The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Cartoon Network, Sunrise, and Bandai Visual.
THE BIG O:
ACT 28
SCAPEGOAT
Chapter Ten: Take the Shot
Roger found himself back in the cockpit of Big O, facing the white megadeus known as Big Fau. Big O was on his back, his arms held up to shield himself, just as he had done while throwing the fight to the Union robot that Vera Ronstadt, as known as the Union's Agent Twelve, had called 'Bonaparte'. How long had he been away in his dreamland? It couldn't have been very long, because Big O didn't seem to be damaged. Like the last time he imagined himself a homeless wanderer, it seemed that he had imagined hours and days in the span of minutes and seconds.
Had Big O been knocked over by the force of Big Fau's blows, or had the black megadeus simply decided to 'play dead' while Roger sorted himself out? Who knew? And with a crippled white megadeus menacing the city, who cared? Big O had always played it straight with Roger in the past. It made no sense to doubt the black megadeus' motives now.
"C'mon, Big O! On your feet!" Roger growled encouragingly as he operated the arms and pedals in his cockpit. "Let's go big guy! Rest time's over!"
He glanced down at the central screen to see the iconic message: "CAST IN THE NAME OF GOD--- YE NOT GUILTY".
Roger smiled. That meant that the pilot and the megadeus were once again in synch, that once again they were united in their purpose. If they believed in themselves and each other they could accomplish any task. Big O had always left the choices to Roger Smith in the past. It was as if the black megadeus and Roger shared the same subconscious. The only time Big O overrode him was when it wanted him to abandon it and go save…
"Dorothy!" he gasped as Big O rose to its feet. The sickening sound of an impact was heard as he saw Dorothy bounce off the rose-colored semi-transparent armor in the front of the control room. Dorothy wasn't inside the clear protective bubble of the cockpit that separated Roger from the rest of the control room. She wasn't strapped in! "Dorothy are you all right?" he shouted at the android. If she was a human being she would be seriously injured—or dead.
To his relief, Dorothy rolled to place her feet on the floor. She didn't rise, but instead crouched in a fetal position and whimpered "No… No…"
It was exactly like the time the skeletal megadeus that Swartzwald found underneath the city and threatened her. And Roger was willing to bet that Dorothy was frightened for the exact same reason. Her memory drive had been installed in Big Fau less than a month ago and her identity stolen. She was afraid of the same thing happening again. It was like a phobia, only Dorothy had good cause to fear. That white megadeus had managed to get inside both their heads!
"Snap out of it, Dorothy!" Roger ordered. "I won't let that thing hurt you again! I'm going to take down that monster once and for all!"
"On your feet at last, Negotiator?" Alex Rosewater's mocking voice taunted him from a speaker as the white megadeus fired an energy beam at them. Roger managed to block and a blinding explosion and a cloud of smoke erupted from Big O's arm shields. "It's about time you stopped laying down on the job," Alex scolded. "You're making this far too easy."
Damn Alex! Whatever mind affecting technology was in Big Fau, it used the target's own doubts to incapacitate him. Worse yet, both Gordon and Alex seemed to know exactly what to say in order to dredge up memories and visions out of Roger's subconscious. What had that old man done to him when he was a child? Big Fau was nearly cut in half and yet Rosewater was going to defeat him simply by saying a few words…
A few words! That's it!
He may have been chosen to be a domineus, but it was Roger's choice to be a negotiator. And a negotiator's greatest weapon is words. Time to let the negotiator have his turn in this fight.
"Hey Alex, I can't help wondering," Roger called in a mocking voice. "Why are you doing this? I mean, you have enough money and power to even make your worst enemies do what you want, so why do you need a megadeus? There must be some reason…"
"I now have the power that only a megadeus can provide," Alex replied smugly. "I now can surpass the world my father built, and take my place among the gods!"
"Why do you need to do that?" Roger asked, obviously not impressed. "Where you ever bullied at school? I'll bet the other kids must have just loved you. Alex, son of the great Gordon Rosewater. That's an awfully big shadow to be stuck in. Makes you feel pretty small doesn't it? Makes you wonder if you measure up."
"I am everything my father once was!" Alex growled. Roger must have hit a nerve. "I shall surpass my father and finish what he started!" the chairman insisted. "No one shall forget the name of Alex Rosewater!"
"Yeah, until the next guy comes along," Roger said dryly as he flicked a switch that caused a spike with a massive chain shoot out of Big O's hip. "Then he'll undo everything you did and try to make his own mark on society. I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to erase everybody's memories just to be sure."
"No one will replace Alex Rosewater!" the chairman roared. Big Fau fired the huge cannon out its remaining shoulder, but Big O was able to use the chain to move itself to the left. In the distance a damaged skyscraper was hit, causing the tower to collapse in a cloud of smoke and rubble.
"Why not, you've replaced Gordon, haven't you?" Roger quipped as Big O fired its eye lasers to rake the front of Big Fau. "Did your father ever tell you that he loved you? I mean, you've got no friends or loved ones. You don't want any. He never taught you how to open up to anyone did he? Must be a pretty lonely life."
"My father was a god!" Rosewater cried. Lasers shot out of Big Fau's eyes, but Big O countered with its arm shields.
"Did he ever play catch with you or take you to any ball games?" Roger asked as he operated the megadeus' arm controls and foot pedals. "Did he even talk to you when you were a kid or did you only see tutors until you were grown?"
"Shut up!" Alex ordered as Big Fau hobbled forward attempting to reach Roger's megadeus. "My relationship with my father is none of your business! He loved me!"
"You handle that megadeus pretty good," Roger smiled as Big Fau came closer. "Where did you get the memories to operate that thing? Did we go to school together?" A missile was fired from Big Fau, but Big O's chest opened and a bunch of tiny flares soared out. The missile followed one of the flares, causing it to miss its target.
"Did you ever have your head shaved when you were a kid?" Roger asked with false sincerity as a nearby explosion caused debris to fly through the air. "Stare into a fire and watch the books burn? See a barcode flash before your eyes? I see that kind of stuff all the time and man it's a pain in the neck. Doesn't that drive you crazy? Makes you wonder just who and what you are, doesn't it?"
"I am not one of your tomatoes!" Alex screamed as a periscope style arm sprouting from Big Fau's shoulder fired a beam at Big O, only to be thwarted by Big O's arm shield.
"Sure you're not," Roger said sarcastically. It looked like parts of the lucid dream he had three weeks ago were true. Alex had remembered being one of Gordon Rosewater's test subjects! "Your problem is that you don't know what sort of creature you are, and that's why you're frustrated," Roger mocked using Alex's own words against him. "When you first operated Big Fau after you defeated the Union robot, you turned your weapons on your own palace. The fortress that your father built. Deep down you must really hate him, don't you?"
"I loved my father!" Alex shouted. "Don't you dare say that!"
"Then why did you try to have him killed?" Roger retorted. "You burned down his farm and murdered his hired hands. When I found him, he was in hiding. The Union rescued him, but he refused to tell them anything…"
"No!" Alex said childishly. "My father is dead!" Big Fau's forearm launched itself to soar towards Roger Smith and Big O. Once again Roger used Big O's hip chains to move the lumbering megadeus out of the way before the turbine drilled itself through Big O's armor.
"No he isn't," Roger countered as he operated the foot pedals in order to stabilize the footing of his stumbling megadeus. "Unless he's had a heart attack or fell down a flight of stairs since I last saw him. He should be fine. He's chosen a new successor, a lady friend. Someone to run the place since you seem bent on destroying it…"
"No!" Alex screamed as Big Fau dragged its nearly useless leg to close the distance between itself and Big O. "No! I am Alex Rosewater! Paradigm City's only heir! I am destined to be the ruler of all mankind!"
"Sorry, not gonna happen," Roger quipped as his left joystick rotated to reveal a different hand control with a trigger guard. "Whatever he did to us as kids really messed us up. I got a hard time telling reality from fantasy, don't you? We gotta find the other bald kids and form a support group…" Roger pulled the trigger as Big O's left forearm opened to reveal four cannons spaced around the hand. He pulled the trigger and was disappointed when nets, tear gas and flares flew out. Oops. Forgot about the less-lethal ammunition.
Fortunately it didn't matter. "Damn you, Dad!" Alex roared. "I am your only son! How could you do this to me?"
"Hey, he's my dad too," Roger whined sarcastically. "I'm an orphan. He's like a father to me. Me and all my baldheaded brothers and sisters…"
"Shut up!"
"You may have gotten the company, but I got the megadeus," Roger teased as Big Fau came within punching distance of Big O. "I guess Father always loved me best!"
"No! Shut up!" Alex spat. "I am the son of Rosewater, Negotiator!"
"Negotiator is a name I chose for myself," Roger replied as Big O spread its legs slightly to assume a battle stance. "I can't live in Gordon's shadow, I had to make my own identity. Too bad you haven't. You've been trying to be your father your entire life only to discover that you can't. That's sad, Alex. I pity you, and that walking jigsaw puzzle of a megadeus you dragged along with you. I'll bet the poor thing is as crazy as you are by now…"
"Shut up Negotiator!" Alex growled as Big Fau threw a punch that Roger caught in one of Big O's massive hands.
"Aha!" Roger exclaimed as he pulled on his joysticks to have Big O grapple the white megadeus. "Gotcha! You don't have a force field up now!"
Now came the fun part. Big O had to wrestle the white Megadeus to keep its chest weaponry from entering into the equation.
Fortunately Big O had two arms to Big Fau's one. Big Fau's weight might overbalance the black megadeus, but Roger fired a number of chains out of Big O's waist. The spikes dug into the ground and stabilized it, allowing Roger to concentrate on the upper half of Big O's body.
A punch from one of Big O's massive arms pivoted Big Fau to the side. Roger released the chains from Big O's waist so the black megadeus could maneuver and keep Big Fau from facing him. Big O grabbed the side of Big Fau's head and activated the piston in that arm.
Big Fau stumbled drunkenly backwards and was about to tumble to the ground when Big O's hip chains shot out to puncture its side. Big O pulled on the chains to keep the white megadeus upright but off balance. Seizing Big Fau's head, once again Roger activated the arm piston. This time the blow ripped Big Fau's narrow conning tower like head clear off. The white megadeus was now missing a head, an arm and over a third of its torso.
Big Fau's head hit the ground and bounced twice, knocking huge chunks of asphalt and debris with each impact. Finally it rolled, and then skidded along the ground for few moments kicking up rubble and dust all the way. It single remaining eye stared up at the sky, the other half of its face ruined by Big O's piledriver.
In Big Fau's cockpit, the exposed Alex Rosewater was near panic. "Big Fau!" he shouted. "We've got to move or it's all over! Destroy that megadeus and we can restore you!"
"Not gonna happen, Alex!" Roger retorted as Big O's fists hit the white megadeus again and again.
As the two megadeuses battled each other a number of armored vehicles bearing howitzers rolled up. Following them was a limousine with a tiny flag that displayed the Paradigm Corporation's logo.
Colonel Dan Dastun in full uniform, stepped out of one side of the limo while burly and dusky skinned Gregory Stoker, immaculate in his business suit and sunglasses exited from the other.
"Here you go, Colonel," Stoker rumbled. "As you can see, the members of Anderson and Roddenberry Companies have been reinstated and are back on duty, as per our agreement. Now it's time for you to live up to your end of the bargain."
"Yeah," Dastun said uneasily. "Right. Don't worry, I won't disappoint."
"See that you don't," Stoker replied, but the colonel had already dashed forward to find the senior officer.
"Johnson!" Dan bellowed. "What do we got to work with?"
"Sir!" the younger man in a lieutenant's uniform exclaimed. "We thought you were in prison!"
"I got out on a technicality," Dastun quipped. "What have we got to take out that thing?"
"Dual-purpose, white phosphorus, and copperhead rounds," Johnson replied.
"Not that they've done any good against megadeuses before…"
"Tell me about it," Dastun sighed. "Have we got anything more armor piercing? If so, when will it arrive?"
"Copperhead is the best we have at the moment," Johnson replied. "It's a high explosive munition which is used for very precise targeting of high value targets such as tanks and fortifications. It requires the target be designated with a laser designator system."
Poor kid, Dastun thought, he's so rattled he's reciting the capabilities by rote. "It's okay, Johnson. Looks like the black megadeus has everything well in hand. Let's concentrate on containing the situation and let justice sort itself out. Have your company create a perimeter…"
"Colonel," the coffee-colored Stoker rumbled. "We reinstated you so that you could act. You aren't going to leave this up to the megadeuses."
"Excuse me?" Dastun turned to the boardmember.
Stoker gestured to a number of trucks that were approaching. "Those vehicles are loaded with an experimental armor piercing round," the boardmember purred. "Your men are authorized to use them and find out if they can pierce the armor of a megadeus."
"Sir the black megadeus…" Dastun began.
"The black megadeus isn't giving you your life back," Stoker warned. "Remember that." He pointed a ringed and well manicured finger at the massive robots in the distance. "Once your men have the cannons loaded, order them to fire."
"What?" Dastun exclaimed.
"You heard me," Stoker rumbled.
"Mr. Stoker, do you know who's in there?" Dastun asked increduously. He couldn't believe that Rosewater kept all of his secrets from the board. He was pretty sure that Stoker knew who both the pilots of the megadeuses were. "Are you seriously expecting me to fire on…"
"Yes I am," Stoker said firmly. "The black megadeus is becoming a symbol of Paradigm's impotentence. We won't let the insurgents use it. You have to act and bring the military police up to par. It is your job to make sure the the people know that it is the military police, not the black megadeus, who protects the city. As soon as you able, take the shot."
On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Norman's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:
Next: The Fall of Big Fau
