Author's Note
I wasn't quite expecting to get this chapter out so fast, especially when my computer went down. I hope you enjoy it.
diabloelmo; Thanks for the complement. I think your story is doing very well (I can defiantly imagine Asuka getting Aida into trouble like that). I was intending to email you about discussing possible concepts for our stories, but my old P.C. has gone dead, and I'm still getting used to this new Mac. If you're interested, I could always use a Beta reader for my future chapters. Drop me a line sometime.
Elijah Snow; Thanks for the complement. As for Shinji and Asuka, I suspect it will be quite a while before they can really get to terms with their displacement. The Horus Hearsay wasn't really full of large pauses where people could properly think about such large concepts.
Enedorii; Well, I'll try not to abandon this story (especially if it seems to be going well). I hope you continue to enjoy it.
Yoshomo; Thank you, I hope you enjoy this chapter.
liljimmyurine; I wasn't completely sure of this fact, but from what I understand, the Emperor ordered the Space Wolves to attack the Thousand Sons before he learned of Horus' betrayal. This suggests that this fight finished before the attack on Terra. My primary source material 'Assault on Holy Terra' page 34 of White Dwarf 268, says that the Thousand Sons arrive with the other legions. Magnus' powerful sorcery presumably was fast enough to bring his legion to Horus' side before the attack on Terra. I could, however, be wrong. If you have a source which states that the /thousand Sons could not have reached Terra, I'll re-write the earlier story to take that into account.
Chapter Four
Shells continued to pound away at the ruined shell of the Imperial Basilica, but the long forgotten architects of that mighty structure had done their job well. Even reduced to a half ruin, the remaining gargoyle encrusted stone walls, supported by struts of solid adamantum, still held up against the blasts, with only shallow craters being blown in their architecture. Not even the few citizens who had made it to the Basilica and relative safety in the ruins behind the Imperial Fists screamed; they'd long since worn their voices out.
Rogal Dorn offered up fervent thanks to those architects even as he fired another stream of Bolts into the mutants massing in the square before him. So far, the Imperial Fists had held off a large force of Iron Warriors and their mutant slaves ever since the first Drop Pods fell at the start of the War. By now, both sides had settled into the siege mentality that the Imperial Fists and Iron Warriors were both well known for.
"Brother-Primarch," crackled a voice from Dorn's Vox-bead. "Your hunch was indeed correct. The Iron Warriors were attempting to tunnel under the walls and bring them down."
"I thought so," Dorn replied. He had sent the 23rd Company under Brother-Captain Loroman down into the catacombs after spotting tell-tail clouds of brick dust from behind the Iron Warriors' lines. "What's your status Brother-Captain Loroman?"
Loroman glanced over at the yellow-clad lines of his brethren. Past them, hundreds of mutants poured from gaping holes in the walls of the tombs…and were easily cut down by the disciplined fire-power of the hundred Space Marines waiting for them.
"No sign of the Iron Warriors, Lord," he replied, "only their mutant slave-scum. We can hold them off more or less indefinitely while the ammo holds out." He raised his pistol and sent a translucent ball of plasma into a shambling creature that was dragging itself forward with it's one arm.
"Understood," Dorn replied. He glanced at the horizon, where a faint speck could be seen floating in the distance, and changed Vox channels. "Sky Fortress, what's your E.T.A?"
"We should be on station in about 37 min…" Angrimond began, before hesitating, "hold on a second my Lord…"
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"Frag it!" Angrimond cursed as he stared at the tactical readout over the holo-table.
"What's the problem?" Halmead asked, adding a quick, "Sir," as Angrimond turned his angry gaze to him.
"Sensorium scans indicate heavy enemy presence at head on bearing."
"The Iron Warrior bastards have a Titan, and several heavy missile batteries. We used up the last of our long range weapons heading to pick you up, we don't have anything left to hit them from beyond their own range, and with our present firepower, they'd rip us apart before we got close enough to effectively reply."
"What are you planning to do?"
"Heavy missile battery 4-port reports out of ammunition, requesting re-loads."
"I guess we'll have to ask Lord Dorn if he can send out a large enough force to take out those weapons. It'd take a lot though, the machines in question are at the back of the Chaos scum, and they'd have to cut through the entire Iron Warriors force to reach them. I'd prefer to send in a force from here, but we've only got a single Battle-Company and your few remaining men on board."
"Enemy aircraft at bearing 175 degrees. Anti-aircraft cannons 12 and 14 opening fire."
"Isn't Titan depot 12 still holding out. Perhaps they could spare a few Warhounds or a Warlord to assist."
"No… They're over an hour away. I'm not sure we could wait that long." Halmead scowled and glared at the holo-table. Then a short Japanese sentence made him look up.
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"I'll go," Shinji said, his mind struggling between an odd sense of courage and fear as he stepped forward.
"Dummköpf! Asuka shouted, spinning him around. "What are you talking about? We haven't even decided if we're going to fight! And even after 28,000 years, I'm sure you remember what the JSSDF did."
"Yes, I remember that they killed everyone in NERV and who remained in Tokyo-3, for no good reason. There are people back there who need to be rescued from the same situation and… I… I can't just do nothing!" Asuka groaned, nearly face-palming.
"Fine…we'll just have to…"
"Erm…" Shinji winced as he interrupted her, and a vein began to pulse on her forehead, "I, um, kinda think you should stay here…"
"If you're thinking for just one second that I can't fight with you…" Asuka tailed of menacingly. Shinji gulped. During the time they were both part of the Evas, they had more or less stuck up a firm friendship, but Shinji knew better then anyone that friendship was no protection against an angry 'Red Demon'.
"No, no, it's not that. It's just, Unit 02 only has about five minutes of power, and you're the only one who can speak both Japanese and Gothic. You'll need to stay here to translate for me." To Shinji's relief, Asuka visibly brought her temper under control long enough to consider his points reasonably calmly.
"Scheiße," Asuka growled, "fine. I guess that makes sense. She turned, and said something to the Space Marine Captain. They talked for a few seconds, before the Captain nodded, and turned and gave several orders to his crew. "He says 'okay'," Asuka said, switching back to Japanese. "This ensign," she gestured to a man who had stepped forward, "will take you back to Unit 01."
"Thanks," Shinji said, turning towards the exit.
"Hey Shinji, be careful alright," Asuka said as he left.
"I will."
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Shinji brought Unit 01's head round to carefully peek around the edge of the building with an odd sense of deja-vu. Despite the imposing architecture of the immense buildings he was hiding behind, and despite the fact he was clutching the Lancea Longinus instead of a car-sized hand gun it felt just like when he was sneaking up on the black and white 12th Angel. Shinji, shock his head to dispel those thoughts, fervently hoping that the events of that day wouldn't repeat themselves; he'd scraped by death too many times.
"Shinji," Asuka said over the radio, "Angrimond says that the heavy stuff's just a couple of blocks away. There were only a couple of cannons big enough to take this fortress down, but there's also a machine he calls a 'Titan' which he describes as being fairly similar to an Eva. Watch yourself."
Unit-01 carefully picked up the massive weapon by the barrel, tilting it and shaking the armored figures off onto the ground below. Giving it a cursory glance, Shinji noted that it was about the length of Unit 01's forearm, and would make a reasonable club. Shrugging, Shinji turned Unit 01 around…and came face to face with…something. He only got an impression of blocky armor, gargoyle encrusted weapons and a daemonic metal face, before the gatling cannon on it's right arm opened up, spewing a stream of hyper-velocity 15mm bullets straight at Unit 01's head.
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Grogrance, Iron Warrier and ex-munitions officer of the Basilisk cannon which the purple monstrosity had just picked up, nodded in pleasure as Mortis Dominus blasted it in the head with it's gatling cannon, forcing the machine to stumble backwards and fall over, dropping the strange lance in it's hand.
He only had a second to realize that, less then 30 meters from it's foot, he was right underneath it. By then, it was too late, as Unit 01's back hit the ground with a crunch.
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Shinji pulled Unit 01 up, shaking both his own and the Eva's head, before throwing himself to the side. A blast of energy carved a hole in the street where he just was.
"Shinji!" Asuka shouted over the comm. "Angrimond says that's a Titan. It's got some kind of energy shielding you'll have to break through."
"Right," Shinji muttered, more to himself then Asuka. As the Titan, the name Mortis Dominus proudly displayed on its skin, turned slowly, it brought its massive weapons round to bear again. Shinji quickly swung with the cannon still clutched in his right hand. The cannon barrel crumpled into the force-field over the Titan's gargoyle head. Then the explosive shell still loaded into the broken weapon detonated, blasting a hole in the shield.
Shinji watched the hole slowly close up, and quickly shoved Unit 01's hand through the hole, grabbed at the first thing he touched and pulled, hard. With a tearing of metal, and sparking of wires, Mortis Dominus's head tore loose. The Titan went dead, shields collapsing and power stores venting through armor plating and unlucky crew-slaves.
Shinji breathed a sigh of relief, and casually dropped the half-crushed head on the street below.
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Some rubble shifted, and Grogrance slowly and painfully pulled himself upright out of a Terminator-shaped hole in the street. His daemonically blessed Terminator armor had just managed to hold up under the weight of the purple machine, but Grogrance was badly injured, with only one arm and at least one ruptured lung.
"When I find the pilot of that…" Grogrance growled, before some form of prescience made him look up. The head of Mortis Dominus was being held right over him by a purple hand.
"Oh… Warp damn-" Grogrance began. There was a crunch.
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It turned out that Mortis Dominus was the only Titan supporting the Iron Warriers against the Imperial Fists, the others were all heading from the spaceports towards the Palace. It had been relatively easy for Shinji to overturn the various weapon platforms, they hadn't been able to traverse fast enough to hit the Eva even assuming the shots wouldn't be stopped by Unit 01's AT field.
The Sky Fortress slowly floated over the now safe streets, delivering the coup-de-grace to Mortis Dominus's body before descending to the ground next to the Imperial Basilica.
Rogal Dorn watched over his warriors and the citizens they were escorting, as they boarded the Sky Fortress. They were weary, and the yellow armor of every one of them was battered and scratched. Yet they were alive, and Dorn was thankful for that.
He turned and watched as the purple and green behemoth awkwardly tried to wedge itself into a Titan pen deployed from the Sky Fortress. For the first time in days, Dorn felt something other then impeccable hatred of his traitorous brothers or thread-bare faith in an Imperial victory.
He felt hope.
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Brother-Sergeant Haugt of the Blood Angels Legion sighed with relief and slumped against the fractured five story parapet. With the arrival of the Sky Fortress, the traitors had pulled back, leaving the wearied defenders valuable breathing space. Already Haugt could hear the crack of grenades blasting apart the piles of bodies lying against the walls, both loyalist and traitor, to clear firing lanes and remove the routes the previous attack had used to reach the top of the walls.
Haugt was exhausted. Space Marines had been designed with constant war in mind, but the Heresy had been continuing for over a month, with two weeks of fighting on the soil of Terra itself. Two weeks of fighting Space Marines, mutants and traitors, two weeks of dodging artillery fire and surviving massed Bolter fire, two weeks of desperately holding out against overwhelming odds with no hope of support. Two weeks of breathing hot air, greasy with the tang of burning human flesh and seemingly cursed by the very daemons they fought.
Haugt wasn't surprised that he felt weary, the scientists of the Luna labs had never imagined conditions like these when they worked up the Astartes geneseed. Haugt looked around at his fellow defenders, marine and human alike, and felt something like awe. If he, a super-human warrior, felt like this, then what of the normal humans? How could they possibly stand?
Yet not one of the remaining loyalists had faltered or stepped back. Haugt felt a surge of pride and faith blow away his exhaustion. While warriors like them stood, the palace would not fall.
A shadow fell over him as the Sky Fortress floated by overhead and drifted over the ruined Imperial Gardens. Haugt turned back to the wall, shouting words of encouragement and orders to the other defenders on his wall section. As soon as the Sky Fortress faded from sight, he knew the Traitors would attack again.
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The Sky Fortress slowly drifted down onto the landing pad below. Specially designed supports reached up from the ground and meshed with matching points of the fortress's outer hull.
Gantries deployed, allowing the massed forces with their pallets of ammo to board, and allowing the milling groups of Tech-priests to begin unloading the two immense Evangelions.
And a small group of people, including two teenagers, one male and the other female, were ushered over to the single, 30-story entrance to the Inner Palace.
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As Shinji timidly walked into the throne room of the man who was apparently the Emperor of the galaxy, one figure immediately caught his eye. He was standing in the middle of the room, apparently listening to the various discussions, tactical chatter and arguments. He was wearing armor that was an ornate masterpiece, decorated with Imperial eagles, gems and other precious metals, while at the same time having the look of something the could survive being stepped on by an EVA. His hair was jet black rather then the white that he remembered, and partly covered by a helmet with wires trailing off into machinery on the ceiling above, but the red eyes quietly watching everything around him were the same as Shinji remembered.
"Kaworu?" Shinji asked quietly, ignoring Asuka's confused, sideways glance. Kaworu… the man who looked like Kaworu, glanced up and gestured for them to walk forward, before turning back to the others in the room.
"…understand your reluctance, my Lord Militant, but the facts are simple," he continued in Low Gothic. "There are too few RH1N0s left. For them to be used effectively, they all have to be reassigned to the Adaptus Astartes and Arbites until I counteract that order."
The man he was talking to, covered in jewel-encrusted, and very battered, armor sighed and nodded before walking away. The red-eyed man turned back to Shinji and Asuka and, to Shinji's surprise, started to speak in Japanese. "So, Ikari Shinji, Asuka Sohryu, 'we meet at last', to repeat yet another old, tired cliché."
"You… you're not Kaworu are you?" Shinji asked disappointedly. The stranger looked surprised for a second, before chuckling.
"Ah, no I'm afraid not. And I must say, it's the first time in a long while that someone's spoken so… candidly with me." He waved a hand dismissively as Shinji blushed. "Oh, don't worry, it's refreshing after years of careful respect. And you could say that I'm Kaworu's older brother.
"Okay…" Asuka began, "who's Kaworu, and how can you be related to him if it's been millennia since he died?"
"Kaworu was my friend," Shinji replied sadly, "and also the last Angel. I killed him with my bare hands." The Emperor laid a comforting, if metal clad, hand on Shinji's shoulder. There were a few faint gasps from the crowd around them.
"He choose to die so that you could live. You shouldn't feel bad about that. As for your second question Miss Sohryu…this is only the second time I've explained my origins to someone else and it's a long story, so please try to be patient. I suppose, Shinji Ikari, you remember Doctor Akagi describing SEELE's project to artificially create a human/Angel hybrid."
"Yes," Shinji replied sadly, "just like Rei."
"What?" Asuka exclaimed in surprise. "Rei's… was an Angel?"
"Well, half Angel really," the Emperor replied. "She had half of Yui Ikari's DNA, and half from the second angel, Lilith. As for Kaworu… one of the things I didn't find out was the name of his, and my, human donor, but the angel half of his DNA came from the first angel Adam. Before they made Kaworu, however, they made me. Originally I did have a gene structure that was a hybrid of human and Angel DNA like my 'younger brother'. Then they 'hot-housed' my gene structure… sorry, modern term. I mean they artificially accelerated my physical growth and development in order to have a viable subject in less then a year. Only my human side responded to the treatments, leaving the Angel DNA present only in a small number of cells, which my body eventually rejected as foreign tissue. The Angel DNA, however, did leave me with some lasting effects from my infantile period. Although I'm human, I'm also effectively immortal, so here I stand 28 thousand years later.
"By SEELE's standards, of course, I was a failure since my Angel genes were expelled during my infancy. The second subject SEELE created was Tabris, the being you know as Kaworu." The Emperor shrugged, which looked rather odd when amplified by his armor. "I had also developed psychic abilities, so I easily realized that Keel intended to dispose of me, which I learned from the thoughts of the technicians around me. I escaped, while using my abilities to fool them into believing that I was dead.
"I spent the next several years hiding and learning. My body continued to grow at an accelerated rate, I was physically mature a year before you arrived in Tokyo-3. For years afterward, I hid from humanity, willing to let it find it's own path. On reflection, that may have been a mistake."
"Why?" Asuka asked, "What happened?"
"Well…"
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"…and then it dropped the T-titan's head on me." Grogrance gasped out. He was on his knees in the main observatory of Horus' Battle-barge. Around him, the walls themselves twisted with power, faces and objects forming in the metal and fading away soundlessly. The figure in front of him, a hulking shape in Terminator armor, was staring away from him, through the porthole at the planet below. "I w-was found by o-other freed marines a-and was brought here."
"Were there any markings on this…machine?" The figure growled out, the power fist on his right arm flexing.
"S-some kind of runes, b-but I couldn't unders-understand t-them." Grogrance started to drag a blood-soaked finger across the floor. "T-they look-looked like this…"
The figure turned to face him, features hidden in shadow. "I see." He studied Grogrance's scrawlings for a moment, before turning to the bodyguards in the room. "Kill him."
Horus turned back to his contemplation of the war-torn planet below, ignoring the scream and the meaty thump behind him. EVA01TEST. EVA 1. What are you planning, you fool? Horus wondered as he stared down at the planet below.
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"…And that's how it ended," the Emperor concluded. "With the Warp Storms gone, I was able to expand my control to the rest of the system, before beginning the expansion into the galaxy. With the Space Marine Legions behind me, I soon found my missing sons. I followed a simple policy-whenever I found one of the Primarchs, I would give him command of the world he was found on and control of the Legion based on his genetic structure.
"Horus… was the best of them all, my trusted second in command, a great ally…and a trustworthy friend. But now…" the Emperor broke off and shook his head sadly. "He's been turned. Turned to Chaos. He, and fully half of the Imperium has fallen into darkness, and if they win… We face extinction. I should have listened to…" The Emperor paused, closing his eyes, pain and anger raging behind them.
"I know what you've been through. Nobody here, not even myself has the right to order you to fight. Both of you have earned the right to control your future. But… Without you, there may be no future. I ask you to help us." The Emperor opened his eyes, looking at the two children, who right now looked as tired as if they had lived the last 38,000 years, instead of spending it in a form of semi-suspended animation.
He watched as Shinji and Asuka shared a glance, before Asuka sighed.
"I don't suppose we've got much choice," she said "Sure, we'll do what we can."
To be continued…
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Imperial Basilica; The central church of the Imperium on Terra. The faith involved is unknown, but presumably didn't involve worshiping the Emperor. The Imperial Cult was formed after the Heresy.
Mutants; During the Age of Strife, the human Gene pool was destabilized, and an ever-growing percentage pf people with massive mutations were born. They are often exterminated or enslaved, and hence often strike at those in authority.
Drop Pods; Orbit-to-ground-insertion pods. Basically a vehicle that is fired directly into a planet's atmosphere like a missile, bringing an entire Space Marine squad directly to combat in the shortest possible time. The g-forces involved can kill anything less durable then a Space Marine. The plasma contrails as they enter an atmosphere strikes fear into the hearts of the Imperium's enemies. Have no brakes. Nick-named 'Death from above'.
23rd Company; Before and during the Heresy, Space Marines were organized into Legions of thousands of marines, so it wasn't unusual for there to be a large number of companies.
Iron Warriors; In many ways, the Iron Warriors are similar to the Imperial Fists. They are siege specialists, and they tend to go for heavy cybernetic enhancement of their bodies. Before the Heresy, their Primarch Perturabo dispersed his warriors at the Emperor's orders, which lead to a lot of discontent. Horus played on this anger to convert them to Chaos. They follow no Chaos God, but instead follow Chaos in it's entirety. They take great pleasure in turning their skills on the fortifications they once guarded.
Basilisk; Self propelled Cannon of the Imperial Guard with immense range and fire-power. Never be on the wrong side of one.
Terminator armor; Even stronger then Power armor, Terminator was originally designed to allow Tech-priest to make repairs to the inside of a plasma reactor, while it was operating. Although they are slow to move, Terminators can wield heavy weapons as easily as pistols. They are easily capable of surviving being stepped on by a Titan, although not without injury. There is no better natural armor in the galaxy, only the supernatural defenses of daemons are better.
Blood Angels; A legion of Space Marines identified by their blood-red armor. Enlisted from the radiation swept world of Baal, each Blood Angel is considered a supreme being by the radiation scarred and twisted population. Sanguinius, their Primarch, is unique in that he has a pair of white wings growing from his back. The legion as a whole is aimed at close combat for preference.
Luna labs; The near mythical laboratories on Terra's moon, they were responsible for developing the Primarchs and the Space Marine Organs. Presumably the best Labs outside the workshops on Mars.
RH1N0; One of the basic tanks used by the Imperium, the RH1NO, or Rhino, is a well designed tank created from scraps of STC data from eons past. Robust, survivable and capable of using virtually any kind of fuel, the Rhino became the basis for virtually every type of tank developed for the Space Marines for the next 10,000 years.
Horus; If you don't have an idea of who this is, you haven't been paying attention. When the infant Primarchs were scattered to the stars, Horus ended up in the system closest to Terra, and was the first found by the Emperor. His second in command throughout the Great Crusade, Horus was summoned back to Terra to be declared 'Warmaster' of the Imperial forces. Horus fell ill just after to this request, while trying to bring the planet Davin into the Imperium (given his immune system, very suspicious). Despite his illness, he went down to the planet. When he returned, he had been possessed by Daemons and fallen to Chaos. He corrupted a full half of the Imperium and began the Heresy.