ShadeMan.EXE (anime)

ShadeMan.EXE is the primary antagonist of MegaMan NT Warrior Axess as the leader of the first incarnation of Darkloids, and a major antagonist in the midpoint of Stream. A strong and resilient evil NetNavi, ShadeMan seeks to destroy humanity and make a world for the Darkloids to thrive in.

Overview
As the leader of the Darkloids, ShadeMan is exceptionally strong and considerably the most powerful natural Darkloid. He has single-handedly defeated both Lan and Chaud on many occasions throughout Axess, the first time defeating them both in a single strike. He is also able to outmatch the duo despite being heavily damaged at his return in Stream.

Also, it is interesting to note that unlike other Darkloids, ShadeMan seemed to be the only one that isn't affected by the negative effects of the Dark Chips, such as the addictiveness or the data erosion, as he even had the dark power from it heal him when he returned from being heavily wounded to the future Stream, and still suffered no negative effects.

Despite being a Darkloid, he is able to handle Asteroid Navis with ease, as seen where he disabled both FlashMan and SavageMan as well as taking their arms. When he was in the past, he takes on Colonel despite being at near death from having removed his NetNavi crest earlier, which would have deleted most NetNavis in an instant.

MegaMan NT Warrior Axess
ShadeMan is one of the many Darkloids and was their original leader. He made his debut in the first episode of Axess, stealing all but two Synchro Chips. At the end of the next episode, all the NetNavis that were taken in an attack on NetCity were used to create his own palace, which he used as his domain to command the other Darkloids.

Despite a hatred towards humans, ShadeMan worked with Dr. Regal, where ShadeMan and his minions would perform some tasks for Regal, and in exchange, Regal would provide them with Dark Chips.

However, ShadeMan soon learns about what the Dark Chips can do to his minions, after seeing FlashMan return to him in a corrupted state, right after FlashMan had deleted DesertMan and then was later defeated by a Cross Fused Chaud, and ShadeMan having to delete his minion because of it. Realizing that Regal had been double crossing him and his minions, ShadeMan intended to sever ties with him, but still wanted the Dark Chips, so he tried to steal a vast load of Dark Chips at one of their factories, but was outwitted by Ms. Yuri. Angered by that, ShadeMan left but not before easily defeating Lan and Chaud in their Cross Fused states with one attack.

ShadeMan moved to his next plan, and that was secretly building a Dimensional Generator of his own using one of Dr. Wily's abandoned labs, where he intended to kill Regal by crossing over to the real world. Eventually, the generator was completed, and he made his attack, but Lan and Chaud were also there, and they battled. However, Regal had left during their battle, and in his place was a holographic image of LaserMan, who mocked ShadeMan, and then proceeded to easily destroy ShadeMan's Dimensional Generators, sending ShadeMan back into the Cyber World. ShadeMan ended up facing MegaMan and ProtoMan, but his overwhelming strength easily defeated the two. Left with no choice, Chaud used a Dark Chip on ProtoMan, giving the latter enough strength to wound ShadeMan. ShadeMan still survived and was able to still fight, but was finally forced to retreat when MegaMan used his newly obtained Double Soul Proto Soul to wound ShadeMan further.

Weakened heavily, ShadeMan went back to his palace, but ended up finding LaserMan sitting on ShadeMan's throne, and alongside him, where ShadeMan's minions. ShadeMan was shocked by how his own minions betrayed him for a human, likely because the Dark Chips had already made them addicted to it and joined LaserMan for the promise of more Dark Chips. ShadeMan then saw the newly corrupted ProtoMan by LaserMan as well. Unable to do anything, ShadeMan fell into an abyss by LaserMan.

ShadeMan wasn't seen until later, having been left in a petrified state and BubbleMan sobbing over him. Then, Bass arrived and used his powers to restore ShadeMan, due to their shared hatred for humans and a desire for Navis to rule on their own.

Afterwards, ShadeMan had BubbleMan kidnap Rush and bring the cyber dog to him, where ShadeMan broke into SciLab in the Cyber World, and used Rush to form the Rush Synchro Chip, allowing ShadeMan to cross over to the real world without a Dimensional Generator. Now able to freely exist in the human world, ShadeMan tried to go settle the score with Regal, who ended up bringing an entire planetary Dimensional Field over the world itself.

When ShadeMan confronted Regal, he attacked, to which Regal used a Dark Synchro Chip to Cross Fuse with LaserMan. While it seemed that ShadeMan had the upper hand, having impaled Cross Fused Regal from behind, Regal showed no sign of pain as he turned his head back and fired a laser beam, instantly destroying one of ShadeMan's arms. He was then kicked by Regal after the latter used Area Steal to get closer to the Darkloid. Bass witnessed this and knew that ShadeMan was finished.

Grabbing ShadeMan by the throat, Cross Fused Regal mocked ShadeMan, before ShadeMan tried to hit Regal on the head with his remaining arm, to which Regal merely grabbed it and tore it off, making ShadeMan scream in pain. Having had enough of the Darkloid, Regal finished ShadeMan off with a Cross Laser attack, deleting ShadeMan.

After his deletion, BubbleMan had gone to help the Net Savers, having sworn vengeance on Regal for what he had done to ShadeMan.

Rockman.EXE Stream
In episode 31, Dr. Hikari and his team build the Past Tunnel that was connected to the time-space anomaly from Duo's arrival. While there, the scientists view the past of when ShadeMan faced off against Dr. Regal and was shown once more how he was brutally defeated. However, through the shift in time and space, ShadeMan was able to revive moments before LaserMan deleted him, and ended up going into the future, breaking through the barrier that the Past Tunnel had due to how it was meant to keep viruses from the past from arriving, but not NetNavis.

After arriving to the future, ShadeMan was still wounded greatly from losing both his arms against LaserMan and Regal, but was still in an enraged state, so he tried to seek Regal out in order to kill him and in the process, attacking the city that he arrived in. Lan and Chaud intercept him in their Cross Fused state, shocked to find him back once more. Despite the injuries he sustained, ShadeMan proved to still be of superior might against the duo and overwhelms them. Before he could finish Lan off, Ms. Yuri intervenes by being Cross Fused as well, allowing Lan and Chaud to have enough time to perform a Double Program Advance to finish ShadeMan off.

But ShadeMan survived, though he was even more wounded than before and was found by Bubbleman, who was crying over him saying how he always searched for ShadeMan. ShadeMan muttered that he needed Dark Chips. BubbleMan took ShadeMan to a Dark Chip factory that the Neo WWW was running, and placed the wounded Darkloid in a capsule filled with the dark essence of the Dark Chips, right as the Asteroid Navis FlashMan and SavageMan arrived, whom BubbleMan held off as long as he could.

As ShadeMan reawoke with his powers mostly restored, but still was missing his arms, the two Asteroid Navis fought against ShadeMan, but found that their attacks did nothing to harm him. ShadeMan attacked and managed to take FlashMan's arm to replace one of ShadeMan's missing arms. He then did the same with SavageMan's. The two Asteroid Navis, realizing that they were no match for him, retreated. ShadeMan then spoke with BubbleMan, recalling on how when he was crushed by Regal, he recalled some tunnel that he somehow went through that got him there. From that, he began to hatch a scheme for Darkloids to take over the world.

As MegaMan and ProtoMan ready themselves to enter the Past Tunnel to lead them 20 years to the past, ShadeMan arrives to attack them, and had bitten MegaMan in the neck, before he ended up going through the Past Tunnel. Almost instantly, a transmission is shown to the scientists of how Darkloids ended up ruling over the world led by ShadeMan. This shows how ShadeMan had altered history to fulfill his goal.

In the following episode, ShadeMan is shown sitting on his throne as BubbleMan informs him that MegaMan was coming to stop his plan. However, earlier ShadeMan had bitten a normal NetNavi and had them infected with the dark aura, which then transferred over to MegaMan when the latter had held down the Navi.Through the dark aura, ShadeMan took control of MegaMan and had him fight against Colonel, who was also with MegaMan during the time to stop ShadeMan's plot.

However, as Colonel froze MegaMan with an Ice Seed Battle Chip, ShadeMan arrived and fought against Colonel, and freed MegaMan along the way, and the two faced Colonel, quickly taking the advantage. ShadeMan soon had Colonel held by clutching his head, and ordered MegaMan to finish him off. However, right at that moment of firing the Charged Shot, Lan had used the Vaccine Chip and freed MegaMan from ShadeMan's control of the dark aura, and the attack was fired at ShadeMan instead, hitting his shoulder.

Surprised, ShadeMan released Colonel and knelt down, but smirked, stating that he won't die there, before removing the cloak he had on him, revealing his missing emblem which meant that ShadeMan was basically critically wounded during the battle already and was going to be deleted anyways. He spoke about how he implanted a missile with his Darkloid Factor from his emblem that would fire and then spread the factor throughout the Net and infect every NetNavi in the world. He then stated that he was dying in a marvelous way, before he finally succumbed to deletion and was gone for good.

However, his legacy of the Darkloid Factor through the missile was destroyed by MegaMan before it had a chance to work, foiling his plot.

Gallery
TBA

Trivia

 * Interestingly, in an unusual contrast to most anime villains like him, ShadeMan was actually very benevolent to his minions. He would reward them for doing good work, and if they failed him, he'd never delete them, instead he'd shift the needed task to a different Darkloid, such as giving BubbleMan's mission to BurnerMan when the former failed. He also seemed to be an almost fatherly figure to BubbleMan in particular, which may have contributed to BubbleMan's steadfast loyalty to ShadeMan. ShadeMan appeared to have the Darkloids' best interest in mind, as evident by his horror in seeing FlashMan's corrupted state and his fury at being duped by Regal about the Dark Chips.