Episode 7: Assassin and the Rampaging Dragon

Starts with a group of 3 arks, one of whom is a Cast. He’s another of the well designed ones, looks like a robot and not a dude in a suit, as it should. They’re all complaining about ‘looking for some guy that went missing’, so you’re probably supposed to assume this was Zeno. They want to kill darkers instead though. However, they’re watched by an evil eye in the bushes/shadows of Naberius. This belongs to…Hadred. As it sees they have some ‘red dots affliction dust’ on them (probably the d-factor they absorbed’) it springs out and eats/murders one of them right away. If you are paying enough attention, it is the Newman man who had the most dots out of the people.
The other 2 are knocked down, and start blasting it on the butt. Hadred, interestingly now in the show is somehow invincible. The shots of the cast & the other guy do nothing/all bullets bounce off. So, it uses the tail to smash the cast into the ground where it lays, then bash the guy into a tree. It then leaves through the usual darkness portal thing. The tree-hit guy begins to laugh and cry because he has trauma now.

On the ship, Melphonseana gets her privelages stripped by Casra, which means handcuffs, photon limiters, and no weapons. This is very appropriate because it doesn't hurt her but also won't let Gettemhult use her. As she’s led off, she smiles a bit and thanks Ash who is there. Casra assures Ash she won’t be detained, but monitored for her own safety. Elder may contact her…but don’t tell anyone he lived…it’ll cause chaos. He accues Ash of being a loose cannon for stealing the ship.

Matoi is glad Melfonseana is ok. Ash wonders what Zeno or veterans would do now…so Matoi tells him not to keep all to himself. Patty & Tea are soon running up to him. They can’t reach Echo, after she went down with a search party. They’re trying to reach her because the search was called off due to rampaging dragon attacks. It’s been around Naberius too much since DF re appeared. Ash can’t reach her either, so they’ll go digging for info. This is pretty much about like the game, Echo going off in every direction, desperate to find or confirm Zeno dead/alive.

Many Arks return from the portal, but all are glum. An announcement for Gate 21 on RD comes over the speaker…so Ash gets in on the crew even though he’s not part of it. They go to the ruins. Echo is already in the ruins, at the base of the obelisk crying. (It must have lost all power to do bad or zombie walk people after it got Gettemelder out) When she hears him approach, she thinks it’s Zeno. She turned off her comm. To avoid orders to leave. He says he’ll look in her place if she goes back, so don’t push too hard. He heads out into the snow calling for him, but he starts an avalanche and falls down a ravine in the snow. When he gets out he sees something red sparkling under a rock shelf.

Upon approach, it’s tiny lights and some metal walls. He creeps in under a door of heavy metal, to see strange hall ways. Inside, there are wires, metal walls and…someone is robo farming tomatos under artificial light. It is some kind of secret base. Tiny robots pick the tomatoes and take them away. He follows one to an old man who yells at it for bringing things he won’t eat. The old man is a homeless dirty newman who shrieks and hides in a shabby tent when Ash sees him. He’s starved for food that’s not a vegetable/tomato. Ash gives him some ARKS drink, which he gets all of, and wants more.

This part was never in the game.
No old man, no secret base. However, tomatoes ARE in the game. This was likely added to help explain Hadred / Quna more than what the game did because it was severely lacking and created confusion.

He hasn’t seen Zeno and it’s 2 years since he met anyone…or was it 3 years…He insists it’s a lab beyond comprehension, with research so valuable he’d never understand. He gets carried away yelling about it. But, it was all Hadred’s fault, the one who destroyed the lab, the one who killed the others. He claims he raised him…so how could he. When Ash's arm-phone rings, he thinks it’ll kill him. It’s a general call to help arks surrounded by Darkers in the tundra. Because Ash knows he’s close by, he’ll take the call. He promises to return for the old man, who only warns not to go outside because Hadred is there. He defeats the darkers from the call, but all are watched by the invisible Quna. It is likely that the old man does not know that Hadred can portal into anywhere that he can fit. So, it is also likely that by staying in the smaller rooms and halls, he is actually genuinely safe from Hadred because he is huge by now. The photo proves Hadred started off smaller than it is now.

One guy on the call for help freaks out though, and Quna goes to murder him as he curls up, still screaming from his newly-acquired red eye disease. Ash blocks her. The guy then attacks Ash because he’s got the red eye disease, as do all the rest of the previously normal/surrounded group in trouble. Quna insists they’re not comrades anymore and cuts everyone in half. Ash recognizes the work from earlier. (She cut instructor Kohana in half)  She says it’s too late for the med center, although he argues, and disappears before he can ask about Hadred.

ALL. THIS. DEATH.
Quna's kill count is likely in the 100s if not 1000s or more by this point, and it was never made clear in the game. Because Red Eye Disease is so rampant in the anime, the ARKS are just basically a snuff-organization, sacrificing people at a huge rate of speed. If killing like 5 dagans will give you the disease, which then assures you're chopped in half by Ms. Murderface Quna, the ARKS are basically just disposing of their own people continually day in and out. This is an idiodic way to run anything, because every person who does well is guarenteed to die--shown via Kohana & gunner-newman.
How messed up (or not) she is has yet to be seen because she is viewing them as 'animals' and 'inhuman/subhumans' on purpose to do the work. Why Quna doesn't get the RedEye is also unexplained as of yet but 'handwaving' it away as she was the Co-Hadred Experiment which makes her 'immune to that', seems highly likely.

Back in the forest…A stunned newman stands among flies and corpses. Quna arrives there to see if there’s anyone who needs killing. He’s also freaking out and attacks even though she is invisible, with wire lances. However, his eyes are white. Hadred portals in, eats him right away and portals out. So, they either killed all of each other, or he got all comrades while he was under the RedEye.

Melfonseana has come to Matoi ‘s room, where Matoi is looking at a photo of herself and Ash and Affin, to apologize. She’s under guard still. They go to a park bench area on the ship, and Melphonseana confesses she knew he was up to something and didn’t have the courage to help. Matoi tells her that she did try, she was trying to protect others from Gettem…however Mel insists that in the end she was only running away from everything by following his orders. She feels Ash is strange to rush to the rescue of someone like her. Matoi agrees. He’s desperate to help others. They both think about this.

Meanwhile, Ash is in the forest looking for others but thinks he sees something atop a rock…it’s Quna. She says to don’t follow her as soon as she notices his approach…however, he gets her to come down from the rock by saying he was specifically looking for her and shows her the "Zeno Is Missing" photo, as to why. He’s not on ‘her list’ (which was not the answer he was looking for) so hasn’t seen him. He wants to know why she’s killing ARKS, but she just says it’s her job to kill ones who turn into Falspawn (The RedEye).

Different:
This basically NEVER was a thing in the games. They’re making up this entire red eye zombie plot…but why? You DID have the ‘kidnap clones’ thing which was actually really cool and had a logical interesting explanation in the game. But this is like ‘whack everybody’, Quna is a literal monster.The odd bit is that it doesn't seem to serve a plot purpose or further the plot in any way. What is the point of all her killing, and the disease? It's the same with the Zombie Walkers to the Obelisk, it wasn't needed and having her snuff everyone all day wastes time in the episode that could be used to include more relevent things that really happened. Also it actively gets RID of her credibility as a chipper idol / good person who wants to help.

Ash thinks there was never a case of it, so she says better you didn’t know. But, a tentacle traps their ankle and pulls them into a red ball of sticks/twigs where many darkers attack. (So, like a Funji) Hadred gets in there though and starts eating them because that’s what he does. Once enough are eaten, it disperses the trap and he portals out. She calls him a traitor.

Ash asks if it’s Hadred the Dragon who has just appeared here, so she threatens to stab him over where he heard the name. "Old man" doesn’t satisfy her for the answer so in revenge she just vanishes. However…he goes back for the old man right away, and she invisibly follows him. (Because of course, going back for him right away is a foolish move but Ash makes it) He calls out for the old guy, and goes exploring the derelict and forgotten lab area. There’s a photo in a wrecked room of little Quna with Hadred/which is large but less pointy and she’s holding the face next to her, so probably when he/it was smaller too. The old guy says he shouldn’t be in the room because that’s where Hadred was. Ash wants to ask him some things, but he claims to ‘know nothing’ and runs away. Of course, Ash will chase him, and he gets to a smashed up room with blood and claw marks everywhere.

Ash asks exactly what happened here. Under the light of 2 moons through the skylight of the room, he tells them they researched for VOID. Ash doesn’t know what it is. (And, the game has VERY LITTLE elaboration on it also before Episode 6—remember 1 , 2 and 3 were relevant to actual PSO2, 4 went off the rails completely onto Earth which contained NOTHING relevent to any game plot, then 5 went to Mideval Times Omega so everybody was absorbed in tangents for 2 entire Episodes which are like YEARS long in real time for game-players so that makes everying even more seriously disjointed and feel badly planned. Who is going to remember every single tiny detail? You shouldn't be expected to! Not in something well done!)
One of the VOID research facilities was here. And the facility is pretty messed up.
Everything’s scratched/broken etc, and covered in blood that’s probably too red to be that many years old. As they walk, everything’s covered in even more blood. He explains that what  they were doing was ARKS augmentation experiments and 1 other. To artificially create a dragon and manipulate it to one’s will, a living weapon, a “Draconion”. But one day, hadred ate everyone and jumped out the roof on a rampage. Everyone died except him and the people on missions already. Hadred has been on the loose ever since.

*Remember they DO tell you why he's showing up now, which is the abundance of darkers lures him in, just like it does in the games which makes a lot of sense. He's always out for revenge against their corrupting influence which was no doubt used to help make him somehow. The game never tells you WHY or HOW he went bad.
He was rare-er when darkers weren't as common / such a problem on Naberius, so of course, when Elder/etc. started more trouble, Hadred became more of a menace in the area too. That made a lot of sense.

Ash has kept hold of Quna’s photo though, and begins to surmise that she was out on the mission, and that’s how she got missed. (He is surmising wrong--which is fine here, and shows character...the real answer is that Quna was Hadred's only real 'friend' or he was her 'pet' or something and so he would not murder her no-matter what)
However, she invisibly takes it from him, telling him that prying into people’s pasts is bad. This frightens away the newman, who thinks she’s come to kill him too. Ash asks what is Quna. She was born and raised here with Hadred.

This shocks Ash because she looks like some late teen type person, and the timeline for her age doesn’t make sense here.

Different:
This is all stuff we knew from the game. Quna always claimed Hadred was ‘her relative’, but the game had poorly and no explanation other than ‘experiment’. Aki / when she was in her grieving phase had regretted ‘experimenting ‘ as well, but VOID was generally void of information other than passing mentions. It was frustrating in the game because it started making the plot into nonsense waiting on an explanation that wouldn’t come.

Amoral:
So we found a planet of nifty aliens and they’re tribal like cave men humans. They talk and have religion and writing and families and so……we’re……..just gonna get some and experiment on ‘em to try and make uh…super soldiers? Yeah that’s right. Logical first thing to do when you see some alien guy farmin’ around in crystal town minding his own business while being a person just like how you are. (This is exactly like the game)

Missed Opportunity:
NIFTY NIFTY thing missed! The whole Quna Idol thing where she MUST stay in the spotlight and loved by crowds for her singing or else she risks being assassinated by her own organization / Casra! Ninja by night investigating Hadred and bashing foes like Gettemhart and darkers, and Idol by day cultivating fame that feels hollow just so she can stay alive! The lonliness of conflict internal created by not being able to have real friends as a celebrity (because putting them at risk) and acting cheerful for others while knowing you're a secret ninja of the high-level organization.
Now THERE'S an interesting girl to follow in the plot. Instead of having her be a mass-murderess, focus instead on her idoling to keep herself alive and all the personal conflict it brings. *Remember, Ash will eventually have to find out the alter-ego thing to advance the plot properly. This angle was fascinating in the game. (And not explored enough)

Episode 8 I’m No Longer There

An announcement by Regius explains the disastrous reawakening after 40 years of falz. At the start of this episode, the ARKS are in their dress uniforms, being briefed by Regius on a big wall monitor. He may also be broadcasting in the ship cities. He claims “We were too complacent, peace made us careless so our defense was penetrated allowing it onto the ships. The council of 6 is responsible, so he’ll apologize. He then says that we eliminated Elder once and for all, but sacrifices made it a bitter victory.

Ash remembers Xion saying to him that "the vessel was offered to the (obelisk of misfortune) as it should be." Ash wonders what she was hoping for. Coffins are scattered into space. Regius says the duty of the survivors is to keep moving forward.

Theodore is in the rain, just letting it rain on him.
Afin runs up, telling him he wasn’t at the funeral, but it seems like Theodore is refusing to understand she’s dead. He just says she was here, and then now she’s not. He will keep looking. Afin tries to stop him by holding his hand, asking him what Regius told us that to look ahead is the duty of survivors. He knows this, which is why he will search. He walks off into the empty city in the rain alone. This illustrates him becoming mentally unstable, which is what Luther's desire.

Melphonseana awakes to the care of Matoi in the hospital. She’s worried about Gettem, and tries to sit up. Matoi has to tell her what he did to her, so she remembers the stabbing. She looks worried, but then asks of him again. When Matoi won’t say, she assumes he’s dead and starts crying. Matoi only looks a bit disgruntled at this.

Well, Melphonseana had probably Stockholm plus survivors’ guilt that caused her to feel she needed to be abused eternally by Gettem to ‘make up’ for what she had done, so his attempted murder of her that she just barely lived through, is, of course, forgivable and tragic in her mind. She’s still absolutely going to mourn him, even though he willingly tried to become something that basically would kill everyone. She is somewhat insane, but in a calm sad way.

Meanwhile, Ash arrives in the room with Echo and Casra, who he is surprised is all right. Casra says he summoned them to explain where Zeno is. How Zeno came up with a plan to lure the ElderFalz into the wild after the fight didn’t go well. Echo says it’s just like him, but now no one can find him. Echo is confident he’ll turn up later. Casra wants to believe it. Echo wants to go back to her duties, so she leaves right away. Ash chases her, thinking she’s duper down about it, but she pretends she’s not.

Different:
They’ve changed this a lot. In the game you had super-grieving Echo, and Casra HAD to not know he lived because he was being spied on actively by Luther. Here, they are just playing the ‘well we don’t know’ card which is less impactful…but why? Casra really, really had to KNOW for certain Zeno was dead to complete the Luther trick gambit.

Ash reasonably asks why Echo says that ‘Gettem would chase him for sure’. So, she’ll explain like as in the game that they got along well in the past. Zeno aspired to be like him up until the 10 years ago incident. He doesn’t know about it but she refuses to tell him because ‘it will make her gloomy’, and tells him to get back to work. Instead, she goes down an empty hall, and cries once Ash is gone.

In the lobby, Sara says Ash has done it, and greets him cheerfully which confuses him. (She was haughty, borderline nasty upon previous meetings so why she is friendly here makes him confused---rightfully so) They see Matoi chasing Melphonseana, so Ash runs off after her, leaving Sara behind. Melphonseana gets into a ship, stealing it from the camp ship repair guy in bay 3-7. Then, Ash steals another to chase her. The guy calls it in but they get away from the main city-ship. Ash tries to call her, but she turns off the comms, summons a portal, and goes through to…Naberius.

She goes out into the snow in her clog shoes and floppy...what, hospital dress thing? She seeks out the obelisk, calling his name in the ruins. It’s sunset, but nobody comes out so she cries on the ground. Ash appears though, to disrupt her mourning/looking for Gettemhart. He just tells her ‘he’s gone, and was taken over by DF, then vanished.’ She sees a sharp piece of metal on the ground and tries to stab herself in the neck with it but Ash wrestles with her to get her to drop it and she falls down and screams that there’s no worth in living if he’s not alive. Ash doesn’t know what to do, so he stands and watches her as the sun goes down. They end up having to build a fire and hang out. She sleeps under a blanket until she calms down.

Different:
She never tries to kill herself in the game.

They both don’t say anything for a long time.
She says he was ferocious but not that violent. He was kind and kept her company, nobody hated him. Zeno looked up to him. This causes her to have a flashback, where little Zeno was a trainee and he would bicker with Gettem, who was cocky but normal. They would bother each other about their fighting abilities. As they argue though, a tall girl with frosty green hair slaps them in the head for doing that. The tall girl looks like Melphonseana, who says ‘she destroyed that’.
Back 10 years ago when Apprentice appeared on a ship, if only she had stayed out of things then, it would have been different, she laments. She hated the idea of needing protection, wanted to prove she could fight and not cower behind her big sister and Gettem. So when EL Dagans were rampaging in the city, she hid in some rubble. The sister is called by Gettemhart “Sina”, when neither of them can find ‘her little sister’. (So, she is replacing her sister who has a similar name, remember he calls her “Sheena” which sounds like the older sister’s nickname which is used here)
A little girl asks if Melphonseana is hurt, but she’s gloomy about it, saying that soon darkers will find and kill us all. The girl says no, the ARKS will save us. The pigtails girl is in civilian clothes here, while it looks like Melphonseana is not. She shushes her though, when she spies Apprentice Woman walking down the street in a haze of darkness.

After this point, Melphonseana claims she doesn’t remember much. (Remember, this is the ‘memory meddling era’ that hit EVERYone on all the ships, so this is her point of that) She guesses the girl helped her to escape some how and she was running around till she tripped. This is where she found a wand and almost got stabbed by an El Dagan, but was able to blast it with her first tech ever. She felt if she had that, she could protect everyone, and not need to rely on others for protection. She says that arrogance caused the downfall of everyone around her.

She went after…probably a Double Twin?
Different: Were the Double Twins even existing at this point? Gettemhart and her older sister look on at this in surprise because the twin is knocked backward. Something hits Gettemhart in the face/eye area knocking a lot of blood out. (So, this is the scar you see him with/how he got it) But it doesn’t show you what got him! Was he just watching her hit the twin and something snuck up? This would be important to know but there is ZERO explanation.  The sister engages…the other twin? They don’t show who she attacks so it’s confusing, then she screams and falls ‘into some light’ with debris and we’re supposed to assume she died I guess???? Of what? What is the point of making ALL this ambiguous? They're NEVER ambiguous about other character deaths in this show--like they DONT pussyfoot and they DO enjoy gory deaths so why pussyfoot the only death that actually really matters how it happened????

Gettemhart walks through the rainy ruin city calling for Sina, the older sister. Somehow that big ‘x’ on his face is now just a red line after like maybe 10 minutes which it totally would NOT BE without resta but supposedly here we ‘don’t have resta’ so who knows what un-continuity thing ‘fixed him’ from the dire hit he got. Different: So this is a continuity problem of play fast n’ loose whether resta works /exists or not and about what mates do and don’t do. It happens because the writers don’t know how to handle it and they move forward without figuring it out, relying on rug-sweeps and hand-waves like this one.

Melphonseana goes to hold his hand, asking him to stop calling for her to come out of hiding. He shakes her loose, and keeps calling, looking for her. She cries and hugs him behind, begging him to stop because she’s dead. He asks if she was here the whole time, knocks her off and stares her down for it. (Him asking 'if she was there the whole time' is him realizing she could have helped but didn't, and then beginning to blame the sisters' death on the 10 year old child--this is meant to illustrate his start into madness/crazyness like Theodore calling out in the rain for dead Ulc) He calls her Melphonsina. Her REAL name is, and has always been MELRONDIA. (So, this is him triggering her into ‘becoming the sister’. This is the whole "Irony" thing from the game where she wished 'to take the sister's place in his heart sometimes...well now she's got him...)
The Flashback ends.

Now, she tells Ash she doesn’t know what to say, and he says all his words are empty too. This is actually really astute, words DO sometimes come up empty in tragedy especially with semi-strangers like these two. It's actually a really good bit of writing here, which is nice to see. She says all that is fine, it’s the burden she brought on herself. And, thus started the abusive relationship between the two.

ASSUMPTION:
He blames her for not helping the sister/him and so the sister dies.
She also blames herself for not helping enough, and so knows she deserves to be abused by him forever to ‘make up for it’. (Remember, she’s 10, the sister was the only family she had)
She is abused from when she’s about 10 here, until she’s about 20 when we/Ash meet her.
REALITY:
You don’t get to know! Because even here they won’t clarify! If the doublemint twins were going to pick on people and rampage the city, they were going to whack EVERYONE no matter what. They also CAN sense powerful people so they were going to be able to find Gettem & Older Sister. That’s 100% cannon they could/would.
Unknown:
But if little sister Melph here antagonized the twins or sought them out and brought them onto the party and then went and hid……then she IS the co-murderer of the sister and it IS her fault the sister died if the twins weren’t rampaging or picking. The game also was ambiguous on her guilt level of actually being the one to do bad. But there's no reason for the ambiguity in the anime, it just makes the plot worse.

Suuuuper smartly though, Ash has an actual stroke of genius here and asks it “What happened to Gettemhart?”, to which it says he’s no more, consumed whole and gone. This is the perfect thing to do in front of Melphonseana to get her to believe he’s actually dead, and stop her stupid pandering to the Gettem-elder creature. She would never believe Ash and purposely forgot him transforming into the wierd pink hair/glowing eyes/giant hands trench-coat man after he stabbed her to unleash the obelisk powers.

He then attacks with fists, and Ash has to fend him off with the sword. They clash for a while, and Melphonseana is still so shocked that this combo creature with the ghastly voice somehow isn’t Gettemhart. Ash gets the better of him once, and he does stab him all the way through the diaphragm area and out the back, but…this doesn’t matter to him, so he grabs/chokes Ash to pull him off his own sword handle. (Remember, this dude is tall and also big, and becoming a Falz also comes with getting preposterously large hands (for some reason) so this is well within what he could do at arm’s length.

This grab of Ash, and his insults of ‘not enough power’ which makes Gettemelders’ hand glow with the green photon power. He appears to be pulling it out of Ash, but it quits when it gets to his shoulder. He draws the sword out of his chest, which heals in an instant, using it to create a stone cracking wave after throwing Ash down (in a way that doesn’t knock him out….but reaaaaallly should have if he was able to punch him down in the ship an episode ago) and this tumbles the fallen Ash away. He stabs the sword into the ground, mocking Ash again for being too weak to entertain him, challenges him to grow stronger and then portals out in a red/black blast.

Ash, worried about the somewhat banged-up Melphonseana goes over, to see if she’s ok, so she curses him for stopping her, as she shouldn’t be alive. Now that Gettem is gone…she laments. Ash though, tells her she has to live, because he thinks Gettem is also alive, and if she’s gone, then who will save him? She recognizes that’s not him any more, but Ash feels there’s got to be a way to return him to normal. She says he’s peculiar, and that her real name is Melrondia, so please remember it. He nods, and he will.

Now, the Melrondia vs Melphonseana gambit is complete.
She took her sister’s name, trying to replace her for Gettemhart’s benefit and for her own twisted way of trying to fix herself.

Different:
The game IMPLIES that the older sister & Gettem were somewhat or actually in a romantic relationship. It also lightly implies that Melrondia had a crush on Gettemhart too and sometimes even wished she could take the sister’s place ‘beside him in his heart’. A 10 year old crushing on someone around their 20s or so isn’t out of the ordinary but it’s up to everyone involved not to act on it inappropriately. The adult has this as their responsibility always.
They likely had to skip this for the anime here because it would raise the question “was he abusing her sexually also as a true sister-replacement even though she was under age and she felt like she had to do it to really ‘become the sister’?” It’s never hinted either way in the game, so the assumption should be that he just beats her all the time and berates her so she always feels bad and awful.
Nothing diverges too much, the plot feels like it's going to continue to make sense. However, nothing external much gets cleared up either so the episode is mostly neutral.

Episode 10: A Final Goodbye

Someone is dripping blood from their weapons as they go alone into a shower. The shower-stalls room is dark and empty of other people. The person has the blood on them too, and it’s Quna, who punches the mirror, shattering it when she sees herself through the steam. This doesn’t seem to be played for fanservice which is good because they could have.
She remembers a sunny day on possibly/likely Naberius which has 2 moons here. She was younger, and so was Hadred. It didn’t look really weird/extreme at this time. The head is still a big triangle shape, it’s still white but it doesn’t have the ‘skeleton deformed man’ thing going on or the weird chest/ribs issue. The tail is also smooth. It looks more like a big hairless wolf thing with monkey hands at this point. She hums a song (remember, she’s always been musical) so it will lay down next to her.

It hums when she pushes it. She asks if it should look pretty, so she ties a yellow ribbon around the tip of a horn, and takes a picture with a floating screen. This makes it happy, so they sleep in the sunny patch. It rubs her with its head to get her to sing for it. She pets it, because she recognizes it is trying to talk. She says the Amduscian dragonkin could, but he’s just bad at it. However, she’ll sing just a little.

She sings the signature song, and it goes to sleep, ending her flashback.                                                              

This is a good bit here, it fits, it makes sense with the plot, and it elaborates by showing us their history which we knew happened but it’s cute to see it that he was nice & etc. Also, that she has mental issues from murdering people all the time, that’s sensible too.

Now, Quna and Ash are chasing the crazy old newman man who has been hiding in the secret VOID base for however many years. He is of course, running away saying he didn’t do it while all the blood on the walls is miraculously still quite red.  Ash asks if she knows who it is, and it’s someone who took care of her & Hadred. She does not seem to have any animosity toward him though, leading you to think he was just some rando.

However….he begins to rant after Ash claims the “Monster Hadred ‘destroyed everything’”. He rants that it was YOU (Quna) pointing at her, that ruined it all. It should have been her that underwent the experiment. So, she wasn’t a good test subject, and that’s why everything is wrong now. If only it was her,  everyone wouldn’t have died. This shocks Quna, making her look sad instead of angry.

This triggers a flashaback where scientists come to little-Quna room (She’s maybe 10 or so, it’s hard to tell. And at this point she also has the dip tip hair so maybe it’s natural? ONE or the other diptip she has isn’t, you’re led to think in the game that the ninja-quna is the unnatural one but…not with this) ask her to go with them, but Hadred blocks it. All 3 scientists are older newmen men. It’s clear that ‘crazy old man’ is the center one/lead guy here, as his frizzy bad hair goes in a similar shape to the middle guy. They all have a black bar across their eyes (science goggles)

Hadred, the size of a wolf probably here, is obviously mad about the request because they won’t tell her why they need her. Unwilling to upset the possibly dangerous Hadred, they then agree to test it on him, because ‘they would have to test on a dragonkin anyway’. Hadred then peacefully goes with them, leaving little Quna behind.
Crazy guy/younger version now thinks frettingly to himself that “if they produce a result here, there won’t be any complaints”. Quna promises to sing more when he gets back & waves bye.

Now, everyone is dead in the lab, and wires are sparking. Little Quna has 2 green photon knives, and runs fearfully all around. She gets terrorized because all she finds are bloody dead people and ruined equipment. She calls out for Hadred until she finds the broken skylight where he escaped.

The flashback is halted by the old man accusing her of ruining everything once more. Ash tells him to get a hold of himself because he’s ranting. He then asks Ash why there are falspawn, why ARKS has to fight those things. Ash is surprised because it looks like he’s going to reveal some DF truth or something but he doesn’t. He blames it all on himself, because ‘if only we could successfully fuse ARKS and Dragonkins we could have had the ultimate soldier.’ (Exactly Like The Game Said)

Even DF couldn’t have fought it…but maybe we still can, if Quna fuses with Hadred, he can make it work, so come on, let’s go. He tries to pull her but this new scheme makes her so angry she cracks her photo frame and screams at him. He says she & Hadred got along so well, that the fusion would surely work, so we’ll go to the experiment room.

Instead of murdering him, she tells him to rot to death forever in this pit with all his vile dreams, turns invisible, and leaves even though he calls out. She goes to the roof. Ash sees her out the window while it snows on her. She looks at the portrait.

Far away, Hadred smashes his head into a rock several times before laying down to sleep. This seems to get some of the red off of his eyes. She sings as the dawn breaks. Ash goes to the roof too now, but Casra appears from around a corner, accusing him of getting mixed up in everything, while Quna accuses Casra of stalking at inappropriate times.

(When is appropriate stalking hours?)
(Old Man is indeed crazy, Hadred is way too darker-corrupted at this point to ever fuse with anything, and he should know this but he’s got to be crazy. Not murdering him is interesting restraint from her but it is likely because he will be more miserable being alive down there for however long.)

The trio of heroes has to be bored to stoop to stalking like this, she says. He thinks joining up with Ash is unexpected for her to do. Quna takes the opportunity & accuses him of knowing of the experiments, but Ash doesn’t know they knew each other. Casra (he is ALWAYS enigmatic pretty much) says not only Quna does dirty work. (so, yes he did know about the VOID and Hadred experiments). And you could saaaay that they knew each other and BTW Hadred is around here. (He knows how to rile her up) She wont disobey orders, as the disposable tool she is for the time being, which he agrees with. She wants him to ban all ARKS from Naberius so he agrees to that and shows a map. The map overlays illustrate the ARKS Quna was set to kill first, then it overlays the Hadred kills. Hadred is always there a little faster.

*Because of his darker factor sensing powers, no doubt.

But she’s not surprised…thanks to the experiments on him, he can smell and track Dfactor allowing him to get there faster, and she realized it, Casra accuses. She doesn’t deny. Ash says that it’s so she doesn’t have to kill Arks, Hadred does it instead. Casra wonders if The Dragon can reason that out by now. (Hadred IS crazy, this is Casra wondering how crazy he is) Casra says that it’s easier for Quna to make herself believe that Hadred is an awful traitor. *Yes, she always called him Traitor in the game, it was a big deal there because there was a lot more of ‘her chasing him all around’ that was drawn out/long due to the nature of the game. HOWEVER the game didn’t make it AS clear that “He is a traitor to humanity for eating people” because…….he wasn’t that way in the game! He was DANGEROUS and would TRAMPLE in the game, and he would scoff darkers by the handful, but the game NEVER had him just willy nilly eating people like it does here. And, when you/Quna/anyone would fight him if he got low on health/defeated he’d always spring up and portal out.

Ash wants to know how we can determine Hadred’s real wants and intentions which surprises everyone. Casra says it’s a moot point though because even if he’s doing it for Quna’s sake he attacks ARKS before they’ve ‘turned’ (red eye).  However, we’re all not tools either. You have a right to decide what action needs to be done. He then leaves.

Ash returns to the big tree, she explains that it was their favorite tree, and this is her first time back since the rampage day. She doesn’t doubt he’ll hear her song. So, she goes to the rock edge and sings. Suddenly, a red crack appears in the ground and Hadred springs out. He yells that he’s here! She tells him she knew he’d show up and jumps down to meet him, asking him if he remembers this place. He sees some of the dots on her, as she asks if he knew what he was doing that day, going in her place.  Did he sacrifice himself for her? She didn’t know, she’s sorry…but he did know, right?

*How would he know the scientists’ intent this 1 particular time out of all of them was apt to kill the test subject? He is neither psychic nor predictive.

She attempts to touch the long point on the front of the face because he won’t move/raise the head. This gives him too close a view of her red/black dots. He starts to freak out. She says answer her, but he roars slamming the ground/tantrum and goes to eat her. Ash grabs her out of the way so he bashes his own head on the ground, slams his tail. She says that big sister will ease his pain, and blocks a slap with her knives. She tells him to not interfere from here while crying. It’s her little brother so she’ll end it with her own hands. Hadred stares her down, so she tells him to rampage and go out with a bang. His records are erased, there’s no trace of him so shine intense and brilliant now to live on in our memories so powerful they never fade.

Member zero of the council of 6, she summon her sigil and attacks. This surprises Ash. She says if he had no voice even still she understood him, and though brother and sister they never fought. She rode on him, and they covered for each other always. They fight on as he does tail hits and blocks, but she slashes him repeatedly and he bleeds red (like humans not dragonkin) At last he falls and she slashes his neck which cuts his head off at last/mostly. (He’s suuuper big, you can’t 1 stroke him) she falters at the last hit so he gets up to attack again, making her take the strike. At last, he fountains blood and dies. Ash frets over her but she walks off. Ash instead runs up to Hadred, who’s eye is normal now, and it can cry. Ash feels he is calling for her.

She asks what, and finally it can speak, asking, once more for that song. She says after all the effort of learning to speak that’s what he’ll say? He’s a dummy but she won’t stop singing even if he begs her, so don’t fall asleep this song is…one that’s just for him. Slowly, as she sings, he turns into golden glitter and rises away toward the top of the big tree.

The episode ends among her lyrics and small flashback portraits. Him vanishing leaves behind only a huge blood stain and the ribbon. The ribbon goes up into the sky and disappears though. (SPOILER VERY IMPORTANT in Episode 11 it is revealed Xion TOOK THE RIBBON AT THIS EXACT TIME and shoved it 100 years into the PAST so that the ARKS would find it & use it to create Dumen which are a VARIANT on what VOID was trying to do when they made Hadred Rampage by accident. DUMAN is what Quna+Hadred were supposed to be. VOID failed when Hadred Rampaged, however whoever got the ribbon 100 years ago DID succeed.)
The scene ends.
Ash watches the end of a Quna concert where people cheer her on with waving glowsticks. This song, she’ll dedicate her song to her first fan, her rascally little brother, so hold your loved ones close while she sings. They’ll be shining intense and brilliant in your memories if you do that while you listen to the song now.

However, Xion appears to interrupt just Ash, who is away from crowds on a balcony. She says even events that repeat are weaving together into a single convergence. Is it a tragedy or release, only he can decide. Soon, a number of changes will occur on this time axis. So, she’s got to tell him that…

But she is interrupted by Luther who is coming down the stairs. According to his calculations, she should be right around here…he’s able to understand her this much at last. He looks around seeing only ash and feels it’s too early to see her, but she doesn’t say anything.  (Originally this was in the lobby where she’d repeatedly appear by the fountain) Luther doesn’t want to put anyone in a bad mood though, so he’ll just leave now…but before he does he asks if Xion has heard him, as he only wants to  understand her. He is then thankful for Ash too…(Although Ash says nothing to cover for Xion and looks around as if he doesn’t see her either) because he can understand her this much.

He introduces himself as Luther president of VOID.
Different: You didn’t find this out until way later and it was more confusing.
He wants to meet again. He then walks away into a green…oval.

Xion explains that he is aware of her and because he exists is why she has to entrust everything to Ash. He can’t see or hear her, but he is aware. It is their connection that she has to get rid of. The reason that he’s as twisted as he is though, is because of her. Ash asks what she means. She regrets her curiosity of the Genesis and why she has to rely on him. She gets so sad she vanishes, leaving Ash confused.

The Episode Ends.

Different:
Originally he was killed for good on Amduscia, where he originated, but it progressed just about the same way as it did here so the scenario doesn’t matter. 

A good episode.
Showing the ribbon vanish is super clever but you don't realize how clever until the next episode.
Why they felt the need to change the Quna/Hadred bit is...unknown. The game never had him eat even one single person/npc when it could have. Also, why was Casra so keen to get rid of him in this situation because "He kills before they turn evil".....but that's NOT logical because if the evil literally can't be stopped (darkness dots) then it doesn't matter what Hadred does. Do you kill the murder who will 100% for sure do a murder either before or after it murders? Obviously...before! And that's what Hadred was doing. To make him immoral, they would have had to have "A Fix" for the darkness dots--only in that instance would Hadred be actually bad. Here, he's not because he never makes a single mistake. Each person killed was ready to turn evil literally hours from when he kills them. So there's no moral reason to kill Hadred, other than that he is suffering & can't be cured.