@friendo-boi EXPRESSED INTERESTED IN ME RAMBLING ABOUT A PACIFIC RIM OC SET SO HERE WE GO
Okay so LEMME TELL YOU ALL ABOUT THE CREW OF AN LA BASED JAEGER
THE DOUBLE D
(For one, Dev promised Dana she could pick the color scheme if he could pick the name).
The Rangers who piloted were an unlikely pair. Dana, born '02, was 12 when Kaiju surfaced in 2013. Dev was 16—born 97.
Why did they come together? Because both of them had family visiting the coast when shit went to hell. Dev had had a fight with his father and stormed off, and Dana's father had a fight with her mother and stormed off.
Dana was looking for him when she found Dev trying to set up a miserable attempt at a campsite on beach. So, forgetting about her father's hissy fit, she helped Dev.
Dev was reluctant to accept her help, but realized he appreciated the company. Not that he had long to consider-he saw the monster first.
So picked up the girl who'd tried to help him with his tent, and ran.
Dev had hoped to spare Dana the reality of the looming monster for a while. Unfortunately she had a pretty clear view over his shoulder. However she never told him.
At the disaster recovery center, Dana's mom found them. And when no one came for Dev, she brought him home toom
Dana never knew the fate of her father, but as he never called or cams home, she assumes dead. Technically bitter about this because of why he was out alone.
Dev saw footage of a long haired lunatic charging the Kaiju in a speedboat. Watching his father's final stand made him unwilling to consider calling home.
SOMEWHERE ALONG THE LINES Bethany also took in Beatrix. She was born '00.
She also got front row seats to Dana and Dev bickering, teasing, and protecting each other for six years.
SKIP AHEAD SIX YEARS. Dana has skipped her final year of high school (making Dev highly insecure about his intelligence), is 17 in 2019, and announces she's been accepted into the Jaeger Academy.
Beatrix had applied when she did for engineering, and Dev had without knowing Dana did.
While Dana excelled in training, she lacked in social ability. Dev was good at that, but academic study settings were always a weakness.
Beatrix began an affair with a Ranger just enough older it caused Dev to become hyper aware of how few years were between him and Dana.
Not helped by Beatrix blatantly saying she was pretty sure Dana had feelings for him.
Though Dana had spent years sneaking into his room by then, it was to snuggle because she heard him having nightmares.
He'd always considered his recent thoughts and feelings highly inappropriate-she was then 17, he was 21. She was pure and good, and he wad a trouble making philanderer.
But when Trix, then 18, began an affair with someone five years older, and began asking them what they should do for Dana's 18th birthday, it was on his mind a lot.
Once, Dana got in a fight, shocking both of her friends. She was petite, and had never favored violence. But someone had suggested growing up on the East Coast of the US, she and hrr friends hadn't lost anything.
Dana was one and a half trimesters in, so her previous chubbyness and baby fat were gone as a result of training. Thus, she was able to lunge.
Trix and Dev pulled her off the other Trainee. There was a reprimand, on both she and the one who had antagonized her. Chores were given to both for the rest of the trimester.
At the end of their second trimester, Dana and Dev were told their charts and interactions led officials to believe they were drift compatible, and tests would begin.
Dana rejoiced. Dev panicked. He wasn't particularly private, but there were things he didn't want Dana aware of. How the Kaiju in San Francisco still haunted him. How he was sure if she hadn't stopped to help him, she'd have found her father. How he felt about her.
How Trix had taken to whispering days left till her birthday like a devil on his shoulder, usually followed by a 'then you won't have any excuses, you coward'.
Thus, a week before her birthday, on the first day of their third Trimester, the drift was not strong. In fact the Drift was practically blocked. Dana had doven in, opening her heart and mind. But Dev had been focused on filtering.
When she confronted him, Dev panicked, announced 'woop, woop, wood', and fled.
(Beatrix fell over laughing from the observation room).
That night, Dev tried to get drunk, and maybe laid. His flirtation attempts were foiled by Dana appearing and slapping him. Before he could protest, he realized she'd been crying, and smelled a bit like whiskey he knew Trix had a stash of.
"I trust you. With my life. My heart. My soul. I thought you cared about me, and I was so excited I'd have a way to tell you how I felt without the words. But instead you blocked me out and Zoidberged out of the room!"
"Because I'm a hot mess and I know once you know how I look at you, there's no going back!"
Where, when, and how Beatrix got the mistletoe and rigged it from a wooden dowel to dangle like a fishing pole, Dev honestly didn't know. Nor did he have time before Dana took the chance to jump up and hug tight, dangling a couple inches off the ground and muttering how he was a big dummy.
Beatrix suggested they wait to try again till after Dana's birthday.
"You know. In case you tear each other's clothing off after."
It turned out to be pretty useful advice, as that day the drift was strong. And both saw each other through one another's eyes.
(The other trainees and rangers helpfully and cheerfully decided it was hysterical to toss rubbers at them when Dana snagged his hand and Dev followed her lead with a big, dumb, telling grin.)
Skip ahead. Valentines Day, they get the ultimate gift of a Jaeger and posting. They're assigned to the LA Dome.
And that was when shit started to fall apart.
During a test, Dev learned from his co-pilots mind she had missed a few periods. Despite being a highly responsible duo, they came to the usual assumption and sought one of the PPDC doctors.
They were wrong.
Apparently earlier practice runs in older Jaegers had exposed them both to a certain amount of radiation. While it seemed they weren’t in mortal peril (yet at least), it had basically rendered her infertile.
It wasn’t that either of them had planned to have children-but it was simply because as life was, they refused to plan anything, with the future so uncertain. The loss of the option stung.
Dev did become more worried about Dana, as after she became more intense in the drift, more determined, and focused.
And rather then work through the feelings, she was blocking them out.
This probably wouldn’t have been as big a deal if shortly after their station, Beatrix’s lover hadn’t been killed in action. Their lead tech became distraught, and less focused. She preformed all the basic checks, but failed to meet her usual high standards of tune up.
Ironically when the tragedy occurred, that might have been why the Drift and Con Pod acted so very peculiar.
During the fight, the neural handshake held, but the Rangers were reckless. At one point they were knocked back violently, jarring both rangers in their harnesses. Because of the height difference, Dana had always been extra secured. Dev, on the other hand, fell limp, hanging from his like a rag doll. His vitals dropped, and back at the Dome, his readings proclaimed brain death.
Dana was in shock, unable to remember they were in a fight. Unable to remember she shouldn’t be trying to pilot alone. Just crying his name out. Only realizing the danger when Beatrix screamed hers through the radio.
The Kaiju was bounding down. Dana turned, but it wasn’t the arm she controlled or willed to move. The opposite arm lashed out, blocking his attack, and she heard Dev’s voice still.
“You’re not taking her!”
Dana would claim they took down the Kaiju. And more notably, she maintained he was still there, in the drift with her. Thus, she refused to disengage until a solution was found.
She may have threatened to do some serious damage if they tried to disengage her without maintaining him.
In the end, Dana was dismissed. But not without them listening. No one is really sure if Dev is actually there or not, but they did rig her a unit resembling a google glass with a massive flash drive in it, to constantly run the drift-even when she’s not wearing it. Occasionally this is necessary to charge it, for instance. There are safety guards to put it in a very low power mode, just in case.
Though, Trix has noticed Dana’s reflexes seem to be a lot better then before the incident. And occasionally she wears a smirk a little more Dev then Dana...
Trix would remain as a floating Tech in the PPDC, and eventually, began another relationship-with an individual considered completely inappropriate as he was over ten years her senior.
