Long, Long Ago, 21st Century
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Something swam in the depths, a figure of immense might and proportions. It swam past sunken skyscrapers, the stripped-bare bones of mankind's arrogance. It weaved through what had been the downtown of Atami City, Shizuoka, Japan. The ocean rise from Second Impact swallowed most of the coast.
"- Sonar reports contact! Sonar reports contact! Estimate T-minus two minutes before engagement! All forces ready! -" the electronic chatter passed through the air above. The tone carried a hint of disbelief, that everything they had been preparing for years now could actually happen.
It was a giant creature vaguely shaped like a man. It had slick black skin like that of sea mammals, and lacked any form of hair, nails, or fur. Its hands and feet were like that of a human being, ending in skin-covered five fingers and toes. For some strange reason, its rib bones seemed to be on the outside, framing a red sphere growing out the center of its chest. Curving wedges of bone jutted out of its shoulders like oversized white pauldrons.
Its most distinctive quality, other than its maddening size, was the bone mask upon its neckless head. The mask looked faintly avian with its chin ending in a point like a bird's beak, and behind the eyeholes there was nothing but untold darkness. It stepped out of the waters of Sagami Bay, moving its spindly yet powerful limbs in punctuated jerks, and utterly unconcerned at the assembly of forces ready to receive it.
This was the being known as [SACHIEL]. It stood straight up, taller than skyscrapers, more dangerous than an atom bomb, and the air itself rang with the terrible fury of its soul.
"- Pattern Blue! Pattern Blue confirmed! All forces, engage! -"
Arrayed along the shoreline were rows of warships and tanks along the highways. As the creature made its first step out of the waters, its foot touching the beach crushed all their renewed hopes. The world did not belong to man, not anymore. The human being was not the ultimate predator on this planet, not anymore.
Fifteen years of ignorance died at that moment. Fifteen years had passed, the innocence of the world was raped out of it by the ambition of men who would become gods, and now the Earth felt the touch of angry abandoned children.
[SACHIEL]. Its name meant [THE COVERING OF GOD].
Thoom. Thoom. Thoom. Thoom.
The full might of the military was swiftly brought to bear on the intruder. The first hot salvo came from the Type-110 tanks of the Japan Ground SSDF lined along the highway. To [Sachiel] the rain of 125mm rounds, a mixture of long-rod penetrators and high-explosives, did not even rate the sensation of pinpricks.
Whump. Whump. Whump.
Then, the warships of the Japan Marine SSDF added their voice, booming out with larger-caliber automatic cannons and VLS missiles. Explosions rippled across the Angel's back, but it did not bother to even turn around.
It seemed that not even all the machines of men would fail to break its stride. Yet, Japan of 2015 was not the innocent nation of 2000. While constitutionally they still avowed war, theirs was now a much more varied and much more potent military force.
"- Air Cavalry, to position! -"
Rising from behind the mountains, coming in from the bases in Gotemba and Odawara, the two cities next to Tokyo-3, was the Air Force, having to close in to near suicidal range just to target the immense creature. For some strange reason, radar and even laser rangefinders were fuzzing up around it. The JASSDF sent out a large number of VTOLs for this purpose.
[SACHIEL's] masked face quivered. Unlike the previous two massed attacks, the incoming forces were deliberately putting themselves between it and its objective. A massive missile, almost as large as the strike fighter carrying it, was released and shot forth towards the Angel. It was one designed to destroy hardened bunkers buried tens of meters underground.
[SACHIEL] raised its clawed hand for the first time, and caught it right out of the air. The missile crumpled in its palm. And then it exploded, engulfing the giant in flame.
'- Pattern Blue still in effect! -'
[SACHIEL] walked out of the billowing flames, unscathed, undaunted.
Behind the mountains lay Hakone, and beneath Hakone was the call of a being older than worlds. [SACHIEL] could not feel the [light of the soul] from all the things that tried to impede its progress, and all were therefore irrelevant.
Its eyes flashed, and the streets and building were cut apart by cross-shaped blasts of purest hostile power. Flash. The beams cut through whole floors of steel and concrete without resistance, and then exploded beyond.
There was nothing but screams, and then silence, in its passing.
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Meanwhile, the completely automated railways system towards Tokyo 3 continued to roll on. The national high-speed rail, the Shinkansen, managed to survive Second Impact mostly intact.
The bullet train rolled to a gradual stop. Its single passenger got off. "I hope there were no security cameras in that thing…" said Shinji Ikari. He could not help it. Being so alone felt so liberating, as a teenager he wasn't supposed to give in to such childish urges anymore. A little silliness broke the eerie feelings he was getting.
/'You should have thought of that before you started to run on the cushions and then slide and swing on the handrails just because no one else was around,'/ a stately female voice in his mind replied. /'Truly, you show all the signs of your mon-keigh ancestry.'/
He looked at those bars, and thought; Why not? What did he have to lose but his dignity? There was nothing to be scared of, and if he did end up being scolded he was prepared to accept it. "…wait. Mon-keigh is supposed to be monkey, right?" the teen noted with some disbelief. He smiled indulgently. "You've been calling me a monkey all this time?"
/'We have been calling your kind the mon-keigh, the wild ones, for as long as your race have stood upright. It saddens me, to be sure, that you took this long to realize this. Some… never do.'/
/'So, that's why you refer to me as a metal-skinned brute!'/ quoth the Space Marine. /'That my genetic enhancements only return me to my true mental state! This armor, these geneseeds are the finest fruits of the God-Emperor's will. I thought you Eldar might have actually respected His mighty intellect. That was an insult all this time?'/
/'See, Shinji? Disappointing.'/
/'BE SMOTE for your HERESY, foul xeno Eldar witch!'/
/'It's heresy only if I follow your religion! And I do not!'/ She seemed to grin. /'Gorilla.'/
/'Let me out, commander! Get us out of this pack. There must be smiting!'/
/'So much grunting. Would you like a banana?'/
An inarticulate roar filled Shinji's mind, with a /'oohho-ho-ho'/ weaving in and out. "Hush!" he said, suddenly alert. There was silence. There was too much silence. He looked about, and all the activity he could see in the famously modern city of Tokyo-3 were the blinking of street lights.
There was perhaps no danger for a fourteen year-old to travel all the way from the north of Japan down to its heartland near Mount Fuji, but one of the mayor's friends had accompanied him to Tokyo-2. Once there, he found out that there was a train waiting for his arrival. The train official there looked irritated at the reserved line, but the train was not allowed to leave without him and only him and only at a certain time.
It was odd but not too implausible that his father's connections would have a train only for him (for what, he could not understand – it was a foolish waste of time and money, if maybe just to impress one perplexed teenager), but for the terminal to be without any people was simply unthinkable. Tokyo-3 was supposed to be a bustling city and a nerve center of Japan's renewed industrial and commercial efforts. "…where is everybody?"
Shinji Ikari stepped out of the terminal and walked down the streets. The shops were all closed. There was not a single moving car to be seen. The speakers were saying something, along the lines of [Please remain calm. Immediately proceed to the nearest shelter. This is not a drill.]
For some reason he was feeling a heavy weight over his shoulders.
He looked down at the photo sent to him; a woman in tight clothing leaning forwards, an arrow in red marker (maybe to remind of red lipstick?) was drawn pointing to her half-exposed breasts. [LOOK HERE!] it said.
Shinji quirked his lips. Yes, she was sexy. He was a teenager now, and that appealed to his interests. He had to admit, as much as his father's message made him insulted and indignant, this one tickled his curiosity. What sort of person would send something like this to a junior high boy?
For years now, the voices in his mind had counseled him, berated him, told him things that should be outside of his knowledge and awareness. For most people, it would have faded into harmless fancy as they realized they were basically just talking to themselves. Shinji, who had never even entertained the notion that the voices were each their own identities separate from his own, was comfortable with asking them to double-check even his own senses.
He took out a card from his pocket, and there was a red symbol, half of a fig leaf. NERV. Below that, a telephone number. He saw a row of public phones some distance away. He went over and dialed it in.
"Hmn. No answer." He set the receiver back. "This doesn't make sense. Why go to all this far and not have anyone to meet me? Getting here was all pre-arranged, I had no real choice anywhere. So why just let me get off here and then expect me to manage on my own?"
/'I doubt your father would clear out an entire city just for the purposes of insulting you further…'/ the Farseer said, to hide that she had no idea of what was going on either.
"It's no good. Maybe I –should- go to a shelter? Not that I know where one is, anyway…" Also, he mused, why were there shelters in the first place? Maybe he should have been paying attention to the news. Maybe there was a storm or tornado or something. That would nicely explain it; he nodded to himself. Quick enough to suddenly appear all the while the train trundled toward Tokyo-3 in all ignorance.
He looked up at the sky. Unfortunately the crystal calm belied that hypothesis.
He felt something icy cold run up the back of his neck, a feeling of being watched.
Shinji blinked. Wait, what, is that…
He saw standing across the street a girl in a blue school uniform. She stared at him with a deep but emotionless gaze. Her blue hair was what drew his attention, and her red eyes seemed to go straight into his soul and out his back, leaving his inner being a flayed but exultant mess. He felt a certain deep yearning settle over him, and faintly, almost unheard…
'[and again we are one'].
The flapping noise of a flock of white pigeons suddenly flying off from a power line drew his attention for but an instant, and when he looked back she was gone.
"What was that? Did I… imagine it?
In the distance, something exploded.
/'IT COMES!'/ screamed the voice of Chaos.
Shinji's mind rang with a roar. He turned and felt a wall of… something. The pressure! Squeezing his heart! /'What… what is this?'/
His inner voices were suddenly all unable to speak. It came to him as a gust of wind. Shinji saw a tilt-wing rotor combat helicopter slide into view, frantically discharging its rockets and missiles at something behind the buildings.
'- all rockets hit the target! It's - AAAAAH!'
It came as cleansing fire, as he saw that same gunship speared by a bright pink bolt of energy. The strangely solid energy lance pulled back to /inside/ the palm of a massive black arm just now coming into view.
He shielded his face as the aircraft fell, its directionless rotors now whipping at the air, crashing and chopping up the pavement near him. He crouched into a fetal position to protect himself from the sharp metal debris and concrete fragments flying through the air. The giant strode on unconcerned.
"I know this!" Shinji stood back up shouted out for reasons he could not explain. "I feel I should know this!"
Its gargantuan foot came down close by, and Shinji could feel a slight breeze just from the air being pushed out of the way by its sheer mass as it walked by. Shinji wondered if he should run away, except that something paralyzed him. No. It was not fear, even as the animal part of his brain felt so small and insignificant. Foremost in his mind was this puzzling feeling of familiarity. It was like trying to make sense of a dream, trying to remember it in the moment just before consciousness fully engages back into wakefulness.
Conveniently a sports car screeched to a halt between it and him, driving him out of his stunned fugue. The door opened, and a woman in a tight purple one-piece shouted at him, her face hidden behind large tinted driving sunglasses. "Get in!"
He ran to the car, sensing that the next step might actually land on top of the hapless vehicle. Once inside, the car sped out with maniacal speed and reckless turns around sharp street corners. Crunch. Shinji looked back to see the the giant thing move on, its feet flattening trucks and bridges that happened to bar its path.
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The thing didn't care or even notice them enough to chase them. They sought sufficient cover behind several building blocks, and then after a while went on their way through a side road deeper into the city.
"W-what was that?" he said between frantic gulps of breath. /'So pure. So much purposeful hatred. What was that? What can man do against such black hate?'/
"That was an Angel, Shinji," the woman said nonchalantly. "That is what your father fights."
Shinji looked back. "An angel…"
My father fights that? Technically, the word she used was Shito. The expression was more linked to an avenger, or punisher. There was nothing intrinsically holy about it. Even so, now he felt strangely at peace when he should terrified out of his little goddamn mind like a normal person.
/'We might be getting into something we would not want to be in, Commander,'/ was the Space Marine's warning. /'I can feel it. We all can.'/
/'Deres stompins dat gots that be done,'/ added the Ork warboss. /'Let's get stuck in, boyz!'/
/'There is blood.'/ hissed the Chaos Marine. /'I can taste it. Blood waits for us here. Blood to FILL a God to satisfaction.'/
/'Are you afraid?'/ he asked them.
The Farseer pulled deep into herself. /'Are you not? Your thoughts are our thoughts. Shinji… The future is closed to me. I feel it. We are at the cusp of a scenario. We cannot see it, for we are part of it.'/
The young teen turned his head back and sighed. He slumped against his seat. /'I can't escape it now. I have to know it. WHAT are you up to, father?'/
He looked up and at the woman beside him. The large shades hid her eyes, she seemed serious and professional and nothing like the picture she sent. He felt his eyes drifting down to the stretched folds near her chest, and looked away sharply. He felt a certain amusement from her. Damn! So, hidden by the reflective shades, she was looking at him instead of just driving down the road.
Wait, wasn't that… dangerous?
Shinji faced forwards, slumped back some more and obstinately jutted out his chin. He tried in this way to fight back his embarrassment. That only made the purple-haired woman smile widely. The young teen just couldn't pull off a tough look.
"So, you're Ikari Shinji, huh?" she said, eyes back to the road. "I'm Katsuragi Misato. I happen to work for the organization that your father leads."
"P-pleased to meet you."
"Yes, I'm sure." she added impishly.
/'Nice kid'/, she thought. /'Still so innocent. A little too serious. He's going to be so much fun to tease.'/ She begun to chuckle lightly, which for some reason made Shinji feel even more uneasy.
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'- mobilize all divisions at Atsugi and Iruma bases to the battle!'
'- don't hold back! Smash the target at all costs!'
A section of the nearby hills open up, exposing a missile launcher literally the size of a building and missiles each as large as trucks. Spears of flame erupted forth, and towards the Angel that had walked out into the open.
As the cascading booms faded, [SACHIEL] walked out of the smoke, completely unbothered.
'- Why?! It must have been a direct hit!'
'- The tank battalion has been totally destroyed. Guided missiles, guns and bombs have no effect against it...'
'- Useless! With such poor firepower, we'll go nowhere!'
'- Do you mean-...?'
'- I'm authorizing it! Do what you have to!'
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Misato angled her neck to get a better look at the sky. "That plane… it can't be! They wouldn't?" She suddenly turned and yelled right at Shinji's face. "GET DOWN!"
The car swerved wildly away and crumped through a road rail.
And the sun came down from the sky.
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