FOLLOW ME DOWN

[attr="class","vbox"]

[attr="class","vpostbg"]Pepper stood, clipboard in hand as he looked up at the jaeger in front of him. It was huge, beyond huge. The cranes were holding it in place as people rushed to get to work on it. It had just come back from a fight with a category four kaiju and while the jaeger won without question there were a few scratches that had to be fixed up and of course the cannons had to be reloaded. Besides, there were always improvements to be made to jaegers as more technology was discovered and put to the test - but that wasn't Pepper's department. Though he was part of j-tech he was the neural side, the side that works with the drift, finding pilots and training them up.

He hadn't been in the job long, only a year or so - his commander had been in the game since the first drift testing started. But he was smart and he and his brother picked up the ropes easily enough. Pepper had managed to find four pairs of pilots, his brother six. They were the dream team and while he and his brother could have been pilots, Pepper couldn't handle the stress of fighting. He just wasn't that type of person. 

They had been developing new drift technology, allowing for pilots to carry on piloting the jaeger while their parter went out of drift - only for a short time of course, but it meant if one hemisphere took a hit the pilot could regain composure without worrying about his or her partner. It sounded brilliant, but Pepper hadn't been convinced, anything that took a pilot out of the drift was dangerous in his eyes.

Suddenly the door at the back of the jaeger opened and the pilots walked out - well, to Pepper it looked like they were both struggling to walk properly, if they hadn't had an audience they might have staggered out. He wanted to rush to them, to help them. But this was all pride talking and Pepper knew they would resent him for it. Unless pilots were bleeding out they rarely asked for help. 

Finally the two pilots reached where Pepper and the commander were standing. The commander began to talk, but Pepper's eyes were only on one person. Cassus Hall. He felt the blush creep onto his cheeks as he looked up at the man, his mouth go dry. He was always so nervous, scared Cassus would vanish if Pepper so much as blinked. The man was a dream come true - well, okay maybe that was too forward. They had been on one sort of date and though they had one planned for later that night, Pepper would offer Cassus the chance to re-shedule, on account of fighting a kaiju all night.

Then the commander stopped talking and turned on his heels, leaving Pepper and the pilots virtually alone.

Hey, Pepper said softly, brushing some debris from Cassus' shoulder. How do you feel?