Xenogears - Escape!

Last time we checked, Bart and Margie were in a spot.

Ramsus, seeing Bart unwilling to give Margie back, pulls out his sword. But Miang tries to negotiate a deal with him - he could get back his kingdom and oust Shakhan if he gave Margie back to them. She explains that Shakhan is naught but their pawn, and they don't care too much about who rules Aveh, so long as they're cooperative to their interests.

Bart, of course, finds such an offer inacceptable, and so squares off against Ramsus!

Miang and Margie both stand in the sidelines, being untargetable but offering support to their respective sides. The support comes mostly in the form of small heals, though Miang is also capable of clearing out status effects, thus countering Bart's accuracy debuff.

Aside from that little detail, this fight is absurdly simple. Ramsus slashes a few times, then enters a defensive stance. Hitting him during said stance triggers a massive counterattack, so all there's to do is to hold back and heal when he's defending, and attack while he's attacking. Simple, right?

Eventually, Fei jumps in and delivers a huge punch, knocking Ramsus to the floor! Fei and Bart try to catch up with each other, but Ramsus, after quickly getting back on his feet, interrupts them both, commenting on how Fei's fighting style strangely reminds him of someone...

We briefly flashback to a strange red clothed man pulverizing robots barehanded. Ramsus, recovering from his surprise, boldly challenges the two.

Of course, fighting him with two characters only makes him that much easier. The fight itself barely changes, and between Fei's chi based healing and Margie's healing spells, it's hard to actually lose the battle.

Ramsus, collapsing once again, begins pondering who Fei could be. We briefly flashback to someone talking about Fei being their child, which spooks him! But before he can do anything about that, Fei delivers a strong knockout blow, giving Margie an opportunity to hurl some smoke and get them out!

They quickly hurry into the elevator as it springs open, taking it downwards! We linger on Ramsus developing a bit of an existential dread, wondering if Fei's presence makes him "worthless" or a "reject". Hmm. Seems like someone here has had some unpleasant memories of their past.

Back to the trio, they chatter a bit about their current escape plan. It turns out neither of them know where the elevator leads, they just have to hope they get lucky. Lol.

Unfortunately for them, it leads to Gebler's secret base, where a bunch of soldiers are ready to arrest them! Eek! Gotta admit though, the running animation on those soldiers is extremely hilarious, especially when they run in perfectly straight lines, lol.

Fortunately, they lose the guards by hiding in Elly's office, though not without Bart throwing some fits about her being a Gebler officer. He continues to throw suspicions about her, and Fei through association, which prompts Elly to share her adventures with Fei, and also apologize for the incident at Lahan. Fei instead apologizes for becoming angry and lashing out at her.

That out of the way, Fei explains why he's with Bart: he's trying to help him rescue his cousin, Margie. Elly, understanding the situation, shows them an escape route.

Also Margie can sense people's nature or something. She hilariously insists that Elly must be a good person, because she's offering to help. Bart, still being very untrusting, snaps back at her. But with both Fei and Margie eliciting to follow her, he has no choice but to obey and fall back behind them.

Elly, true to her word, leads them to a gear hangar, and gives them the code to launching any of the parked gears. Fei tries to persuade her to leave Gebler, as he thinks she doesn't fit in such an evil organization, but she firmly declines, choosing to stick to her duty.

They pick a robot and quickly leave! Ramsus tries to set up a search party, but is dissuaded from doing so by the doctor, who sends him a message in secret. Convenient! Seems like the doctor may have deeper ties to Gebler than he lets on.

With the trio safely back at the ship, Sigurd asks Margie why she let herself voluntarily get captured by Shakhan. It turns out, they had arrested some members of her sect, and she turned herself in to free them. Sigurd is rather skeptical of this, and comments that it was most likely a false rumor intentionally spread to make her expose herself to capture, but Maison tells him to calm himself and not be too rude to her, thinking her actions justified as she greatly cares for her sect.

Bart, dissatisfied, yells at Marge for having needlessly put herself in danger. Marge then replies back that she only did what she thought was right, and that, with them executing her grandmom and mom, she couldn't bear to see more people die for her.

With that awkward fact brought up, the conversation abruptly stalls out, with Maison sheepishly offering to show Margie her room. As she leaves, Bart boldly tells her to not risk herself again, and to tell them if she faced such a situation again. She agrees, and heads below deck. Sigurd instructs Bart to be gentle with her, as she's been through a stressful time.

Ah well. Let's just try and relish our victo-what's that?

It's a strange stuffed toy that's hilariously preventing them from accessing the bridge. Wait what?

It's a...talking stuffed toy? Which they can't move? Huh?

Aha. It's a sentient animal capable of speech. Or perhaps just a very furry robot. Well okay then.

The animal, Chu-Chu, briefly hits on Fei in a comical (and somewhat disturbing) fashion, and Bart jokingly walks out of the room to give them some romantic time together.

Once alone with Fei, Margie reveals her true motives - she wanted to help Bart by turning herself in and stalling Shakhan for as long as she could, but she regrets that it didn't work, because in the end Bart decided to rescue her. She then recalls how, when they were first captured by Shakhan, Bart had protected her and had taken the beatings meant for her. That moment left a strong impression on her, and she's been trying to make up for it ever since.

With that sob worthy moment out of the way, we are free to pilot the Yggdrasil again! Join me next time as we head to Margie's home city, the holy city of Nisan, and perhaps uncover yet more revelations. See y'all then.