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The entire world was watching Sydney. Billions of people, holding their breath, waiting to see if humanity's multi-trillion-dollar gamble would pay off.
Mutavore had made it ashore. Now the real test began.
"Eureka cannon locked on target," the weapons operator called out, his voice tight with concentration. The name came from ancient Greek - I have found it - the cry of discovery and triumph. Australians had claimed it as their own, a symbol of victory against impossible odds.
Time to see if they'd earned the right to use it.
"Fire," the general ordered, his eyes locked on the screens showing the wounded monster staggering toward their position.
The operator's hand came down on the firing control.
The main fortress of the Wall of Life had been built to house humanity's most powerful weapon - a laser pulse system powered by three Lifeline Reactors working in concert. Now that weapon came alive. Red light began gathering at the emission point, building, intensifying, the air around it shimmer with heat distortion. Energy containment fields strained to hold the building power, and even through reinforced bunker walls, people could feel the pressure change.
Mutavore felt it too. The creature suddenly went still, its blind head turning toward the wall like it could sense the death being prepared for it. Its ravaged body began thrashing, uncertainty breaking through alien instinct.
It roared - fear and fury mixing into something that made watching humans want to run.
"Firing."
WHOOMPH.
The red light vanished. A shockwave rippled outward from the release point, and then a beam of concentrated energy flashed across the distance between wall and monster faster than human eyes could track.
Mutavore's skull split in half.
The laser carved through bone and brain matter like they weren't even there, the excess energy continuing into the ocean beyond where it flash-boiled water for a hundred meters before dissipating. The superheated steam created a momentary void in the sea itself - physics catching up a second later with a CRACK that sounded like thunder.
Mutavore stood there for one frozen moment, half its head simply gone, before it started screaming.
The general's fist came down on his console. "YES! We got it!"
Around the world, people erupted. Cheering, crying, hugging strangers. The wall had worked. Humanity could survive behind barriers while the monsters died on the other side.
For about fifteen seconds, everyone believed it.
"Fire again!" the general ordered, riding high on adrenaline and victory. "Finish that thing!"
The operator's hands moved across his controls, then froze. Warning indicators flashed red across his display.
"Sir, we don't have enough power for another shot. The plasma bombardment drained too much from the reactors. We need at least three hours to recharge."
The general's triumph died instantly. "What? You said we had enough for two shots!"
"The plasma cannons used more than projected. But the target's mortally wounded - conventional weapons should be enough to finish it."
The general opened his mouth to give the order, then every alarm in the base started screaming at once.
Red lights. Sirens. The universal language of everything's gone wrong.
On the screens, Mutavore - missing half its skull, blue blood streaming from wounds that should have been fatal - suddenly charged.
Not toward the city. Toward the wall itself.
"No. Oh God, no." The general's face went white.
The monster hit the barrier at full speed. Its undamaged back ridge, covered in those bone spikes, slammed into reinforced concrete designed to withstand tactical nuclear strikes.
CRACK.
The entire wall shuddered. A fracture line appeared, spiderwebbing across the surface.
"It's trying to break through! Air support NOW!" The general was shouting into three channels at once, panic bleeding through his professional composure.
Mutavore hit the wall again. And again. Like some kind of berserk battering ram, using its body as a weapon even while plasma fire cooked its flesh and missiles tore chunks from its hide. Blue blood sprayed everywhere it touched, eating through concrete like acid.
BOOM.
The wall broke.
Mutavore stumbled through the gap, more corpse than creature at this point, but still moving toward the city beyond. Its body was charred black, flesh hanging in strips, nothing about it intact. But it was through.
Fighter jets were scrambling, pilots running for cockpits, crews loading weapons as fast as hands could move. Ten minutes, maybe fifteen before they could provide meaningful support.
Ten minutes for a dying Kaiju to destroy a city district.
Panic spread through Sydney like wildfire. Air raid sirens that hadn't been tested in months suddenly wailed to life. People ran for shelters that might not work, praying to gods they'd stopped believing in.
Then something appeared on the horizon.
The sound of helicopter rotors cut through the chaos. A shape emerged from the smoke and distance - sleek gray armor, wrist-mounted blade launchers, back-mounted jets that looked almost like wings, and that distinctive triangular reactor core burning white-hot in its chest.
Striker Eureka. The Mark-5 that was supposed to be retired. The Jaeger that wasn't supposed to be here.
Lars and Chuck Hansen had planned to leave for Shatterdome that morning, but they'd wanted to watch. Wanted to see if the wall could actually do what politicians promised. Both father and son had been vocal opponents of the Wall project - they believed Jaegers could protect humanity better than concrete and false hope.
They'd hoped to be proven wrong. Hoped that maybe humanity didn't need them anymore.
The wall had lasted two hours.
"Drop us," Lars ordered through the neural link, his voice and his son's overlapping in that eerie synchronization that came from years of drift compatibility.
The helicopters released their cables. Striker Eureka fell, and for a moment it looked like they were just dropping a giant robot to its death.
Then the back jets fired.
WHOOOOSH.
The Jaeger didn't fall - it flew, accelerating toward the staggering Kaiju with purpose and grace that something weighing thousands of tons had no right to possess. They crossed the distance in seconds, bringing both fists together overhead like a hammer.
WHAM.
The impact drove what was left of Mutavore's head straight down into the pavement, creating a crater deep enough to swallow cars. The monster's brutalized body finally gave up, nerves and muscles going slack all at once.
But the Hansens weren't done. Couldn't afford to be done.
Lars lifted Striker Eureka's left arm. A missile launcher deployed from the forearm, firing a projectile that hit the corpse and exploded into a cloud of blue powder. The freezing agent spread across Mutavore's body, flash-crystallizing the toxic blood before it could evaporate into the atmosphere or seep into the ground.
Containment. Protection. The work that came after killing, when you had to make sure the victory didn't poison everything you'd fought to protect.
The Hansens held position for another thirty seconds, making sure the creature was actually dead, before allowing themselves to relax in their conn-pod.
Around the world, people watched in silence. The wall had failed. The Jaeger had saved them.
And everyone knew what that meant for the future humanity had tried to build.
PLZ THROW POWERSTONES.