Threes ever—twenty-five hundred tons." Then he shrugs in dismissal. "One of the old Mark Two Jaegers they decommissioned took him down a few years back."

"Deathstroke was the name of the Jaeger," Oliver adds automatically, and Harper stares blankly at him. "I took him down in 2009. He was kill number five for Deathstroke." Then he says to both of them, probably unnecessarily, "I'm Oliver Queen."

Harper scoffs, and Oliver thinks he's really starting to dislike the kid. "Another Jaeger pilot coming in?" he says, sounding incredulous. He shakes his head before commenting to Barry in a dry voice, "What do you wanna bet that a certain someone is already in the Marshal's office raising hell?"

The conversation fades into the background as Moira turns to Oliver with a warm smile. "I'm sure Thea can show you around a little later, but for the moment, we need to speak to the Marshal." The concern with that he feels must cross his face because she continues, "Marshal Lance resigned some years back because we were running out of Jaeger pilots. He felt his place was in the field." That surprises Oliver; Lance had seemed less inclined to get back in a Jaeger than Oliver is. "John Diggle is Marshal now. You might recognize the name—he and his brother were pilots on Gipsy Danger."

"That's one of the old Mark Twos," Oliver realizes aloud. It was before his time as a pilot, of course, but how could he forget Gipsy Danger? He didn't get the honor of running a mission with them before Andrew Diggle's death, but he knew it from the days when his father co-captained Queen's Gambit with Malcolm Merlyn lifetimes ago. "Gipsy Danger was one of the best."