I'm sorry, I know there is Falling and Second Chance and Shards to get through, but this won't leave me alone, so I'm starting it in the hopes that it will clear my head and let me do other things. I'll likely go back and polish it up once I've had a chance to see the movie again and can get a lot of the details right. It's kind of an AU, but the reason I couldn't help but write it is that I can also totally see how the events of Pacific Rim could fit into the TMNT-verse three years down the line.

I owe this to xenelle055's drawing on DeviantArt and to azraelskeith on tumblr for planting the idea in my head and for the Jaeger's name.

The massive steel doors clanged shut behind him, and the echoes that reverberated through the soles of his feet were worse than any of the times that a cell door shut behind him. Biting his lip, AJ shouldered the duffel bag that contained all his worldly possessions, painfully aware of how small it was.

It certainly didn't look much different than prison. Featureless concrete walls adorned with serial numbers to help differentiate one corridor from another stretched off in several directions, populated by PPDC personnel who refused to look at him.

"Don't take it personally," a dry voice said behind him. "They try very hard not to get attached to rookies. Makes it easier on them when you leave."

AJ turned, a brow raising at the sight of the uniform standing before him. "Marshal Takahashi?"

The Marshal inclined his head and gestured for AJ to follow as he started down a corridor. Trying to hold back a sigh, AJ fell in at the Marshal's heels like the good little lap dog he'd been told to be. "Tell me, Rookie," Takahashi said, pausing at a door that opened to reveal a cramped elevator. "How much did you learn about the war while you were locked up in juvie?"

"Enough. And it wasn't juvie, sir," AJ said, stepping in behind the Marshal. "Hasn't been juvie for a while."

Takahashi waved a hand. "That facility you've been in and out of since you lost your mother in the first landfall is a baby jail," he said. "Don't think we're going to treat you nearly as nice in here."

Trying not to bristle as the Marshall punched a code into the elevator's keypad, AJ asked, "you know about my ma?"

"You're in my Shatterdome, kid, I make it my business to know everything about you. If I had my way, I'd have nothing but the country's finest in here. But we lost the country's finest in the Mark Ones, so now Rookies like you have the option of transferring to grown up jail at age twenty-one, or getting sent to basic training. Very soon we'll have a proper academy and we won't have this problem, but for now, we're stuck with what we can get" He turned to look at AJ, and the corner of his mouth quirked. "I think it's a terrible idea, but since the folks I answer to don't seem to give a damn what I think, I picked you. Fly straight, don't make waves, and you just might survive to be a Ranger." He planted a hand on AJ's shoulder. "Whether or not you survive after that is anybody's guess."

Again, Takahashi had managed to get the drop on him. "You picked me?" He followed as the elevator doors opened onto another featureless corridor. "With all due respect, sir, why?"

"Because, kid, you got thrown into baby jail for stealing rations."

"Lotsa people steal rations," AJ pointed out as he followed the Marshal.

"True," said Takahashi. "But very few of them are caught giving them away to street kids." They came to another set of doors. "We do things a bit differently here. You'll be required to keep certain secrets, and we don't exactly do things by the book. We could use someone with a sense of fair play."

AJ's response was lost as the Marshal punched the big red button next to the doors, and they slipped open with a ringing alarm.

The room beyond was enormous. AJ had never seen anything like it. As he stepped through, craning his neck, he couldn't even begin to fathom just how high up it went. And all of it was to accommodate… them.

The Jaegers.

Despite himself, he stared around at them in awe. Being on the Atlantic, the East Coast was generally considered a safe zone, but that hadn't stopped the Kaiju from slipping around the tip of South America and slamming New York in the first wave that had taken his mom. And so, as one of the most densely populated coastal cities on the planet which the monsters seemed to have a personal vendetta against, New York had gotten its own Shatterdome to house three Jaegers. But it was the third that caught his attention, and he couldn't help gaping at it. "Is that… Shell Shocker?"

"In the flesh, so to speak," said Takahashi. "Play your cards right, and you just might survive meeting her pilots."

AJ blinked at him. "Huh?"

"You'll understand later." The Marshal flagged down a young woman who was hurrying past, and though her expression clearly indicated that she had places she wanted to be, she fell in to attention. "Yes, Marshall?"

"O'Neil, if you would be so kind as to show our Rookie here the ropes, I would be greatly obliged."

At Takahashi's dry tone, she schooled her expression into one somewhat less put-upon, and shifted the clipboard she was holding to rest more comfortably in the crook of her arm. "Of course, sir." She brushed a strand of red hair out of her eyes. "Come on. Let's get you settled in."

AJ glanced back over his shoulder at Takahashi, who was already striding across the bay to the glassed-in area he could only assume was the LOCCENT, and looked at the - he checked her ID - the Ranger tapping her foot impatiently. "Is he always so…vague?"

Her expression softened a little, and she shrugged. "We're a little unconventional here. You tend to get tight-lipped about things." She held out her hand. "April O'Neil, Communications Officer."

He grinned at her. "Ain't you a little too young and pretty to be an Officer?"

He could have kicked himself a minute later as her expression shuttered. "I'm twenty," she said coldly. "And I've been through more than you have. I know, I've read your file."

Now it was his turn to look offended. "Isn't that private?"

"Not when you're getting access to Shell Shocker's team, it isn't," she said, and with that cryptic statement, she was off, striding across the bay and leaving him scrambling to keep up.

"Wait a second," he called out to her, having to yell to be heard over the din of the Jaeger bay. "What the hell do you mean by—"

His protests ended as he collided with a bulky figure in a leather flight jacket. As he stumbled, biting back a curse, the first thing he noticed was Shell Shocker's logo embroidered proudly on the front of the jacket. But as he stepped back and got a look at the jacket's owner, his breath left him in a rush.

The scales… the three fingers reaching for him…. He let out a screeching cry and grabbed a wrench from a nearby tool table. "Kaiju!" he bellowed in warning as he launched himself at the creature, bringing the wrench down straight at its head.

He was never really sure what happened next. He was vaguely aware of the three-fingered hand grabbing his wrist, and then the world flipped and spun, and he was lying on his back with the air driven from his lungs. As he rolled around, struggling to breathe, the green face of his attacker loomed over him, and blue eyes widened behind a blue mask. A red mask joined the first – two Kaiju? – and a voice rife with irritation said, "Aw, great. Another one."

Wait… they talk?

Purple and orange joined the first two, followed by April's face. Her expression of annoyance did little to reassure him.

"Is he dead?" the orange one asked, picking up the wrench AJ had dropped and poking him with it.

"No, I think his head's too thick for that," said April.

"Takahashi sure knows how to pick 'em," said the purple one. "Come on. That gyro isn't gonna calibrate itself."

And then they were gone, leaving AJ sprawled on the floor and wondering if maybe he wouldn't have been better off in jail after all…