Chapter 1
It has been five years since the kaiju invasion was stopped in its tracks. 5 years since Marshall Stacker Pentecost and Chuck Hansen sacrificed themselves to save the world. 5 years since Righley Beckett and Mako Mori went to take the fight to the Precursors and the Kaiju’s realm, seeing the abject horror and the masses of monstrosities lined up prepared to invade; they destroyed the Rift and sealed the path the Kaiju were taking into the Earth Sphere.
Humanity was not idle the last five years, they were not sitting down awaiting the next great disaster. In the years since the Shatterdomes were rebuilt, the Jaeger program refunded, new Jaegers and projects developed. The wall project was deemed idiotic and a waste of funds by the masses and was abandonned. There was a political shift as the politicians that had tried to abandon the masses at the coasts to head inland from the kaiju threat were removed from office. New politics grew and were elected and across the world Governments shifted control to the next generation. The world was finding an uneasy peace, but the one unanimous consensus is that repairing, maintaining, improving, and expanding the Jaeger Program was imperative. Even if the world was never invaded by the kaiju again they were exceedingly adaptable and useful. In the years since, Jaegers have been a stellar help in search and rescue missions, in all manner of natural disasters; their radiation shielding made them excellent aid in one instance where there was a nuclear melt down at a power plant. They were able to remove and contain the hazard and prevent a full blown ecological disaster that hadn’t been seen since the kaiju blue phenomenon.
Old jaegers were rebuilt and refurbished, Cherno Alpha and Crimson Typhoon were among those resurrected. The pilots miraculously survived the Hong Kong attack. Their Jaegers upgraded and prepared for war once more. New Jaegers were built, Romeo Blue, Horizon Brave, Coyote Tengo, Tactic Ronin were all old defunct Jaegers that were reconstructed based on their original designs but with modern upgrades. Other Jaegers were in development, the program had expanded beyond the two pilot systems as technology evolved in the era of peace that followed the Kaiju War.
Hercules Hansen was now the new Marshall of the PPDF. Tendo Choi remained as the second in command and lead technician at the Hong Kong Shatterdome. Today was an auspicious day, although none yet knew it. In the world of political change a fair amount of Government programs that had once been covert and confidential had been brought to light. Some brought themselves to light before the public were able to pry them from the dark. One such program was meeting Marshall Hansen today. An organization known as Monarch had come to the Shatterdome today.
Dr Ishiro Serizawa was going over a powerpoint presentation with them. He seemed irate, as if he was forced to come forward about this as a last resort. The presentation was about titans, not kaiju, but beings natural to this Earth who had been contained and kept in the dark for generations. Serizawa sounded as if he had given this lecture before, and indeed he had, to dozens of politicians, and world leaders as they were given the clearance to know about such things. But now the world, clearance or not, was about to learn about the existence of Titans, and that the Kaiju from another world weren’t all that humanity had to think about.
“You mean to tell me there are monsters as big as Kaiju just roaming around? And you expect us to believe this? How do you explain half of this? Like this… this attack in Las Vegas, and Honolulu, to the San Francisco disaster? You mean to tell me this took place during the first Kaiju attack and expect it to not have received news attention?” Hercules Hansen exclaimed. Taken aback by what would have seemed to be the most ridiculous proposition he had ever heard, if it wasn’t for this man's clearance. Serizawa’s meeting had not been organized through secretaries and formal office bureaucracy. Several members of the UN council for PPDF affairs AND the current sitting Prime Minister of Australia had called to confirm that Herc would be free for this meeting whether he wanted to or not. He was not used to being given orders at this point, there were few people he had to answer to. “You see sir while we have the majority of Titan’s contained in a hibernative state the Kaiju attacks had awoken a handful and more importantly disturbed the natural balance of the Earth. The First kaiju, you call him Trespasser, was not the first kaiju to have arrived from beyond the rift. There was a nuclear disaster in Japan, it was precipitated by a Kaiju appearance. We haven't named it because by the time we arrived there was little of it left. A creature known as a M.U.T.O had destroyed it in an attempt to harvest nuclear radiation from a power plant. It was a cocoon from South America that had hatched due to humanities greed, drilling into the Earth for natural resources. The Cocoon later hatched into a full grown Adult male Muto, who made his way to Honolulu, then to San Francisco. It had a mate, a second cocoon we found in South America and transported to what you would know most as Area 51 in Nevada. When the Kaiju Trespasser arrived we were able to evacuate Honolulu, Las Vegas and San Francisco under the premise that they were high risk locations for the landfall of this creature. Due to the large-scale evacuation public spread of this event was kept to a minimum. Most things of substance were easily covered up, or fell to conspiracy websites which when mixed and muddled in with flat Earth and faked moon landing stories they fell to obscurity. Much like your reaction even among conspiracy theorists, how could the Government cover up Giant Monsters in a world where Kaiju were a very public threat.”
“Stacker Pentacost had a Daughter who was at the Battle of San Francisco, at the first incursion. She was a Pilot for an F-22 at the time. She is now one of the pilots for the New Coyote Tengo. She would have shared this information with her father and in turn I would have heard something about it.” Hercules interrupted, the disbelief growing in leaps and bounds.
“I will get to that. But I will continue, please refrain from questions until the end.” Serizawa replied, and then continued on the presentation like a well rehearsed performance. “The notable thing about the San Francisco disaster is that the military was evacuated once Trespasser was marked for nuclear detonation. And while it is true that two separate Nuclear bombs were used that day, only one was intentionally done so. One nuclear bomb had been abducted and carried into the city by the Male Muto. It was to be a food source for his Mate and their full egg sac full of radiation eating offspring. The Kaiju Trespasser we now know was sent as a scout, as a first wave type soldier. We believe in addition to gauging the strength of Humanity and our ability to resist their invasion, it was going to eradicate these two Muto. The Muto could feed off of the bodies of fallen kaiju in a similar way to the way they feed off of radiation, and they reproduce exceptionally fast. However nature has a balance, the reason creatures such as the Muto did not overcome the Earth long ago is because of other Titans. There are Alpha Titan’s much like Alpha creatures of any species they are able to maintain and keep a balance among these Titans. Only one such Titan is loose and not under containment, luckily he has exhibited a reluctance to interact with Humanity, his specific species had also had a long documented mythology of being beneficent to humanity, once worshipped as old Gods. We call this Alpha Titan Gojira…”
“God...zilla?” Tendo stuttered back, only half paying attention to the presentation, looking up as Serizawa presented a photograph of a giant Spined Dinosaur like creature, breathing fire upon the Kaiju Trespasser, underfoot was some other creature that Tendo did not recognize, and similarly a third beast was latched onto Godzilla’s back, attacking the Titan as he struggled against all three monsters. The photo was grainy, as if taken on an old mechanical camera. Serizawa let out a heavy sigh, once again the name was mishandled but it was common. Godzilla was officially documented as the name, Serizawa was the only one still holding on to the traditional Japanese phonetics of the name. Serizawa continued.
“Digital and electronic means of communication were rendered inept, the Muto has a built in EMP as a biological weapon. I believe you experienced a similar weapon from the Kaiju Leatherback in Hong Kong.This photo was taken by Monarch personnel on an old analog Camera, no electronics, so I apologize for the image quality. I assure you Gojira is real. He was able to mortally wound the two Muto, The analog Atomic Bomb was dropped to clear away most of their massive corpses, Gojira, not the Bomb finished off the Kaiju. Gojira can also feed and absorb radiation but has never required the processed radiation Humanity has utilized. The bomb the Muto’s had captured was detonated to burn away their nest, and the second was an attempt to stop the Kaiju and clear the evidence of the two adult Muto. Gojira and Trespasser survived and the battle was brief. Trespasser fell after fighting both the Muto’s, getting hit with the nuclear bomb, and then torn apart by Gojira. The Kaiju was already public knowledge, that was not something we could cover up, nor would we want to, the Kaiju was clearly a threat beyond what we had studied or prepared for. They were not a part of the natural order. They were an imminent threat to which the world needed to be prepared and ready for. We made sure the classified knowledge that there were multiple Kaiju incursions and we should expect more was handed to the appropriate public authorities.” Serizawa clicked off the slide show. The screen left presentation mode and was just locked on the last slide. An image of this Godzilla fighting the Mutos and the Kaiju.
Marshal Hansen and Tendo Choi looked less skeptical now, and more concerned that they were only just now learning of this, but more importantly the numbers were starting to add up in their heads. The question that begged to be asked now was Why tell them now?
“That is where your program came from. Technically the entirety of the PPDF was a subset of Monarch, the organization who studies and monitors Titan activity. Muto was an acronym that originally stood for Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism. Due to our experience with such massive beasts we were given full authority for the Jaeger Program. Marshall Pentecost as well as his daughter were Monarch representatives. I believe you know Sabrina Pentecost as one of your leading recruits for the pilot for the refurbished Coyote Tengo Jaeger. She progressed through the program via superior recommendation as you know. It wasn’t just her name that carried weight. While Stacker’s son is a rebellious youth as you may well know, his daughter has been one of the leading researchers within our organization. But I digress…”
“This is a lot to take in. Very hard to believe all of this. Where was this Godzilla when Hong Kong was attacked? Or when Category 5 Slattern erupted through the Breach?”
“Specifically Godzilla had been at the Breach.” Dr. Graham chimed in. “While the facilities of the PPDF have been registering single incursions until the first double at the Battle of Hong Kong. However there have been double incursions for some time. The beings on the other side of the Breach had been sending smaller scout creatures to draw Godzilla away to send out their larger main Kaiju. Godzilla is attuned with the world at large, the entire ecosystem. Each Kaiju that came across was a threat to the balance of the world. He would track and chase and hunt the first Kaiju he sensed every time. Like a tiger defending its territory. Godzilla is an intelligent creature. But a beast at heart nonetheless. While we believe he may be capable of some kind of higher intelligence, the Precursors were effectively distracting him to send through their larger kaiju to attack us. In most cases by the time he had caught up to or defeated the scout Kaiju they had sent to distract him the Jaeger program had often done their part to remove the bigger threat. Inadvertently you were helping keep Godzilla’s existence secret by removing his reason to come to interact with humanity” “Gojira protects the natural balance of the Earth. However it is time to bring this knowledge to light. The political turmoil surrounding the fallout of the Pacific Rim events has made the discovery of these concealed Titan’s… as well as the funding for the Monarch program to keep them contained; an imminent public discussion. We have determined that it would be better to control the release of this information to curtail or prevent public outcry or fear.”
“And why tell us first?” Hansen responded.
“Well you are technically a subset of Monarch. But more importantly the PPDF and the Jaeger program are the world’s heroes. If we are to avoid mass panic, it would be best if we presented this together. It would show that we are in control over the situation.”
“Are we in control Mr. Serizawa?”
“Doctor. Mr. Serizawa was my Father. But to answer your question. No. Gojira is in control. He is not just an Alpha Titan, He is the Alpha Titan. For the Earth.”
“So how many of these things are there?”
“To the clearance level which you two are being upgraded. There are 23 known Titans, 20 either in containment or hibernation.”
“And the other three?”
“Gojira patrolls the Earth using warm water currents of the oceans to stay away from direct human contact. He often disappears, the running theory is into the Hollow Earth. A unique subterranean ecosystem where we believe life on Earth, and the Titans specifically originated. We believe the Hollow Earth provides many ways into and out of the planet, allowing for some Titans to move great distances at a fraction of the time they would require going over the surface. The other two Titans that are active are Mosura and Kong. Mosura very nearly made it to Hong Kong during the attack. We found the egg in the forests of China. The egg hatched when the two Kaiju came through the Breach. Although she is just in an infant stage she was prepared to fight, we believe she has a symbiotic relationship with Goijira. Ancient human cave paintings and sculpture depict the two of them fighting alongside one another against other Titans and threats. The Larva has retreated back to it’s temple deep within the inland of China’s wilderness. The last Titan is Kong. Kong is another Alpha. However Kong and his species has largely been isolated to Skull Island in the South Pacific Ocean. Gojira and Kong’s species were ancient rivals according to our research. The Isolation and vastness of the ocean is the only reason Kong did not intervene directly in the Kaiju invasion. He did however come into contact when a Category One Kaiju initially emerged. We believe Gojira permitted it to come to shore on Skull Island to observe Kong’s reaction. The Kaiju was rapidly dispatched. It appears that Gojira does not wish to initiate conflict with Kong, but there is some form of unsteady truce so long as Kong remains on the island.”
“So now the Alpha Titan is a diplomat?”
“Less of a Diplomat and more of a King”
“Great. Godzilla. King of Th-”
Suddenly alarms were blaring. Sensor alarms had detected a new breach portal opening. Tendo Choi looked in horror as he took in the data that was now pouring over the screen before him. “Sir the Breach has not reopened. There are Multiple breaches of differing size and strength opening around the world. Tokyo Bay, The Arctic Ocean, New York City, The Gulf of Mexico, Hong Kong. Multiple Kaiju signatures detected… Several instances of massive radiation spikes, unknown energy sources. These portals aren't stable, I can’t get a good read on any of these. We need Jaegers on the ground now.”
“Deploy everyone. I would prefer no Jaeger go alone. Serizawa, where is your Titan?”
“Last reading had him in a trench off the coast of Japan.”