Brash Buster

Mack in Town, Part 2.5: Interlude

(First written September 9th, 2022 and September 11th, 2022)

  1. Mack in Town, Part 2.5: Interlude
    1. Glossary
    2. Story
    3. Afterword

Glossary

This section details various relevant parts of the story. Underlined entries have links to pages that explain them in further detail (including events that take place after this story).

  • Dimension 2: A part of the world of Chaos Zone. While most stories take place in “Dimension 1”, “Mack in Town” starting from “Part 1” is an exception, taking place in Dimension 2. The differences between the two “dimensions” are not currently relevant.
  • Mack: A character from the 1996 video game Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. A robot built by Smithy, who has long since defected from him, and is currently on a journey of self-discovery, hoping to find not just how to fight, but what cause to fight for. He’s decided that along the way, he wants to stop the Seekers of Strength, and he lets himself fight alongside YuugenMagan Visage. He also helps watch over Terumi, not expecting her to take action in a battle.
  • Mega Beedrill: A character based on a species from the Pokémon series, namely an empowered form they can take in the 2014 video games Pokémon Omega Ruby and Pokémon Alpha Sapphire. The previously unseen leader of the Seekers of Strength, Mega Beedrill is only seen in shadow in this part of the story, his dialogue signaled by a big black box instead.
  • Rottentest WT: An original character based on the characters “Wight” from the 1990 MSX version of the video game Madou Monogatari 1-2-3, and “Test Body” from the 1991 PC-98 version of the same game. A member of the Seekers of Strength, she was apparently assigned minions who terrorized Terumi without her knowing. She is only referenced in this fragment of the story as the “Earth troop”.
  • The Seekers of Strength: A group of four characters (led by Mega Beedrill, who isn’t seen until this story) who seem to want to conquer Dimension 2. By the start of this interlude, the two confirmed members are Willowarp and Rottentest, but a third “wind troop” is mentioned.
  • Terumi: A character from the Len’en Project series. After the earlier story “Hall of Mirrors” revealed that her corpse was under control of the character “Mitsumo”, “Part 2” revealed that Terumi’s corporeal ghost still exists among mortals; the deeper details of what happened to make Terumi what she’s become are unknown at this point in the story, the most she’s mentioned being her mother. She is currently under the care of Mack and YuugenMagan Visage.
  • Willowarp JKLT: An original character heavily based on the character “Jack o’ Lantern” (or “Pyro Jack”) from the Megami Tensei series, and a member of the Seekers of Strength. He was fought and defeated (non-lethally) in “Part 1”.
  • YuugenMagan Visage: Also known as simply “Yuugen-V“, “Y.V.“, or “Yuugen“. An original character directly based YuugenMagan from the 1997 video game Touhou Reiiden ~ The Highly Responsive to Prayers; she’s actually a fraction of said character (or at least, Dimension 2’s counterpart) who has long been separated from them. While she comes from Dimension 2, it was not the same part of Dimension 2 as the rest of the story, so there is much to Dimension 2 that she does not know. She has decided to accompany Mack on his journey, hoping to stop the Seekers of Strength. She also helps watch over Terumi, not expecting her to take action in a battle.

Story

(The story picks up where “Part 2” left off, with Mack, YuugenMagan Visage, and Terumi taking a night to rest)

(The story then shows a different, unknown location, far from where Mack, Yuugen-V, and Terumi are…)

(The story continues in “Part 3“)

Afterword

I chose to add this brief interlude to “Mack in Town” to give Mack, Yuugen-V, and Terumi a break from the constant action, and explore what they’re like in a quieter moment; it also helped give me a moment to touch on the difficult relationship between the Seekers of Strength and their creator.

The implicit reveal that Terumi lost her home was admittedly an idea I had thinking about Terumi in my writing going forward; there were a couple details of Terumi’s unseen backstory that concerned me (how her parents would react to her ghostly state, and how her home connected to the rest of the Chaos Zone world), and while having her lose her home before being possessed by Mitsumo did feel somewhat awkward given how much she’d already been through with Mitsumo alone, I felt it would help keep her dynamic with Mack and Yuugen-V intact, since they now had a feeling of responsibility as the first people Terumi could find to help her in years.

The hidden figure in Willowarp’s part of the story is actually Mega Beedrill in shadow; I could have revealed him then and there and simply waited to elaborate on his motivation, but I’ve often brought up Mega Beedrill (the official concept, outside Chaos Zone) while talking with other MMRPG users, and I figured this was a way to give the other users more of a surprise when they learned the main villain was tied to something I was passionate enough about to discuss with them in the past.