The girls, following what happens in canon (if you can even call this particular game 'canon'), head over to the Seismic Center and Robot Factory by Stark's Pond while fighting the hordes of Dragon Bots and taking down the multiple mile-long sci-fi ships I throw at them (sometimes literally; that caught the two off guard).
I allowed the girls to use their full power again since my ships are far stronger than anything this world has to offer after merging with so much alien, future, and Time Patrol tech.
Taking inspiration from Star Wars Battlefront 2, they have to board the giant ships and take out several critical systems (weak points) I had T.K. set up for the occasion. They could also destroy the ships without taking advantage of those, but that method would waste way too much energy; something I made sure to let them know.
I also let them know that they should look for patterns when it comes to weak points and areas to avoid on these dreadnoughts; it'll help save them plenty of time and effort if they do.
Even the most basic strategy and tactics can make all the difference in battles. I've seen that time and time again here.
Now you may be wondering why I'm having them use their full power from here on out. Isn't it better to train in base form? Well, it's all about finding a balance.
Power is far from the only thing I want them to improve. Besides, they can do that anytime they want. These augmented stages are meant to teach them teamwork and adaptability above all else.
(("A good enough lesson plan, but what if the ship crashes while they're still on it?"))
'Meh, we've all dealt with worse.'
Flashback - Dovah's POV:
Several more Stormtroopers get beheaded by my blue lightsabers as I make my way through the iconic flying metal behemoth from Star Wars. I know I've said this before, but Imaginationland kicks fucking ass!
"Alright, we should be approaching the command center soon." I tell my Jedi apprentice. "Hopefully Karen's still willing to turn back towards the light side."
"Yeah, I've been meaning to ask you about that. Shouldn't Karen be on the light side while I'm on the dark side?" Tricia questions.
"That would probably be a better fit, yeah, but Kenny has an unfair bias towards his biological little sister. Look on the bright side though, the Jedi always win in the end, right? Well, it took like 20 years for Palpatine to die after building his empire excluding the sequel trilogy shit, but still..." I ramble on while Tricia gives an unamused stare back.
Come to think of it, guys on the dark side always seem to be living it up in positions of power while light side guys just run away to become hermits on deserts and swamps the second the dark side guys get the advantage. What's up with that?
'Come to think of it, Jedi are supposed to not get attached to anything too.' I just now realized. 'The Sith also have way cooler powers! Why the fuck would I want to be a Jedi when-'
[kkkkssssssshhhhhhhh... Ahem, this is your captain and local Sith Lord, Darth Y'nnek speaking.]
Oh no.
[If you look out your window, you'll get to see what happens when a Star Destroyer does a summersalt!... wha-hey! Give me tha- kkkkssshhh... uhhh, fellas? This is Butters. Y-You all might wanna hang on to something heavy.]
*BEEEEEEEEEP* *BEEEEEEEEEP* *BEEEEEEEEEP* *BEEEEEEEEEP*
'...Goddamnit, Kenny.'
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"
Present:
...Yeah, those two should be fine in the ship-crashing happy-landing department.
While this is going on, I make some preparations involving the final enemies and bosses in this game and go over some more data and plans with T.K.
We also have a brand new checklist of places in spacetime to visit in order to grow even more. Fights don't solely depend on power; increasing my bag of tricks is the best way to go. Doing the latter usually helps out plenty with the former anyway.
(A/N: He's killing me here. I can barely keep track of all the powers Dovah has as is.)
So many things to plan, projects to complete, and powers to gain. The sense of urgency is still there, but with Karen and Tricia by my side and the path to victory more clear than ever, I can't help but be excited for what's to come.
'My Ultimates will be pushed to all new heights! My army will far surpass even the Lotgral! My... wait a second. Oh, for fuck's sake.'
I just realized that T.K's 'Lotrgal' are a bunch of corpses merged together to become an undead monstrosity that holds multiple superpowers and they obey their master who usually wants to murder everything in sight. Red and T.K. literally just made kaiju-sized nomu! The parody All For One jokes are never going to stop, are they?
(("They're more like Gigantomachia if he was patient 0 for a super-zombie virus.")) You're not helping me here, T.K.
Sigh, I'm just gonna do something else now to take my mind off this crap... oh, I should probably check up on Team Stan while I have the chance. I didn't mind-control them to stand around like puppets on strings; I just made sure they wouldn't interfere with this game.
I wonder what they're doing instead of this? Are they in the middle of another crazy adventure now or what?
Meanwhile, with Team Stan:
*BANG*
"HA! Ya missed me, hippie!"
"That was a warning shot, fatass! Now put down the fridge!"
"Viva la honey-baked ham!!!"
*BANG* *BANG* *BANG*
"...So how was your day, Kenny?"
"A thief broke into my house and started looking for money, so I started looking with him."
"Did you find anything?"
"No idea; he accidentally headshot me at the half-hour mark."
"Oh... why is your parka down?"
"Well, I-"
*BANG*
"OH MY GOD, I KILLED KENNY!"
"YOU BASTARD!"
...Forget I asked. Back to my sisters it is.
Wait a fucking second.
The robot fodder from the comet is appearing all around town now that Karen and Tricia are busy dealing with my own robots. Goddamnit.
I lift every comet bot in sight into the air with my telekinesis and crush them all like coke cans with just a thought. I then look around to see if I missed any and see a certain run-down house a bit outside of town that has the robots surrounding it.
A certain run-down house that has a terrified Karen McCormick inside.
A certain run-down house that has robots trying to break in and hurt a terrified Karen McCormick inside.
OH! HELL! FUCKING! NO!
*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*
After switching into a Mysterion cosplay costume, I teleport right in front of Kenny's house and tear every single robot to pieces within a few seconds.
I then calm down Karen (after calming down myself) and promise her it will all be over soon.
She calls me her guardian angel which I don't deny at all and Kenny is probably going to be extremely confused when he starts taking up his Mysterion persona, but I don't really care.
My ships in this latest section eventually all get destroyed and I have T.K. send the scraps back to base for recycling while the girls fight the game's latest big bad boss which is a giant robot controlled by an evil Mr. Hat with glowing green eyes.
That isn't the main boss for them though, that honor goes to the latest addition to my mechanical army; the Ultimate-End Dragon Bot. To put it simply, this guy in my army is the equivalent of the custom-made Prototype Z-1 in Future Tenorman's army that I fought while doing through Tenorman's Revenge (and who eventually became Zenon).
It's meant to both be a test of technique and teamwork for the girls and a field test for the prototype robot. The custom A.I. controlling the thing isn't nearly as intelligent as T.K. or even the girls, so they need to rely on outsmarting the bot to take it down.
Catch it off guard, use the environment to their advantage, figuring out structural weak points that they can exploit (the joint areas for example), or just wear it down since robots can't exactly heal.
Well, not in the traditional sense anyway. They would need replacement parts to recover or improve.
So naturally, being the resourceful people we are, T.K. and I added in a special function exclusive to Ultimate-Ends to take advantage of that.
Simply put, these things are lesser versions of Trapper Keepers.
For those of you who have played Sonic Heroes, you can picture these things as the South Park equivalent of Metal Overlord (which is exactly what I was going for when creating this with T.K.).
This Dragon Bot can copy the data of others, replicate their moves (like what the Milk Spawn do), and merge with anything inorganic to become a metal monstrosity. Depending on how much they are able to grow, they can completely outclass the High-Ends and maybe even give the Lotgral a run for their money (the Nazi Zombie space goo can only infect living things)!
The Time Patrol's massive overreliance on technology will be their undoing once these guys start entering the battlefield.
I recommended destroying all my custom ships or 'tank enemies' to them like what you're supposed to do in game because like in game, not doing that here would come back to bite them.
Instead of having to destroy all the remaining ones before time runs out, all remaining ships and scraps in that area were immediately fused into the Ultimate-End, giving it a similar look to the earlier mentioned Metal Overlord (only with more of a gray and black color palette instead of a blue, purple, and silver palette).
This was also the main reason why I recommended conserving energy as best as they could; they were going to need every bit of power they could get to take this guy down.
*ROOOOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRRRR*
"Okay, what the actual fuck, Dovah?"
"Come on, Trish! Let's take it down Super Sonic Style!" Oh cool; they got the reference too.
The spectacle is an epic one and I watch the show after getting Jimbo and Ned out of the robot factory. The two were captured in game by the robots and that didn't change here.
The comet also continues to get closer and I plan to have T.K. absorb it while the girls fight the final boss in this game. My A.I. has a pretty good analysis on the malicious energy now and there should be zero problems with me absorbing the thing.
As for what happens next, I'll let the girls take a break for a while and visit a couple other timelines on my newest checklist. At the very least, I want to become completely unbeatable against anyone under Morgan Freeman in power. That includes the Time Patrol's 'Symbol of Freedom' who I can't wait to meet as he may very well hold the key to transcending yet again.
But for now, I'm just going to watch the ongoing multiversal insurrection with the girls and treat it as yet another learning experience.
"Three compliments? Why can't we roast them instead like what you did with Karen yesterday?" Tricia whines as I pull up a live feed of their latest big battle.
"While both sides have their faults, they also wouldn't have become as big of threats as they currently are if they lacked brains entirely. They're at least doing some things right." I answer back.
"Take the Dark Angel's latest superweapons for example. They are nearly perfect counters to the current Time Patrol and serve as physical displays of both Red's knowledge of her enemy and her skill in using that knowledge."
"Like you and T.K. didn't do 90% of the work for her there and any other areas her fighting force is actually competent in." Tricia mumbles.
"What's the point of complimenting them so much, big bro?" Karen asks while fidgeting on my lap. "Don't most South Parkers usually communicate through banter and insults."
"They do; that's just a quirk of theirs, but I'm looking beyond that." I reply before sighing.
"Do you remember what I taught you about the cost and value ratio when it comes to the decision making process?" I clarify and both girls nod. "What's the cost of treating opponents with actual respect?"
"Ummm... probably missing out on a few good boasts and insults." Tricia responds after thinking for a bit. "I don't see jack for value in that though."
"I'd say that defeating a powerful enemy whether it's through strength, intelligence, or some other important category whose kind of power you actually acknowledged helps your overall feelings of self-worth increase as much, if not more then it would for defeating a weaker enemy that you boast your superiority to." I explain to them.
"There's also the bonus of avoiding excessive pride and ego by admiring your opponents strengths instead of looking down on them. Remember what happened with Butters? I never imagined he would betray us, but him actually becoming a major threat and surpassing me, albeit briefly, was something far less likely in my eyes.
That experience really gave me the wake-up call I needed. It's why I was extremely cautious when dealing with the Time Patrol from the get go, preventing them from finding out about my true capabilities as long as I could while finding out as much as I could about them in the process. But even then, I still lost to those guys. Multiple times, in fact."
"So you're saying we should never boast to our enemies like a stereotypical big bad supervillain would?" Karen clarifies.
"Well, you could as long as it's just a cover-up for your actual thoughts. You could even fool the enemy into thinking you're underestimating them, only for them to underestimate you as a result. Many battles tend to be just as much mental as they are physical.
Be sure to recognize the strength of your enemy as that will make you approach them in a more realistic way. Doing so helps you avoid mistakes. Speaking from experience here, overkill is always better than underkill." I conclude and the girls nod.
It's as they say, you learn more from failures then you do successes. I sure as hell have. Those failures cost me so fucking much, but at the very least, I can teach Karen and Tricia the lessons I learned from them so they won't ever fail the same way I did.
"We're villains at the end of the day, girls. Anti-villains are still villains. We're killing people, yes, but we're doing this to make the world a better place. A monster like the Dark Angel will never make the world a better place, and beating people around for their own enjoyment like Butters did... looking down on everyone besides ourselves as nothing but worthless pawns to be exploited like Cartman did... those are things a true monster does.
Try to be Smart Evil, not Stupid Evil, alright?" I finish with a small smile on my face.
"Alright."
"Got it, big bro!"
Karen's POV:
"So... that Zarganor fight sucked." Tricia comments as we lay in bed.
"Yes, that certainly did." I responded back.
"...Wanna talk about it?"
"I'd rather not."
"Look Karen, I haven't seen you cry like that in years. I know you're trying to be brave for Dovah, but it's better to solve a problem than to hide it.
I also know that us South Parkers have the ability to adapt to truly insurmountable amounts of mindrending insanity and continue living on as if nothing happened... well, I mainly ignored it rather than adapted to it, but this is just getting ridiculous!"
"I know that! I just... want to solve it myself. How am I supposed to prove to our big brother that we don't need him watching over us all the time if we constantly need his help?"
"There's a difference between constantly needing his help and asking him to help with trauma. What we went through back in our timeline after Dovah was forced to leave wasn't training, Karen. It was hell. Pure. Fucking. Hell!
We kept our spirits up, sure, but there's no denying what it was."
I start to tear up as she finishes her rant.
"Yeah... but what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right?"
"You can't always think that way! We aren't total freaks like Dovah, alright?"
"Tricia!"
"What? I don't mean that in a bad way or anything! What I'm saying is that wanting to become better than our surrogate brother one day is a good goal to have; it's just that he set the bar really fucking high.
We both know how terrifying he is. Not just in his power lead either, but in the fact that he just seems to look at everything differently then us or anyone else for that matter. He looks at every timeline, every situation he finds himself in and sees a hundred possibilities and a thousand questions to be answered.
We've watched him practice and hyperfixate and experiment on every new power and item he gets. We've seen his hunger for more and more that never seems to be satisfied and his desire to just be better that will never go away.
Our brother is amazing, but he isn't perfect and neither are we. We all have plenty of trauma to work through, so lets make our top priority fucking working through it and kick its ass!"
"...You really are like a female Craig; blunt no matter what." I chuckle and my best fri- no, my sister smiles back at me.
"It runs in the family. Now let's get some sleep; I'm pretty sure we're fighting evil transformers tomorrow so we probably shouldn't be falling into a coma on the battlefield."
"Does Cybertron have a government?" I ask as I snuggle up next to my sister.
"I'm pretty sure it's a monocracy in the movies despite the civil war going on."
"Oh. Let's murder the robot tyrant then."
"Sounds good to me, sis."