Tokoshie no Ansoku
There are monsters out there | MuzakTwenty years ago the world almost fell. Twenty years ago everything changed. Twenty years ago 'they' fell from the heavens and brought hell to earth. It was a cool autumn evening, on All Hallows' Eve. The children were dressed as Frankenstein monsters and bed sheet ghosts, miniature ghouls prancing down sidewalks coated in leaves and illuminated by the soft yellow glow of the street lamps. Parents following these processions of caramel covered faces sipping on apple cider from styrofoam cups. But this would be the last moment of peace seen for some time. Suddenly all across the world, the sky lit up with the fury of Prometheus first flame as a large celestial object came crashing through the atmosphere. The scientists said it was something from the moon, maybe an asteroid impact have dislodged large amounts of material. For several minutes the sky was alit with shooting stars tracing all across the globe as lunar material passed through the burning atmosphere. It was a once in a lifetime event, little did they know how true that would be.
The Lunar impact while very much a curiosity of the scientific community quickly fell out of the public's mind as most things do and they went on about there lives. It wasn't until 'they' appeared that they realized something terrible had begun. The media would end up calling them moonmen and while they were certainly from the moon they were far from what you would classify as a man. Horrible masses of distorted flesh and bone, monsters from the nightmares of children suddenly and horrifically very real and very alive. These creatures that had been asleep for hundreds if not thousands of years were awoken by their home being dislodged from the moon and their hunger insatiable. At first we ignored the signs: men and women go missing all the time some people don't want to be found, but then it was entire families and soon isolated villages and towns across the globe. But still we ignored it, the cases were mysterious yes but we couldn't draw any conclusion anything could've taken them anyway.
By the time we finally decided to try and deal with the threat it was already beyond the point of a quick extermination, from the corpses they had created they had already begun to multiple by the dozen, by the hundred. It was now full blown war. But this was not a war which we knew how to fight. These things are not human, they form not conventional armies, they don't use covering fire or fight in regimented units. Instead they charge the ranks en masse, thousands of them seemingly without fear and with no sense of pain charging our ranks. They refused to die no matter how bullets were placed into them the only course of action to truly destroy them was to burn all the remains so that the biomatter could not regenerate. And soon the entire world burned as we fought a desperate war.
Eventually we did manage to force a bitter stalemate after heavy losses. In the end most of the remaining world governments consolidated into one force known simply as the Coalition. Civil and political liberate were sacrificed and replaced with what amounts to a functional if totalitarian police state which put the survival of humanity before all us included the singular lives of the populace. With the world's remaining population restructured and unified under one banner they were able to shore up their defenses and set up a defensive perimeter surrounding their large citadel like cities but this came at huge costs. It was not uncommon for entire cities filled with civilians to be torched to the ground rather than trying to rescue them and fight the moonmen in a head on engagement.
Twenty years have passed since they first came to Earth. The Coalition is fighting a war of attrition against a force that they can't possibly outlast. But for now they are alive, and taking it day by day fighting back where they can and burning down what they can't hold. Our story begins in Japan, the last bastion to remain standing in the Pacific due to a large Coalition presence on the island. But things are not all nice and perfect. They are full intents and purposes cut off from the rest of the Coalition's main force located predominantly in Northern Europe where the cold chills and slows down the moonmen. They dare not try and cross the seas do to the leviathans that now stalk the waves, supplies come rarely from airdrops that try and dare the swarms of flying demons in the sky, and more and more creatures have begun to appear on their shores shambling inland. But the Coalition has a new weapon, an ace in the hole of sorts that may just help them hold out a little longer. They have LTs
LTs or Limiters are special children (predominantly female mostly due to some odd genetic reasons) born after that fateful Halloween night twenty years ago. Due to their exposure to biomass particles predominantly in the air and the water at such a young age it has produced some... interesting abilities. Enhanced speed, strength and durability as well some more particular and strange skills. Most are young and inexperienced but with the proper training and some luck, they may just be able to help save the world.
Welcome one and all to Tokoshie no Ansoku or as I like to describe it pubescent children fighting Cthulhu. If the names of works such as Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Neon Genesis Evangelion, or The Shadow over Innsmouth you may know what you're getting into. If not imagine the most terrible part of growing up and now add a giant tentacle monster on top of it and things may start to make some more sense.
More importantly though is in many ways this is a tale about monsters. You see I've always been one to humor that monsters can come in many forms: you have the pedolophie down the street, the murderer in the upstairs apartment, the Adolf Hitlers, Stalins, but you always have other monsters less tangible ones. The kind that people deal with everyday and are classified as sane in their ability to subside the urges that come from these monsters to let us severely maim somebody for being a righteous prick or something. Then of course their are your classic hollywood monsters your Draculas, Frankenstein's Monsters, werewolves, and zombies. They are reflection of humanity that we distort and make horrific to help represent some of our more baser instinct. But you always have your monsters beyond the edge of human understanding things that make you look behind yourself when you're by yourself, the dark unsettling kind of monsters that keep you up at night. These monsters are so large and cosmic to us little humans that all we can do in response is hope they don't see us and our blue little marble. Tokoshie no Ansoku is primarily about these last kind of monsters but also about all the other kinds as well and well the idea of monsters. What are monsters in the first place?
Well that's all I'm going to say right now in interest trying to keep things brief. If this idea has caught your interest even a little why not pop a squat and say hello.
Welcome aboard to another one of my crazy little rides of lunacy.
