Part 119: ???

Did you hear the news? Yeah, yeah, about poor poor poor Ms. Hansen.

Aw. Look how she ended up. I liked her, I really did.

Yeah, no, I met her when I visited Hightower. That place reeked to high heaven. Smelled the exact scent of our dear pawn pushing pal.

Thought I'd sew a little chaos, as a gift...

But after digging around a little, turns out no, this place was being run by this hack called 'Amadeus'. ...Yeah, absolutely no relation. Really killed my buzz.

Anyways, while I was there, I met with our would-be mastermind.

I don't know how I do it, how I do it all the time, really, I impress myself. I have a nose for this sort of thing.

But even though our meeting was brief, I got into a pretty deep conversation with her. I could sense the darkness inside her. She was perfect.

We exchanged contact info, and I promised I'd see her before too long. And from there, well... maybe I did wait 'too long'. What can I say, I was busy!

Time flies when you're having fun. But I did plan on coming back for her, promise.

I really did plan to make her one of my Monkeys.

And yet, it's quite ironic. Because while I was gone, all on her own... she made herself her own Monkey.

But she was a Monkey under her own control. And look how that ended up for her.

I guess that's what happens when someone like that goes without a leadership like mine.

...Oh, I know you already know this. You've always been my most reliable.

Anyways, looking into her story, it's clear she wasn't a huge loss. The technical skill was there, but she lacked the art of it all. A shame, nonetheless.

...Moving on... We've had our fun for quite some time, and you know I love having fun. But if we want to keep having fun, well, we've got to rid ourselves of the forces that seek to smother us.

...Right. It's time to take an earnest shot at them. But don't worry about it! They've hardly been handling us when we were just messing with them.

Do you really think they stand a chance when we get serious?