A Big O fanfic by Grendel226 a.k.a. Arren Dracone
Chapter 4: End Game
References, works cited, and authors comments will be posted at the end of the story. The action takes place directly after Act 13: R*D.
Roger was staring at the open books again. With Big Ear gone, this was a mystery he would have to solve on his own. Dorothy sat on the desk, glancing once in awhile at his notes. He paced the room under the pale moonlight that filtered in through the window, wracking his brains for some glimmer of cognition. "Did Angel say anything useful?" Roger had told Dorothy about the encounter, hoping that her mechanical thought processes would prove more lucrative than his human ones. "She said that no man would challenge Alex Rosewater." The words rolled of his tongue and then he raced to his chair. "No man would challenge Alex Rosewater." "You're repeating yourself Roger. Perhaps you're tired." He ignored Dorothy's remark and stared at his notes as he began flipping urgently through the book of Revelation. "And they worshipped the dragon, which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him?" "You have stopped making sense Roger." Impatiently he thrust the book towards Dorothy. "Read Chapter 13 there. It describes the end of the world and the reign of evil before good triumphs. That's what I quoted." Dorothy stared at the page then silently said, "No one would defy or go against Mr. Rosewater. But then what is the seven-headed creature?"
Now Roger was stumped again. If everything went back to Rosewater then there should be seven henchmen. Acting on a hunch he looked at his notepad. "That's no good. There were nine other Megadeii." Dorothy peered over his shoulder, her coal eyes narrowing momentarily. "No. You've made an error in your assumptions." Roger turned and looked at her hoping she was had come to her own revelation but she only calmly stated the facts as if they should have been apparent to him. "The Electric God was a living creature, not a Megadeus. And Perot was a genetic creation." Roger crossed the two off the list and stared at the number remaining: seven. "And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy." Seven. He had tied the enemy Megadeii to Rosewater who had secretly called off police intervention so that he could watch the havoc wreaked by the hulking creations. It had to go back to Red Destiny somehow though. Schwartzwald had piloted a red Megadeus. And three others had come lumbering up through the rolling sea. That made four. His mind working like a steel trap, he flipped frantically through the pages to find the passage he looked for. "And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword." A red horseman sent to take peace from the earth. Images of the red Megadeus flashed through his mind, and the three that had accompanied it that day. Four "horsemen"...four entities, each riding a Megadeus to serve as its steed on the path of destruction.
More images flashed through Roger's mind. He remembered the day that Angel had claimed to be a fallen one of her namesake. Perhaps that was what she really was. A fallen angel who was now in the service of the beast. He remembered the parallel scars on her shoulders where the wings had been torn from her flesh as a sign of her shame. She now licked the beast's feet and did his bidding, assuming any number of faces to gain trust, just in the way a false prophet would. At last his thoughts came racing back to his nightmares. "And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men." Flames engulfing everything. Flames raining down on the Earth as darkness descended, everything being wiped out by the massive waves of nothingness that consumed the sphere. The cloudless sky outside now seemed to menace Roger: a sign of the darkness that hung over the remains of civilization. His mind racing with the hellish landscapes of his nightmare he remembered the terrified faces of the children and the bar codes bearing no meaning. His eyes finally settled on the passage that he searched for, "And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads." The last innocents of the city, receiving a bar code by which the Paradigm Corporation catalogued all residents. The four who had been murdered by the Red Destiny had claimed to be born outside Paradigm, but perhaps that was their way of saying they had refused the mark. And the penalty for any refusing the mark was certain death.
Roger slumped heavily in his chair for the first time since he could remember feeling on the verge of tears. Tears of panic, and frustration, and pain. The city of Paradigm had not lost its memories. They had been taken in the final apocalypse predicted by a book that a few faithful abided by. The happy and sad memories of countless people had been erased in preparation for years of terror. Those that had attempted to save their souls had died doing so. And he was now a part of the pivotal axis on which the entire terrifying story swung. Dorothy rested a hand on his shoulder as Roger Smith, for the first time that anyone could remember, openly wept. Through tear streaked eyes, one last passage caught his attention: "Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name?" Roger murmured into his hands, "Cast in the name of God: Ye Not Guilty" then leaned against Dorothy's stalwart form, suddenly feeling very tired. Perhaps all the answers did lie in a name.
-------------
Roger stood on the balcony, watching the city below him. Dorothy perched on the railing staring at the ominous sky. "What will you do now that you have had a revelation, Roger?" "The only thing I can do," he said managing a faint smile. "Wait until the time is right to act, I suppose. After all, the answer's all in a name." Dorothy regarded what he said for a moment and leaned precariously back before vaulting down beside him. "A name holds many answers. Do you know what your name means, Roger?" "Hmm?" "In an ancient language it means 'he who carries the spear of fame.' Your name even binds you to your task." 'But of all the Rogers in the world, why did I have to carry the spear?' he thought quietly to himself. "What does your name mean, Dorothy?" "It has no relevance to the task at hand but it means 'Gift from God'." Roger allowed himself to chuckle a little. "Perhaps it suits you. And where did the gift from God come by this knowledge?" Unamused at his vague attempt at humor she replied, "Downstairs. You have an expansive library at your fingertips yet you ask others for answers before you search for yourself." She had once again picked out a flaw. Some things never changed. Without saying a word, he turned and walked to his study, scanning the shelves for any books on archaic languages. He was intrigued by what Dorothy had told him, and he wondered if perhaps his last question would be answered there. How did the Megadeus fit into any of this? At last finding a book that proved promising, he removed it from the shelf and found it was a dictionary for a long dead language. Ironically, he had opened the dusty and mold worn pages to the letter M. Mega: great. Great? He turned quickly and he felt his pulse quicken…Deus: God. Megadeus...Great God.
-- NO SIDE? --
-------------
Authors Notes: (updated to answer questions in reviews)
I wanted to write a few notes on this story because I'm sure it's going
to butt heads with controversy at some point. So here's the breakdown:
What sources were used? (I know I haven't written these citations correctly)
Big O. Original Series Creator, Hajime Yatate. Produced
by Sunrise Inc. 2000.
The King James Bible. Publisher (in my edition) unknown.
Copyright 1920.
The Bible as Literature: An Introduction. By: Gabel, Wheeler,
and York. Oxford UP, 1999.
The title for Chapter 3 is from the song "Mondo Apocalypso" by the
Millennium Fake Brothers, from the soundtrack to the game Of Light and
Darkness: The Prophecy.
Special thanks to Serena for reading this story prior to release and
providing encouragement for my writing.
Where did this idea come from?
Well, Big O obviously has some religious contexts in it. Cast
in the name of God is the obvious one. There's only a vaguely veiled
attempt to hide the fact that Heaven's Day is really Christmas, and in
the original cut, Rosewater gave a speech explaining that Heaven's Day
celebrated the birth of the son of God. There were also several apocalyptic
references in episode 13, R*D. I cross referenced some of these in
the book I mentioned above "The Bible as Literature" which has some very
informative texts on apocalypse motifs including fire, death of innocents,
and marking of the masses.
Why didn't you include all of Revelation?
Because Revelation is a reasonably lengthy book, and there are bits that really aren't
relevant to what I was writing. I took snippets from the sections in which I actually had
noticed the running motifs, mostly in Chapter 13. After reading the entire book, I selected
the bits that proved to be prudent to the actions in the last actual episode of Big O and those
that have appeared in the rest of the series. Had I chose to do a line by line analysis of
the parallels between Revelation and Big O I would have more of a lengthy paper which would
quickly lose the interest of readers, and this was not a research project but rather an attempt
to entertain.
What about the spelling of Megadeus?
Well, I've seen it spelled both Megadeus and Megadeuce. The spelling I took was from the
Animejump page for Big O, since they tend to be one of the more definitive anime sites. Granted,
spelling it differently does change the meaning, as pointed out in the reviews of the story,
I settled on a spelling and stuck with it.
Are you trying to push Christianity on us?
No. I just noticed a remarkable number of Biblical references
in the show and decided to pick it apart. I'm an English major, that's
what we do. And just for the record, I'm a practicing Pagan.
So no, I'm not pushing religious ideals on anyone.
Will there be more of the story?
Perhaps, time permitting.
