Meanwhile, MOMO is walking down a dim, candlelit hallway. Something she sees in front of her makes her say, “I knew it…I knew I wasn’t imagining it…” She’s happy, so I can only imagine she’s seeing her daddy again. Goddamn, is this girl gullible. Albedo didn’t even need to rent an ice cream truck. MOMO is only stopped in her trance-like march forward when she trips over the corpses of several more Kirschwassers. She’s all, “OMG, gross,” and doubles over with tears and dry heaves.

“Such tears…” Albedo says from behind her. He’s sitting on a throne, amidst a sea of dead Kirschwassers, including one sprawled in his lap. I won’t lie, it’s a striking visual. Albedo’s theme music is also swelling crazily in the background, so I guess the Song of Nephilim is taking the scene off and eating some popcorn. “What beauty they hold…these tears of sorrow… Surely they are the most precious substance in the world. But, are you worthy to shed such tears? The act of mourning the dead belongs to the realm of humans.” MOMO interrupts to ask if he’s the one that did this to her sisters, which is just a breathtakingly stupid question. “Ah, my beautiful little Kirschwasser… But still…” he says, toying with the one in his arms, “Can you really call this a corpse?” Hey guys, did you know that Realians aren’t human? It may have been mentioned before.

He’s still talking, for crying out loud. “Frailty, thy name is woman… No…that’s not right… You little Realians weren’t even born from a woman’s womb.” Holy shit, man, we get it. Really. Albedo dumps his latest murder victim on top of the pile and strides toward MOMO so he can smell her hair or something. “The human race, fearful in its weakness, built this world in a futile attempt to elude the abyss they call mortality,” he lectures at her. “Culture…civilization…all delusions created by a powerless race, and of little use, like a barren woman.” Okay, beyond how demeaning that is: what? I feel like I’m probably fighting a losing battle, arguing with a fictional character, but by that logic, how is a barren woman any less useful than a fertile woman, if you think humans are powerless, when procreating is the ultimate form of giving death the middle finger? People have children to further the species and, on a micro level, to pass on their names, and by Albedo Logic (note: not logic) that’s a waste of time. He’s obviously been rehearsing this little speech for a while, so you’d think he would have given a little more thought to his analogy.

“But admist all this,” he tells MOMO while basically fingerbanging her in his mind, “you continue to exist as an unfettered soul, free from the shackles of flesh and blood… A completely pure consciousness… An eternal spiral, undefiled by impurities…” YES, SHE’S VERY PURE. LIKE THE DRIVEN SNOW. FUCK. “A fusion of fire, breath, and spirit… What can we call you…but angels?” he asks rhetorically, but I’ll answer anyway: you can also call them RealDolls. “New, unadulterated psyches… But what you lack is reality.” And to demonstrate that shit is getting real, I guess, Albedo tears his own arm off, grunting, “And that is what I shall provide you with…!” His arm ends in a glowy purple stump at his elbow, which he waves around in MOMO’s face. When it regenerates with a pop, he yells “Boo!” at her, making Albedo that really gross kid in fourth grade who shows everybody his scabs. MOMO’s on the ground, backing away as much as she can, which Albedo finds so hilarious that he laughs his obnoxious hyena laugh for–I counted–nine seconds. That doesn’t sound very long, but trust me, it is.

What follows is probably the scene this game is known best for, which is fitting since it features three of the game’s hallmarks: over-the-top symbolism, braying insanity, and mindfucking young ladies. It’s also referred to by the person who put it up on Youtube as “one of the best scenes in videogame history.” Uh huh. So: not content with ripping off his arm to show MOMO how he’s beyond this mortal coil or some shit, Albedo goes one step further and wrenches off his head, which thuds to the ground, still fucking cackling. “Ah, ma belle pêche…” Albedo’s head says, “there’s no need to tremble like that. Else you’ll make me feel like a péché myself…” Maybe he’s saying he’d feel like a sin, rather than a sinner, because he’s OMG DEEP and I don’t get it, but if he has any interest in making sense, it’s pécheur. Whatever. MOMO is less concerned about language and more concerned about getting hacked to pieces and stored in Albedo’s refrigerator, so she doesn’t tell him this. The head continues to stare at her, and then says, “Was that a glimpse of a man I caught in your heart? Who is it, this red-haired…?” When he realizes MOMO is all moist for Jailbait, or as he calls him, Rubedo, he’s totally delighted, so much so that he grows another head. Not like that. Ew. “Do you know what he said while he coughed up his lifeblood?” he asks. Are we still talking about Jailbait? I don’t even fucking know anymore. “‘Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone.'” Maybe we’re talking about MOMO’s daddy, but I doubt Dr. Mizrahi is the only guy around here who loves quoting the Bible. “Wheat, eh?” Albedo says. God, I don’t care. “There’s enough of it, we can afford to waste as much as we want. Like my head, you see?” Again, his analogy sucks, but he tore off his own head to make it, so I have to at least give the guy an A for effort.

I wish I could do this right now.

Touching her face with his creepy pointy fingers again, Albedo asks, “What do you think, my beloved pêche?” MOMO has handled about enough of this shit for one day and faints dead away. I can relate. Albedo laughs some goddamn more over her body, as if to say the joke is on me for transcribing every preposterous fucking word he said.

You guys will have to forgive me an aside. I have mentioned in the past that I once sat through a 35-minute presentation in a university course on mythology that was entirely about the deep religious significance of Xenosaga and of these scenes with Albedo and MOMO in particular. Yes, someone thought the stuff Albedo just finished saying had enough academic merit to show it in its entirety to a room full of people. I didn’t respond then because I was struck dumb by the prospect of someone thinking this was a good idea, so this is my chance to reply.

With all due respect, Mr. Neckbeard, wherever you are, nothing about this is deep or meaningful. It’s nonsense. Worse, it’s cliché nonsense. Even having experienced it firsthand, I cannot believe that anyone could be so tone deaf as to subject a room full of innocent people, then untainted by this train wreck of a game (and me–haven’t I suffered enough?), to Albedo ranting and raving like a wannabe Hannibal Lecter. To this day, it is my high watermark for the self-indulgent shoehorning fanboys and fangirls will engage in to gush about their hobby to people who could not care less about it. Know that I hate you for making this the fourth time I have endured this scene.

I feel better.

We’ll be checking back in with Albedo and his captive audience for his stand-up routine in a bit, but for now it’s back to space and the situation with the Gnosis. The background music has brought an electric guitar into the fold, because we won’t know we’re supposed to be excited without it. If only they could do this entire scene on skateboards while eating Doritos, with background ads for Call of Duty, that would be even better. The dickweed bald commander from earlier is ready to fire on the Kukai Foundation, despite receiving no orders to do so, because “Their treachery is already well known!” I guess this is the sort of anti-Kukai sentiment Shion was chastising Corey about before. It would be tragic if Corey turned into this guy, but he’d have to grow a pair to do something like this anyway.

Also known as the Shocker.

Before Baldy McAsshat can act on his impulse, a sonic pulse of some kind erupts from nowhere and kills a swath of the Gnosis. The source of this wave gates out a second later–a massive starship with a rotating ring surrounding the ship itself and the biggest pair of ship cannons ever. Jailbait never thought he’d feel inadequate around another ship, but here we are. Shion, in a top-down shot that shows me way too much of her cleavage, lets us know that this is the fabled Dämmerhung, Vector’s top-of-the-line, double-penetrating, superweapon-slash-corporate headquarters. Aboard the Dämmerhung, the other Vector ships–Hoglinde II, Wellgunde, and Floßhilde–report in. The weapon used on the Gnosis, the Rhine Maiden, requires all four of these ships to fire. The lesson: there is always a bigger penis.

Wilhelm’s office is at the top of a pyramid at the center of the Dämmerhung, and it is from there that he oversees the second attack wave that kills off even more Gnosis. It’s pretty badass, you guys. On the Durandick, Shion is stating the obvious to herself about the Rhine Maiden weapon being operational when her second-favorite punching bag, Miyuki, appears on the screen and cheerily greets her. “Miyuki?” Shion asks. “Where are you calling in from…?” Oh, she’s at home but she figured she’d just drop you a line–where do you think, Shion? Christ. Miyuki squees a bit about the Rhine Maiden and how happy she is to have transferred to Vector’s Second R&D Division, though most of that has to be relief at not directly working for Shion anymore. Ignoring Shion’s incredulity at Miyuki transferring out of her yelling range, Miyuki asks, “Is KOS-MOS there with you?” Of course she is, so Miyuki “sends” over a black briefcase with the Vector Industries logo. Yeah, that means it just appears at Shion’s feet. Don’t even ask.

After Shion opens the briefcase, she arranges her features into her best bitchface, asking, “Miyuki? Isn’t this…?!” It turns out to be a little red module of some kind. It looks like a wall-mounted fire alarm. “There’s some type of force field concentrated near here,” Miyuki replies. “There’s a very high probability that it’s what’s attracting the Gnosis.” Of course, all Shion can say to that is “A force field?” Bint. Miyuki exposits that the force field is man made, and that Shion should attach the fire alarm, called a PT cartridge according to Shion, to KOS-MOS’s lady bits so KOS-MOS can link up with the Dämmerhung and find the source of the force field, which is concealing something in space. There’s a bunch of babble between the two ladies about the consequences of doing this, which amounts to Shion angrily yelling at Miyuki, “But this is dangerous because babble babble babble!” and KOS-MOS butting in to say, “Well it’s magically not dangerous this time because babble babble deus ex machina babble babble.”

You didn’t know she could do that?

Shion is still not convinced that she should allow this, like KOS-MOS couldn’t just take the cartridge and do it with or without her permission, but Jailbait tells her he is sure that they are dealing with the Song of Nephilim. “The Song of Nephilim?” Shion asks. At this point I can actually predict with about 95 percent accuracy when Shion will do that. Jailbait explains, “The single worst creation that ever resulted from Joachim Mizrahi’s research. It was the Song that destroyed Miltia and summoned the Gnosis.” This isn’t the complete truth, but Jailbait and everyone else in the universe thinks it is, so for now it is functionally true. “We’ve gotta stop it before everything goes out of control.” After a beat: “Out of control…?” She’s so smart!

On top of that, Jailbait and Ziggy remind Shion–who died and made Shion the boss of the goddamn universe?–that they haven’t yet found MOMO, and that more Gnosis could appear at any time, so hemming and hawing about this isn’t helping anybody. She finally relents, and after a moment we cut to space, where KOS-MOS is floating around with her new toy. Shion warns her in babble to be careful, so KOS-MOS keeps herself at the lowest possible setting or whatever. Using this weapon involves KOS-MOS loading the fire alarm cartridge into a gun–not R-CANNON, but an actual handgun. As soon as it’s cocked–heh–the gun transforms into maybe the biggest AK-47 ever made. It’s so large that it has little legs to steady it, which is so necessary when it has nothing to actually stand on. Once they’ve established a point to fire at, KOS-MOS fires the “phase transfer cannon” on Shion’s command. It shoots a glob of blue light into space, and after a few moments, Albedo’s inverted pyramid hiding place, and the place I will deeply wish to forget by the time this recap is over, is revealed.

Today is ‘Make the Durandick feel Inadequate’ Day.

Inside, Albedo feels a rumble and realizes he’ll soon have guests. He sets MOMO, still unconscious, down on his chair. “I think I’ll have a look around…” he creeps at her, “for that key that sleeps inside you.” And when he says “have a look around,” he means using his pointy fingers to probe around inside her brain. Or, to put a finer point on it: he’s mindraping her. MOMO wakes up at this intrusion and moans for him to stop. She tries to focus on Jailbait and the silly bracelet he gave her, but she’s scared and it’s not really working. If you were wondering, yes, these scenes were also in the presentation, and it was deeply uncomfortable. If anything, recapping this is actually easier–I mean, there’s nothing I love better than trying to make jokes during a rape scene!–because at least I’m not watching this with a room full of people.

Back on the Durandick, our heroes are staring down the Song of Nephilim and talking to themselves about it. For future reference, because I think it’s confusing and obnoxious that they decided to refer to both the actual song and the location as the Song of Nephilim, the location will be known as the Phallus of Nephilim. Suddenly, Jailbait hears MOMO’s voice calling for help, presumably through his, er, magic bullet. “MOMO’s inside that thing!” he tells everyone else, and the MOMO clones on the bridge confirm that they can detect her now. Everybody else wonders how the hell she got there, but Jailbait knows perfectly well it was Albedo. “I felt his presence…the moment I heard MOMO’s voice…” Gaignun figures he’s right, given the “unsettling feeling” both of them had earlier. Ziggy demands to know what Albedo would want with his sweet little robot angel, to which Gaignun replies, “That girl MOMO…not only is she a specialized Realian, but also the repository for the late Joachim Mizrahi’s records. Albedo and the [U-GEE] Organization want that information. They’ve wanted it for a long time…” Okay, for starters, Ziggy already knew about the data in MOMO’s brain, because Yuri Mizrahi told him about it. But I didn’t think anyone knew at this point that Albedo was working for U-GEE. In one sentence, Gaignun went from “DURRRRRRR!!!” to “Where the hell did that come from?”