Chapter Text
Daniel wasn't sure when he last set foot in California.
As he stepped out of the plane and looked out over the scrubland that surrounded the air force base, he realised that he really hadn't missed his old home that much, but the dry desert heat was more welcoming than the often overbearing humidity of Okinawa, where he lived now.
As Daniel walked down the steps, a man approached and saluted. “Marshall LaRusso.”
Daniel saluted. “Yes, Corporal... Collins, is it?”
“Yes, sir. The helicopter is inbound to take you to the Shatterdome,” he replied. “If you'll follow me, sir.”
The helicopter ride was uneventful, but Daniel requested a short diversion so he could finally get a look at the coastal wall. The wall in Sydney had already been completed, designed to stop any Kaiju from entering populated areas from the sea, but Daniel had always had his doubts about the whole project.
“They're insane if they think this will hold back a Kaiju,” Daniel said, as he looked down at the construction site.
“I heard they're calling it the Wall of Life,” Collins said with a grin.
Daniel let out a laugh. “Ridiculous. Giving it a name like that when god knows how many are going to die during the construction alone.”
“They say it'll be 65 metres tall when it's finished.”
“If it's ever finished,” Daniel said. “All it'll take is one Kaiju to break through one of the other coastal walls and the whole project will be dead in the water.”
Daniel was shown to his quarters when he arrived at the Shatterdome, then surprised everyone by requesting to move into the Ranger block.
“Sir, the Marshall's quarters are much bigger,” the Corporal replied. “Are you sure you don't want to stay there?”
“Once a Ranger, always a Ranger,” Daniel said with a smile. “I like to be close to my pilots. We're a team and I want them to know that.”
He spent his first day looking over the personnel files and reading over recent mission logs. They'd been burning through pilots almost as fast as they could train them in the last two years and they were down to their last two Jaegers.
Daniel sighed as he closed the document and ran his hands over his face. The Pan Pacific Defence Corps had begged Daniel to come to California and help shore up their defences after he'd proved himself in Okinawa, but he was starting to wonder if he'd taken on too much. They simply didn't have the equipment or the Rangers and training new recruits would take months.
Daniel looked over at the photo of his family that he'd taped to the wall next to his bunk. Amanda and the kids were safe at least, staying in New York in a rented apartment while Daniel was stationed in California.
Amanda hadn't been happy at first. She was in the middle of a project, working to improve the drift technology, and had been reluctant to leave Okinawa, but when Sam had a nightmare about a Kaiju attack and woke up screaming in the dark, she changed her mind.
He scrubbed his hands across his eyes again, and looked back at his screen, his eyes drawn to a folder named Deleted Projects.
“I've been looking through the network and I'm interested in this design,” Daniel said, pulling up the schematics of a Jaeger onto the screen.
The scientists around the table looked at each other before a young man spoke up.
“Sir, that design didn't even make it to prototype phase. It was never built,” he said.
“And why was it never built?” Daniel asked. “As far as I can tell the weaponry on this thing would give it a good advantage over the Kaiju that are coming through now.”
“Marshall, Eagle Fang was a theoretical project designed by a Ranger who has since been... let go.”
“Let go?” Daniel asked incredulously. “Since when do we let go of people who are capable of designing Jaegers like this one? It's an incredible piece of work and you just let this person leave?”
“Sir, the PPDC ruled that he was unfit for duty,” the man said quietly, as he looked down at his hands.
“Who designed this Jaeger?” Daniel asked.
The scientists all looked at each other, murmuring.
Daniel slammed his hands down on the desk. “Someone tell me who designed this now!”
“It was Ranger Johnny Lawrence, sir,” one of them replied.
When Daniel was 17 he took a trip with Mr. Miyagi, accompanying him to visit his dying father. He spent an eventful few weeks in Okinawa, falling in love with the people and the place.
As he said his goodbyes at the airport he told Kumiko he'd be back as soon as he saved up enough money to make the move permanent, but when he stepped off the plane at LAX he saw shocked faces all through the concourse, as people gathered around televisions in cafes and bars.
“What's happening?” Daniel asked.
“Don't know,” Mr. Miyagi said.
Daniel peered over the heads of the businessmen, trying to get a view of the screen.
“Hey, what's going on?” he asked the guy in front of him.
“Something attacked Japan,” the man said, his face pale with shock.
“Something?” Daniel asked.
“A monster,” the man replied as he turned his attention back the screen.
“OK, this guy is pulling my leg,” Daniel said with a smile, but when he turned Mr. Miyagi was looking at the screen with a serious expression on his face.
Japan was devastated and Okinawa had been another casualty of the creature's attack. All the people who Daniel had said goodbye to just hours before were gone. Wiped out as the monster rampaged across the island, laying waste to everything and leaving almost no survivors behind.
Daniel mourned their loss with Mr. Miyagi by his side.
No one knew where the monster had come from. There simply wasn't any record of creatures like this before and it was judged a bizarre mutation, a once in a lifetime aberration that could never happen again.
They were wrong.
The next creature attacked San Francisco just six months later, tearing down the Golden Gate bridge as it marauded its way across the city, destroying Sacramento, before it was finally downed by tanks and jets in Oakland six days later.
The Jaeger program was born, and while the technology was incredible, the first pilots weren't fighters. They knew how to fly a plane in a dog fight, but piloting a Jaeger was a different style of combat all together.
The call went out. The Jaeger program was looking for fighters; martial artists, boxers, and karate champions. Daniel applied, desperate for revenge against the creatures for the destruction of Okinawa.
“I didn't know they were accepting applications from worms,” a familiar voice echoed across the recruitment hall as Daniel entered.
Daniel groaned as he recognised Tommy's cackle and he looked over to see Dutch sat next to him.
“Where's the other two?” Daniel asked. “I can't see you having the brains to get here without Bobby to help you.”
“What did you say!?” Dutch shouted as he jumped up.
“Leave him be,” Johnny said, appearing out of nowhere, as he grabbed Dutch by the arm. “We're all on the same team now, right?”
Dutch still looked furious, but he petulantly snatched his arm away and said, “Right.”
Johnny pushed him away, then turned to face Daniel and stabbed a pointed finger into his chest. “You stay away from me and I'll stay away from you, OK?”
“And what about them?” Daniel said, nodding towards the Cobras.
“I'll keep them in line,” Johnny said. “Just stay out of my way, twerp.”
Daniel was accepted to the Ranger trainer program, along with the Cobras and hundreds of other fresh faced recruits, all hoping for revenge against the Kaiju.
The training was tough, 24 weeks of classes in engineering, Kaiju anatomy, and combat techniques. 24 weeks of simulations and being pushed to their absolute limits. When they weren't in lessons they were in the Combat Room, sparring with other students, as the instructors attempted to match people up with their drift partners.
Daniel had found it easy to avoid Johnny and the other Cobras at first. Their schedule was so intense that Daniel spent any free time he had catching up on his sleep after the punishingly long days, so he barely saw Johnny outside of the couple of classes they had together.
Recruits dropped like flies. People walked or were shipped out every day and soon the number of recruits was down to only 40.
Every time they entered the Combat room he prayed he wouldn't be paired with Johnny. It was only supposed to be sparring. It was only supposed to be a test of compatibility, but Daniel knew if they met on the mats Johnny would be out to kick his ass, and as more people dropped out every day he knew it was only a matter of time.
Daniel had just finished a late simulator session when he was heading back to his room, crossing the darkened mess hall. He heard a scrapping sound from the other side of the hall, then a crash.
Daniel sprinted towards the noise and found Johnny Lawrence sprawled across the floor, surrounded by broken glass and liquid.
“Johnny, what are you doing?”
“Fell over,” he slurred. “Stupid floor is slippy.”
“Are you drunk?” Daniel asked.
“What if I am?” Johnny asked petulantly. “You gonna tell someone? You gonna get me kicked out?”
“No, of course not,” Daniel said, as he offered Johnny a hand. “Come on, lets get this cleaned up before anyone finds out.”
Daniel pushed Johnny into a chair and went into the kitchen then came back with a glass of water and a dustpan and brush.
He put the water in front of Johnny, then swept up the broken shards of glass.
“What's all this about?” Daniel asked, as he sat opposite him. “I know you like a drink at the bar on a Saturday night, but I've never seen you drinking on base.”
“Sometimes it gets too much,” Johnny said, moving a hand in the air as if to indicate he meant absolutely everything around them.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Daniel said, leaning back in his chair. “The pressure, knowing that people are gonna be depending on you for their lives, it really gets to you after a while.”
Johnny nodded quietly, but didn't offer anything in reply.
Daniel observed him for a moment, noting that his eyes looked red, as if he'd been crying when he was alone. “You lose anyone?”
Johnny nodded, then asked, “You?”
“Yeah,” Daniel said.
“In San Francisco?”
“Okinawa,” Daniel replied. “The first Kaiju attacked about an hour after my plane left. Everyone I met there died.”
“Wow that's rough,” Johnny said, still not looking up.
“How about you?” Daniel asked.
Johnny was still looking down at the table, drawing his finger around the pattern of the wood grain, then he quietly said, “My mom, on the Golden Gate bridge.”
“Were you there too?” Daniel asked.
Johnny finally glanced up at him, then looked away and nodded his head.
As soon as Daniel graduated the academy he requested a transfer to Okinawa.
Daniel saw the footage from back home of Cobra 1, piloted by Johnny and Bobby and Cobra 2, piloted by Dutch and Tommy. They worked together in perfect harmony and they quickly became the top team on the west coast. Their kill rate was legendary and they were the heroes of California.
Daniel spent years in Japan defending the region, eventually working his way up from Ranger to Marshall. He got married, had kids, and was training his own pilots, but he always kept one eye on what happened at home.
Years later the unthinkable happened.
Daniel stood, mouth open, as he watched the footage of Cobra 1 and Cobra 2s defeat off the coast of Santa Monica. Cobra 2 went down first, sinking into the sea with its head shattered, spilling blood across the metal as it sunk below the waves.
Cobra 1 was badly damaged, but had almost made it back to shore when the Kaiju attacked again, tearing the metal head in half, taking Bobby Brown with it.
Johnny took down the beast, solo piloting his Jaeger before it collapsed across the sand. He was barely alive when the rescue team found him, laid on his back in the surf, with blood streaming from his nose and ears.
“I felt him die,” Johnny gasped to his rescuer. “I was in the drift with him when it happened.”
Daniel had never heard of anyone surviving what Johnny had done. The neural load of piloting a Jaeger alone was too much for one person to bear, but to lose a drift partner on top of that? Johnny would have felt Bobby's pain, felt his terror and his confusion. It would have felt like he was dying himself.
Daniel wasn't surprised when he heard later that Johnny had left the program.
Daniel looked around the command room, at the staff all looking to him for a plan, for something that would save them from the monster that was about to be born from the seas.
“We need to find Johnny Lawrence,” he said.