The first objective of this mission is to run down to the catapult deck and meet up with Ziggy and MOMO. Who will, I’m very sure, be thrilled to see that their new comrades-in-arms are a slutty, brainless girl, a creepy geisha-bot, and a femme guy with his dick hanging out. So Shion, CHAOS!!! and KOS-MOS save and go down the elevator, to fight a zillion A.G.W.S. Near the elevator, KOS-MOS (my lead character for obvious reasons) sees a group of them wandering the floor. “Our priority is to get rid of the mother ship that raided the hangar,” she tells me. “Considering the current situation, if we confront the Auto-Techs here, we will waste 2143.15 seconds.” So: don’t bother fighting the Auto-Techs. Unless you want to level up. Which I do. So ignore all that. At any rate, KOS-MOS runs up to a control panel on a nearby wall and activates some magnetic field on the metal floors in the basement, rendering all the A.G.W.S. motionless, what with their metal bodies. Obviously, since I have KOS-MOS in the party, the game designers add an element of realism and my own group will be similarly encumbered. No, I’m actually serious. At least in certain parts of the basement, it does, in fact, become more difficult to walk on the floor. You may now do a double-take, let your jaw drop comically to your desktop, fall out of your chair, drop dead, or any other tested and approved methods of expressing shock of your choice.

Back to Ziggy and MOMO. They’re both fine, so they start fighting their way out of the catapult deck to meet up with the coming help. I think I’d take the enemy A.G.W.S., personally. It actually takes almost no time at all for the two groups to meet up, so before I know it Shion is introducing herself and her companions to Ziggy and MOMO. Ziggy just about introduces himself with his model number, but he takes a look back at a reproachful MOMO and amends, “Call me Ziggy…” “She is MOMO…” he adds, as the camera pans up her nubile young body. Ick.

No, THANK GOD.

Shion basically says it’s too early to be celebrating their safe escape and tells them what they fucking witnessed first-hand: enemy units have invaded the ship. Seriously, they were there. Ziggy explains that it’s U-GEE that’s after them, and that they need to take out the mother ship, which at the very least KOS-MOS already knew. “So unless we do something, the enemy will overrun the ship,” Shion says. Yes, I would say there’s a pretty fucking good chance of it, Shion. Jesus.

Before Shion can continue her favorite game, “Repeat Things Other People Say to Make Herself Look Smarter,” the cyborg and the Realian join the party. I boot Shion’s ass out of the battle trio lickety split, though I know I’m going to have to put her back in later. Sigh. With CHAOS!!!, KOS-MOS and MOMO (all-caps ONLY!!!), I return to fighting my way to the bottom of the ship where the mother ship is. No one has actually told me where the mother ship is, so I suppose it’s a good thing that I know already.

Once I’ve fought all the robots I care to, KOS-MOS runs to the room aft of the A.G.W.S. hangar, where the mother ship is sitting on its metal butt, reading Good Housekeeping. My party is now CHAOS!!!, Shion and KOS-MOS, since the former two have A.G.W.S. and KOS-MOS is buff enough to survive anyway. I would complain about having to oust MOMO in favor of Binty O’Booberson, but once she’s in the A.G.W.S. I don’t have to look at or listen to her, so it’s all good, really.

The mother ship’s official name is the DOMO Carrier, because it carried DOMO robots or whatever. The clever names in this game. In the first round Shion and CHAOS!!! immediately jump into their A.G.W.S.–CHAOS!!!’s model is a large white one with fabulous lavender trim–while KOS-MOS smacks the spider-like DOMO Carrier with R-Cannon. Unfortunately for KOS-MOS, the main reason to use A.G.W.S. in this battle is that the DOMO Carrier dishes a lot of damage, so while the others sit comfortably in their mechanical meat shields, she takes all the abuse head-on. But better off dead in battle than alive in Shion’s bedroom, I always say.

Once the DOMO Carrier is “dead,” as it were, we fast forward a bit, and pick up with the Elsa out of hyperspace. Corey and Hammer assess the damage done during the hyperspace chase. Simply put, the Elsa got smacked up like a bitch. Hammer blames Tony for this, since he’s the reckless pilot who nearly killed them all. Yes, it had nothing to do with the ships that attacked the Elsa, Hammer. Ass. Tony and Hammer go back and forth and almost get into what would undoubtedly be a hilarious slap fight, but Matthews makes them shut up. Matthews is just building up a good head of steam yelling at both of them for being whiny pussies when CHAOS!!! and Shion come back, Shion complaining that she wishes she had spent more time practicing with firearms back at the training facility. Because you’re so in the party for your prowess with weapons and not just for your ether and healing. Stupid.

Waaaaaaaaaaaah

Matthews pauses his chewing out of his underlings and asks about the new guys, who just walked in with KOS-MOS. CHAOS!!! introduces them. “Looks like they’re both with the Federation government,” he explains, adding that U-GEE was the responsible party for the chase back there. Matthews is, to my knowledge, the first person to freak out at the name. “Never thought I’d have to hear that cursed name again,” he says, hugging his hat to his head. Hammer wonders what U-GEE is, but Matthews doesn’t want to talk about it. Tony also ignores Hammer’s question, leaving the navigator in a very foul mood. He returns to his console and starts screaming at Corey, as that seems like the easiest thing for anyone to do when they’re pissed off and need to vent. Corey looks sad. Corey always looks sad.

Yeah, this little episode could end here, but nooooooooooooo. We have to adjourn back to the mess hall, for a little get-to-know-everyone-fucking-AGAIN session. This time, Shion and Corey are at a table, Matthews and Hammer at the one behind them, CHAOS!!!, Tony, Ziggy and MOMO are at the bar, and KOS-MOS is playing naughty waitress and serving drinks. At least she isn’t wearing a French maid outfit. I have to thank the deities for the small things in this game.

There’s also no curry. Thank you, Jesus.

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At the bar, CHAOS!!! and Tony are recalling with amazement the battle in hyperspace. “I gotta say though,” Tony says to Ziggy, “those were some pretty sweet moves out there, old man.” Ziggy, feeling his phantom penis shrink a little, defers to MOMO, who brightly replies, “Thank you very much!” Tony wigs, now feeling very sympathetic with Ziggy’s emasculation. Tiniest penises ever in this room. With one obvious exception.

As Tony walks off to cry, Shion comes over and takes his seat. “That’s pretty amazing, even for a Realian,” she tells MOMO. Further, Shion recognizes the symbol on MOMO’s outfit as the insignia of the Mizrahi Lab. Ziggy gives MOMO a shushing look, but Shion puts their minds at ease: “If you’re concerned about government secrets, KOS-MOS is one too.” She says this like keeping a government secret is about as serious as remembering your hair appointment. “So,” she continues, “you’re a 100-Series Observational Realian from the Mizrahi Lab?” Yay, Shion is doing me, the gamer, an IMMENSE favor by regurgitating everything she hears in the exact wording she heard it. I’m so thankful I think I’ll stab my eyes out.

The three of them talk a little bit about the Hilbert Effect, so we know that both MOMO and KOS-MOS have it installed, because we didn’t already know. “But of course, ours is a Vector original,” Shion adds with an air of importance. God, stop talking, please.

MOMO is interested that Shion works for Vector. Shion indicates that Corey is also a Vector employee, and we get a pan over to where he’s sitting, now with Tony sitting next to him and poking him in the ribs for his own amusement. Poor Corey.

CHAOS!!! inquires as to where they’re headed, and we “find out” that Ziggy and MOMO also need to get to Second Miltia. There’s some “OMG you too!!” dialogue, as if it’s so amazing that more than one person needs to go to the capital of the friggin’ universe or whatever. But Matthews remembers, at CHAOS!!!’s reminder, that the Elsa is leaking fucking fluids into space, and that they need to stop at the Dock Colony to patch her up. No big, says everyone.

And this set of events is STILL NOT OVER, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. Matthews breaks my heart into ten thousand tiny pieces by asking, “Hey, Ms. Vector. Show them around the ship, would you?” No. NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Sure enough, now Shion has to make a second tour of the ship, this being her third tour of a ship since the beginning of the game. Why do I have to play through this? What possible benefit could I possibly get out of touring the ship AGAIN? Why can’t I assume that our new party members give themselves a tour? WHY?!?!?!?!?!

I think my brain just broke.

In the galley, Shion and MOMO have some inane conversation with KOS-MOS, who’s washing the dishes. Basically MOMO offers to help, KOS-MOS says she doesn’t need it–since she’s an efficient robot, go figure–and Shion calls her pet rude for shooting MOMO down. “And she’s always like this!” Shion complains to her new little female friend. Yeah, it sucks that she’s the way you designed her, you hag.

…Yes. She is so not cute.

Shion shows them around the cabins, the bridge, the basement, the A.G.W.S. hangar, and pretty much every damn other little nook and cranny on the Elsa. There are little bits of “funny” dialogue in each location–including Shion talking about how staying up late is bad for one’s complexion, tee hee!–but…it’s just not worth my sanity, guys. Considering that I now know the Elsa inside and fucking out, this is probably the dumbest thing I’ve been made to do yet, and in this game that is fucking saying something. So I’m going to assume you can live without me recapping every idiotic goddamn thing Shion says to Ziggy and MOMO in this quest. I know you can. You’re strong.

Suffice it to say that Shion gets a dozen more emails, acts like a moron, and wiggles her ass. Totally new and baffling behavior, here. Once Ziggy and MOMO have been bored to absolute death after being walked through the Elsa for a fucking hour or so, Shion leads them to the cabins and they retire for the evening, allowing me to save. FINALLY.

Okay, I’m done. I think I lost a piece of my soul that I’ll never get back, but the recap is over. In case anyone was wondering, there is a reason I stuck it out and sat through all two hours’ worth of gameplay for this recap: next time, I get another mini-vacation from Shion as we meet a handful of new characters. They’re really not anyone special. There’s certainly not a disturbingly sexy 12-year-old redhead boy in a trenchcoat who will send me straight to the ninth circle for thinking bad, dirty thoughts about him. No, no one like that. It’s all about getting rid of Shion for an hour. I swear. See you in Hell part eight.