Part 50: Divided Halves
Part 50 - Divided Halves.jpg)

Last time we left off we... uh, hold on a moment... Ah yes, we'd recently returned from the AG Chemie run where we eradicated what felt like the entirety of Germany's Knight-Errant presence with the help of a hulking Cyberzombie. We were also informed about the presence of some kind of a super lethal radioactive bio-weapon delivered to the Harfeld Manor because things were so goddamn great already.
We were in the middle of our usual crew member chat sessions during which we suggested that Dietrich dedicate his and the Dragonslayer's efforts on defending the Flux State instead of committing suicide by dragon, and we told Blitz to call off his pursuit of his disappeared ex after an unexpected but pretty clear message from the woman in question. Glory meanwhile was still struggling with her traumatic past involving an exploitative cult and her link to the Adversary.
And what's going on with Eiger today then?





Heard of a guy like that once, apparently a real wiz with a wrench. They say he could put together a lethal turret in a few seconds flat and there were even some pretty wild rumors about instant travel devices or something.




Us, we're more of a disorganized crime specialist.


Ah, the good ol' supremacist murdering days. We were so young then.


We don't exactly have the time to run around preventing crime all over Berlin here, in fact some might argue that we've largely done the opposite so far. But if it's big enough to bother Eiger this much then I guess playing Fledermausmann for a day can't be helped, if only so that she can focus on more important things.





If you want to make an impression at a job interview, nothing does it quite like busting out your past experience with human traffickers and organ harvesters. Just a small lifehack for you there.


[She shakes her head.]

We can agree to let her go for a while or tell her we'll come along. As the team leader we could also order her not to bother, but antagonizing her after all the time and effort it took to make her trust us doesn't seem like the smart way to go about things.


Of course we can hold up our end, though the idea that no one else is even allowed to know seems pretty unnecessary if not downright stupid. What if the run goes sideways and we get captured or something, and no one'll even know where the heck we suddenly disappeared to? We're like all of this team's real firepower too, with all due respect to Dietrich and Glory there's no way Team Support can they take on a final boss by themselves.
But yeah alright fine, mandatory two-person groups are written in the Personal Mission Law and that's one of the precious few we are not allowed to break.


Now before we go visit Lucky Strike's favorite hangout, we still have one final Green Winters DVD to get through which Maliit had delivered to us earlier.

Let's load this thing up.

Four tracks this time. As always we'll just work our way down, starting from Track 1.

4 years ago, long after Vauclair's disappearance but before the current shitstorm.



Clearly a bad scene but that's a pretty cool van. Not sure how they managed to park it there though.



At least that's the official story, actually though dragon breath can't melt steel beams and Bush did 8/22 wake up dataslaves









We know they succeeded, and remarkably quickly too considering they were fighting a damn dragon in the year 2012.




[He takes a moment to calm himself.]



Recent studies indicate that the metagene is linked to as many as 75% of all known cases of catastrophic fourth wall breakage.




Huh, now that's something new. Guess forty years of torment would be understandable enough motivation for someone to feel a little upset about the way things went down. Kinda reminiscent of the Cyberzombie, actually.


Joke's on them, some of us were jobless and hiding in our basements long before 2012 made it mainstream.


That much is a given, but there's still nothing but question marks in the space between the doc heading off to the SOX again and the mess we have in present day. If the dragon's really in that manor instead of the SOX then at some point she must've either been hauled out of the wasteland for some unknown reason, or she must've eventually recovered from this bizarre weapon's effect enough to get out on her own.
Then there's the burned and irradiated ork, and this Doom crap we just found out about... we're gonna need a lot of answers from Vauclair or Audran or Firewing or whoever the hell we'll happen to find in a talkative mood first.



A solid call from the man, all things considered. Two more tracks to go.


Back in the good old days, huh.







[Winters swipes a bottle off the table in front of him, drains it, and drops it to the floor.]

Oof, that sure aged like 21-year-old milk.

Certainly an interesting way to put it while you're literally sucking on a stick yourself.
[Winters snorts.]

[Vauclair shakes his head. His smile has disappeared.]


[Green Winters chuckles uncomfortably. Raises his hands in the air in a supplicating gesture.]


Okay, let's tone down the levels of getting real a tad here
[Winters shakes his head.]

[Vauclair sighs. He looks incredibly tired.]


[Vauclair's tone softens again.]

[Winters cuts his brother off. A new intensity burns in his voice.]

[Vauclair nods, then looks away from the screen.]


And we all know how well that attempt ended up. Tragedy on the scale of the events of 2012 destroy lives long after they've passed, and this particular family ended up being no exception.

Been some unexpectedly heavy stuff on this disc, one dreads to imagine what kind of bombs the final track is going to drop on us.



...
...


Right it's definitely time to go, can't keep Eiger's contact waiting any longer.
-- EXTRAS --
Only one bit of alternate dialogue of singificance here, namely ordering Eiger to not go after the Engineer.
quote:
I know how important it is that we resolve the Feuerschwinge situation. I get it. But I can't just sit back and let this happen.
[She shakes her head.]
I won't.
As the leader of this team, *I* say what our priorities are. And I say that dealing with this mercenary pales in comparison with stopping the Firewing.
With all due respect, you don't know what you're talking about. You haven't seen what happens to the places that the Engineer goes to work on. We're talking about increased violence in the streets, the proliferation of the drug trade, and people pressed into sexual slavery.
If the Engineer is working for Tamanous, we could even be looking at wide-scale organlegging and fetus farming. And that horrible shit won't stay confined to Schattennest - it'll bleed over into the Kreuzbasar.
[She looks you dead in the eye.]
You really wanna tell me that we can't spare the time to stop all of that? That you don't think it's *important* enough?
I'm not going to argue with you, Eiger. I've made my decision, and it's final. You're staying here.
[Her lip curls, and she shakes her head at you.]
All right, fearless leader. You win. I'll stay here - for the team. But when we're done with this Feuerschwinge situation, I'm gone, you hear me? I won't hang around here to watch Schattennest fall, and I won't watch it drag the Kreuzbasar down with it.