Work Text:
Hong Kong is a city of lights and colors that still manages to remain standing despite the attacks, and they barely have a chance to see it.
The pilots have to stay close and stay sharp, but at least they have downtime. Entire days where there's nothing that they can do except train and wait. It used to be months, but even what they have now is a luxury that Newt and Hermann haven't had in years.
One shatterdome is about the same as all the others, with the only exception being which commanding officer is pestering them for results that they might not be able to deliver. If someone transported their lab from Hong Kong to Lima, it would probably take them several months to notice, and even then only because something like the air conditioning breaking would make them realize the different climate.
It's a shame, because Hong Kong is a beautiful city. Newt loves the neon, all so busy and in your face, ever present in the only parts of town that he gets to go to, where less savory elements make their dealings and he might find things that he can't get through legitimate means. He feels like he might come to belong there, if he had a chance of interacting with people socially, rather than only about work.
They made a choice. Some people choose to close their eyes and pretend that this isn't happening. Some people want to punch the Kaiju into the ground. And some people really want to understand them, knowing that that's the only way for them to get out of this.
And they're so close to the finish line now. Hong Kong is the last shatterdome, the last hope of doing something that might work, rather than burying their heads in the sand and pretending that a wall is going to stop anything. Either they'll fail, and every city like this, every island and every coastal city of the Pacific is going to disappear, and then even the more distant lands until humanity is gone. Or they'll find a solution, and he'll get to live the rest of his life in a beautiful city that he actually gets to see.
He knows which result he's hoping for. And he's willing to do anything to get it, no matter what he might have to sacrifice along the way to get there.