Chapter 3: New-gen terror
17:11 PM (New Orleans Time), Saturday June the 14th…
"… Tee, heh, heh."
"What's with the good mood, IQ – sama?"
"Marco! I told cha to drop that title 'ere: I'm a mortal 'ere but soon enough I'll get back to power."
"Huh… Roger, Anaya – san…"
"Tee, heh, heh."
A woman on her late 20s or early 30s and over a meter and eighty tall in height was standing in the corner of a large state prison's outer yard and talking with another man in Japanese.
The woman had orange-colored hair which reached until the base of her neck and blue eyes irises which depicted malice: she had a smug smile to her face.
She wore a simple orange set of clothes which obviously was the prison clothes along with simple white shoes.
"Twilight contacted me yesterday. We can expect developments today at around this hour. He took his time but I can't blame him: he was waiting for the jerks to lower the guard."
"I see, Anaya – san."
"Right, Izono Marco~?"
The man speaking with her was about her same age and maybe 2 to 3 centimeters shorter in height.
He had black hair and his eyes' irises were brown: he looked calm and he didn't seem to be surprised.
He also had prison clothes on him.
"It's about 17:13… They should soon come." Anaya grinned.
"We shall see." The man, Izono, calmly replied.
Alarms suddenly came into life as three Hind A model choppers flew towards the compound and began to shoot out missiles as the security turrets: machinegun fire ensued.
"Cosmo Buster!"
"Swallow Cutter!"
"Elec Storm!"
"Thousand Spear!"
"Icicle Fall!"
The "Darkloids" Cosmo Man, Swallow Man, Cloud Man and Yamato Man suddenly materialized inside of the perimeter and began to attack the security fences: Freeze Man landed next to them and made a gallant bow while smiling.
"Mistress Anaya and Mister Izono?"
"Yeah. That's us. Good show." Anaya grinned.
"One of the choppers will now land to pick you up and we'll then use the "gateway" to head to the rendezvous point." He announced.
"Good. Twilight wasn't kidding." Izono got smug.
"Tee, heh, heh! Destroy as much as ya want."
"Delighted. Ice Tower!"
One of the Hind A choppers landed next to them and they climbed into the crew area where Dr. Yoru Yami was waiting for them.
"Queen – sama. Mr. Secretary." He greeted.
"Good work, Twilight! Let's get outta 'ere full throttle." Anaya told him.
"Roger. Pilot!"
"OK!"
The chopper lifted and turned tail while the other two unleashed their barrage of missiles and machinegun around the perimeter to totally collapse the outermost walls: these other two Hind A choppers also turned tail while the five enemies continued their attack.
"Cloud Man, Swallow Man! Head ahead to the nearest airfield and sabotage their radar and any military choppers." Freeze Man commanded to them.
"Roger!"
"Ou! Count on us!"
"Heh, heh, heh." Freeze Man chuckled.
"The choice of the time was smart: it's not even 7:25 AM in Japan and they're still glued to their sheets 'cause it's a hot sluggish June Sunday to begin with… Brilliant!" Yamato Man chuckled.
"Isn't it? Those lowlifes are so predictable." Cosmo Man formed a smug grin next.
"Good! Let's return to the choppers and provide escort until the point where they'll meet with the "gateway" and head to the rendezvous point… Twilight – sama's strategy is a great success."
The three of them de-materialized and travelled across a Wi-Fi signal until they entered another Cyber World decorated with the letters "DP" colored in a jade color and set against an ominous gray background: Cloud Man and Swallow Man came in next.
"Our part of the strategy is finished as well, Commander Freeze Man!"
"Easy money~…" Swallow Man chuckled.
"Good work, you guys!" Dr. Yoru Yami congratulated.
"Thank you, Twilight – sama!"
"Glory to IQ – sama: today thou return to power!"
"Sure thing, man! Tee, heh, heh. Too bad, Vadous! Cha lose this round!"
07:37 AM (Japan Time), Sunday June the 15th…
"… BOSS!"
"Hmmm…?"
"You got asleep in the armchair again!"
"Huh…? Well… Yeah…"
"I've got news."
"Wall Street got hit by those rascals or what?"
"Worse! Maria and Marco have been extracted from the prison!"
"WHAT IN THE DAMNED…?"
Dr. Lartes rushed into the room where Vadous' armchair was at and found him to have fallen asleep while sitting there: he began to sluggishly wake up but Dr. Lartes' news snapped him outta it.
"And look at this."
He inputted some commands in the console and brought up security camera footage of the assault: he stopped the feed when the Hind A touched down and zoomed on Dr. Yoru Yami.
"Fuck! Yoru Yami! So you were alive! I knew it! You pulled a bushin or you pulled some light show before running for it 10 months ago! And all those attacks were distractions to make me forget about making sure you couldn't rescue Maria…! Che! Where the hell did those guys get their hands on those? Did he rip them from MG3: Snake Eater?"
"No. They're real enough." Dr. Lartes corrected.
"Mil millions de llamps i trons!"
"Catalan, huh? "A billion blistering barnacles"…"
"Damn them!"
"Boss… A stress attack won't do any good so cool it down. We gotta work on figuring out where they went off to."
"To the Bermudas!"
"Boss… Be serious."
"GRHTXJTA!"
"Boss… We don't need a new version of Martian."
"A TRAIL! MY KINGDOM FOR A TRAIL!" He lifted his arms in an exasperated manner.
"I think you need some tea." Lartes merely adjusted his reading glasses and was far from surprised.
"OMEGA~!"
"You called?"
Omega rushed into the room and Vadous turned the chair around to face him: he signaled the screen with his right thumb finger and Omega immediately got annoyed.
"Fuck. Moriarty's evil descendant." He came up with some sarcastic title on the spot.
"Totally!"
"Hind A, huh? Can't be that easy to find that nowadays. I'll ask Colonel Talos and Colonel Thunderbolt."
"Yeah. Wake them up if needed but something tells me Colonel Talos is already awake and working being the early riser he is."
"Roger. Do I tell Blood and Sigma?"
"Not yet. This will show up on the news anyway."
"Leave it to me. By the way… About the cake remains…"
"What happened?"
"Dragon put them into an exhibit case in front of the mess hall doors and titled it "the collapsed neophyte dragon of 15,000,000 years ago"… Guess it's supposed to be pop art or something like that."
"Dragon… Get back to Earth!" Vadous growled.
"Hey. It's not like I gave him the idea: you fixed that weird "glitch" I got back in January, Boss." Omega reminded him.
"I knew that, by damnation and Haddock!"
Omega shrugged and ran out: the hum of an elevator rang out while Vadous began to pace around the chair before banging both armrests with violence: Lartes sighed.
"Mr. Vadous."
"Ah! Colonel Talos! You got Omega's message?"
"No. I saw the news. The 8 AM news…"
A man showed up on-screen yet the screen only displayed him from the waist upwards.
He looked as being on his late forties: his hair was grey and parts of it fell down in the front of the face and he seemed to be missing his left eye as well.
He was dressed in a grey army uniform, although the area around the sleeves and neck was colored in a reddish patch: he had a distinction on the right side of the uniform just underneath the right shoulder.
"So? What do you think of those Hind A?"
"They most likely have been upgraded but they're the kind which was still in use in the 80s… Maybe they picked them from one of the republics which split apart in the chaotic 90s…" He offered.
"Hum. Maybe Colonel Thunderbolt would know more?"
"Maybe. I think he used them from time to time. Else we can ask General Hawk to check it out with some of his men…"
"Good. The sooner we start searching the better: I'm going to try to estimate how far their "gateway" tech can transport them to."
"Roger. We've lowered the guard and we're regretting it by now…"
08:08 AM (Japan Time)…
"… Cosmo Gate!"
"Damn it. Out of the way."
"Hmpf."
"Cosmo Man!"
Omega had stumbled upon Cosmo Man somehow in Internet City and they were battling over the rooftops by now: Omega was annoyed while Cosmo Man was being smug.
"I'll teach you about your own powerlessness."
"How lame." Omega grumbled.
"Heh, heh, heh. That's the price you pay for being lazy."
"Not lazy: you lowlifes set up a trap for us to fall for!"
"Twilight – sama's strategies are a great success!"
"Tell the guy to show his hide."
"Mwah, hah, hah! Hah, hah, hah! Not yet. This is but the start of this series: I'm the scriptwriter this time around! No need for the useless and ego-filled Video Man either!" Dr. Yoru Yami's voice echoed.
"Twilight! Stick out your Sidious wannabe cloak!"
"Sidious wannabe cloak! Tell that to you lowlife's master: you're their dog to yank around the chain after all! A mere puppet!"
"You wanna act like a Darkloid, huh?" Omega wasn't impressed.
"Mwah, hah, hah! Hah, hah, hah!"
"Go destroy your ego! I'm gonna destroy my ego… Mistress Madonna tells you that." He fumed.
He jumped over the planetoids and reached Cosmo Man but when he tried to hit him he turned transparent and vanished.
"Damn you! 3D image and you're coming from behind."
He turned and attacked the real one but he formed his ring to block Omega's incoming attack: he made a smug smile and Omega suddenly kicked a planetoid to hit Cosmo Man instead and have him crash against a nearby building.
"So. The dog bites, huh?" He mocked.
"I do. Cave canem!" Omega taunted back.
"Hmpf. Cosmo Buster!"
"Zan-datsu!"
"Wha~t?"
Omega suddenly wielded the sword with both hands as its edges glowed and began to cut the spheroids while dashing forward: he delivered a series of impossibly rapid cuts to Cosmo Man's body but then Cosmo Man punched him into the right cheek: Omega merely jumped back and drew his gun next: he spun it around his left hand and then shot several rounds which hit Cosmo Man and began to explode and open up wounds.
"Gra~h! Armor-piercing shells!"
"Hmpf! Davis gave me the idea to copy Solidus' P90."
"Damn." Yoru Yami's voice growled.
"Gruo~h! Too dangerous! Tactical withdrawal!"
Cosmo Man escaped and left a Giga Count Bomb Program Advance which headed towards a group of onlookers some meters below: Omega quickly grabbed it and warped to higher in the air to throw it into the "skies" and have it detonate there in a harmless manner: yet some purplish dust began to fall down.
"Evacuate! Now!"
Police Navis quickly rushed the onlookers away while Omega drew the Hell's Burner Battle Chip.
"Hell's Burner!"
"I'll give a hand too! Hell's Burner!"
"Ah! Zero."
"Yeah. Sorry for not coming to the party: I'm not that type of guy. Wily stayed away just in case too… I was investigating something but I'll tell you later once we dispose of that thing."
Zero had joined Omega into burning the purplish dust or powder: some hit the ground and began to form circuitry patches before a "Dark Aura" face like the one in the "Dark Chips" appeared and condensed into a "Dark Chip": the phenomenon began to spread and patches of the ground got deleted to build new "Dark Chips" which flew upwards.
"By all the…"
A gigantic UFO – like object suddenly uncloaked and began to suck those "Dark Chips" into its insides.
"That's the damned UFO Regal came up with way over 3 years ago on the "Internet City Annihilation" day…! It then became the "Darkloid" castle after it'd sucked up almost all data on "Internet City" and lots of Navis to use as sacrifice for the "Dimensional Converters"… At this rate history will repeat again! Let's go, Zero!"
"OK!"
They both warped and appeared atop one of the outer "circles" of the "UFO" thing: the phenomenon was expanding in a fast manner and they gasped when they saw that a huge patch of the city had become a desert-themed Cyber World with wrecked military equipment tossed there and there without any order.
"What in the… He's into post-apocalyptic games or what?"
"Dunno."
They both cut a way inside and quickly found the central room where all "Dark Chips" floated into gigantic servers to be stored there.
"So! Who's here?" Omega challenged.
"Come out."
"Mru~h!"
"What's that? Sounds like lowing…" Zero frowned.
"I now hear chirping… Wait a min… Oh shit."
A squad of about ten peculiar enemies dropped into the area.
These enemies were odd: they had a "head" had a shape reminiscent of the Alphabet letter "T" having a small antenna and a dome-shaped turrets plus missile tubes attached over where the ears would be.
The rest of the body included an armored square segment with a neck extension and two small curved extensions over the knees.
The legs weren't metallic or armored and they had a black-tinted skin: they ended in feet with three front fingers and some kind of heel to allow for support as well.
"Gekkou! From MGS4: Guns of the Patriots! These things' kicks are enough to overcome any heavy vehicle, nothing less than caliber 50 rounds will damage them, they have aural and IR sensors, they can use missiles and machineguns plus some kind of wire too…! And they can easily climb over any surface or organize to strike together…! Twilight! The jerk's started to watch it too! I myself played until I'd finished Act 1 and begun Act 2: I dunno what else he can throw at us." Omega described.
"Lovely." Zero grumbled.
"Program Advance! Justice Bomb, Triple Slot In!"
"Golden… BOMB!"
Davis suddenly appeared there while having formed a golden-colored version of the Giga Count Program Advance: he flung it at the middle of the circle as Omega and Zero jumped atop the enemies.
"Gotcha."
The explosion formed some shrapnel which struck the armor of the "Gekkou" units and stunned then: Zero and Omega began to cut the missile tubes and the machinegun turrets over them before they leapt away: Davis began to do the same too.
"Keep these guys busy! I'll try to disable the servers. Over 90% of the Internet City Japan Site has turned into a deserted land with high temperatures, a bright sun and circuitry patches drawn into the skies and seemingly extending for tens of kilometers…"
"That rings a bell somewhere…" Omega frowned.
"Another MGS4 rip-off?" Zero suggested.
"Hmmm… I'm not sure yet. But Act 1 was in the Middle East yet the landscape was a city and not the middle of the desert."
"Alright."
Davis began to attach slabs of C4 explosive after spilling oil over the servers while Omega and Zero began to slice up the "Gekkou" units yet more and more began to drop down.
"We're set!"
"OK! I'll try to make these follow me elsewhere: the C4 will only take out the servers 'cause it's impossible to blow something this big."
"Roger."
Omega cut open a doorway so both he and Zero ran down across the corridor with the 30 or so enemies following: Davis climbed up the shaft and reached a gigantic metallic red spheroid made of several compartments and which was glowing: he sneered and quickly formed a chainsaw.
"Ripped this from Biohazard 4… A rip for a rip!"
"Good one!" Charles grinned too.
Davis turned it on and began to cut across the core: energy began to flow out while some patches began to break down.
"Not-so-nice-looking panorama, guys… The whole of the control building has been suddenly filled with tear gas and all employees were forced to evacuate while some of those things showed up there to scare them: the building's now been officially hijacked." Vadous warned.
"Damn it. So Twilight must've been working on this all this time we weren't able to know if he was dead or not."
"Well. That "Emperor S" guy did tell us he was convinced that Twilight was missing in January, but that's already a long way back…"
"Omega says this landscape rings a bell."
"Yeah. I've got that feeling myself and I'm trying to access the archives to see if I find anything… Cut a hole into the thing, place some bombs and then get out: the power core's explosion should at least disable its movements and we could keep it paralyzed and such. All but a few Internet lanes heading here have been cut off and the boundaries of this domain have 6 layers of firewalls protecting them…"
"But we can still Plug Out?" Charles asked.
"Yeah. Luckily they haven't started cracking up the protocol which ensures emergency retrieval for any Navi. Omega and Zero will need to go into the Reverse Cyber World and re-emerge elsewhere, though."
"Gotcha."
Davis placed the bomb inside and was retrieved: the core blew up and the whole UFO's lighting dimmed to almost nothing while it stopped sucking in more "Dark Chips": they all fell back into the ground and broke thus actually restoring some of the absorbed terrain patches but as fragmented block-by-block parts: Zero and Omega dropped down and used jet-packs to safely land into the ground.
"Alright. Let's pull out already. We'll need to come up with a strategy to try to restore this place to normal."
"I know. Damned Twilight. Always screwing it up!"
"I know, Boss… I'm eager to kick his ugly Sidious wannabe hide!"
08:58 AM (Japan Time)…
"… WHAT?"
"Yes, Mr. Denpa."
"By all the…!"
Colonel Talos met with a man inside of an office.
This man was younger than him: he could be on his mid 20s.
He had short brown hair and his eyes' irises were brown: slight remains of a recent shaving could be spotted on his face too.
He wore a white shirt, a purplish tie, pants and brown shoes.
He also had reading glasses on.
"Ah! La bruixa! Ah! La pirata! Ah! L'assassina! Ah! La xantagista! Ah! La canalla! Ah! L'extorsionista! Ah! La vagabunda! Ah! La llunàtica! Ah! La botxina!" He began to pace around and he sounded like he was cursing in another idiom.
"Hum. Catalan…" Colonel Talos calmly muttered.
"Ah! The witch! Ah! The pirate! Ah! The assassin! Ah! The blackmailer! Ah! The villain! Ah! The extortionist! Ah! The vagabond! Ah! The madwoman! Ah! The executioner!" Mr. Denpa started to curse in English now.
"I know. We're trying to figure out where they got the choppers to see if we can get any hints on their organization's name…"
"Ah! Majo me! Ah! Kaizoku me! Ah! Koroshiya me! Ah! Kyouhatsusha me! Ah! Akutou me! Ah! Soukaiya me! Ah! Hourousha me! Ah! Ki no kurutta onna me! Ah! Shokeisha me!" He cursed in Japanese next.
"And if that wasn't worth enough what happened to Internet City is frightening as well…"
"Shit. Excuse me the wording, sir, but…!"
"Don't worry, Mr. Denpa. We all feel like channeling our rage out."
"Thank you…"
He finally sat back on the chair in front of his work desk and sighed in defeat: he wiped his glasses with a handkerchief.
"Yes. We need to pull all possible threads and…?"
He suddenly headed for the window and looked out into the streets: he could see a biker having an indigo-colored bull sticker on their helmet's forehead: they were rather hidden and seemed to be many meters down because the office was in a high-rise building.
"… Indigo bull, ivory dolphin and yellow seagull…" He muttered.
"I'd noticed, yes. A blue boar, a violet octopus and a cyan elephant…"
"So they've sent bikers to watch over us… Surely low-level grunts which barely are aware of anything… Maybe mercenaries hired by this group into being freelance and available to hit targets as the customers instruct… And with the "gateway" tech they could make them instantaneous and impossible to detect… We will have to keep our eyes open… I got reports from Agents Mori and Karasu about a red gazelle guy and an olive eagle…"
"Twilight is either trying to place pressure into us or use them to try to hit us as if wanting to say "Japan is not the haven you thought it was" like how he did a year ago…" Colonel Talos calmly replied.
Mr. Denpa closed the window and sat back on the chair while sighing and leaning his elbows on the table to support his jaw.
"We need to get Chief Lezareno to start looking… And maybe we need to try to capture one of those… I don't think they're fanatical enough to try to suicide so… And they might take a while to notice: if we can fake hourly reports then the better…"
"Good thinking. I'll set everything on the move ASAP."
"Thank you, Colonel."
Talos came out of the room and Mr. Denpa sighed.
This is going to be a LONG summer… I've got that feeling!