Xenogears Part #6 - Episode VI: The Exile of Fei Fong Wong

Part 6: Episode VI: The Exile of Fei Fong Wong

Episode VI: The Exile of Fei Fong Wong

”Ugh... What a dream... I dreamt that Gears were fighting in Lahan and I hijacked a giant robot and Timothy got shot while doing a back flip and I freaked out and destroyed the entire village... And I was in my underwear... Must have been something I ate... I bet it was that egg... That’s the last time I d—err...”

"Oh, you have finally gained consciousness, Fei..."

"Doc... What happened...? Where's Chief Lee, Timothy, Alice...? What did I...?"

"Yes... Well that is..."

“Dan!”

"...!? Dan, what do you mean...?"

"Fei... It...was because you had to go get in that monster... Alice and Timothy... The people of the village are all...!! You killed everyone using that monster...!!"

"...!?"

<So...that did all really happen... But why are my pants on...? And where is the giant robo—>

“...Oh.”

“How do you even know how to operate such a monster...?”

“Mother...? Where’s mother...?”

“See, I told you so...I said allowing someone we knew nothing about into our village would spell disaster...”

“Owww... Hurts... It hurts...”

Fei turns back toward Dan and the rest of the villagers, but they’re all quite rightly scared shitless of him and back up...

"Dan... There is nothing to be gained from putting the blame all on Fei alone. What is more, you know Fei had no control over the malfunction of that Gear."

”Well, other than being completely untrained in operating a war machine...”

"I... I know that! But... But...!!”

Dan runs off wailing into the horizon. Unfortunately I highly doubt that is the last we will see of him.

“He does not know what to do with his grief, his anger..."

...His hate, his suffering...”
“You should have started with ‘fear’.”
“It has been a long evening, Fei. I am off my game... Anyway...”

“Fei... It may be a good idea for you to leave this place. There is no guarantee that reinforcements from yesterday's unit are not going to come... They will probably want to know what happened to their comrades. Also, if you stay here, I do not think the atmosphere is going to be very joyful...if you know what I mean. It is probably best for both you and all the other villagers here."

"I guess you're right... This disaster happened because I was here..."

”...in the Gear.”
“Indeed, I fear.”

"But...what am I supposed to do now...?"

*ponders* "Yes, well... Why not go through the Blackmoon Forest and head for Aveh? I am sure those soldiers from yesterday were not from Aveh. If you can manage to get to the Aveh side, they will not be able to track you down very easily."

”From there...hmm... Volunteer at a local orphanage, perhaps?”
“...”
“Okay perhaps that was in a bit of poor taste.”

*nods* "Okay... I understand, doc... Well anyway... Please take care of the rest of the things here, doc."

*nods* "Of course... Well, do take care now."

Fei turns back one last time to the surviving villagers he’d orphaned and/or made homeless. See if you can guess which member of this crowd we’ll actually see again at some point in the game. It’s the kid in the blue tunic at the top right. He’s the Disc 1 Endboss.

Fei turns back to the Gear he used to murder most of his friends and neighbors with...

And so Fei wanders off alone, swearing off ever piloting a Gear ag—pfft... Hahaha... Yeah, right. Oh well, off to the world map!

Music: Emotions

That is the last we’ll ever be seeing of Lahan. We can still visit the Mountain Pass and Citan’s House to steal his savings, eat his birdseed, or pilfer his daughter’s jewelry. But, anything we failed to pick-up in the village proper went up in smoke during the end of that last sequence.

Our destination isn’t very far from the ruins of Lahan. But, it’s worth doing a bit of grinding out in the fields before venturing to the next dungeon.

Wandering out in the fields are these little guys, Lil’ Kobolds. These guys give decent experience. But more importantly, Fei can strip their corpses’ clothing for a Fencing Wear and Cap to upgrade from Fei’s default equipment. In Xenogears equipment comes in varieties of:

Head Equipment
Body Equipment
Accessories

and later on weapons. Fei’s fists are his weapons, so he doesn’t get that equipment.

Back during the Gear battle, Fei reached Level 5 and got a +1 boost to his overall Stamina from 3 to 4. This unlocked Fei’s first Deathblow. Deathblows are special super combo attacks characters can perform in battle by inputting the correct attack sequence. Our first Deathblow, Raijin, is performed with a Weak and a Fierce attack.

This basically makes Fei do Terry Bogard’s Power Wave to his opponent. Pretty handy. Deathblows take the same amount of Stamina as using if we’d just done a Fierce and Weak attack. So, there’s little reason not to be rockin’ the flashy special moves during combat.

Enough of that. Blackmoon Forest is just a short trip west of Lahan’s smoldering wreckage. And beyond that we can get a glimpse of Aveh’s desert a bit past the woods. Alright, into the forest. How bad can it be...?

Music: Forest of the Black Moon

Lovely place. Welcome to the first proper dungeon. There...really isn’t particularly interesting going on in this first area. It contains mostly the same random battles as back on the Mountain Path.

The only newbie is this little scorpion looking bugger, the Armor Grubs. As their name might suggest, their thick shells are fairly sturdy and Fei’s kung-fu is quite ineffective.

However, zapping the wildlife with focused mind blasts will one-shot ‘em. The impact of having just slaughtered an entire village of innocent people may be weighing heavily on poor Fei’s thoughts...but our hero will still not put up with punk ass critters giving him shit.

Other than that, there is a bit of platforming along fallen logs and tree stumps, as well as running away from boulders in order to proceed further into the woods. But, once we do make it further into the forest we are quite sudden thrust back into the Anime Zone™!

“*Angry, vaguely German sounding gibberish*”

”Great... Who is pissed at me no—”

“*Continued angry vaguely German sounding yelling*”

<Hello, nurse!>

“Dah noul raun tak. Rahna koute!"

“Uh...”

<Oh, gee. It’s a local... Where the heck am I again...? Somewhere near Aveh...? Lord, I haven’t practiced surface language studies since before the academy. Oh gee, he’s staring at me... Uhh...>

"Throw down your weapon. Make one wrong move and I'll shoot."

”Err...what weapon...?”

"..."

"I said... turn around!"

”You...know we’re in a RPG, right? That thing is going to do like 20 HP of damage, tops...”
“We are in a cutscene! Now, turn around!”

Fei complies. The mysterious armed redhead jumps down and approaches him...

”Think you can shoot that thing, rookie?”
“Careful, I’m no rookie.”
“Liar. That nervous glance... that scared look in your ey—“
“Shut up, -Lamb-. I’m not playing reference games with you.”
“Tch... Fine.”

"Be quiet! You don't seem to be one of the Kislev soldiers who are after me... but..."

Fei turns around...

"Don't move! I have orders to kill all surface dwellers, -Lambs-, I come in contact with... It's part of my mission. It's nothing personal. Now, I have a question for you. ... How do I get out of this forest?"

”No! I just got turned around is all...”

"Just answer my question! How do I get out of here?"

"Sorry... but I'm looking for the way out of here too."

“Oh..."

The woman puts away her pistol and looks dejected that the only person she’s come across is a clueless yokel...

“If you're going to shoot me, then hurry up and do it."

*looks up* "What an odd thing to say! Don't you understand the situation you are in?"

"I don't care about my situation... I'm just a guy whose life is worthless... There's no point in me living anyway!"

<Terrific... Clueless and a creep.>

Fei steps toward the woman. She gets spooked and pulls her pistol back out...

"Sta...stay back!"

"Are... are you mocking me? You're weird! Something's very wrong with you! You should at least resist a little bit!"

Fei creeping the shit out of his female ambusher is interrupted by the camera dropping down behind her head.

*sniff* “You smell nice.”

“Candygram!”

The monster decks the girl, knocking her out cold. Fei objects to this monster-on-human hate crime and runs to her rescue. Also, he somehow already knows her name despite never having been told it. But, we’ll ponder that anamoly in a bit...

”Sheesh... Women! I can’t believe this gangly blue elf thing took her out so easi—“

“SHORYUKEN!!”
“Gah!!”

“ATOMIC SUPLEX!!”
“Ffffffuu—“

*cough* “Okay... Maybe...that was a tad sexist of me to assume she had a glass jaw just cuz she’s a girl... Ugh... Forest elves are dicks!”
“Okay! Get serious! Are you okay?!”

“Busta WOLF!!!”
“RUPAUL!! _{RUPAUL!! _RUPAUL!}”

“Wubba, wubba. I’m in the pink today, boy!”
*cough* “Sorry... Got caught up in the moment... I'm umm...kinda in a weird place today...”
*blargh*
“Oh...right...”

I was going to make a joke about unfortunate camera angles for an unconscious chick in a short skirt. But then I remembered Xenogears’ sister series, Xenosaga, and the 12 year old girl character that was flashing her underwear every single scene she was in and how it was creepy as FUCK. I really hope they made that anime girl wear some pants in the sequels... God, I hated Xenosaga on so many levels.

A few hours later...

"..."

"How are you feeling?"

"..."

"Do you still intend to kill me? Then go right ahead and shoot me! But you'd better not do it while we're in this forest. Forest monsters hate loud noises, you know!?"

"..."

”I hear monsters are none too keen on sentences only containing ellipses too.”

"Fine. Don't talk to me if you don't want to... But it wouldn't kill you to thank me for tending your wounds."

"!"

“Th... thanks... but you shouldn't have helped me. Don't think it will save your life though. It really doesn't change a thing."

"What are you so afraid of?"

"I'm not afraid... I'm just being cautious. It's natural for me to be this cautious considering I've met such a suspicious surface dwelling -Lamb-."

"Hm... Don't you worry. I'm not gonna do anything. Besides you're much more suspicious than I am."

"Huh...?"

”A gun toting girl in a military uniform yelling in a foreign language wandering around lost in the woods...? Little bit out of the ordinary ‘round these parts.”

"So, what's your name?"

"I won't give my name to a surface dweller -Lamb-."

"What's with you and this 'Lamb' thing?”

”I know I’m doing a lot of karate chops when I fight, but that’s really reaching for a nickname...”

“We're both lost in this forest, surrounded by dangerous monsters... Shouldn't we at least be cooperating with each other until we get out of here?"

"..."

"Good. So what's your name? It's going to be hard for us to cooperate with one another without at least knowing each other's names.”

”I’d nickname you Red. But... Somehow, that feels wrong... Like it’s already been taken.”

“Anyway, my name is Fei Fong Wong. You can call me Fei."

”If you were just going to make up a name, I’d have done the same...”
“Who’s making up what now...?”
“’Fei Fong Wong...? Really? That’s what you’re going with...?”
“What? That’s a good name. What’s wrong with it?! Pfft... Well, then let’s hear yours if you think it is so much better...”

"'Elly', huh? Somehow I already 'knew' that."

“??”

*shrug* “You just looked like an ‘Elly’.”

"Anyway, it's too dangerous to travel in these parts this late at night... Let's wait till daybreak before we continue looking for a way out of here... If that's okay with you?"

"I guess we have no choice, do we?"

”Well, getting mauled by wolves or spinning piledrived by Forest Elves are still options. Just not great ones...”