Chapter 4: Nôtre – dame de la mer
21:55 PM (Normandy Time), Saturday October the 16th…
"… This is the place!"
"Futaba's ghost gotta be there…"
"War Rock! That doesn't have any logic!""
"There goes Brad Shad!"
"Blood Shadow, War Rock!"
"So! Stigma Man! Do us a favor and scare them into believing you're Satan's nephew!"
"My name is Sigma, War Rock! And I'm not Satan's nephew!"
"By all the…"
"They are impossible, Shidou. You knew it…"
Subaru and Akatsuki stood in the esplanade which had formed over the ages in front of the abbey building.
It was built about 400 meters from the edge of the cliffs.
The rumor of the waves hitting the cliffs along with the cries of seagulls could be heard.
"Hoshikawa – kun! You ready?"
"I am, Blood Shadow!"
"You know that you can call me "Blood" and we're at peace!"
"And Brad Shad is gonna do it from behind?"
"War Rock! That was rude to him!"
"It was vulgar, too!"
Blood Shadow resembled Rock Man, but with alterations to his design.
His shades were black and thick.
A flock of messy reddish hair came out from behind the helmet given how it only covered the face and the front of the head.
His ear-pads had the purple "SS" letters drawn inside of each.
His armor had the purple letters "BS" engraved on the chest area.
His legs were black and had two red stripes running down the legs' sides in a parallel manner.
His right forearm was covered by a red device coupled with a transparent red piece.
A small indentation near the wrist had the "BS" initials engraved there.
"Now, now… Let Sigma handle this!"
Sigma was about two meters tall.
His whole body was jet black.
His face had two red eyes and one glowed brighter than the other.
Two horns, one of which was almost erased, were set on both sides of his head and added a "demonic" look to him.
He had a red spheroid set on his chest area.
His spheroid seemed to be missing the armor over its mass.
Green data flows moved around his body.
He held a massive black and green sword in his right hand which was easily over a meter tall.
"Uncle Omega will make them dance the Shiver Dance."
The newcomer was about a meter and eighty tall.
A blue jewel shaped like an inverted triangle was set on the center of his helmet's forehead.
The jewel glowed and emitted a cross-shaped light.
His eyes' irises were blue and serious.
Long blond hair reached all the way to the floor.
He had a red vest over his mainly black body.
His forearms and boots were red.
Two golden circlets were set around his forearms and on his boots.
"Now let's hide and play hide-and-seek with our beloved buccaneers!"
The group concealed in the bushes growing nearby.
They checked their clocks as if to make sure they were on time.
A car came up the road and parked in front of the abbey.
It turned off the lights before two figures climbed down and headed for the trunk.
"Now!" Akatsuki whispered.
He and Subaru ran towards them in silence using the blackness as cover.
They could pinpoint the car thanks to its green paint and the red drawing.
They seized the figures and quickly threw them into the ground before opening the trunk.
They found a large, metallic cylinder which beeped in a very low tone.
Both were seized from behind by the figures, which were pikemen robots.
"Let go, you!" Both cursed.
"Beast Swing!"
"Punishing Claws!"
"Run!"
Both ran away as the car blew up and took the robots out as well while setting everything in a 50-meter-radius on fire.
The group ran towards the abbey and stopped there to pant as they looked on at the burning car.
"By all the… A trap to kill us!?" Subaru cursed.
"Which means that they tricked us. And that they're really using this place as hideout! I've heard that there's underground tunnels and crypts so…"
"We won't miss anything by checking it out, so…" Akatsuki muttered.
"But let's be armed. You two should transform and be ready to fight whatever is inside!" Blood Shadow warned.
"Let them come! I'll smash them!" Sigma laughed.
"Denpa – Henkan!"
Subaru and Akatsuki became Rock Man and Acid Ace respectively.
War Rock slowly and purposely pushed one door inwards to let it creak in a loud manner.
He chuckled, but the others didn't find it funny.
"Lovely. Now you want to give everything away, War Rock?"
"Ask Creak Man!"
"Please…"
"Be glad we didn't bring Moon Ace along to sing the "Pater Nostrum" 100 times in a row!"
"Don't joke with that or you'll have a horde upon you who will want to make you go to court!" Vadous warned.
"Sure! I'll drive them off with my roars!"
The group crossed the main wing and found a cavity behind the main altar.
It was missing the door and revealed of spiral stairways going downwards.
Electrical torches had been placed there to provide some illumination.
They'd been switched from yellow to a tint of purple, as if to make it creepier.
"Last one buys ice-cream!" War Rock laughed.
He flew down the stairs and the others grumbled.
They walked down the stairs into a room which had a total of six stairways going even deeper (including the one they'd used to enter).
War Rock was pepping into them.
"Contact with the surface is lost already. We're just 20 meters above sea-level and the entry was 28 meters above sea level. If they are as deep as the first stairway, then what's waiting for us down there is 12 meters above sea level. But given global heating and such the sea level was lower when this was firstly built!" Omega explained.
"Guess that means that we don't have to fear about these corridors flooding with the tide change!" Acid Ace summarized.
"Let's each choose one. Let's meet here in 1 hour's time from now if we don't find anything…"
"I guess that nobody's been there ever since 666 CE, when Satan came forth from Hell and unleashed his Demon Tribe minions into the abbey!"
"I approve. 1 hour. Find anything hostile which wants to kill you, then… Beat it down!" Acid Ace commanded.
"Acknowledged!"
They split and Rock Man choose the 2nd left stairway which he walked down and ended up in a corridor heading inwards.
"Hmmm… I don't want to get lost if there are other stairs climbing up! Let's mark this one!"
He formed a spray can and wrote something on the ground:
"TO THE FIRST BASEMENT"
He painted an arrow, which ran across the floor until the entrance as if to emphasize the message.
"I like this better. Alright. Let's go!"
"To the center of the Earth!"
A mechanical buzz sound rang out along with metallic footsteps.
He drew a Mad Vulcan at the unlit portion of the corridor ahead of him.
"UNIT BEHEADER B001. STATUS: ONLINE. ORDERS: BEHEAD INTRUDERS!"
A black, metallic robot about around a meter and eighty tall appeared.
It had a red "eye" on the chest.
Its head consisted of black shades and a fin popping out of the forehead.
The robot carried a gigantic double-sided axe on its hands as its weapon.
"Another robot!"
"BEHEAD INTRUDERS!"
The robot jumped in the air and swung the axe horizontally.
He ducked just in time, skidded across the ground to ski under the robot, and delivered a kick to its back, making it meet the ground face first.
"THE BLOODTHIRSTY GOD OF ESSENCE DEMANDS TO HAVE BLOOD!"
The robot dashed forward and raised its arms along with the axe.
Rock Man shot the "eye" in the chest, which began to frizzle and spark.
The robot stopped and dropped the heavy axe into the ground before starting to move around in an erratic way.
The "eye" exploded, and the robot fell with its back on the ground, limp and smoke coming out of the chest area.
"There's something here if they bothered to put this guy here as sentinel! Guess that it's their hideout, indeed!"
"Futaba's cousin is the ruler of this world! And if we go nowhere at all then I'm gonna check out the size of your stuff to tell Kiboayama!"
"If you invade my privacy then Boss is definitely gonna lock you in the HQ's server for being a pervert and trying to extortion me!"
"Sheesh! You have no sense of thrill, man…!"
22:04 PM (Normandy Time)…
"… Lovely. Dust everywhere. Acid! Is there anything else apart from dust to detected here?"
"The lights seemed to have been deliberately removed in some sections during the last 24 hours, given heat imprints!"
"Does that mean that they set this up on a rush, then? Or the lights were a last-minute decision?"
"I would rather go with the later…"
Acid Ace was talking with Acid as he made his way through the area and ended up noticing that some of the lights were missing the bulbs.
He checked one and used a flashlight to try to see in detail.
"There aren't any fingerprints left but there is a heat imprint… Curious!"
"UNIT LANCER L001 WILL DESTROY ALL FILTHY PLEBEIANS, BY THE WILL OF THE BLOODTHIRSTY GOD OF ESSENCE!"
"Who the heck?"
Acid Ace whipped around to meet up with a robot.
the red "eye" device was set in the middle of the face.
It used a large lance as a weapon.
"I don't have time to deal with pieces of junk. Here, a present. Bye-bye! Wing Blade~!"
"Shidou… Putting a bomb on the chest cavity and then running off…"
"Is effective! As you just heard how the thing blew up!"
Acid Ace was running off and looked over his right shoulder at the smoking remains of the robot while forming a grin.
"Do not blame me if you run into trouble afterwards!"
That was just a bit of heating up! The real stuff begins NOW!
22:08 PM (Normandy Time)…
"Sheesh… I can't find any hints yet! Are they really hiding here? Or is this but a huge dead end to begin with? Sheesh! Those cowards! I wish to drag them out of hiding and defeat them!"
Omega made his way down another corridor while grumbling.
"UNIT SWORDSMAN S001, ENGAGED. PRIMARY PROGRAMMING ORDERS: DESTROY ANY INTRUDERS TO BRING THEIR BLOOD TO THE BLOODTHIRSTY GOD OF ESSENCE!"
"Coming!"
A robot carrying a sword the edges of which had been fitted with chain saw teeth came into sight and brandished i.
Omega reached for the compartment built over his right hip and took out a white object which became a sword's hilt.
An emerald pyramid of energy formed on it and began to hum.
"So! Where do I begin? It's a robot which runs on a pirate copy of a miniature nuclear fusion core… Hmpf. Our foes have some level of engineering knowledge and materials…"
The robot ran forward, trying to drive his sword into Omega but he dashed past him in a blur while forming "afterimages" behind him.
He cut the space with the sword while drawing a curve and stopped one or two meters deeper in while still holding his saber out and looking over his right shoulder.
The robot's upper torso was split in half followed by a white explosion of raw plasma.
Omega turned off the weapon and spun it inside of his right hand.
"Too easy. It's a trap, alright…"
He stored it and crouched to study the remains.
"The memory core reset to factory settings… Careful, aren't we?"
22:11 PM (Normandy Time)…
"I'll end up catching Brad Shad doing something with Subaru! They'll both turn red from the shame! Wait. Brad Shad's an android like me, so… Man. Obviously… Boss didn't bother to recreate "that"! But that doesn't stop them from trying to play "soft"! Wait! What the heck's that?"
Sigma had been muttering things aloud.
He stumbled upon a crossroad room with a dome-shaped ceiling.
Something was placed on the middle of it.
It was a black, metallic spheroid about two and a half meters tall.
"UNIT Y001 HAS BEEN ENGAGED. UNIT Y001'S PROGRAMMING ORDERS: RIP INTRUDERS SLOWLY AND PAINFULLY TO SOOTHE THE THIRST OF THE BLOODTHIRSTY GOD OF ESSENCE!"
Four legs with five claws each came out from holes on the spheroid, and it stood up.
An "eye" was placed on the upper half and a fin emerged from the top.
Six straight lines radiated from it, and it now was about three meters tall.
"Bring it on, rusted metal antiquity!"
The robot used three of the legs to remain on foot and then drove the other three towards Sigma, but he jumped into the air and landed atop the thing thus distracting it.
"ENEMY PRESENCE… NOT DETECTABLE…"
"Over here, twerp! Take this! Demon Laser! Demon Rings! Sigma Sword!"
He shot two twin red lasers from his eyes which set the joints on fire-
Thin, blue rings frizzling with electricity coupled into the joins.
It collapsed into the ground, and he drove the sword into the head, destroying it.
"Too easy ~! Let's go plot the next trap I'll spring into Brad Shad!"
22:15 PM (Normandy Time)…
"… This place is spooky, but I'm not afraid of it! I have a mental age of 13! Who's afraid of such things at such an age, anyway? I want to find something! What's this room? A crossroad! And I'm feeling the hum of a hover engine. The ceiling…? What the heck is that up there?"
Blood Shadow had been mumbling aloud as he made his way through a corridor only to end up in another crossroad.
He stopped near the entrance and looked upwards.
"UNIT Y002 IS ENGAGED. DISPOSE OF INTRUDERS TO OFFER THEIR BLOOD TO THE BLOODTHIRSTY GOD OF ESSENCE TO SOOTHE ITS THIRST!"
A robot with a spherical body descended from the ceiling.
It hovered using two engines on the right and left lower corners.
It had two "arms" popping out from holes on the sides.
Each one had three small holes along its length and ended in a small sphere with a black dot on it.
"Lovely. What can you do? Ugly!" He taunted.
The robot began to shoot machinegun rounds, but he was already leaping into the air while loading up energy on the shotgun's barrels.
He placed it on the right shoulder.
"Charged shotgun shot!"
The right shoulder was blown off and the robot tilted to the left due to the lack of balance with its body mass.
He loaded the shotgun again and landed atop the head, pressing both barrels into the top cover.
He quickly leapt into the air past the robot as it dropped into the ground, given the lack of control unit.
"Something's here or they wouldn't waste bucks on such crappy security!"
22:18 PM (Normandy Time)…
"… Devil! I've been walking this stupid corridor for 20 minutes already. Doesn't it ever end? What's next? A junction… All corridors merge here! What's around here, then?"
"The crypt of Slytherin and the basilisk!"
"Very funny!"
Rock Man stepped out into a junction of the five corridors.
There were two new corridors heading left and right plus two closed wooden doors in front of him one of which had a "skull and crossbones" sign as if indicating that something deadlier was hidden behind it.
"Hmmm… Let's check the skull door!"
Rock Man opened it and found a small stone chamber.
He looked at the ground and recoiled upon seeing that there was a shaft with brick walls built there.
Pebbles fell off the rim and down the shaft.
A soft sound of them hitting the water was carried upwards by the echo.
"Alright. This is why it's signaled!" He muttered.
He stepped out and closed the door.
He checked the other room, but there was nothing on it.
The ground was solid, and he didn't find anything odd.
"Good. Let's check the lateral corridors and…"
The noise of several sets of footsteps started to echo and increased in intensity from both corridors.
"We've got company!" War Rock laughed.
"UNITS LANCER 002 TO 010 ARE ENGAGED AND ORDERED TO DESTROY ANY INTRUDER ON SIGHT!"
"UNITS SWORDSMAN 002 TO 010 ARE ENGAGED AND ORDERED TO TERMINATE ANY INTRUDER ON SIGHT!"
"Crap! What do I do?" Rock Man gasped.
"Swap the door signs and leave the danger room slightly open! Move!"
Rock Man was surprised, he did as War Rock suggested.
He swapped the signs and hid on the safe room, leaving the other door slightly ajar.
He crouched in a corner, and both remained silent.
The footsteps came to a halt and buzz sounds rang out.
"… DOOR HAS BEEN LEFT AJAR. CONCLUSION: INTRUDER IS THERE!"
Both heard splash noises in a row, signaling that the horde of 16 robots had fallen into the water.
He remained in that pose for a few minutes until silence was formed.
"Good thinking, Rock!"
"I wasn't in the mood to fight with weaklings!"
Rock Man exited back into the corridor and noticed something.
"What's that? A trapdoor! I see. The robots removed the build-up of dust and exposed it…"
Rock Man crouched next to a trapdoor and pulled it up-
It made a loud squeaking noise, but he ignored it as he began to walk down a set of stone stairs.
"We must be about 6 meters above sea level! Let's head on and hope that we don't go below sea level! There could be a trap involving flooding!"
"But we could dive into the lake back when the Brachio Wave incident, right? We needed a device to help us navigate, but, when transformed, your body becomes something else! You needn't breathing or eating or anything else!"
"You have a point!" Rock Man admitted.
"I'm Point Man!"
"Not again… Be serious!"
"Serious Man!"
"Alright! Have it your way!"
Rock Man had been distracted discussing and ended up hitting two closed wooden doors in front of him, which had a pull ring each one.
He rubbed his nose and forehead while groaning.
"Tell me there's a door!" He complained.
"Blame Door Man!"
"By all the… Let's go in and end this farce!"
Rock Man pulled one of the doors open and stepped inside.
"W-what… is this place?" Rock Man managed to mutter.
The room was square and wide.
A central corridor led towards an altar placed on the far end of it.
The far wall had a drawing of the Grim Reaper standing within a forest and yielding a blood-smeared scythe, with blood drips dropping from its blade into the ground.
The walls at the left and right were wall drawings of ghosts roaming across villages and obviously bringing upon fear and terror.
Gravestones with covers displaying strange characters on them had been placed at left and right of the main altar.
Dried blood stains were present in the ground around the altar.
A stained and rugged cloak was covering it and there was something below it, indicated by the bulky form.
A grave placed SE of the altar was open and empty.
"I guess this was the room of rites of some crazy sect!"
"Wasn't that robot saying something about blood and something-god-of-whatever?" War Rock brought up.
"It was, but I thought it was taken from a game or such!"
"Anyone would've thought the same, I'd say… Why don't we check what's hidden there? Maybe there's a hint?"
"If it's a corpse… I'll try not to vomit!" Rock Man muttered.
"Come on! You're a man! Bear with it!"
Rock Man gulped and slowly approached the altar.
He grabbed the cloak and pulled it off to reveal an unconscious Misora, chained to the altar by the wrists and ankles.
She was fully dressed but her skin was pale.
"Misora – chan…! Why does she look so pale…? Guess it must feel too cold down here… Anyway! Let's rescue her and be on our way out!"
"Sheesh. Sure. Not in the mood for jokes!"
He broke the restrains and she opened her eyes, which had become red and unemotive.
Rock Man gasped and stepped back, surprised.
"Blood. Sacrifice. Ritual. High One. Descent. End of world. World's reset. New world..." She muttered as if chanting.
"W-what?" Rock Man asked.
She grabbed a knife which had been hidden under her right leg and had no trouble jumping down into the ground and heading for Rock Man while carrying the knife on her right hand.
"Misora – chan! What happened? Snap out of it! Wake up!"
"The one to wake up is you, false prophet. You have brought false hope to the weaklings. You have defied the worldly laws..."
"What are ya talkin' 'bout?" War Rock gasped.
"It is set that, when the High One descends, the cycle will come to an end. A new cycle shall begin. All filth shall burn agonizingly as punishment for their sins. Only the Royalty and Believers will be saved. And then the cycle will repeat until the day when the Four Heavenly Kings unite to start their final battle against the High One…"
She chanted, and a foreign accent stood out in the chant.
"I d-don't know what you mean!"
"Your blood shall be offered to the High One and then it shall be your skin, muscle and bones. You shall slowly and painfully die inside of that grave!"
"Sorry. I don't agree with that gore scenario. Duck! Plasma Shot!"
"Wha!"
Rock Man ducked out of instinct as a ball of plasma travelled across the air and hit the face of "Misora".
It melted it, revealing a robotic skull beneath it.
Something jumped across the air in a blur and Omega drove his sword into the upper torso, halting the robot and making its eyes shut down.
It let go of the knife and collapsed face-down on the ground.
Rock Man was now seating into the ground, shell-shocked.
Omega, who was nervous, tapped his right shoulder.
"Rock Man. Are you alright?"
"Misora – chan… is dead… dead… they killed her… in front of my eyes… her face melted… her face… her face…" He weakly muttered.
"War Rock! Hit him or something!"
"Can't be helped…"
War Rock materialized and began to "knock" on the helmet's forehead, but Rock Man didn't react.
"Subaru! Daigo is calling for ya!"
"Dad? I'm going, Dad… Wait. Where am I?"
Rock Man began to stand up and distractedly walk out before stopping and looking around in a confused manner.
"Are you alright?"
Omega landed both hands atop his shoulders and looked at him.
"Mr. Omega? W-what happened, sir?"
"We've been deceived! The car was one thing. And now they bothered to come up with an assassin robot. I'm sure the reason there were so many crossroads in the tunnels we choose was to stall for time so that you would get here first and fall for the trap. But I happen to be able to dash at high speeds, and thus I caught up with you!"
"A robot…! A robot…! T-they tricked me with… a robot!"
Rock Man hissed and he began to accumulate anger.
"Snap out of it!" Omega ordered.
"R-roger, sir!"
"I know it wasn't a nice experience. But it's over. Hibiki was never here, and the mail was bait to lure us into a trap!"
"A trap…!" Rock Man hissed.
"We need to go back and rest. It's already 4 AM in Japan. We're bringing that thing along and dissecting it to try to find out who could've built it and if they based the design from out tech. Given how the only thing I did was force a shut-down, the memory files might be intact!"
"Sorry, I'm late. What's with the decoration?"
Acid Ace stepped inside and looked around.
"Your evil cousin did it!" Sigma laughed.
"Be serious!" Blood Shadow grumbled.
"There'll be a debriefing later. The key point is that the target wasn't here, and this was a trap to kill Rock Man. But it isn't Hyde. It's someone else, fond of gore scenarios involving apocalypses and doomsday prophecies! Blood! Escort Rock Man! He's had a bad experience! He doesn't look well. Try to check on him along the way. Try to help him if he loses balance or feels about to throw out from the fright…"
"Roger. Let's go, Rock Man!"
"I'm tired… But who could've set up something so cruel? It must be a heartless person…!" Rock Man muttered.
"Sure…"
"Maybe you should go see the Doc for therapy, too…"
"Roger, sir…"
Blood Shadow helped Rock Man walk out by letting him lean his left arm across his shoulders.
"Sheesh. Are you still going to laugh?" Acid Ace grumbled.
"No…" Sigma gulped.
"Hmm… This scenery of death and such makes me think of Death Shadow, but since the thing isn't human, I don't see why it would bother with such a stunt when it'd rather come from the front and fire all weapons…"
"Good point. I doubt that being the culprit's aim. It simply found this place convenient to lay such a gruesome trap…" Acid Ace agreed.
"If you need help with the analysis…" Acid offered.
"Sure. But let's do it somewhere isolated from external signals!"
"Good idea. Least the culprit tries to remotely wipe its data… I can't wait to catch them and make them regret their deeds!"
None of them noticed a floating Voltic Eye Virus spying on them, hiding high in the ceiling.
Let despair fill you lowlifes!