Black Matrix Zero Part 14: Beetle Bailey, He Is A CHAR

And then it changes back. Are there two Beetle Baileys? Beetles Bailey? Then, battle menu time: this time we have Lilith back but not Luca and Zion. Whatevs, random-ass character rotation.

Oh wow, look at all the Beetles Baileyses. And not one seems to be the original Red Hat version. Yay, a new villain to Sephiroth off when things get hairy. (Hmm... the grunts are green and the commander's red... is Red Beetle also three times faster, perchance?)
Zion was one of my best tanks- being without both him and Cain is a bit hairy. But we manage despite Stei getting nearly killed once or twice. The whole party's 15 except for Lilith, who hits the 3-levels-per-battle wall, and then we kick Exal to 16 because Tank. Afterwards, Exal yells at the Green Berets, but eventually forgives them. Valtos arrives, Red Beetle feeds him some kind of bullcrap that seems to pit him against us, and it's back to the menu!

Still no Red Beetle, but there's Valtos in his Lv.17 glory. Yeesh. But he goes down relatively easy, and everyone but Kirota is 16 now.

After the battle, Caldia rushes in. Stei confronts her about... endangering Kirota, I think? Sounds about right.

Hugs! I guess we're not upset anymore? And then Red Beetle fucking slinks off again. Yohane and Valtos have a parley, and then I think Valtos reads Yohane's mind or something. Not sure. Then Realism Brownifier Gogo shows back up, and we have a lovely chat about incest. Again. Then Caldia and Yohane talk about Matia... who I had almost forgotten existed, even though she's why we're doing whatever it is we're doing. Then hey, Luca, Zion, and Soryuu are back! Groovy. They apologize, but something something Cain.

Soryuu apologizes to Syria in a stammering kind of way. He likes her, I guess. Then we flash back to Aragi telling Soryuu something. I think he tried to get Soryuu in on whatever the evil scheme is, and Soryuu bailed on him. Maybe we get him as a party member now? Valtos and Red Beetle show back up, and every other sentence Beetle's shaking in his boots. Good!

Holy shit! Beetle was Aragi in disguise! He may be controlling Valtos. Then a Mandalorian bugman guy thing shows up! Then Aragi runs off and we don't seem to be too concerned by this. What the hell is going on here!?

Together again and time to battle! Let's see what we're up against.

(Tomorrow!)