Xenogears - Aveh March!

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Alright, it's time to explore Bart's wondrous ship. We begin in his huge Gear hangar, so huge that Citan and Fei are shrunk down to blob size in the camera.

As expected, it holds Gears, and engineers dedicated to servicing and maintaining them. They chat about the particulars of the Gear they're maintaining, including any amusing stories, technical details, and more. They even let us rename the Gears, if we wish!

Apparently, Bart intentionally broke half of his Gear's sight sensors to make an eyepatch! Also, Fei's Gear, Weltall, has some "black boxes" that none of the engineers assigned to it have been able to figure out. Thankfully they don't get in the way of maintenance, but it's still an odd bit of the Gear. One has to wonder just who made it, and how advanced they must've been. Could it be that they're hiding something?

The hangar even comes with a well stocked Gear parts shop, selling considerable upgrades for Weltall!

Outside the hangar, we find the local dormitory, full of Bart's men.

A medical room, with a nurse who seems rather keen on measuring Fei and Citan's weights. Lol.

A mysteriously well decorated room, with a fine blouse hung up top, and a toy penguin on one of the beds. Hmm. Wonder who this room's occupant is.

A fine bar, apparently constructed by Bart's butler, Maison. He was worried about Bart becoming too uncultured by hanging around rough men, so he got this room built, albeit at a great expense to himself.

He also doubles up as a shopkeeper, though there's not a lot interesting on him. He does have the hilariously overpowered Omegasols though, which refill ALL HP and MP of a character outside combat, and go for the low, low price of 50 gold! Quite easy to solve dungeons with these, lol.

There's a bunch more fancy rooms downstairs, though not as elaborately decorated as the room earlier.

The engine room, where we get to learn a little about Bart. Apparently his and Sigurd's eyepatches aren't just for show, they genuinely had one of their eyes put out in an engine accident! Sheesh.

Also there's a cute engineering dog in the room, lol.

And at last, the bridge. It has many operators controlling various parts of the ship, most noticeably a dolphin operator who randomly plays one of the game's many samples on request! How adorable!

Alright, enough screwing around. Let's head for Bart's hideout.

As soon as Bart emerges out of his ship, he's welcomed by some tiny children, and then his men! The children pester him for some cool new toys, which he answers by giving them some amber. Lol.

He then leaves to attend to his Gear, letting Maison guide the two through his hideout.

Maison leads them to a grand dining hall, where he serves them his tea. Then, he casually drops the fact that Bart is in fact secretly royalty. After a fake show of having been a bit too lax with words, he drops the truth behind Bart's current state - he is the legitimate prince of Aveh, but has been hiding from a coup organized by his prime minister, Shakhan.

His pirate act was to capture more Gears to eventually overwhelm Shakhan and reclaim his rule. He did not stand a chance against Aveh's armies otherwise, their Gear fueled firepower was too overwhelming even with him having a fancy armed ship.

Citan readily buys into their movement, apparently being convinced that them housing children made them the "good guys". Hah! If only it were that easy to tell people apart...

Citan then inquires about why they haven't actually assaulted Shakhan for such a long time. It turns out, he has Bart's cousin, Margie, imprisoned. Margie is a major religious figure of Nisan, essentially the Vatican of this setting.

Shakhan imprisoned her because she had part of the Fatima Jasper, a key to acquiring some sort of grand treasure. Clearly, he's only keeping her alive to find this treasure, and once it's found, her life is forfeit.

Citan and Maison begin speculating on what exactly the grand treasure could be, and how it could save their kingdom. Then, Bart walks in, proclaiming that must be a Gear! After a short explanation of why he showed up so soon, he elaborates on his point, claiming that there are ancient Avehian illustrations of a Gear.

Indeed, he does show an ancient illustration depicting the very first king of his dynasty making an oath with a Gear. Honestly, it's incredible how this game seamlessly mixes in both old and new elements in its lore, so it can depict advanced things like giant humanoid robots through the lens of age old paintings.

Anyhow, that's not the only illustration in his hands, he also displays another illustration depicting the king burying the Gear in the ground. The problem is, he has no records of where the Gear could be hidden. Odds are, the royalty intentionally kept it secret so as to not have it fall into the hands of an enemy.

Bart delivers this hilarious comment as Citan shows himself to be suspiciously well informed on a lot of these matters. The doctor is definitely not what he seems, lol.

Eventually, Bart gets to the point - he needs help, and Fei seems like a good fighter. Couldn't he join his cause? He frames it as a mutually beneficial relationship, but it's pretty obvious he has the upper hand, and is trying to twist them into falling in with him.

Naturally, Fei, who has had a rough few days, bluntly turns the offer down. He's in no mood to be anybody's warrior, especially not for someone who was acting cocky with him not too long ago.

Fei decides to go behind some children and explore the Gear hangars to kill some time. Nothing interesting happens there, but on the way back...

Bart shows up again, and tries his hardest to get Fei to join him, showing sympathy for him and offering an apology for his dickishness earlier. Of course, such parlor tricks are hardly enough to budge Fei, who refuses him outright, again.

Fei then accuses Bart of being a selfish warmonger, which he tries to counter by claiming that he fights for good reasons. Fei quickly plays into that by pointing out that he has no reason to fight, and so will not participate in any of his battles. He just wants to live in peace and solitude, and doesn't want to see people get hurt ever again.

Bart decides to insult Fei by claiming that he's running away from responsibility and dreaming of an ideal, and then spins it into a talk of how it's selfish people who cause wars and suffering, and how he's merely fighting to get rid of such people.

He ultimately thinks it's Fei's responsibility to use his power to protect the innocent, rather than to simply become a recluse. And there's a bit of truth to this, but given the context, it's pretty obvious that Bart is being a bit of a hypocrite, trying to paint his responsibilities as Fei's to guilt trip him into joining his side.

Regardless, Fei is left a bit shaken by Bart's arguments, and heads back to the hangar to ponder his choices.

He's interrupted by Citan and Sigurd, who decide to manipulate him further by showing Bart brooding over his helplessness against his usurpers. Sigurd then implores Fei once more to shoulder Bart's burdens and help ease his pain by joining his side. Fei, at this point pretty conflicted, tells them that he needs time to think, which they thankfully grant. He goes to sleep, and the scene fades out.

We then cut to a bunch of interlopers breaking into the hideout's hangar! They begin attacking the Gears stationed there, sounding the alarm!

Fei, shaken awake by the alarms, heads down and begins pondering again. Citan tries steering him into action, but to no avail. He's just too conflicted to make up his mind, even with the chaos all around him.

We're then thrust into battle against the interlopers as Bart and his companions. It turns out they're Gebler soldiers, and thus all have unique Gears. Despite this, they don't really put up much of a fight, choosing instead to run rather quickly after being mildly hurt. Perhaps they were just planning a night raid, and didn't expect to be found out so quickly.

Citan, itching to help, throws himself into a Gear that's under maintenance. It turns out that said Gear works well enough in his hands, with him singlehandedly dispatching one of the Gebler soldiers! Of course. How could a mere soldier challenge the good doctor?!
 

The doctor remarks that these soldiers seem to be tripped up on combat drugs, which is apparently why they've been fleeing instead of falling apart when defeated in battle. Huh. Really odd sorts of drugs, these.

Lastly, Fei himself shows up, stopping one of the soldiers from terrorizing some children! Alright, looks like Bart's enemies played themselves here big time. Lol.

This gauntlet of trivial fights is capped off by Schpariel, yet another trivial fight. The only thing really notable is that it stays for a lot longer, choosing to fight till the "death", instead of running away at the first sign of trouble. It's nice that the game also emphasizes Fei's power here, making him do double the damage of any other character! Either that, or Fei's Gear is the only one to have the latest upgrades. Heh.

Well, it took one horribly botched night raid, but Fei is now firmly in Bart's team! They quickly plan to sneak into Bledavik, Aveh's capital, to rescue Margie from Shakhan's clutches. Bart briefly visits the women in his hideout to see them off, and we end this session, with things looking much more optimistic for once.

But what shall happen next time? Shall they successfully infiltrate Bledavik? Will they pick up any clues on Margie's location? How exactly will they rescue her? Will they be able to save her in time? Find out all this and more next time!