Chapter 26
Attack of the Giant Whale

The good guys of both group returned to Dr. Light's lab through teleportation, appearing on the same teleportation pad. Upon returning, they were shocked by the sight of the room in ruins. "What happened here?!" asked Mega Man.

"Roll!" gasped Proto Man when he saw his younger sister badly beaten up in front of the teleporter's control panel.

Panting heavily, she said, "You… You guys… made it back in time…!" She began to fall over, but Shadow rushed over to her and held her up. Seeing Shadow, she said happily, "Shadow… You're back…! They managed to rescue you!"

"Told you we would be able to bring him back!" Sonic said to her while coming over to them.

"What happened here?" Shadow asked Roll as he handed over into a concerned Mega Man's arm.

Suddenly, the wall on one end of the room burst open, and a robot resembling a steamroller charged in. "What the heck is that?!" asked Red Hood in shock.

"Mad Grinder!" gasped Mega Man.

Mad Grinder kept on moving nonstop in the direction of the good guys, who got into offensive stances. Shadow teleported in front of its face and gave it a powerful kick to the side of the face, causing the body to veer in the same direction. Proto Man and Mega Man then charged up their arm cannons and fired plasma shots at the same time at Mad Grinder's body.

Though damaged by the shots, Mad Grinder still turned back to face them with a look of anger, only to receive a blast of energy to its head from Laplace's energy launcher. Just like that, the head was blown off, and then the rest of the body exploded.

KABOOOOOM!

"Yeah! The heroes once again win!" exclaimed Laplace, striking a pose.

"What is Mad Grinder doing in this place?" asked Mega Man.

"While you guys were gone… Mother Whale showed up and launched an attack on us without a warning…!" explained Roll. "Eggman and Wily somehow found out about our optic camouflage hiding this place from them!"

"What?! They found out?!" gasped Tails. "Can it be… our battle with Turbo Man and Nitro Man alerted them of this place somehow?"

"Where is Doctor Light? What is happening out there right now?" Proto Man asked Roll.

"Doctor Light should be hiding somewhere in the lab. He bought me time to get here and bring you back…!" replied Roll. "We're all trying our best to fend off the enemies outside…!"

"Then we have to help them fast!" said Red Hood, and everyone nodded in agreement.

"You guys go ahead," Proto Man told the others. "I'll tend to Roll first and also look for Doctor Light."

"I'll help you too," Tails said to Proto Man.

"I'll stay here too. I'm sure… I'll be of more use in here…" said Quency.

Roll looked at Quency and asked, "Who are you…?"

The others rushed out of the lab building. Stepping outside, they were horrified to see the city in ruins. Robots made by Eggman and Wily were all over the place, with Raptures among them too. "This is horrible!" gasped Epinel.

"Those villains!" said Snow White in anger. "They won't get away with this!"

"Yeah! Time to show them the wrath of us heroes! Take this!" shouted Laplace in anger before opening fire from her energy launcher at random robots to blow them up. This grabbed the attention of the robots, so they began attacking them.

The good guys engaged the robots, and as she was firing from her gun, Snow White said to the others, "Look for survivors as well and help anyone from the resistance! We have to rescue as many as we can!"

"I'm on it!" said Sonic as he used his speed and bouncing skills to destroy some robots before speeding away to look for any good people. It didn't take long for him to run into Team Chaotix fighting their best against some robots, so Sonic called out to them, "Hey guys!"

The trio turned to him, and Vector smiled while waving. "Sonic! Good to see that you made it back!" Behind him, Espio destroyed an approaching Egg Pawn with a shuriken while telling the crocodile to be careful.

"These folks giving you a hard time? I'll handle them for ya!" said Sonic before rushing in the around them at a fast speed, so fast that he could only be seen as a blue blur. The robots never saw what was coming towards them and either got knocked into the air or shredded into pieces by the blue hedgehog.

"Woohoo! Sonic is awesome always!" exclaimed Charmy.

"He took them all out in a second, and we couldn't beat them all even after several minutes…" said Vector in disbelief.

"Looks like we have improvements to make…" said Espio.

Mega Man and Snow White were standing close to each other as they fired at the robots around them. As they were fighting, a robot was tossed across the air in front of them, so they turned in the direction it came flying from and saw Guts Man standing some distance away. Mega Man waved happily at him and called out to him, "Guts Man!"

Seeing him, Guts Man waved in response while heading over to him and said, "Mega Man! You're back!" As he was on his way to Mega Man, someone jumped into the air behind him with one hand in the air, ready to bring it down onto him.

However, Guts Man sensed the approaching ambush and turned around to throw a punch at his airborne attacker. Their hands clashed against each other hard, resulting in an explosion of dark energy that pushed them back some steps. His attacker landed on the ground and revealed itself to be a black Robot Master with purple streaks underneath his eyes and a pair of fin-like protrusions on his head. "Not bad! I'm surprised you saw me coming! Seems like you're not all brawn and no brain!" said the newcomer.

"Bass!" said Guts Man in surprise and anger.

Mega Man was also shocked to see the new robot. "Bass! He's here as well?!"

"Who is he?" Snow White asked him.

"He's also one of Doctor Wily's creation in my world, and probably his most powerful robot to date!" replied Mega Man.

Guts Man picked up a large piece of debris nearby and held it over his head using only one hand. "Now stand there so I can crush you! You're too dangerous to allow to live!" he said to Bass.

"Oh, that's a lot of confidence coming from ya! I can barely remember who you are!" replied Bass with a smug and evil expression. "What makes you think you can win against me?"

"With my gutsy strength!" replied Guts Man before throwing the debris at him.

Instead of dodging it, Bass fired a blast of purple energy at the incoming debris and blew it into pieces. He immediately charged at Guts Man and slammed a hand full of dark energy against his body with such a force that he slid back quite a distance and felt great pain. Bass didn't stop there; he immediately fired rapid bursts of plasma shots at Guts Man, pushing him back with each shot until he finally fell over with a badly damaged body.

"Guts Man!" gasped Mega Man.

Bass approached the fallen Guts Man and looked down at him with an evil smile. "What was all that talk about your gutsy strength? Or did you mean you wanted to show me your guts? Only problem is you're a robot, so you don't have guts like a living thing!"

"Damn you!" said Guts Man in anger as he sat back up, and then he reached his hand forward to grab Bass, but the latter moved out of the way at a fast speed and gave him a karate chop with his hand covered in dark energy at his neck. Guts Man was decapitated by the attack, his head flying off some distance away, while the body fell down lifelessly.

"GUTS MAN!" gasped Mega Man in horror. Snow White was shocked as well.

Bass turned to them and asked, "You want to experience the same thing as him too?"

"Bass!" yelled Mega Man in anger as he fired plasma shots at him that the latter dodged. Snow White also fired at Bass, only for him to dodge the shots with fast movements as well.

"Haha! Too slow! You'll have to try better than that!" taunted Bass while dodging their attacks. After dodging a few more times, he dashed at Mega Man, hoping to catch him by surprise. However, Mega Man pulled off an unexpected move of creating and swinging a sword made of fire at him. Bass was actually struck by it and knocked back, and this allowed Snow White to get the chance to shoot him a few times.

Bass hurriedly moved to a safer distance and said, "Huh, you actually got me! Not bad! Let's see how long you can last!" He spread out his arms as dark energy swirled around his elbows, and when he saw his arms, a pair of energy wheels were created. "Hell's Rolling!"

The energy wheels rolled along the ground like wheels, one heading for Mega Man and the other for Snow White. They both jumped out of the way to dodge them, but surprisingly, the wheels changed direction to go after them, striking them and cutting them like blades before disappearing.

Bass then jumped in their general direction with one hand raised into the air. "Earth Breaker!" He slammed his hand onto the ground, creating an earthquake that was accompanied by explosions coming out of the ground. Mega Man and Snow White were caught in the attack and received heavily injuries.

The two heroes fell to the ground, too pained to move. Bass chuckled as he looked at them and said, "Not so strong now, huh? I'm Doctor Wily's strongest creation, so it's obvious everything will be weak compared to me!"

Bullets were then fired at him, but he stepped to the side and dodged them with ease. He looked and saw T.A.L.O.S. standing there. T.A.L.O.S. fired again, but he dodged the shots again while dashing up to the robot and firing plasma shots that struck the robot in the body. When he dashed up to T.A.L.O.S., he slammed his hand against her chest hard, sending the whole thing flying backwards. Inside, Kilo felt violent rocking, and the screens and lights around her flickered.

After T.A.L.O.S. came to a stop, she fired at Bass again, he dodged them while jumping in her direction. He landed his hand on T.A.L.O.S. head and dug his fingers into it hard before jumping again, ripping off her head in an instant. Kilo looked up with a look of horror when sunlight poured down onto her. Bass appeared overhead and reached down his hand, grabbing the girl by the hair and yanking her out before throwing her to the side.

Kilo tumbled violently onto the ground and then sat up, looking at T.A.L.O.S.'s ripped off head lying some distance away from the headless body. "T.A.L.O.S.!" she screamed in horror.

Bass approached her, terrifying her, and said to her, "This isn't a playground, kid, but since you're here, I'll happily show you why brats like you should stay away from this sort of place!"

Kilo begged for mercy with with a face full of tears. It was at this moment Shadow came speeding into Bass in a blink of an eye, ramming the Robot Master away. Bass tumbled onto the ground and rolled along it for a while before stopping and turning to Shadow. "You!" he said in shock. "I thought you were in prison!"

"As if that can contain me for long!" replied Shadow. He teleported behind Bass and attacked with a kick, but the latter turned around to block it with his arm in time. Shadow proceeded to attack with fast punches and kicks that Bass was able to block with fast arm movements. They eventually slammed fists full of energy against each other's hand, creating an explosion that pushed them in opposite directions.

After coming to a skidding stop, Bass was blasted by a yellow energy beam and blown away. "What now?!" he asked in rage as he looked and saw Laplace standing there.

"You won't get away for hurting my friends, you villain!" Laplace angrily said to him.

Bass looked around and saw several of the good guys gathering at the place. "Tsk! You people are annoying! Always showing up one after another and not knowing when to give up!" he said in frustration.

"It doesn't matter how much you try to take us down, we resistance army will turn the tables and reclaim this world!" Shadow said to him, and the others said similar things.

Suddenly, a purple robotic dog rushed past the good guys and approached Bass. "What is it, Treble?" Bass asked the dog.

Treble's back opened, and a hologram of Wily appeared from it. "Bass! Come back here! The weapon factory is destroyed by the resistance army, and I heard that they rescued Shadow as well! You come back here at once so we can plan our next step!"

"Grrrr! These pests just won't stop messing with us, won't they?" said Bass in anger. He looked around at the good guys and said, "Consider yourself lucky! The next time we meet, all of you will die by my hands!"

His conversation with Wily ended, and before the good guys could do anything, Bass and Treble teleported away. "Darn it! They got away!" said Laplace in anger.

"I think this is for the best," said Cut Man. "There are too many injured folks who should be treated to right now."

Shadow nodded. "Right, so let's get to helping those in need."

Suddenly, they heard a loud bellowing sound coming from the sky. Looking into the sky, their eyes widened in shock as they saw a gigantic mechanical whale approaching from the distance. "It's Mother Whale again!" gasped Charmy.

"Darn it! Hasn't it tormented us enough when it unleashed hell on this place earlier?!" said Vector in anger.

As Mother Whale got closer to them, hatches on various parts of its body opened up, and several Raptures and robots created by Eggman and Wily flew or fall out, landing around the place. One unfortunate Egg Pawn broke itself from an improper landing.

"That's a lot of them…! Can we really beat them all?" asked a nervous Epinel.

"Of course we can! Heroes never lose, no matter how strong or many enemies there are!" replied Laplace.

"We have injured folks that we have to attend to too," said K. "We can't protect everyone and fight at the same time!"

"You don't have to worry about me…" said Snow White as she tried to ignore her injuries. "I've been in rough battles where I am in disadvantages before and still won. This is nothing new."

"This time, you have allies like us to accompany you," Red Hood reminded her.

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's show these guys that we are not to be trifled with! No matter how many of them there are, we can still in!" said Sonic with confidence.

As the good guys got ready to face the army of robots summoned by Mother Whale, they heard explosions and the sound of car engines coming from far back. The robot turned around and saw heavily armored vehicles approaching the place at fast speeds, and they were equipped with weapons that allowed them to fight against the robots.

Omega was standing on top of one of the vehicles while firing at the robots. "Die, inferior machines! I am superior to you in every way!"

Knuckles was seen climbing onto the top of one of the vehicles, and he jumped off it at a group of robots and slammed his fist onto the ground, creating a red shockwave that blew them all away.

Many of the robots got out of the way to avoid getting hit by the vehicles, one of which stopped in front of the good guys. Amy poked her head out from the window on one side and said, "Guys! Sorry that we took too long to get here!"

"Amy! I'm glad you came here, and I can't believe I said that!" said Sonic.

Maxwell looked out of the window at the driver's seat side and said, "Huh, looks like you guys really surpassed our expectations by rescuing Shadow!"

Mother Whale let out a loud bellowing sound again, grabbing everyone's attention.

"If we don't take out that thing, there will likely be no end to the number of enemies it sends out," said Shadow, looking at the giant Rapture.

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's take it out here and now!" said a fully prepared Laplace.

BGM: The Interceptor (Goddess of Victory: Nikke)

Pointing her gun into the air, Laplace charged it up to the fullest before firing a constant stream of laser beam, hitting Mother Whale below the mouth. The whale let out a painful-sounding cry as it jerked its head upwards. And as if in response to the Tyrant-class Rapture being attacked, many of the enemies on the ground turned their attentions to Laplace and began closing in on her. However, her allies got in front of the approaching robots and attacked them.

Mother Whale opened up the various hatches on its body and sent out several more enemies, replacing those that were lost in a short amount of time. Looking up the newcomers, Omega fired an onslaught of bullets, laser beams, and missiles at them, destroying several of them before they touched the ground. "Yes! Come here and let me kill you all! Die! Die! Die!"

Some enemies that were on the ground lunged at him from various sides, but Omega displayed competent close combat skills by destroying them all with his fists.

Sonic dashed by him, plowing through some robots in the process, and said to him, "Good to know you're still the same Omega I know!"

"It will be a pleasure to meet and compete against your Omega some day," said Omega while squeezing a Mettaur in his hand until he crushed it, the hardhat helmet and all.

Meanwhile, Laplace continued to fire at Mother Whale, and Epinel and Red Hood fired alongside her. Next to them, Snow White was shooting any enemies that approached them. In response to being shot at, Mother Whale fired laser beams from turrets attached on certain parts of its body at them. The Nikke hurriedly dodged them when the laser beams rained down onto them and continued to fire.

"Our shots don't seem to be doing anything!" said Epinel.

"Keep firing! I've heard about Bird Boy and his squad taking out another one of this before! No way a villainous being like this won't go down from getting hit nonstop!" said Laplace.

Maxwell stood nearby with a futuristic gun resembling a railgun that had a wire connected to her waist at the back and said, "Aim for the core! It's that red spot on the belly! If we can destroy it, we can weaken it greatly!"

Red Hood looked until she saw the red spot Maxwell mentioned. Taking aim with her sniper rifle, she fired at it, only for a red barrier to appeared around Mother Whale at the last moment, blocking the shot. "What the?!"

"It's a force field!" said Epinel in surprise.

"No force field is going to protect it from me!" said Laplace as she fired a large beam, but despite her claim, the beam failed to penetrate the barrier. "What?!"

"That's the worst thing about Mother Whale! It puts up a barrier that is indestructible!" said Maxwell.

"How do we get through it?" said Red Hood, firing nonstop and hoping to break it somehow.

A broken Egg Pawn suddenly flew in their direction and crashed onto the ground. They looked and saw that it was punched over there by a woman with long blue ponytail wearing a black bodysuit and a black mask. The woman came over, and her mask opened up to reveal a beautiful face underneath. "We have to destroy all the enemies," she explained. "The enemies it sends out contain components that are keeping the shield up, and if they are destroyed, the shield will go down."

Epinel widened her eyes upon seeing her and said, "You're the Black Ark Ranger!"

Black Ranger Ranger looked at her and said, "I heard about you people, and it's nice to meet you at last! Too bad we couldn't meet under more peaceful circumstances…"

"Don't worry! Peace won't be far from us when we're here!" said Laplace with confidence. "So we just have to kill all the enemies it sent out? Easier said than done!"

The good guys shifted their attention to the surrounding enemies and attacked them. Black Ark Ranger put her mask back on and began running and jumping with great agility, taking out enemies with powerful punches and kicks. Epinel was impressed with her fighting skill as she gunned down enemies herself and said, "She's good! This Black Ark Ranger is even better than the one I saw on TV!"

The good guys continued to fight against the various robots that Mother Whale sent out, all the while avoiding firepowers that came from the Tyrant-class Rapture itself. "There's too many of them!" said Amy while smashing some robots with her hammer.

"Leave it to me!" said Shadow as his hands glowed with reddish-yellow energy. He then jumped into the air and took a few seconds to charge up before spreading out his arms. "Chaos Spear!" A large amount of energy spears shot out in every direction and homed in on the robots at a fast speed, so fast that none of them could react in time to escape it. Just like that, a large number of robots wear destroyed.

"Wow! That was awesome!" exclaimed Red Hood upon seeing Shadow's attack.

"Incredible! He took out so much just like that!" said Mega Man in awe.

"Just like the Shadow I know!" said Sonic with a smirk.

However, the barrier did not disappear, which meant only one thing. "The barrier is still up. There must still be more enemies!" said Black Ark Ranger, looking around.

"I don't see any though," said Mega Man, looking around. Behind him, Rush went over to an odd and creepy-looking doll resembling Tails lying against a piece of debris. After sniffing it for a bit, Rush growled at the doll, grabbing Mega Man's attention. Rush barked at said doll, which floated into the air and flew off at a relatively fast speed, much to Mega Man's surprise.

Seeing this, Black Ark Ranger pointed at the doll and shouted, "That's a Tails Doll! It's the one!"

The "Tails doll" flew around at a fast speed and zipped its way around anyone trying to attack it, until it got decapitated by a boomerang-like scissor blade that struck it from the side. The scissor went back to Cut Man, who put it back on his head and said, "Got it!"

With the Tails doll destroyed, Mother Whale's shield disappeared. "All right! Shield's down! Let's give it all we've got!" said Laplace loudly as she began firing alongside several other Nikke at the giant Rapture.

Mother Whale let out loud bellowing attacks struck it from below, especially when it was hit in the core, which most of them were aiming at. It fired several laser beams at them, forcing them to flee. The Rapture then pulled back into the air a bit of distance before swooping down. "Incoming!" shouted Red Hood.

Mother Whale flew at a low altitude, knocking down several buildings, and it was low enough to bulldoze anyone on the ground too, so they all ran to the side and out of its way to avoid getting hit. Mother Whale ascended back into the air again afterwards.

"Time to make good use of all the improvements I made to My Cutie!" said Maxwell, charging up her gun with electricity while pointing it at Mother Whale. It only took a couple of seconds to charge it up to its max power. "Take this! Pierce Shot!"

She fired what could be described as a lightning bolt that went through the air at a straight line, hitting Mother Whale's core and instantly destroying it. Sparks and flames flew out as Mother Whale let out a painful cry while slowly descending, though it struggled to remain airborne.

"Everyone! Fire it with full power!" shouted Snow White, who had her gun fully charged. All those with firearm weapons let loose their weapons at their highest power, blasting Mother Whale nonstop, especially at the core.

Mother Whale cried loudly as it lost altitude and began to fall, which caused another problem to arise. "If that thing crashes down here and explodes, it's going to be the end of us!" pointed out Amy.

"Uh… You have a point… Never thought of that…" said Sonic.

"I'll handle that," said Shadow before teleporting away. He reappeared underneath Mother Whale and placed his hand against its underside as it was falling. Shadow charged up a large amount of Chaos energy and then released them all around himself as well as channeling them into Mother Whale. "Chaos Control!"

In a bright flash, the both of them disappeared, much to the amazement of everyone. The two reappeared in the air outside of the city, quite a distance away. Shadow fell to the ground first and then ran away as far as he could before Mother Whale fell to the ground with a powerful crash and exploded.

KABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

BGM Ends

Mother Whale was in flames and a huge mess after the explosion ended, but it was so badly damaged that there was no way it could function again and likely damaged beyond repair. Shadow watched from afar and crossed his arms. "This is what happens if you underestimate us!"

Back at the city, Mega Man used Rush in the latter's jet form to fly into the air and see what happened. "Shadow teleported Mother Whale out of the place, and now it is destroyed!" he told everyone.

Hearing this, everyone jumped for joy. "All right! We did it!" exclaimed Amy.

"It was also thanks to my tremendous powers that our victory was guaranteed," said Omega.

"Once again, the hero wins!" said Laplace smugly.

While everybody was celebrating, Dr. Light came out from his lab with Roll, Proto Man, Tails, and Quency. The doctor had some injuries, as evident of bandages, on him. "It seems like everything is all right out there," he said.

"Why else would they sound so happy?" said Proto Man, smiling.

TO BE CONTINUED

Don't worry about Guts Man and T.A.L.O.S. getting killed. They're robots and therefore can be fixed.

While Bass's appearance and personality here are based on his classic incarnation, I also gave him attacks from his Battle Network incarnation.