XENOGEARS: A ROPE OF ROBOTS
(part twenty)
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Well, the grownups are being all kinds of depressing, so Bart and Elly turn right back around and go back to the orphanage, which is full of people closer to their age and temperment. And that Billy guy. Who may be a shounen protagonist of sorts, but he sure is no Fei. The way this week has gone so far, our heroes probably just want to go sit in the rafters with that dragon kid.
No fun at all! If Fei were here he'd probably be dangling by his ankle on the swingset by now and in need of rescue, but Billy has to work or something. A bishop has shown up out of nowhere to give him an assignment.
Bishop Stone tells Billy that they've located an Ethos transport ship they'd lost contact with, but it's not responding to radio communications. Billy and Stone agree: it's probably those pesky zombies again!
Apparently!
It's settled! Bishop Stone leaves, and Billy tells Bart and Elly that he'll meet them on the Yggdrasil in the morning. Our heroes head back to see if the adults have drunk themselves dead yet. Not entirely, as it turns out! Just Sigurd.
Well, they still can't launch without Sigurd! Not that they were planning on going anywhere. One gets the impression that Sigurd is the actual captain, and Bart is just in charge of blowing up other ships when Sigurd isn't looking. Jesiah heads back to the orphanage, thankfully fully clothed, and starts shouting drunkenly for Billy from the dining room. Billy comes in all pissed off because the kids are asleep, but Jesiah starts slagging off on the church and tells Billy he needs to quit. Billy is no mood -- Billy is pretty much permanently in no mood -- and Jesiah declares that Racquel, Billy's mother, died in vain if Billy just turned around and joined the church after she was killed. Well, this improves the atmosphere considerably!
Billy's sole argument for Jesiah not being his real dad seems to be that he doesn't like him. Ah, if only it actually worked that way. Everyone goes to bed, and the next day Billy comes on board before anyone else wakes up, because as we have seen the Yggdrasil has no security. Whatever, he probably isn't going to blow up the engines.
Billy launches into a tutorial about how to use his weapons, which consist of two handguns, two ether cannons (!), and a full-size shotgun (!!). No one else in this game has required a tutorial on their basic attack command.
Billy then tells the long, horrible story about how Jesiah abandoned the family when Billy was a kid, and his mother raised him and Primera alone for a while until zombies came and ate her.
Bishop Stone came in and saved Billy and Primera just in time, but Primera was so traumatized that she hasn't spoken since. Billy was so grateful to Stone that he joined the Ethos monastary and after several years became a priest and an Etone. He came home and opened the orphanage, and all seemed to be well, relatively speaking, until one day Jesiah came back! Billy's infuriated his father was alive out there while all these awful things were happening, and that he thinks he can just waltz back into their lives now. Primera immediately loves Jesiah best, though, and Billy is just spitting with rage over it!
This narration has been very bad at times, but for the record it's not making this up.
Well, we should go do something manly now! Like kill zombies! Elly can come, too. In fact, Elly should definitely come! Girls are great, right? Yes, yes they are!
Don't mind Bart, you guys, he's been under a lot of stress. It is time to deal with this zombie ship! The Yggdrasil finds it and our heroes board warily. Citan wants to know what that weird smell is.
The ship is, as advertized, chock full of zombies. Billy and company have to go through the entire ship to make their way to bridge, which probably means they boarded the wrong end of it. There are some disturbing things on this ship!
Our heroes reach the bridge. They are immediately attacked!
They fight the, uh... well, presumably the head zombie. Is there such a thing as head zombies? You know, like head vampires? Whatever, they fight and kill it. Before it dies, it mutters something about its "buddy," and this gets Billy concerned enough to put through some kind of radio communication back to the orphanage. Oh man, you guys, are you ready for this? So there's a kid who apparently just sits on the orphanage's roof waiting for Billy to send distress signals, at which point all the kids pitch in together to launch Billy's giant robot from the front lawn. Why does a priest own a giant robot, you ask? This game is not listening. La la la! it says. Giant robots uber alles!
Well, at least we aren't in Silent Hill 2 anymore. That's a terrible game to be in! |
