Matthews, Jailbait, and CHAOS!!! are waiting for their new passengers at the door to the bridge, mostly to ask Shion what the fuck, and why, and can she please go home. Jin is also there, standing against a wall and punching himself on the shoulder, not saying shit, and it’s weird. Shion explains in her inimitable way, “I can’t put it into words very well, but I felt I had to go to Old Miltia.” Well, it’s not her fault, it’s not like her fake Ph.D. is in communications. Matthews is taken aback at this, since “Representative [Windu] asked us to go to Old Miltia, too. I didn’t think there was anyone else crazy enough to head there.” Okay, first of all, lush, half the fucking galaxy seems to be headed there. Second of all, Shion knows this, she did a monologue about it and everything. Jailbait and Jin both unnecessarily add that they too have been tasked with going to Old Miltia, both at the request of Mace. Have none of the people on this ship actually spoken with one another on this entire trip? Have they been holding it in as they waited for Shion to show up and be the main character again?
Once they’ve all had at least two chances to say “Old Miltia” and marvel at the mysterious, invisible hand bringing them all together in this place like it wasn’t fucking Mace, Matthews announces they should talk to him when they’re ready to go. Aren’t they already…going? Never mind. If I start worrying about travel logistics on top of everything else I’m going to have a mental breakdown. Matthews also tells Shion to “take a look around the newly remodeled Elsa!” Oh, I’ve already seen what you’ve been getting up to in international space waters, you hot freak.
Shion’s got the run of the ship again, and talks to Canaan instead of Jin, obviously. He notes that the Hall of Doom that attacked Shion was an E.S., which, no shit. But he’s puzzled by this, because he’s in this game and therefore he’s dumb, but also, “There are two other E.S. crafts onboard the ship. They were all assigned here by Vector’s CEO. I didn’t think there were that many people that could pilot those things.” Literally everyone he’s ever met in his life can pilot one of those things!
He’s standing right there and it would be even weirder for me to keep avoiding over him just to make a point, so Shion speaks to Jin next. “I told you time and again to think before you act,” he says. I guess nobody told him time and again that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results. “Oh well, I’m just glad you’re safe. So, I assume you still intend to go to Old Miltia?” Jin, you were there for the entire preceding scene. Open your fucking ears, dude. He isn’t about to stop her–which I guess he could only do by throwing her out of the airlock, and if that robot wasn’t going to do it, her sainted brother sure isn’t–but he begs her, “Don’t do anything foolish. Do you understand?” Jin, what did I just fucking say?
‘There’s definitely a lot more yelling!’
Jailbait, CHAOS!!!, and the Elsa crew have nothing interesting to add, possibly ever again the way this has been going, so Shion tells Matthews to get this show on the road. A cutscene opens with Hammer and MOMO tapping away at keyboards and technobabbling at each other, mostly I think to do with the Immigrant Fleet’s speed in reaching Miltia, to which Matthews sighs, “Course, at this rate, we’re never gonna catch them.” I didn’t realize catching them was part of the mission, but I wasn’t there for the 60 different briefings Mace must have given. KOS-MOS politely interrupts to let Matthews know, “If we continue to proceed along the present course, it is highly probable that the enemy will leave a force to intercept us.” What, you mean that space battle with all the explosions and the dazzling debut of the E.S. Moonbeam might have given away their location? WEIRD. “It is prudent to assume,” she goes on, “that this ship will eventually suffer an extensive and unacceptable level of damage.” Or as we call it, Tuesday! Shion backs up her girlfriend, as if anybody needed her to. “I’m afraid KOS-MOS is right,” she says. “We’re in trouble unless we find a route where the enemy can’t detect us.” Oh no! How will they do that when they are in outer space and there’s only one linear path?! Matthews replies, “Look, I get what you’re saying, but how the hell are we supposed to do that?!”
Sometimes I remember when I liked any of the characters in this series and I get really sad.
Oh, Matthews is still going, and it’s…well. “This isn’t a highway, you know. It’s not like we can just take a detour or somethin’!” Ah, yes, highways, famous for all their detours that keep drivers, paradoxically, on the same road. And here’s MOMO, not to laugh in his dumb face and scoff, “What the fuck is a detour? We’re in space, there are near-infinite paths we could take,” but I guess I can accept what she does say: “Actually, there is a detour.” Sure. One detour. Why not. Everyone is still recovering from the shock that they’re not on a fucking railroad, so MOMO keeps talking, probably while writing some Ziggy/Mommy fanfic, “I’ve detected a small gap in the gravitational fields between the two black holes. If we fly through it, I think the chances of enemy detection would drop significantly.” But there’s a third black hole on the ship! What if they all merge together?
Matthews calls MOMO crazy, Shion points out that flying between two black holes would be, like, hard, and MOMO, the little girl with the supercomputer for a brain who gave them the exact fucking thing they were asking for and already evaluated whether it would work, hangs her head and says, “I guess it’s impossible…” I don’t know how you break this particular kid’s spirit again, but mission fucking accomplished! That is, until one person speaks up to let MOMO know he believes in her. “What? Impossible?” Tony says over his shoulder from his pilot’s chair. “Hey, hey, who do you think you’re talking to here? There’s no way Tony ‘Numero Uno’s’ gonna turn down a challenge like that!” Well, that’s not exactly believing in MOMO. Whatever. The camera zooms in on Tony’s face three different times as he says this, as this is a big character arc-defining moment for the guy I forget exists unless he and CHAOS!!! are flirting with each other. Hammer calls Tony a “moron” in an undisguised ploy to be Daddy’s Number One Special Baby, and Matthews ignores him entirely in favor of grumbling that Tony, in attempting this, had “better not even think about getting’ a scratch on my Elsa!” The real Number One Special Baby blasts off into the starry void, in a very linear fashion. Like it’s on a highway, but one with no detours.
Me, probably getting too worked up about how dumb this is
A cut later, the Elsa has nestled its long body between the twin black holes, and I can’t decide if I want to go with an extremely tiny cock with enormous, medically worrisome balls or the world’s most unsatisfying titty fuck. Reader’s choice. Anyway, as Tony guides the ship through the gap, Hammer announces that radar and sonar are dead. I assumed this sort of thing was the only reason they would supposedly “avoid detection,” and that it was therefore a feature and not a bug, but here these knotheads are freaking out about it. “It’s almost like we’d be better off flying blindfolded,” Tony says. I wait with no pleasure at all for him to actually put a fucking blindfold on, but just this once the writers decided that’s a bit much.
It’s too big! It’ll never fit!
Speaking of that. Hey, remember exactly zero scenes ago, when this exact route was put forward because if they just went the way they were originally planning, they were going to be intercepted by the bad guys? MOMO, how’s that going? “Tony, I’ve detected a massive distortion in the space ahead of the Elsa,” she reports. “A large mass is about to gate out.” Oh, the Wang is here. Finally, one mystery solved.
Fortunately? Unfortunately? That large mass turns out be not CHAOS!!!’s jumpsuit hog but–to my delight now and my chagrin very shortly–a gargantuan buttplug of a space station. (This game has been much lighter on the large scale sex toy weapons, and is absolutely the worse for it.) The team watches with a weird sort of horror, hands over their mouths and emitting gasps of fright, as the station reveals itself, inch by silicone inch. Finally, someone speaks. “Damn,” says Jailbait, “where were they hiding that thing?” Ha. Hahahahahahahahahahaha. Tremendous.
This is really screwing up my earlier metaphors.
As MOMO says the station is “moving into Elsa’s flight path,” and I resist the urge to draw arrows all over the fucking screen pointing at the empty fucking space literally everywhere else, the station starts launching all manner of missiles and fighter craft. “180 seconds to impact!” MOMO adds, I guess on the assumption that Tony’s just going to launch himself and all of them ass-first into this thing and die immolated but happy and free. Tony says, and maybe I’m reading too much into this but he seems not that upset about this, that there is no way to avoid it (picture me pointing some more, with increased agitation), because it’s “taking up the entire gravity well.” A gravity well is a field that is created by the mass of objects in space. The whole point of this fucking exercise was to go between the gravity wells of the two black holes, and that’s where the station is. It could also have its own well, but–I am cutting myself off. This is fucking dumb, is my point, as it always is.
Jailbait has a big ol’ fucking tantrum about the “Bastards!” not letting them pass, to which Matthews replies, uncharacteristically calm, “The only thing left for us to do is to make them move. Little Master, can we take them out from the inside?” Oh, I see. He knows he won’t actually have to do any work for this. Jailbait’s like, “Fuck yeah,” and spins his little pistols, basically daring me to still hate this. [SAM FROM FOUR HOURS IN THE FUTURE: Fuck off, you little ginger sadist! We are broken up now!!] “Tony, maintain present course and increase to maximum speed!” Matthews shouts. (“Boy fucking howdy,” Tony doesn’t have the chance to respond.) “Hammer, disengage all weapon safety locks. Don’t worry about aiming. Just let loose with everything we’ve got! We’re going to dive smack dab into that thing’s belly. It’s time you guys showed me what you’re made of.” That’s kind of harsh! I feel like they’ve done that plenty. Also, they’re going to fly up its side and end up landing on top of it. It’s fine. I was about to paraphrase that they were about to zoom up the buttplug’s ass, so I don’t know what room I have to fact-check.
With what is left in the effects budget, Tony dodges the Elsa through barrages of red laser fire (while screaming manfully), Hammer blasts enemy vessels to bits as the ship flies through the debris clouds, and the Elsa finally pulls up at a 90 degree angle to fly all the way up the shaft and to the fat bit at the top. The rest of the crew watches silently, convinced they’re about to get through this that easily, when a final laser blast takes out one of the Elsa’s engines, sending the ship into a tailspin and the people inside flying around like dice in a Yahtzee cup. Shion goes into a freefall and I hope, beyond reason, that this is the time she finally splatters herself on the interior of the ship’s windshield, but an uncanny valley slender robot arm reaches out and grabs her wrist before I can even look into the cost of a real wake for a fictional character. She and KOS-MOS gaze at each other for long enough that it starts to feel uncomfortable. Also, KOS-MOS is absolutely, 100 percent looking down Shion’s shirt. I am dead inside.
Shion Cheats Death Count: Frowny Face
The cutscene ends with the Elsa making a rough landing on top of the station, and we’re immediately back to the chipper default Elsa background music, which was sadly not knocked offline with the engine. Jailbait tells his assembled, extremely odd team they’re going inside to take the place out, obviously in the E.S. crafts. Good thing a third one just happened to present itself! The Elsa crew, plus Corey and Canaan, hang behind to fix the ship, which they will obviously complete on time and to everyone’s satisfaction. If there’s one thing we can count on in this series, it is character competency.
THAT’S your fucking nitpick?!
So like I said, there are three E.S. mechs: E.S. Asher, which is Jailbait’s or CHAOS!!!’s (or Canaan’s) depending on who’s topping that day; E.S. Dinah, a.k.a. E.S. Moonbeam, which is of course KOS-MOS’s but copiloted by Shion, and see above; and E.S. Zebulun, a cute little pixie of a Gundam piloted by MOMO and supervised in a dadlike fashion by Ziggy. Zebulun is the only one of the craft that allows the use of Ethers, relegating MOMO officially to the healbot destiny that was always awaiting her. You’ll also note that Jin is not in any of those pairings, but he is very much coming along, and I like to picture the “Standby Room” he’s in on the menu as a plastic bubble on a leash being towed, with great reluctance, by E.S. Moonbeam, and “accidentally” bonked into every sharp corner. (I’m pretty sure Jin can replace CHAOS!!!, Shion, or Ziggy as a copilot at this point, but it’s funnier to leave him in seventh wheel hell. He’ll get to do stuff later.) After 10 minutes or so of my customary futzing around with skill points, the three robots disembark on the surface of the fortress known as the Ormus Stronghold.
(I feel a bizarre and inexplicable need, at this point, to note that these E.S. names are three of the twelve children of Jacob, later known as Israel. Well, there should be thirteen, because the tribes of Israel were named after Jacob’s twelve sons, but for some reason Benjamin got the axe so KOS-MOS could pilot one named after the only daughter. I’m not complaining, though I am dying to know why Benjamin was the one that pissed off the game designers and not, like, Dan. Imagine getting the robot named Dan! Anyway, this is reference for its own sake and doesn’t fucking matter. Which is so weird, when every other biblical reference in this series is integral to teasing out the deeper themes in the plot and character arcs! Huh!)
I have obviously tipped my hand that this place sucks a heroic amount of ass, but it starts out innocently enough, as the Xenosaga series’s first mech dungeon. It is a mech dungeon in the same way they existed in Xenogears, i.e. with plenty of spots where the characters aren’t in their damn mechs. But one place in which they differ is the lack of the depleting fuel mechanic that made the old iteration a dreadful nightmare. Thus, I can have Jailbait tool his purple mech around the station’s roof in little figure eights because I feel like it, and not worry what will happen in an hour as a result. This is good, as I will have enough to worry about later. For now, Asher stomps its stilted Shion-esque legs along the surface, slicing up patrol robots with swords and laser guns as it looks for an egress. It’s not what I would call satisfying work, killing nameless, faceless drones, but it isn’t actively annoying. A pretty high water mark around here!