Alhazred - [email protected] -
The Big O
and Kikaider are © to their respective owners; profit is not made by this work.Act 1: Paradise City
Trinity and Beyond.
Requiem for...something. Who could remember? Literally? Requiem for something or other being played on the piano, maybe someone or something or some place lost to catastrophe or...
Consciousness. Realization. And yelling. "R. Dorothy Wayneright!"
Struggling to make his bloodshot eyes actually blink, Roger Smith resolved to strangle Dorothy with his bare hands.
He resolved to forget his resolve when he remembered that Dorothy would proceed to smash him like a twig if he tried.
So instead, Roger settled for heaving himself out of bed, shrugging on his bathrobe, and plodding out into the living room. Perhaps it was time to buy a smaller house. Sure, he could afford something larger than what he had now, but the larger the rooms, the better the acoustics for Dorothy's morning torture sessions. "Dorothy, do you have an alarm clock program or something? Can I delete it if you do?"
Her head rotating on her very servo-like neck, Dorothy did not stop playing as she answered. "I contain no such program for you to delete, Roger Smith. Also, you are dressed inappropriately for your appointment."
"But I don't have any," Roger started to say. He turned to head for the shower, meaning to get out the work 'appointment.' The word came out as something akin to 'ack!' as he jumped, noticing the pair of people sitting calmly in his living room.
"I made your appointment for this time when they called earlier this morning," Dorothy added.
Regaining his composure amidst the total strangers in his house, Roger pushed a handful of pillow-shaped hair out of his face. His inquisitive and fairly annoyed stare fixed on the other butler. "Norman?"
"Sorry, Sir," Norman answered, the tray in his hands holding a cup of coffee. "She beat me to the phone."
Excusing himself momentarily, Roger re-entered his room an emerged decked out in the suit labeled for wear on this particular day of the week, with his hair combed to top it off. Though the suit felt a bit odd; he had a feeling Dorothy had gone switching the labels again to prove that each was the same no matter what day of the week it was. She just couldn't appreciate fine suits, Roger figured.
"Sorry about that," he apologized, sitting down on the other side of the coffee table from his guests, chin resting on his backs of his hands. "So, what can I do for you?"
One of the perspective clients was a tall old man, his chin square and prominent. The other was a little old lady in a wheelchair, most certainly old enough to have forgotten everything she'd known forty years ago.
"No trouble, no trouble at all!" The gentleman proclaimed, almost embarrassed to be in the room as he scratched his head. "We just, well...have a little disagreement with an insurance company over an accident and figured we should get a negotiator."
Roger sat back. All insurance companies in the city were subsidiaries of Paradigm. He hated dealing with Paradigm.
This would be a trip.
"Oh, no. Every time you show up, something monumental and terrible happens."
With a lighthearted shrug and slight grin, Roger answered, "I'll take that as a compliment."
"What are you negotiating for, anyway?" Major Dastun sighed, surveying the wrecked workspace he had only came to see a few minutes ago.
"The owners," Roger answered. Peering around at the trashed room and the detectives, he found this to be an extremely boring case. The room was cold and dingy, unused in years, decades, perhaps before the Event. Ancient electronic equipment lay on tables and ran through disused consoles, all of it degraded beyond repair. On one wall, a ceiling-height glass capsule stood shattered at the middle, its liquid contents puddle on the floor. "Turns out they didn't know they owned the place until the military police inquired about the, ah, accident. So the insurance company's trying to get out of paying for a coverage plan they didn't know they had with them. Thought I'd survey the damage."
"You don't think it was an accident?" Dastun raised an eyebrow.
Roger could tell he had gone into game mode. Dastun knew the answer to his question before asking it and likely agreed, but being social with one another was always an amusing diversion for Roger. "Oh, I dunno..."
In fact, it had been the first thing Roger had noticed. The glass from the capsule-thing was lying around in shards in the room, not lining the capsule's bottom. Something had broken out of it from the inside.
Moreover, there was a dent in one wall, and the fine vertical lines made the obvious pattern of a clenched fist. Though what Roger couldn't figure out was why someone would or could inflict such a blow on a metal wall, likely breaking every bone in their hand in the process.
This city was incredible. Incredible and...different. New, but only new to a man born before its construction, woken long after its completion. Paradigm City. The city of change. The city where humanity prospered at its finest.
The city where one man, wandering around aimlessly and taking in the sights, was completely lost. His eyes were a bit twitchy as if he were paranoid, the frayed bellbottoms and blue jacket over a red T-shirt combined into a fashion sense like nothing anyone had seen after the amnesia, and he found himself oddly without a place to go.
"Hey there."
Stopping dead in his tracks, the man turned to see the speaker standing on a set of stairs leading to a building's door, a fellow of medium height with blonde hair, a goofy grin, and with the worst goatee in existence.
"You look lost. What's your name?"
Holding onto his jacket by the lapels as if physical activity was important for his thought process, he answered, "Jiro..."
"Well Jiro," the man with the goatee answered, "the lost usually take comfort in the arts. Maybe you should head over thata'way."
Jiro watched as the man jabbed his thumb in the direction of another street at the next intersection before he hopped off of the stairs and bounded away. "Strange man..."
'The arts,' he had said. Wasn't music an art? Jiro really wanted to find a guitar.
"C'mon Dan, you wouldn't be holding out on my, would you?"
"Oh, alright, fine," Major Dastun sighed, reaching into his coat pocket. "Just because you're representing the victims in this case, mind you. Here."
Raising an eyebrow at the piece of paper Major Dastun has handed him, Roger said, "It's a kid. And a poorly drawn one, at that."
"It's an artist's conception," Dan huffed. "A few witnesses saw this guy leave around the time we think this all happened. Said he seemed really dazed and nervous."
"I see," Roger tucked the sketch into his own pocket. He made a mental note to show this to his clients the next time he spoke with one of them. He wasn't seeing the connection; that capsule thing was made of pretty thick glass, some kid wasn't going to break it, nor was he going to survive trapped inside it for very long in the first place.
Still, Roger was not a man to jump to conclusions. He headed for the door. "Let me know if you find anything."
"By the way," Dan called after him, "your friend Beck was broken out of prison."
"Huh? Who?" Roger's eye twitched.
"Sure," Dan shook his head in reassignment, "but the guards say a giant fist dropped through his cell and scooped him right up. Couldn't even see what it was attached to. Probably a Megadeus."
And then the ground rumbled. Roger raced down to the building's first floor and looked up and down the street.
The most bizarre thing he had ever witnessed greeted his eyes.
And all hell had broken loose.
To top it off, he could already hear Major Dastun running down the stairs with his men behind him, the other military police officers scrambling around the street as backup arrived even now. None of them had any idea what to do.
A giant hand was crawling its way down the road, clearly mechanical. Roger could see a chunk of forearm dragging behind it. It was so large it tore through the pavement and scraped walls off of buildings as it plodded along.
It was even a little larger than a Megadeus.
But there would be no Megadeus right now, because while Roger could see all of this, everyone on the street could see him. This in mind, he ran to his car. Time to find a nice, secluded alleyway.
The odd man on the corner had pointed Jiro to a music shop. A music shop. Jiro was in Heaven, looking at all the new, fancy guitars, most based on some sort of technology, but there were a few classics, a few that only reverberated through their own wood and made music through their own strings.
Unfortunately, Jiro now realized he had no money. But he would get money, so it was worth it to have information. He watched the store's clerk sell some new drumsticks to a customer before walking up and asking his question. "Excuse me...how much does that guitar over there cost?"
The instrument in question, a gleaming plastic piece made to look like wood, had absolutely perfect acoustics and tuning. Jiro could tell by looking at it.
"That basic thing?" The clerk chuckled; he found it nowhere near as impressive. "Thirty bucks. Nah, make it twenty-five, I need to get rid of it."
Wanting desperately to have it in his hands, Jiro took one last look. He just couldn't buy anything right now. "That sounds reasonable...but...I don't have any money on me, can I come back for it some other time?"
"Sure thing, Pal," the man behind the register said. "You're the first person to want something so outdated, it'll be around for awhile."
And then the ground rumbled.
Jiro didn't understand the significance of this, though the other customers in the store immediately ran out, while the clerk looked and sounded a bit terrified. "Oh man, why'd something big have to happen around here..."
He ran into the store's back room, either to exit through the back door or find something before leaving. Jiro turned, ready to see what was going on. But he stopped when that nice guitar caught his eye again, he wanted it so bad he could taste it. And no one was left in the store; it was so small that the owners had seemed to have seen fit not to install any security cameras.
On the other hand, his conscience reminded him that stealing was wrong.
But then, the guy had said he didn't even want it anymore. And Jiro didn't think he was going to have an easy time finding a job and making a little cash, what would a little forced charity hurt?
He ran outside to witness the general public running for their lives down one direction of the street from what was crawling up the other, a new guitar strapped nicely to his back.
His skin crawled when he saw what everyone was running from in a panic. At least, he thought it felt like his skin was crawling, so it must've been the sensation humans used that particular expression to describe.
It was a hand. A giant, severed robotic hand, and it had been the robotic hand of Dr. Gill's gigantic ultimate weapon.
Jiro froze; all he could do was stare at it and feel the distinct emotions of wonder, terror and confusion all at the same time.
Screeching his car to a stop, Roger dashed out, took a second to lock the door, and found the fire escape of the nearest building. He had switched streets, and he knew the giant hand was opposite the building he was climbing. His next action would've seemed odd to anyone else; he talked into his wristwatch as he dashed for the little building's roof. "Norman?"
"About thirty seconds until arrival, Sir," his butler answered, deadpan as always. Roger liked that, it meant paying attention to Norman required less effort, effort better suited to the task at hand.
This task took a turn for the bizarre when he found that someone else was already standing on the rooftop; someone whose bandaged face and rags-for-clothes made his identity obvious. Roger was, to say the least, surprised. "Schwarzwald?"
"Ah, Mr. Smith," the crazy old man answered, not really paying attention. He was looking over the edge of the roof, the edge Roger had just parked in font of. "Hello."
Putting two and two together, Roger approached him. "You're behind this."
"Oh, I'm behind a lot of things," Michael Seebach answered, casually dismissing Roger and moving from his spot, peering down in the space between this building and the one next to it. "Won't it be fun to see just what the 'this' is you're referring too actually, well...is?"
Roger made no move to restrain him, there was something odd about the oddball's demeanor and he decided to learn more. After all, the last time he had seen the guy, Roger had nearly been thrashed and beaten by Big Duo."Not really. I'd just as soon you didn't do 'it.' What is it this time, 'Big Three?'"
"As if you know what 'it' is," Schwarzvald answered, ignoring the comment, much to Roger's chagrin. He was right, after all. This time, he moved to look out onto the street where the massive hand was leaving destruction in its wake as it crept through the city. The military police were literally being crushed if they didn't move fast enough between taking shots at it.
"So why don't you enlighten me," Roger half-chuckled. But he received no answer. Schwarzvald was staring at something down below, something that had caught his attention. "Seebach?"
Again, Roger was ignored. He walked over to the same edge, careful to stay quite distant from Schwarzvald as he tried to follow his gaze. He ended up looking at a young man watching the robot hand, almost entranced by it. Roger froze; the guy had the face of the sketch Major Dastun had given him.
"Kikaider," Seebach drawled, his reaction entirely more enthusiastic. "Ahhhh, Kikaider..."
"What?" Roger turned, but Schwarzvald was already leaving, running and leaping to the roof of the next building, headed for the robot arm.
Roger decided not to follow. There was a better way. He raised his arm, and spoke into his wristwatch once more. Certainly, thirty seconds had passed. "Big O! It's showtime!"
Jiro was dumbfounded. He had no idea how such a large chunk of that machine could have survived. And did he just see someone jump onto it?
It was time for action. Determined, Jiro took a step forward...and was cut off by the blacktop exploding in front of him, giving way for a massive robot...he thought it was a robot...as it climbed to the surface from underground. Black, humanoid, and huge, but small enough to fit in the robot hand's palm if it wasn't careful.
Ye not guilty
Satisfied as he settled into Big O's cockpit, Roger turned briefly to glimpse at that young man - Kikaider, Schwarzvald had said - before he walked Big O towards the target. It was much too large for any hand-to-hand combat, he knew, but long-range attacks were still game.
Keeping his distance, Roger was about to let a first shot loose, determine how much armor the giant crawling hand had. It couldn't be all that much; upon taking a closer look, he noticed much of its' outer 'skin' was being held together by mis-matched metal plates and rusted scrap, as if it had been damaged and repaired on a much lower budget.
"Okay, Big O," Roger adjusted his aim a little, "let's see how tough this thing is."
Big O's hands raised with palms out, Roger using them as a makeshift gunsight to center his target. He clicked the trigger.
Big O's eyes grew bright, firing off twin beams into the target. The burning light scraping across two knuckles and further down the wrist, the robot hand twitched and seemed to grow agitated. The damage was, evidentially, superficial and anger inducing.
"What?" Roger's jaw dropped as he watched through the viewscreen, seeing the hand suddenly accelerate from crawling to sprinting on its fingers, straight at him. He barely managed to jump Big O a good distance backward before the metal limb clenched into a fist and, using its segment of forearm for leverage, bounded up and crashed down.
Staring in shock, Roger realized what a close call he'd just had. The fist unfurled, showing the massive dent it had left in the middle of the street. It was no wonder the blacktop hadn't collapsed into the old subway.
Still trying to comprehend what freak event had made this situation possible, Jiro was barely cognizant enough to avoid being stepped on. The giant robot was duking it out with the Armageddon Lord's right hand.
And what was this giant robot? Something new? Komyoji's latest work?
...how long had he been asleep, anyway? Remembering to keep his distance, Jiro watched as the hand and the robot continued trading blows, the latter using its speed advantage to duck and dodge around the giant fingers threatening to crush it.
Finally, the robot stood under the hand's ring finger as it came whistling down, seconds from delivering a crushing hit.
The robot caught the fingertip in both of its hands, stopping it dead.
"Nice try," Roger smiled, clicking the triggers on both of his arm yokes. He felt the reverb when Big O's pistons pulled back, and felt his victory when they triggered.
The double blow coursed through the metal Big O held in its hands, rending that one ring finger apart piece by piece in a violent wind that stopped at the knuckle.
The hand, with this new loss of some mobility, backed off a little. Roger decided to go on the offensive.
Big O took a step forward under his direction, and then...then...his head became wracked with pain, the controls no longer more important to Roger than the action of mashing his hands to ears in an attempt to blot out the most grating, most painful, most awful noise he had ever heard in his life. It was almost a whistle, if one dared to insult whistles in such a fashion. It was nails-on-a-chalkboard painful only it was literally painful and not just annoying.
Big O grabbed at its head as well, stumbling around, perhaps in response to its pilot losing control. Or perhaps because the noise drove it mad as well. Roger barely noticed this beyond the peculiar sensation of what he would describe as his brain running out through his ears and down between his fingers. "What...what is that!"
Big O's back smashed into a building when it stumbled too far. And then it leaned forward and kept from falling over by moving too fast and crashing headfirst into another building across the street.
The radar screen blipped onto an image of Schwarzvald from wherever he was, a dark place, shrouded by some sort of liquid as if he were floating in it and breathing through it. Roger barely heard him speak, "Do you like the music, Negotiator? Do you see how small you and your Megadeus are? I told you your machines are nothing compared to what humanity doesn't remember. How the mighty have fallen!"
Straining through the sounds cutting into his head, Roger reached a shaky hand to one of the yokes, determined to regain control of Big O if it killed him. He tried to ignore Schwarzwald, but the scarred man's voice was just as piercing as this faux flute.
"Try all you want, Mr. Smith, but you'll be in my way no longer," even as he spoke the words, Schwarzvald's attention wandered and he looked to the side, something getting his attention. "Oh no you don't, Kikaider!"
His image blipped off. Out of the corner of his eye, Roger could see that kid, Kikaider, jumping up the robotic hand leap by leap, reaching the rooftop he was headed for...the roof that Beck, of all people, stood on as he played a flute.
The hand turned sharply and headed towards that building even as Kikaider jumped off of it for the final time, intent on cutting him off.
"Stop it," Jiro shouted.
Amused, Beck backed up a little and kept playing, but Jiro didn't give up. He readied himself to rush at Beck, break the flute, and then break his neck, not necessarily in that order.
And the robot hand smashed down onto the roof in front of him, the remaining fingers already turning it towards Jiro.
His voice ringing out through an unseen speaker, Schwarzvald yelled, "Remember me, Kikaider?"
The flute stopped. Beck, now more concerned with not getting squashed, was backing off.
But on the street, Big O was righting itself.
It had stopped. Mercifully, it had stopped. Recovering slowly, Roger pulled his hands away from his head, intent on regaining control. His gloves, stained dark, let off a coppery scent; he'd been bleeding from the ears.
Right now, he didn't care. He turned Big O towards the monstrosity shaped like a hand. "C'mon, Big O," he rasped out, feeling the Megadeus trying to regain balance. "Chromebuster!"
But his finger stopped dead over the trigger when he saw Kikaider standing on the roof, directly in front of his target, big enough to be vaporized by a large beam such as what he was setting up.
And he really didn't want to kill the person who was obviously a link between his current job, Schwarzvald's rampage, and Beck's antics. "Dammit! C'mon, Kid, get outta the way!"
"You're wondering who I am, Kikaider," Schwarzvald's voice continued, "why my friend down there has the flute you so loathe, how I even know you in the first place. Part of me wants to tell you, part of me wants to watch you figure it out on your own. And then there's the urge to tear you apart now and be done with it."
Suddenly, the hand's palm turned down and it reared up, slapping the roof on the way down. The building almost caved in from the top, but Beck now stood in the space where the hand once had the finger destroyed by Big O. At this, Schwarzvald again spoke. "Beck, keep playing!"
"No!" Jiro shouted, remembering how that friendly, if somewhat large robot had gone nuts. Slapping a fist to the opposite shoulder, he recalled the bad memories such a thing dug up. "I won't let you hurt people!"
His other arm crossed the first, the other fist likewise pressing the button on the other shoulder.
And Kikaider was born anew.
But Kikaider was tiny compared even to this small part of Dr. Gill's ultimate weapon, so he didn't aim to destroy it. Instead, he crossed his arms in front of him, and barreled straight through the finger in front of Beck using the attack that usually heralded the very end of his target. Beck was caught completely off guard before he could start playing again.
Schwarzwald, seeing all of this from inside his odd craft, commanded the hand to squeeze those two fingers together and crush them both, but Kikaider tossed Beck right out over one of them to where he had stood moments ago and followed, the flute now rolling a few feet away.
Kikaider landed over Beck with his hands wrapped around the human's throat. "You will not play it again."
Looking up at the large robot now in front of him, Jiro again thought back to being a slave under that ungodly flute's tune, realizing what his oversized brethren must be thinking now.
But he realized something else; he was on the way. He had made himself an impromptu ally of said robot by attacking Beck and challenging the odd man inside the hand, but now, he stood between them.
"An android?" Running on an adrenaline high, Roger stared in shock. The sharp pain in his head was forgotten. "He's an android?!"
It wasn't the whole android thing that really bothered him, it was what he had just seen the android do. He didn't know androids could do that! Sure, Dorothy was faster and stronger than a human, but nothing like this.
The android, Kikaider, was still in the way. But he remedied this situation by dropping Beck, leaving him to hack and wheeze, and leaping away.
His foot crushed the flute as he left. Roger was grateful for that as he pulled the trigger.
Schwarzvald was too slow in recognizing what the buildup of energy at Big O's head meant. Seconds later, the Chromebuster attack went off and slammed into the robot limb at its wrist, melting through and piercing it entirely.
A gaping hole was left over in that spot when the beam cut out.
Unfortunately, it was still moving. Roger had hoped Schwarzvald's cockpit wouldn't be in the palm, but alas, it seemed it was not.
Still, he was retreating, cursing all the way as he forced his injured craft to crawl down the other side of the building.
By the time Roger had steered Big O closer to look over the side of the building, the hand had already dug its way underground, deep down, tunneling through the soft earth between the old tunnels to where Schwarzvald felt comfortable.
"Damn it," Roger cursed. He looked around for Beck, but that freak had long since hopped, skipped and jumped away. Roger did, however, see Kikaider still standing on the rooftop.
He watched, captivated, as Kikaider's form faded back to the human facade as the android slowly turned and looked at Big O. An eerie, completely irrational feeling worked its way into Roger's gut, as if Kikaider wasn't really looking at Big O in the first place. Is...is he, he struggled to put his thoughts in order, is he looking at me?
Roger couldn't wait to talk to this ki...this android. Android...unlike his original meeting with Dorothy, Roger had seen this android in nice, illuminating daylight and had been fooled completely. Androids weren't supposed to emulate humans that well. At least, the ones Roger knew didn't. Dorothy had her own unique charm, Instro was a brilliant musician, but they still acted like robots.
Pressing the pedals down, Roger nudged Big O a step forward.
And Kikaider bolted.
"Hey!" Roger yelled, locking Big O's scanners on the android before he was out of sight on the next street over. Kikaider was running, and so, Roger had Big O run as well. Occasionally, he could see Kikaider and his un-breaking stride between the buildings, but only so much. The military police was chasing him as well, now that Dastun had the time and most certainly recognized him, but they were way behind.
After a few seconds of this, Roger's strain caught up with him. The actual crisis was over and his combat high was wearing off. The splitting pain between his ears slowly grew more obvious, the blood dripping down his neck feeling all the more wet. He didn't want to spend anymore time chasing after someone than absolutely necessary.
Twisting the dial on his watch just the right way, Roger summoned his Griffin. The car sped out from its parking space and crossed the streets, rushing ahead of Kikaider and going unnoticed.
Almost at the same time, Roger exited Big O, its autopilot set to return to the tunnels.
What am I doing,
Jiro thought, where am I going to go? That robot...He slowed down not long after an errant car zoomed by him and made a sharp corner at the intersection, probably a delayed citizen getting away from the area of carnage, or at least it would have been, had the vehicle possessed a driver. He knew those authorities were on his tale, but he also knew he could afford to slow to a walk and think for a minute.
This was insane. Nothing in this city was familiar to him, and Jiro didn't have the slightest clue on what to do next. He decided, first, it would be prudent to walk down a different street, and headed for the intersection he'd seen that car barrel down.
But that car barreled back and cut him off, stopping with the passenger side door only inches away. Jiro froze, ready for anything, noting that the car actually had a driver this time, a frazzled looking man in his late twenties. He was shaken up, likely gripping he steering wheel so tightly so his hands wouldn't shake.
And the blood running down from his ear was smeared with his glove print. Nevertheless, he spoke curtly. "Get in."
Startled from this new development and having no intention of doing so, Jiro jumped back and decided he could still evade the authorities even if he ran back a little.
The car screeched into reverse and skidded in a controlled swerve, cutting him off again. The driver now sounded annoyed and rushed. And he was going to get what he wanted. "This is not negotiable!"
Hearing the sirens approaching, Jiro considered for a moment.
Slinging his guitar off of his back so he could sit down, he opened the rear door and didn't close it until he had settled into the back seat.
The car took off, long before Major Dastun was down the street enough to see.
Thanks to Jonesy and CW for their audience, advice, and general help.
A couple notes on continuity: yes, I'm aware the Armageddon Lord's hands were pincer-claw type things and not proper hands with five fingers, but I took a creative liberty because I really wanted the thing's severed hand to actually be able to move about and stuff.
For those of you who have only seen the Kikaider OVA on Cartoon Network; yes, Jiro survives the Armageddon Lord's destruction. An entire scene is cut out from the end of the OVA's final episode, showing us Jiro walking away in tears.
This story takes place after "Enemy is Another Big," as evidenced by Roger remembering Big Duo briefly, and acts as a sort-of replacement for "R - D" and the rest of the series.
Ref list:
-The act title is a reference to a Guns N'Roses song by the same name.
-The song Dorothy is playing on the piano is "Requiem for Hiroshima and Nagasaki." The most recent public use of this song I can think of was for the second half of an X2 trailer. I know too little about music to say for sure, but I doubt that it'd be possible to play this song this obnoxiously on a piano in real life, if at all. But then, Dorothy's crazy enough to at least try.
-Major Dastun says to Roger; "oh no, every time you show up, something monumental and terrible happens" This line comes from Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2.
We have come to terms