With his genocide of the Shura a bust, Meio found himself with an almost completely useless doomsday weapon; after all, what was the point of conquering something that had already been obliterated by a black hole?
So Meio did something that Leon himself would have approved of. He got creative.
With the Divine Punishment Satellite as its central foundation, Meio began attaching research labs and military installations to take advantage of its immense, unused power supply. The facility grew, bit by bit, until the Grandmaster had created an entire city that floated far above the earth. Only the most brilliant and amoral of his followers were allowed to reside there, in what he came to refer to as his very own Imperial Capital.
It was all for show. Most of the glorious buildings were empty, their only purpose to support the Grandmaster's ego. There were no civilians, only soldiers and scientists; everyone who lived there was a fanatic who worshiped Meio as a god, devoting every waking moment to his twisted agenda.
Despite all of this - its origins as a WMD, its insane occupants and it fascist dictatorship - the Third Moon was a marvel of engineering and human ingenuity. As monstrous as he was, the Third Moon may have been the one truly beautiful thing that Meio ever created.
Then Leon smashed it.
Huan Strongarm: A Bartfort Folktale, by Lufas Maphaahl
Meio sat on his throne, far, far above the mere mortals scurrying in the dirt; the facility shook around him as something crashed into it, causing alarms and flashing red lights to go off all over the facility. "What the hell was that?"
Leon had crashed hard into a steel wall, his blood and organs erupting from his body from the impact. Air began to escape through the hole he had punctured in the hull, only for a small army of automated machines to patch it back up.
As his body slowly regenerated, Leon peeled himself out of the crater. "Oof," he cringed. "That woman has a hell of an arm. Yowza."
"You!" The voice was vaguely familiar: a two legged mech slowly stomped up to him, two javelins hanging under its cockpit. "Did you think I had forgotten? That I would not seek revenge for how you humiliated me aboard the Balrog?" Leon searched his memory for where he might have met this person. "Target verified! Commencing hostilities!"
Leon slapped him with his paw; the mech tumbled to the ground, thrashing helplessly as it tried to right itself. The pilot howled with frustration, his screams soon devolving into pathetic sobs. Leon wagged his tail as the penny dropped.
"Oh, you! I remember you! How're you doing buddy?" He padded down the metal hallway from which the bipedal mech had emerged; the air smelled stale and sterile, with an unpleasant undertone of long ignored male body odor.
His attention was caught by a large window, through which he could see a futuristic concrete city; the jaw dropping sight was covered by an immense glass dome, allowing its inhabitants an eternal night sky filled by countless, beautiful stars.
Leon looked at the city and considered the possibility that there might be normal, innocent people living in it; suddenly, he felt a lot less eager to drag the Satellite out of the sky. "Maybe… Maybe I should be a bit more careful with the wanton destruction."
He yelped as gravity suddenly inverted, sending him crashing into the ceiling. "Get him!"
The three ninja ladies that had blown up the power station outside Nahul - Kitana, Mileena and Jade - all appeared out of nowhere to attack him at once. Kitana used a pair of bladed fans, Mileena used sais and Jade used heavy iron staff. Leon rolled his eyes, shrinking to the size of a regular dog.
Because both Mortal Kombat and Meio himself were such big fans of brainwashing, Leon didn't want to kill them without getting more information first; he began grabbing their arms and legs between his jaws and violently dislocating their limbs, leaving them in a screaming heap on the metal floor.
"MY LEGS!" Mileena screamed. "MY LEEEEEGS!"
"Bastard!" Kitana spat. "The Grandmaster is going to crush you like a bug!"
Leon just gave her a cold, disapproving look. "Liu Kang would not approve," he said coldly. "Neither would Tanya or Kotal."
Going off a hunch, he followed the Altered Gravity Hallway to its end; just as he had predicted, at the end was a spherical chamber just like the one aboard the Flying Fortress Balrog. An Anti-Gravity Device floated in a slow orbit around the centre, presumably keeping the entire facility afloat.
"Think before you act, hound." Meio's voice echoed from unseen speakers, rendered unpleasantly tinny by the poor sound quality. "If you destroy that, the entirety of the Third Moon will plummet out of the sky. Everyone on it will die."
"Really?" Leon scoffed. "Because I have good hearing, and the only things I hear in this place are me, you and a few scientists; everything else is a machine. So long as I break this place into small enough pieces that it doesn't send humanity the way of the dinosaurs… yeah, I think my conscience is clear."
"No!" Meio screamed. "Wait-"
Leon grew to immense size, crushing the Anti-Gravity Device between his teeth like a mint. The ground shuddered; slowly, the Third Moon began to fall.
"How dare you!" Meio howled, his voice now magically transmitted throughout the facility. "Do you have any idea what you have destroyed?"
"Of course I don't," said Leon dryly. "I'm just a dumb animal, according to you."
His ears pricked up, as the Grandmaster's tantrum had allowed him to finally pinpoint his location; he ran as fast as he was able, occasionally tearing down walls when he was absolutely certain that there wasn't empty space on the other side.
The wolfdog snarled in surprise as an odd device spat lasers into his eyes; vaguely, it reminded him off the machine he had used to finish off Strobaya. "Gah! Bitch!"
He smashed it with his paw only to be kicked in the side with such force he almost punctured another hole in the hull; as his vision swam back into focus, a familiar figure in a purple cloak came into view. Rain Master raised his hands ostentatiously as Leon struggled to his feet. "Greetings, mighty warrior. I am here to usher you into the afterlife."
Leon barked, hoping to destroy his balance as he did before, but the noise emerged from his throat as the yip of an ordinary dog.
"Sound neutralisers," gloated the assassin. "This entire room is specifically outfitted to rob you of your greatest weapon. You are at my mercy, my… dog, if you will."
"You racist fucking-"
The wolfdog was cut off as a metal fist bitchslapped him across the room; Rain Master was accompanied by a giant robot gorilla, much like the specimens Leon had fought in the facility outside Nahul. It was joined by a T-Rex with bizarre electronics sticking out of its brain, as well as another Lago like the one he destroyed in the Shura Village. "Let's see how you fare without the advantage of surprise, dog!"
Apparently, Schlange was the sort to hold a grudge.
"You are outnumbered and outmatched," sneered Rain Master. "Now that you are helpless, I shall enjoy watching you burn. Suffer, mongrel."
The Lago opened its mouth, spitting burning napalm into Leon's face; the manic smile dropped from Rain Master's face as the wolfdog grew in size, the three giants suddenly looking tiny by comparison. "Oh shi-" The flames now mere trickle against his chest, Leon bit the Lago in half in a shower of flames and sparking machinery.
"The barks aren't my greatest weapon," said Leon coldly. "My greatest weapon is the fact that I'm FUCKING UNSTOPPABLE!"
When the T-Rex lunged for his throat he bit it in the back; it squealed in agony as he lifted it off its feet and shook it in his mouth, shattering its bones and accidentally obliterating the gorilla's upper half. When Rain Master tried to stab him in the spinal column he abruptly shrank, dodging the blow and lunging for his ankles with a snarl.
The assassin and the wolfdog moved in a blur across the room, neither able to land a decisive blow against the other: Rain Master was too agile and experienced for him to land a hit, but Leon was faster and healed from any wounds in moments. Forced to move at a constant hundred percent, Rain Master began to tire.
Leon didn't. If he wanted to, he could literally do this forever.
As the scales slowly began to tip against him, Rain Master frantically got some distance. "You fight well, for someone's pet!" Sweat was pouring off him as he fought to get his breathing under control. "Rest assured: you may be durable, but not even the gods can withstand my secret technique!"
"Stop." The room fell silent; once again, Meio was magically projecting his voice. "If you were to use that technique here, the Third Moon would be beyond salvage. We can not fix it if you damage it any further."
Rain Master was almost speechless with rage. "But Grandmaster, I was humiliated by this creature! Killing him is my duty! It is my right!"
"Obey me, Rain Master. Stand down."
"DO NOT DENY ME MY REVENGE!"
He winked anticlimactically out of existence; apparently, Meio had chosen to take the easy road and simply teleport him back to the surface. A flying mechanical serpent - identical to the Ouroboros piloted by Mikiel in Nahul - floated down from the ceiling. It didn't attack him, but simply waited peacefully.
"Mount the Ouroboros," ordered Meio. "It shall bring you to me."
"Meh," said Leon. "Beats walking." He sat himself on the serpent's head, tail wagging curiously as it floated upward. Meio's voice echoed all around him as he began to monologue.
"Long have I felt it: this… disgust. This… repugnance at what the earth has created. I looked out at the filth that this planet calls life, and I realised: I could do better."
The Ouroboros began flying slowly over the silent, empty skyscrapers; Leon flicked his ears calmly as he admired the view.
"That is why I raised this city into the sky! To rid this world of all creatures, that they may be replaced by a perfect new race of my own creation!"
The Ouroboros self-destructed in midair, forcing Leon to jump to safety; the serpent had brought him to a floating platform that hovered far above the empty city composed of skeletal, ivory beams that almost made it look like a Christmas tree made of bones. Meio hovered at the top, his clawed hands already crackling with red lightning.
"ALL SONS OF OLD GODS, DIE!"
He unleashed a blast of red energy from his fingertips, which Leon dodged by leaping between the narrow beams. "And the crowd goes wild," he muttered wryly.
Much like Rain Master before him, Meio had chosen his battlefield with care; the wolfdog had to remain constantly on guard to keep from falling off, while the sorcerer simply flew through the air and teleported whenever he drew close. It didn't take long before Leon began resorting to sonic barks, which none of Meio's barriers or shields seemed prepared to block.
"Worthless mongrel!" The Grandmaster released a bolt of green lightning, which coalesced into flying piranha and pteranodons that hungrily bit into the wolfdog's side. "You are standing before a god!"
Leon ignored everything he had summoned, growing to his maximum size. "If you're a god…" He bit the main structure in half, gripping it in his jaws and waving it like a club. "I'm a God HOUND!" He clubbed the sorcerer out of the air, spiking him at the ground like a baseball.
By the time Meio had regained his bearings the structure was hurtling towards him; he blew it up in midair, only for a colossal wolfdog to leap through the debris with his jaws wide. At the last second he teleported away, causing Leon to crash into an empty skyscraper. The sorcerer blasted the building with everything he had, reducing it to a smoking pile of rubble.
He hovered uncertainly, trying to figure out where his opponent had escaped to.
He was abruptly blown out of the sky by a sonic shockwave; Leon had taken advantage of his black fur - which was camouflaged against the smoke - and snuck away from the wreckage, circling around before doing his anti-air routine.
Meio rapidly teleported through the air to avoid each bark, but soon realised that the dome of glass separating them from space was beginning to crack as it took the onslaught in his place. He blasted green lightning at the pavement below, summoning an army of gigantic grey wolves that surged through the streets in a great wave.
Leon stopped barking. Instead, he howled.
The wolves in front of him exploded into bloody chunks, and as he twisted his head the same happened to their friends. A great swathe was cut through the futuristic cityscape, blowing out their lower levels and causing them to topple like felled trees.
With each exchange the battle intensified, and as the violence escalated the Third Moon was destroyed around them. After only eight minutes the structural integrity was compromised, and with an terrific sound the wondrous superstructure broke apart. The fragments began to burn up as they reached terminal velocity, hopefully preventing the end of humanity.
The sorcerer and the wolfdog continued to fight, leaping between the remains of the Third Moon as they continued to plummet; reluctantly, Meio was forced to acknowledge the true extent of Leon's invincibility.
Then he spotted something amidst the falling wreckage: the massive metal cylinder was covered in flashing purple lights, which meant it was still operational. This was the true form of the Divine Punishment Satellite, around which the entire Third Moon had been built.
"At last!" Meio crowed. "Victory is mine!"
He reached out with his mind, at this range able to activate the Satellite remotely. Leon was so hopped up on rage and adrenaline that he heard the instant the machine whirred to life. "Fuck off, Stewie!"
With a single bark the device was sent spinning away to parts unknown, but not before it managed a single activation: Meio howled in pain as a localised black hole ate his left arm, taking a good portion of his side before vanishing. The Divine Punishment Satellite had gone wide as it spun through the air. "My arm! You vermin! You insect! You dare defy me?"
Leon only heard these words thanks to his supernatural hearing, as they were almost drowned out by the loud chaos going on all around him. "Why wouldn't I? What could I possibly have to fear from a weakling like you?"
All remnants of self control vanished as rage took over; with more strength than he knew he had, Meio took over every intact gun left on the ruins. Dozens of high-powered orange lasers fired off at once, riddling Leon's body from all sides. A dazzling light show was visible across half the planet, the beams of concentrated energy tilting to follow the wolfdog as he fell. His flesh glowed inside his body as his insides liquified, reconstructed themselves and then liquified again in a never ending cycle.
Yi Xu had been right about Leon's new form empowering his soul. There was no other explanation for why he could endure this agony with such astonishing ease.
The light of his burning insides shone from Leon's eyes in beams of demonic orange light, molten fire vomiting from his jaws. "You can't kill me!" The wolfdog's voice was distorted, his vocal cords struggling to retain their shape as they constantly rebuilt themselves. "This isn't where I die!"
Meio was officially shitting bricks.
His frantic attempts to teleport went wildly wrong as the wolfdog leapt at him, his superheated fangs sinking into his chest just before the spell activated; they winked out of existence and reappeared in the streets of Nahul, which immediately caught fire from the residual heat still coming off Leon's body.
The Grandmaster screamed bloody murder as he fled for his life, the flaming hound snapping at his heels. Unlike Leon his reserves were not infinite, and he could no longer teleport so freely. By now the wolfdog was totally ignoring his attacks and attacking him with animal aggression, as he was in far too much pain to understand that he was putting innocent people in danger.
As the flames still burned within him, he looked like a hellhound come to drag Meio to his grave.
As Leon tackled him into a building, the many subterranean layers beneath it collapsed; the sorcerer and the wolfdog plummeted into the depths below Nahul, landing in an underground shantytown. Terrified, the starving slum dwellers peek through windows set into shacks made of uneven, scavenged wood; everywhere there were exposed pipes that pumped sewage from the world above, and many of them had been used as supper for the poorly constructed houses.
The Grandmaster had led the battle there deliberately; at the centre of the massive underground chamber was a large black dome, which sucked in anyone who touched it. While it was possible that its victims were dead, it was a popular theory that there was an actual, liveable space inside; that the dome concealed a hellish prison within.
Truthfully, the dome had already been there when Meio seized power: he had a name for it that only his three most trusted advisers knew, but if he knew what it was or what was inside then he had never told anyone.
He floated before the dome, shivering in barely concealed terror as he gathered the meagre dregs of his magical reserves. While Leon was no longer burning so fiercely - the flaming tissue sloughing off as new flesh was regenerated in its place - he was still in a berserk, feral rage that he showed no signs of snapping out of.
He dove, slamming into the dome as Meio teleported away. He placed his shaking hand on his chest and breathed a brief sigh of relief.
Then Leon's teeth snapped shut inches from his face, causing him to scream with fright; the wolfdog had caught himself at the last second, his rear half caught in the surface of the dome as he had attempted to turn. He continued his attacks, but Meio had made it just far enough to be out of reach. He began to laugh hysterically, no longer feeling the pain of his missing arm as the hound was dragged into the bizarre material.
"Do you see?" Meio roared victoriously. "Do you see? The dome has you, monster! Soon it will devour you, and you will be gone from the world forev-"
Then Leon bit off the entire lower half of his body, causing him to teleport away with a terrified scream. The wolfdog had actually used his forepaws to launch himself forward with such force he had ripped himself in half, the two halves of his spine protruding from the front and rear halves of his body; his spinal cord dangled between the disembodied vertebra, connecting Leon's body together like the world's most disgusting power line.
In the end, it was Leon's own healing factor that did him in; his back half dragged the front into the dome in an attempt to knit itself back together, restoring him to full health just as the black substance consumed him.
Grandmaster Meio appeared in his office, now down to only one limb. He flopped onto the floor, so depleted he could no longer keep himself floating; he literally couldn't remember the last time he had touched the ground.
Ignoring the questions of the Occuluncus and the rattling of the freezing axe, Meio used his remaining hand to slowly, painfully drag himself to his desk; below it was a fridge, containing expensive alcohol and a few potions that he had brewed himself. He clawed the door open and grabbed a mana potion, chugging it down and immediately floating back into the air.
He turned on his console, connecting it to his three most trusted advisors. "Grandmaster!" Rain Master had clearly been waiting for the call. "Did you kill the hound?"
"I don't know," he wheezed, too weak to even lie. "I trapped him in Baroque Prison."
The three of them stared at him in shock. "Are you okay?"
"NO I AM NOT OKAY!" Meio screamed; he forced himself back under control with a long, shuddering breath. "I must retreat to the sarcophagus to heal my wounds. The three of you shall govern Nahul in my absence."
"What about the dog?" This was the Cloud Master, who was ostensibly his right hand man. "I find it very unlikely, even given… what we have observed… but perhaps we should prepare for the unthinkable."
Rain Master glared into his cam. "Which is?"
"The possibility that he may escape," said Cloud Master solemnly. "Rain Master should bring his best men and keep watch on the dome until the Grandmaster returns; if this thing really is capable of surviving Baroque Prison, then at least it should be in a weakened state the next time we see it. In fact, it may be our only chance."
Rain Master bristled instantly. "So you want me out of the way? So the two of you can oust me from the Grandmaster's inner circle?"
"Of course not," said Cloud Master calmly. "I was simply under the impression that you wanted revenge. Wind Master could do it, and if she is unwilling then I will do it myself."
"That is fine," chuckled Wind Master; she was the only woman of the group, and her voice was throaty and mature. "I would much enjoy humiliating an opponent who beat Rain Master like a mule."
"The hound is mine," the assassin snarled. "He is mine by blood debt!"
"Just handle it," spat Meio, ending the call. The two prisoners had heard everything.
"Please don't leave us here," whispered the Occuluncus. "Please don't leave us PLEASE NO-"
Meio teleported away without a word. The Occuluncus began to cry, and knew too little about the freezing axe to understand that it was trying to sooth him with its hum.
Far to the south, a hideous, quadrupedal green monster dragged itself from the ruins where Leon had first arrived in Darhan; then there was another, and another, and another, until a vast army had poured onto the sands.
The last to appear was the Warmother, who sniffed at the remains of Tathal's camp until it caught Leon's scent. Its crest began to quiver, and soon the horde of mutant UnFae were surging in a great tide toward the City of Nahul.
On the grassland that separated the jungle from the desert, the Shura had gathered in full force. At their head stood Yi Xu, who stood with her arms folded as the tiny Elder Dragon perched on her shoulder. "So," said Petra casually. "Are we all clear on the plan?"
"Of course," grinned the Elder; her beautiful blue eyes turned red, her lips curling back to reveal a terrifying, fanged grin. "Kill the Queen."
"Kill the Queen!" chanted the Shura.
"Right on."
Far above, the Divine Punishment Satellite floated amidst the ruins of the Third Moon. It had been built very sturdily, and Leon's final blast had been utterly incapable of destroying it; instead he had only returned it to the planet's orbit, where it spun lazily around its centre of gravity. The doomsday weapon began to float away, circling slowly around the curve of the horizon.
It was, of course, completely operational. It just needed to be turned on.
Boss: Grandmaster Meio
Summary: this chapter is the equivalent to the fifth and final Stage of the original Strider; because the Divine Punishment Satellite originates from a different series, the Imperial Capital is actually built around something called the Third Moon. This location is so iconic that it makes it into Marvel vs Capcom Infinite, where it is merged with Knowhere to become Knowmoon.
The dome is an original creation. If you can figure out why Meio calls it Baroque Prison before the next chapter comes out then you are a true connoisseur of vintage video games.
The Masters are based on Meio's three strongest fighters in the Strider remake; Rain Master stands in for Solo, Wind Master stands in for Xi Wang Mu and Cloud Master plays the part of Juroung.