Celestis Arcana Evangelion, Book I: The Wrath of Heaven

[Khas]

Well folks, I said I'd rename FPE to Celestis Arcana Evangelion, and here it goes, now that I've finalized which franchises I'm going to use for it. So, let's get copyright stuff out of the way first.

Star Trek is the property of ViacomCBS. Stargate is the property of MGM. Warcraft is the property of Blizzard Entertainment. Starfox is the property of Nintendo. BattleTech is the property of Topps. Neon Genesis Evangelion is the property of Studio Khara.

Now, without further ado... the story begins.

[Khas]

Prologue

September 13, 2364 AD (Stardate 41701.2). Agricultural colony world Eden.

“I still don’t get it…” Simon Anders said, wiping sweat from his brow. The journey through the network of caverns that supposedly would lead to their destination – a supposed unlimited energy source left by some long-extinct civilization – had been grueling. “Just as we’re about to make the biggest breakthrough since Carol Marcus and her Genesis Device eighty years ago, they beam out and leave the planet.”

“You mean Ikari and Lorenz?” Doctor Yoshiro Katsuragi asked, turning back to the inquisitive student. Anders nodded. “In the case of Lorenz, he has his own colleagues to report to…”

“You mean our funders – Seele.”

“Yes, Seele…” Katsuragi replied. “Keel has to keep them up-to-date after all.”

“Still can’t believe you accepted their funding.” Anders said, with no small amount of disgust in his voice. “You wouldn’t believe some of the rumors I’ve heard about them. If even half of said rumors are true…”

“Nonsense!” Katsuragi replied with a chuckle. “Seele is nothing but a group of rich old men with a love for the sciences! Not the sinister cabal that half your professors say they are.”

“If you say so, Professor…” Anders said, stopping just short of rolling his eyes. “As for Ikari… I can’t say I’m sad to see him gone. Even if his departure with Keel felt… fishy.” On this, Doctor Katsuragi had to agree with his student.

“I admit, Gendo always was a… problematic student. Excellent grades, but he still had a bad habit of back-talking his professors.”

“Not to mention all the fistfights. Can’t believe he wasn’t expelled after breaking Larry Malkovich’s nose.”

“Only because Malkovich threw the first punch. You remember that.”

“How could I forget?” Anders replied, nearly bursting out laughing. “Gave Ikari the meanest black eye I’ve ever seen.” Anders shook his head and sighed. “Hey K’Tar!” he shouted, aiming his flashlight towards the team’s geology expert, a muscular Klingon with a ponytail that stretched halfway down his back, and sideburns that would have made a 19th century statesman stare in reverent awe. “Is the ground still stable up there?”

“As stable as it ever was!” K’Tar shouted back, looking up from his tricorder. “No instabilities for at least two kilometers around.”

“Good to know!” Anders replied. “Don’t want any nasty surprises waiting for us ahead!”

“Ha! Knowing our luck, we’ll stumble upon something Anubis left behind from the last war!” This statement came not from K’Tar, but from the team’s chief xenoarcheologist, Hans Jaeger; a thin, wiry man hailing from the Lyran Commonwealth – the only breakaway human interstellar state that had managed to avoid being reabsorbed into the United Earth Star League.

“Don’t even joke about that!” Anders shot back. “The LAST thing we need is for the Burning Legion to come down on our heads…” Anders thought back to the chaos that had been unleashed by the mad Goa’uld Anubis during the so-called ‘War of the Jackal’. Among the many atrocities committed by that half-Ascended monster had been the opening of hundreds of portals to the hellish alternate dimension known as the Twisting Nether… and the summoning of millions of screaming demons who had poured out from them, turning an already nightmarish war into an almost literal vision of hell.

Of course, the Legion had been pushed back eventually – and contact with the Nightborne of the planet Suramar had aided greatly in that development (though the existence of actual elves was only slightly less shocking than the existence of literal demons). And Anubis himself had been dealt a crushing defeat over Earth, when the Ancient weapons platform under the ice of Antarctica had annihilated his fleet. What had happened to the deranged Goa’uld after that, though, was a mystery. The Klingons claimed that he was now burning in Gre’thor for his crimes, but others had said that he had been caught in eternal battle with another Ascended being. Still others had said that he was rebuilding his forces elsewhere, and was the one behind the strange reports of massive black and green cubical starships that would occasionally come in. Or the ones of the silver and purple starships with tendrils flowing behind them.

The sound of a crash caught Anders’ attention, and he looked to see that Doctor Katsuragi’s fourteen-year-old daughter Misato had accidentally collided with one of the technicians who’d been walking by, and now tricorders and other equipment had fallen everywhere, the technician cursing like a sailor as he struggled to pick up his supplies.

“Doc…” Anders began. “Are you sure that bringing your daughter along for this expedition was such a good idea?”

“Why, yes it was!” Katsuragi replied. “After all, she should see what glories the future will hold for her firsthand!”

[Praeothmin]

Cool, new stories... Me happy!

[Khas]

Chapter One

Present Day – August 8, 2379 AD (Stardate 56601.4). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Earth.

Under a blazing sun in a sapphire blue sky, the Delaware River flowed as it had for the past two million years, lazily meandering towards the Atlantic Ocean and bringing fresh water to the millions of people who called this region of North America home. At first glance, a day like any other.

But only at first glance.

One thing that an observant watcher would have found off about today, would be the dead silence that filled the air, no sign of the hustle and bustle of daily life that had been one of Philadelphia’s defining features for the past seven centuries. No pedestrians wandering the streets, no hover-cars racing towards their drivers’ destinations. Only a grave-like, unnatural calm.

The second thing an observer would find odd, was the utter lack of boats traversing the river. For centuries, this river had been one of the busiest on North America’s Eastern Seaboard, brimming with freighters and passenger liners alike. And even in this day and age of transporters, there were numerous harbor cruises that sailed along the river each and every day.

But the third thing that an observer would find unusual about this particular day, would doubtlessly be the battalions of Manticore and Demolisher heavy tanks on either side of the river, their phaser cannons, railguns, and missile turrets all trained on something in the water. Something that had first been detected four hours earlier, out in the North Atlantic. Something that had swam towards the coast of North America at speeds few would have thought possible in water. Something massive. Something unearthly.

Something wrong.

And now that something had made it up the Delaware River and, if the sensor readings were right, was rapidly approaching Philadelphia.

A spurt of water erupted from the river. Though, to call it a “spurt” was to severely undersell the size of the blast. Nearly a hundred meters high, and slightly wider in diameter, one could be forgiven for thinking that an underwater volcano had just erupted. But everyone knew that there was no volcanic activity in this region. The last time there had been any was the late Triassic period over 200 million years prior.

The something had arrived.

In appearance, the something was a terrifying sight. Nearly eighty meters tall, it had greenish-black skin and a vaguely humanoid shape, though the disproportionately long arms gave it a somewhat gorilla-like appearance. Or rather it would, if gorillas had absurdly lanky arms. The something was also partially covered in bony plates, some covering its massive shoulders, while others partially covered its chest. Having no neck, the something’s head was situated directly in between its shoulders. The head in question was vaguely avian in appearance, resembling a cross between a crow’s skull and the masks worn by the plague doctors of old. On the something’s elbows were bony spikes that lined up directly with its clawed hands. On its thighs, were gill slits that flapped open and close every few seconds. And in the center of its chest, was a massive crimson orb.

The something – no, the creature – had finally made its presence known to the galaxy at large.
And it had started to walk.

And then the tanks opened fire.

With a hum that rapidly became a hiss, their phaser cannons came to life, blasting golden-orange nadion beams towards the creature that had just emerged from the river. But the exotic particle beams, capable of ripping apart molecular and atomic bonds as easily as an angry toddler could rip apart wet toilet paper, stopped just short of the creature itself – blocked by some kind of energy field. Simultaneously, the tanks’ railguns came online, and with deafening cracks, opened fire. The railgun rounds, each formed from a tritanium-trinium composite and accelerated to Mach 7, proved as ineffective as the phaser beams at stopping the creature, for they too impacted the energy field, exploding harmlessly before they could so much as annoy it.

Then the missile barrage began.

All hell broke loose as the tanks opened fire with their missile launchers. Within seconds, hundreds of rockets were in the air, racing towards the mysterious behemoth. Each missile carried a warhead containing a quarter-kilogram of ultritium, laced with about ten grams of naquadah. But like the phaser beams and railgun rounds, these too, stopped short of hitting the creature itself. Though unlike the previous two weapons, these seemed to at least catch the creature’s attention, the shockwaves produced by their detonations occasionally slightly getting through the creature’s barrier.

But only slightly. Just enough to irritate it. At least, if the emotions it felt were anything like those felt by most “ordinary” life-forms throughout the galaxy.

But irritated the creature was, and it vented its frustrations by turning its head toward one of the tank battalions stationed on the eastern bank of the river. Not even a second later, two pencil-thin energy beams shot forward from its eyes, and raced towards the central tank of the battalion at the speed of light. The tank’s deflector shields collapsed almost immediately, and the beam pierced the tank’s hull, striking the ground beneath it. In a flash, a pillar of light shot up from where the central tank used to be. A pillar that morphed into a cruciform shape, making a mockery of the laws of physics – and half the laws of magic – in the process. When the light finally dimmed, it became apparent to all that the central tank and the dozen or so that surrounded it had been reduced to little more than white-hot slag. Still, the other tanks kept firing, their crews determined to bring down the abomination that had just slain so many of their comrades.

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Elsewhere in Philadelphia, standing on the steps of the Franklin Institute, a fourteen-year-old boy – one Shinji Ikari – stood waiting. His first time actually setting foot on Earth in over three years, summoned from his home colony of Sarceron by his father for reasons that he could only begin to speculate. The trip to Earth had actually been fairly quiet, apart from the near-constant news reports about the latest wave of refugee ships to come in from the Delta Quadrant. But that was to be expected, since for the last several years, that particular quarter of the galaxy had been torn to shreds as a result of the war between the Borg and the Replicators. A war that had currently devolved into a nightmarishly bloody stalemate, with neither of the belligerent races having anything even resembling a clear path to victory. A war that only became even bloodier during the times when the mysterious extradimensional aliens known only as Species 8472 would poke their noses in and attack either side before retreating to their home realm of fluidic space.

Now, as he stood just outside the Institute, he once again made note of the silence. And to say it was unnerving was putting it exceptionally mildly. He’d never seen a city this quiet before, especially one with Philadelphia’s… reputation. The cause of the silence was known, however. On intercoms all over the city, a message of a state of emergency was being repeatedly blared. Most of the population had already bolted to the emergency shelters – first constructed during World War III, and repeatedly updated during the various interstellar wars over the past few centuries – leaving only a handful of civilians either brave or stupid enough to get a first-hand look at just what was causing the developing crisis.

Reaching into his right pocket, Shinji pulled out two of the items that he hadn’t put into one of his suitcases. The first was his personal communicator, whose screen still remained blank aside from the flashing “No Signal” message. And once again, the communicator let out the same audio recording.

“We’re sorry. Due to the state of emergency, all civilian subspace communications have been blacked out. Please report to the nearest shelter immediately.”

“Damn…” Shinji said under his breath. “Still no good.”

The other item Shinji pulled out, was a photograph of the person who was supposed to meet him here, one Colonel Misato Katsuragi. The photo showed a strikingly beautiful woman in either her late twenties or early thirties with raven-black hair, clad in only a bikini and holding an ice cream cone in one hand, winking at the camera. Behind her, stood several people of various species, and behind all of them was the sea, above which twin suns glowed with fiery majesty.

“And she sends me a photo of her latest trip to Risa to let me know what she looks like…” he shook his head. He began putting the photo back into his pocket when several loud noises caught his attention. Turning to face them, he saw roughly thirty BattleMechs – mostly a mix of Catapults and Marauders, with the occasional Atlas thrown in – racing down the street as fast as they could, while above them, several squadrons of Aeroshuttles screamed through the sky. What the hell was going on, exactly? Had the Burning Legion somehow made an incursion onto Earth itself? Or had a small-scale quantum singularity opened up, allowing Species 8472 to breach through?

As he pondered the reason for the mobilization, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Turning his head to get a better look, he noticed something that caught him by surprise. A girl his own age, clad in a short-sleeved white shirt and teal skirt, her light blue hair styled in a bob cut. Odd, she hadn’t been there a second ago. He blinked twice as he thought about where she might have come from… and then she was gone.

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Still elsewhere in Philadelphia, a hovercar raced recklessly down the empty streets, its driver desperate to reach her destination. The driver in question, one Colonel Misato Katsuragi, gritted her teeth as she gripped the steering wheel, blazing towards the Franklin Institute.

“Damn it!” she shouted as she took a quick look at her hovercar’s sensor map of the Philadelphia area, noticing the moving blue dot in the Delaware River. “Of course it would have to show up now! Fuck!” She looked over to the photo that lay resting in the shotgun passenger’s seat, and the PADD that accompanied it. The photo was of a fourteen-year-old boy, Shinji Ikari, wearing his former school uniform, while the PADD contained the boy’s biographical information, as well as his genetic and psychological profiles. Such a high level of information would normally have been seen as excessive, almost to the point of stalking.

But then, Shinji Ikari was the Commander’s son. And Gendo Ikari was not a man who liked his subordinates being blindsided by people other than himself.

Taking another look at the sensor map, Misato’s frown only grew even more intense. The blue dot in the river was still moving at the same speed it had been earlier, while the dots representing the tanks and BattleMechs sent to intercept it were disappearing at an ever-increasing rate. She could only hope the Aeroshuttles would slow it down long enough for her to arrive at both of her destinations today…

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Trying to think of where the mysterious girl had disappeared to, Shinji was caught off-guard by the sound of a massive explosion. He wondered just what could have caused that, and if it was related to the Aeroshuttles and BattleMechs he saw deployed just a few moments earlier.

Then he got his answer.

Said answer stood at nearly eighty meters tall, had a face resembling a bird skull, walked with a gorilla-like posture, and was currently surrounded by a dozen or so Aeroshuttles constantly peppering it with phaser fire.

No. Shinji thought as he stared in horror at the towering abomination. No, no, no, no, no… this can’t be real. Creatures like this don’t exist in reality!

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Elsewhere in Philadelphia, in a clandestine subterranean facility, the battle was being observed by others. Others with a far more tactical grasp of the situation. Three of the United Earth Star League’s most decorated flag officers – General Hank Landry, Admiral William Ross, and General George Hammond – sat behind a desk, angrily glaring at the tactical information displaying on screen. The tanks and BattleMechs which had been deployed to stop the mysterious creature that had burst out of the Delaware River had been all but obliterated, and the Aeroshuttles that had been scrambled for that same purpose were currently proving little more than a nuisance to it.

“The intruder is still making its way towards us.” Came the voice of one of the bridge technicians who’d been monitoring the battle said, her calm voice expertly masking the amount of fear she truly felt.

“We have a visual…” another technician – this one male – began. “I’m putting it on the main screen.” Instantly, the bird-skull-like visage of the creature that had effortlessly annihilated the forces sent to intercept it appeared onscreen. The viewscreen also displayed text above the creature’s head. Simple text really, that simply displayed three words.

TARGET DESIGNATION: SACHIEL.

“Keep firing! Don’t hold anything back!” Ross shouted over the comm channel to the Aeroshuttle pilots as they weaved around the creature – Sachiel, to use its new designation – bringing the fury of their phaser banks to bare on the creature.

“Bring the bastard down! Do whatever it takes!” Landry added.

On a slightly lower platform in front of the three officers, the men who truly ran this facility stood and watched the battle play out.

“It’s been fifteen years…” the base’s Vice-Commander, a gray-haired man in his late fifties named Kozo Fuyutsuki began. “And it has an A.T. Field, just like last time.”

“Yes.” Replied the base’s Commander, a man eleven years Fuyutsuki’s junior, one Gendo Ikari. “Well now we know for certain. The Angels are back.”

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Shinji could only stare in horror as the Aeroshuttles failed to impede the behemoth in any capacity. What’s more, the creature raised its right hand up to face the nearest Aeroshuttle, and a lance of glowing bone shot forth from its palm, effortlessly penetrating the shuttle’s deflector shields and severing its port wing. The Aeroshuttle then spiraled out of control, crashing only about twenty meters to Shinji’s left. Then the creature that the Aeroshuttles had been fighting began to glow, and a glowing halo materialized over its head. And it began to levitate. Hovering ever higher into the air, the creature arced over several buildings before descending, bringing its foot down onto the crashed Aeroshuttle, crushing it utterly, and setting off its fusion reactor. A five-meter-wide brilliant ball of plasma burst from the crushed rear half of the Aeroshuttle, forcing Shinji to close his eyes due to the intense light. The wave of heat that should have hit him never came, however. Opening his eyes, he saw that the explosion had been blocked by the arrival of a hovercar, which had placed itself between himself and the explosion.

Then one of the hovercar doors swung open, and he finally laid eyes upon the driver. It was the same woman from the photograph he’d been carrying, albeit wearing actual clothes this time – a short, sleeveless black dress and a pair of sunglasses. Colonel Misato Katsuragi.

“Hi there!” Misato said, greeting the teen. “Sorry I’m late, hop in!”

Without hesitation, Shinji dashed into the hovercar’s cabin, slamming the door behind him. Seconds later, the hovercar bolted away from the site of Sachiel’s rampage, heading towards its new destination. Heading for the subterranean complex where the battle was being observed. Heading towards the place where the fate of the galaxy would ultimately be decided.