The Diamond Stone, thought to have been stolen by Purple Basilisk earlier, was really hidden somewhere around Thailand all along. Yellow Cobra, however, doesn't plan on sharing it with his former superior...
DISCLAIMER: Bomberman is owned by Hudson Soft despite the company being absorbed unto Konami as of March 2012; WarioWare and Mario are properties of Nintendo. Contra belongs to Konami; Final Fantasy is a property of Square-Enix; Final Fight is a property of Capcom.
Chapter 6: The undisclosed, abandoned island base
[Briefing BGM: Mission Ahead (Star Wars Rogue Squadron)]
During their short flight to the abandoned island base off the coast of Thailand, Yuffie spent most of the time staring daggers at Purple Basilisk because of the attacks he staged in both Russia and Iceland just to "test" her and Blaze Bomber's "worthiness" of working with him. After all, it isn't uncommon to take the villain's words with a grain of salt, legit or not.
"Ugh, will you quit staring at me like that?!" complained Purple Basilisk. "I never said I was gonna backstab you in our mission to retake the island base from Yellow Cobra!"
"First off," said Yuffie, "you almost sparked retribution by hijacking a military train with an intent to attack a nearby populated area!"
"She's got a point," added Blaze Bomber. "You have no idea what Russia was like during the Cold War, way back when they used to be called the Soviet Union."
Purple Basilisk groaned again. "Says the one whose soul was trapped in the netherworld alongside Lord Red Falcon's Hate Bombers long before the Alien Wars!"
"I never was one to begin with, because I was brainwashed against my will. Until the Four Contras broke the mind control Red Falcon put on me for centuries, I was forced to obey him without question even if it mean using my flame powers to kill people - and you know I hate doing that."
"Yeah, I know that, but there's no way you'd have any knowledge in this Cold War; none of us 'alien scumbags' do because of that accursed prison we were trapped in!"
"I know the world history because I spend some time watching the History Channel with Bill and Lance on TV whenever I'm not busy helping Penny with her inventions. The Great Depression, Al Capone, World Wars I and II, even Count Vlad Tepes Dracula and his infamous Crimson Stone."
"Our point is," summarized Yuffie, "we don't trust you or your Chaotic Bombers to lead us around, especially after you tampered with the Contra Cruiser's security so you'd sneak in a Dangerous Bomb to blow us sky-high! By the way, what are Warlock, Siren, and Mosquito doing now?"
Sensing the ninja girl and the benevolent Contra were on to him, Purple Basilisk tried coming up with another way of fast-talking himself out of trouble, but eventually gave in since he was currently detained. "They're on their way to meet us at the island base off the coast of Thailand like we are now. There, happy?!"
"Not till we get your evil bomb out of our car, then I'll be my optimistic self once more."
"Heh...fair enough."
[End BGM]
[Stage BGM: Sector X (Star Fox 64)]
Mission 4: The abandoned island base
Formerly one of Red Falcon's bases, nowadays decommissioned...or so the media tells us when in reality, it's run by Yellow Cobra.
Blaze Bomber and Yuffie have reluctantly teamed up with Purple Basilisk to investigate, though only insofar as to try to get the Dangerous Bomb removed safely from the Contra Cruiser once and for all, let alone retrieve the Diamond Stone. Arctic Bomber, on the other hand, is expecting a rematch from Yellow Cobra at this point, which doesn't come as much a surprise.
April 11, 20XX
5:23 AM
The heated journey inside Mount Kenya had come and gone, but no competent adventurer would dare forget the old saying: out of the frying pan and into the fire. With just one Mushroom Stone left to find, Arctic Bomber left Kenya with Dribble, Spitz, and Misu for the artificial island base, located somewhere west to the coast of Bangkok, Thailand. Though it was meant to be run by Purple Basilisk, the only surviving veteran of the Alien Wars at the time, it belonged to Yellow Cobra (or, so he proclaimed).
"We're getting close to the base," called Dribble. "Keep your wits about you!"
"Say no more. Hey, wait a minute..." Arctic paused momentarily upon noticing signs of collateral damage.
"Wait, you don't suppose..." Even Spitz was at a loss of words.
"Oh no, no no...somebody must've beat us here! It's all gone!"
Misu became concerned about the damage at hand. "This is bad news. The Diamond Stone could be in the wrong hands by now!"
Arctic shook her head no. "Not if I can help it!"
Fearing another possible wreckage to the taxi cab, Dribble and Spitz landed on the artificial shore of the island base. Arctic Bomber stepped outside, and spotted a rogue helicopter flying above her. It had a frontal pulse cannon mounted beneath its cockpit, but something about its design seemed familiar. In fact, it appeared a little too familiar when it transformed into robot mode.
"Hold on a sec. Is that the robo-copter I encountered twice in Contra: Shattered Soldier? Apparently, Konami called this boss Mr. Heli Robo...or, so I've read online."
Mr. Heli Robo spoke in a robotic voice, "Destroy. Destroy."
"Either that thing somehow went berserk, or Yellow Cobra sent him after me!"
"I will terminate all enemies."
[Interrupt BGM]
[Fight BGM: Evil Invitation (Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow)]
The rogue helicopter fired his pulse cannon at the surface, just barely missing the taxi cab. Then he followed up with a salvo of missiles, before opening his arms from his sides to shoot purple lightning. He closed in on Arctic Bomber, almost electrocuting her. She assaulted him in return by throwing her Bowling Bombs like baseballs, eventually breaking his arms.
"You are an enemy." With that said, the mech transformed into robot mode and came down to the ground. Dribble and Spitz drove their taxi cab out of the way just before it would be crushed. Then Mr. Heli Robo pointed his pulse cannon downwards, shooting a barrage of laser shots to blast Arctic away. She got hurt, but not bad.
"I wish I'd brought my Neo Contra Rifle for this battle! Then it would've been a little easier on my part..." Mr. Heli Robo interrupted her by blasting her some more with his pulse cannon. "OW! Crap, I can't get in touch with my fellow Contra pals like this! Okay...I didn't wanna have to rely on a certain transformation, but that robo-jerk has just forced my hand!"
She got out a Smash Ball and busted it like glass, transforming her into the insectoid version of herself: Arctic Mothula. "Hey, Copter-head! Wanna see what happens when you piss off the Mistress of the Cold?"
"I prefer to terminate you, now," the mech responded coldly.
"Alrighty, you asked for it!" In her moth-like form, Arctic flew head-on towards Mr. Heli Robo's face, damaging it with hard blocks of ice in the process until he was blind.
"Optic sensors damaged, approximately 80%. Where is the enemy?"
"I've gotta finish him before he destroys more than the base's exterior!" She fired explosive ice shards from her wings, eventually destroying the mech.
"I must be complete." Mr. Heli Robo detonated in a large explosion, while Arctic turned back to normal.
[End BGM]
Despite her efforts, she didn't get the Diamond Stone. She figured it had to be inside. But before she could even move another step, another giant robot broke out of the base's interior, completely damaging it beyond all repair. Inside was none other than Yellow Cobra!
[Boss BGM: VS Omega Pirate (Metroid Prime)]
"Don't bother stepping inside! I've decided to save you the trouble of finding me, now that I've fully upgraded my armorsuit with the Diamond Stone! In other words, I'm prepared! Wouldn't you agree, Rolento?" He revealed Rolento and the Mad Gear thugs, who were imprisoned in a metallic cage.
"You're insane! Only we have the right to wield all five of those stones!"
"Bothersome insects! Begone with you!" The rogue cyborg grabbed the cage and threw it far away, landing the imprisoned thugs back inside their damaged helicopter. "Now it's your turn, Arctic Bomber! Feel the might of my new-and-improved armorsuit! I call it: the Omega Cobra!"
"Oh, how original," she stated sarcastically.
"Originality doesn't matter. It's how my mech will obliterate you that counts! Observe!"
His giant mech, resembling three giant Lanmolas (from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past) meshed together only with two claws each, attacked by detaching two cobra "bodies" from each other. While Yellow Cobra shot laser beams directly from the main body's eyes, the detached bodies tunneled in and out of the earth. Arctic Bomber brought one of them down with her icicle spears, only for it to swallow her whole in return. Thinking quickly, she dropped some Bowling Bombs within its interior, not only blowing it to pieces, but also ejecting herself to safety. She repeated the process with the other cobra "body" until Yellow Cobra was left with just the main body of his mech.
"Ha ha ha ha ha! You think you've won? You haven't even come close! You forget what the Diamond Stone can do!" Using the stone's power, Yellow Cobra reassembled the two detachable bodies that Arctic Bomber just destroyed, and re-meshed them together once more. "I have the ultimate power! Once I take the other four Mushroom Stones from your worthless corpse, I'll be invincible at last!"
"The power you have is only fueled by the Diamond Stone you've stolen! Without it, your Omega Cobra mech is nothing!"
"That's the main weakness. Exploit it...if you can!"
The giant mech tunneled in and out of the earth, firing three laser beams simultaneously. Destroying it would only have Yellow Cobra restore it with the stolen Diamond Stone, so Arctic thought up a new strategy: let the main body swallow her whole, and pray that she land directly inside the cockpit and blow it up. The mechanical beast lunged its main body downwards and engulfed her in its mouth just as she planned. Then she "drilled" her way into the cockpit with her icicle spears, swiped the Diamond Stone, and planted some more Bowling Bombs inside just before bailing out.
"Ughhh...why me?" groaned Yellow Cobra.
"That's why gobbling up intrepid soldiers like me is a bad idea," taunted Arctic Bomber. "Observe!"
"Hey! That's my kind of line, you copycat! I'll-" Before the alien cyborg could finish, Arctic's bombs exploded, causing a chain reaction of explosions that took out the mech and killed him inside.
[End BGM]
"Good riddance to bad rubbish..." muttered Arctic Bomber. "Let's get outta here and head for the Mushroom Kingdom."
"I couldn't agree with you more," came Blaze Bomber's voice. "You had us worried back there!"
"Hey, no need to fret. Just doin' my job as a Contra and recovering the Mushroom Stones, that's all. What, you thought I was gonna go power-crazy like Yellow Cobra did?"
Just then, Purple Basilisk's face appeared on the radio. Even though you did walk off on me at the last minute, I must admit you've done admirably well on getting rid of that pestilence for me, but I'll be having my Mushroom Stones right about now.
"Hmm, let me think," wondered Yuffie. "How about no freakin' way? Go ahead, blow us all to kingdom come - you know you wanna!"
How amusingly, yet stupidly foolish of you to say that! Well, have it your way, though it's a shame there won't be anything left of you for your funeral...
Immediately after the communication went out, Blaze Bomber warned Arctic and everyone else to evacuate immediately, assuring he and Yuffie had a backup plan in mind. In just seconds, the Dangerous Bomb's fuse was lit by the laser device and it exploded...not in the Contra Cruiser, but rather inside Yellow Cobra's personal island base instead! A huge ball of fire erupted from a distance as the enemy base was incinerated to a smoldering pile of its former self.
Miraculously, though, Purple Basilisk and his Chaotic Bombers were still alive, likely that Warlock Bomber teleported them out of the base before the atomic bomb-esque explosion. Grrrraaarrrrgh! Damn you, pesky Earthlings! That was completely unjust, if not downright unfair! We're supposed to be the sneaky ones around here, not you! How the hell did this happen?!
"We knew you were gonna waste us anyway," explained Yuffie, "so I did a little 'investigation' of my own while we were searching for the Diamond Stone. Without being seen, I snuck up on one of Mosquito Bomber's inventions and swiped it to see if it'll get the Dangerous Bomb out of our Contra Cruiser. Apparently, it was some sort of brainwashing staff based on Siren Bomber's powers, except I hypnotized some of your orc minions into removing the bomb and putting it inside Yellow Cobra's base at its reactor core; you did say only villains could touch it after all. Oh, and I also replaced said bomb with this..."
The optimistic ninja girl showed off a bouncy ball that was about the size of a beach ball, though it was colored red and had a white skull up front just like the Dangerous Bomb itself. However, that was merely a paper-thin disguise to the fact that the ball was really white with Invincibility Star decorations all around. "Surprise! It's a bouncy ball we borrowed from Diamond City through a little phone call of my own. We knew you couldn't be trusted, so I contacted Mona and Penny to have it teleported here with a magic disguise from Ashley. Now, what was that about hoodwinked, again?" She playfully stuck out her tongue at the now-peeved humanoid alien.
How DARE you trick the great king of the Basilisk Dynasty?! I knew you were concerned about removing our Dangerous Bomb without getting killed, but I didn't expect this! D'ooooh...you just wait till Mosquito, Siren, Warlock, and I get to wherever you are! I swear to Mihaele, we're gonna nuke the living crap outta you so hard, you'll be sorry you ever thought about pulling that childish prank on us! The Mushroom Stones are meant to be ours alone!
As Purple Basilisk hung up, Arctic Bomber wondered what the deal was, especially the bouncy ball; Yuffie was more than happy to explain, "Oh, that ball belongs to Mona. She had it for quite a long time ever since she was a little girl, or so she and 9-Volt told me once. I'll admit, we never thought it'd come in handy someday!"
"That's good to know," said Arctic Bomber. "And boy oh boy, did Purple Basilisk really kick up a fuss when you foiled his assassination attempt! Great king of the Basilisk Dynasty my ass...Ha ha ha! Well, it's good that you and Blaze are safe and sound anyway."
"Now we can head back to Diamond City to warn Aaron, Ami, Bill, and Lance about the coming attack without worry of getting ourselves blown up anymore," added Blaze Bomber. "As Dribble might say, 10-4!"
You took the words outta my mouth, Blaze, Dribble spoke happily over the communicator. Alrighty, lead the way; we're right behind ya!
The group did just that, eager enough to prepare themselves and their friends for the oncoming attack prior to taking the five Mushroom Stones to Sarasaland in the Mushroom Kingdom.
TO BE CONTINUED...
The five Mushroom Stones have been recovered at last, though only one obstacle remains in the way: getting Purple Basilisk and the remaining Chaotic Bombers out of the way once again, now that his assassination attempt on Blaze Bomber and Yuffie had been thwarted.
