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It was cinematic–quite beautiful, really. It would have made a lovely shot in a tragedy movie–a travesty in itself that it wasn’t. Because it certainly was beautiful. And yet, not at all the death Doctor Newton Geiszler deserved.
He deserved a better death–whether that be dying old and peaceful and happy with the average American statistics of a wife–one that wasn’t a Kaiju brain–two-point-five kids and a dog or a cat and at least two grandchildren, or maybe he’d even pack up and move back to Berlin–back home , overseas and far away from here and everything that happened here. Or if it was better to go out in a blaze of glory at his ripe young age because, in the grand scheme of everything, Newton hadn’t really started living yet. He’d gone to school and graduated and gotten six doctorates from MIT and taught at the exact same school, sure, but then he’d gotten thrown into was from joining the Jaegar Academy and had his mind twisted and corrupted so beyond comprehension that the Precursors were just. . . acting at this point. Newton hadn’t been Newton in a long time. It’d been the Precursors, for ten years, it’d been eldritch aliens connected to a Hivemind and Hermann hadn’t noticed.
Maybe that’s how they ended up here.
“Newton.” Hermann says, eyes wide and mouth dropped as he spoke. War raged around them and, for once, Hermann didn’t care. “please.”
Newton’s hand shook, the gun in his hand being visual proof of that. He’d been able to lock them up for now, been able to take control even after they’d escaped the chair in the cell they’d been held in for who knows how long. His shoulders shook too, probably in an effort to keep down powerful beings that were over two hundred and thirty million years old, going off of dinosaurs which Hermann had taken up research on after Newt’s explanation after the first initial Drift, while he had control of his own body, not knowing how long said freedom would last. He hadn’t had his own say in what happened to him in possibly over a decade, at the very least the ten years that defined one, not even when the Precursors had forced him into Lasik eye surgery to fix his one damaged eye, whether from faulty Drift, incompatible Drift partners or just the fact of Drifting with a homicidal alien in the first place was unclear. Hermann suspected it was a little of all of them, but he leaned a lot into the second one. He also remembers Newt’s nose randomly starting to bleed, which he’d chalked up to the elevator fight they’d had before all this–Shao Industries felt like a lifetime ago now–but now he knew it was because aliens had had their slimy hands inside his best friend’s brain for the better half of the pasr decade. Ten years. Ten years, Newt had lost to them. He’d probably have rather lost his life, but Hermann couldn’t have that. What’s ten years to a hopeful rest of a lifetime, right?
“ Den Mund halten .” Newt snapped, the gun still dangerously pointed at Hermann, shaking with exhaustion, fear, and absolutely fear.
“Newton,” Hermann says again, holding one hand up and looking his friend in the eyes, in hopes that maybe somewhere he could reach him and his more . . . rational side , and not the one that believed that he was responsible for mass genocide and had–or worse, needed –to die for it. “give me the gun.” he continues slowly.
“ Den Mund halten, Hemann.” Newt spits again. “You knew it was always going to end this way.”
“Newton, no .” Hermann responds in the same intensity. “We have an entire team of scientists–a whole research team now–dedicated to stopping these things. You’d love it. Them. You’d be a great head scientist for them, being the most well-respected Kaiju biologist, after all. You’re like a celebrity to them.”
“I don’t want to be a celebrity anymore, don’t you get it ? I don’t want anything to do with the Kaiji and I most definitely, certainly, even, am not the most well-respected. I’m probably not respected at all anymore, Hermann! Because all you’re going to do is stick me in another cell and study my brain until I die.”
“I’ve arranged for that not to happen, thank you.” Hermann sounds offended. Quite frankly, he kind of was. What did Newton take him for? “We all know what you’ve been through. You’ve even been cleared of all charges.”
“That doesn’t mean people are just going to quit pointing their fingers and whispering terrorist about me. You think I don’t hear it? I see what I did in my nightmares, Hermann, except it’s me and not Them .” the gun lowers a little, still pointed at Hermann, still shaking, only dropped slightly. Newton, still on edge, speaks quieter now. “You know it had to end this way. Irony, right? Head Kaiju biologist and mad scientist to be swallowed whole by them to save the world, huh?”
“Newton, for crying out loud, you are not mad .” Hermann retorts. “You are a good man, Newton Geiszler, and you must fight back . You must stop them, you must –”
But it was apparently the wrong wording.
“I am fighting back, Hermann, so hard, in fact. I am stopping them. It’s the only way–you know that. You’ve heard them. They don’t want to be understood, and I think that’s why they took me. I dedicated my life to understanding them, you know? And that was my first mistake. I got myself into this mess, and now I have to get the world out of it.”
Hermann blinked at Newton’s suggestion. “Are you suggesting you are the reason the Kaiju invaded Earth in the first place?”
“What? No!” Newton blinked. “But you knew , I think. I think we all always knew. My first impression at the ‘Dome, back when we were just the fresh faces and the research team–before we were Hermann and Newton to everyone? I think we all knew–I knew he was giving me The Look . And you heard the Things–what they said. They’ll leave for good if they get me.”
“Newton, they’re aliens. They’re lying . They’re in their head. Listen to me , not Them!”
“But that’s the point , Hermann!” Newton snaps again. “They’re in my head ! They’re not lying , and I’m the only one that can tell you that for sure! And if I don’t do it now–” he stops and takes a deep breath, unclicks the gun and throws it far away from the both of them. It’s clear by then that Newton had never had any intention of shooting him. No intentions, and Hermann hadn’t seen it. He’d thought Newton would shoot him so that he would be able to do his thing, but . . .
He was really bad at seeing things, wasn’t he? First the changes in his best friend, and then believing his confidant and lab partner would shoot him, here and now, in the middle of a raging war around them, while on a rooftop, the night sky a beautiful, clear shade of midnight blue and black, stars glittering around it. It was cinematic, like he’d thought earlier, a mix between a peaceful ending and one of Newton’s wretched, ironic, chaotic cheesy monster movies he loved so much.
“- Auf Wiedersehen ,” Newton says quietly. “ Es war schön, dich kennenzulernen .”
“Newton, NO–!”
But it was too late. Newton had taken enough steps back to freefall off of the rooftop, and Hermann felt like that dumb webbed hero Newton liked–Man-Spider? Web-Man? Hermann had been more interested in the scientific aspects rather than the character analysis and storylines–at watching it, at rushing as fast as he could with his cane clutched in his hand so tight he could feel his grip turning white, and yet he’d been too late.
Because Newton was gone and the ground had swallowed everything whole.
He swallowed.
"Es war auch schön, dich zu kennen." Hermann said to the ground. "Ich bin froh, dass ich dein Freund sein durfte."