Chapter 17: Mantle
09:39 AM (Japan Time), Sunday March the 11th…
"… Scramble alert! Scramble alert! There are multiple hostiles converging on the Mother Computer's area!"
"What did you say? Call the Net Police's Cyber CID!"
"Sorry for the wait!"
"Superintendent Oda, Ijuuin – kun, Mr. Raoul, Meijin and Laika – kun! You suspected this would happen?"
"Correct! Go!"
"Plug In! Blues!"
"Search Man!"
"Thunder Man!"
"Punk!"
"TRANSMISSION!"
An alarm was ringing out in the Science Labs just as Enzan, Laika, Raoul and Meijin along with Oda and Obihiro made it to the control room, out of breath; the four Operators sent their Navis into the system just to see an explosion in the south and some figures rushing up the hill where the towering Mother Computer was built at.
"Halt!" Blues commanded.
"A swordsman! Excellent! You go on ahead! This one's my prey! I, Yamato Man, oppose you in this hill of fate!"
Yamato Man was over a meter and eighty tall; he had blue samurai armor covered his body, and a golden band on the middle of the chest, which split into several small sections separated by vertical black lines.
His face was of a dull shade of gray; his mouth was a mere line shaped like a trapeze aiming upwards.
A small cubical piece was set on his chin, and his eyes' irises were brown.
The round shoulders had a yellow band around their half to split them into upper and lower portion.
The neck had a thick yellow metallic band around it which covered all of it expect the front; a samurai helmet covered his head, and a yellow-colored metallic piece shaped like a triangle facing forward was set on his helmet's forehead; there was another above it the shape of which was reminiscent of the Alphabet letter "V".
Three rectangle-shaped slabs of armor extended slightly below the shoulder but before the forearm; each forearm was covered in cyan armor plus a yellow ring around the wrist; the top of the palms had a small dome-shaped yellow-colored object atop them; the arm and hand "skin" was black.
Another three layers of armor covered each hip; the pale blue and thick lower body began beneath the torso armor and ended below the knees, from which the legs emerged; cylindrical armor covered the legs as the front and rear of each foot were protected by blue armor which had a yellow border, ending at the ankle, leaving a small space between each piece.
The chest section of the armor had a circular cavity on it with his drawing set on it, which was a black circle followed by a white space and a second black circle; a black dot was set in the middle, and three small lines spread from it until the inner border, aiming north, SW and SE; each line had an additional curved line cutting through their center.
"Thousand Spear!"
"Don't mind me! Halt the others! Go, go!"
Blues drew his Long Sword to halt his attacks and yelled at the others.
"You there! Halt!" Thunder Man commanded.
"Interloper. Gravity Drive. Let my Gravitational Hell begin. Gravity Man has spoken."
"Uwra~h! What the fuck!"
Gravity Man, Thunder Man's opponent, had a more machine-like appearance to him; his main body was a spheroid split in two with both halves hovering into the air at a short distance between them, and his main color was red.
The upper half had a large brownish circular band with short vertical stripes on them as if to mark the boundary between each segment; two cylinders came out from behind the upper half and they had that same circular rotating band on them.
The face was shaped like a dome; four square white teeth that didn't look they could move were set on the lower edge while two brown triangles pointing SW and SE were set on the face.
His eyes were round, yellow in color and they produced a yellow flash in the form of the Alphabet "X" character.
The top part of the head had two circular metallic pieces set one atop the other and two antennae – like extensions as well
The lower body had a white lower-half-of-a-circle drawing with a small vertical stripe dividing it in two; a white circle with a red arrow was aiming at the SE and it looked like an indicator of something; the body had that brown rotating band on the upper edge.
His arms were detached from the body and hovered close to the lower edge of the body; they included the shoulders, which were metallic gray, plus a round white edge aiming NW; the segment inside of that was colored in a brownish color.
The arms and forearms were shaped like two cone-like bases with two round rotating brown bands on the middle section.
These claws ended in three metallic claw-like extensions.
The final part to be seen were three metallic pieces, which diminished in size as they stepped downwards; the third segment had a pyramidal end.
"Useless. Useless."
"Fuck!"
"You! Kiddo! Punk – sama tells you to face 'im!"
"Alright, buddy. I'm Star Man and I wanna have a thrill! Shooting Star Shower!"
"Fuck."
Star Man was lower in height compared to Punk by eight to ten centimeters but he had a more "humanoid" design to him.
His face was white in color, he had no nose, and his eyes were navy blue with small round white spots on them; he had two round navy blue/blackish ear-pads with a small reddish cone coming out of them and aiming SE.
His hairstyle was punk in style (or at least gave off that impression), and consisted on five golden spikes aiming northwards
Three golden bands were wrapped around his neck and a scar-like extension came out from behind it to end in a star shape.
His emblem, a white star set against a blue background with red and blue edges, could be spotted on the forehead.
His arms were blue in color until the elbow and then turned white:
His upper body was colored navy blue and the rest of it (namely the legs) was colored in a pure white shade.
He sported two tall boots with a brown upper edge just below the knee while their main color was a dull orange one.
"Search Man! Halt the enemies!"
"Check it out! Bright Man – sama is gonna zap ya! Yay!"
Finally, Bright Man stood as being about the same height as Star Man.
A helmet, which covered the face all the way until the mouth, protected his head; two round dome-shaped greenish bulbs seemed to be his eyes' equivalent system.
The helmet's band covering the part where his nose and eyes would be at was tinted black yet the upper section of it had been colored using orange coloring: two grayish metallic cone-formation objects protruded from the sides of the helmet and ended in a bluish spheroid.
Another prominent part about Bright Man's head was that there were two glowing fluorescent green wires, which came out from two circular spots and ended in two electrical plugs colored metallic gray and blue: they looked like they could be connected to some device.
The orange vest covered his neck, and ended a near the waist.
His emblem, an orange sphere with six straight lines coming out thelower edge, and set against a sky blue background, was set inside of a navy blue edge with an arrow aiming downwards.
His upper body had an orange vest built over it while the rest of it was colored yellow: two round fluorescent bands were set around his shoulders from where his yellow-skinned arms came out.
His back was plain and unadorned save for a brown box with outer orange edges and inner black edges around a normal plug colored black but with a brown cylindrical body; the insides of the box were brown too.
The forearm armor had an upper orange section and a lower navy blue section; a sky blue band circled the diameter of it close to where the armor began.
A piece of armor shaped as a diamond was located over the palm; the front part of it had another green fluorescent piece on it while the rear part was plain armor; his hands were covered by white "skin".
His lower body and legs were also orange in coloring and were covered in armor from the knees downwards; the armor was also orange, had two blue round stripes, and ended shoes shaped like circles, which included a greenish fluorescent band and metallic soils.
"Four VS Four. At least we're even." Oda muttered.
"My hunch was right." Enzan grumbled.
"Did you think I would vote in favor of this operation had this not been something morally noble?" Yamato Man questioned.
"Guess not, if we take into account that you served under Serenade."
"Hmmm! Served is not the correct word. I kneeled in front of his might and he simply allowed me to seek my pathway in life."
"Gravity Drive."
"Uwra~h! Damn it!"
Gravity Man was generating wells of gravity in which Thunder Man was pushed into the ground to then be shot upwards and hit the "ceiling" of the well, only to be dropped into the ground and have the process repeat.
"Escaping from my Gravitation Hell is impossible."
"So? Are you worthy of carrying on the "Mantle", Net Police?"
"Oh heck." Enzan cursed.
Hovering inches atop the towering Mother Computer was Slur, having her long sleeves crossed in the shape of an "X" character; a halo of golden light was emitted from her frame, as if announcing her hidden mighty power, waiting to be unleashed; Legato was accessing the computer in the meanwhile while humming a tune.
"Slur!" Blues cursed.
"Indeed. I repeat my question."
"By "Mantle"… Do you mean the torch Serenade carried?" Yuuichirou quickly guessed.
"Indeed."
"I will say neither yes and not. Do you think you're the ones?"
"Good reply. We are not yet. Maybe we will prove to be in the near future. We are not perfect or omnipotent to begin with. We cannot control everything and we do not desire to either because it brings greed and vanity with it." She replied without changing her facial expression.
"What's "Purgatory", then?"
"It shall be said when the right moment comes."
"Is this invasion a test of our defenses? Or you came here to look for something?" Yuuichirou asked next.
"We are in need of a something which we cannot provide ourselves yet for you it is but a triviality… One piece of a large device, which you have always disregarded because you did not see how to utilize it."
"… Fuck. This kid's no joke!" Punk cursed.
"Meteors!"
"Fuck! Mad Roller!"
Punk compacted into the spheroid and ran across the ground dodging the meteors, and then he ran over Star Man, who cursed and began a new attack.
"Shield and Chain!"
His shield bounced off some of the meteors and he shot his extensible right arm forward to tie around Star Man and toss him towards Gravity Man, who didn't see it coming; the collision knocked Gravity Man off his position and the "Gravitational Hell" got cancelled, so Thunder Man roared and jumped into the air.
"Thunderbolt!"
"Double Go-Round!"
The disks on his shoulders detached and flew across the air, hitting Bright Man as he used his plugs' wires to try to strangle and electrocute Search Man; the attack was able to cut both wires and free Search Man while Bright Man looked around, bewildered.
"Check it out! What the heck?"
"Maybe ya punks don't know something named "team-work"?"
"Damn you~!" Bright Man hissed.
"Mad Roller!"
"Wha~t?"
"Satellite Ray!"
"Kya~h! DAMN IT!"
"Target: deleted."
"They were experimental prototypes… They were not meant to be permanent to begin with…" Slur muttered.
"So you built them in a rush?" Obihiro guessed.
"It can be said so. This operation was decided in a hurried manner so we wanted to use these prototypes. They are not ours, though; they were all affiliated to criminals… Save for Yamato Man. He is a different case altogether."
"Slur – sama! I found the files. I cracked their encoding, too! I am downloading them." Legato reported.
"Good work. Proceed. You two: continue."
"R-roger! I'm not as weak as that punk!"
"Affirmative."
"Shooting Star Shower!"
"Gravity Hold. Gravity Drive."
"Thousand Spear!"
"Long Blade, Wide Blade!"
Star Man opened a gateway to shoot out streams of energy in several directions, while Gravity Man formed a spheroid, which he tossed at Search Man; it knocked him into the ground and Gravity Man made both Thunder Man and Search Man hover into the air before crashing with each other, and dropping them to the ground.
"Enemies are meaningless. Meaningless." He taunted.
"I wonder about that… Zero-range shot!"
"Gu-guwa~h! IMPOSSIBLE~!"
"Good job, Search Man!"
"Hmpf! I knew they would get too confident."
Search Man had placed the barrel of his gun on Gravity Man's chest and fired a zero-range shot which pierced through him and deleted him, to Thunder Man's satisfaction; Yamato Man wasn't too surprised at how things were turning out like.
"Meteors!"
"Thunderbolt!"
"Scope Gun!"
"Double Go-Round!"
"Impossible~!" Star Man shrieked.
"Download completed." Legato reported.
"Good! Let us settle this. Thousand Spears!"
Yamato Man backed a step and then renewed his assault, which pierced through Blues' defenses and brought him to the ground, beaten; he heard footsteps and Legato looked down on him (literally).
"So, kyoudai. You really got rusted, didn't you? You thought that Video Man was troublesome enough, but Yamato Man here is a strong warrior! He was giving you chances to counter but you acted rather poorly!"
"Shut… up…!" Blues growled.
"Stay sharp. Next time I'll drive you into the ground so that you become one with the ground. Maybe you'll understand why the ground cannot be defeated like that." He taunted.
"Legato. Let us not sit idle. If we can advance the schedule of the CWC Plan even by a few hours' time then it shall be fine."
"Understood, Slur – sama."
"Let us go, Yamato Man. Blues… Do reflect upon your failure."
The three of them vanished from the mainframe while Blues looked around and saw that Slur's wires had immobilized the other three Navis, explaining why they hadn't taken part in the fight.
"Damn it. They got away with whatever they were after and proved once again how they can easily overwhelm us." Search Man hissed.
"Hmmm… Micro power cores research… Maybe it has something to do with the program Omenda- san developed for the conversion and compression of raw energy to be processed by some kind of system which would take into account each Navi's body mass, height, weight and characteristics…" Yuuichirou read from a screen.
"And they were damned right again. We're rusted and we need to train if we want to start catching up to them."
"Yeah, I know." Laika grumbled.
"That punk…! Laughing at me like that…!" Blues hissed.
"Man. I don't wanna go through that thing again." Thunder Man grimly muttered.
"Fuck. If even that brat was strong then I dunno what's happened to me: am I rusty or what?" Punk cursed.
"Guess so." Meijin admitted with a sigh of defeat.
"They left a note! "Uncle Moran will beat Uncle Merton in the third round of the boxing match. Take care, Superintendent Oda." … Oh come on…"
"I say the reverse! Uncle Merton will PULVERIZE UNCLE MORAN! The battle did not go well but one battle doesn't change anything, fellows. We're gaining closer, I'd rather say!"
"Guess so. We know something important will happen this next June. However, that's the only time frame we have. What's "Purgatory" about? Another ace-in-the-hole…? Sheesh! Were it so easy…!"