Rock On Neon Shipper #2

So, Broken Roads takes place between the Tatiana bossfight and the Final FINAL act. Kliff succeeds in what he does, and the satellite crashes into the tower, with Mayday and Zuke inside. 

Turns out, they’re not actually dead? In fact, they’re back at the sewers, their trophies and items are gone, and so is Kliff. It’s as if everything had gone back to normal, as if it were all just some...bad dream. 

Spoiler warning, if that was a dream, it would rather be a good dream, to what B2J was about to face now. 

Buildings have shifted around, the city is ruined and ghostly, and within that are corpses that smell of decay but aren’t rotting away. The air is constricting, and there are no more flags of NSR, only of something else.

A former ruler beyond Vinyl City, a signed once feared decades ago. 

AZF. 

Or, break from the tone, the Azkar Faction.

oOOH yeah we’re going there. 

Mayday and Zuke see Kliff standing near DJSS’ district, and Mayday snaps, running after Kliff with a full on ‘what did you do?!’ kinda moment. Kliff is extremely confused as to who these people are, and Zuke has to pull Mayday away. Zuke calmly asks what the FUCK even happened, and Kliff softly explains that ‘It’s always been like this’, although even he doesn’t seem to remember how. Looking down at DJ’s planetarium, Zuke and Mayday slowly agree that...it seems they have to do this, all over again. 

They just don’t know what to even expect. 

So, since these are not fully fleshed out, I’ll brush over them quickly. 

DJ Subatomic Supernova

’s planetarium is rather a labyrinth of a laboratory, those being under his music’s influence having black ooze shoot out of every hole, DJSS is talking to corspes, each having clothing related to the only people who came to listen to DJ that...one...time, including the janitor. His voice can be heard from the intercom, yelling everytime you hit or run over a corspe, saying that those are his ‘‘‘friends’‘‘. 

Sayu

is...Sayu, except she’s her own complete AI with Tila’s voice. After getting this AI she flipped completely, killing the Sayu crew and taking their ‘abilities’ to use for herself. She can only ramble on constantly about ‘love’, as her AI is slowly corrupting on her. The last phase, instead of being a fish with legs, is a horrific clash of fish and human parts. 

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NOW we get into the detailed stuff. 

Instead of Yinu and Mama, it’s

Papa

. Yinu and Mama died when, as Papa describes it, ‘Their red and black flags came.’ ...He’s referring to the Azkar Faction, which Kliff points out. 

The Natura district is overrun with birds and vines, and you can hear Papa’s wails from his halls from even the edge of Natura. 

Papa has been playing the piano for a long time...and not in that way. He’s been playing ever since the death of his daughter and wife, the piano is covered in blood as his fingers are becoming nothing but stumps, screaming with every note as his body is deeply in pain, but he HAS to go on. He doesn’t want to disappoint Yinu, he doesn’t want to disappoint Miss Natura, he doesn’t want to disappoint Lord T. He doesn’t even notice B2J and Kliff, instead accidentally hurting them with the vines that grow around his piano. By the end of the fight, Kliff pulls Papa away from the piano as Mayday and Zuke break the piano, freeing Papa from his self-made prison for good. Papa panics, saying ‘T’ is going to kill him, that Yinu and Natura are mad, so Mayday ends up knocking him out just to calm him down.  Mayday and Zuke go to the briefing room, expecting Kliff to provide a briefing on 1010, except he’s not, instead wrapping bandages around Papa’s fingers, slightly confused as to what ‘1010′ even is. Papa, who’s still trying to adjust to real life again, only blurts out that 1010 means 10 in binary, and then laments on Yinu again, saying that there was a toymaker in the Metro District who they went to often, so much so the toymaker had been able to make toys JUST for the Natura family as thanks. Zuke and Mayday have no clue what he’s exactly talking about, and asks if Kliff is coming with.  Kliff politely declines, saying he needs to help Papa out.  So, the Metro District is different, it actually looks like a normal part of the city, and you know how I talked about the building being moved around? This is a HUGE example of that. The buildings are dark, there seems to be no sign of life here...not even corpses. 

A light flickers from a small building with the name ‘BenToys’, a small beacon of hope in this horrid world. 

Inside there’s a man known as Benjamin he’s kind and soft-spoken, albeit a little startled at Mayday and Zuke’s appearance. Mayday is stunned he seems so well, especially with how it is outside. They manage to get Benjamin outside, trying to get him back to their Sewer home, Benjamin looks towards a corspe and says that ‘People here are so silly, they sleep in the streets!’ He sounds...out of it. Something is horribly wrong. 

Mayday suddenly snaps, telling Benjamin what’s supposedly going on, that everyone might be dead, that the so-called ‘Azkar Faction’ has taken over Vinyl City, all that stuff. Benjamin is slightly stunned, but then walks away. Zuke has an entire ‘good job may’ kinda expression. 

So they manage to follow after Benjamin all the way towards the edge of the Metro District, which encompasses the docks. Benjamin weaves his way into a hospital, and Mayday and Zuke lose him until they come into one of the rooms.

Benjamin is sitting over a rotting corpse, one of the ones that actually is rotting, it’s clashed with metal, and it seems as if it’s still moving even if it’s obviously dead. Benjamin looks up at B2J and laughs, saying that that’s him, but he’s still alive, right? By this point he’s talking with himself, and accuses Mayday and Zuke for being agents of the Azkar Faction,  he rips off his own body’s head, replacing it with the broken TV on the nearby table. His corpse somehow comes back to life, and you’re now fighting two Benjamins, great! The corspe acts far more like actual Neon J, but instead of giving out orders to a non-existent 1010, he can only scream. Benjamin’s clothing changes to fit that more of a captain’s, being the one to give out orders, except in a far more calmer tone to represent him still...being in denial, and still thinking he’s just a toymaker. Except, after you destroy Benjamin’s corspe, all you can do is RUN. Benjamin IS dead after all, dead and pissed off. 

The only time Benjamin even stops is when Kliff and Papa arrive, and Benjamin flips his shit, he stops trying to kill B2J and...sobs. That’s all he can do by this point, is sob. He comments on how powerless he was to stop them...he apologizes to Papa for not being able to protect Mama and Yinu, he apologizes to the entire city for not being able to protect them from Azkar...that maybe, MAYBE if he really tried, if he killed B2J, maybe that would somehow put a stop to this. Maybe he could finally rest. 

Papa ends up being the one to try and comfort him, and that’s where we,,,leave the scene. It’s better if Papa does this alone. They’re still close incase Papa hurts himself again in some way, but for the most part he’s fine.