The first chapter of the transcription is officially done. This was the easy part because what I forgot to tell everyone was that there were two stories in this fan fiction, not one. The first installment was a short story, lacking in some descriptive detail compared to its ambitious successor as I just tried to fill in the details of a narrative flashback. The first chapter, "Invisible Tapestry," is mostly a retelling of the events of the films Godzilla vs. Biollante and Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992) from the unseen perspective. It was my intent to explain exactly what I imagine happened to Erica Shiragami’s spirit before, during, and after the events of the film. "Prelude to Revelation: Erica's Journey" unfolds into something special to me, and I wrote a large chunk of "Godzilla Revelations" before the extent of Erica's journey even came into my mind.
As I stated in the history lesson post, "Godzilla Revelations" originally was a script for a three-issue Biollante comic book mini-series. I kept many of the plot elements and new monsters from that original story intact, but scrapping the comic book idea meant I needed to connect it to the movies in a new way. I also now had the rest of the actual film catalog under my belt from bootleg fansub VHS tapes rather than a lot of newspaper microfiche synopses I had collected at my high school library. When I began rewriting the story and reached the point where (I would say SPOILER ALERT, but there wouldn't even be a story without this information) Biollante inevitably would return to Earth again in the present day (which, in the story, is the year 2001, the year I finished writing it and two years after the events of Mothra 3), the simple explanation just wasn't good enough. I also had seen a few other classic Toho sci-fi and kaiju films, and I was inspired to incorporate a few of those Showa elements into my Heisei continuation. I'm keeping those under wraps for now, and I will try to refrain from as many spoilers in my prefaces as possible.
I thought about incorporating the prelude into the main story with a number of flashbacks, but I felt keeping the two separated as they were written was a better idea because it might have pulled the plots away from each other for too many pages. The main reason, however, is that "Revelations of Godzilla," as I called it in the first draft, was planned as the third part of an epic story... and I never wrote the second part. I reference it often enough in the story, but I am going to have to provide more detail to those references when I do the transcription. The unwritten story is simply too long inside my head for me to write it now. I may never get this transcription finished if I do, and the transcription is the most important part. I need to get this story out there, but there is always a someday. Fortunately, a forthcoming cast of characters list for "Godzilla Revelations" will include a brief synopsis of the unwritten second story to establish how the characters progressed after the films. There shouldn't be any unturned stones.
So here it is, the first installment of a labor of love that took me seven years to write and another thirteen years to go through the five stages of grief before raising it from the dead one more time for your reading pleasure (or displeasure depending on just how nitpicky you can be about Godzilla fandom… or if you’re just itching to throw tomatoes), and this year marks the 20th anniversary of the story's inception. My writing is a bit rusty and perhaps unpolished, but I am turning the gears a bit more as I delve into this. This prelude story is going to flesh out a bit as it progresses, and I hope that it is enjoyed. The final draft of the prelude story I finished in 1998 was 20 pages long, and the transcription may double that number. Now, without giving myself any more time to be my worst critic and back out to mull over a lot of sections that will give me writer's block for another 20 years (I’ve already re-read and tweaked this foreword several times in the last three days), or giving the “curse” of this story time to make my computer explode and wipe all my writing again, here we go.
Important reminder: reading this chapter requires that you have seen Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989) and Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992). Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991), although it should be seen (I'm recommending a Godzilla movie I never really liked because I'm trying to be a professional), has no impact on the story at this time and probably won't ever. Time travel gives me a headache, and the canon establishes without explanation that the events of Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah had no effect on the events of Godzilla vs. Biollante. Biollante still existed, and Gondo still died injecting Godzilla with the anti-nuclear energy bacteria. Whatever unseen force "protected" Biollante's existence in the time stream (cough time travel plot hole no one cared about cough) is going to have to remain unseen. I was going to put a "... for now" at the end of that sentence, but I don't even want to begin to try to come up with an explanation.
I also have to thank a mid-1990 issue of Markalite magazine that gave an in-depth analysis of the making of Godzilla vs. Biollante and helped me immensely in making sure I had all of the names of existing characters correct. Several of them are not mentioned in the film such as Dr. Shiragami’s first name. It saved me some embarrassment.
Godzilla Revelations
Part 1
Prelude to Revelation: Erica's
Journey
by
D. A. Tindall
AKA The Quandary Man
Originally written
1997-1998. Transcribed and updated 2015.
Chapter
1: Invisible Tapestry
1992. The
outermost region of Earth—the exosphere—where an ionic field forms the barrier
between the planet’s oxygen-rich atmosphere and the seemingly endless vacuum of
outer space. Since the first living creatures were born upon the blue world,
few have dared to venture through this invisible wall for fear of instant
death. Almost completely a vacuum itself, the exosphere has remained empty for
billions of years. Empty, that is, until three years ago, when a cluster of
living energy came to rest in a fixed orbit above high above Japan. Once in the
form of an enormous rose bloom, the energy’s visibility soon faded until no
living being could detect it physically, mentally, or electronically. This energy—composed
of the genetically bonded cells of Godzilla, a rose, and a human—formed the
body of one of the largest and most powerful beings on Earth… Biollante.
Since her final battle with her
“brother” Godzilla—a conflict neither adversary truly won or lost—the allegedly
immortal plant creature lay dormant here, presumed dead while its living spirit
is tethered to the smallest strand of DNA bonded to the creature’s form. This
living spirit does the closest thing to resting in peace that it can as the cells
are locked in battle against the vacuum of the exosphere. Slowly, but surely,
the force of space has been pulling the invisible strands apart as its unique
genetic make up and psychic energy knit it back together, weaving an
ever-widening and increasingly-delicate tapestry that lies in wait as an
unwitting trap. On this day, the fates have decided that the late Erica
Shiragami’s peace must end, or else Earth may pay a terrible price…
Yokohama, Japan. This once-great
city has been all but destroyed in the battle that has taken place. In a
conflict that ended on the city’s fairgrounds, the threat of Godzilla was
temporarily neutralized through the combined efforts of the insect goddess
Mothra and her former enemy Battra. The battle cost Battra his life, leaving
the inhabitants of Earth in a grave danger of which they had no knowledge.
Foreseeing his own fate, Battra told Mothra of an asteroid that would collide
with the Earth in seven years’ time, leaving no survivors unless it could be
stopped. With her twin avatars, the Cosmos, in tow, Mothra embarks on a journey
into space to stop the oncoming threat.
As Mothra passes into the
exosphere, the first obstacle on her journey, her fur stands on end. She feels
a tingling sensation that strikes her most sensitive nerves. Sparks fly through
her abdomen and across her wings, giving her and her tiny passengers a mild
shock.
“What is this?” the first twin
asks.
“Only static,” replies the second
twin. “The Earth fights hard to keep life contained, but Mothra will not be
delayed.” The effects soon pass, and the twins think nothing more of the
experience than what it appears to be. Mothra, however, in her ancient wisdom,
feels some unnatural phenomenon has taken place, but her task is ahead of her,
not behind her.
Deep within the grooves of Mothra’s
talons, far deeper than Mothra or even the Cosmos can see, in the microscopic
trenches of Mothra’s scales, there is something else. Remnants of the battle
she left behind, Mothra carries with her fragments of Godzilla’s flesh, sloughed
and scratched from Godzilla’s hide as she and Battra carried him over the
ocean. Only in this place, this specific spot high above Earth, could something
as dismissible as dander be so significant. As Mothra’s body crosses the
exosphere, the invisible tapestry tastes the Godzilla cells and knows they are
the same, but, after the shock of Mothra passing through the tapestry, the
cells have no more strength than the web of a spider in the darkness, strong
enough to be felt in the hairs on one’s skin but not strong enough to hold or
stop one’s progress.
Little time passes before Mothra is
miles from the Earth’s atmosphere, and it is only then that her suspicions
become reality. The tapestry, stretching and straining outward as invisible
tendrils reach as far as they can in Mothra’s direction, reaches the tensile
limit of the waning psychic energy holding it together. What once was invisible
quickly becomes very visible again as a tiny jolt of electricity appears in the
tapestry, followed by another, and then another, dancing across the seams like
firing synapses until the sky over Japan looks like it has been painted in
yellow-white stained glass. The glass image continues to stretch outward,
rending itself apart until it explodes into a glittery cloud of dust. Millions
of glowing particles scatter into space, disappearing as quickly as they
appeared, and anyone that did not witness it firsthand would find great
difficulty convincing anyone else that it had happened at all. In the midst of
this brief cataclysm, something, or rather someone, awakens…
F…Father…Asuka…Where…I can’t see… anything. So
bright… or so dark? I can’t tell. How am I speaking? Am I speaking… thinking?
Hurts… feel nothing… Give them back…give what back? Ours… mine.
The voice that emits from the
fading tapestry can belong only to one person, but that person has been dead
for over nine years. How, in all the miracles of creation, could the deceased
speak from beyond the grave… unless, somehow, a part of that person was still
alive? Caught between life and death by the hands of man, that possibility
holds true solely for Erica Shiragami.
Dr. Genichiro Shiragami could not
accept the loss when a devious act of terrorism and corporate espionage took
his daughter’s life in an explosion in 1984. Removing a tissue sample from his
daughter before her burial, Dr. Shiragami bonded the still-living cells to a
young rose plant, unaware of the consequences of his grief as it pulled Erica’s
very soul back from its journey to eternal rest and bound it to a new host.
But, as the plant matured, it began to reject its human cells. For five years,
as Erica’s restless spirit turned in a dream-like state, her bond began to
weaken and her faint voice began to fade. The young Miki Saegusa, still
untrained in her own powers of extrasensory perception, never could make out
Erica’s words, and Asuka Okochi, Erica’s best friend, believed Erica’s voice
was a grief-stricken hallucination. Neither of them knew the truth. Neither of
them knew that Erica’s spirit was not simply lingering around the plants in her
father’s laboratory. Neither of them knew she was trapped in the garden, but
she felt that she would not be trapped for much longer. They could not hear
Erica trying to say goodbye as she felt her spirit on the edge of freedom. Her
father’s machinations were not enough to stop her natural passing, only delay
it. She felt happy, and she was thankful that she had this rare opportunity to
bid farewell to all she loved. But, through his grief, this is not what Dr.
Shiragami felt was happening. Dr. Shiragami cared less about his daughter’s
soul than her living body, and it was he who had succeeded in extending her
life beyond death. He was determined to do so again before it was too late, and
the Godzilla cell anti-nuclear-energy bacteria project was his opportunity.
1992. The tapestry’s explosion has
unraveled Biollante’s very DNA, splitting her into two greatly unequal parts
with wildly different agendas. A bright blue orb, the color of Godzilla’s fire,
slowly drifts away, leaving behind a smaller orb of orange. The blue orb,
composed of a driven mass of Godzilla cells and residual psychic energy, has
purpose and power, and it pursues the invisible scent of Mothra into space. The
smaller orb, disoriented and weakened, is all that holds Erica Shiragami’s
tether to the living world together.
We… I am… myself again,
Erica thinks. Something… something is not right. I should not be… We… are
not we… whole. Something… is missing somehow. Why can’t I remember? I… died.
Why do I need to remember? Erica attempts to open her eyes, but she has none.
Her entire human body, she remembers, is gone. She can’t feel anything. There
is no touch, sight, smell, or even breath. There is no sensation of the
unforgiving cold of space on her skin or the lack of air in her lungs. All she
feels is that she… is. Suddenly, an image flashes before her consciousness,
then another. The confrontation in Lake Ashino. The evolution outside of Osaka.
The memories are quickly gone, but they are enough.
“Biollante!” her
consciousness seems to cry out, but there is no answer. The only body she has
known since her human death is a monstrous mixture of cells that changed form
every time she felt more than consciousness. Every time sensation returned to
her, it was some new permutation of the unnatural, some new horror she couldn’t
control. Now, there was just the feeling of being… and a familiar pulling
sensation.
1989. Erica felt the shackles of
her earthbound state tighten around her again as the Godzilla cell merged with
the genetically modified rose cell under Dr. Shiragami’s microscope. Now,
however, something felt different. Something felt even more unnatural than what
had kept her on Earth for so long. This time, Erica did not feel like she was
alone. Something else, something animal and fierce, shared space with her, and
this something else did not hold to the concept of sharing. This manifestation
of rage and instinct believed only in territory and domination. Erica was too
weak to argue, but she also shared the rage with her new “self,” the amalgam of
man, vegetable and Godzilla. She also felt the pull. It was a nagging and
indescribable sensation that drew her in some unknown direction purely
instinctively, and it never went away, a sense of gravity weighing her down one
moment and leading her the next. The beast within her, the rejuvenated Godzilla
cells, could feel that they were not quite whole, and they called out in rage
with Erica’s voice to draw their host—the living Godzilla—to them.
In Lake Ashino, that call was
answered immediately, and the Godzilla within Biollante experienced crippling
defeat for the first time at his own hands. But even as Biollante burst into
flame and her charred remains floated into the atmosphere, Erica did not feel
the shackles weaken. She felt drawn to the beast that watched the ashes of the
burning rose lift into the sky, but the rising pollen pulled her farther and
farther away from Godzilla. She was too weak, and she already had paid the
price of retreating into herself and letting the inner beast take over. She
could not allow that to happen again. Erica had to regain her strength. She had
to overcome the rage inside her that only fed the beast. She could feel the
creature’s eyes staring into her, yet she could feel the same eyes staring back
out. A human and Godzilla now shared the same body and soul. They both wanted
to be free of it, but thorny vines seemed to chain them together. There must
have been a way, but they needed rest.
Molding to her subconscious to ease
her state of mind, a translucent form grows around the orange orb. Arms, legs,
and a head with dark flowing hair surround the orb. The physical form of Erica
is reborn, and the orange orb glows in the pit of her stomach, still pulling at
her in some unknown direction. The ghostly form of Erica opens her eyes slowly.
The view from Earth’s orbit would leave any other living being in awe of the
sight, but not her. A small part of her mind thinks she should feel something
about this, but she cannot ignore the pull of the orb.
The pull. Even after her massive
rose form was destroyed, Erica still felt the pull. She hovered above the
atmosphere, but she could feel the pull beckoning her to the ground. Was it the
plant within her wishing to bury its roots? Was it the living Godzilla calling
to the cells, which, ironically, no longer could be a part of him and would
have deteriorated to dust if not for Dr. Shiragami’s experiment? Was it Erica
herself yearning for her grave? It didn’t matter. Only the pull mattered, and Erica
slowly grew stronger and stronger until she could respond to it. In the
meantime, Godzilla, suffering the gradual effects of the anti-nuclear energy
bacteria, was growing weaker, and Biollante could feel it. Erica was in
control, and she knew what had to be done. Biollante had to die, and the only
way that she could die was to give every part of her exactly what she wanted.
She had to return the rose to the soil, Godzilla’s cells to their rightful
host, and her human cells to the winds of time.
As humanity watched, they could not
comprehend what truly was transpiring as the pollen rained down from the sky
and the leviathan that was Biollante’s evolved form erupted from the earth.
This was no simple battle, and Biollante was no simple monster. This was a
trinity of wills working in unison for the first time, answering the pull
toward Godzilla and the life-giving essence of the planet itself. Her roots
tasted fresh earth, but she knew she was no longer bound to it. Her roots
pulled free, and she slithered toward Godzilla, still answering the pull. But
Godzilla, even weakened with the bacteria coursing through his veins, was pure
power, and he unleashed his fury upon her with his white-hot breath. Biollante
bellowed with pain as parts of her were burnt and blown away. She could feel
them regenerating almost instantly, but a direct hit to the massive bulb at the
center of her chest could disrupt her healing again, forcing her back into the
sky before she completed her task. She had to have enough power this time. She
could not afford a third attempt. On the sidelines, among the crowd that
included Erica’s father and Asuka, Erica could sense young Miki Saegusa.
Biollante could feel her mind, the connection Miki made when she delayed
Godzilla’s path with only the power of her mind. Erica now had that same power
without realizing it: a psychic bridge between man and monster.
Biollante’s body flashed with
bright red energy, and it looked like she was readying another attack. This
time, however, she only looked at Godzilla, holding her ground. Godzilla’s head
shook with confusion as an invisible battle raged between the two of them that
he somehow could feel within himself. As if standing in front of one of Tokyo’s
glass-covered skyscrapers, Godzilla was looking into a mirror. All the pain,
the rage against humanity, and the loss were staring right back at him through
Biollante’s eyes. The behemoth abomination was his enemy and himself at the
same time, and the windows to their souls were wide open. Godzilla’s heart rate
increased rapidly, his temperature and blood pressure rising as if he were
planning to unleash his fiery breath again, but his spines did not glow. Every
heightened emotion he shared with Biollante doubled inside of him, and even the
King of the Monsters could not defeat the weight of himself. The bacteria took
full effect, and Godzilla turned, staggering toward the sea until he collapsed
on shore.
Erica at last felt the earthbound
shackles weakening. Everything within her began to unravel, but it felt right
this time. The part of her that was Godzilla could crumble to dust, the part of
her that was a rose could return to the soil, and Erica could discover,
finally, where the journey of her afterlife was meant to take her. In a great
plume of smoke and light, Biollante’s body dissipated into its base elements,
and, for the first time, Miki could hear Erica’s voice plainly. She said,
“Thank you.”
Dr. Shirigami called out to his
daughter as she rose into the sky, and a shot rang out. Dr. Shiragami fell to the
ground, dead from Saradian assassin SSS9’s bullet. Erica could hear her
father’s voice as if he stood before her. “Erica, forgive me,” he said. Then,
he was gone to wherever one goes when one truly dies, but Erica wasn’t. She
thought she would join her father, and the remains of her essence came to rest
in the exosphere, taking the form of a giant rose bloom to remind the world of
what had passed. Erica felt tired, but she felt free. She went to sleep,
expecting never to wake in this world again, and she did not notice that the
pull was still there.
Preview of next chapter:
Chapter 2 -
Singularity
Forgive you for damning me,
Erica thought as an anger not entirely her own welled up inside her. You
selfish old man…
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