LEGALITES: I DO NOT OWN BIG O OR ANY CHARACTERS THEREOF.
[]-INDICATES THOUGHT
Hey, Big O fans! You probably don't know me, but for those who do, you can skip this paragraph. I'm Silverlocke980, the writer of three fanfics so far- Deeping Dream (Darkstalkers), Harry's Madness (Harry Potter), and Falling Through Nightmare (Soul Caliber). I'm a huge fan of Big O, and at the start of each fanfic chapter I write "SHOWTIME!"- my own little personal ode to the show. I'm a big anime/book/video game fan, and strangely enough seem to be one of the only people in my town with these attributes who isn't a geek. Ah well. That's where fanfiction.net comes in! Through it, I can find other fans of the same things who aren't complete morons. Makes me feel loved :).
I have watched all the episodes with a single exception: Episode 14, Roger the Wanderer. I missed it due to a storm in my area that screwed up my satellite transmission. I had faithfully watched the show even before it showed up on Adult Swim, and this caused me to have a nervous breakdown and attempt to suicide. Obviously the attempt failed :). I would like anyone who has seen the episode to put in a review that tells me about it. It would be greatly appreciated.
My fanfic deals with the last episode, so before I continue, here's something for new fans of the show:
SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!
SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!
WILL REVEAL SECRETS OF LAST EPISODE!!!!!!
SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!
SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!
Okay, with that done, I'll continue. In the last episode, there is a strange, surrealistic scene that occurs after Roger and Alex (piloting Big O and Big Fau, respectively) have fought, and Roger loses. After a few scenes ending with both Big O and Big Fau in the water above the sunken city, Alex manages to escape, leaving the wounded and mostly unconscious Roger in the rapidly sinking Big O. Suddenly a light flashes about him, and images flash forward, rapidly, snapshots in time. He is having a psychic surge of some sort- a vision, almost.
My fanfic is about this. What he saw, in his vision. What the episode didn't show. What Roger's truth is.
Ladies and Gentleman, it is now
"SHOWTIME."
The Wakening of The Wanderer
He floated, both in body and mind. His body floated in the sinking (and, soon, to be full of water) Big O, sitting in the chair of the Dominus, his body battered by Alex's assault. His wounds ached, but he lacked the power to move. His body was simply too weak.
His mind floated in that place that is reserved for mortals who are neither living nor dead, who lie in that graveyard between the lands of life and those lands that belong to death. He was in limbo. He knew he had to move, but both pain and his own confusion were too strong. He didn't understand so much...
Light.
Roger blinked his eyes. A light shone about him. Around him, Big O sunk through a strange land, a world of gears and buildings, a dead zone whose only inhabitants were the fish and, perhaps, the memories of those who lived there. Roger saw none of this. His attention was riveted to the light that shone upon him. It entered his eye- and he SAW...
A battlefield. Hundreds of Megadeuses, their dull black armor gleaming in the light of both laser and fire, charged forth to battle. Armored flyers like the Megadues Shwartzvald and Alan Gabriel had piloted ([Big Duo,] Roger thought, [It's name was Big Duo,]) flew through the air, the lights of their fire burning in the sky. Several were shot down as he watched, burning as they fell.
Light.
He saw a Megadeus, fighting an electrical beast of some sort. He'd seen this before, when he battled the Hydra the Union had created. It had saved his life- [Is this my own memory?] Roger wondered. [One that Gordon Rosewater put inside me?]
Light.
He saw the Big O, and what was inside it stopped him dead in his thoughts. A logical man, Roger Smith could not comprehend what he saw.
He was laying inside it, almost dead. The enormous battle in the city apparently over, he saw the Big O sitting down, almost like a man would in an easy chair, upon the ground. Inside it's cracked shell, Roger Smith saw himself. His skin was pale and sallow, and he was barely breathing. It was clear he would die soon, with or without medical treatment. Death had buried it's claws far too deep to let him escape it's grasp.
Light.
He saw a robot factory. In it, he saw robots passing through a machine of some sort. When they exited the other side, Roger saw to his horror that they looked just like him, black tie and all.
Light.
He saw a child, her arms up near the screen of a television. On the television, he saw himself, calling Big O as he had done so many times in this city through his work as Negotiator.
Light.
He sank through darkness. And he heard a voice, and as his eyes closed for what he felt was the final time, he traveled.
************************************************************************
Light flew past him. He heard voices, laughter on screams, a single shining mirror in the dark (glancing at it, he saw both laughing faces and screaming ones, and for a single second he thought he saw Alan Gabriel's screaming, tortured face), fog enshrouded lands and a rain that never ended, but just poured and poured down on a multitude below. Some were standing in the rain, not an umbrella among them, just standing there, looking skyward with a look of utmost defiance on their face. They were singing and shouting, their voices rising over the patter of rain. Their singing was spiritual and defiant. Others fell, cowering, and worshipped this rain, moaning and screaming aloud. They were hideous, and open sores and boils covered their bodies and backs.
Light.
He was standing, floating, existing on a single hill. A tree stood nearby, swaying without any wind to help it. Fog rolled all about the hill, and it seemed as if nothing existed except this hill. Stars twinkled brightly above it. A single figure, cloak wrapped about it's body, sat beside him. A faint smell of cigarette smoke floated to Roger. The figure had dull red hair that protuded from the top of it's cloaked form, and Roger saw what looked like a sword hilt jutting above his right shoulder. The figure's size and age were impossible to tell, just as anything else about it was; it had it's back turned to him.
" It's a hard road, isn't it?" the figure spoke. It's voice was both deep and high, and the very sound of it was comforting.
" What? Where am I? Am I... dead?" Roger asked. Inside, this man, who prided himself on his extremely logical nature, found himself afraid. Was this what awaited past death? Was this what truly awaited them all? Roger Smith had personally believed in the reawakened churches strung throughout Paradigm City (his logical mind accepted them simply because so many memories surrounding them, so strong, indicated something more than blind luck) and something he had heard when half-listening to a service came back to him; that Hell was personal and different for every person. He had thought at the time that his version of Hell would be a chaotic, illogical place, full of madness. His eternal damnation would be to suffer this over and over again.
[ Am I damned?] he thought, suddenly despairing in his heart.
" No, you are not damned, Roger Smith," the figure half-chuckled, shaking it's head. The red hair ruffled slightly from this movement. " On the contrary, you are blessed, really. You are a Dominus, the last and only true Dominus." Roger heard the intake of breath unique to smoking, and heard a sigh. Smoke flowed out from the front of the figure.
" What do you mean?" Roger said. " Is it because I'm one of Rosewater's tomatoes?"
The figure shook his head again. " No. That has little- if anything- to do with any part of your life. You are the only successful tomato he ever cultivated... but that was because what he tried to put in you was already there in the first place."
Roger looked at the figure. " Who are you? Where am I?"
The figure bowed it's head. It began speaking slowly, as if the words were painful to it. " My name... is unimportant. That is something hidden in forgotten eons of time. Call me what I truly am. Call me Traveler." The figure sweeped a hand outward, indicating the wide expanse around them. The hand was darker than night, and no details were shown upon it before it retreated back to the figure's side. " This place has no true name, but the name a human who only glimpsed it once gave it is perhaps the closest thing to it: the Twisting Dark. It lies between life and death. As do you, now, Wanderer."
Roger looked at him. " I'm dying, is that it?"
The figure nodded. " Yes."
" Then why did you bring me here? Alex Rosewater is trying to become a god and I'm the only one left to stop him!"
Again Traveler nodded. " Yes, indeed you are. But, I brought you here for a special purpose. Time doesn't matter for you, here- what time we have spent talking has been equal to a single second of your world. I brought you here to explain something to you. You had a vision, did you not? A vision of your death, androids that looked like you, and yourself on a television?"
Roger nodded, stunned. He was edging closer to convincing himself he was dead when Traveler began speaking again.
" Don't bother convincing yourself that you are dead, Roger Smith. You don't really believe that, and only the coward in you is attempting to convince the rest of you. I wanted to ask you if you know why you are a true Dominus, when Alan Gabriel, Alex Rosewater, and Shwartzvald were not... although Shwartzvald came close, and in death, he became one in truth..."
Roger shook his head, still stunned.
" I thought not. You've read Metropolis, I assume. About the war between nations that consumed the earth. How mankind, in it's eternal arrogance and pride, thought that it could harness the power of life and death itself- in short, to harness the power of God."
" Gordon Rosewater said he was commanded in a dream to write that book. He was. He is no more the author of that book than a producer is the true author of his play. They dictate the style of their story, but ultimately the truth rests with the real writer. Gordon was merely the recorder."
" The real writer was the one person who, inside her, retains the memory of the entirety of the human race, and yet is not a person at all."
" Angel wrote that book."
Roger, bewildered, said, " What do you mean?"
" Angel is a memory, as Gordon Rosewater said. But even he, knowledgeable though he is, has no real idea of what that means. She is the memory of mankind's greatest failure and mistake, made flesh and blood so that she may make a choice. She is a soul. One of the souls that powers the Megadeuses."
Roger glanced at him, and said, " You mean- Big O has a soul?"
Traveler nodded, and Roger saw the back of his head go down and then up, one time only. " Yes. Big O is different, though. All the other Megadeuses had souls that were trapped, and in the case of Leviathan, perverted by that entrapment. They were damned and screaming souls, seeking release in the fervor of destruction and death. Big O is the only Megadeus that seeks to abide by truth, rather than twist it. Big O's soul was a willingly given soul, it's soldier pilot's wife giving her life to aid the future."
" Dorothy was that soul."
Roger, completely dumbfounded and at a loss for words (one of the first times in his life), stared at Traveler. Traveler nodded sagely once more.
" Dorothy was a human during the war. She sought to help aid the future and gave her life to empower the Megadeus of the man she loved. You were that man, Roger Smith."
Roger fell down. His legs simply would not hold him.
" Dorothy... she was... my wife?" he whispered.
" Yes," Traveler said, and he took a drag on his cigarrette. To Roger, needing to know more (to know if what he had felt for Dorothy for so long was love), that single drag was the longest he had ever known someone to take. Agonizingly, he wondered if Traveler had inhaled the whole damn thing.
" You and Dorothy married before the war started," he said, continuing on slowly, " and you were very good people. Pure-hearted, but you never had children. Didn't have the chance before the war began. You were drafted, and even though you fought against it, you had to go. They were going to kill Dorothy if you didn't. They dragged her along to make sure you fought. You were a very good pilot, and they needed you to fight their enemy."
He flicked away the butt of his cigarrette. The glowing cinder at the end spun out over eternity, never going out and seeming to fall forever. Roger watched, amazed by it. He was still too shocked to cope with much, and in his daze the cigarrette was endlessly fascinating.
" Eventually, the battle ended in utter destruction. Dorothy went to you and gave up her soul to aid you in the Megadeus, to try to keep you alive. That was why you were brought to Paradigm and reborn, Roger Smith. To pilot the Big O, because even though the memories were washed away, they could still be accessed and figured out by cunning minds. Beck, who was an engineer before being reborn, is one of those people. To keep the sin of mankind from returning, you were asked- asked as a soul- to go back and fight, or die as you should and go to eternal peace. It was your choice. You chose to stand in the rain..."
Roger's mind suddenly flashed to the multitude he had seen, and he wondered if somewhere among those millions his face was upturned to the rain.
" You were one of two people whose memories were mostly intact. Gordon Rosewater was the other. You two rebuilt Paradigm City, and then you chose to remove your memories of it alongside almost everyone else's memories, excepting Gordon Rosewater. You chose to live again as a Negotiator. Norman, who had been your father's butler and best friend before the war, was brought here as well and allowed to keep his memories of your father. That's the reason he serves you today, and why he can repair the Big O. Roger, you are actually over fifty years old. You were 25 when you died in the war, and you reached thirty when you chose to erase your memories. Your body was restored to it's youth, and so this body and it's memories are now twenty five years old."
Roger stared at him. Traveler ignored him and continued:
" Dorothy was reborn as an android, as all those whose souls were taken by Megadeuses were reborn. It is one of mankind's tests, to see if you can rise above another failing that resulted in the war: the hatred of difference. If you think about it, that's all Paradigm City really is; a great test of mankind's soul.
" As for Dorothy, she found you, as souls that love each other eventually will. Love sometimes really does conquer all. And as for what you feel... it really is love. Your soul remembers what your mind does not, and loves her as it did before."
Roger felt both relieved and embarassed at this; relieved that it was love he felt, and embarassed that a stranger could see so deep in his soul.
" Wanderer, when you go back, there is more you must do then defeat Alex Rosewater. The Devil loves nothing more than to play grand jokes on mankind. The grandest joke of all was Big Venus."
" Big Venus?" Roger said, finally standing up on his legs. " There's only three Bigs. Big O, Big Fau, and Big Duo."
" You are both right and wrong," Traveler said, and Roger heard a match being struck; he was lighting another cigarrette. " There are only three Bigs, but Big Fau isn't one of them. That wreck was cobbled together by spare parts, and needed part of Dorothy's very soul just to run. Big Venus is the last of the true Bigs, and it's the worst. That monster was the final downfall of mankind."
Traveler looked up, at the starry night sky surrounding them. Roger looked up too, wanting to see what was there. The stars gleamed and twinkled.
" Big Venus is the destroyer, the Devil's joke on mankind," Traveler said. " Angel is it's memory, the soul that was trapped to power it. Big Venus can utterly obliterate anything it touches, reducing it to nothingness. Big O's power cannot help you against it."
" Then how do I destroy it?" Roger said.
" You can't. But you can help it. Remind Angel who she is, remind her of the human she was and could still be. Gordon Rosewater will show her her own truth, but you must help her- you must show her that she doesn't have to be a monster. That her soul is free now. That she could be human, and live in the present and future, no matter what the past held for her.
Traveler stood up, and said, " Wanderer, it is time to go back now. Go back to Dorothy, your love... go back to Alex Rosewater, the man who now holds in his soul the epitome of mankind's evil... go back to Angel, a woman who will be driven to do great evil by her own memories... go back. Make your stand in the rain. Go back, now, through dream and nightmare, falling towards reality..."
Roger felt the rush of light past him as he sped back towards the Big O. Only a few seconds had passed since he left, but to Roger, an entire life had been in between. He had a job to do.
He fell past dream and nightmare, rushing towards reality....
************************************************************************
He came to himself in time to see Dorothy coming towards him. She was putting an oxygen mask to his face.
[Dorothy,] he thought, [when this is over I'm going to marry you... again...]
This peaceful, sentimental, and loving thought was overwhelmed with a bursting noise. Dorothy had crushed the air tank and the force had driven the water back from Big O's cockpit.
Coughing and sputtering, Roger said, " Dorothy! Couldn't you think of a gentler way to make me come around? You know, like mouth-to-mouth?" He grinned, thinking of it. On a cold day, he'd freeze to her lips.
Dorothy, her face emotionless as ever (but was there a twitch at the corners? Roger thought so), replied, " With my air tank capacity? You are such a louse, Roger Smith."
Grinning at this (he was becoming sure now that it was Dorothy's pet name for him), he said nothing, just looked up.
" Let's get out of here," he said out loud to her, and as he activated Big O, he heard something in his head.
It was the shouting and singing of those who stood in the rain without umbrellas, those who knew what it meant to be free.
He smiled. And in his mind he added his shout to the throng:
"SHOWTIME!"
[]-INDICATES THOUGHT
Hey, Big O fans! You probably don't know me, but for those who do, you can skip this paragraph. I'm Silverlocke980, the writer of three fanfics so far- Deeping Dream (Darkstalkers), Harry's Madness (Harry Potter), and Falling Through Nightmare (Soul Caliber). I'm a huge fan of Big O, and at the start of each fanfic chapter I write "SHOWTIME!"- my own little personal ode to the show. I'm a big anime/book/video game fan, and strangely enough seem to be one of the only people in my town with these attributes who isn't a geek. Ah well. That's where fanfiction.net comes in! Through it, I can find other fans of the same things who aren't complete morons. Makes me feel loved :).
I have watched all the episodes with a single exception: Episode 14, Roger the Wanderer. I missed it due to a storm in my area that screwed up my satellite transmission. I had faithfully watched the show even before it showed up on Adult Swim, and this caused me to have a nervous breakdown and attempt to suicide. Obviously the attempt failed :). I would like anyone who has seen the episode to put in a review that tells me about it. It would be greatly appreciated.
My fanfic deals with the last episode, so before I continue, here's something for new fans of the show:
SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!
SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!
WILL REVEAL SECRETS OF LAST EPISODE!!!!!!
SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!
SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!
Okay, with that done, I'll continue. In the last episode, there is a strange, surrealistic scene that occurs after Roger and Alex (piloting Big O and Big Fau, respectively) have fought, and Roger loses. After a few scenes ending with both Big O and Big Fau in the water above the sunken city, Alex manages to escape, leaving the wounded and mostly unconscious Roger in the rapidly sinking Big O. Suddenly a light flashes about him, and images flash forward, rapidly, snapshots in time. He is having a psychic surge of some sort- a vision, almost.
My fanfic is about this. What he saw, in his vision. What the episode didn't show. What Roger's truth is.
Ladies and Gentleman, it is now
"SHOWTIME."
The Wakening of The Wanderer
He floated, both in body and mind. His body floated in the sinking (and, soon, to be full of water) Big O, sitting in the chair of the Dominus, his body battered by Alex's assault. His wounds ached, but he lacked the power to move. His body was simply too weak.
His mind floated in that place that is reserved for mortals who are neither living nor dead, who lie in that graveyard between the lands of life and those lands that belong to death. He was in limbo. He knew he had to move, but both pain and his own confusion were too strong. He didn't understand so much...
Light.
Roger blinked his eyes. A light shone about him. Around him, Big O sunk through a strange land, a world of gears and buildings, a dead zone whose only inhabitants were the fish and, perhaps, the memories of those who lived there. Roger saw none of this. His attention was riveted to the light that shone upon him. It entered his eye- and he SAW...
A battlefield. Hundreds of Megadeuses, their dull black armor gleaming in the light of both laser and fire, charged forth to battle. Armored flyers like the Megadues Shwartzvald and Alan Gabriel had piloted ([Big Duo,] Roger thought, [It's name was Big Duo,]) flew through the air, the lights of their fire burning in the sky. Several were shot down as he watched, burning as they fell.
Light.
He saw a Megadeus, fighting an electrical beast of some sort. He'd seen this before, when he battled the Hydra the Union had created. It had saved his life- [Is this my own memory?] Roger wondered. [One that Gordon Rosewater put inside me?]
Light.
He saw the Big O, and what was inside it stopped him dead in his thoughts. A logical man, Roger Smith could not comprehend what he saw.
He was laying inside it, almost dead. The enormous battle in the city apparently over, he saw the Big O sitting down, almost like a man would in an easy chair, upon the ground. Inside it's cracked shell, Roger Smith saw himself. His skin was pale and sallow, and he was barely breathing. It was clear he would die soon, with or without medical treatment. Death had buried it's claws far too deep to let him escape it's grasp.
Light.
He saw a robot factory. In it, he saw robots passing through a machine of some sort. When they exited the other side, Roger saw to his horror that they looked just like him, black tie and all.
Light.
He saw a child, her arms up near the screen of a television. On the television, he saw himself, calling Big O as he had done so many times in this city through his work as Negotiator.
Light.
He sank through darkness. And he heard a voice, and as his eyes closed for what he felt was the final time, he traveled.
************************************************************************
Light flew past him. He heard voices, laughter on screams, a single shining mirror in the dark (glancing at it, he saw both laughing faces and screaming ones, and for a single second he thought he saw Alan Gabriel's screaming, tortured face), fog enshrouded lands and a rain that never ended, but just poured and poured down on a multitude below. Some were standing in the rain, not an umbrella among them, just standing there, looking skyward with a look of utmost defiance on their face. They were singing and shouting, their voices rising over the patter of rain. Their singing was spiritual and defiant. Others fell, cowering, and worshipped this rain, moaning and screaming aloud. They were hideous, and open sores and boils covered their bodies and backs.
Light.
He was standing, floating, existing on a single hill. A tree stood nearby, swaying without any wind to help it. Fog rolled all about the hill, and it seemed as if nothing existed except this hill. Stars twinkled brightly above it. A single figure, cloak wrapped about it's body, sat beside him. A faint smell of cigarette smoke floated to Roger. The figure had dull red hair that protuded from the top of it's cloaked form, and Roger saw what looked like a sword hilt jutting above his right shoulder. The figure's size and age were impossible to tell, just as anything else about it was; it had it's back turned to him.
" It's a hard road, isn't it?" the figure spoke. It's voice was both deep and high, and the very sound of it was comforting.
" What? Where am I? Am I... dead?" Roger asked. Inside, this man, who prided himself on his extremely logical nature, found himself afraid. Was this what awaited past death? Was this what truly awaited them all? Roger Smith had personally believed in the reawakened churches strung throughout Paradigm City (his logical mind accepted them simply because so many memories surrounding them, so strong, indicated something more than blind luck) and something he had heard when half-listening to a service came back to him; that Hell was personal and different for every person. He had thought at the time that his version of Hell would be a chaotic, illogical place, full of madness. His eternal damnation would be to suffer this over and over again.
[ Am I damned?] he thought, suddenly despairing in his heart.
" No, you are not damned, Roger Smith," the figure half-chuckled, shaking it's head. The red hair ruffled slightly from this movement. " On the contrary, you are blessed, really. You are a Dominus, the last and only true Dominus." Roger heard the intake of breath unique to smoking, and heard a sigh. Smoke flowed out from the front of the figure.
" What do you mean?" Roger said. " Is it because I'm one of Rosewater's tomatoes?"
The figure shook his head again. " No. That has little- if anything- to do with any part of your life. You are the only successful tomato he ever cultivated... but that was because what he tried to put in you was already there in the first place."
Roger looked at the figure. " Who are you? Where am I?"
The figure bowed it's head. It began speaking slowly, as if the words were painful to it. " My name... is unimportant. That is something hidden in forgotten eons of time. Call me what I truly am. Call me Traveler." The figure sweeped a hand outward, indicating the wide expanse around them. The hand was darker than night, and no details were shown upon it before it retreated back to the figure's side. " This place has no true name, but the name a human who only glimpsed it once gave it is perhaps the closest thing to it: the Twisting Dark. It lies between life and death. As do you, now, Wanderer."
Roger looked at him. " I'm dying, is that it?"
The figure nodded. " Yes."
" Then why did you bring me here? Alex Rosewater is trying to become a god and I'm the only one left to stop him!"
Again Traveler nodded. " Yes, indeed you are. But, I brought you here for a special purpose. Time doesn't matter for you, here- what time we have spent talking has been equal to a single second of your world. I brought you here to explain something to you. You had a vision, did you not? A vision of your death, androids that looked like you, and yourself on a television?"
Roger nodded, stunned. He was edging closer to convincing himself he was dead when Traveler began speaking again.
" Don't bother convincing yourself that you are dead, Roger Smith. You don't really believe that, and only the coward in you is attempting to convince the rest of you. I wanted to ask you if you know why you are a true Dominus, when Alan Gabriel, Alex Rosewater, and Shwartzvald were not... although Shwartzvald came close, and in death, he became one in truth..."
Roger shook his head, still stunned.
" I thought not. You've read Metropolis, I assume. About the war between nations that consumed the earth. How mankind, in it's eternal arrogance and pride, thought that it could harness the power of life and death itself- in short, to harness the power of God."
" Gordon Rosewater said he was commanded in a dream to write that book. He was. He is no more the author of that book than a producer is the true author of his play. They dictate the style of their story, but ultimately the truth rests with the real writer. Gordon was merely the recorder."
" The real writer was the one person who, inside her, retains the memory of the entirety of the human race, and yet is not a person at all."
" Angel wrote that book."
Roger, bewildered, said, " What do you mean?"
" Angel is a memory, as Gordon Rosewater said. But even he, knowledgeable though he is, has no real idea of what that means. She is the memory of mankind's greatest failure and mistake, made flesh and blood so that she may make a choice. She is a soul. One of the souls that powers the Megadeuses."
Roger glanced at him, and said, " You mean- Big O has a soul?"
Traveler nodded, and Roger saw the back of his head go down and then up, one time only. " Yes. Big O is different, though. All the other Megadeuses had souls that were trapped, and in the case of Leviathan, perverted by that entrapment. They were damned and screaming souls, seeking release in the fervor of destruction and death. Big O is the only Megadeus that seeks to abide by truth, rather than twist it. Big O's soul was a willingly given soul, it's soldier pilot's wife giving her life to aid the future."
" Dorothy was that soul."
Roger, completely dumbfounded and at a loss for words (one of the first times in his life), stared at Traveler. Traveler nodded sagely once more.
" Dorothy was a human during the war. She sought to help aid the future and gave her life to empower the Megadeus of the man she loved. You were that man, Roger Smith."
Roger fell down. His legs simply would not hold him.
" Dorothy... she was... my wife?" he whispered.
" Yes," Traveler said, and he took a drag on his cigarrette. To Roger, needing to know more (to know if what he had felt for Dorothy for so long was love), that single drag was the longest he had ever known someone to take. Agonizingly, he wondered if Traveler had inhaled the whole damn thing.
" You and Dorothy married before the war started," he said, continuing on slowly, " and you were very good people. Pure-hearted, but you never had children. Didn't have the chance before the war began. You were drafted, and even though you fought against it, you had to go. They were going to kill Dorothy if you didn't. They dragged her along to make sure you fought. You were a very good pilot, and they needed you to fight their enemy."
He flicked away the butt of his cigarrette. The glowing cinder at the end spun out over eternity, never going out and seeming to fall forever. Roger watched, amazed by it. He was still too shocked to cope with much, and in his daze the cigarrette was endlessly fascinating.
" Eventually, the battle ended in utter destruction. Dorothy went to you and gave up her soul to aid you in the Megadeus, to try to keep you alive. That was why you were brought to Paradigm and reborn, Roger Smith. To pilot the Big O, because even though the memories were washed away, they could still be accessed and figured out by cunning minds. Beck, who was an engineer before being reborn, is one of those people. To keep the sin of mankind from returning, you were asked- asked as a soul- to go back and fight, or die as you should and go to eternal peace. It was your choice. You chose to stand in the rain..."
Roger's mind suddenly flashed to the multitude he had seen, and he wondered if somewhere among those millions his face was upturned to the rain.
" You were one of two people whose memories were mostly intact. Gordon Rosewater was the other. You two rebuilt Paradigm City, and then you chose to remove your memories of it alongside almost everyone else's memories, excepting Gordon Rosewater. You chose to live again as a Negotiator. Norman, who had been your father's butler and best friend before the war, was brought here as well and allowed to keep his memories of your father. That's the reason he serves you today, and why he can repair the Big O. Roger, you are actually over fifty years old. You were 25 when you died in the war, and you reached thirty when you chose to erase your memories. Your body was restored to it's youth, and so this body and it's memories are now twenty five years old."
Roger stared at him. Traveler ignored him and continued:
" Dorothy was reborn as an android, as all those whose souls were taken by Megadeuses were reborn. It is one of mankind's tests, to see if you can rise above another failing that resulted in the war: the hatred of difference. If you think about it, that's all Paradigm City really is; a great test of mankind's soul.
" As for Dorothy, she found you, as souls that love each other eventually will. Love sometimes really does conquer all. And as for what you feel... it really is love. Your soul remembers what your mind does not, and loves her as it did before."
Roger felt both relieved and embarassed at this; relieved that it was love he felt, and embarassed that a stranger could see so deep in his soul.
" Wanderer, when you go back, there is more you must do then defeat Alex Rosewater. The Devil loves nothing more than to play grand jokes on mankind. The grandest joke of all was Big Venus."
" Big Venus?" Roger said, finally standing up on his legs. " There's only three Bigs. Big O, Big Fau, and Big Duo."
" You are both right and wrong," Traveler said, and Roger heard a match being struck; he was lighting another cigarrette. " There are only three Bigs, but Big Fau isn't one of them. That wreck was cobbled together by spare parts, and needed part of Dorothy's very soul just to run. Big Venus is the last of the true Bigs, and it's the worst. That monster was the final downfall of mankind."
Traveler looked up, at the starry night sky surrounding them. Roger looked up too, wanting to see what was there. The stars gleamed and twinkled.
" Big Venus is the destroyer, the Devil's joke on mankind," Traveler said. " Angel is it's memory, the soul that was trapped to power it. Big Venus can utterly obliterate anything it touches, reducing it to nothingness. Big O's power cannot help you against it."
" Then how do I destroy it?" Roger said.
" You can't. But you can help it. Remind Angel who she is, remind her of the human she was and could still be. Gordon Rosewater will show her her own truth, but you must help her- you must show her that she doesn't have to be a monster. That her soul is free now. That she could be human, and live in the present and future, no matter what the past held for her.
Traveler stood up, and said, " Wanderer, it is time to go back now. Go back to Dorothy, your love... go back to Alex Rosewater, the man who now holds in his soul the epitome of mankind's evil... go back to Angel, a woman who will be driven to do great evil by her own memories... go back. Make your stand in the rain. Go back, now, through dream and nightmare, falling towards reality..."
Roger felt the rush of light past him as he sped back towards the Big O. Only a few seconds had passed since he left, but to Roger, an entire life had been in between. He had a job to do.
He fell past dream and nightmare, rushing towards reality....
************************************************************************
He came to himself in time to see Dorothy coming towards him. She was putting an oxygen mask to his face.
[Dorothy,] he thought, [when this is over I'm going to marry you... again...]
This peaceful, sentimental, and loving thought was overwhelmed with a bursting noise. Dorothy had crushed the air tank and the force had driven the water back from Big O's cockpit.
Coughing and sputtering, Roger said, " Dorothy! Couldn't you think of a gentler way to make me come around? You know, like mouth-to-mouth?" He grinned, thinking of it. On a cold day, he'd freeze to her lips.
Dorothy, her face emotionless as ever (but was there a twitch at the corners? Roger thought so), replied, " With my air tank capacity? You are such a louse, Roger Smith."
Grinning at this (he was becoming sure now that it was Dorothy's pet name for him), he said nothing, just looked up.
" Let's get out of here," he said out loud to her, and as he activated Big O, he heard something in his head.
It was the shouting and singing of those who stood in the rain without umbrellas, those who knew what it meant to be free.
He smiled. And in his mind he added his shout to the throng:
"SHOWTIME!"