Gospel (Bug Beast)

Gospel (ゴスペル) is the name given to the wolf-like Multibug Organism that is the final boss of Mega Man Battle Network 2. It powers up Bass in Mega Man Battle Network 3, and appeared as a final antagonist in the second season of MegaMan NT Warrior, where it was dubbed the Grave Virus Beast.

Mega Man Battle Network 2
The Multibug Organism was created by accident when Sean Obihiro, the leader of the criminal organization known as Gospel, allocated 200% server power to the bug fusion process in an attempt to create another copy of Bass. The copy Bass then exhibited critical bugs, and became a large, black, wolf-like monster strewn with bugs all over its body. The organism then drove the server power to over 600% of its own accord and almost destroyed the Net, before being deleted by Lan Hikari and MegaMan.EXE. It has 2000 HP, and can only be damaged by non-breaking attacks when its mouth is open or by attacking the simulacra of AirMan, QuickMan, and CutMan that it summons as part of its attacks.

Mega Man Battle Network 3
An injured Bass discovered Gospel in the remains of Alpha. Sensing that the organism wished to help him, he merged with it. This allowed him to recover using Bug Frags and become the powerful Bass GS (GoSpel), eventually challenging MegaMan again. MegaMan, however, defeated him once more. Bass GS has 2000 HP and a Life Aura of 200, and uses a few Gospel attacks. However, the fusion lead to an accidental and temporary erasure of Bass's memory.

Rockman.EXE WS
Gospel appears as a secret boss after the game is completed for the second time.

MegaMan NT Warrior (anime)
In the second season of the anime, Dr. Wily operates the NetMafia Grave (Gospel) behind the scenes and creates the VirusBeast, the anime's incarnation of Gospel. Grave made it absorb AirMan, and the beast heads for NetCity, where it starts to absorb NetNavis. It attacks MegaMan and company while NetBattling at the Stadium. ThunderMan tries to stop it, but is absorbed. MegaMan is also almost absorbed, when Bass appears and after a tense moment the beast leaves without touching Bass, who comments that the creature knows who he is. This suggests that even though the beast is mindless, a part of it remembers Bass as being a part of itself and therefore will not attack him. Dr. Wily then reveals himself as the leader of Grave and the creator of Bass and the VirusBeast; he states that they were both formed from PharaohMan's remains, however, only Bass is the one with PharaohMan's soul. Bass then appears to absorb PharaohMan's other remains, and succeeds in defeating the VirusBeast and absorbing all of its data. However, the Beast is too much for him, as his data degenerates and reforms into the Beast. The Beast then continues its rampage and absorbs buildings and Navis in the Net.

ProtoMan, SharkMan, SkullMan, and WoodMan are all absorbed fighting it, while all the other Navis have evacuated the Net. Meanwhile, MegaMan is completely contaminated by Bass' bugs, and uncontrollably style changes into a powerful and destructive Bug Style. He attacks the VirusBeast, and although it seemed like the Beast is winning, data from inside the Beast starts leaking out and breaking apart, and then gets absorbed by MegaMan. The Beast is then totally destroyed and absorbed by MegaMan, but MegaMan doesn't stop his rampage, absorbing all of his surroundings. Unsuccessfully, Lan tries to get through to him, but MegaMan continues, until the last moment, when all seems lost and destroyed, all the data flows back to normal. MegaMan is back and so are all the other absorbed Navis. All is restored, except the VirusBeast, which was permanently deleted.

MegaMan NT Warrior (manga)
Grave teamed up with Bass to attack MegaMan on the Queen Ocean ferry, but was destroyed and absorbed by Bass after attempting to claim MegaMan's Hub Style powers. A battle between the two NetNavis soon turned to Bass' favor, and he nearly succeeded in destroying MegaMan until MegaMan turned all his Hub Style power against him. Later, upon being reborn as Bass GS, Bass manifests Grave's head to launch devastating attacks.

Attacks
Gospel is physically invulnerable when still and it is damageable only when it actually attacks its enemy, as its open mouth is its weakpoint.
 * Shockwave: Gospel fires a shock wave from its mouth that goes only down the middle row.
 * Poltergeist (Junk Flyer): Random objects that travel from Gospel's side of the field to the player's. Passive effect that fills the gap between its attacks.
 * Break Shockwave (Gospel Shock Power): Gospel fires a stronger version of shock wave that breaks panels and homes onto the player.
 * Head Drill (Drilling Head): Gospel's head turns into a giant drill and flies forward, detaching itself from its main body. The head then via brief pixelation reappears onto the main body as normal.
 * Giga Breath (Breath of Gospel): Gospel unleashes a 1 to 6 panel fire breath that inflicts a large amount of damage. The element of the attack varies in accord with the player's element, so as to be their weakness.
 * Darkness Creator: Gospel's head turns into a simulacrum of either AirMan, QuickMan, or CutMan, delivering their special attack once.

Design
Gospel is designed after the classic Mega Man series character, Gospel (Treble in English), the Rush to the original Bass. It is unknown why the Japanese name Gospel was used for the Beast and organization, though it may be because Treble doesn't sound very intimidating. Another possibility is that for some reason, the localization team could not or did not want to change Gospel's logo, which is clearly in the shape of a G. A later boss, Cybeast Gregar, is most probably designed after Gospel, as it looks similar to it. However, in Mega Man Battle Network 6, Mayor Cain states that Gregar formed long ago through an accumulation of Bug Frags (similar to how Gospel was formed), ultimately predating Gospel. It can be presumed that their similarity in appearance is due to the fact they both were made from Bug Frags.

Battle Chips
While there are no Gospel Battle Chips that can be obtained by normal means in Mega Man Battle Network 2, four Battle Chips were available in an event held in Japan. Those Battle Chips can be combined with Bass V3 X and AntiNavi X to form the Program Advance Darkness (ダークメシア, Dark Messiah in Japan), which summons Gospel to attack enemies with its breath, followed by Bass attacking with Earth Break. This Program Advance also appears in Mega Man Battle Network 6, but instead of summoning Gospel, it makes Gospel's head appear on MegaMan's arm to burn enemies 7 squares ahead with Gospel Breath. Then Bass comes, slashing 6 squares front with a Bug Rise Sword.

Gospel is also visible in the Battle Chip BassGS from Mega Man Battle Network 3 and BugCharge from Mega Man Battle Network 5.

Trivia

 * While Gospel's overworld sprite shows him as purple colored, similar in color to the classic Gospel/Treble, the in-battle sprite shows him as grey colored.
 * Battle Chips and other artwork shows Gospel as grayish-black colored.