Axis Mundi

*"Place between places."*
―Keiko Randa[src]
The **Axis Mundi** is a world between worlds where time moves differently and Titans roam freely. It has been described as a series of tunnels and pockets beneath the Earth. It resembles that of Earth, with parts of its ecosystem stemming from Hollow Earth. Axis Mundi's location between Earth and Hollow Earth serves as a gateway for Titans and MUTOs to emerge on Earth through rifts generated by surges in gamma radiation. The gravitational pull from Earth and Hollow Earth causes time and space to distort. Inhabitants of Axis Mundi do not experience time the same as they do in either world.

## History

### Keiko Randa's Odyssey

#### Trapped In between

In 1955, Keiko and William Randa constructed a map to show every known Titan sighting since Monarch's inception. Bill grew frustrated as he tried to determine how the Titans appeared and disappeared. He watched an ant crawl through a hole in his paper and seemingly vanish. He realized the Titans used subterranean tunnels to move across the globe. He presented his theory to Keiko as the Titans underground being a realm beneath the Earth, inside of it, or alongside it. She thought it was crazy, but also brilliant.

Bill and Keiko were determined to prove their tunnel system theory. Their best chance came four years later, in 1959, when they and Lee Shaw traveled to the Kazakh countryside to investigate an abandoned nuclear power plant. They discovered that something had absorbed all the radiation that was released when the plant exploded. They found an Endopede nursery within the bedrock of the plant. Keiko and Lee went to study the incubated creatures, but the unstable ground awakened the monsters. They attacked Keiko and Lee, who struggled to pull themselves back to the ledge where Bill waited. Despite their best efforts, the Endopedes overtook Keiko and yanked her into the rift.

Keiko survived her fall when she landed in what she would later name Axis Mundi. She survived by herself for what she believed to be days.

#### Operation Hourglass

In 1962, Lee led a Monarch reconnaissance mission through the rifts called "Operation Hourglass." By this point, Monarch knew they needed a Titan to be lured out of the rift for the portal to be stable enough for the team to enter. They followed the Ion Dragon into the rift. However, the gravitational inversion created a vortex that caused a substantial amount of damage around the test site, which resulted in the reconnaissance pod crashing into Axis Mundi. Lee and the other two operatives buried their colleague, who did not survive the landing, before they attempted to make contact with the surface. Moments later, the Ion Dragon attacked the reconnaissance team, which resulted in Lee being the sole survivor. After a few weeks in the creatures' world, Lee was transported back to the surface through another rift.

Lee came through the rift in 1982 in Japan and was confronted with the harsh realization that time moved differently in Axis Mundi. It had not been a few weeks, as he once believed, but twenty years.

During one of her 57 days within Axis Mundi, Keiko found the remnants of Operation Hourglass and used the tools she had to reconfigure the Gamma Radiation Simulator. She sent a steady signal to Bill and Lee so they could rescue her.

#### Duel of Axis Mundi

By 2015, Lee Shaw became obsessed with closing all the rifts so the Titans could never come through again. He held the belief that he was helping Godzilla protect humans and Titans from each other. He succeeded in closing a rift in Alaska, though it resulted in the radiation traveling and intensifying in other rifts. Lee returned to the Kazakhstan power plant and detonated charges inside. May Olowe-Hewitt ran across the floor to find Cate Randa. She tripped over the debris and fell through the rift. An Endopede came through the collapsing rift, though it ultimately dragged Cate and Lee into the rift.

Cate, Lee, and May survived their fall and woke up in Axis Mundi. They eventually reunite before finding Keiko still alive and unchanged due to Axis Mundi's gravitational and temporal distortion. They then use the Monarch reconnaissance pod and the Gamma Radiation Simulator to lure a Titan that can stabilize the rift as it passes through, only to be attacked by the Ion Dragon. However, Godzilla responds to the Gamma Radiation Simulator and enters Axis Mundi before defeating the Ion Dragon in a brief yet brutal battle. Once the dismembered Ion Dragon is thrown through the rift, the portal to the surface stabilizes, and Lee sacrifices himself so that Keiko, Cate, and May can return to their world safely.