Chapter 5: Phantasmagoria of Technology

I do not own Mega Man, nor Touhou Project. Mega Man is rightfully owned by Capcom. Touhou Project is rightfully owned by Team Shanghai Alice.

Meanwhile... Bass proceeded up the stairs. He reached a flat area that was above the nuclear reactor room on the floor bellow. From his perspective, the room takes a left before another set of stairs leading up to another room. He made it to the top floor of the ship. There he saw a transparent windshield, preceded by a seat and lots of control panels with all sorts of buttons and switches. Underneath the control panels were drawers for storage. Without a doubt, Bass found the cockpit. He saw a woman dressed red as strawberries, frantically searching for something throughout all the drawers, with various papers and documents spilled about on the floor.

"Hey you!" He called out.

She turned around. "Eep!"

"Are you the captain of this ship?" He asked, threateningly. His arm cannon was pointed.

A sweat drop formed on the side of her head, but she tried to sound confident. "Why yes, I am! My name is Yumemi Okazaki. But my identity does not matter considering you are about to die."

But deep down she was afraid. She did see from the cameras that Chiyuri easily dispatched several robots, including the one standing before her, and she herself is stronger than Chiyuri. Considering only one of them came up to the cockpit, she knew she'll win this fight. That's not what she's worried about. She knows that there's probably a whole army of robots that could come and overwhelm her if she successfully defeats the black and purple one, just like the crowd that subdued Chiyuri when she was weakened after a long battle with the first group of robots. Nonetheless, she'll have to stand her ground, she has no option but to defeat the robot standing before her, and quickly finish searching for the paper that has the home coordinates, before more robots come onboard. This is hopeless considering she can't leave Chiyuri behind, who has already been escorted off the ship by the robots. She will have to go get her, and the chances of saving her from the hoard of robots are slim. Thinking about all her circumstances, while the dark robot stands ominously in front of her, her heart is pounding. She has no idea what will happen if she fails, if the robots are here to execute her, or simply to take her prisoner. All she knows is that they want to "take inventory" of her ship, and she's afraid she'll never get to go home.

"If you're thinking about killing me, guess again!" Bass responded. "If you don't choose to go quietly, I'm allowed to blow you to smithereens!"

"So be it!" Yumemi exclaimed. "But first, let me change into my battle wear."

"Oh, come on..." Bass rolled his eyes.

Suddenly, a cape futuristically materialized on her, and she held out her hand as her staff also appeared.

"All you did was put on a cape!" Bass complained.

"If I win, I finish you with style. If I lose, I go out with style. It never hurts to put on a cape!" Yumemi explained. "And you're one to talk! You've got that flashy armor with those metallic bat wings!"

"Flashy?! I'll show you flashy!" Bass was already beginning to lose his temper.

Bass immediately fired a large purple bolt of plasma forward, with two other ones going in slightly off-centered angles. Yumemi immediately hovered to her right slightly, barely avoiding the main projectile and going in between it and the one off to the side. She pointed her staff and fired several blue orbs in Bass' direction, and he ran to his right to avoid them. He wasn't expecting them to stop behind him and expand into red laser crucifixes that had a Star of David in the center, and one of which actually hit him from behind, pushing him down forward. While he was dazed, Yumemi split apart into two transparent images of herself that flew apart before fading away. Her molecules then reassembled behind Bass, having teleported. She pointed her staff, drawing a vector line at Bass' location on the floor. She fired a huge barrage of bullets that looked like purple and yellow colored Stars of David, mixed in with some smaller white, circular bullets. Bass couldn't even react yet, the attack blitzed him as the hits from the bullets pushed him to the other side of the room where he hit the wall with such force that it cracked. When the attack stopped, he fell off the wall, barely landing on his feet.

"Ugh... so you ARE stronger than that blondie..."

Bass began to realize that even with the added power from the Treble Boost, he's bitten off more than he can chew with this fight. But he had to finish what he started. He activated the jet bat wings of the Treble Boost to hover over the floor. He quickly built a large ball of purple energy on the end of his arm cannon, then pointed and fired it upwards. It then collided with and dispersed across the ceiling, after which, purple plasma bullets began to rain down around the room in a checkered pattern. Yumemi hovered slightly off the floor and moved left and right once to go between them.

"How can you DODGE THAT?!" Bass was bewildered. "Your abilities are practically inhuman!"

"I'm more human than you are, bolt-brain!" Yumemi bit back.

Several Star of David bullets were shot out of her staff before they immediately turned and moved upwards, spreading their energy across the ceiling. This caused more of the same bullet type to randomly rain down from the ceiling at varying diagonal angles, not having much space between each other. Bass did not know how to weave through the danmaku and he was hit from various angles. She aimed her staff again, drawing a vector line to Bass's location. Bass knew this couldn't mean anything good. He dashed to the other side of the room, but the position/angle of the staff continued to aim the vector line at him, with the movements automatically pulling Yumemi's arm along. Bass quickly realized that the vector line was causing more laser crucifixes to expand behind him, and he continued to fly away from them, as he aimed his arm cannon towards Yumemi, trying to fire several cyan lasers in her direction, which she easily dodged by slowly moving to her left. As the vector line attack stopped, they stopped moving. Yumemi immediately released a spiraling burst of Star of David bullets in all directions. Again, Bass had no idea how to weave through the danmaku, so he held his arms to his face to block and defend. After all the bullets passed, his arm was fully charged, and he launched his forearm off as a homing rocket fist toward Yumemi. She began to move to her right to avoid, but quickly noticed the curving trajectory of the fist, and realized it was a homing attack. Out of panic, she disassembled her molecules again to teleport to the other side of the room. The homing fist hit the wall behind the spot she was just in, leaving large cracks behind. Bass turned, quickly finding where she teleported to, as the fist returned to him. He flew higher above the floor and pointed his cannon downwards, and fired a purple laser that continually connected to the floor, as he dashed in Yumemi's direction hoping to hit her with it. She immediately strafed slowly to her right while releasing a huge burst of Star of David bullets and small white bullets in all directions, while invisible origin points surrounding her body also released circular bursts of those same bullet types in all directions, which dealt enough damage to stop Bass in the middle of his charge. His body was beginning to release smoke from all the damage.

"GRRR... I SEE WHAT YOUR GIMMICK IS NOW." Bass yelled. "YOU LIKE TO SPAM THESE LITTLE PROJECTILES IN ALL DIRECTIONS THAT NOBODY KNOWS HOW TO AVOID. YOU'RE SO CHEAP. I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW I COPIED THE WEAPON DATA OF YOUR FRIEND DOWN THERE. SEE IF YOU CAN DODGE THIS FOR ME!"

Weapon equip "Photon Laser"

Bass's armor changed to a white and blue color palette, not unlike the colors of Chiyuri's danmaku, and his arm cannon changed in design once again to resemble Chiyuri's gun. He fired several blue orbs in Yumemi's direction, and with a second input of the weapon, could stop their movements midair, while some of them stopped moving when they hit the wall behind Yumemi. In about a second, it caused blue lasers to connect between the orbs. However, unlike Air Man and Quick Man, Yumemi easily re-positioned her body to not get hit by the lasers. In frustration, Bass tried the charge shot of the weapon. As he built up the charge, more weapon energy was consumed than with the regular laser shots, and he unleashed a volley of large, blue triangular photon bullets in Yumemi's direction. Lucky for her, the lasers wore off, so she could barely move out of the way of the triangular bullets. Bass was getting really angry with how he couldn't land a single hit on her. She moved to her right as he continued to fire blue orbs, every other one creating a blue laser that would connect to the previous shot, all of them missing as she flew by the edge of the room, all the while she was keeping up the pressure by firing purple hollow circle bullets back in Bass's direction, which he was too slow to dodge. Eventually the shots stopped as Bass's arm cannon made a clicking sound. He realized he wasted all the weapon energy. His armor changed back to the black and purple color palette as he unequipped the weapon. He stopped for a second to think which of his Treble Boost attacks he should launch next. He was too late when Yumemi charged up enough energy on the end of her staff. She launched a small red ball of energy that connected with Bass, creating a massive purple explosion of positively charged photons that contained trace amounts of magic. He fell to his knees, with ashy wounds all over his armor, with sparks and smoke rising. He no longer had the energy to stay fused. Bass and Treble fell apart in a small burst of light. Bass lost the wings and his armor changed back to a less bulky design with a black and orange color palette. Suddenly there's a purple robotic wolf collapsed next to him. After separating their mass, the two of them were even more damaged than when they were still fused. Yumemi stopped flying; she descended to the floor and landed on her feet, with her staff pointed at Bass.

"Looks like I finished you with style." Yumemi said. "I'll have you know, my crew member once revolted against me in protest to cleaning the ship. That's why I know how to dodge her attacks. Not to mention, I made her gun, the same power you tried to use against me. I'll admit, though... it's kinda interesting you could just mimic her gun with your arm like that, and use her danmaku against me. And you seem to be a cut above the rest of the robots who faced my crew member down there, you really held out against me for such a long time."

"Heh... and I'll admit... you really are stronger than her..." Bass added. "Stronger AND cheaper. Ach..." He said with an angered expression, but also in pain.

Before Yumemi could respond, they heard the sound of a massive explosion. The ship was suddenly rocketed forward slightly, and everybody in the cockpit fell over as they slid against the wall. When the rumbling subsided, Yumemi immediately got up to her feet.

"Oh no! What's going on?!" She ran up to the control panels, only to see half of the exterior cameras went offline. "What the?! Did the ship get torn in half?! Did all the ICBMS go off?! How?!"

While she was distracted, Bass used this opportunity. He struggled up to his feet, undetected, as her back was turned. He lifted his arm cannon, but was unsure if his Bass Buster was operable with all the damage he sustained. He only managed to fire a single buster shot, before revolting in pain with how poorly his damaged systems could carry the energy. The shot was just enough to break Yumemi's staff in two after hitting it in its weakest spot, which Bass successfully aimed for. Yumemi, realizing she just got disarmed, began to turn around, but was stopped when she felt the arm cannon pressed against the back of her head. Despite how much it hurt to fire his damaged cannon, not knowing whether he could do it again, he hoped he could make her surrender by holding her at gun point like this. She broke out into a cold sweat, her heart pounding, as tears quietly rolled down her face. She tried to surprise him by suddenly turning around and punching him in the face. She immediately turned back and cringed with how much it hurt her fist, partially colliding with his metallic helmet. Unlike certain other danmaku users, she doesn't do too well with melee attacks.

Bass quickly reacted. "TREBLE! ATTACK!"

Treble struggled, but got up on his paws, growled and lunged at Yumemi, biting her leg to pull her down to the ground. He wasn't biting with enough force to cause damage, just enough to have a firm grip on her leg. Treble was holding one of his front paws up, like a canine might do when the leg hurts and they don't want to put pressure on it.

"HIT ME AGAIN AND I SWEAR THE BLONDIE CREW MEMBER WILL HAVE TO CLEAN YOUR BRAINS OUT OF THIS COCKPIT AFTER WILY TAKES CONTROL OF THIS SHIP." Bass, with his cannon pointed, trailed off as he remembered Wily's orders to keep the occupants of the ship alive if possible.

Without another word, Bass went around and lifted Yumemi off the floor, holding her from behind by her arms. In the process, he transformed his cannon back into his hand. She didn't want to struggle with how threatening he was. She silently sobbed as he carried her down the stairs and out of the ship, with Treble limping behind them. When they reached the main deck, they encountered Stone Man and Hard Man waiting there.

"What are you two doing here?" Bass questioned.

"We were ordered to board the ship and wait for Slash Man and Crash Man to rendezvous with us, being told we were needed for heavy lifting." Hard Man answered. "When we got here the ship looked like it was cut in half, and the other two never came. But we waited anyway."

"I heard a massive explosion and stumbled over in the cockpit..." Bass explained. "Is half of the ship seriously missing?" Stone Man silently nodded yes. "...Huh. You hold onto her, let me see..."

Bass pushed Yumemi forward as she was caught in Stone Man's arms, before Bass went and ran down the corridor he saw Crash Man and Slash Man enter earlier. He saw the reflection of light shining in from his right, and made the right turn towards where the hallway would be, only to see a massive gaping hole, and as he looked out of the ship's wound towards the horizon, he could see fragments of the ship scattered around the fields surrounding Wily's fortress. All those rooms that Crash and Slash explored, as well as the hallway connecting them, were gone. He then went back the way he came, into the main deck, and as he grabbed Yumemi again, Stone Man let go of her.

"...Wow, you were right. In that case, I think Crash Man and Slash Man bit the dust. Anyway, I think this one is the last crew member of the ship. Let's get out of here and report back to Wily."

A look at her face, and one could tell, she knows it's all over. It's a look of hopelessness and helplessness. Bass may be rough and tough when it comes to situations like these, but this was going a bit too far. Yumemi didn't know what was going to happen. When she was carried outside, she looked to her right. She saw the giant skull insignia on the front of the fortress the ship had collided with. It was foreboding. She felt like a prisoner being dragged up, about to be sacrificed to the Sun God at the top of a Mayan temple, or something among those lines. She looked to her left. Her fears were confirmed about the ship being blown in half by the ICBMs. She felt even more hopeless, believing it will never fly again. She is trapped in this universe, stuck at the mercy of whatever these robots want from her.