1 Chapter 1: Awake?

Cold. Stiff but flowing. Water? I feel.. tired? I need to get up. Stand up!

A new yet familiar sensation fills my being a rush of power to my systems. My core is booting up again yet feeling as if it was my first. I'm a jaeger, well I think I am, but Jaegers don't think. Some had an A.I, but they didn't have this much control I'm sure.

Putting aside my questions of self, I need to focus back on standing. It had been years since I had powered up. My power core had almost half its charge and capacity.. what would happen when it ran out? Would I die? Sleep forever? Is there even a difference? I don't want to know the answer.

My arm and leg servos groan against the rusted joints, just moving an inch was going to be a challenge. I was laying under water after all. I had an idea, by charging up the capacitors for my long since corroded plasmacaster and redirecting the power at discharge to the servos. I could force them to scrape the rust off.. It was a massive risk that depended on the rust damage not being too severe on both my weapon charge system and the joint of the servos. If too bad I risk either frying my old circuits and losing all chance of control.. or lose the limb entirely.

I decided to test it on my weaponized arm first since it was useless with its current damage. I begun the charging sequence sacrificing a small buy valuable chuck of power to the super capacitors. Relief filling me when they didn't immediately explode. But one thing I didn't account for happened.

I couldn't "fire" it without a pilot.

Even though I knew no one would be there, I checked my internal cameras.. It was dark, the lights were long eroded yet the electronics somehow safe, maybe I had good waterproofing? The rust stopping me from moving suggests otherwise, but It was a win so I chose not to challenge it. I was surprised to find there was someone there, dead of course, it made sense I couldn't have just appeared here. Though It was saddening to know my pilot had suffered such a fate. He was such a nice person, I can just feel he was. The lack of a second pilot probably meant he was either abandoned or was solo piloting me. A stupid thing to do.

As sad as this was I could make this work, he was strapped in still and fully hooked up. While he couldn't drift for obvious dead reasons. I think I could fool.. myself? Into think he had. All these restrictions were imposed by myself right? Tricking yourself can't be too hard. So I started up the solo drift sequence, ignoring all the very annoying warning signs that went off. I was expecting it to do nothing in all honesty since the brain was dead, there'd be nothing to detect right? I was wrong, it seems I had electrocuted him thanks to a faulty wire which caused a small amount of brain activity. Like being brain dead, but even more dead. Still just that minor response was enough and I fooled my systems into thinking I was being piloted.

Sending the power from my charged and waiting capacitors to the arms where my projectile weapons were would require further permission from the pilot, something I can't do. But while piloted, the emergency rerouting of power was automatic and so something I could control. It just meant that if I had to send it to the opposing arm and intentionally cause damage to the capacitors by overcharging them. choosing the legs would've seemed like a smarter choice, but I was currently laid down, just my legs alone would prove very difficult if not impossible to stand or at the very least power costly. With the arm I could use it to scrape of force away the corroded metal plating or just drag myself along the ocean floor. Assuming this was the ocean.

This was a one shot scenario. If I used too little power I'd waste the capacitors and do nothing. Too much and I'd destroy myself.

I tried moving the servos once more to get a feel for the amount of power I'd need before increasing the power to my capacitors causing a surge and redirecting that power straight to the many servos in my right arm. The results were instant, as if a doctor had just hit my elbow with their enormous hammer my arm flew up shredding off the corroded metal plating just as hoped, same for my shoulder, wrist and fingers.

It was so freeing to have a form of motion, but I didn't have time to appreciate it. I immediately used the arm to prop my enormous chassis body up and assessed its structural integrity. It was just as rusted as the rest of me, but only on the external armour plates. I began forcing the joints of my other arm to move quickly, remembering that Jaegers felt pain for some reason, why do I even feel pain??. The arm groaned in protest as I forced it to bend against its rust. My working arm is not operating at even a quarter of its potential due to rust and power loss. Eventually the rust was overcome and I had two working arms. Next were the legs.

I have to be careful, the legs are going to be under the most stress so any damage could cause it to break under my weight.

It took considerably less force to break away the offending rust, since it seemed the rust there, same as my body, was on the armour plating only and so only suffered some minor damages.

Finally after what felt like days of prep, I was ready to stand. Using my arms as support I stood up, the water resisted my motion, but was no match for me. To my surprise my external lights finally flickered to life, illuminating what used to be my pitch black surrounding. I had no means of navigation since my coms were as healthy as my old pilot, so I picked a direction and took a step.

And fell over a boulder.

Ouch. Again, why make me feel pain, just why.

I realised I was not used to actually using my limbs, I was to be piloted, not pilot myself. All I've ever done is copy them and even then I wasn't a conscious.. whatever I am back then. I have no memories of it. Just facts. Knowing how to do something and actually doing it is very different.

Standing up again hoping I hadn't done any damage I stepped OVER the boulder and kept walking.

And walking..

And walking.

For hours. I was certain of it. This is the ocean. Or a very large lake. My power levels are stable for now and as long as this doesn't take me a week to walk I'd be OK. So I took the time to do some metaphorical soul searching. What model jaeger am I? What exactly am I? Did I have a name? Why am I in the middle of the ocean with one dead pilot?

The first question seemed like it'd be the easiest to answer. Surely I had a model number somewhere in my system. Or at least painted on me. Nope. The plasmacaster was a hint to me being the age old Gipsy Danger, which had an A.I. it did match up and could explain my existence, but I couldn't find any solid evidence hardware could be copied after all. I accepted the thought for Lack of opposing evidence. The second question was a lot more complex, if I was indeed the model I thought I was, was I the A.I? For some reason I just didn't feel like I was. After a little more thinking I realised I wasn't going to make any progress with this thought process and moved on.

A name. Did I have one? Not a model number, or a designation, but a name. Something people say where you come into town. Watch out here comes - ... well no name then. What would I call myself? Do I want a name? Astro? Damien? Johnny? Dave? I noticed I was considering boy names which just felt right. So I decided I was a male jaeger. I decided to just drop naming for now.

Next was the arguably most important question. How did this happen? My thoughts were silent for a while just the sound of my enormous feet hitting the ground with each step. It had to be a really bad circumstance for me to have been seemingly abandoned with a dead pilot. I was curious about the second one, where had they gone? Was they even with him to begin with? For all I know this guy hijacked me. I seem to know of other jaegers, common knowledge and my own basic operations, but any further information just didn't exist to me. Was I a hood jaeger? A bad one?

The more I thought about it the more questions I gained. So I turned my focus back to my surroundings. The light had significantly increased, either I was getting closer to the surface or I wasn't that far to begin with and it's night turning day. I hoped for the latter.

A few hours had passed and I no longer needed my lights on to see with my cameras. This meant I was less than a thousand meters (656 ft) deep. if I had propulsion systems, I'd have enough power to get there, but I'd have no means of keeping myself up there anyway. It'd result in wasted power and structural stress. So I just kept on walking. Maybe I'll be able to make a cool beach entrance or maybe not. Assessing it now, exposure to people may not be smart, I'm uncertain of my origins and allegiance. As well as the status of the world and its view on jaegers. A few years was enough time for major changes and I don't even know what it was like before.

I decided to put my thoughts to rest and enjoy the walk. Admiring fish that swam by. I felt.. Happy.

The rocky ground beneath me began to change to a soft sand and the water pressure had dropped, the surface was near. It was weird I'd never seen the sky yet I knew of it, could picture it. I felt like a child that had learned of its world from a book without pictures or much description. I knew physics.. math.. languages even quantum mechanics to a degree. But the simple colour of the sky felt alien. I knew it was blue.. but no matter how many times I tried to simulate or imagine it.. I just couldn't. A New emotion, excitement and anticipation to see the world above the ocean, to see people animals other jaegers.

Jaegers.. was there others like me? Ones able to think for themselves? I could be one of a kind. Both cool and lonely. Again.. meeting humans could be dangerous. I could be mistaken for a hybrid. Well I'm not sure I'm not one, I don't detect nor see any organic tissue other than the dead pilot.

The water surface came into view. I was nearly there, after 2 days of walking and 3240 miles covered at a ¾ of my normal walking speed. I was there. Where? No idea, still no navigation system. But it was the surface I just hoped the air exposure didn't cause any further damage.

2 steps. And my helmet broke the water's surface. I was far out to sea still, but land was in sight. Very populated land. I could see people on what I assumed was a vacation lining the beach front on decked chairs and sun bathing. Luckily I was too far out to be seen. I assessed the beach front to find any quieter locations I could scale. Power was not a problem yet, I now had 2 weeks walk left since the power needed above water was much less.

Either side of the beach were cliffs that I wasn't confident I could climb in my rusted and inexperienced condition. I wanted to avoid human contact, but it was looking unavoidable. I increased my camera zoom to try and see what lay beyond the beach. It was a city, more humans. This was tricky if they turned out hostile all I had was my fists that likely would shatter before it did any jaeger level damage. Looking around further I saw my chance, a desolate apocalypse like area to the right of the city. It was like night and day. I'd still have to rush the beach, but hiding there could be possible.

There was nothing I could do now as it was too busy, so I looked up. And for the first time since I woke up, I saw the sky.. it was beautiful. A blue no book could truly describe. It was strange I was one of the largest beings.. yet I felt so small and I liked it, the soft vast colour felt comforting. I bent down under the water and walked closer to land just enough so my head poked out when I sat. The next 7 hours were spent watching the colours of the sky fade from light blue.. to an energy taking orange and the dark blue and finally black.. but not the same as what I first saw when I awoke. This was full of stars painted across the sky. I knew they were millions of lightyears away.. but I wanted to reach out to them.

Since night had fallen and the beach was quiet, save for a few partiers it was time. Luckily they stayed to the left, They'd see me, but I'd be gone before they could identify me. Being taller than some skyscrapers gives you a very long stride distance. So I stood up, my torso fully exposed to the air. And began walking toward the desolate side of the city.

I noted that I couldn't hear very well, my microphones likely were water damaged like the rest of me, but I could still hear the panic my presence caused. Screaming, sirens, louder sirens. I couldn't risk being caught so I switched to a light jog hoping my body could withstand the jolts. My left arm shook and creaked losing some more plating, but that helped more than anything.

Finally my feet were on dry land, I didn't have time to dwell on the accomplishment so I stuck to running. This side of the city was more destroyed than I'd previously thought. Toppled over towers, a jaeger corpse every few blocks. Kaiju remains.. it was a clear exclusion zone. And my new home. Only scavenger humans would come here, and after a few repairs they'd be no problem.

I took note of large holes burrowed into the sides of buildings, it looked like a me scaled beach ball had done it. But I waved it off. My home was found under a pyramid of fallen skyscrapers just tall enough for me to sit under. I was exposed at the front a bit, but it was better than nothing.

I put myself into sleep mode and waited for morning. I just hope I wasn't followed. 

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