Aftermath: A Pacific Rim: The Black Story

Chapter 2: The Child's Regret

Boy was the wonder of Sydney Base. However, he'd been a bit of a bother and an annoyance. His table manners were literally improving just two days ago however.

The kid used to get crumbs into places one wouldn't think crumbs could go. It was almost awe-inspiring. Ford had already semi-given up on trying to give the child a proper name. Taylor had thought about naming him, "Andrew."

"Andrew?" Hayley would say.

"Even I'm getting sick of calling him 'Boy.'" Taylor admitted, "Maybe later we'll figure this out, I hope..."

Boy had also taken an apparent interest in art. And Taylor had been thankfully wise enough to procure an entire wealth of crayons and colored pencils. That's so that the kid stops using vegemite and soup.

"And please don't use the soup." he'd say in a mix of compassion and annoyance.

He also gave Boy construction paper to deter the child from using the walls and floor for his canvases.

Mei herself couldn't resist the very tiny little thought Boy's earlier pieces had a unique...for lack of a better word: "Charm." His drawings mostly consisted of portraits of himself, Taylor and Hayley, and Atlas Destroyer, along with Mei herself.

The Travis siblings had taken to taping Boy's masterpieces to the walls of their quarters, and Boy had even given their father a few pieces.

It would remind him of Taylor and Hayley's own drawings of him, Brina...and Hunter Vertigo. This kid was amazing.

"Very kind of you, kid." Ford would say with a smile.

The K-scientists would give him pieces of chocolate after each time they examined him. Their tests were limited to simple blood work and X-rays.

Mei just knew Hayley would rip their heads off if they even thought about anything more...well, invasive. Hayley leaned hard into the "big sister" routine, now that she didn't have a Kaiju to fight every other hour.

Taylor would usually be "happy" to tell her how it feels to have a part-time annoying little sibling around, oftenly embarrassing her. Ford would find times to chuckle at all those times, remembering that some very specific things will never change.

"We've been trying to come up with a way to help him speak so he could talk physically." a scientist would say.

"It'd better not kill him." Hayley would say, giving death glares.

Taylor was beginning to warm up to him as well, too. For example, last week, he'd even taken Boy out into the city, though he'd made the kid wear sunglasses to hide his decidedly inhuman eye.

"Can't freak people out." Taylor would say.

The patch of scales on his face had reverted into pale skin, but his right eye's iris was still blood-red. Apparently, the excursion had gone well...that was until Boy had tried to catch a seagull...for lunch.

"No, Boy!" He shouted, "Don't eat that!"

Mei just couldn't bring herself to play the part of the cool aunt, however or whatever she was supposed to be to Boy in this "found family" she'd been pulled into.

It might've been easy for Hayley to see Boy as an adorable little tyke, but she hadn't seen him punch through the High Priestess's chest and crush her heart in his hand. It was far more disturbing than a little girl pulling a trigger at a live man.

It could either be the fact that Mei was witnessing it from her point of view, or maybe it was how Boy killed the High Priestess.

Maybe it was both.