Line Go Down: Chapter 3b
Frappé scoots way back and rolls into cover before the Banner Sharks are attracted by the spectacle. But right away, its hiding spot is illuminated by a bright spotlight coming from the GC’s mono-visor!
“Look at you! Skating around and lit up like homecoming!”
huh? that pesky voice, even modulated through a speaker…how? it drops shaders over its cybereyes to get a better look.
“So my toy came back after all! Looks like I win the bet, boys.”
This can’t be happening. A massive mechanical lucky-cat-titan with four paws, a segmented prehensile tail, and a collar with a big ???-displaying bell. Tie-wearing goons cling to the thing’s palms, some taunting and crowing and some just panicking, while on its shoulder, strapped into a papoose and wielding a crackling pair of gauntlets wired into the GC’s neck:
“Boss?!”
“Believe it, beautiful!” Vengaboy gives it a shitty wink as they theatrically stick their gauntleted thumb into their open-suited chest - which a second later causes the GC colossus to match the action, lurching as it goes and sending the tie-wearing goons scrambling. “whoop! these dominion gloves are a li’l hinky. cool though, rite?”
Frappé is incredulous. “what. are. you. doing?! Get off that thing, dipcone! It’s gonna deactivate your human parts!! And we got traders comin’ from the Moose like, now!”
As banner sharks twist and prowl in their periphery, Vengaboy makes the GC wag its finger. “No can do, Frap! You’re still not thinking big enough. Those big-city cuke peddlers will get here and see my strong negotiating position.”
Frappé has never felt more checked out of this henchman situationship than it does right now. Its manipulators reach up to its hair and grip tight. “yoouuu…
Ingrate.″
It stomps its boot and jump-jets vertically to a furious hover. “I did all the work for you. I teed you up!! I did the whole quest!! I even found Halley all by myself!! There’s a whole fresh cuke lifeline about to fall into your stupid lap and you’re gonna blow it all up by scaring them off with this - this –”
It angrily aerial-pirouettes. “How has that boss monster not spread you on the pavement already??”
“Oh!” Vengaboy snaps their fingers, the collar bell displays !!! and a doorbell sound, and the tie-wearing goons squeeze for dear life. “I’ve been slurping up your excess energy into my cool EX generator. I didn’t have enough yet, so I didn’t tell you your dad or whatever was in the Moose so you’d stick around. Once you were out of town for a while, I used that toolkit in your bag to feed your stored-up robo girl juice into these dominion gloves I invented and/or found. The surge summoned some GCs out of Casco Bay that rampaged around town for a while, but I managed to plug into this big fella, so it all worked out.”
Frappé’s frame is turning darker and redder shades of pink.
“what’d I tell you?” Vengaboy makes the GC make a fist. “this [EX POWER] shit’s easy!!”
[Reach a Milestone: get the full picture. Face Defeat: I’m deprived of that securing Vengaboy and Frappé’s stuff objective. Pay the Price: you are separated from something, namely my stuff.]
Vengaboy continues: “Here’s the play, toy. I want you, to be big, with me. So get up here, plug my gloves into your [EX Turbine], and get this glitch kitty purring. C’mon, boss says so!”
They offer their titan’s hand. Frappé looks all the way up its arm. The heart-shaped EX Turbine in its chest inverts, locks into place, and burns as bright as its skate afterburners as it zooms up the arm to Vengaboy -
Clash with +iron at close quarters to EX-punch them, +1 from EX Turbine augment. Burn 9 momentum.
[Strong Hit: 4 + 2 + 0 = 9 vs 7 | 8]
&-( ò _ó)––€ ლ(｀ー´ლ)
Regain Control and mark progress twice (two boxes) on a new Formidable objective: Wipe the floor with Vengaboy.
Develop Your Relationship with Vengaboy by sharing a profound moment, mark progress (two boxes).
V-Boy Victory Deluxe (Formidable)
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Glitch Construct untouchable by mundane weapons
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Titanic maneki-neko-mecha
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Four extending arms for quadruple smashing action
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Glowing energy runes mark potential railgrinds
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Incomplete sync with erratic pilot
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Stomp around, cause chaos
Boosting away from the lucky cat GC colossus before its yelling goons and huge mitts swipe it away, Frappé jets out into the streets! With Vengaboy punched, the next thing it wants to do is draw this chaotic GC into stomping on the banner sharks and thinning them out. Gain Ground with +shadow for misdirection, +1 from EX Turbine for extra speedy maneuvers.
[Strong Hit: 3 + 3 + 1 = 7 vs 4 | 2]
Mark progress against the sharks (two boxes), take +2 momentum. The ground shudders as the massive monster unsteadily stomps after Frappé, disrupting the sharks (and the Prom) as it goes. It fires out its paws on thick grappling cables out after its quarry, but the loud explosions and 3-2-1 beep! telegraph each attack. While it’s recovering, Frappé chases down the prowling sharks and hits ’em with the buster cannon! Strike +edge, +1 from EX Turbine.
[Weak Hit: 5 + 2 + 1 = 8 vs 8 | 6]
Mark progress twice against the sharks (four boxes), but I’m in a bad spot again! Hunting down these sharks and trying to string VBVD along suddenly has Frappé slaloming through the glow-shadowed street statues alongside the park! Vengaboy’s voice cajoles from a loudspeaker: “Frap, you won’t need your hands once you plug in! The cat has four! That’s twice as many!”
Four grappling paws fire out into the alternative art-choked street, creating an impassible barrier! Unless…
Close-up on Frappé, eyes ahead: [EX Score: one]
Its turbine thrums. It accelerates — or does the world slow down? React Under Fire +edge, +1 EX Turbine, +2 from EX Power [spend 1/3]
[Strong Hit: 2 + 2 + 3 = 7 vs 2 | 6]
zip-zip-zip with beyond-human agility. It does a rolling limbo under a horse made of sparkling water cans and scrap metal, wallrides a stone building, then rotates its body one half at a time and reverses course, zipping away. The grappling paw smashes through the horse, destroying it and sticking the paw in the overgrown street. “No! That was the only authentic statement in the installation!!″
+1 momentum, and I’m in control again. Frappé presses the advantage by grinding up the taut grapple line to give Victory Deluxe’s collar bell a good solid EX Kick! Strike +iron with Turbine!
[Strong Hit: 5 + 2 + 1 = 8 vs 3 | 3]
RED HOT!! With Augmented, a strong hit with a match grants +2 momentum! Mark progress twice (two boxes against Vengaboy) plus I stay in control. The bell rings out clear, and the ??? becomes a ?!? and then a …
The GC loses interest in Vengaboy’s EX-powered dominion gloves and starts to wander at random, pursuing more basic behaviors. V and their goons pound and shout and squabble trying to get it to listen while it stomps toward the shoreline…
That buys Frappé some time to mop up these banner sharks. Take Decisive Action by leading their banners with the buster cannon, not their lurelights, and firing away when they frenzy on each other.
[Progress Roll: Defeat the Pack :Weak Hit = 8 vs 4 | 10]
Reach a Milestone: defeat the banner sharks. So the lesser GCs are dealt with and that objective is complete, but it’s more difficult than expected. EX Mode is draining on the boost frame, especially on Generation 2 Glitch Busters like Frappé. I’m in a bad spot again, plus make a suffer move: Endure Harm -2, losing 2 health from system fatigue. I then roll +health to resist it:
[Miss: 4 + 3 + 0 = 7 vs 8 | 9]
oof. Frappé has overexerted itself and needs to downcycle out of EX Mode, venting otherworldly radiation. The space around it on this park statue is full of jaggies and eerie digitized phonemes. It keeps the lost health and also Lose Momentum -2 for the delay and android headache. Its dazed eyes wander and roll around, cartoonily, until it smacks its head and they reset like billiard balls impacting. “Awright!!! Enough playin’!”
It scans the horizon…and finds a blazing EX flare coming from Battery Island! Looks like Vengaboy and his goons (“can’t believe I ever thought I was their goon”) have managed to park the thrashing VBVD GC on top of the big concrete fortification Frappé was tagging out there yesterday morning, firing its grapple paws into the ground like pitons to hold it still while they overload their janky dominion gloves with stolen EX Power, which will only make everything worse. Ugh. Just letting them blow themselves up and wreck this whole scavenger town sounds better every minute. But…it kinda wants to steal its GB Toolkit back so Halley can unlimit it. (and waning strander’s fragile human body might get hurt. that would bite.)
Fine. It charges up its skates, builds up some speed and momentum at the wrecked park, and blazes out across the Prom toward Battery Island. It’s the last time the Prom denizens sheltering indoors will see that hot pink blur racing past their windows.
React Under Fire +edge for charging in pursuit and racing over Casco Bay out to the island.
[Weak Hit: 1 + 2 + 0 = 3 vs 4 | 1]
I overcome the obstacle and make it out there, but remain in a bad spot and make a suffer move. I’ll Withstand Damage to my boost frame and suffer -1 integrity, then roll +integrity to resist the damage.
[Weak Hit: 3 + 4 + 0 = 7 vs 9 | 1]
I choose to Lose Momentum (-1) in exchange for recovering that +1 integrity. Downcycling out of EX Mode gives Frappé waves of glitchcore exhaust that take extra time to manage.
But it’s out on Battery Island where V-Boy Victory Deluxe is roosting! The way I envision this is a Jet Set Radio/Bomb Rush Cyberfunk/Sonic Adventure boss fight where Frappé dodges energy attacks and grinds up each of the grappling ropes to land a good solid hit on the glowing core Vengaboy is working on. The first phase feels like an abstracted Clash +edge to nail the right glowing spots on VBVD with buster cannon attacks.
[Strong Hit: 6 + 2 + 0 = 8 vs 4 | 1]
pchew-pchew. Mark progress twice against V-Boy (two boxes), and regain control! With a crackling explosion that sends gilded GC $kittycoins spewing out of Victory Deluxe’s mouth and scatters the goons chasing them, it’s vulnerable to jet grind up each of the ropes and pummel this manipulative dipcone. Strike +iron to attack at close quarters, enough to bring a henchless human to their knees.
[Strong Hit: 6 + 2 + 0 = 8 vs 1 | 7]
Mark progress twice (two boxes), which takes me to 8/10, which feels like enough to finish this. It’s just Frappé and Vengaboy atop a fallen lucky-cat titan, ready to explode, and the android fully has the advantage. It stomps and scorches his boot with its afterburner (“ow what the shit ow ow!!“), then grabs him by the scruff while he’s off-balance and launches up, up, up into the night air with him.
“It was all gonna start with this, Frap,” the artsy crook coughs. “This was gonna be our first kingdom.”
They wistfully look out over the ocean night horizon, high up in the clear sky. “ha . . . that view . . .”
The wind ruffles the sweaty mess of their hair. “from a place like this . . . you really could take over the world . ”
Frappé pulls their face in very close. Its voice has that synthy growl that makes their skin crawl in a good way.
“you only see it because i’m holding you”
Like a ballroom dancer, it pushes them out and drops them.
Take Decisive Action.
[Progress Roll: Wipe the Floor With Vengaboy :Strong Hit = 8 vs 6 | 6]
Strong hit with a match. +1 momentum and Frappé prevails.
Vengaboy disappears into the deep water of Casco Bay. Moments later, Victory Deluxe goes up in fireworks and imaginary coins, lighting up the night and sending waves rippling back to shore. When it doesn’t see anyone come above the water, Frappé leaves.
Develop Your Relationship (to six) and then Forge a Bond with Vengaboy for sharing a fight to die for, babe.
[Progress Roll: Bond Progress :Strong Hit = 6 vs 3 | 1]
Along with artsy crook, Vengaboy gains the role of worthless lapdog. Mark two ticks on the bonds legacy track.
Reach a Milestone: defeat V-Boy Victory Deluxe. Fulfill Your Vow at eight boxes.
[Progress Roll: “I’ll Clear the GCs Out of Prom Myself!” :Strong Hit = 8 vs 5 | 6]
That’s a wrap. Mark two ticks on the quests legacy track.
End a Session. Reach a Milestone towards ruling the world by gaining meaningful insight into what that means: mark one tick. I think that going out ahead and defeating the GC attack on Prom counts as Reach a Milestone for supplying fresh veggies, too: mark two boxes. Clear the Bot Gossip clock as it’s no longer relevant. Next time, I want to briefly wrap up in Prom and then hit the road for the last part of this region. +1 momentum.