| “ | I had been trying to change something many times... and then I got it. Shadow brings the world to its end in any case! It's not the world, it's Shadow who must change! | ” |
| –Bolo expressing his realization. | ||
Bolo is a character in Shadow Fight 3. He is The Third Arrow, uncommonly known as the Arrow of Knowledge. An ambitious individual, Bolo often has visions that clash with others', and he has performed many actions that caused misfortunes to many people around him in order to pursuit knowledge. After one of his actions backfired horribly against the world, Bolo aims to fix what he did by time travelling to the past, to no avail. It takes many time travels before he realizes the futility of his attempts. And each time he time travels, a clone of him is formed in that timeline as a side effect. Many clones are formed due to how many times Bolo performed the time travels, to the point where he is irreplaceable.
The real Bolo is the one who owns a cuboid which he calls Rectangle of Dimensions, which is capable of instantly bringing back Bolo to his current time. Rectangle of Dimensions also allows him to recollect memories from all timelines. This ability to recollect memories is what makes him the real Bolo.
It was revealed in Transformation: Itu's Plane Part 2 that Bolo is the Real Itu who erased the Real Bolo and replaced him, while the Itu who accompanied the player was his copy this whole time.
Storyline
Bolo was a shadow weapon maker when he was appointed to become The Third Arrow. Supposedly, The Three Arrows were tasked to help Shadow find a way to destroy The Sphere, but Bolo wanted to obtain the power and knowledge of Shadow Mind. However, he was not a fit match for Shadow Mind, as it would take over him. Bolo then began to follow Shadow's every move, hoping to find his source of his power as Shadow was the only soul capable of unifying with Shadow Mind. Shadow used to visit the crypt to mourn May, from time to time. When Bolo came there, he found May's grave oozing with shadow energy. He then found a Stranger nearby - who is himself from the future - and he admitted to have come from the future, through May's grave. The shadow-soaked grave turned out to be a time-traveling portal. The Stranger also informed Bolo about Shadow Mind; it cannot be destroyed, but it can destroy this world and create a new one from scratch. Bolo decided to tell this to Shadow.
After Moira is believed to have died from the Scourge and Iolanda became scared of dying the same way, Bolo came and lied to her by saying she is indeed infected, but he can save her. He upgraded Iolanda's body by installing many devices to her body, turning her into a doll-like being. Bolo said these could prevent the Scourge's influence and now she could continue living. Iolanda becomes very grateful to the clone, thinking he had saved her and the Legion. Since this caused her to trust Bolo more than the Legion, Iolanda discarded all her personal guards and replaced them with Bolo's Heralds. Bolo himself intended to raise Iolanda under his tutelage and trained her to resist Shadow Mind's power so she can become the next Keeper of The Sphere.
At one point, Bolo wiped out the Shamans, Heralds of ancient times that believed about the existence of a certain core of Shadow energy. His reason is unknown, but one of them managed to escape and built his own forge at the Dynasty capital.
When Marcus and his army almost succeeded in destroying the Dome and The Sphere, Bolo teleported them to the timeless dimension, trapping Marcus and his whole army in an endless time cycle. This was his first experiment with time.
During their time in researching The Sphere, Bolo has assisted the Emperor by helping him overcoming the side effects of using The Sphere. He did this by creating the Void room and releasing the Emperor in this room to free him from The Sphere's influence. Later, he sent Itu, his first assistant who acts as his agent to find the one chosen by The Sphere.
Chapter III: Heralds
When the player, June, and Itu arrived in the Dome, Bolo welcomes them and invites them to explore the city under the Dome. While they are exploring, he reveals that he has other plan that is more humane compared to researching The Sphere as the Emperor suggested. That plan is to extend the Dome; with all the anomalies surrounding it, common people will be trapped in a time illusion. There, people can do anything they want, without worrying about getting hurt by The Sphere. The trio is not agreeing with his plan, so they turn against him. Bolo ended up defeated by the player, but this is not enough to stop Bolo; the one the player just fought is revealed to be a clone. According to Itu, this is the sixth clone, and Bolo is irreplaceable due to how he can seemingly clone himself. The clone then imprisons the trio to the time glitch to prevent them from screwing up his plan. He then goes into hiding and orders his Heralds to take care of the trio in case they manage to escape.
Later, Bolo gets opposed by Master Okada, the shadow bot creator and one of his best assistant. He speaks out at how he treated shadow energy like animals, refusing to acknowledge their consciousness merely because he will lose profit. As a retaliation, Bolo's clone turns Okada into the enemy of the whole Heralds, essentially expelling the shadow bot creator from the Dome.
It is not until Shadow returns, seizes the Accelerator Core prototype, and destroys the Dome that Bolo realizes what his action in informing Shadow back then costs him. In order to change things, he traveled time a lot, and one clone was formed in each jump as a side effect. It results in nothing changed - Shadow still gets the prototype regardless, causing Bolo to just give up.
Chapter VII, Part I: Forget the Past
| “ | The Rectangle of Dimensions also gives me the ability to recollect memories from all time lines. | ” |
| –Bolo stating what makes him the only real Bolo. | ||
Being the only one left that can open the Void Room, Itu and the player have to seek for Bolo's help in order to access the Void Room. Itu explains that this one is the real Bolo. All the Bolos the player had met before were the clones fromed by his many time travels. When they visit him, Bolo gives a bitter response, telling Itu to stop making a local attraction out of him and that this 'Shadow's Descendant' is a nonsense and never existed. Bolo states that Shadow killed May and his Descendant before the child was even born; Shadow Mind was the only thing left of the baby. Bolo then accuses Itu for clinging to the past. Itu does cling to it and says he will make Shadow pay and Bolo will help them. Bolo warns them that Shadow is powerful and the Accelerator made him invincible, they cannot change anything.
Itu argues that they can change everything. The player is here at last, and they are the Shadow's Descendant as the Void Room called them. Bolo replies by saying the Void Room also called Itu a Dome redeemer, before sarcastically asking him where the Dome and the Heralds are now. Bolo then tests the player to a duel, saying that the player should not be affected by his temporal tricks if they really have Shadow Mind with them and says temporal tricks are Bolo's capabilities in bending time to flow according to his will. He can parry any attacks thrown by the player by enhancing his own reflexes, reverse back time in order to return his health to the full state, and stops everything around him. However, with the power of Shadow Mind, the player can overcome all of Bolo's tricks and they win against him.
Bolo theorizes that the player must be Shadow's child, due to Shadow Mind behaving humbly inside of them, as if it was theirs originally. He, however, informs the player that Shadow hates them, May died because of them and Shadow will destroy the player on sight. Bolo is finally willing to help the player and Itu opening Void Room, but he wants to show the player first that their attempts to change everything are a waste of time. Bolo then performs at least three time travel experiments on the player, showing how the end stays the same whatever the player is doing - the series of events does change, but Shadow still got the Core prototype in the end. He hopes the player now knows how he feels, before apologizing for giving the Core prototype to Shadow. Itu hopes his reason was worthy and tells Bolo now he has a chance to make it better. Bolo reveals that he had been trying to change something so many times, before he realized that Shadow brings the world's end in any possible scenario. He says it is not the world that needs to change, it is Shadow himself. He then opens the Void Room for the player and Itu. Answering Itu's questions, Void Room teleports Bolo and the others into the Legion Fortress. He then assists the player and Itu in rescuing Jet, who has been captured by Gizmo. After finding out Moira's locations and the Legion's plans, Bolo states that they must find Moira before Shadow, or everything will be over.
Chapter VII, Part II: Behold the Future
On their way to the Dynasty Palace, Bolo explains about Moira. She is an Abdicator, the Legionary royals who do not inherit claim to the throne Shadow brought Moira to Bolo once for a remedy to cure her of the Scourge. Bolo says that Moira was a weird girl, and she touched the Sphere once.
Upon reaching the Palace, everyone is shocked at the Palace view, which looks peaceful and unscathed at all - when it is supposed to be nothing but ruins now. Marcus, who seems to be glitched again, accuses Bolo of responsible for all of this when he sees the old geezer again. Bolo explains that it was not him this time, but it is caused by Moira, who casted a kind of a Dome of parallel reality, inside an invisible barrier between the Dynasty Palace and the outer world.
When they learn that Shadow gets his hands on Moira, the party rushes to the Accelerator to stop Shadow. On their way, they are forced to walk a separate way when Gizmo and his Eraser army marches toward the Palace - the Descendant heads to the Accelerator with Bolo, while the rest stay to defend the Palace.
On the valley near the Accelerator, Bolo reveals that the Descendant is the missing part of the Cleansing; their Shadow Mind to be exact. Bolo informs the Descendant about what he learned long ago when he met his future self at the Crypt. He regrets telling it to Shadow and questions himself if shadow energy studies were really worth it for him. Bolo did not tell this earlier, as Itu will not let the Descendant leave if he knows. Bolo is sure that the Descendant does not want to spend their whole life hiding from Shadow, and he is tired of this too. Bolo then encourages the player to not be afraid - he says that maybe Shadow Mind will empower them somehow.
The Descendant and Bolo march to the top of the Accelerator Tower, where they confront Shadow. Upon seeing the Descendant, Shadow remarks that Bolo is not a useless, old madman after all. Bolo corrects him as the Descendant comes here on his own accords, and they will fight him. The final battle between the Descendant and Shadow then begins.
Just as the Descendant defeats Shadow, Moira starts to lose control of herself and ends up triggering the Cleansing, just as Shadow planned. Thankfully, Bolo manages to escape just in time to an alternate plane, even though this damages his Rectangle of Dimension, causing him to lose some memories.
Later, it is revealed that Bolo's reason to have the Descendant time travels three times to the past is to actually create three alternate planes, with each plane having its own copy of the Descendant.
Transformation: June's Plane
Bolo arrives safely at June's Plane, although he could not retain some of important memories with him thanks to his cuboid being damaged. It is even unclear whether he remembers his own name or not. He ends up being captured by a rebel group known as the Resistance and being mistaken as the leader of Heralds (this plane has a different person as the leader). When both the prince/ss and Phang arrive at the Resistance camp, Bolo stops time for everyone but himself and the prince/ss, and he greets them, challenging them to fight him as he want to know who they really are. After the prince/ss defeats the old geezer, he is convinced that this prince/ss is Shadow's Descendant. He then reveals some informations to them. He cannot stay in this plane for long, so he makes it quick. Everything was destroyed as Shadow wanted, he saw it coming. Bolo had sent the Descendant into the past thrice to make three copies of them, the prince/ss is one of those, and they have replaced someone else in this world. That someone was erased, but he cannot remember who that person is as his cuboid is damaged and he lost some memories as a result. Time will move on soon, and Bolo ends his talk by warning the prince/ss to not trust anyone, as this world is their enemy. He tells them to find the Sphere before disappearing, leaving the prince/ss startled and confused.
Gameplay
Bolo's clone is fought as the first boss of Chapter III. Players need to win three rounds to win. The clone fights with the Heralds fighting style, wields Shadow Piercer as his weapon, and utilizes two Shadow abilities. He also has a special ability, in which he can trap the player in a Shadow portal, making them unable to move while he can freely attack them.
Bolo is also a playable character in Chapter VI. The players will fight as a younger Bolo during the flashback in Shadow Mind's story. He is equipped with Gilded Staff and Prefect's Robe. Young Bolo does not have any perks or special moves on his equipment, but he can use the same perks and special moves as the ones equipped on the players' owned Gilded Staff and/or Prefect's Robe.
"A scenic view, isn't it?"
The real Bolo is fought as the first boss of Chapter VII, Part I. He fights the player as a way to test if the player is really Shadow's Descendant. He wields Nodachi as his weapon. It has the appearance of a large, over-sized Scalpel and has roughly the same length as Giant Swords. Bolo can parry any attacks performed by the player by enhancing his own reflexes, reverse back time in order to return his health to the full state, stop everything around him and even block ranged weapons. However, he can only do guaranteed parries when his sword is wreathed in shadow energy. He cannot do so if he has just performed an attack. When the giant cuboid has fully turned black, any attack delivered to it will cause it to disintegrate. Once the cuboid is destroyed, Bolo's time manipulation will be stopped, causing him to lose all the regained health and be immobilized for a few seconds.
The real Bolo, only known as Captive, is once again fought in June's Plane. Unlike in the previous fights, this fight is treated as a normal fight (only two rounds need to be won instead of three), even though Bolo still capable of performing all of his tricks. Fights with him carries the Hydra rule, which allows Bolo to continuously regenerates his health if he is not taking any damage. The lower the player's Stability, the faster Bolo's health regenerates.
Gallery
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