CHAPTER 14 . DAWN OF THE CHRYSALIS
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Syndicate Mountain Compound
Mai's mission to stop her brother takes place at a secret Syndicate base "deep in the mountains". Mai reaches the place in some sort of aircraft and jumps down in a state of Daodan overpower. She soon finds most of the installations are underground.
She hijacks an armored truck and breaks through the blast doors, reaching the heart of the complex: a giant computer room, next to which is a silo with a concealed satellite dish. She learns that the system controls an array of satellites, which are to be used to send a pulse to the world's ACCs, as the final phase of Muro's project STURMANDERUNG.
From reading Sturmanderung consoles, Mai realizes that Muro has altered the Atmospheric Conversion Centers to pollute the air instead of cleansing it; a disaster from which only the Chrysalis could save humankind. Mai theorizes, "He's planning to kill everyone who doesn't sell his soul to him for a Chrysalis." Konoko sees no other option than to sabotage the signal that is about to be broadcast to the ACCs, in order to destroy them before they can begin spewing polluted air into the Cities.
Then, she heads to the rooftop to face Muro. Fight A takes place if Griffin was killed by the player in the previous chapter; otherwise, fight B occurs.
A: Muro faces her one-on-one, and transforms to his Imago state, the next stage of evolution of the Chrysalis inside him. He proves to be monstrously powerful.
B: Muro chastises her for coming alone, when suddenly Griffin (in Black Ops armor) and three Black Ops soldiers disembark from a helicopter. Konoko, Griffin and his men face off against Muro and many of his best subordinates.
Upon Muro's defeat, the sabotaged version of Sturmanderung occurs, the results of which are depicted in the Mission Complete screen and the ending animated cutscene.
Added value
- Griffin's status as a member of TCTF Black Ops was mentioned in this console. Thus, while he may have had to dust off his armor when he took it out of his closet, we shouldn't be surprised that he can fight alongside his men.
- Players are never told where Mai falls from at the start of this Chapter, but in a Q&A session on the Oni Central Forum, animator Steve Abeyta said it was a plane. Clearly her power has increased considerably with the further development of her Chrysalis (although it should be noted that she is in Daodan overpower mode at the time, and her basic strength does not appear to be greater as one plays this level).
- It seems odd that Mai knows where to look for Muro. True, she does write in her diary, "The tracker readings from his plane project him touching down somewhere deep in the mountains." So one can assume that she rents or steals a plane and goes looking for a compound. But if she could infer this on her own, then why couldn't the TCTF? Perhaps they did, as the B variant of the fight with Muro has Griffin showing up to help. Whether he tracked Mai or simply went where he thought Muro would be found, we'll never know. Even if the general location of the Compound was suspected after CHAPTER 05 . HOT PURSUIT, Oni's story is a fast succession of events, and perhaps only now are Mai and Griffin ready to fight Muro, or aware of his exact location.
- Although Muro's choice to transform in the killed-Griffin scenario may be a statement on karma by the game designers ("Look at the monstrous results of giving in to one's anger", or something along those lines), it's difficult to explain within the story why Muro transforms in scenario A and not in scenario B. How does Griffin being dead make a difference in whether Muro can/wants to transform? If anything, one would expect he would be more likely to try to reason with her in his normal form if she killed Griffin, since she might have a better chance of joining him. His Imago state would be more logically be used against a Mai who stood totally opposed to Muro's wanton killing, and thus would be used in scenario B against Mai, Griffin, and his Black Ops team.
- Also on the subject of the B variant, here is where we see what a person looks like if they have Muro's nature, since Kerr told Mai that one's nature determines the outcome of the transformation. It's not pretty. It does, however, resemble Barabas, albeit to a more extreme degree. There is also a possible tie-in, however unlikely, to the notion covered here, that a person taken with rage can become an oni, or monster. This is Muro's true nature.
For more discussion of Muro's ultimate motives, see his page and this one.
- Finally, we never see Mai's Imago state, presumably because she's had her Chrysalis a shorter time than Muro, or she has been through fewer physical trials than he has. We can only speculate as to whether her transformation would be so monstrous, or so dramatic, or whether it would resemble the original Mai more closely, since she was not nearly as savage as Muro. Still, Mai certainly has plenty of violence and anger in her recent past, so if one expects the Imago state to reflect one's true nature, she might well turn out to have a somewhat frightening appearance, if not so drastically as Muro did.