Goood morning! It's time for another episode of Fun FGA Facts! Woohoo!
... the camera? Umm... it's... it's broken! Yeah! I, uh. I broke it. It's gone. Threw it away. Don't worry about that though! It's not like you come here to look at me! And if you do, please don't admit it to me!
Anyway! I've been authorized to release a small portion of the chapter "One Big, Happy Family" that wound up being unused! Isn't that stellar? Yeah! It's great!
Oh, wait, I was supposed to read a disclaimer- hold on, lemme open it up-
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Aaah! Sorry, didn't mean to turn that on- that's my sensor malfunctioning, sorry for the loud noise-
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Ahem! Got it. Here's the disclaimer...
"Just so you guys know, the following description of the function of Van's Stand is no longer canon! It's actually the main reason this scene got removed in the first place. I would say that the scene is non-canon but most of it is canon, it's just a few parts that got scrapped. I would have removed them but I'm too lazy. My bad."
"Anyway, the first scene would have taken place after Boss acknowledges April's hair change. The second one would have taken place after the chapter ends."
Okay! Without further ado, here's the segment!
Sammy falls onto Van’s bed with an oof. He picks his head up, and looks around.
The walls are dark green, with white paneling that’s clearly kept very clean. Shelves line the walls. Some are full of notebooks of various sizes, others with large books with names like “Horde of The Heiress of Cacophonia” and “Armageddon: Plight of The Dark Kingdom”, and others with tons and tons of hand-painted figurines resembling Van’s sketches. Van’s desk has a few figurines on it, awaiting painting. Van picks one up, squints, and starts whittling at it.
It’s so… normal. Sammy isn’t sure what else he thought Van’s room would look like, but… the way everyone else talked about him, you’d think he was an incapable slob or something.
Sammy: “Hey, Van… d’ya have a plan?”
The unintended rhyme makes him laugh. Seeing this, Van smiles that same unsettling smile.
Sammy: “A Van plan. Hahaha, that’s funny, isn’t it? I didn’t mean to do that.”
He looks behind him at the wall that the bed is against. Tons of photos, connected by clothesline wire and pins, hang there. Sammy recognizes a few faces. He takes one down.
Sammy: “Whoa- this is Piano Guy from yesterday! And there’s Trish- and the gun guy! How’d you get these?”
Van writes something and shows it to him.
April and I have been working hard too, you know.
Sammy: “I always forget that you two had like, real jobs, before being with us.”
Not to say this is much better. But it’s steadier, I guess.
Sammy: “Yeah… I’m happier here, too. But only because my other life was… yanno.”
He shrugs. Van nods solemnly. I think it was like that for all of us. Or most of us, anyway.
Boss is different. Van furrows his brows. I don’t believe for a second that he’s just some other unfortunate soul affected by Giovanna like the rest of us. His pencil snaps, and he digs around in his desk drawers for a new one. The new one is bright blue. Like Sammy’s eyes.
I think he fell from very high. Like in Revelations. It matches his name, doesn’t it?
Sammy: “I- I’m not allowed to know his real name.”
Mmhm. You know, the name we all know is not his real name, either. I looked everywhere, and no records of someone by that name existed until almost seven years ago.
So… I think I’m free to tell you, if you want. Since it’s not actually his “real” name.
Sammy stares into the photo in his lap. Piano Guy- Fugo, or whatever- is outside of a train station, glaring at something just slightly outside of the frame. Electricity prickles every inch of Sammy’s body. He twitches.
Obey, says Blues Traveler.
Sammy: “I’m not allowed to know. I can’t get around that. If he doesn’t want me to know, there’s a good reason for it, there has to be.”
But he’s horrible to you. He tried to hurt you earlier, and he made you take the blame for it.
He clenches his twitching hands.
Sammy: “Boss loves me, I know it. I can’t betray his trust.”
Van shrugs and crosses out his previous messages, then, for good measure, throws the paper away and tears out a new sheet.
Sammy: “Shouldn’t we be planning?”
They’re related, I promise.
Van smiles. It’s not scary, this time. He selects a few figures from off the shelves, collects all of the figures from the desk, and lays them down in front of Sammy proudly. Sammy picks up one with bright blue eyes and black hair.
It has cute little ringed jewelry all over it, and a small knife in its hand. A familiar pendant hangs from its neck. Sammy glances down at himself, and then looks back at the figurine.
Slightly unsettled at such a precise replica of himself, he examines the rest. April. Van. Per. Culto and his girl. Trish Una. The gunman. Piano Guy. There are a few other people too, but Sammy doesn’t recognize them. Boss isn’t there, though. Maybe he’s not done yet?
Sammy glances around at the unfinished figures, but nothing even remotely resembles Boss. He runs his finger over his miniature self’s knife.
Sammy: “I mean- they’re great! Did you use the photos to make these?”
Sammy: “Sick! Really, this is freaking sick!”
Sammy: “But… aren’t we missing some people?”
He sets his figurine down next to April’s, and examines them all again to see if maybe he missed Boss somehow. Nope, he’s still not there.
April and I have never been able to catch him out and about. She’s starting to think he never leaves their headquarters.
Sammy rolls Piano Guy’s figure around in his hands.
Van sets his paper and pencil aside, and replaces them with what looks like a game board of some kind. I’ve been messing with my Stand, and I think I finally understand it.
Come on, help me line up the figures.
Sammy nods, and at Van’s prompting, places them wherever on the board. Van nods approvingly. He then pretends to summon his Stand, and picks up one of the enemy pieces and makes it move around as though it was talking. Van rolls a 20-sided die, and it lands on 10. Van shakes his head.
Sorry, he writes, it’s hard to explain how a ten would work.
Instead of rerolling, he moves the die so that it says ‘1’. Then, he takes the figurine and makes it fall over and roll, hitting its head on some rocks and stuff, before finally laying still.
Sammy: “...so… your Stand is that die? And if it rolls a low number, the movement is bad?”
Have you ever played a tabletop RPG?
Van shrugs. No worries. I figured you hadn’t, which is why I didn’t lead with that.
My Stand creates a “dungeon” kind of like this, on which the “players” have to move. The order is restricted by “initiative”, which is a value each player rolls. People with higher initiative move first. And they have to tell the Game Master- the Stand, I think- what they want to do. The Game Master tells them what they have to roll on the die to get the best possible result, and they roll. If it’s lower, they fail, in some way. If it’s that number or higher, they succeed and move as desired. Does that make sense?
Sammy: “I- I think so. But how are we going to get all of those guys onto our, uh, gameboard?”
That’s where you come in. You and I will go to a crowded event, and you’ll use Blues Traveler to possess a bunch of people. No doubt Giovanna will send his goons to stop us…
And you’ll lure them into our dungeon.
Sammy: “Okay. Sounds like a plan, Van.”
Sammy: “Haha, it rhymed! Did you see that?”
Sammy wakes up on the cot again. Someone is running their hands through his hair.
Boss: “Sammy… you’ve made me very happy today.”
Sammy feels ill. He doesn’t know why. Electricity prickles him again, and he has no choice but to obey. His mouth twitches, and twitches, and breaks into a smile.
Sammy: “Hahaha… haha. That’s- great.”
It sounds- and feels- stilted and wrong. As though Sammy is back in that nightmare. But it’s not possible, is it? He forces his eyes open.
Boss smiles down at him, and his teeth are sharp.
Boss: “Isn’t it? Now everything will be as it should be.”
Sammy sits up, and immediately feels so dizzy he has to lay back down. Boss eases him down onto the thin pillow, and then his hand is back in his hair. In. Out. In. Out. Sammy’s breath catches in his throat, and he chokes out a gasp.
Boss: “Shh, shh. Sleep, Sammy. We’ll work more tomorrow.”
Sammy doesn’t need to be told twice.
Wow! What a cool little tidbit! Now, um- sorry, what was that?
Another post? I haven't made a post since last week! Well, actually, the profiles- well, I know I sure didn't make a post yesterday!
Sorry about that, everyone! It's gone now, no worries! Thanks for letting me know! ^_^ See you next week!
