#mmotbf

Vesper Emrys:

“Vesper, come on!”

Vesper rolled his eyes and gave the straps one last tug to make sure his pack was fully secured before pulling it on his back and heading out of the shack they shared with Keith.

“About time,” Keith grunted as Vesper came out and Vesper just rolled his eyes.

“Are we going or not?” Vesper asked.

“Yeah yeah come on,” Keith said and led the two of them over to the hover bike.

They stashed their bags in the side compartments then Vesper climbed on behind him and didn’t even hesitate to wrap his arms around Keith. Maybe a while ago he would have, but they'd taken so many trips out into the desert like this that it was second nature. They both pulled up their masks, and set off into the desert.

At least it was a short ride, only about 40 minutes. Maybe that wasn’t particularly short, but it was short compared to the drive to the Garrison or the nearest city or even the main road. Keith got as close to the cave with the Calendar as he could from above but soon they reached where they’d have to climb down. It was a cliff straight down, not to mention a narrow opening, but it was rough and rocky so there were plenty of handholds.

“I hate this cliff,” Keith sighed.

“Don’t worry, I’ll catch you when you fall,” Vesper assured him teasingly and Keith groaned.

“That was one time when are you going to let that go,” Keith rolled his eyes.

“When you can catch yourself,” Vesper shrugged.

“I’m going to push you off.”

“No you aren’t.”

“Watch me.”

Keith in fact did not push him off and instead just tossed Vesper his pack with a little more force than necessary. He rolled his eyes and shrugged it on, making sure it was buckled across his chest. He let Keith go first, then followed.

It was a slow and arduous process, slowly finding hand and foot holds, moving slow enough not to slip, holding themselves up by their fingertips plus the extra weight of their packs. But after a while and a close call, they hit bottom.

Keith took out the flashlights and handed Vesper one before pulling the pack on and letting Vesper lead them into the cave. They paused just outside of it to take the map they’d created of the caves and the compass then entered the darkness. They turned on their flashlights and were greeted with those lion carvings again. They’d seen them all before so they didn’t linger too long, but they made sure to check all the carvings over again as they walked, just to make sure they didn’t miss anything.

“These ancient people or aliens or whatever couldn’t have been a bit more clear about what’s arriving tomorrow?” Vesper complained. “I swear if we wake up tomorrow and there’s a giant blue lion running around destroying planes and shit like in these carvings I’m gonna lose it.”

“What’s the matter, I thought you liked cats?” Keith replied. Vesper couldn’t even see him (other than the glow stick bracelet around his wrist they’d both put on once it was too dark to see well just so they could keep track of each other) but they just knew he was smirking.

“Cats not, fucking, what were the things from that movie you made me watch?” Vesper frown as they tried to remember. “The one with the dinosaur and the monkey.”

Look Vesper hadn’t been exposed to much culture when he was growing up, and that included movies. And now it wasn’t like either of them could pay for a Netflix subscription, so they just found whatever they could pirate on Vesper’s laptop. Sometimes it was movies, sometimes they’d get a free trial of something to watch some show, sometimes they’d just watch videos on YouTube while laying on their beds, which consisted of mattresses on the floor.

“Kaiju?” Keith snickered.

“Yes, those.”

“If it is an actual real life Kaiju I’m gonna lose it.”

“It’s not going to be a Kaiju, Keith.”

“Maybe it will be!”

“You sound like you’re gonna start talking about Mothman again.”

“We’re in a cave covered in markings probably from aliens that we trek through every day because of a feeling we both have," Keith began yet again and Vesper rolled their eyes, already regretting bringing it up. "We spent days deciphering a calendar because of some bits of some sort of prophecy we guessed at and are double checking it because we think some shit is gonna go down tomorrow because of cave drawings. But sure, mothman is completely crazy.”

“You’re completely crazy,” Vesper retorted.

“Considering I followed you into a cave yeah, pretty much."

“We’re in the desert because of an energy we feel. We’re both crazy.”

“...you make a point.”

Vesper laughed and Keith snickered as they continued their journey towards the calendar. They paused for a moment to get water and eat a bit of food but after three hours they finally found the calendar. Keith traded his flashlight for a lantern while Vesper got set up with his laptop and notes.

Vesper ended up, just to be safe, completely redoing all his calculations from the start. It took longer and by the end Keith looked about ready to pass out from boredom but it was worth it. After checking the second round of calculations he then checked them against the original set and found that, as expected, they were identical. The Arrival was coming, and it was coming tomorrow.

"It's coming," Vesper confirmed and Keith looked up from messing with that knife of his.

"You're sure?" Keith checked and Vesper rolled their eyes.

"Wasn't that the whole point of this?"

"Oh shut up."

Keith sighed and put the knife away as Vesper started doing the same with his equipment.

"Alright, let's eat and then get back so we can get ready for this thing," Keith decided as he reached in to grab Vesper's lunch. He tossed it to him then grabbed his own. It was nothing fancy, just what they could store without the food going bad quickly. They had a small cooler but that only kept things cool for a few days. They mainly just ate things like sandwiches and what not. Today it was peanut butter sandwiches since they'd run out of lunch meat and had been so focused on the Arrival they hadn't restocked in a bit. But they had chips with the sandwiches at least.

"You know," Keith started only for him to catch himself and pause. Vesper looked up from his sandwich to tilt his head. He didn't push yet. If you pushed too quickly or too much when Keith was trying to open up to you it was more likely he'd just snap and completely shut down. So Vesper gave him a moment and let Keith decide if he wanted to tell him whatever he was thinking. Eventually Keith swallowed and dropped his eyes but spoke. "This reminds me of Shiro."

"What does?" Vesper asked.

"Just the hiking out, small picnic in a cave of sandwiches and chips, riding out on the bike," Keith gave a one armed shrug.

"How so?" Vesper wondered.

"We used to do this all the time," Keith answered. "Mainly when him and Ira took me in. He wasn't supposed to, and Ira called him out for it all the time." He cleared his throat, putting on a strong southern accent and a lecturing tone. "'Takashi you're the reason he sneaks out all the time. I'm not digging you out when you get buried by rocks.' As if he wasn't the one that packed us the lunches."

Vesper laughed and Keith chuckled too, but his was more strained. Ira was a sensitive subject that Keith didn't bring up often. Even Vesper barely knew anything. Just that Ira was Shiro's husband, the two of them adopted Keith, and a little while after Shiro disappeared or died or whatever happened, they'd gotten in this massive fight and Keith left for the shack.

"The bike makes me think of him all the time," Keith continued. "You know that natural course I took you to to teach you how to ride it? And I taught you how to do like the tricks and shit?"

"You mean the wall and cliff thing?" Vesper raised an eyebrow and Keith nodded.

"Shiro taught me all of that," Keith explained. "Hell the bike is Shiro's, mine was a rental from the Garrison that he checked out for me."

“That’s actually sweet,” Vesper smiled.

“The fuck do you mean actually?” Keith scoffed.

“Keith. I’m your best friend.”

“Yeah, best friend I’ve ever had.”

“You pointed a knife at me when we first met.”

“You broke into my house!”

“It was abandoned!”

“Still,” Keith pouted and crossed his arms, though he’d never admit it was pouting.

"Uh huh," Vesper rolled their eyes and finished up their sandwich. "Let's get back, we need to make sure we have everything tonight so we know if we need a supply run tomorrow."

Keith nodded and the two of them packed up their bags and retraced their steps out of the caves and out of the ravine. From there it was just a short drive back on the bike. They set up a post outside the shack, and waited, until they spotted the meteor falling from the sky.

Haven Iverson:

Haven had just gotten off her shift in the infirmary with a few other medical cadets. She was exhausted, drained, and sore from being on her feet all day, especially since she'd stayed behind to help for an extra hour.

She slipped inside the apartment she shared with her dad, trying to be quiet.

Turns out, she didn't even need to. Because Commander Mitch Iverson was already waiting for her and holding a datapad.

…uh oh.

"McClain, Garrett, and Gunderson," Iverson said, his voice low with disappointment and sharp with frustration. He pulled up a file and shoved the datapad into her hands.

"What about them?" Haven innocently scrolled through the file.

Her father swiped to the next file, showing Haven's transfer request form. She winced. There it was.

"You want to be the field medic of one of the worst teams of cadets this facility has ever seen?" Iverson pointed to Haven's signature at the bottom.

Haven Iverson.

"Why do you hate them so much?" Haven demanded. "They don't need high scores to be good at what they do!"

"They have low scores because they can't cut it!" Iverson argued. "You're on Griffin's flight team. Best pilot here after Kogane got expelled. Why on Earth would you leave?"

"Because he's an asshole, Dad!" Haven snapped.

"Watch your mouth," Iverson warned.

"No!" Haven slammed the data pad down on the kitchen counter. "James Griffin is a full of himself, arrogant, petty, whiny, asshole, who thinks that because he's a good pilot he can do no wrong and everyone has to do what he wants. He orders his flight team around like we're his subordinates when we're supposed to be a team! Maybe their team doesn't do good on the simulators, but at least they're better than this!"

Her father didn't speak for a moment. "You're not transferring. That's the end of it."

"Dad!"

"You don't get to ruin your chances of a good career because you joined a team at the bottom of the class," Iverson ended her protest. "It's bad enough you—"

"Go on, say it," Haven stepped into his personal space. "Tell me how disappointed you really are that I'm on the medic track, not piloting. Admit it. Get it off your chest."

"Get your homework done," he ordered and left the apartment, the door closing behind him.

Haven wiped at her eyes, smearing angry tears. She didn't care about lights out right now. She turned and stormed right back out of the apartment into the hallway. She didn't go up to the roof. She always went up there, it would be too easy for her father to find her. Same with the infirmary. Instead she slipped out of the Garrison altogether and out into the desert.

There was this place out in the desert that was hidden unless you knew where to look. It had become her sanctuary. There was no one there to give her orders or fit her into a mold. She wasn't a soldier like her father wanted, the perfect medic like the instructors expected, or the daughter of Commander Iverson that got shunned by her peers. There wasn't a constant pressure on her soldiers. It wasn't suffocating, likethe Garrison. It was calming. Sometimes she liked to pretend it was someone welcoming her home.

She sat on an overhang and pulled her knees to her chest, watching the sun set over the rocks and sand. She tried not to let her thoughts run wild, knowing it would only make her more miserable. She didn't want to wallow. She wanted to relax, to let it all off her chest. And there was no bett—

What was that? Movement? Out here?

She shoved herself backwards and peeked over the edge. Climbing out of a canyon were two people her age with hiking gear. They helped each other out and headed towards a red hoverbike parked nearby.

They had masks pulled over the lower half of their faces, which made sense considering the sun and wind. But it also meant Haven couldn't make out who they were until one of them pulled the mask down to take a drink of water. Now she knew who that was. Everyone at the Garrison did. Best pilot in the Garrison since Takashi Shirogane himself. The kid who beat even some of his scores.

Keith Kogane.

Next to him was a kid with a purple leather jacket tied around his waist and brown curly hair. His gray eyes were piercing above the mask, even from here, and when he mirrored Keith's movements to drink from his own water, Haven could just make out a spray of freckles across his nose.

"Who are you?" Haven murmured. Keith being in the desert was weird enough. Being in the desert with some random person Haven didn't recognize from the Garrison was even weirder.

As tempted as she was to follow them—something about curiosity and cats—she knew she couldn't keep up to a hoverbike. She'd lose them immediately. So she watched them pull their masks back up and head off towards the horizon.

Haven stayed there thinking probably longer than she should have. She and Keith had never been close. She wasn't really close with anybody, honestly, not that she didn't try to be. But he had seemed like an okay kid, if a little hot headed, and he had been close with Captain Shirogane and Commander Shirogane. Then he'd punched James Griffin, then punched her father, then was expelled.

Now here he was.

Exploring desert caves with a stranger.

In the exact spot that made Haven feel safe for no reason she could explain.

She didn't spend long thinking about it. Because she heard the Garrison's alarms go off. Then she looked up and spotted the meteor falling from the sky.

Ira Shirogane:

Ira sat and stared at the open report in front of him, his eyes glazed over. Boredom was creeping in. And behind it was the rest of it, all the things Ira tried to never feel. The grief of Matt and Sam, his best friend and the closest thing he had to a father. The fight with Keith, the regret and the hurt behind every word they'd thrown at each other. The loss when he'd opened the door to Keith's room and found him gone.

Takashi.

He put down the damn pen and pinched the bridge of his nose. His promotion had been the best and worst thing to ever happen to him. As a Commander now, he had way more work to handle and responsibility to deal with. But at least it gave him something to throw himself into other than despair.

"He only stayed because of you! It's your fault he went up there! It's your fault he's dead!"

"Go to your room."

"I'm not a child!"

"GO TO YOUR DAMN ROOM, KEITH!"

Ira blinked hard. He forced air into his lungs. Once. Twice. Three times. The fight was over. It all was. Takashi was dead. Matt and Sam had gone with him. Keith left. Everyone…everyone was gone. But he wasn't. For now, he had to push through. Just in case Keith needed him. Just in case he came back.

He wouldn't.

Ira shoved himself back from his desk. This wasn't working. He grabbed a datapad from in his desk—a drawer above the whiskey hidden in it—and opened a random manifest he had to check. Something that would make him move, to leave the void that was his office. But as he stood to leave, he finally registered sounds filtering through his cracked open window, what sounded like mocking laughter and blows. He was twenty four and too old for this.

"Come on, McClain, have some spine!" A kid laughed and someone grunted in pain as a thud signalled they'd been shoved against the wall.

Ira sighed. Of course it was McClain. The kid had a too smart mouth and a too dumb self-preservation instinct. For a split second, old instincts and his own bitterness to let natural consequences fall. But then he remembered another kid who got into fights and would hate him even more than he already did if he didn't at least check.

He went behind the building, to the shadowed area between the faculty office building and the guard wall. There, three senior cadets had another kid in the dirt against the wall. This wasn't Lance McClain, like Ira had expected. He rolled his eyes internally. It was Camillo McClain, his little brother who had just started at the Garrison. The kid hero worshipped Lance. He wanted so much to be like Lance, it would be cute if it wasn't a little pathetic.

Ira leaned against the wall in the shadows and pulled out his phone, starting the camera. Technically he hadn't seen anything incriminating. He couldn't do anything bu scare them off. So he recorded and waited.

Maybe a second later, a girl kicked Camillo's foot. "What's wrong, Cami? You had so much to say in front of Professor Takien."

"Don't call me that," Camillo grunted.

"Or what?" One of the boys laughed and kicked him again. "Your brother's not here to protect you, Cami."

That was enough in Ira's eyes. He put the phone away and crossed his arms.

"Hey kid!" He called over. "Go for the ankle!"

While the senior cadets looked over in shock, Camillo moved. He kicked out at the girl's ankle and she went down with a thud.

"Hey!" The girl cried. "Oh I'm gonna get you, you little sh—"

Ira stepped out of the shadows, arms still crossed, and the three senior cadets paled visibly.

"Commander Shirogane," The second boy breathed.

"I think this is the part where you leave." Ira raised an eyebrow.

The three of them scrambled off with a chorus of "yes, sir" and "sorry, Commander". Ira walked over to Camillo and offered a hand. Camillo glared at the ground but took it, wiping the dirt off his uniform.

"Thanks," he muttered. "I guess."

"What'd you do this time?" Ira asked.

"Nothing."

Ira looked at him for a moment longer. Camillo sighed, rubbing his cheek, which was already bruising.

"I beat the simulator records that they couldn't at my age," Camillo admitted. "And I may have…bragged. A lot. And pushed when they told me to shut up."

'God you're just like him,' Ira thought.

"Alright look," Ira said. "Standing up for yourself is good. But self-preservation is better. Don't run into every fight just hoping you'll win. There's no easier way to lose."

"If you pick and choose every fight you're a coward," Camillo shot back then froze. "Uh…sir."

"Maybe," Ira said. "But at least youre alive. Now move your ass, cadet. Infirmary."

"Oh come on," Camillo groaned.

"Walk."

Ira marched Camillo to the infirmary and dropped him off before heading back towards his office. On the way, he passed the simulator room, where Iverson was chewing out a team of cadets, as usual. Ira didn't even glance their way, idly making a reminder he had reports to grade for his own students.

"—but these kind of mental mistakes are exactly what cost the lives of the men on the Kerberos Mission."

Ira froze in the hallway.

Mental mistakes?

Mental mistakes?

As if Takashi, Matt, and Sam weren't one of the best flight teams the Garrison had ever known? Ira would know! He would've been on that damn mission himself if the shuttle had been able to fit more than three people.

He was just about to ignore all the advice he just gave Camillo and storm into the room when a younger familiar voice cried out: "That's not true, sir!"

Ira groaned to himself. "Goddamn it, Katie."

He opened the door just in time to see what looked like a disciplinary issue in progress. He put on his best 'disappointed teacher' face and sharply called out.

"Gunderson! With me!"

The whole class stared at him, some of them snickering, some elbowing each other, a few going "ooooh you're in troubleeee" and McClain even whispering "oh shit".

Katie's hands balled into fists but she followed Ira out into the hallway and down to his office. He sat down in his chair and she sat down in the one across the desk.

"Katie," Ira rubbed his temples. "I haven't been letting you get away with this just for you to get expelled."

"I wouldn't have gotten expelled," Katie grumbled.

"Uh huh," Ira said flatly. "Remind me how many disciplinary reports you have against you from disrespecting superior officers, arguing with superior officers, and disobeying direct orders? Not to mention, oh I don't know, applying and attending under a false identity with paperwork you forged?"

"Yeah well—"

"Plus you were gonna punch him."

"Was not!"

"As someone who has had the urge to punch Iverson on multiple occasions, you were," Ira folded his hands on his desk. "Katie, I'm not gonna try to convince you to drop this. I've tried and failed. But if you want to keep your head down and skirt under the radar, you have to actually keep your head down."

"I know," Katie groaned and pushed her glasses up her nose. "But come on, how has he not pissed you off? You should be as angry as I am! He keeps saying it's pilot error! Shiro would—"

"I know exactly what my husband is capable of, Katie," Ira cut her off. She deflated.

"Sorry," she mumbled.

"You're angry and grieving, I get it, I have experience with angry teenagers," Ira replied. "And of course I'm angry. I never said I haven't punched Iverson. Just that you shouldn't. Just…go to bed. Try to work with your team instead of spending all your time trying to find aliens."

Katie's eyes widened. "How did you…?"

Ira smirked. "I know everything. Go to bed, Katie."

Katie groaned but nodded and left the room. Ira watched her go, knowing damn well she wouldn't go to bed. But he let her have this.

He tried to return to his work, but not even a few minutes later, he heard Iverson on the intercom.

"Attention, students. This is not a drill. We are on lockdown! Security situation Zulu Niner. Repeat: All students are to remain in barracks until further notice."

Zulu niner? But that meant…