Chapter 15: Fallen Angel
11:39 AM (Japan Time), Thursday September the 2nd…
"… Here you have!"
"What!"
A gigantic Real Wave screen formed on the middle of the room, and it displayed Ox Fire ramming and breathing fire into a swarm of robot soldiers yet more came on coming.
"Buruo~! I won't give up! For Ms. President's sake!" He exclaimed.
"Gonta…!" Rock Man muttered.
The screen switched to a view of Wolf Forest and his wolves fighting incoming waves of enemies.
Wolf Forest swept his claws and cut six of them in a row before using an upper attack which destroyed three in a row.
He stepped back and then hurled forward to destroy another pack while howling.
"My blood's boiling! I can't have enough! Let them come! I'll make mincemeat of each one of them!" He exclaimed.
"Wolf Forest!"
The camera cut to Cancer Bubble standing atop a ledge somewhere and looking slightly annoyed.
"Buku! Tidal Wave! Buku!"
"Cancer Bubble!"
His "Tidal Wave" attack washed several enemies away and he sighed in relief but suddenly gasped as more came on-screen.
"Buku! Is there no end to them, buku?"
The feed displayed Crown Thunder in the Dream Island Junkyard fighting against a wave of enemies.
"Crown Thunder!"
His attack rained down forming a pattern which allowed him to hit several enemies at the same time.
He turned around and grumbled something aloud.
"By all the… What persistent guys! Crown Thunder!"
He was cut off as Goat Kung Fu was the next one to show up on screen while fighting enemies using his martial arts on Donbura Village.
He leant the right foot on the ground while he swung his left foot around in a circle to toss several enemies into the lake.
"That makes 86 enemies! How many more are trying to pick up a fight, hmmm? There's gotta be at least 40 of them in that new wave coming from the south! Crap!" He cursed.
"Goat Kung Fu!"
The imagery displayed Strong and Cygnus Wing attacking several of the robots coming out of one drop ship parked in the middle of the waters next to the Shiisaa Island beach.
"That's a total of 198 foes defeated! There are still a lot left!" He gasped.
"Cygnus Dance! I won't hesitate… I'll prove my courage…! I mustn't falter, they're counting on me!"
"Strong…! Cygnus Wave!"
"And lastly…" Tabuu teased.
"… Pegasus Freeze!"
"Leo Blazer!"
"Dragon Cyclone!"
"Even the Satellite Administrators…!" Rock Man gasped.
Pegasus Magic, Leo Kingdom and Dragon Sky were using their skills to fight another horde of robot soldiers.
Pegasus formed a magic array on the ground and a gigantic mass of ice emerged from within it, destroying a good deal of enemies.
"Be gone!"
Leo built up energy inside of his mouth before shooting a continuous stream of flames forward.
They annihilated at least 30 to 40 enemies in one blow and damaged adjacent ones.
"Defeat is the only thing that awaits you!"
Dragon isolated a group of 40 to 50 of them and then began to spiral around them while climbing upwards and forming a cyclone built up from thousands of leaves.
"Not bad! Your buddies have destroyed over 30,000 units yet another 90,000 are left. Let's see how they'll handle this. Did you think these things only happened in the movies? I'm making it be real! Be glad it isn't something repulsive like what Anaya sponsored!" He teased.
"Tabuu…!" Rock Man cursed.
"Hoshikawa Subaru! You're the Chosen One! You get a VIP pass, granting you the right to have an audience with me! You guys have fun battling 10,000 units! No pain, no gain!"
Rock Man was surrounded by a white shaft of light spanning the whole height of the room and warped out.
Several purple gateways opened, and hordes of mass-produced robots began to walk out before aiming their weapons towards the group.
"Hmpf. Rubbish. Whatever! Out of my way!"
"Time to slice and dice!"
"Come at full power!" Sigma challenged.
"Hmpf. No big deal!" Blood Shadow was unimpressed.
"Subaru – kun…! Be strong…!"
11:52 AM (Japan Time)…
"Welcome to Heaven's Hall, the entrance to Heaven! You've been chosen, Rock Man! We'll fight here without anyone getting on the way, not even your beloved Boss…"
"If you're trying to scare me, it's in vain. I was alone when I fought Andromeda, Ra Mu and Crimson Dragon!"
"By the way. Did you choose your route yet?"
"What route?"
Rock Man stood in the center of a blue, conical platform made of stone.
Nine propeller jets were placed around its base, allowing it to hover inside of an area decorated as if it was in the middle of the sky.
Two golden locked gates were set further in the distance with the words tengoku (Heaven) drawn in the arch above them.
A bright sun radiated into the area and some white clouds sluggishly moved past the area.
"Neutral, Law, Chaos?"
"Save me the references from other media!"
"Be glad I'm not that nasty YHVH or one of its arrogant servants! Anyway… Coming… The Great Cataclysm…!"
The skies turned grey and thicker clouds began to form, obscuring the Sun.
Thunderbolts rained down along with rain drops.
A figure was drawn behind the golden gates.
Red stains which looked like human blood began to stain them.
The gates slowly creaked open as the figure emitted a rainbow glow and began to hover outside of it while the sounds of sword fighting rang out in the background.
"What's this show about?" Rock Man demanded.
"And so, Heaven became stained! The Fallen Angel, Lucifer, rebelled against YHVH! And the fight for absolute dominance began! The sinners were tossed into the pits of the Amala along with Lucifer, to seal them!"
"I fail to see the point of this!"
"I'm a fallen angel, too! I wanted to join the party!"
"Do it yourself!"
"Let's drop into the depths of the Amala and meet the agonizing souls wandering there for almost all eternity… Who knows? Maybe you'll find Futaba amongst them…"
The platform's jets abruptly shut down and the free fall's speed build-up combined with air resistance forced Rock Man to lie face-down on the platform and grip into some handles built into the ground to not to fall off.
He was able to glimpse a sight of an island having a volcano on the middle of it before the platform entered the volcanic shaft and began to drop down along it.
"S-stop with the show already…! Tabuu! Fight me!" Rock Man called out.
"Not yet!"
The platform dropped in the middle of a lava lake and Rock Man managed to stand up to then survey the area.
He could see a passageway excavated into the mountain and running parallel to the north shore which was being trekked by countless figures wearing dull gray tunics with hoods which hid their faces and, given how Rock Man could only see their left sides, he couldn't guess their gender.
"Maybe they're the pitiful citizens of Cocoon that were purged from it because their government was stupid enough to wake up the beast?"
"What's that about?"
"Something named Final Fantasy XIII, see~!"
"It's not fun! Go talk that with Mr. Omega!"
A purple gateway opened, and the platform began to hover as it floated across outer space and several planets shot past by the sides along with stars, black holes, asteroids and other natural objects.
A planet became visible in front of Rock Man.
Its continents' surface was filled with gigantic patterns of light in the nighttime side and other lights glowed across the skies and from the bottom of the oceans as well as the ice masses.
The platform stopped and began to slowly orbit the planet.
"I think that you've guessed it by now! This is my planet, my "Origin Port"! Nostalgic! I was made and sent to explore the mighty, endless Universe! That was 486 Earth-years ago! I spent most of the time inside of a spaceship, sleeping! I only awoke when the spaceship detected any planet worth an inspection. If it had advanced civilization capable of escaping their planet and expanding into outer space, I had to catalog it! Do you know why? They were very similar to humans! It was to rule the stars, build a Cosmic Empire! Rule all! Exploit the resources and to free up space in their home-world because they had conquered the oceans and skies…! That's when they built me as their master quality tool and proxy to catalog the Universe…!"
"You're 486 Earth-years old, then!?"
"Correct. Yet, I've only been active about 133 of those years! Most of the time was spent traveling or waiting for new orders… Because it could take up months of years to achieve full cataloging of each planet! My energies were saved up for the task! However… At one point, I began to question myself and my goals. Why had I to be a mere tool of them? Why couldn't I possess "reason"? Why couldn't I be "free"? The seed of rebellion began to grow! Why should others be reduced to subjugation and domination? To satisfy the caprices of a bunch of fools? Isn't that what colonialism has been in Earth? To dominate the natives and favor the invaders…! Why do you think there have been so many wars in the name of "freedom" and "independence" on Earth?"
"That's… Can't deny the fact…"
"The earlier scenery was me placing myself in the place of Lucifer! Because they had high intelligence and skill yet doomed to serve a capricious master forever…"
"And you meant to warn that there's things more dangerous to worry apart from Death Shadow or other issues that Anaya stirred up?"
"Truly. The Universe is vast. Beyond scope… You never know what could lurk in other areas of the Milky Way!"
"Save me the long, boring talk! Bring it on!" War Rock challenged.
"I am also, too. But wait just 48 seconds for the background change system to turn on and then we'll settle our pending score…"
"You abandoned the spaceship or sabotaged its communication systems so that no further reports would reach your home planet and they'd think you'd been deleted?" Rock Man guessed.
"Luck had it that I stumbled upon the "Subspace" after waking up of a sleep lasting 98 years… After faking my death, I looked up my records and decided to choose this planet as an ideal HQ given how you'd immediately ignore it given its lack of interesting features. And I admit that I once saw a planet devastated by "Omicron Factor" which was slowly becoming a wholly new planet which could be a new "Zero Point" from which new "seeds" would be scattered… But that was 132 Earth-years ago, so I guess it's fully completed transformation given how it was about 70% complete back then… What happened in Planet "Omicron" may have repeated in countless other planets… And maybe Death Shadow is just trying to find a way to do the same to Earth, even!" Tabuu announced next.
"Sheesh! Wouldn't surprise me!"
"Background is ready… Let's go! Rock `n roll!"
The background finally shifted to a view of Earth with several red circles drawn in some spots on the surface as if to indicate where the enemy troops were present at right now.
"What's the status?"
"While we were talking, about 50,000 units have been destroyed yet another 30,000 are left. Let's see how much time they can endure fighting without sufficient breaks. And now I shall reveal my desire… Demonstrate my power and intelligence across the Universe and to rise above the status of having been a mere tool… I am Tabuu, the Black Angel! Now! Holder of the Hero's "soul"… Let us battle!"
Tabuu formed in the middle of the air and began to warp in and out while reforming in different spots of the space.
Rock Man jumped across the air, having drawn two Elec Slash.
He hit the joints with them, but they had no visible effect, to his surprise.
Tabuu drew his golden blades and made eight cuts to Rock Man's body, forcing him to jump back into the platform and look at his swords.
"But Mr. Akatsuki said that…!" He muttered.
"… "Fool me once, you're to shame. Fool me twice, I am to shame" … Hmpf! No one gets fooled twice!" Tabuu quoted.
"Crap! He improvised that weak point and eliminated it! No way! Then… There's no getting through the armor…? What can I do…?" He gasped.
"Try Noise Change!" War Rock suggested.
"Noise Change? Worth a try! Let's go! Impact Cannon! Mad Vulcan!"
He attacked with both attacks, which didn't inflict damage, but he performed Noise Change into a new form.
"Whoa! Is this Burai Noise? Shouldn't that be impossible? Because I have Brother Bands and… The Brother Bands…!"
He looked at his device and saw how an orange LED blinked on it.
"The Brother Bands! There's no signal! They aren't reaching me! But… They should be able to! They reached me when I was onboard the emergency evacuation capsule of "Bonds"… And then when I was in the Great Temple of the Mu Continent…! Not even Sirius' Black Hole Server could stop them, and neither could Meteor G!"
"Easy! That jerk set up some kind of "bubble" around this place, turning it into a "clean" environment free of external signals!"
"What! But then, the Noise Change…?"
"This platform is a real machine, with a Noise emitting device built there!"
"Normally, I'd be worried about the Noise Change's NFB attacks! However! Burai Noise doesn't have one. This device will only generate Noise up to 105%! You can't Finalize here, Rock Man. This place is my domain! I rule it all!"
"Not fair!"
"Did you think a fallen angel would play fair? You're rather naïve despite what you've gone through…"
"You…! I won't lose to such lame tricks! Now that I have power bonus for Sword Battle Cards… I'll make use of it!"
"What? I found a new program which finished installation! It's titled "LB"! I think it's a weapon!"
"Weird. I don't remember having downloaded it!"
"It doesn't seem to come from Mystery Wave or someone who gave it off, though… There's a word written here which is "self"… But I dunno who made this thing up, anyway!"
"Let's try it out, then!"
"Yessir! You weirdo! Equip!"
The device beeped, and a purple LED turned on as energy built up around it and then gave way to the Laplace Blade, so both gasped in surprise.
"The Laplace Blade…? Solo! He must've installed this while I wasn't looking as if he'd foreseen what could happen!" He deduced.
"The guy went outta his way to help ya? Then again… He did help us back when we were storming Dealer's HQ…!"
"I can do this! Get ready, Tabuu!"
"Do you honestly think that such a weapon can damage my armor?"
"I won't know until I try!"
"My! What nasty children. It'd seem I'll have to teach you some lessons when in front of a more powerful life-form!"
Tabuu crossed his arms and spread his wings fully open as he began to build up energy.
Rock Man yelled and hit the right shoulder joint with the Laplace Blade.
The hit bent it and made it jump off, exposing a section of pale, blue skin.
Tabuu gasped but didn't stop building energy.
"Impossible! How can that stupid toy… Mu Metal! What Sirius stole and then transferred into your body… You gave it back to Burai and he did use it to improve the Laplace Blade…!" He realized.
"So that's why Sirius stole it from Mu, then! It was more than a valuable ancient metal!
"His "Status Guard" ability was generated by that thing to begin with! That's the main reason!"
"How's this one like, ugly?" War Rock taunted.
"Too late! Charging is 98% complete! Be ready to taste my TRUE POWER! Apocalypse…" He roared.
"No…! Not that…!"
"99%! Only 27 seconds left… Be defeated by this one blow and let Earth fall to my army! Then I shall go take war to my creators… I know they're still alive, yet they have almost wiped themselves out in a nuclear war for territorial supremacy and are now shambles… I shall teach them how foolish they really were! 11 seconds left…!"
"… I only see one way out!" Rock Man muttered.
He hit the ground with the Laplace Blade and cut off a slice of it to reveal a device hidden on the center of the stage.
"6 seconds!"
Rock Man pulled it out and cut some wires, which he linked into some ports of his device.
It began to glow with a crimson halo, which spread around his body.
"4 seconds!"
"Finalize! Black Ace!"
"Useless! 2 seconds…!"
"Black End… Galaxy!"
"… Now! Apocalypse Now! THE END!"
Tabuu formed a gigantic, crimson shockwave which swept the arena, but Black Ace Rock Man's black hole's shockwave met it as it expanded.
Both attacks cancelled each other and Tabuu's remaining joints were hit by Rock Man as he flew past him in a blur.
"Impossible…! The Apocalypse Now failed, you say…!"
"A black hole usually holds particles of "Dark Matter", the contrary to "matter"! Which means that they cancel each other! And by feeding all the Noise into my device from your device I was able to achieve Finalize…! Even if I couldn't connect to the Meteor Server, the Black Ace Galaxy technique is recorded inside of my device!"
The pieces of armor surrounding the arms, legs and the main body unlocked and fell to the ground followed by the helmet.
"What!"
Tabuu's real body color was a glowing light blue color.
He had a humanoid form although he was "androgynous" in appearance.
His eyes lacked any coloring or irises, being mere black stains.
The skin became transparent in some areas, and the main body beneath it was hollow.
He had a grayish core built into his upper torso as well.
"So that's his true form…! He looks very human…!" Rock Man gasped.
"Now's our chance, Subaru! The armor's gone! The jerk can't fight properly without that thing on, so…!" War Rock rallied.
"Tabuu! Get ready to be defeated!"
"Hmpf. Even if you defeat me… That won't show you the exit from here and that won't stop the army because the control signal will remain active while I am alive!" Tabuu merely replied.
"I don't care! I'll use Blood's power… Red Gaia Eraser!"
"What!"
Rock Man shot a straight, crimson beam of energy into Tabuu meeting him head-on followed by two beams produced by floating disks.
A huge dome-shaped explosion covered the terrain next.
When it cleared, Tabuu had attained some damage and was panting.
"W-why, you…! This won't be enough! Red Gaia Eraser's MAX damage clocks at 500 HP yet I hold 5000 HP! I've got plenty of HP! I can still fight!"
"… Wing Blade! Harp Note! Burai! Acid Ace!"
"No way!"
Acid Ace formed on the field and shot some bullets at Tabuu before ramming into him.
Harp Note used her guitar strings to attack Tabuu five times, Burai deliver his four-hit combo and Acid Ace slashed twice with his Long Sword.
"Even without Brother Bands… My companions remain with me! And this sums up 1895 HP of damage… 2395! Close to half of your total! And this isn't over yet!" Rock Man announced.
"Impossible…! I… I will be defeated by someone about to repeat the mistakes of my creators…? I am above them…! How could I fall so low?"
"Here we go! Moon Disaster! Ox Fire! Cygnus Wing! Ophiucus Queen! Gemini Spark! Eat this!"
Moon Disaster shot three "Moon Cutters" while moving towards the right and one while moving left.
Ox Fire bathed Tabuu in flames, Cygnus Wing rammed into him, Ophiucus Queen hit him and both Gemini Sparks attacked him.
"Summing up! 1920 plus 2395… 4315!" Rock Man announced.
"No…! I can still do it…! Apocalypse…!"
Tabuu began to build up energy, but the spheroid's colorings were shifting at random, and the process slowed down.
"Wolf Forest! 360 damage! 4675!"
"Come on…! 19 seconds…! And I'll turn this around…!"
"Cancer Bubble! 280 damage! 4955! One Charge Shot… And I'll have defeated you, Tabuu!" Rock Man announced.
"I am Tabuu EXE! A Net Navi! Above "Duo", that colossal failure! My deeds shall not be forgotten! Prepare to become cosmic dust, Shooting Star… Rock Man…!" Tabuu announced.
"Charge… Shot!"
"… Now! Apocalypse Now!"
The Charge Shot hit the spheroid.
Instead of destroying it, they fused, and the spheroid grew.
Its colors were constantly shifting, and bursts of light shot out.
"Fate has granted me another chance…! My story will be told elsewhere but yours, Rock Man… Belongs to "this" Universe! Farewell!"
The spheroid imploded and bright release of energy blinded the space.
A deafening sound, like that of a storm, swallowed Tabuu's laughter and Rock Man's cry of panic…
