((At the beginning of each chapter, I will post a character profile or other informational snippet to provide reference for all readers, whether they have played Custom Robo for Nintendo Gamecube or not. This is a new addition of back-editing, and as such, not every chapter has one at this time. This first one is longer than will be normal so as to set the context, especially for those new to the Custom Robo universe.))

Name: Rahu

Age: Unknown for sure, at least 200+ years, possibly much older

Biography: Rahu is considered to be the very first true Custom Robo. Its origins are unknown, but it was a being that knew only violence and destruction. The world was as it is now, perhaps a little more advanced, and Rahu simply came into being and began destroying everything. It was unseeable, untraceable, and indestructible, and as such no weapon, military, or tactic could stop its rampage as it destroyed the world a piece at a time. After destroying everything within its ability to reach, it sought new methods to destroy what was left, and it decided to take a physical form. To this end, it connected itself to a children's toy called a Custom Robo, a type of action figure whose weapons and armor could be interchanged and customized. Its consciousness merged with the robotics, they became one, and Rahu was trapped in a physical form. Though the toy was non-lethal at first, Rahu mutated it and turned it into a new form of killing machine, both organic and robotic in one, and continued his rampage.

The remaining scientists and tacticians of the world saw this as an opportunity, and began creating a new version of Custom Robos not as toys, but as personalized weapons to combat Rahu. A person's mind could now be merged with the robo, a process called "diving", and the Robo came under their mental command. The people that could control these Robos were called robo "Commanders", and led the charge against Rahu. Rahu was beaten time and again, but never defeated. Every time it lost, it just retreated into hibernation and came back stronger. It learned, adapted, and evolved, again becoming unstoppable eventually.

A new plan had to be formed, and scientists had another breakthrough that could be used to reverse Rahu's learning process through memory erasure. Once a memory erasure device had been completed, the strongest commanders in the world led one final attack on Rahu, and after defeating it, they activated the device, wiping Rahu's memory, and it vanished.

The war had been won, but so much was lost. The world was left in post-apocalyptic ruin and fewer than a hundred surviving humans remained. Nature as a whole was obliterated. The leaders of what left of humanity came up with a plan. They had a city built around all of the technology they had miraculously retained, and enclosed it in an enormous dome, and sealed it off from the destroyed world outside. There were no plants, so trees, grass, and bushes were made of synthetic materials. Carbon dioxide was recycled into oxygen artificially, thanks to the new technologies that had emerged in the time of necessity. The last step for completing this project was to use the memory erasure device on the people, and keep them from knowing anything that had happened, or what lay outside the dome.

At least, that was the plan...

Life went on in the dome, its inhabitants ignorant of Rahu, the origins of the dome, or of anything that existed outside of it. To them, there was nothing outside the dome. It was all that existed. Custom Robos were now the primary tools of any dispute, be it friendly competition or police vs criminal. With the memory erasure, there was so much, though that remained a mystery about Custom Robos, how they worked, and how they came into being. To study them, there was a research facility built in the dome specifically for studying and advancing robo technology.

There was no longer physical violence or murder; everything was handled through Robo battles. Safeties were installed for the cases of friendly battles, but they could be deactivated if one's opponent needed to be rendered unconscious. As robo-related crimes increased and the police force was spread too thin, the profession of bounty hunting came into play. Bounty hunters were typically not as skilled as police officers, but there were many more of them. A semi-friendly rivalry formed between the Police and Bounty Hunters, but each was important for keeping crime at bay.

And then Rahu came back. It was as sudden as before, but it was still in its physical form, mutated to look like a twisted combination of veins and wires, forming a demonic humanoid shape. It was powerful enough that anyone who fought it in a Robo battle and lost was killed, rather than knocked out temporarily. And unfortunately, the memory erasure device had been lost. It was in this time that three powerful bounty hunters emerged that could beat it together, but had no idea what they were facing or how to truly defeat it. They were tested, trained, and finally brought into the circle of robo commanders that knew the truth, which was shared with them confidentially.

There was also a splinter group from this circle that felt it was wrong for the truth to be withheld from the people like this, and they set out with the goal of letting the world know and opening the dome. They were hence branded as criminals, but when the time came their true colors showed, and instead of taking the chance to destroy Rahu, they attempted to seize control of it for their own benefit. Rahu proved uncontrollable, and escaped again.

The memory erasure device was rediscovered, though any research for creating a new one had long since been lost, and the three commanders set out to finally take Rahu down. After a long, grueling, and hard-fought battle, Rahu was weakened, and the memory erasure device again used, and Rahu again vanished.

In the days after, the truth was indeed exposed to the people. Everyone learned what lay outside the dome, all about Rahu, and the origins of Custom Robos. Robo commander training was then offered publicly to everyone so that if Rahu ever returned again, everyone would have a robo, and they would be ready. The memory erasure device became the primary tool of criminal rehabilitation. Criminals who were captured had their memory erased, a new one created for them, and they were reintroduced to society rather than taking up space in costly prisons.

Over one hundred years have passed since then.

-Begin - Custom Robo: Ultimatum-

Introduction

Many years have since passed since the fall of Rahu and the revelation of the world to the remainder of its inhabitants. The world has long since begun to be re-inhabited by humanity, but with all the space that humanity has newly been provided for expansion, the instability of justice and crime has continually grown worse. Police forces continue to crumble under the ever-multiplying crime syndicates, and reliance has proportionally increased on the time-honored peace keepers, the bounty hunters.

Though Custom Robo science has improved significantly to aid the police and public in its constant struggle against crime, for every technological advance given to citizens for their own protection, crime advances equally and simultaneously. Nonetheless, scientists continue to be easily spurred on by numerous breakthroughs in their Robo studies and designs, opening up thousands of new Robo customization options, and none have thus far been more impressive than their newest Custom Robo design, the Ray UM: Ultimatum.

Only one Ultimatum has been made, and no others will ever be created. Its sole purpose of creation is to give the police an upper hand against crime. With only one in existence and in the hands of the police force, enemies of justice will not be able to match the extreme power that the Ultimatum brings to the battlefield, and the outrageous crime level will be brought down significantly.

At least, that was the plan...

Chapter 1: Security Cut-Off

Upon first glance, one would never guess that the enormous Custom Robo science facility that lay before them was once the residence dome of all life remaining on the planet. After the second major defeat of the menace, Rahu, almost all of the dome's occupants moved out of the dome, which had been the whole world to them up to that point in time. Though at first seeming distasteful, the barren, destroyed lands of the once thriving and green earth actually provided an excellent foundation for new dome colonies, each of which more or less resembled the original. Each one that moved out had their own good reason for doing so, and eventually, the only remaining occupants of the dome were a few members of the police forse and the employees of the Custom Robo research lab.

Realizing the circumstance, that the dome had no more use than as a science facility, it was added on to and converted into the primary Robo research lab for the entire planet, as its size was rivaled only by entire new residence colonies. The former police station became the security wing for the compound. The lab became responsible for many of the greatest technological advances in Robo battling and customization of the time, including the Ray UM: Ultimatum.

The Ultimatum was intended to be kept secret from the public until it was given to and employed by a selected member of the planetary police force, but the night before it was to be presented, something went dreadfully wrong.

The Ultimatum's containment vault was under heavy guard. There were four Class-A robo commanders on static guard duty at all times, and at least a dozen more patrolling the hallways. The vault itself was electromagnetically sealed and armed with motion detectors, trip lasers, surveillance cameras, and floor-mounted pressure sensors. Security was as tight as it had ever been. Several hours before the dome's artificial sun was set to rise, the lights near the vault and all rooms and hallways for a hundred feet in all directions went dark. The lights had been dim in the first place, but the guards were not adapted to total darkness. There would typically be emergency lightning of some sort on battery power, and the vault itself had it's own backup power source isolated on a closed circuit, but there was nothing. No power, and no backups were activated. None of the guards could see anything.

The error was immediately detected in the security station, and everyone was suddenly on high alert. The surveillance cameras were out, so they were as blind as the guards. The security director had been watching the screens when everything suddenly went out, "What just happened?"

One of the security officers monitoring the screens tapped a few commands on his keyboard, but the problem wasn't being fixed, "No idea, sir, everything just went dark. Cameras aren't responding."

"All stations report. I need to know what's going on down there" the director demanded.

All the security station workers frantically got to work assessing the situation. There was lots of chatter as they communicated. One of them checked the facility-wide power grid and reported his findings, "Sir the power grid shows an outage in a 100-foot radius around the vault. It looks too perfect to be an accident."

The director came over to check the screen, "Are the backup systems online?"

"No sir, they didn't come on. There is no power down there at all."

The director barked to the communications officer, "Get the vault point man on the radio now."

The officer shook his head, "No good sir. I can't raise anyone in the dark zone. The radios must be out too."

"Put the facility on full alert. All available security personnel converge on the vault, and make sure they bring flashlights. Initiate the facility lockdown sequence."

The communications officer began conveying orders through the radio to anyone he could reach. One of the officers at another station reported, "Sir, the automatic lockdown isn't responding!"

The director came over and checked over his shoulder, "What?"

The officer tapped at his keyboard a bit, but nothing happened on his screen, "I put in the lockdown command and my whole system froze up. We tested it just yesterday and it worked just fine!" He tapped furiously on his keyboard, but to no avail, then slammed both fists on it, "Dang it, there's too many things going wrong!"

The director grabbed part of his upper sleeve, "Hey, hey, calm down! Get ahold of yourself. Is there another way to close the heavy security doors at the facility entrances?"

The officer was shaking with frustration, and the chatter throughout the room was not helping him focus, but he tried, wiping some sweat from his forehead "Uh, uh... There's, um... there's a-a manual control for each of the facility entrances. But they each take a few minutes to close and are scattered around the perimeter. And the proper sequence for closing each of the doors is different and they are in my computer, so i-it's useless as long as it's not working."

The director loosened his grip, "Those sequences are usually input remotely from here, right?"

The officer nodded, taking a breath, "Yes, yes sir."

"And you put them in yesterday during the test?"

He nodded again, "I did."

"We all know you for your memory, can you remember them?"

The officer gave a small, unsure shrug, still shaking, "There's twelve doors each with a different sequence, I-... I don't know, maybe."

The director turned his head to shout to the still chattering room, "Hey, everyone quiet a moment!" The room fell silent aside from some keyboard tapping. The director looked the officer in the eye, "I need a 'Yes' or a 'No". Can you get this facility locked down?"

The officer looked at his frozen computer screen, then back at the director, calming his breathing a bit, "Yes sir. I think so."

The director nodded and took a two-way radio, speaking into it, "Perimeter guards, all perimeter guards, go to channel four for instructions. All perimeter guards to channel four." He then handed it to the officer, "Find a quiet room if it helps, and get those doors closed."

He nodded, taking the radio, "Yes sir," and moved off to find somewhere where he could concentrate.

The director went back to the communications officer, "Get everyone with a radio to converge on the vault now! If there is an intruder down there, I want to either stop them from getting to it, or box them in.

In the chamber where the Ultimatum was being held, the heavy door security door was forced open, but with little real effort, as the locks were electronic and automatically cut off with the loss of power. Just outside the door, the four stationary guards were unconscious on the floor, while down the hallway in every direction, all the patrolling guards were barely conscious or completely knocked out as well. Through the door stepped several identically dressed figures, obviously not research staff or security guards. Rather, they wore dark navy-blue suits with lighter blue stripes running down the legs and diagonally across the chest. They each sported a yellow wristband on their left wrist, a matching yellow letter R over their heart, and, of course, a Robo cube attached to a blue belt at the hip. They each had night vision masks on their faces to allow them to see, even in the total darkness.

Two of them pushed the door the rest of the way open as two more entered and made sure everything was turned off and inoperative. They unplugged security cameras and disabled laser devices in case the power came back on. After the security was disabled, one more individual entered, who was much more muscular than the ones already in the room. He stood head and shoulders taller than the others, but not many more of his features could be seen due to the night vision mask, not to mention the darkness. His uniform was the same, except for the wristband. It was bright red instead of the yellow that the others wore.

The four with yellow bands stood their ground while the one in red approached the center of the room. The Ultimatum was in its cube form on a stand, protected by a glass case. He smirked as he examined it, and was well aware of what he was about to do.

One of the yellow bands spoke up "Strike, sir, you'd better hurry! More security is going to be here any minute!"

Strike, the one with the red band, grinned evilly under his mask, not taking his eyes off the Ultimatum. "Let them come!" And with that, he thrust his gloved fist through the glass case, shattering it all over the floor. He removed the cube from the stand, lifted his night vision mask, and held the cube up to his eyes, at the same time pressing the eye scan button, registering himself as its one and only commander.

As soon as the scan was complete, three security guards came running down the hall with flashlights. "Sir! Security's here!" called a yellow band who was watching the hallway.

Strike turned to face the door. "Inside!" He commanded the two yellows at the door. They obeyed without question, fleeing into the vault and standing behind their superior.

The guards appeared at the door and one commanded to Strike, "Drop that cube!" Strike looked at them blankly, no expression visible through his mask as he just stared them down. The guard in the middle took his robo cube off his belt. "I said drop it."

Strike took one step forward, but the guards were not fazed and stood their ground. Strike found himself looking slightly down at them, and held up the cube, speaking patiently, "You have no idea of the power you are meddling with, do you?" He took his mask off, revealing a black-haired head and a strong face with a large scar diagonally across it. "Allow me to show you just exactly what you have been guarding. And what you have now allowed to be unleashed." He activated the cube, merging his mind to it as it glowed red. All three guards did the same, and dove into their robos. All four robos linked in Strike's self-generated holoseum, and the battle began.