"If you want to beat them, you have to understand them"

After sitting through two awesome screenings of Pacific Rim, I found it easier to explain the circumstances surrounding my recent predicament, to shed some much-needed light on the matter and to finally nullify the Breach one and for all.

All of us have our own kaijus to fight. They can come in any form, any number, but one thing's certain: they are going to be big. 

To fight monsters, you have to create monsters.

Mine came in the form of gigantic mecha, the Jaeger Program.

Jaeger technology was shaky at first, and setback after setback caused me to rethink my strategy, to rethink everything. Then it dawned: I had to shed my current, childish skin and become a more matured individual, geared to the rigours of the real world in order to better fight these giant monsters. The upgrades were made, the unneeded parts were locked away, and the Jaeger was launched into battle.

For a time, we started winning. Battle after battle, kaijus fell to rocket punches, AKM missiles and plasmacasters. It seemed like the new upgrades were working, although the reactor whined as the turbines spun around the improved housing to promote bolstered output and efficiency. Danger turned to propaganda, monsters turned to toys. For a while, everything was good, peachy, under control. 

Then one day, everything changed.

The first Category 6 kaiju made landfall six months into the war and decimated an entire colony in less than an hour. Six hours later, the upgraded Jaeger still could not defeat the gigantic beast, a monster which had intimately learnt of all its combat moves, weapons and techniques. The kaiju was always two steps ahead of the Jaeger, and after 8 intense hours of battle, the Jaeger finally fell.

Desperately, I rebuilt the Jaeger, improved upon it and sent it out against the battered Category 6. It was finally brought down, but the another one came through the Breach only a few days later and decapitated the Jaeger. A replacement was fielded against the invader, and successfully repelled the attack, until a third Category 6 joined forces with the second one and obliterated the new Jaeger. When the fourth one came swimming through the Breach howling in its bloodcurdling treble, I realised this was not going to stop. I was losing Jaegers faster that I could replace them.

I could not win.

At the final Shatterdome in the heart of the capital, I made the decision to do one final push, the decisive, surgical strike to close the Breach once and for all. I looked at my options - there were not many. However, one part of the Shatterdome had remained locked and forgotten, until the key of desperation turned it open.

Outfitted with its original parts, the first Jaegar stomped into battle to face all of my kaijus, armed with seemingly obsolete weapons that would be effective against the giant beasts. However, the reactor hummed and pulsed with vigour and strength, completely at ease in its original housing and not whining to break free. 

The final battle. The last stand.

When the dust finally settled, nothing was left. Breach, kaiju, Jaeger: all were gone. The war was won, but at great cost. All that was left was the question: "Was it worth it?"

Pacific Rim references aside, I became someone I was not, someone I could never become in order to make that relationship work. I became a monster, became a machine modeled after some obscure, socially-accepted subroutine, in order to combat the kaijus that threatened my city for the better part of eight months. Perhaps I was blinded, too desperate for companionship that I dropped almost everything which constituted myself for her sake. Now I ask myself, "Was it worth it?"

To that I answer, "Does it matter anymore?."