#At last Yue Qingyuan's size is revealed!

[adragonthatwrites]

Dr. Shen's Log

Dr. Shen Jiu, Head of Research at Cang Qiong Facilities. Date; 27, 5, 2024.

Our meeting and examination of ‘Yue Qingyuan’ went largely without incident. As we agreed, the mer followed Alpherg towards the surface, and breached near one of our research vessels. Upon reaching the surface he approached the boat and examined it, before making an attempt to place his hands on the side of the deck to pull himself up; Dr. Shang was able to dissuade him.

He seemed curious about our researchers and equipment, bringing his face close to anyone who approached the side of the boat and flashing bioluminescent patterns across his face. Dr. Shang claims these to be friendly forms of greeting.

We were able to gather rudimentary data from the mer’s position alongside the vessel, though Dr. Shang was also able to convince the mer to make his way into a chamber near the base of the ship; ordinarily used for the storage and launching of pods and submarines but repurposed for our examination of ‘Yue Qingyuan’ during this mission of Project Pisces.

We were able to weigh the mer at approx. 10 tons, and measure him at a length of 28 feet, establishing him as a largest mer ever discovered. The rest of our findings will be documented in a more extensive report.

I will not be commenting on the incident, as that has already been compiled in the incident report.

End Log.

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[requindeterre]

Scumplane Pacific rim AU pt 3

[Pt. 1] [Pt. 2] More action heavy this chapter.

Oh for the love of- Curse Shang Qinghua’s stupid rotten luck!

It should have been an easy fight - the initial breach was only a Category 3. Well, if not an easy fight at least a straightforward one. That was, until the beast had breached the surface and they’d gotten a visual. By then Cheng Luan had already been in the process of deploying and there was no time for a change in tactics. Liu Qingge headed their most seasoned pilot pair, even if the second half of the set was a revolving door of faces from Bai Zhan, Cheng Luan would come through this no problem. Then the giant shell on the beast’s back lifted to reveal leathery wings and the beast was airborne making a beeline for the coast just five miles north of the dome. The intercept was already in motion, they’d have plenty of time.

Except- whatever had designed these terrible beasties must have been on a bug kick when they’d pieced this one together. Its bloated and bulbous belly writhed as Cheng Luan was dropped and sped toward its opponent with singular focus. Jaeger and Kaiju circled in a lethal dance as Cheng Luan kept the beast, now nicknamed Taotie in the Com-Room, from reaching shore. Taotie bellowed as it swooped toward Cheng Luan with clawed forelimbs extended. Meeting blow for blow, Cheng Luan arced its primary blade up in a sweep calculated to bisect the creature. The blade nicked Taotie’s belly and came into a guard just as the full weight of the creature’s scrabbling limbs locked around the Jaeger, pincer jaws extended toward the conn pod. Amid the tussle, Taotie's belly gave way with a sickening pop and wave of Kaiju Blue. It hadn't been a belly at all but a sac wrapped around the creature's tail and several dark masses. The weight shifted as the clumps fell into the water below. Taotie's wickedly curved tail arched over its back. Overbalanced, Cheng Luan began to tip backwards and spun in the descent to pin Taotie beneath it. Command started to receive visuals on the clumps that had separated and now a small fleet of unidentified foes were a mere mile offshore.

This was bad. This was very very bad. Xian Shu's pair were still laid up in the infirmary after the last attack. Ku Xing's Jaeger was still grounded for repairs to contain and stabilize the radiation leaking from its reactor. Watching the situation unfold from the Command Deck, Shang Qinghua mentally blazed through the list of candidates. Thanks to the increasing rates of breaches they were down to Xuan Su or Xiu Ya and Yue Qingyuan was needed on the deck. That just left - No. Absolutely not. It was still too soon to send Shen Qingqiu out again, he'd just been released from Mu Qingfan's care a week ago from a fight a -month- ago. In a daze, Shang Qinghua looked back at the display broadcasting the battle. His heart plummeted to his stomach. Cheng Luan was holding its own for now but the battle wasn't in their favor. The fight had made landfall in a normally bustling part of the city. If luck was in their favor, which Shang Qinghua had some serious doubts about at this point, Liu Qingge had kept the Kaiju busy enough to allow for most to evacuate. Judging from the hard looks on faces around the Comm Room, it hadn't been enough. Taotie had latched onto Cheng Luan's back and its scorpion-like tail pierced the Jaeger's midsection like a hot knife through butter. By no means ideal but Shang Qinghua had seen Liu Qingge and co-pilot by extension come through worse, maybe it would be okay.

It was not going to be okay. The masses carried through the breach by Taotie had been roughly man-sized when they disengaged. By the time they made landfall they were the size of tanks and getting bigger. When they started dropping from sky scrappers to dogpile onto Cheng Luan, they’d reached the size of semi trucks. Out of the corner of his eye, Shang Qinghua saw Yue Qingyuan’s expression shift from concern to the closest thing he’d seen to terror on the Marshall’s face and a quick shake of Yue Qingyuan’s head. Shang Qinghua whipped around to follow Yue Qingyuan’s line of sight and caught a glimpse of one of Shen Jiu’s signature suits speeding out the door. Shit. Shit shit shit.

—

Even knowing it was an ill-fated plan, Shen Qingqiu had always believed in the capability of the dome beyond himself. So he went. The couplers from the airlift disengaged and Shen Qingqiu braced for the transition from free fall to a run. Cheng Luan had managed to disengage from the dog pile but was badly damaged by the time Xiu Yu reached the front line of the battle. The Jaeger’s right side was lodged in a building and most of the cabling connecting upper and lower body were severed. Cheng Luan's left arm lay somewhere under the rubble across the road.

“Shen Qingqiu,” Liu Qingge rasped before falling silent.

Even barely conscious, the man couldn’t stand him. Evac was still more than fifteen minutes out. Take down the beasts or distract them long enough for Liu Qingge and disciple to be secured. It was a simple plan and an efficient one, open to permutations as the situation required. The rattled hiss was the only warning Shen Qingqiu got before the kaiju’s maw shot out from the darkness behind Cheng Luan. Acting on instinct, Xiu Ya yanked Cheng Luan forward to step neatly between his brother-in-arms and the oncoming threat. A garbled “rat bastard pretty boy” came through the comms channel as the remaining conscious pilot was jostled. Shen Qingqiu tuned it out as his focus narrowed to the tip of his sword thrusting into the pincered abyss before him. Let Liu Qingge continue to think poorly of him. Just so long as he lived long enough to do so.

With Taotie and company engaged, shifting the battlefield away from the carapace of Cheng Luan was straightforward. However, landing the final blow to dispatch Taotie took more out of Shen Qingqiu than it should have. A blinding headache had begun building behind his eyes making it difficult to focus on the hoard of drones still circling him and there'd been a high pitched ringing in his right ear since he reached the district. Even through the relay gel he could feel sweat gathering at his temples and upper lip. Xiu Ya’s left side wasn’t responding as it should. Too slow, like moving through water. Compensating for the delay was possible but - it was a bad sign. Gods knew Mu Qingfan had drilled the warning signs into him often enough. Still, surrounded by enemies engaging in pack tactics to get the drop on him didn’t leave him with many options.

Mission control was shouting something but the ringing and incessant pounding in his skull made focusing enough to discern it impossible. The words were just an added layer of noise in the cacophony of his pulse and the dying shrieks of his opponents. Unease churned in his gut as the blaring claxons of his mind drowned out any attempt at thought. Unable to think, unable to plan, he would have to rely on muscle memory to push through, nothing existed beyond that.

—

Vitals blipped and streaked across the panels of Qian Cao’s station in the control room, drastic peaks and valleys in the place of the steady wave form that indicated a healthy pilot. They were going to watch Shen Qingqiu stroke out in real time, Shang Qinghua thought dazedly, they were going to watch, just let it happen, and then pretend regret at the funeral as though nothing could be done. Other parts of Control were a hive of activity, organizing additional ground forces to assist evac under the assumption that Shen Qingqiu would die before Cheng Luan and crew could be recovered.

The years of service, of pushing beyond the limits of the possible for even the first percentile of experienced pilots and Cang Qiong was simply going to abandon him. Toss him away like garbage once he was no longer useful. Fuck that. No.

“It’s not right, this isn’t right,” Shang Qinghua’s muttering was lost in the surrounding din. He ran through their options at breakneck speed. He had little to no authority in the Control Room so trying to leverage a support team for Xiu Ya was off the table. Yue Qingyuan seemed…pained but resigned already grieving a man not yet dead. Or maybe grieving what could have been if he had clipped his Xiao Jiu’s wings earlier. No, no, Airplane was getting off track, he needed to focus. Wait - he could fix this. He could definitely probably fix this.

Everyone had long since learned to tune out his ramblings and even his presence unless they needed something so no one batted an eyelash when Shang Qinghua scurried out of the Control Room at a speed faster than his usual scramble.

There was still a PON headset in the lab calibrated and linked to Xiu Ya’s systems from the last set of upgrades two days ago. Two days. His hands were shaking and a thick nausea rose in the back of his throat as he cleared the Command corridor headed full-tilt toward the labs. He could fix this, he could. He just needed time. Time Shen Qingqiu likely didn’t have but the bullheadedness of his scum villain had worked miracles before, Airplane needed it work another one now.

The adrenaline rush already made him feel half out of his body by the time the headset was secured. Shen Jiu was stubborn and spiteful and mean and if Shang Qinghua could establish a link in time, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Shen Qingqiu would pull through. The control board for the headset blinked a steady green. He took a breath to steady himself, mouth pulling in grim determination as he initiated the handshake sequence. The world around him swayed and distorted like he’d been spun too quickly on a carnival ride not quite up to code and his mind spun out with it.

The drift wasn’t what he had expected, not that he’d particularly known what to expect in the first place. It crashed into him like waves, allowing him enough time to try to catch a breath and orient himself only for the next wave to break before he could get enough air. Shang Qinghua did his best to try and relax into it, to let the waves do the work of carrying him into the Bridge. There was no mistaking it when the Bridge formed. Shen Qingqiu’s fury was palpable with Shen Jiu’s shame tucked behind to hide it, a child hiding behind their mother’s skirts.

Nothing was hidden in the drift. Not the brutal past Airplane had written for Shen Qingqiu that twisted and fractured to fit the new narrative, not Shang Qinghua’s identity as a transmigrator turned spy. Shang Qinghua had thought he might panic at being laid so bare, all of his secrets displayed like wares at a swapmeet. Instead, all he could feel was relief. Relief at being seen truly and completely, at being known in a way that words could never convey, being mirrored and refracted should be disconcerting but it felt like part of him. Arguably since Shen Qingqiu had sprung from his mind to the textblock of PIDW, Shen Jiu was part of him. It was more tangible than that though.

And oh, Shen Qingqiu was going to have WORDS with him later, Shang Qinghua could feel that through the drift clear as day. But for now, the Bridge was doing its job, parsing the mental load between them enough for Shen Qingqiu to claw his overtaxed mind back from the edge. Without being in Xiu Ya’s conn pod, Shang Qinghua couldn’t assist with the actual physical piloting. Instead, his mind acted like the bulkheads of a ship, stymieing the flood to keep the vessel afloat.

Now that he wasn’t bearing the full load himself, Shen Qingqiu tore through the remaining kaiju like tissue paper. Piloting had never been this easy, Xiu Ya this responsive. He wove through enemies, sweeping the battlefield like a selective tempest. Minimizing damages to the surrounding district was easier as well, closer to the precise strikes and flows he drilled in the practice rooms than reality of kilotonnes of steel and cabling darting about in a murderous dance. It was euphoric, though that was likely the adrenaline. His quietly jubilant laughter tumbled out of the speakers in Control sending shivers down the spines of more than one disciple.

They maintained the drift until Xiu Ya returned to base triumphant and by then Shang Qinghua was shaking and exhausted from the effort of holding it over such a distance. He barely managed to pry the rig off, dropping it unceremoniously to the floor before slumping back in his chair. Bone deep exhaustion left his body too heavy to move or even radio over the comms. Shit, no one knew where he was and he was dropping, fast. Oops.

—

When he swam back to consciousness, Shang Qinghua was hooked up with enough wiring and medical monitoring equipment to convince his addled brain that he was still in the PON rig. The panic he had expected in the drift made itself known, bubbling over and sending him thrashing and tugging at whatever he could reach to get free. A loud tone began sounding to his left, fueling his panic further. The door swung open as Qian Cao staff flooded the room to pin him down. This only increased his panic. Please don't kill him, he had so much left to do still! Bruises were fine but not the face!

“He’s disoriented and babbling. Put him back under.”

Cold flooded one of his hands in a rush and Shang Qinghua fell back into the waves.

When he woke next there was a nurse changing his IV bag.

"Mrrpph?" He mumbled intelligently. His brain was foggy and his tongue felt too big for his mouth. He didn't know where he was. The panic was rising again and a sense of distant distress rose to meet it.

"Head Technical Officer Shang? You're in the medical ward, please try to relax and keep still. You gave us quite a scare last time."

"Hnnrgh," he gestured in what he hoped was the general vicinity of his mouth.

"Oh! Of course Officer Shang. Slowly now, don't choke."

Shang Qinghua sipped his water dutifully until he could finally unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth to start in on his questions. Lucidity and information did wonders to calm him down but his previous turmoil brought a storm outside his door.

"If you do not let me in this instant I will raise the simulation difficulty for every one of those Bai Zhan boneheads until you are scraping them off the training room floor. Do -not- test me. Now move or I will make you."

The door swung open startling his nurse who quickly pulled back the curtain around the bed. Looking worse for wear but lucid, alive!, Shen Qingqiu hobbled to the bedside on a cane ready to strike down anyone who got in his way. Mu Qingfan trailed behind, eyebrow raised at the spectacle his fellow officers brought to the normally quiet ward. Huffy and dander up, Shen Qingqiu still managed to seat himself gracefully in the bedside chair the nurse brought over. He eyed over Shang Qinghua, taking inventory. Mu Qingfan handled the initial debrief now that both parties were awake and watched the pair closely. Shang Qinghua's hand twitched and Shen Qingqiu was already in motion, gracefully refilling the water cup to pass it over. Mu Qingfan's other brow rose.

Leaping from 'drift incompatible' directly to ghost drifting was certainly…something.