(As the chopper escaped into the distance, SARAH, HUI and SOLDIERS drive deeper into the city, before encountering a wrecked building blocking the path. The party, consisting of SARAH, armed with a shotgun, HUI, armed with a pistol, and eight soldiers, three Filipinos and five Americans, armed with military gear, escape to a nearby building. In the distance, the kaiju can be seen to be still ransacking the city.)

HUI: So. What now?

(SARAH climbs on top of some rubble. We see her view of the Shatterdome, heavily mauled, most of the buildings around it destroyed. CUT to the other ten soldiers (six Filipinos, four Americans) summiting another pile of rubble. One of them looks out at the Shatterdome from a different angle.)

SARAH: Now?

(CUT back to SARAH.)

SARAH: Now we fight back.

(Pacific Rim theme commences on strings instruments. It seems rather peaceful in the helicopter late at night, as it approaches the Filipino hideout in Mindanao. Everyone is mostly relaxed. CUT to them landing, they land, get off, and CUT to them meeting some Filipino military leaders. The doctors take MAKO away for treatment, and RALEIGH, as if in a haze, passes out in a bed. He is shirtless for the fangirls. CUT to blackness, and end Pacific Rim theme)

(CUT to RALEIGH's room, where NEWTON stumbles in. (0200 HOURS, MINDANAO, PHILIPPINES, says the text at the bottom of the screen), and NEWTON is clearly exhausted. His nose is bleeding, and he passes out on the top bunk. CUT to RICKY, who is asleep. CUT to GOTTLIEB, asleep at his desk, surrounded by many pages of dense scratch work on complex mathematics. CUT to Manila, where SARAH, HUI, and the soldiers have made a campfire in the destroyed remnants of the office section of the Shatterdome. CUT to NEWTON, who has bled a little on his pillow. He is deeply asleep. CUT to the SWAT guy from earlier, dead on the sidewalk. CUT to MAKO, who looks rather sickly and small on the hospital bed, especially with her arm and shoulder destroyed. The television can be heard in the background.)

ANNOUNCER: There are some people who remember that when the going gets tough, you've got to get your head up, and keep going until the job gets done. (CUT to a view of the television) Now on, These are our Heroes.

(CUT to a more zoomed-out view of MAKO's room. She is the only one there.)

(MINDANAO, PHILIPPINES. 800 HOURS)

RALEIGH: (monologuing internally through a series of cuts, as he showers and stuff) I used to feel like I always won, in the end. Like even if the world went to hell, we'd figure out something. (CUT to Manila, which is now mostly leveled. The kaiju almost seems to be losing interest.) But it really did this time. And we don't have a clue how to stop it. (He exits, fully dressed.) Sometimes, you gotta keep going anyway.

(CUT to RALEIGH meeting with GOTTLIEB, who is awake and working.)

I'm gonna go back to DC. Lead some kind of resistance. Help out somehow.

GOTTLIEB: In all honesty, sir, you're the president-

RALEIGH: And I do what I need to. I'm gonna need a Jaeger.

GOTTLIEB: Sterling Phoenix could take weeks to repair-

RALEIGH: DC could be rubble by then. Is there another one I can use?

GOTTLIEB: Of course not-

(CUT to RICKY, leaning on the side of a doorway like a sassy rebel)

RICKY: Actually, there is. And I'll take him there if I can be his copilot.

GOTTLIEB: Completely out of the question.

RICKY: Okay. Got any other pilots around? Mako might not even survive weeks.

GOTTLIEB: You're not an actual pilot-

RALEIGH: Okay, what the hell did you do?

RICKY: It was ten years ago.

(FLASHBACK SEQUENCE TO THE FIRST KAIJU WAR. Everything looks technicolor. RICKY is in a Jaeger capsule, but is clearly inside a compound, not a Jaeger. The compound looks like one of those "futuristic" command centers from old movies. All the computers are huge, for example.)

RICKY: (narrating) The government wanted to see if they could run a Jaeger remotely.

(CUT to a closeup of scientists, watching the sea. Pan the camera to see a hulking grey steel figure, moving through the sea. It doesn't look very advanced, and has no weapons. CUT back the command center, where a GENERAL and a SCIENTIST are walking towards young RICKY, inside his capsule)

GENERAL: Think it'll work?

SCIENTIST: Well, it's a bit like a drone, really. Should work the same way. In the end, we just moved the cockpit. It's much safer for the pilots, too.

GENERAL: I just still don't trust that kaijupattern stuff. We're here to fight these bastards, not copy them.

SCIENTIST: We do what we must. There's really no other way to defy the square-cube law.

(They stop. CUT to what they see: A young RICKY works piloting the jaeger. He is drifting with his copilot. The copilot is in a similar capsule, but on the other side of RICKY's cockpit, so we can't see him clearly. In front of them, screens show what the Jaeger sees: mostly ocean, but a metal pole is sticking out of the ground at an angle off to the side.)

SCIENTIST: Okay, Ricky. I'm going to need you to pick up the rebar. (While Ricky picks up the rebar, SCIENTIST addresses the GENERAL.) This is Ricardo Plaza, but we call him Ricky. He's one of our better candidates. Everything okay in there?

RICKY: Yeah.

GENERAL: Who's the other guy?

SCIENTIST: Doesn't know English, but Ricky can talk to him.

RICKY: His name's Omar. Free Syrian Army vet. (RICKY grunts as he hefts the rebar.) He doesn't like knowing what pork tastes like.

SCIENTIST: Okay, now take the rebar back to shore.

RICKY: Roger. (Ricky starts to walk. Everything is going well.)

GENERAL: It takes all kinds, I guess.

SCIENTIST: Obviously.

(There is a lull in conversation.)

RICKY: Okay, got a problem.

SCIENTIST: What is it?

RICKY: I'm getting a memory. Weird guy, black hat. Neither of us remember him.

SCIENTIST: It's something subconscious resurfacing. You should both probably address this now.

RICKY: (eyes wide) I really, really don't want to do that.

SCIENTIST: You're going to end up disrupting the connection-

(CUT outside: The Jaeger impales itself on the rebar.)

SCIENTIST: (looking at the video screen) What the hell are you doing?

GENERAL: Is that supposed to happen?

RICKY: No!

SCIENTIST: Address the memory before this gets any more out of control!

RICKY: I am not going to do that!

(CUT outdoors, he Jaeger is walking towards shore. The command center can be seen on the shoreline.)

SCIENTIST: What the hell was that, Ricky? We don't have that many of these!

RICKY: I…I don't know.

SCIENTIST: That's it, I'm taking you both out of the drift. We'll bring it into the hangar by copter.

GENERAL: You must understand how this looks, Doctor.

SCIENTIST: Trust me that it was a fluke. (He walks towards a panel, as if to input commands. A massive pole of metal rebar crashes through the ceiling, wrecking the panel and much of the command center. CUT outside, where the jaeger is wandering/rampaging, Godzilla-like, around the military facility that launched the Jaeger. Machine gun shots and chopper sounds can be heard. End FLASHBACK.)

RICKY: A lot of people died.

GOTTLIEB: Thousands. You know how hard it was to cover that up?

RICKY: Cover it up?

GOTTLIEB: Yes. The Pan Pacific Defense Corps thought it would be terrible for morale. (to RALEIGH) Even you didn't find out, apparently.

RALEIGH: But you really are a pilot.

GOTTLIEB: No, he's an incompetent.

RICKY: Drifting from a distance is different! It wasn't my fault!

GOTTLIEB: It is impossible for it to be different. You hallucinated, and then you failed!

RICKY: I saw what I saw!

GOTTLIEB: Regardless, we cannot afford you failing us again. Not at a time like this.

RALEIGH: I'm talking him with me.

GOTTLIEB: No! Are you mad?

RALEIGH: The world's mad, Dr. Gottlieb.(He turns to leave.)

GOTTLIEB: That doesn't justify our own madness in the slightest-

RALEIGH: Bye. And good luck! (RALEIGH and RICKY exit.)

(GOTTLIEB puts his hands on his desk.)

GOTTLIEB: Gottverdammt.