S5E09a: Outworlds, Part 2

'''At the heart of this strange world, the STU has discovered a portal to another dimension, a world in which the Sayans have managed to obtain complete dominance. With them are legions of captured prisoners, being led like mules towards an unknown fate. And in the center of it all, a tall, black, cancerous spire that overlooks this dark world.'''

Just what are the Sayans up to...?

Plot Summary
Having slain the massive Sayan horde, the STU returns its attention to the portal in the alcove. Hood informed them that the dark world seen through it was identified as Point 77842, or under the Rebel nomenclature, Earth-M120A. He also said that some sort of cloaking field was in place, preventing the Princess from scanning it. As such, the STU were going to be their only eyes and ears on the place. Jack brought up the possibility that, if the Sayans had somehow managed to prevent scanning, they could have also managed to cut off their communication. Sirus acknowledged the possibility, but said that that was why they were here. If anything went wrong, the 447th and the Sayan Squad were the ones who could handle it.

Stepping through the portal, the STU found themselves in what appeared to be the very same alcove, though fully converted by the Sayan terraformer. Up ahead was the town they had explored in the other world, but here it was a large Sayan city, constructed of metal and flesh. Factories and refineries like the ones they encountered on their first mission dotted the landscape. The city's center was occupied by a massive "citadel," while mutants prowled the narrow alleyways between buildings. Lines of captured humans could be seen being led into the city from hundreds of other portals, Sayans forcing them along the whole way.

Their main destination apepared to be the citadel, but a few portions of lines would be splintered off, and head to a different sector of the city. This other place contrasted sharply with the rest of the city, almost all the buildings being barely larger than a single story, with larger gaps between them. Saiyo pointed this out, and it was unanimously agreed that stealth was their best option for the time being. Sirus ordered most of the 447th to carefully make their way to the citadel, while he investigated the smaller area, taking with him only the Sayan Squad and his senior officers.

Upon arrival, the STU was almost immediately found out as they rounded a corner straight into the line of sight of several Sayans. Fortunately, these were of the same variety operating the machinery back on the Factory world, so they completely ignored the intruders. Cautiously making sure there were no warriors around, Williams began to investigate the buidlings themselves. He quickly discovered a label that read "Praxus Steelworks Company," indicating they were constructed using the stolen Angolian Steel.

Within the buildings the STU discovered a chain of linked facilities. First the captured humans would be strapped to a cranebelt, and forced to put on a strange nautilus-like device. Once attached to their head, tentacles would extend into the victim's head, nose, and ears, and render them completely docile. They would then be taken off the belt and escorted by some of the drones to one of several pools filled with a strange green liquid. The humans, now unable to react, can do nothing except sit in the pools. Nearby pools revealed their bizarre purpose: the liquid was a new kind of mutagen, one that would mutate the humans into strange pickle-like creatures, losing their arms in the process. Once the head begins to merge with the shoulders, the drones remove the device, but by then it is too late for the humans' struggling to amount to anything. When the transformation is complete, they are tossed into a red shaft that shoots them upwards into a monorail carriage that heads straight into the citadel for an unknown fate.

The STU suddenly heard a lawnmower-like scream. Ouitat. Rushing outside, they found him being carried by several drones, putting up more of a fight than any of the other captured humans. His hands were covered in blood, most of it not his own, and even the living ones appeared wounded. The team debating between trying to assist him or staying hidden, but against orders Ketsueki rushed out before a decision had been made. He quickly freed Ouitat from his restraints, and the two of them eliminated his captors. Overjoyed to see the STU again, Ouitat temporarily grew thrice his size in order to fit them all into his arms for a hug, declaring them his new best friends.

Their reunion was cut short, however, as the citadel fired out a massive white beam into the sky that soon turned into a short-lived portal hovering above the city. The choice taken out of their hands, Sirus ordered the STU to move on the Citadel. Returning to normal size, Ouitat said he knew where they could find an entrance. Again lacking in choice, they let Ouitat lead the way.

As they went along, the citadel fired out more blasts, the portals holding for longer and longer. Meanwhile, Sirus checked in with the rest of the 447th, telling them to await rendezvous coordinates. Upon realizing he had just used his communicator, Sirus immediately tried to call the Princess to no avail. Williams theorized the communicator jam only applied to multidimensional communiques, prompting Sirus to look towards the citadel, suspecting he knew where to find the jammer.

Ouitat led them straight to the citadel's main entrance, a pair of giant doors before a long narrow bridge over the ring of chasms. Lacking the time to find another, quieter entrance, it was time for subtelty to end. Ouitat and the STU engaged the sayans on the bridge, slowly making their way to the citadel's entrance. Soon enough they were joined by the rest of the 447th, having caught up and lending their firepower to the battle. The only remaining obstacle were the doors themselves, something Ouitat's titantic strength was able to make short work of. With the doors open, it allowed the Sayans within to attack from that side, pinning the STU between both fronts.

However, the bridge acted as a chokepoint as well, allowing the STU to take them on despite this. Also helping was the lack of a need for lethal force; merely knocking the Sayans off the sides of the bridge would keep them out of the fight for quite some time. Sirus ordered Williams to take the Squad with him while the 447th kept the Sayans busy. Sirus wanted Williams to both investigate what the Sayans are doing with the citadel, and to locate the jammer if possible. Williams followed the failures of his own personal mini-scanner, and led the Squad and Ouitat to a freight elevator off to the side and out of the fight.

This was met with horror from Ketsueki, who was unable to grasp why the Squad was okay with the infamous Butcher commanding them. Kanako and even Arachnos came to his aid, defending his reputation as an asset and criticizing Ketsueki's discomfort. Ketsueki attempted to explain how the Butcher was known as a berserker to the point where the manual berserk system in The General's armors was supposedly named after him. Hundreds of thousands of Rebels met their ends by Williams' hands, but even Qiang was telling him to bear it, despite being fully aware of his identity. Arachnos went so far as to state it wasn't even his fault, but the conscription chip's.

Williams could only sigh and shake his head at this conversation. Kanako asked Ketsueki if he knew the rumors were even true or just hearsay, to which Ketsueki replied they were mostly only rumors because there tended to be no survivors. Kanako then told Ketsueki to just ask Williams, which Ketsueki instantly refused.

Williams told the Squad that they worried too much. His curiosity getting the better of him, Arachnos asked the question in Ketsueki's stead. With no hesitation nor emotion, Williams plainly stated that it was all true. He was indeed one of The General's best agents, often sent in as a one-man orbital bombardment when he didn't want to waste ammo. His skills at exterminating entire Rebel installations did inspire the Butcher armor, named in his honor. This left the entire Squas stunned. When asked why he was a butcher, and if he really hated the Rebellion that much, he could only shrug and say "of course not."

The interior of the citadel, contrarily to its exterior, showed much more of the flesh construction the Sayans were known for, with the Angolian Steel providing most of the framework. They eventually came across a small group of drones, disemboweling one of their own to patch some damage to the flesh caused by a burst panel in the ceiling. The Sayan flesh clearly stood out, implying the flesh was built of non-Sayan creatures.

An ear-splititng scream soon met them, coming from nearby. The sound led them to a platform overlooking a massive chamber, all housing the mutated humans they saw in the facility earlier. Some had been brought to the platform, to be used as food for the Sayan warriors present. Unfortunately for the humans, the mutation made their entire bodies edible, bones included, to the Sayans. This also had the unfortunate side-effect of turning their bodies into a massive nervous cortex, meaning they could feel every bite until there was nothing left of them. All they could do was scream, causing the others to run around blindly until they fell over, making them easy catchings for the Sayans.

Sharing his suboordinate's fury, Williams gave a single word order: Exterminate. Something the Squad did with extreme prejudice. Qiang didn't stop there, and also fired at some of the storage cylinders to damage them. Once the platform was covered in red, Ouitat borrowed Qiang's weapon and fired at one of the half-eaten pickles, claiming it was another him. The fight over, Williams took up Arachnos' suggestion and had everyone lifted into the exposed panel.

The panel led them into a series of maintenance tunnels. His scanner useless, Williams played hot and cold with the labyrinthine tunnels, using the actual heat to dictate how close they might be to whatever was creating the portals. Eventually they stepped out into a round chamber with a strange but non-flesh machine in the center of it. Up above were windows to a viewing platform, none other than Elias looking down at them, wondering what they were doing there. He said their choice of destination may have been a poor one, as the heat and radiation from the core would have probably hurt them more than he ever could. Ouitat, recognizing Elias as one of the masterminds behind the conquest of his world, became enraged and threatened the Attendant. Despite Elias' confidence in the windows, Ouitat was able to leap up to it in a single bound and punch it out. Elias quickly had the shutters close while he and his bodyguards dealt with Ouitat.

Ensuring the rest of the Squad would not make things worse, Elias activated the device. Soon a massive black portal opened above them, and the world around them faded in and out of existence. During the brief glimpses into another plane, the Squad could see a massive black entity approach them from behind the stars. Though they could not observe its true form, there was no doubt it was a Sayan. Using the link between its world and the one they were on, it would use and create portals to attack them using its own body and various reality-warping abilities. Realziing they could never beat this thing, Arachnos instead tried to open up the core and decouple its primary power lines. This closed off the gap between the worlds, and prevented the sayan star from reaching them again.

When the battle ended, the windows shutters lifted to reveal the hole had been patched by the corpse of a Sayan. Above, Elias sat wounded among several corpses. Still, he was ultimately victorious, as shown by the captured Ouitat behind him. He admitted he was impressed by their rescourcefulness in shutting down the core, but as a result he had no intent on fighting them as he was. Instead, he would take the simpler option. Activating secondary power, another portal opened, this time beneath the Squad. Unable to resist its pull, the Sayan Squad then vanished into an unknown destination...

Soundtrack

 * 1) Opening Theme - Gold Rush (Ancient Aliens)
 * 2) Earth-M120A - Demons on the Prey (Orchestral Mix)
 * 3) Preperation - RoboCreeping (Mark McWane version)
 * 4) Ouitat - Nyeh Heh Heh! (Undertale)
 * 5) Key to the Gate - Bonetrousle (Undertale)
 * 6) The Citadel - Stalag 3-D (Mark McWane version)
 * 7) Violation - Deathshead's Theme (Wolfenstein: The New Order)
 * 8) Elias, the Scholar: Brave (Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine)
 * 9) Something Big is Coming - Stage 13 Intro (Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine)
 * 10) ~Vs. Sayan Star~ - Armogohma (The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess)
 * 11) Elias - Brave (Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine)
 * 12) Ending Theme - Gold Rush (Ending Mix)

Trivia

 * This episode was voted to be run all the way in July. However, due to a series of very unfortunate coincidences, it was never actually run until December. Incidentally these circumstances did not affect the other running RPs, leading to the group considering this episode the "Megacurse."
 * Ironically enough, once it was actually run it was the final run of the year.
 * This wiki page did not seem exempt from the Megacurse, as SDM was unable to complete it until January due to his surgery.
 * SDM forgot to mention Ouitat tagging along with the Squad once they began exploring the Citadel.
 * The entire concept of the "pickle people" being eaten alive while they scream and drive the other hapless victims into a blind terrified frenzy was taken from a dream SDM had, almost verbatim. The only change he made was attributing them to Sayans.
 * The sequence of watching the Sayans devour the mutated humans was originally supposed to use "Gloomy!," also from Duke Nukem 3D, but SDM changed his mind at the last minute due to its horrific nature and gave Deathshead's theme a reprise.
 * When the group first encounters Elias, he asks them "What are you people doing in there?" This is a direct reference to an identical line said by General Deathshead himself near the beginning of Wolfenstein: The New Order.
 * SDM was inspired to do this after performing the above song switch.
 * In the lead-up to the ensuing bossfight, several Sayans were supposed to teleport in as a way to build up the incoming Sayan Star. Two managed to appear before being scratched out of the record due to time constraints.