XENOGEARS: A ROPE OF ROBOTS
(part eleven)

After another hard day of gear battling, Fei goes to bed again. Fei is sleeping a lot these days! You would be too: D Block is boring. This narration was originally planning on providing a cap from each one of Fei's battles to give you an idea, but there are just too many, and they are all stupid, so forget it. Take my word for it, it goes on forever and if you are not digging it it makes you stop playing the game. Anyway, Fei has a visitor!

Hammer, is that you?

Hey there, kiddo.

OH GOD

What is going on in here? This is an infimary, you need to be qui--

OH GOD

Calm down, you guys, I just want to talk about the accident the other day.

Accident? What accident?

You mean the accident that nearly killed Fei?

Oh, that accident!

...yes. Anyway, I need to apologize, because it was my guys who sabotaged your giant robot!

Oh. That was pretty obvious, actually. What, they're too scared to apologize themselves? I have been kicking ass pretty hard around here.

Oh, they would, but as it happens they have all been murdered horribly.

What?!

Oh, yes, the mysterious serial sewer murders! I have been following it in the prison alternative free weekly.

Yup, all my guys, viciously murdered one by one, in the sewers.

What was that you were saying? Something about kicking ass?

Look, I don't know what you're suggesting here.

Well, let us see. A bunch of guys who tried to beat Fei up in an alley went on to plot against him in the battle arena. When Fei learned of this, he was consumed with rage and tracked each of them down and murdered them one by one! In the sewer.

...I know what he was suggesting, Doc, it's a figure of speech.

I agree, it was probably Fei.

HEY

I'm pretty convinced too! However, there's also a rumor going around that there's a monster living in the sewer that kills people.

Who would start a rumor about sewer monsters? What are all these people even doing in the sewer? That's gross! Let's go check it out.

Fei, Citan, and Rico are on the case, even though everyone is still pretty sure Fei did it.

They all head down into the gross sewer, Fei complaining all the while about everyone thinking he's a murderer. It's a valid complaint! You need better friends, Fei!

Come on, what if I did do it? What are you gonna do? I am already in prison.

Unjustly, I should probably add.

Fei, can you shut up for two minutes? We are trying to find a sewer monster.

Citan thinks he heard something!

And something thinks it heard Citan!

Well, let's look around.

Like most Square sewers, this one is mysteriously not filled with poop and dead cats, but after a while they come across a murder scene that no one has bothered to clean up. Well, it's already in the sewer, there isn't really any point. Fei declares the scene "slimy," which is really a pretty gross thing to say about a spot where someone has been killed, but Citan considers this a clue!

Let us look for other things that are slimy!

Like that pipe! It must be connected!

I see you have never been in a sewer before.

Well, I try.

They wander around some more and find another murder site. This one has graffiti written over it! Rico knows a dead man's graffiti when he sees it. It says RED MONSTER, written in blood. Very specific! Thank you, dead guy, you have totally solved this case for us from beyond the grave. Our heroes continue on, and after a while they hear something.

Do you hear that tinkle sound?

Well, we are in a sewer.

No, no, like a bell!

Rico shares that there have been strange rumors of tinkle sounds coming from the sewer. Ha ha, game, please stop saying that. Fei and Citan do not pass judgment of the quality of the rumors in this prison and keep going. Soon enough they come across another slimy murder scene with another slimy pipe nearby. They also find a roomba jammed on a set of keys to the sewage treatment plant. What a strange and convenient thing to find in a sewer.

This means we have to go into a sewage treatment plant! Stupid roomba!

Sure enough, they soon come across a conspicuous door, and Fei goes about unlocking it. He complains about how many keys there are. Too many keys! Starring Bo Derek and Olympia Dukakis. Whatever it is that they are chasing is waiting behind the door as Fei and Rico argue about keys. Arguing about stupid things is how Fei makes friends! He finally gets the door open, but they don't see anything but a bell lying there. Doc uses science and logic to work out that if they ring the bell next to a pipe that is not slimy, the monster will come and attack them.

This is so stupid I'm beginning to think I did kill those jerks.

They go and find a non-slimy pipe and ring the bell.

It works!

OH, WONDERFUL

They fight the horrible monster and kill it! It managed to kill a bunch of trained battlers, but it is no match against a furry, a nutjob, and a perfectly ordinary country doctor. This is another good argument against giant robots.

Of all the innocent monsters I have slain so far this week, this one was by far the most depressing, for vague reasons I shall not explain.

Well, it was red and it was a monster, so I think we're done here!

Yes, there are no other red monsters in Xenogears. Rico was hurt in the fight! He does not want to talk about it, and Citan wonders if this means he is going to drop out of his match with Fei.

No, look, the robots fight. The pilots sit in comfy cockpits and drink thermoses of coffee. You don't really have to be in top shape for it or anything.

Fei heads back to the prison dorm, and Citan FUCKS OFF TO CYBERSPACE.

This isn't even a flashback, and there is really no indication what the hell is going on here. Citan is back in the the room of spinning modern art, talking to the guy in the terrifying helmet again. Okay, fine, what does he want?

So, how is he?

He is fine, except for how he keeps flipping out and killing people. Whose idea was it to put him in a prison?

Well, the Gazel just want to kill him, so it wasn't them! It must have been that person.

Oh, that person. That person is a jerk! Anyway, I do not think we should kill him until we learn what his purpose is.

I wasn't going to kill this person, I'm just a little miffed--

No, the first person we were talking about with deliberate vagueness!

Oh, that person! Well, sorry, the Gazel are going to destroy Nortune.

For fuck's sake!

Yes, the plan to destroy a capital city within a superpower in order to get rid of one guy is underway! We now go to Bledavik to see Elly receiving her orders to escort the main battleship into Kislev. It's apparently going to be operated automatically for some reason.

Excuse me, sir? Does this mission, um, have a point?

Oh, Elly, don't be silly, of course it has a point! But none of the pilots or officers involved are allowed to know what it is.

Well, this bodes poorly.

This is true, but yours is not to question why. She rounds up her doofuses, who are their usual asshole sexist selves about things, but they soon notice that Elly is grumpy. She explains that they're basically escorting eight bombs into Kislev and they are not being told what the target is, and this understandably has her worried because she doesn't really want to destroy an entire city. This kind of blows her doofuses' minds, because first class citizen Solarians don't usually care about killing surface dwellers, and Elly is from an especially important family. Her doofuses are apparently lower class citizens. Yes, it wouldn't be a proper metaphor for imperial Britain without class issues. Elly is going to go through with the mission to bomb a city because she doesn't want her men demoted back to the slave labor class. Aw, that's sweet. ...I guess.

It's not like I know anybody in Nortune! Ha ha.