Chapter Text
Henry's 'death' affects the Shatterdome more than Hershel expected.
There's no funeral yet, but a temporary marker appears on the side of the training grounds where other fallen personnel are commemorated, and soon it's overflowing with whatever tokens people can find—candles, dandelions, origami birds. As he goes about his day, he overhears stories where Henry helped a short-handed team move weapons components or took over a post on security to let an officer call his family. Having known him since before the war, Hershel always thought of Henry as unassuming, but his effort is woven into every facet of his involvement with the Defence Corps, and today, he's everywhere.
The truth is hidden away in a secure room off the infirmary, where Henry lies motionless as if he was actually dead. The doctors' verdict was that his condition was 'encouraging', but there are no promises and no timeline for when he might wake up. Angela wanders between the infirmary and the Command Centre, lost and desaturated, as if she could fade away any moment. Hershel can't blame her.
But as this unfolds around him, he still has a job, and two kaiju carcasses that they were at least able to salvage some parts of. So after a sleepless night going through the vandalism report and retracing Dr Schrader's specimen records for details, Hershel finds himself walking back to the lab with no concrete answers and deep feeling of dread lodged within him.
From his new quarters, he has to go up two levels. Usually he would take the lift, but there's a maintenance ladder close by that no one uses, and he prefers the road less travelled. Except, when he climbs into the ceiling, his hat hits something very much travelling on the ladder.
"Oh!" says a voice from above him, and he looks up. In her training gear is Aurora, with her hair tied up. "I'm sorry, Professor. I didn't think anyone came this way."
"That's quite alright—neither did I," he replies, giving her a smile. "Lead the way, Aurora."
He should have anticipated that. Aurora loves to climb, especially to high places, and Sycamore has complained to Hershel more than once about this particular habit. She scampers up the ladder as easily as a fish through water, and waits for his rusty bones to join her.
"Do you always use the ladders?" he asks as he closes the maintenance hatch.
Aurora nods shyly. "I know you're not supposed to, but I prefer them."
"Well, your secret's safe with me." He tries to sound lighthearted, but he knows it's a futile effort. Aurora smiles at him anyway, and they both start walking. "Where's Flora? I thought she would be with you."
She changes then, every muscle snapping to attention as she stares at the ground and replies thinly, "I'm not sure. I think she's on duty today."
"I see." Should he ask the obvious, or let it go? He adds cautiously, "I hoped she might get a day off, after yesterday, but maybe it's better to be working."
Aurora takes the way out and changes the subject. "Are you working as well, Professor?"
"I am. We have new specimens to look at, after all." As they approach the lab, he sees a familiar figure coming from the other way, and suppresses a sigh. "And it seems the Marshall wants to discuss something with me too."
When she sees him, Aurora stops. "I have to go this way," she says far too quickly. "Good luck, Professor."
Then she turns and scurries along a corridor to the right. Hershel tries not to react too visibly as he reaches the lab door, and Marshall Sycamore pushes his glasses up his nose. "If I didn't know better," he says wryly, "I'd say she's avoiding me."
"Whatever gave you that idea?" replies Hershel with as much humour as he can manage, unlocking the lab and letting Sycamore inside. "Did you speak to her yesterday, after the explosion?"
"No." There's a face Sycamore makes when he talks about Aurora like this; it hovers under his glasses, with a mask ready to snap shut over it at a moment's notice. "I wish I knew why she was wandering about the corridors, but she doesn't want to talk to me about it."
Hershel thinks about Flora's anxious face yesterday, the way she couldn't quite look at him when she explained herself. Even if Sycamore could pin Aurora down, would she tell him the truth? "Perhaps she's at an age where she wants to be independent," he suggests.
"Perhaps. But it's hard not to worry, isn't it?" Sycamore watches Hershel put on a pair of gloves, and drums his fingers on the side. "If it was a kaiju, we could simply fight back. But there's no fighting what goes on in their minds."
"Quite," Hershel replies mildly. He has no desire to enter into this particular conversation—he saw Sycamore with his daughter, once. It must have been more than ten years ago now. She was tiny for her age, but she ran faster than a mountain stream and he saw how Sycamore's face lit up when he chased her around the training ground. It was clear then, and now, that Sycamore has an aptitude for fatherhood that Hershel lacks, and while he never refers to Aurora as such, he worries about her like a daughter.
Hershel on the other hand, tries not to embed himself in anyone's life like that anymore. He has a duty to people like Flora, and it'd be a lie to say he didn't care for her. But he stops it there. "I fear that fighting the kaiju is not so simple either."
"Unfortunately so." Sycamore's eyes harden, the Marshall emerging from him. "Which brings me to why I'm here."
"I do have samples to analyse, you know," Hershel says, somewhat facetiously, as he opens up one of the storage drawers.
"Need I remind you that Targent got away with the entire head of a kaiju yesterday?" The Marshall leans over the workbench, expression grim. "How do you think they got there so quickly? Perhaps because they were tailing their little pet? We need to catch him."
"He'll come here." Hershel's voice is muted, but stubborn. "I know he will."
"Even then, Layton, how will we catch him? How can we make sure he doesn't escape again?"
"If you're finished," says Hershel with a forced smile. "I'm about to do a test that will tell us exactly that."
Sycamore stops, and steps back from the bench, eyes still narrowed. Hershel places a piece of kaiju skin from the Hydra (it seems Emmy's rather misleading name stuck in the end) on the bench, next to a battery and an electrode. Then he attaches the electrode to the kaiju sample.
"Layton, you cannot be serious," growls Marshall Sycamore. He's about thirty seconds from a vein popping in his forehead. "How exactly is this juvenile science experiment supposed to—"
"Wait." Hershel doesn't have time to waste arguing with him, so he holds up a hand and turns on the battery. The kaiju sample twitches like any frankenstein project on the bench's plastic surface. He increases the frequency steadily, until it hits the crucial point and the symbols on its skin glow, then fade, leaving a pattern of burns through all the way through the flesh.
Sycamore leans over the bench, eyes wide. "At a certain frequency, it starts to damage them," he murmurs. Then he frowns. "How on earth did you end up doing this?"
"I was reading some old reports about sample damage. It seems the damage is small scale, so it would only be helpful if you were facing a smaller opponent."
A smile starts to grow on Sycamore's face. "Do you have a plan?"
Hershel swallows. "I do."
"Then let's not waste time." He can see the fire lit up in Sycamore's eyes like a hunter on the cusp of a catch. Hershel needs to find some of that motivation, or he will crack at the final moment.
He takes a deep breath. "Here's what I think we should do."
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Flora leans on the mop in her hands and sighs, fiddling with the sleeve of her work jacket. It's true, that life goes on no matter how dire the situation may be, but she envisioned herself doing something more meaningful than cleaning up after a ruptured pipe this morning. No one has cleaned this floor in years—there's far worse than gasoline turning her mop the colour of a moldy drain.
She tries to scrub at the stains without thinking too hard about it all, but she fails. After finding herself in Aurora's room this morning, she felt extremely silly for falling asleep there, and snuck out before Aurora was awake. But outside their rooms, the Shatterdome is depression incarnate, Arianna is not well at all and she's cursing herself for not catching the Targent spy at the scene of their crime.
It's bad. There's no other way to say it. They're defenceless if another kaiju comes knocking, and Targent know it. Flora wishes there was something she could change, but she's not a hero. All she can do right now is mop the floor.
And as voices approach, she decides she'd better look busy doing it. But they don't quite make it to her corner, and when they get close enough to make out words, she forgets all about her chores. "Do you realise the situation we are in?" comes the Marshall's voice, low and furious. "You're willing to let soldiers and civilians alike die because you don't want to?"
"I'm sorry!" The responding voice is familiar, but so stricken Flora has trouble recognising it. "I just can't, you have to find someone else."
"There is no one else!" Flora jumps as something bangs against the wall, causing it to shudder next to her. "Of all the candidates, you were the only one who had significant compatibility, Altava. This is a war. You don't pick and choose which jobs you want to do."
"Then discharge me!" bursts out Emmy, and the heel of her boot becomes visible as she stomps back on it. "I really am sorry, Marshall, but piloting a Jaeger is the one thing I can't do."
There's a long, uncomfortable silence. This isn't exactly a fun conversation to hear and Flora's desperate to leave, but if she moves from this exact spot, the floor or the mop or the bucket will make an unholy noise and she'll be found out. So she stands deathly still, afraid to even breathe.
"I suppose you can't force people to save themselves. Or anyone else, for that matter." The acid in his voice would have melted her, but Emmy obviously withstands it long enough for his footsteps to clang into the distance. Just as Flora's about to breathe a sigh of relief, Emmy comes storming around the corner, and stops dead.
They both stare at each other, frozen in place. Emmy looks to the side and blinks several times, as Flora grips the handle of her mop with both hands and tries to think of something to say. But her mind is blank. It's Emmy who breaks the silence, saying roughly, "I suppose you heard all that."
"Sorry…" Flora shrinks back as Emmy starts walking past, but then she stops, hovering in the middle of the walkway as if something's pulling at her.
"Do you think I'm a bad person?"
It's so direct Flora falters. If she's honest, she can't understand what's going on in Emmy's head right now. If she's the only candidate, that means her agreeing to pilot could save the entire country from a kaiju. She is a hero, being offered Flora's dream job, and she's turning it down.
But Emmy looks so upset, she doesn't want to say so. "You have a good reason, right?" she asks hesitantly.
Emmy opens her mouth, but for a moment nothing comes out. "Yes. Yes!" she says suddenly, forcing out the answer. "I do, I just… sometimes I wonder whether it's all worth it. What I'm doing."
"Of course it's worth it!" Flora exclaims, surprising herself along with Emmy, whose eyes widen slightly. But Flora's said it now, so she keeps going. "I think that too sometimes," and she gestures to the grimy mop in her hand, "but we have to do what we can, right? And you help a lot."
For a few seconds she wonders if she's put her foot in it—Emmy stares at her as if she can't quite believe what she's hearing. But then— "Thanks, Flora," she says, each word placed carefully like the roof on a house of cards. "I'll keep doing what I can."
She turns to go then, and once she's made it a few steps, Flora turns back to the grotty floor and attempts to pretend it's as important as she made it sound. But then Emmy stops, and looks back at her with a slightly troubled expression. "By the way…"
"Yes?" Flora looks up, pushing the mop into the murky bucket.
"Do you know Bloom, the security officer?" asks Emmy.
Uh oh, thinks Flora. "I know him," is what she says.
Emmy bites her lip as if trying to conceal another expression. "Well, I would avoid him if you see him," she says knowingly. "He mentioned looking for you this morning, and trust me, that's never a good thing."
"Thanks for the warning," Flora jokes. Although her heart is sinking into her abdomen at the prospect of dealing with this, at least Emmy seems back to normal. She winks at Flora, and waves as she turns around.
"No problem."
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Hershel finds Angela sitting cross-legged in front of Henry's memorial. It's been a long time since he saw her in civilian clothes—her and Henry are almost always in uniform or in the Jaeger. Seeing her sitting there in a simple pullover, her hair tied back only loosely behind her shoulders, reminds him of a much younger Angela, who had a lot more to lose.
He sits down next to her. The messages and trinkets have multiplied since this morning, and from the ground it seems an insurmountable pile. Angela tears her eyes away from it, and smiles weakly at him. "They kicked me out of the infirmary."
"Oh." The sun weaves in and out of the clouds so the daylight pulses over them like a lighthouse. "When are you allowed back in?"
"I don't know. They said they'd call me if anything happens." She lets out a long breath through pursed lips, as if she's suppressing some immense pain. "I wish he could see all this. Not that Henry does anything for recognition, but he certainly deserves some."
"He might see it yet," says Hershel.
"He might." The rest of her sentence is left unsaid. A subtle show of Angela's expertise in losing people—she gives herself no room for hope and none for despair.
In her position, Hershel's not sure he would be able to take the middle road. He walked through the hangar on his way here, and saw the remains of the Mountain Aureate standing in the hangar, a cruel metal scar hanging open from the cockpit down into the chest. It'd take months to fix it, and considering how involved Henry was in its creation and maintenance, how difficult it is to pilot even for experienced rangers, they may not even bother. It's enough to make anyone despondent.
But Angela sits next to him with an expression that's practiced and almost serene. "I remember when he first suggested becoming rangers," she muses. "I thought he was utterly mad. After what happened to my brother, I never dreamed I'd end up joining the Defence Corps. It only happened because of Henry."
"And now it's taken him from you as well." Hershel can feel that he sounds bitter, because he is. Not just on Angela's behalf, but for himself, and the ghosts he has to carry around with him.
"I don't regret it, though," says Angela. He glances across at her, and sees that pained expression flit across her face again, but it's overlayed by a kind of acceptance. "I'm proud of what we accomplished, for getting to this point where we could find Randall again. And I'm glad we did it together. Even if this is it, and he doesn't—" She stops, and takes in a shuddery breath, unable to stop a single tear escaping her eye. "God, it was worth every second."
The memory of Claire jumping out of the rig after a successful mission with a grin lighting up her face crosses his mind, and he blinks back a few tears of his own. "It was, wasn't it?" he says quietly. There's an understanding as they meet each other's eyes, and look back at the memorial with its letters fluttering in the breeze.
"How touching."
Both of them turn around. Angela's on her feet first, her face alight with a kind of horror as she takes in the sight in front of them.
"He's barely cold in the ground and you're already moving on?" asks Randall venomously. His glowing Azran cloak floats around him as though underwater, as he tilts his head with the kind of precise angle you'd see on a doll. Then he smirks. "I suppose that was always your way, Ange."
"That's not true." Angela clenches both hands into fists, but her lip wobbles with hurt. "It was never like that."
"Why did you come here, Randall?" Hershel interjects before that can go further. Randall's eyes swivel over to him, and even from a few metres away his disdain is evident.
"Why did I come? Only to see if he was really dead, and if you are truly as weak as it appears from the outside," he sneers, holding out both arms as if to show something off to the empty training ground.
"How can you talk about him like that?" Angela demands, stepping forward. "Henry was your best friend, the one who believed in you."
"And he took all that was rightfully mine, the second he could!" hisses Randall, spit flying from his mouth in fury. "Because that is what humans do. Lie and betray each other."
Hershel narrows his eyes. Beside him, Angela pulls both hands into her chest as if trying to protect her memory of Randall from the vision in front of her. And it is hard to see him so angry, but if he looks past that… Randall's movements are sharp, disjointed, his expression far too still, even under the mask. Something's not quite right here.
"I don't believe that," says Hershel firmly, stepping in front of Angela with two fingers clasped tightly at the brim of his hat. "You didn't want to hurt Henry, and it brings you no joy to see that he's dead."
Randall's face twists, varying emotions flickering under his skin. But the disdain wins out. "Who are you to tell me what I feel, Hershel?" The derision on his name is marked and deliberate. "If I'm unsatisfied, it's because I have yet to finish the job."
Finish the job…?
As soon as Hershel realises what this means, it's too late. He barely jumps out of the way as Randall whips out a knife whose hilt glows with the same Azran symbols as his cloak, and raises the blade so its tip points right at Angela.
It takes longer to sink in for her. She almost laughs, then shakes her head slightly as her disbelief drains away and the betrayal settles in her face. "You're going to kill me?" she asks. Randall stares more through than at her, and says nothing. "Then I'm glad Henry isn't here to see this," she says harshly. "I'm glad he won't know what you've done."
"So am I," replies Randall, and for a moment, he sounds like himself again. Only for him to pull the knife back and—
A gun clicks behind his head. "Don't move, Ascot."
Hershel and Angela both breathe a quick sigh of relief in tandem as Randall's eyes flick back to the person behind him. The gun connects to a figure whose face is so stony and merciless that Randall elects to do as he says. "Hello, Sycamore," he says with a click of his tongue. "Still waving your toys around?"
Marshall Sycamore's face warps into a hollow smile. "My toy will blow out your brains if you try it."
Randall laughs, and the sound echoes across the turf. "As exciting as that sounds… the Azran were kind enough to give me a way out." His cloak ripples in a non-existent gale and he jumps into the air, ready to disappear back into the sky.
"Right, I almost forgot," says Sycamore with fake brightness and shoots at the cloak with lightning precision. The effect is instant, and Randall drops unceremoniously onto the floor in front of him, his cloak twitching and sparking. Those experiments with electricity paid off after all.
Hershel kicks the knife out of his hand while Sycamore yanks the cloak off him, holding it at arm's length. "You were right, Layton, it is alive!" he exclaims, and Randall claws at it.
"Stop!" he yells, grabbing uselessly at thin air as Sycamore dodges him with practiced ease, and a grim smile on his face.
"It's over, Randall," Hershel begins, but Randall responds by attempting an ungainly escape in the other direction, only to come face to face with Angela's right hook.
It sends him flying. He lands sprawled on his back, as Angela stands over him, her face halfway between angry and exhausted. "As Hershel said," she says in a clipped tone. "It's over."
Randall just puts a hand to the rapidly forming bruise on his cheek, and laughs. "It's not over," he says darkly, as Sycamore waves over some security officers from the door. "It hasn't even started."
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After putting away all the cleaning supplies, Flora's off duty and ready to resume her hunt for Targent. It's just that the bomb told her very little, and she doesn't want to chance the security office right now, which leaves her almost back at square one. When she thinks about both explosions, the most likely suspect would probably be Professor Hershel Layton himself. But she can't believe it. She's known the Professor for years now, and he's never been one to endanger others.
There's another possibility though—that he's being framed. Flora has no idea who would want to frame him for anything, but her next course of action should probably be asking him about it. She baulks at the idea of asking someone as perceptive as the Professor about Targent, someone who knows her tells and might catch on to what she's doing. But it's not like she has many other options, is it? So she only drags her feet a little on the way to the kaiju research lab, until she reaches the door and sees an unwelcome face waiting there.
"Cadet Reinhold," says Officer Bloom coldly. "Just the person I was looking for."
"Officer Bloom!" Remembering Emmy's advice, she quickens her pace. "I'm afraid I've got to go—"
"One moment." He steps deftly into the space in front of her, forcing her to come to an abrupt stop in the middle of the corridor, and holds up at item clasped between his thumb and forefinger—a blackened, misshapen piece of plastic that before it melted around the edges, probably resembled a keycard. "Would you like to explain this?"
"Where did you—" Flora breaks off, a thousand excuses tearing at her mind. But at the end of the day, she did take it, she did allow it to be destroyed, and she shouldn't have. "I'm sorry," she mumbles. "I didn't mean to—"
"Didn't mean to what, exactly?" Officer Bloom's eyebrows slant towards his nose, straight as papercuts. "You not only took this but you lost it. Do you know how break-ins, thefts, intruders happen, Cadet? Through stupid mistakes like this. If it was any other day, I'd drag you in front of the Marshall."
Flora doesn't like being told off—she never has, not by her father, not by Bruno, and certainly not by her superiors after she's actually done something wrong. Her stomach clenches like at the moment before a plane descends, except she's stuck at the top feeling that endless dread over and over. But she's a big girl now, and she can handle herself, so she drags an apologetic smile from the depths of her goodwill.
"I'm very sorry, Officer," she says, making eye contact with him. "It won't happen again."
"See that it doesn't," he snaps, giving her a look of disgust. "Honestly, if it hadn't exploded in your guardian's room, I'd half suspect you of being the Targent bomber yourself."
That stings. Flora grits her teeth as he strides off, trying not to let the embarrassment eat her alive. It was stupid, and she learned her lesson the hard way when she almost dropped to her death. But it was for a good cause, she reasons with her hand on the lab door. All of this is, isn't it? Even questioning the Professor, who she would never have doubted unless—
The door to the Professor's lab opens, and she stops.
If it hadn't exploded in your guardian's room…
Did she tell anyone that the bomb was in the Professor's room? There was no official debrief because of the circumstances, only a quick discussion with the Marshall and Inspector Chelmey, where she had rather glossed over some events to avoid discussing the lost keycard. And because she threw it, the actual spot the bomb exploded in was the end of the corridor.
Which means… the only other person who should know where the bomb was originally placed is the bomber themself.
The Targent spy.
She spins around in shock, staring at the empty space where Officer Bloom was standing as if he might rematerialise, an apparition of Targent itself. It couldn't be him, he's so… polite and hardworking and normal. But then, it makes sense. He's clever, perfectly able to build a bomb and he was running the security checks after each explosion. He could hide whatever he needed.
Flora can't believe it. All this running around to find the spy and he just told her.
Now she's left standing with this knowledge like a hot potato in her hands. She needs to find the Marshall—he'll know what to do. Without hesitating she slams the lab door shut and sprints along the corridor to the lift. Her heart thunders in her ears, louder than the disbelief that she found them, she found the Targent agent.
When she gets to the Marshall's office, she knocks once. Then twice. Then several times. "Marshall Sycamore?"
"He's not here."
Flora turns around to see Aurora standing there, eyes to the floor and hands behind her back. For a moment, it all disappears—Targent, the war, the spy—and Flora feels a pang of guilt knowing that Aurora has probably been wondering where she is all day.
"Aurora, I'm sorry I left so early I had my—"
"Why are you looking for the Marshall?" asks a second voice, and Emmy comes striding up behind Aurora. Flora meets Aurora's eyes. This is not the time, and really, Emmy asks a pertinent question.
So she lowers her voice, and says with a mix of panic and excitement, "I found the Targent spy."
"Really?" whispers Emmy. The atmosphere boils in a second as they both lean in closer. "Who is it?"
"It's Officer Bloom from security." Flora watches both their faces turn slack with surprise. "I couldn't believe it either but he said something only the bomber could know."
"Oh no," Aurora breathes. "We must tell Professor Sycamore, so he can change the security arrangements for—" She stops, suddenly, as if remembering not to say something. "He needs to be arrested."
"You're right," says Emmy thoughtfully, her eyes darting all which ways as she runs through the possibilities. "Flora, does he know you've found him out?"
Flora shakes her head. "I don't think so."
"Alright. Here's the plan." Emmy grins conspiratorially despite the urgency in her eyes, and Flora's secretly relieved that she's here. She used to work in security too, after all, and makes a formidable ally. "Aurora, you're going to see the Marshall, aren't you? Let him know. I'll go and find Inspector Grosky and we'll handle this."
"What about me?" asks Flora.
Emmy puts a hand on her shoulder. "Flora, it's vital that he doesn't suspect anything. So you have to go about your day as normal. Don't tell anyone what you've found in case someone spills the beans."
Disappointment slams into her like a fist. "So I do nothing?"
"You're the one who found him," Aurora points out, and her face breaks into a small smile. "That's amazing, Flora."
"Exactly," says Emmy. "Let the security team do what they do best, and he'll be in a cell by the end of the day."
Flora sighs deeply. But she knows she's not exactly suited to the job. "Okay. Thank you, Emmy."
"No problem," Emmy replies with her hands on her hips. "Are we all clear on what we're doing?"
The two of them nod assent. After a moment, their huddle breaks apart, and Flora turns to go. But she finds herself watching Emmy's confident footsteps the other way, and calls, "Emmy?"
Emmy spins around. "What is it?"
"…Break a leg."
There's a moment where she wonders if it was the wrong thing to say. Then Emmy makes a gesture like a salute with two fingers, and smiles. "Just leave it to me."