He had quite a lot to be distracted by; my original thought was to depict the events that happened before the ones that ended up being shown, but when the story itself came, it was the aftermath instead of the battle itself. I still have the general outline of Jen's master plan in my head, but somehow it just didn't need to be depicted.

Basically, it required:

- not the six robots of a player-character Robotics Mastermind, but somewhere around a million, procured with resources and production capabilities "acquired" from a number of lesser underworld concerns over the last several years (most notably a Council Eclipse production cell's cavern base, a lot of the Goldbrickers' money, and - most satisfyingly for her - one of the secret factories that used to build Jump Bots for the Sky Raiders);
- a handful of her less evil, more mercenary "colleagues" in the Destined program, including Crab Curburator and Frosty the Hitman;
- an alliance with the Rogue Isles branch of the Freakshow, who owed Jen a solid from back when she handled that Circle of Thorns thing for them;
- a Tesla resonant-vibratory earthquake machine; and
- the launch and guidance codes for the nuclear missile in Warburg.

With those resources quietly accumulated, the master plan unfolded as follows over the course of about a month:

Phase I: Track down and eliminate Recluse's lieutenants and their chief minions, one by one. "Eliminate" doesn't necessarily mean "kill", though in some cases (Captain Mako, Black Scorpion) this was probably necessary, and in the case of Black Scorpion, might I add, a distinct pleasure.

Phase II: A strike on the Power Transfer System in Cap au Diable to remove Doctor Aeon as a threat and emplace the Tesla earthquake machine.

Phase III: A series of diversionary raids on the headquarters of various villain organizations around the Isles, to make it seem as though Arachnos is not the only target of whoever is out there doing all this mayhem. The presence in these strike teams of the likes of Crab, Frosty, and Ohmtown's Freaks sow further confusion as to just who that whoever might be. Added side benefit of putting most of those organizations at least temporarily out of the way for Phase IV.

Phase IV: D-Day. The earthquake machine triggers an eruption of Mount Diable at dawn. Immediately thereafter, as Arachnos begins to respond to the crisis, the full robot army mobilizes to occupy the Isles, crush the Arachnos street presence, contain any secondary villain factions not put down for the count in Phase III, destroy the Arachnos transport and air defense systems, bring down the Mediporter system, safeguard the public wherever possible, and - most importantly - eliminate the Arbiters and Arbiter Drones. The divisions conducting the transport, air defense, and Mediporter strikes are each led by one of Jen's original three Battle Drones, all of which have been upgraded to Assault Bots. The original Protector Bots are ABs now as well; each commands half of the general assault, with 82B's corps seizing the western half of the archipelago while 94's takes the east.

Phase V: Endgame. Jen, a division of Battle Drones with PB and Freak support, and her original, much-upgraded Universal Robot No. 76 take Grandville and destroy the Web. When Lord Recluse - who has presumably been driven into a Red Skullian frenzy ("YOU ARE FAILIIIIIING!!!") by the preceding series of setbacks, weird happenings, and outright debacles by this point - emerges from his tower to intervene personally, he learns that a) Jen Rossum is still no match for him physically and b) she doesn't need to be, because he really should have been more proactive about securing those nuclear weapons in Warburg.

After all that, I won't say life in the Rogue Isles will ever be normal - not with the Freakshow going legit, robot citizens, President Rossum's daemon-under-contract energy policy (hey, if it ain't broke), and the coming ubiquity of confused and suspicious UN and Longbow personnel who are constantly going to be standing around on street corners waiting for the other shoe to drop. But I expect it'll be considerably better for the surviving members of the General Public, at least those who can handle the weirdness. And, unlike under Arachnos, those who don't figure they can are free to go elsewhere.

Oh - and since as Recluse's (absurdly enough) designated successor, Jen will dissolve what little remains of the Arachnos organization, Ghost Widow is free to proceed to the afterlife, so there's that old favor repaid as well.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.