The Monsters In Men: Pacific Rim [On Indefinite Hiatus]

Chapter 1: Bad News

Chapter 1: Bad News

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Twenty-four weeks in Jaeger Academy.

That’s what every Ranger hopeful signs up for.

Sometimes, they don’t even end up as Rangers. Rangers are what Jaeger Pilots are called in the Pan Pacific Defense Corps.’ ranking system. The hopeful Jaeger Pilot volunteers who don’t make the cut were either sent back home or re-assigned to other positions in various Shatterdomes in order to maximize what they had learned.

Everyone wanted to be part of something big. The first attack happened in 2013 by Kaiju codename: Trespasser. It was devastation which had racked San Francisco and its neighboring cities that lasted for six days before being taken down by three tactical nuclear weapons. It was the biggest mess ever made yet in history, which paved way to an even bigger cleanup crew. And then the Jaeger Program was born, and it was the biggest thing yet.

Most who enroll in Jaeger Academy were young people who have been victims of Kaiju attacks as children. There were also a handful of recruits in their forties who had found their greater purpose after seeing so much destruction and death by the intractable force of gargantuan alien life forms. Many who entered the Academy were those seeking revenge for their deceased families, but those who remained were those who had harnessed their bitterness over their loss and strife.

Nathan Gerard Aguinaldo was among the first batch that arrived in Kodiak, Alaska where Jaeger Academy was stationed. Jaeger Academy had no fixed “school years” as conventional institutions did; they recruit in large batches, and teach in large batches. Jaeger Academy would teach about three to four batches at a time during a good year. That was the height of the Jaeger Program.

The year was 2021. More than a dozen Jaegers have been decommissioned and sent to Oblivion Bay, the “burial ground” of the mechanical giants that were beyond repair. There were still five Mark IV Jaegers which haven’t seen action yet, and were waiting for new pilots.

That was what Nathan was here for. Two relatively new Jaegers were stationed in the Lima, Peru Shatterdome; another three in the Hong Kong, China Shatterdome. If he were lucky, at the end of twenty-four weeks, he would be flying to either of these locations. He wanted Hong Kong. It was closer to Manila. He would be able to oversee his country of birth as close as he could get.

Nathan came alone. At twenty-three, he had a destiny to chase. He could remain within the safe walls of the Canadian containment area, where a fraction of his remaining countrymen chose to relocate. The United Nations had given citizens of every nation closest to the Pacific nearly free rein to choose wherever they wished to rehome, anywhere around the globe.

Nathan’s family had decided to move to Canada for good soon after Kaiju codename: Hundun had struck Manila in 2014. Their last name gave them special privileges, to say the least. Nathan always had the strangest feeling when some of his family would parade their last name like a golden ticket.

He was young, only sixteen when Hundun hit. His family, like all families, wanted to survive. He never thought much about it then, about being someone special, simply because he was of the Aguinaldo clan. Now, it left a hollow in him. There was a mixture of pride, disgust, and an echoing emptiness.

He attended college like any dutiful son as he watched some of his friends fly to Jaeger Academy. He graduated from college to see the same friends return from Jaeger Academy, having failed the final cut as Rangers. He watched them continue living on with broken dreams. So as soon as his diploma was handed to him, he faced his family with the decision: to enter Jaeger Academy.