You'll need Promethia to end the game (Ending #11: Ciao, Despedida)

An idea-- a real longshot-- came to your mind. You told Despedida that there was one thing you wanted from her as a token of good faith: control of the heavyweight bruiser of the Deliverers, Promethia.

Despedida raised her eyebrows, then tilted the brim of her cap up as though inspecting you more carefully. "That's what you're into? Surprised you didn't take off to London after Au Revoir! But why do I feel like this is about more than just you thirsting for muscles like you're a fan of command grabbers?" the crafty agent chuckled, looking behind you as she spoke. You could only figure Promethia was back there, standing like a bodyguard against the room's exit.

You told her that after all this time, it had come as a huge revelation to learn that the Deliverers had all been brainwashed by her into believing a mantra of "cleansing the world" that never really meant a thing. They'd committed all kinds of atrocities under that belief and furthermore, you'd killed them in kind. She'd sat back and watched it happen, too.

"Not quite. Those people are all international criminals that I repurposed-" she began, then frowned as you cut her off again with a sharp word.

You told her that whatever the case, their blood was on her hands. At the very least, you wanted to rescue the one surviving Deliverer you knew of from Despedida's clutches.

"Hey, you may not believe me, but I am the empathetic type. I don't think I've got much on you, though, Ciao! What a time to show a bleeding heart," Despedida smiled, before lifting her cap and tapping her temple with two fingers. "But did you forget about the braincase that's making up over 50% of her brain right now? I'm honored you trust me enough not to hit some kinda switch on that and turn her back into property of Despedida. It's kinda like when you take somebody's monster inYu-Gi-Oh but they've got a trap card that puts it back on their side of the field, you feel me? What I'm saying is that modification's a one-way street; I'm a great technician but I'm not the kind of brain surgeon who's going to put back her unhackable human brain for you."

With a shrug, you told her that you were okay with the idea of a gentleman's agreement. After all, based on what you'd heard about Despedida and Vaarvel's agreement, it seemed that the only thing keeping the world believing in the standard lines of good and evil, as well as their ability to function as free thinkers, was the mutual promies of those two women not to spill the beans on each other. Whether or not she decided to flip the switch on Promethia ought to be considered pretty small potatoes next to that.

"You do make a salient point, Ciao. Alright. You can have your big dommy goth muscle mommy," Despedida giggled, rolling her eyes as though laughing at having pegged your taste. For just a moment, it was easy to remember her as the fun-loving gamer girl of the Goodbye Girls, your teasing ally who had always been ready to warn you of the dangers of your profession... but never of the true source of those dangers.

Once she disappeared behind you, then led Promethia in front, holding one large hand in hers while patting the woman's over-sized bicep with the other, you remembered the truth of the matter: Despedida was behind the majority of the life-threatening situations you and your team had encountered.

You couldn't help but push the point: thrill- seeking. That's all it ever was to her. The Goodbye Girls. The Deliverers. The deception, the lies, the people who were hurt. She was a genius and that genius had led her to a certain kind of madness: the thought that if there were others out there capable of challenging her, they had to be dragged out kicking and screaming, by any means necessary. That as long as the books were balanced, she could make a game out of digging at people's wounds, entrapping them, and torturing them until they revealed their potential.

Whatever Vaarvel may have done, it wasn't her that was the antagonist in this story. The one behind every other major antagonist: the Deliverers, Bortnik, the rogue Tschau, and now even Vaarvel who'd been forced to make some desperation move to London, was Despedida.

"Go on, Ciao. I've given you back the use of your hands. Do what you wanna do. I won't judge," Despedida shrugged with both hands in a vaguely annoyed gesture.

You told her that wasn't quite it. You needed Promethia to have her body too. That was your condition.

Despedida closed her eyes, smirked, and pushed a button on her laptop. "Go nuts. Those things you saw on her hands weren't just for burning you alive; they also deactivate when they come within a certain distance of me. If you were thinking about having her smash my head in her hands like some gore-filled finish from an overzealous action game, know that ain't gonna happen. They aren't gloves, either; they're basically her hands now. You like cybernetics, right? You seemed to like Tschau okay."

You grabbed one of Promethia's metallic digits in your hand, inspecting it as though in admiration, while discretely slipping a device from your pocket into her palm. You'd lost your hack-gun earlier, which would have been pretty useful in these circumstances, but you still had the discrete EMP.

From your seated position, you could probably reach Despedida's laptop, which could theoretically halt her ability to control your movements. From there, you'd have a few moments to try to wrest control of the situation from her before she managed to turn some piece of technology-- likely Promethia, possibly herself-- against you. You might also be able to fry Promethia's arms and let her have the use of at least her forearms back, then maybe she could batter Despedida to death... assuming Despedida didn't flick some kind of kill-switch.

You took another last ditch option instead. Your eyes glared into Promethia's meaningfully. If she'd been conscious this whole time, she knew the same thing you did. She'd seen your EMP device in action before. If there was still a God-- other than the so-called "Machine God"-- they would allow Promethia to understand what she needed to do.

"CEDIT dog... The Deliverers..." Promethia grumbled, her dark-painted lips curved in a deep frown. "The Deliverers will purge... you... everything..."

You nodded, with a look of resolve in your eyes. You gave her the go-ahead to purge everything.

Promethia turned to face Despedida, then swung one fist upward. As if predicting it, your former ally leaned backward, her cap falling backwards and her hair flipping up and out of her face. Her orange eye gleamed upwards towards the snarling face of Promethia. "That was a real stupid trick, Ciao! You can't hold it against me if I take away this gift I gave you now, right? I think I'm going to have to keep a tighter hold on your leash. You're like a-"

You never got to hear what you were like, although Despedia had offered plenty of such comparisons in the past. Promethia figured out an appropriate strategy to follow up her attack. You'd seen her gauntlets deflect a bullet earlier; they were capable of doing the same with the EMP device. At a speed much faster than simply dropping the device, she projected the EMP downward towards Despedida, causing it to hit with so much force that her head fell down to the floor and hit hard against the metal. The laptop fell from her hands and clattered across the floor of the laboratory room.

Despedida really had been the villain in all of this: her monologue had told you exactly how much of her power was linked to that eye that had originally been given to her by CEDIT Russia. An EMP on one brain case or her laptop might not hurt her, but having it applied directly to her eyeball ought to.

She wasn't the only one hurting. You felt an unhealthy crackling in one side of your head and felt half your vision failing, replaced by something like TV static. You thought you saw a spark pass by your field of vision. If it was bad for you, it was worse for Promethia, whose entire body was wracked with such effects as her long shadow cast over Despedida, convulsing in mechanical distress.

From the floor, Despedida pushed herself up to stare at you, with her hair splayed so that you could see her eye blinking inside a toasted socket. "That was pretty smooth, Ciao. You're like the rookie who takes one off of a tournament player by using some stupid-ass strategy nobody'd plan for. I knew there was a reason I fell in love with you," she chuckled, smiling sadly.

You grimaced and told her the feeling wasn't mutual. She'd deserved to have her plan fall apart around her.

"Yeah... I guess I do. I wish I had a second life, though. It's going to be real interesting to see the fallout from what you just did! Do you know how much it sucks to know there's a sequel to your favorite game coming out that you'll never get to play?" Despedida laughed. "You just froze the global economy, threw a big ol' wrench into world politics, and put half of CEDIT out of commission to boot. I'll bet Vaarvel and Adder are gonna be pretty fuckin' excited! I wish I could see it all... The world is going to change so much. Why didn't I think of it? I could have reset my own game and seen it all..."

You grit your teeth against the pain, unable to retort.

"Hey, Ciao? You know what the coolest part is, though? You actually beat me in a game for once-"

Despedida smiling face disappeared as Promethia's metal arms disconnected from her body, falling like two giant hammers from the defeated Deliverer boss's arms to smash down upon the mastermind's unprotected head.

The armless body of Promethia, shooting smoke and sparks from every joint of her remaining figure, toppled down atop her former master. Your eyes rested upon the grisly scene for a moment longer, before your vision went black. You wouldn't wake up for a long time later... but while you were asleep, you could still dream. You dreamed of a world where humanity would be free to decide its own course and the world wouldn't live in fear of some unseen shadow puppeteer... A puppeteer that you'd finally unmasked and executed. Hopefully, Promethia had gotten some measure of vengeance from it all as well.