Prologue

                                    

                                          
When I was a kid, whenever I'd feel small or lonely, I'd look up at the stars, wondering if there was life up there. Turns out I was looking in the wrong direction. When alien life entered our world, it was from deep beneath the Pacific Ocean—a fissure between two tectonic plates, a portal between dimensions: the breach. 

I was fifteen when the first Kaiju made land in San Francisco. By the time tanks, jets, and missiles took it down, six days and 35 miles later, three cities were destroyed, and tens of thousands of lives were lost. We mourned our dead, memorialized the attack, and moved on. Then, only six months later, the second attack hit Manila. The acid factor of the Kaiju blood created a toxic phenomenon named Kaiju blue. The third one hit Cabo, followed by the fourth. 

Then we learned this was not going to stop; this was just the beginning. We needed a new weapon. The world came together, pooling its resources and throwing aside old rivalries for the sake of the greater good. To fight monsters, we created monsters of our own. The Jaeger program was born. There were setbacks at first. The neural load to interface with a Jaeger proved too much for a single pilot, so a two-pilot system was implemented, with left hemisphere and right hemisphere pilot control. 

We started winning—Jaegers stopping Kaijus everywhere. But the Jaegers were only as good as their pilots, and so Jaeger pilots turned into rock stars. Danger turned into propaganda, and Kaijus into toys. We got really good at it. Winning. Then... then it all changed.

There are things you can't fight, acts of god. You see a hurricane coming, you have to get out of the way. But when you're in a Jaeger, suddenly, you can fight the hurricane. You can win.