Part 74: Episode LXXI: The End of Billy Lee Black’s Rotten Day

Episode LXXI: The End of Billy Lee Black’s Rotten Day

Music: Knight of Fire


I’d just like to remind everyone that in-game we met Billy yesterday... And everything from the Reaper Ship all the way up to now has been in the span of a few hours. To recap:

• Everyone Billy has worked with for the last four years is dead.
  
• Billy’s faith has been discovered by be just a load of shit and his church is just a front for Sky Nazi slavery.
  
• Also all his superiors were child molesters.
  
• Subsequently he’s now unemployed while having an Orphanage and little sister to support.
  
• Billy’s mentor has turned out to also be a Sky Nazi. And had his mom killed by zombies because she wouldn’t bone him.
  
• He’s been attacked by an anime bunny girl, a female robotic version of himself, and probably gotten a concussion from Id. And now said mentor peeled off all the skin on his face and is trying to kill him too.
  
• He accidentally just shot his dad out of a cannon.
  

It’s been a rough one for poor Billy Lee Black.


Thanks to Buntline’s kamikaze attack, Alkanshel can now be attacked like any other enemy. So we now need to drain 10,000 HP to take out this jerk. This is easier said than done, unfortunately. Alkanshel is kind of a bitch to defeat. It only has two attacks...but they’re both really powerful ones.


New to the second half of this fight is Mass Limit, which halves the entire party’s HP. That is a...pretty sizable chunk of damage to our party in one go. It uses this attack every few rounds so it is rather hard to stay healed.


On top of that, it still has its 1200+ HP damage dealing Seal attack to any single party member. A Mass Limit and two or three Seals and any of our party are toast. Now, we can scramble between healing up between rounds and trying to pull a meager offensive. Or we can just be cheap. Personally, I do not feel like sitting through ten minutes of cutscenes again to take another crack at this jerk. So let’s be cheap.


Remember that EtherDoubler we bought a few updates ago back in Nisan? Well, I slapped that on Elly when we bought it. The primary reason we want on EtherDoubler is because it turns Elly into the single most broken character in Gears on the first disc. EtherDoubler, as the name suggests, is basically like casting any magic skill twice in a row but folded into one turn. This also includes special Ether attacks, like Elly’s Aerods. The thing is, it double Ether cost...but Aerods run on Fuel. This means we get an already powerful as hell attack twice as deadly with absolutely no additional cost.






So yeah, we’re outputting 3000+ damage per turn with Elly against this boss. She could solo the thing in three rounds and change. Cheap? Sure. But hey, just one of the many ways to break the game’s difficulty over your knee.




As a final dick move, Bishop Stone’s Gear explodes in a fiery blaze hitting the entire party for 600-800 damage. I’m sure there’s one poor sap out there that just got by this battle by the skin of their teeth only to get taken out in Alkanshel’s death throes.

After the battle...


"Billy... I should not have made such a thing..."
”No shit!”
"No, it's not your fault..."
”Well...okay...it’s partially your fault. But, my father was the one who got drunk and climbed in the thing...”


Billy turns and fires a few shots off into the ocean to honor his father. I’m gonna miss that silly boozed up cowboy dad.


Jessie gets sick of everybody moping around and wanders over. What? You think getting shot out of a giant gun would kill him? Pfft.


"Old friend! Are you alright?"
*pulls out shotgun* "You'd better believe it! I ain't gonna leave that stupid junk alone! I improved it!"
”That was the stupidest goddamn Gear design I have ever seen. Glad I read the part of the manual about shootin’ the goddamn pilot out of a bullet in the cannon mode. Were you drunk when you thought that up?”
“Yes... You were there. You thought it was hilarious at the time...”
“...Right. Heh.”
"Ouchy-wow-wow!! But I never wanna do that again though..."
"But still... talking about hell... I am surprised to know an irreligious person like you would believe in life after death..."


“That was a curse. Isn't that a fitting end for him?"
”You ain’t gotta be a bible thumper to get a kick out of telling someone to go to hell.”
"It is definitely your style."

Primera walks over...


"P, Prim!? Prim, what did you just say? Huh, Prim?"

Music: The Valley Where the Wind is Born


"Ha, ha, did you hear that? Primera's problem seems to have been solved!"
”Just took a few explosions and some big guns. Always knew that fixed most everything.”
"Hah...! Prim talked! Prim just talked! Hey, Prim... Now say my name. Say 'Billy'!"
“...”


No dice, Billy. Everyone has a big laugh and we’d undoubtedly freeze frame and roll the credits for this episode as Act III draws to a close. But eh.... Something is... Something is missing here... What could it be...?


“...?”


Ah! There we go! Much better...












Jesiah Black Concept Art – I like the random flask hanging above his shoulder on the right.