08:02 AM (Japan Time), Monday June the 15th…
"…Who the heck is the imbecile who tries to undermine our work by writing silly percentages of deficit in the weekly reports? When I find them, I'll kick them out! It must be a ploy by a rival!"
"But we do not have proof of it, sir!"
"I was rambling, Blues!"
"I apologize, sir!"
"Jeez. You are way too rigid. You need more flexibility! Or is that a result of the old man's messing with your coding?"
"I do not know, sir…"
"Trouble, sir!"
"What? What trouble?"
"W-well… That is…"
"LORD BLUES!"
"W-what's going on?"
Ijuuin Enzan had been grumbling aloud inside of his VP office as he drank a cup of coffee and checked some written reports.
A Security Navi rushed inside only to be run over by a hysteric group of female Net Navis all holding white notebooks and pens.
"Please! Sign an autograph!" They chanted.
"Excuse me, but… Why do you…?"
"We know you are going to be Agent 008 in the next James Bond movie: Fall of the Mighty! Mr. Brad Pitt will be the boss! Mr. Zero will be his right-hand man! Ms. Broccoli's little brother tweeted that! What a cast!"
"NO WAY!" Enzan uttered.
"I t-think there's a misunderstanding, misses…"
"No! There's no misunderstanding, sir!" They replied.
"But… Did you make sure that…?" Blues asked.
"It HAS to be, sir!"
"I doubt it…" He muttered.
"Please sign!"
"I have nothing to do with the James Bond movies!"
"But Jupiter Warrior wrote that…!"
"Jupiter Warrior!? That's the terrorist man behind the incident on Friday! It's not the producer's little brother! You've been fooled!" Blues growled.
"NO WAY~!" They shrieked.
"Please leave! This is a heavily restricted area! You could be charged with illegal entrance and harming of security staff!"
"Get the rubbish outta the way… This is a battle between the great me and you lowlife…" A manly voice suddenly rang out.
"Who goes there?" Blues demanded.
"Calling on Killer Man Omicron! Festival, bloody festival! Manslaughter! Assassination! Learn the skills of Master Shadow Man only's apprentice!"
"Shadow Man's apprentice?" Blues gasped.
"Here I come, "Ace" Official Net Battler… I'll prove that that mighty title is nothing but rubbish!"
"That's one of the missing Net Navis! Blues! Your mission is to disable the enemy's battle capabilities and capture them alive!" Enzan turned serious.
"Come! Crimson swordsman!" He taunted.
"Battle Chip, Neo Variable Sword! Slot In!"
"Hyper Mode activated! Hyper Killer Death Beam!"
Killer Man drew a purple hexahedron with four spikes on the NW, NE, SW and SE corners and a purple spot shaped after an eye.
A ghostly blue stream of energy emerged from it flew straight for Blues.
"Sonic Boom!"
"Hyper Hell's Sickle!"
Killer Man swung the scythe next and shot a swing of energy.
Blues' attack split the "Hyper Killer Death Beam" in two halves and clashed with the "Hyper Hell's Sickle" to make both blow up.
Blues jumped into the sky and thus the two halves of the first attack only blew up a wall nearby.
Killer Man was unfazed since he was jumping into the air, too.
"Festival, festival!" He laughed.
"I preferred Shadow Man's dryness to this guy's craziness!"
"Totally!" Enzan agreed on it.
"Take this! Hyper Death Killer Beam!"
"Battle Chip, Dream Aura!"
"Useless!"
"What!"
The foe's hyper-powered attack blew Blues' barrier as he used his left hand to grab a grenade out of his belt and pulled the safety ring off with his teeth.
He then tossed it towards Blues, followed by a second one.
"Blues! Dodging pattern!" Enzan commanded.
Blues jumped backwards and was able to dodge the detonation of both grenades which formed puddles of "Omicron Factor" into the area.
Killer Man drew a P90 sub-machinegun and shot a burst.
Blues brought up his shield and managed to bounce some of them off.
The bullets formed some smaller stains of gel upon hitting the shield and cracking open.
"That guy's been armed to the teeth!" Enzan cursed.
"I'm an assassin: it's stupid to rely in just one weapon which can be broken! That's why I carry multiple weapons for all situations!"
"Sonic Boom!"
"Hyper Hell's Sickle!"
Both attacks clashed and blew up.
Blues brought up his shield to block the swing from Killer Man's sickle and shot a Tank Cannon at close quarters.
The blast crippled the control device and Killer Man howled as he stepped back and used the scythe as cane to lean while he clutched his chest with the left hand.
"You lowlife… Did you think we're idiots?" He growled.
"You depend on that corrupt power. Once you remove it you become easily beatable like any other Net Navi. Sonic Boom!"
"Hell's…!"
"Slow!"
"WHY, YOU~…!"
Blues' attack was faster this time around and it hit the upper body of Killer Man while pushing him into the ground,
He managed to stand up somehow but pressed a button on the body of the P90 gun.
Blues drew his shield, but the ammunition pierced through the shield and Blues had to quickly discard it to then jump away to avoid being grazed or hit by the bullets.
"I added armor-piercing ability! No shields can stand up to the great me!"
"Don't get carried away, Blues! Your goal is to capture them!"
"Is that all? What "ace" Official Net Battle! You were beaten by a brat with no special abilities whatsoever! I can do better than that brat!"
"Shut up!"
"Program Advance! Sword, Wide Sword, Long Sword! Slot In!"
"Dream Swo~rd!" Blues roared.
"Useless! Take this…!"
Blues managed to hit the ground with the Dream Sword Program Advance and attack Killer Man with it.
"You lowlife… I still have 520 HP left! Not yet! Festival, festival! Bloody festival! Manslaughter!" He roared.
"Enough..." A voice rang out.
Shadow Man appeared on the field, crossing his arms.
"Master!?"
"Get a hold of yourself, Killer Man..." Shadow Man commanded.
"Foolish emotions cannot overcome the might of the Universe!"
Black spots formed around the broken device and began to crawl across the surface like they were ants.
They quickly vanished and revealed that the device had been fixed as Killer Man entered "Hyper Mode" again.
His eyes turned into ghostly blue energy and his body began to turn into that color, too.
Two skeleton wings formed behind him along with a tail.
Killer Man stood up and flew forward while brandishing his scythe.
"DELETE~!" He roared.
Shadow Man was hit but a cloud of smoke ensued, and a log fell into the ground on his place.
The real Shadow Man threw six shuriken in a row at Killer Man's back.
He whipped around and tried to hit Shadow Man again only to hit another "copy" and get the shuriken embedded into his body.
Killer Man repeated the process, but Shadow Man predicted each of his moves given how he only waited for Killer Man to his "copies" and then strike back without excessive effort.
"Stay still and I'll behead you lowlife~!" Killer Man roared.
Shadow Man remained silent and let the process repeat until he drew the Muramasa Blade, which was already glowing.
"My new technique. Damage inflicted to the "copies" will sum to my Muramasa Blade. I will quell your inner anger here and now, Killer Man, my apprentice!"
"STOP MESSING WITH ME~!" Killer Man roared.
"Muramasa Blade!"
The energy slice produced by it headed for Killer Man and shifted into a kunai which drove into the control device and entered the body.
Killer Man roared as a soothing white light emerged from the wound and began to encompass his body.
The blue glow faded away and Killer Man's eyes returned to normal.
He made a guttural sound before he collapsed face-down on the ground.
The device turned grey and shattered into many pieces.
"The Count of Masakado provided this. Do not ask me how it works or how he was able to make it. I am not entitled to know…"
"As long as it puts that man out of their rampage…"
"You predicted he could show up here?" Enzan asked.
"You are a renowned Official. He would feel prideful of defeating you when I barely was able to…" Shadow Man shrugged.
"Lord Shadow Man! Please sign an autograph!"
"Me? Autograph?"
"Not you again…"
The fangirls ran back in and now they pestered Shadow Man, but he didn't beat an eyebrow at it.
"They let us know that you are going to be cast for the role of Agent 005, a modern-day ninja in the next James Bond movie Fall of the Mighty!"
"And you're gonna tell us Jupiter Warrior tweeted that?" Enzan growled.
"No! Venus Warrior tweeted that!"
"By all the…!" Enzan cursed.
"Those are fake tweets! Both Jupiter Warrior and Venus Warrior are terrorists! Terrorists! Don't you know what a terrorist is to begin with?"
"No terrorist would tweet in the official Twitter!"
"Flee before we arrest you for unauthorized entry into a private system!"
"YIKES!"
The crowd ran away while a giggle rang out.
"The mighty Blues is weak to fangirls!"
"You must be Venus Warrior!" He growled.
"Bingo, Scarlet Holmes!"
"How original!"
"I know, right? It'll fly off the bookstore's shelves!"
"So much for "Death Club"!"
"Death handles the remodeling! I handle the psychological warfare!"
"You call that psychological warfare?" Blues growled.
"Lemme guess. The Count of Masakado is Tony Stark!"
"Do I look like I care?" Shadow Man shot back.
"The rampaging Southampton express is waiting for you!"
"What for?"
"To run you over, of course, as if you were a buffalo!"
"Hmpf. Pathetic…"
"Hmpf! Beware, Ijuuin! A grand madame is coming! There'll be carnage and you'll all drop one after the other!"
"I'm SO afraid!" Enzan grumbled.
"Bring the elixir of eternal life to Mr. Clark Kent to save the day!"
"You go sell that idea to the publisher!"
"Delighted. In the meanwhile, toy with our pets!"
The puddles of gel gathered up together to form a copy of Shadow Man which had claws on all four limbs, a tail and a shark's mouth.
"Hmpf. How hideous… That your best shot?"
"Far from it! Don't judge a book by its cover, Heisei Ninja Man!"
The parody growled and its tail's end became a cannon which began to shoot out jets of the gel, leaving trails across the ground.
Those trails began to interconnect as if they were forming a matrix and the beast crouched before jumping forward and forming a wave of the gel.
It rode atop it as it crashed down some meters ahead and then began to inhale particles in the air to spit spurts of gel across the ground.
The matrix became bigger and began to create columns extending several meters skywards as they gained thickness and compartments formed.
"By all the…"
Covers protected these compartments as the beast broke down into a legion of Mettools that ran up their surfaces and began to work on them.
Nerve-like tendrils began to spread across the ground and the walls, growing in thickness and forming lidless blue eyes with black irises.
"Death can use this network to gather information and monitor you!"
"By all the… They can do all this remotely!?"
"Those columns are bio-pods! That's where new worker ants are raised to become the fighters of the anthill and protect the queen!"
"Security! Have you isolated this sector already?" Enzan asked.
"Yes, sir! It's successfully isolated!"
"Blues! Shadow Man! Get out before that thing absorbs you!"
"Roger, sir!"
"Can't be helped…"
Both evacuated as gel rained down from deposits in the black ceiling.
The gel rose in height until it covered the whole section.
It then solidified and shattered as countless Navis made fully of gel appeared in the area, all hovering in the air and glowing.
"These are pure-breed Omicron Navis! With endless Hyper Mode!"
"Detonate the bombs! Now!" Enzan commanded.
Bombs rained down into the isolated cubical space and it turned the area into a sea of fire at once, although the Navis were unaffected because they were using Dream Aura to protect themselves.
A purple "portal" formed in the air and the Navis flew upwards towards inside of it to escape the isolation while the cube itself was deleted.
"How are these makeshift breeders like? Impressive, right?"
"I take it back. These guys are DANGEROUS!" Enzan growled.
"And we've readied several of them across the world! You thought that hunting down the Nebula Grey copies was annoying? This is going to be deadlier than that pathetic thing! Because we have intelligence!"
"Are you trying to overrun the Cyber World with those things!?"
"The new form of Navis! Pure energy! Free of the shackles of data!"
"This is turning awry from one moment to another…"
"No longer full of yourself, Mr. Heisei Ninja Man?"
"Hmpf. All we need to do is to purge these with fire…"
"Were it so easy, Mr. Smart! It won't be long before Death figures out some method to eliminate this weakness of the Omicron Factor!"
"Sheesh! I prefer a corporate rival to these!"
"Maybe you need Bill Gates to come lecture you~?"
"Sheesh! Why, you…!"
"Come out and I'll cut you up to pieces!" Blues challenged.
"You wish, Scarlet Holmes! But I'll be busy designing a new habitat for that new breed that's just been delivered… 444 in total!"
"There weren't that many! I was watching the footage!"
"They can create more copies by interlinking! It's like the "X" parasite of Metroid Fusion! It reproduces asexually at a frightening speed! Blink twice, it'll have spread all over the place!"
"This is turning into madness!"
"Hmpf. Starting to realize that you never were all-mighty or powerful?"
"I never claimed to be that!"
"Whatever. Enjoy the little time before the main dish!"
"Sheesh! We need to find a way to destroy those in one sweep!"
"Were it so easy, sir…! I'm afraid this won't be easy…!"