Toushin MM

"Toushin MM"

- demanding that Rance give it Chaos.

About
Toushin MM was the final and most powerful Toushin constructed by the Holy Magic Sect during the Dark Lord War. Built in secret by M.M Rune, the megalomaniacal leader of the organization with the intention of serving as his personal trump card, it lay dormant for centuries before finally appearing as the final boss of Rance IX.

Toushin MM was conceived of by M.M Rune late into the Dark Lord War, as the Holy Magic Sect continued to struggle against the forces of the Monster Realm even after decades of fighting. As a final measure to land a decisive victory over his enemies, Rune began production on a 25th Toushin for his own personal use in a hidden laboratory located within the depths of Detna Luca, the city that served as the center of his organization. Along with optimizing the Toushin's abilities around the specifications of the best-performing of its predecessors, Rune outfitted it with the capacity to manipulate the energy of the Dark Sword Chaos, one of the only weapons in the world capable of penetrating the Invincibility Field that protected the Dark Lords commanding the Monster Army from all conventional forms of damage. He also altered its design to allow himself to transmogrify his Soul into its body and control it directly rather than through remote operation by a mummy from within a Toushin Toshi as all other previous Toushin had been. For unknown reasons, Rune did not tell anyone of the project, and handled the entire creation process on his own.

After he had finished construction of the Toushin, which he gave the name Toushin MM in tribute to himself, Rune began combing The Continent in search of Chaos to prepare for his ultimate attack on the Monster Realm. His plans were stymied in the year GI0451, when several pockets of the Human race began to revolt against the Holy Magic Sect in response to its failure to defeat the monsters. Already in dire mental straits from artificially prolonging his lifespan to maintain his command over the Human Realm, Rune was pushed past the brink of madness by this apparent ungratefulness and filled with paranoia. He resolved to oversee the remainder of the war single-handedly, no longer trusting anyone outside of himself, and transformed his followers into obedient slaves that would unquestionably attack all who opposed him.

One year after his mental collapse, Rune was betrayed and killed by his closest comrades Freak Paraffin, Hunty Kalar, and Replica Misly to put a stop to his tyrannical rule. Much of the Holy Magic Sect's technology ceased to function in the absence of his command, which caused the organization to collapse and the war with the Monster Realm to at last come to an end. As Rune had failed to acquire Chaos before the end of his life, Toushin MM was unable to fulfill its intended purpose and remained deactivated in its chamber, unknown to the rest of the world.

Hundreds of years after Rune's death, Freak and Hunty discovered Toushin MM while investigating the basement of Lang Bau, the capital city of the Helman Republic which had been built over the ruins of Detna Luca. Shocked to learn of its existence, Freak immediately began examining the machine in the hope that its body held the secret to uncovering a means of overriding Rune's universal command to destroy non-magic users that rendered all remnants of the Holy Magic Sect dangers to humanity. While Freak was able to determine that the Toushin required an additional item other than Rune's soul to properly function, he was unable to discern what exactly it was, and chose to keep the machine's existence a secret to ensure that there would be no risk of it ever activating.

In the year LP0003, Toushin MM was found once more by Stessel Romanov, a blood descendant of the Holy Magic Sect who had seized control over Helman in the process of achieving his dream of conquering the Continent. Recognizing the Toushin's incredible might, Stessel latched onto its potential as a tool for world domination, believing that the threat of its power being unleashed would cause any nation to submit to him in defeat, and began performing several tests of his own to learn the steps needed to activate it. After successfully uncovering that the Toushin required the soul of M.M Rune to activate, Stessel began researching the steps necessary to obtain the item for himself.

In the year LP0006, Stessel was able to acquire Rune's soul, which had been placed under the protection of the world's most powerful religious group the AL Church and sealed as a Balance Breaker, by agreeing to have Helman support Bishop Roule Enron on his campaign to become the next pope. Soon after obtaining the box that contained the soul, Stessel gleefully presented it to Empress Sheila Helman, his daughter and the object of his lustful attraction. Stessel claimed that the box was "the key to destruction" that would allow him to conquer the world, which caused the fearful Sheila to steal it and escape from the imperial palace into the night. Upon realizing that Sheila had taken the box, Stessel ordered his co-conspirator General Minerva Margaret to track down her location through any means necessary.

During the events of Rance IX, Stessel's plans were further complicated by the appearance of the Helman Revolutionary Army, which aimed to capture Lang Bau and and claim the country in the name of his political adversary Prince Patton Helman. While he attempted to have the Revolutionary Army eliminated as quickly as possible, his efforts were routinely foiled by a hidden branch of the group known as the Outlaws, which achieved several miraculous victories against the Helman Army and began to steadily progress toward the capital.

After two months of fighting, the division of the Revolutionary Army commanded by Cream Ganoblade, the former lieutenant-general of the Helman 4th Army, was able to capture the city of Semitap that bordered Lang Bau and place the Helman Army in a critical situation. Soon afterward, the Great Gate that served as the last bastion protecting Lang Bau from intruders was seized by the Outlaws, who had braved the harrowing tundras to covertly infiltrate the capital from the north, and raised to allow the Revolutionary Army entrance into the city. Once inside Lang Bau, the Revolutionary Army immediately moved to block all entrances to the city, effectively transforming it into a cage entrapping the nation's leaders.

With the Revolutionary Army at his doorstep, Stessel lost his mind in a fit of grief and rage. Believing victory to no longer be possible, he resolved to activate Toushin MM and destroy all of Helman before Lang Bau could be taken from him. Using information gained by Minerva revealing that Sheila had been working as a member of the Outlaws, he ordered Tousho Bastet, his bodyguard, to attack the rebels and retrieve the box containing M.M Rune's soul, killing the empress if she stood in his way.

Immediately after sending Bastet away, Stessel hurriedly moved to the secret chamber containing Toushin MM beneath the capital and began futilely attempting to find other means of activating it. His desperation was interrupted by the appearance of Minerva, who announced her intention to kill him. Stessel attempted to dissuade Minerva by insisting that only he was capable of defending Helman from the Revolutionary Army, only for her to mockingly tell him that the country as he ran it was already doomed to fall and that she planned to fulfill her dream of ruling it before that could occur. Terrified for his life, Stessel tried to run toward Toushin MM for protection but was struck in the back by Minerva's axe and fatal wounded. In his final moments, he grasped out toward the all-powerful Toushin before succumbing to death with an expression of agony and despair on his face.

Against all odds, the Outlaws managed to overcome both Bastet and Minerva and capture Lang Bau in the name of the Revolutionary Army. As the group prepared to raise their flag from atop the palace and signify the end of the war, Rance, the leader of the Outlaws, accidentally triggered the secret entrance to Toushin MM's chamber behind the imperial throne while trying to have celebratory sex with Sheila, sending them both into the depths of the capital. They were followed close behind by their worried allies, causing Rune's soul, which had been given to Patton for safekeeping, to emerge from its box and combine with the Toushin, finally awakening it in the process.

Upon activating, Toushin MM produced several thread-like tentacles from its body and wrapped them around Chaos, which Rance had been using as a weapon. When the tentacles attempted to pull Chaos away from him, Rance resisted and sliced them apart. The Toushin suddenly began to speak, and commanded Rance to give the sword to it. Rance bluntly refused to comply, prompting the machine to motion to take Chaos by force by initiating a full-scale operation to destroy the human warrior. Having already informed her allies of the Toushin's desire to exterminate humanity, Hunty pleaded the group to flee the chamber to safety, believing them to have no chance at defeating it. She was stopped by Patton, who resolutely stated that he intended to serve as a wall that would protect Helman from harm no matter the enemy, and would stand his ground and fight. His words inspired the rest of the party, who drew their weapons to aid him in saving the world from M.M Rune's twisted legacy.

During the battle, Patton's friend Hubert Lipton observed that Toushin MM emitted the same light from its chest that Freak, who had been killed defending Sheila from Bastet, did as he died. Recognizing the light source as the Toushin's magic power ball, which served as the central storehouse of all of its magical energy, Hunty directed her comrades to attack the shield protecting the ball to destroy it.

After the shield was broken, Toushin MM instantly generated a second one to prevent its opponents from attacking its power source. Lacking time to concoct an alternate strategy, Patton stated that he would utilize his special attack Chaotic War Dance to pummel through the new shield before the Toushin had time to create another. Hubert objected, worrying that the strain of using the technique would kill Patton, but relented after Patton asserted that the only other option was to give up.

The Outlaws eventually succeeded in weakening the shield once more, creating the opening for Patton to land a finishing attack. The continuous strikes of the Chaotic War Dance allowed Patton to charge into Toushin MM's body and destroy its magic power ball. The destruction of its power source caused the Toushin to release M.M Rune's soul from its body and deactivate immediately. Witnessing the strength of the current generation of humanity firsthand granted Rune's soul the comfort and clarity to understand that he was no longer needed to lead it, ridding his mind of the mania that had corrupted it throughout his final years. He was soon joined by Freak's soul, who gently reassured him that their era had long since ended and that it was time to pass on into the afterlife. Before moving on from the world with his mentor, Rune declared that he would leave the future of humankind in the hands of those living in the present and lifted his order to attack other humans from all remaining relics of the Holy Magic Sect.

No longer able to function, Toushin MM collapsed onto the ground of the chamber with Patton still inside of it. While his friends worried that he had been crushed under the weight of the Toushin's massive frame, Patton's incredibly durable body was remarkably able to survive the impact and emerge alive. With the final obstacle removed from their path, the Outlaws raised the flag of the Revolutionary Army from atop Lang Bau to officially proclaim their victory and bring an end to the bloody conflict. Soon after being crowned the new emperor of Helman, Patton dissolved the nation's imperial system altogether in favor of a representative democracy and left deciding its next leader to the people. Just days later, Patton left on a journey with Hunty in search of the surviving pieces of the Holy Magic Sect, which were now free to serve their intended purpose of safeguarding humanity.

Toushin MM was briefly mentioned in Rance X during the Dark Lord Extermination Squad's operation to activate Toushin Sigma, one of the two surviving Toushin on the Continent. After Hunty mentioned that the Holy Magic Sect lacked a means of damaging the Dark Lords while summarizing the Dark Lord War, Rance remarked that the Toushin they had fought in Helman had wanted Chaos. Reminded of Rune by this comment, Hunty sadly recounted having to end his life after he had turned against humanity at the end of the war. Rance mocked Rune for having allowed himself to lose his mind and claimed that the same would never happen to him so long as had a lot of beautiful women to sleep with, leading his allies to ponder whether he would retain his love for women even after losing control of himself.

Personality and Appearance
Completely unlike others of its kind, Toushin MM possessed two distinct bodies that combined design aspects of the most effective Toushin into a single entity. One body was massive and bestial, resembling a metallic Dragon with a copper-plated head draped with translucent blue tubing and several similarly blue-colored spikes sprouting along its body. The other was more humanoid and similar in shape and size to most other Toushin, with a copper-plated head resembling an inverted cone and a single eye hole on its left side that emitted a purple glow when activated, and was embedded into the upper back of the draconic body. Both bodies were inscribed with the initials "MM" on their upper chests in a manner similar to the Greek letter designations featured on other Toushin to denote them as being the personal Toushin of M.M Rune. Toushin MM was extraordinarily large even by the standards of a Toushin, taking up most of the room in its spacious chamber, and was estimated to weigh well over 6,000kg by Sanada Tourin.

Built to serve as the key to securing the Holy Magic Sect's victory against the Monster Realm, Toushin MM embodied the growing isolation and paranoia that defined M.M Rune during the last years of his life. Speaking in a terse, bellowing monotone, it discarded nearly all of Rune's personality in favor of a single-minded fixation on ridding the world of evil. As Rune had convinced himself that all non-magic using humans and mages that chose to cooperate with them were conspiring against him, Toushin MM perceived all life to be a source of evil regardless of whether it was man or monster. Upon activating, it immediately began rampaging with the intent of eradicating all living things, and could only be stopped by being destroyed. Because of this, it was viewed as a weapon of mass destruction by the few who knew of it, with the threat of its activation alone being a risk to the entire world.

Abilities
Created expressly to be the strongest Toushin, Toushin MM was an extraordinarily powerful machine with combat ability surpassing that of even Dark Lords. In addition to having a body modeled after a dragon, as Toushin Lambda, which was regarded as the strongest Toushin prior to it, Toushin MM utilized a completely unique operating process that set it far apart from its predecessors. While previous Toushin were manipulated remotely by mummified mages from within a Toushin Toshi and powered by stored magical energy, Toushin MM's body was designed to serve as a vessel for its operator's soul and was outfitted with the same magic power ball storage unit used by Tousho to allow magical power to be channeled directly through it. As M.M Rune was regarded as the single strongest magic user to have ever lived, this enabled the Toushin to utilize the full extent of his tremendous power at all times without the need to preserve a mana battery, effectively allowing it to operate indefinitely.

To further stand out from other Toushin, Toushin MM was equipped with the ability to draw energy from the Dark Sword Chaos. Along with further augmenting its power, wielding Chaos made Toushin MM capable of penetrating the invincibility field that protects Dark Lords from all conventional forms of harm, the sole obstacle that prevented the Holy Magic Sect from making any meaningful progress throughout the Dark Lord War. With Chaos in its possession, Toushin MM's power was enough to defeat even Kayblis, the strongest Dark Lord in history, in single combat, as well as provide a formidable challenge to the Demon King. For this reason, it was recognized as a Balance Breaker by the Goddess ALICE, who believed that its activation could potentially irreparably damage the structure of the Planner Scenario.

During its battle against the Outlaws, the one and only fight that it took part in before its destruction, Toushin MM was unable to acquire Chaos and make use of the full extent of its combat potential. Despite this, it still demonstrated its phenomenal power throughout the encounter by performing several impressive feats of both magic and technology to attack its enemies. These included summoning dozens of Magical Pawns, artificial humanoids with cubic heads and high fighting ability, and generating a pair of cannons on either side of its body to fire powerful blasts of magical energy. The most impressive technique that Toushin MM used throughout this encounter was a spell known as Ragnarok, where it showered the space around itself in a concentrated wave of pure magic to deal devastating damaging to its foes.

Toushin MM's lack of a Toushin Toshi, while in many ways an asset, was the source of its one weakness. As all of its energy was transmitted through the magic power ball embedded in its chest, destroying this device would prevent it from being able to continue powering itself and cause it to immediately cease functioning. While it was able to somewhat circumvent this design flaw by covering its magic power ball with a sturdy magically-generated shield which would instantly regenerate after being destroyed, it was still susceptible to techniques that struck at speeds greater than its shield could reform, such as Patton Misnarge's Chaotic War Dance, or used spatial manipulation to bypass the shield altogether, such as teleportation magic. Toushin MM's chances of defeating the Demon King while enhanced by Chaos hinged on whether the Demon King was capable of using one of these techniques.

Trivia

 * The battle against Toushin MM carries several parallels with the battle against King Kakaro Alphoria, the final boss of the Alicesoft game Mamatoto. Both are large, stationary bossess that appear after an item referred to as "the box of destruction" is opened and are composed of several pieces that are capable of being damaged, including a central "core" that must be destroyed to defeat them. Furthermore, the primary method of attack for both bosses consists of summoning dozens of enemy "pawns" at a time to attack the player's units, periodically casting a screen-covering magical blast that deals high damage to all player characters. These similarities extend into the aesthetics of the fight, with a recreation of Kakaro's Ragnarok attack animation playing whenever Toushin MM uses its equivalent screen-clearing spell and an arrangement of the song "Running to the Straight", the main battle theme of Mamatoto, playing in the background. Finally, the means through which Toushin MM is defeated, Patton's Chaotic War Dance skill, references that the most popular strategy to defeat the final boss of Mamatoto was by having the game's version of Patton use said skill to strike at it multiple times per turn.
 * While an image of the Goddess Ragnarok from Mamatoto appearing during one of Toushin MM's attacks, Orion, the lead artist of the Rance Series, clarified that this was merely done as a reference and was not meant to suggest a connection between M.M Rune and the goddess that serves as an avatar of the Supreme God Roven-Pan, who is coincidentally also named Ragnarok, or that a version of Mamatoto's Ragnarok exists within the Rance series.
 * Toushin MM is the only final boss in the Rance series to be explicitly defeated by a character other than Rance. This is playfully acknowledged shortly after its defeat, where Rance attempts to steal credit for delivering the final blow by claiming that Patton was simply following his orders when he did so.
 * Toushin MM is the only Toushin that is not named after a letter of the Greek alphabet.