Part 24

A-ha! So she did kill him! The criminal always returns to the scene of the crime!

Ah. Well, I'm still right.

Hey, it's Roufas. Joker runs off and Emelia faints, so Roufas takes her to Koorong.

I'm not going to buy you any food, honey. I know all you supermodels are bulimic, that's just a waste of good food.

Hey, it's Liza! And Annie! And...um...some really stupid looking NPCs. That girl's beret is huge.

Turns out Gradius is a little underground group who takes on jobs that the IRPO can't handle.

We don't kill anybody. We'll maim them and cut their limbs off and surround them with saltshakers, but we don't kill them. Unless they're a Lummox. Then it's okay.

Yeah. Cube. This is the first time it comes up and to be honest, I don't really remember what it is. Probably something to do with Trinity, since this is the first storyline we've done that actually deals with them. I'm sure it'll come up.

Trinity's your standard evil corporation type people, they're a pretty major part of the overall storyline for Frontier that we've managed to sidestep so far.

Anyway, Roufas thinks Emelia would make a good operative (obviously he hasn't seen her stats) and offers us membership in Gradius.

Annie gives us a bit of her backstory, she's working to support her siblings who are both in institutions. Just like a regular working girl...

"So I joined an organization full of other people!" Geez, you ever met Steve Burnside, kid?

Liza tries to guilt us into joining.

"Dost thou love me?" "But thou must!" "Dost thou love me?" "But thou must!" (Actually, you can say no, but the story won't go anywhere until you do)

Well, you ARE getting one-shotted by half the enemies we encounter, so...

Roufas assigns Annie to help us train.

Training consists of, um, selecting attack about six times. Real intensive.

Next we get tossed into the Koorong sewers and have to fight our way out. Boy howdy, do I ever love going through the Koorong Sewers.

Luckily, we're only about two screens away from town. Real awesome training there, Gradius.

And that's the first mission, if you can call it that.

Well, you ARE a woman...

NO! THIS IS A HORRIBLE IDEA! Going to Devin and starting the Rune Quest right now gives us a one way ticket to Tanzerland, since we already have one rune. Even if Annie and Liza are with us, we're likely to get squashed at this level.

Emelia, like Red, is lucky enough to receive a paycheck now and then. Roufas gives us 500 credits, which is actually a lot at this point of the game.

We go and recruit Liza, as well as...

Annie. Also, I can't tell if she's joking or not.

Heading over to Mu's Tomb gets us Roufas as well.

I mostly recruited him to steal his handgun, since I'm not planning on using him much in this quest.

Anyway, let's continue the storyline.

Emelia eagerly volunteers, because...

...she assumes a "masked event" means a masquerade ball.

Of course, we've played Red's quest, so we know what it really is.

Hey, some BlackX goons! We haven't seen them for a while. Liza gives Emelia her "dress," so she goes to put it on.

Hooray, our first alternate outfit! This one supposedly boosts Emelia's skill at fighting moves, though I've never seen any real proof of that.

She just wanted to dance.

Well, it's better than Mr. Rerere.

A martial arts tournament where they let me use my guns? Anyway, this is just like the tournament Red was in, though a few of the opponents are different. It doesn't affect anything and you can lose in the first round if you want.

Yeah, I abused the hell out of save states to get this far, Emelia isn't near strong enough yet.

I just wanted her to fight Berva. They really should have had her story interact with Red's here, it's pretty much the exact same scenario.

After Emelia gets powerbombed into a bloody splatter by Berva, she spots Joker in the audience.

Of course you are.

The rest of this plays out exactly like Red's quest, even with BlackX goons running about.

Even the boss's dialouge is pretty much the same.

He's just as stupidly weak as before, Emelia probably could have handled this by herself.

I wish we had a Batman . Maybe Kratos will do. :kratos:

Next time: The Sexy Chapter! Bunny Girls and Dancing Mystics!