New Readers

Last Res0rt in 30 Seconds

Warning: Massive Spoiler Alert!

Everything here is summarizing the comic pages, so there are unmarked spoilers past this point.

Volume One – First Against the Wall

Buy the Book today!1. Casting Call

A Talmi violinist by the name of Jigsaw Forte has an appointment with Vincent Vaeo she’s eager to keep! Vince is the intimidating lizard (Zillan) whose family is in charge of a dangerous, deadly reality show known as Last Res0rt. After Vince expresses skepticism in her switch from violinist to violent killer, he sends her to his daughter, Cypress Vaeo. (Meanwhile, criminals show up to the space station, namely Geisha and Slick Giovanni.)

Jigsaw reaches Cypress, who isn’t impressed… until she catches sight of Jigsaw’s dead eyes!

Cypress orders Jigsaw into the arena, then tackles her cousin Damien (talking to celebrity soldier Jason Spades), complaining he sent her a “Dead Inside”. Damien runs through a list of all types of Dead Inside, explaining why Jigsaw couldn’t be any of them…  not even a vampire (everyone knows only humans can be vampires), but Jigsaw is proving him wrong while nobody’s looking.

2. Don’t Say Goodbye, Say Hello

Slick’s running for his life, and away from his captors shooting at him! He manages to run into Jigsaw… literally! While Slick apologizes for ending up in Jigsaw’s chest, the guards catch up with them — lucky for Slick (who tries to negotiate, with little success), Jigsaw convinces the guards she’s already an executioner, leaving Slick in her care.

Lucky for Slick, she’s not an executioner (yet), but he IS curious about what she’s doing here… since Jigsaw’s not talking, he tells her his story. Slick’s family was in the leather smuggling business on Arael (the planet that Slick and Jigsaw are both from), until one of his Celeste bodyguards framed Slick for his father’s murder. Slick’s story gets cut short by Adharia Kuvoe, a pink lion-esque centaur (Xiami) who is so excited to see “kittypeople”, she runs to catch up to the two Talmi, bowling over more new prisoners (Daisy, Silk, Zodiac, and another guard) in the process.

In the chaos, Jason catches up to them, and he’s interested in Daisy… so much that he wants to kill her!

Jigsaw rushes to her defense, much to Jason’s amusement (and Jigsaw’s anger… which she figures out is a bad idea to show, given the keen interest Damien now has in her soul aura), but she manages to ward Jason off, giving everyone a chance to dust off and escort the prisoners to their cells. Vince and Cypress are watching in the distance, with Cypress satisfied she made the right decision… even if Vince thinks Cypress is in over her head.

3. Episode One – The Series Premiere

Everyone’s getting ready for the Series Premiere of Last Res0rt… including Jigsaw’s family on Planet Arael! They seem to have an interest in watching for Daisy, unaware Jigsaw is on the show as well. Back on the station, Addy is complaining about her tight-fitting prison jumpsuit (which everyone appears to be wearing, even the volunteers), just before they’re introduced to the Condemned properly. Cypress gives a quick overview about the WISP cameras (and how the players should take care not to damage them) before starting the show, with several of the players taking a keen interest in each other just before they’re split up into various groups competing to become the show’s Executioners.

And so, the episode ends (mostly) happily… except now Jigsaw’s father, Cypher, is pissed off, breaking out what looks like an old superhero’s costume and vowing to bring Jigsaw home one way or another!

4. The Lieutenant You Save May Be Your Own

The next day, Addy and Jigsaw are becoming fast friends in the hallway. It looks like Addy is about to tell Jigsaw her story as well — but they’re cut off by Cypress, suggesting that they should go ahead and enjoy one of the main benefits to being an executioner — picking out a lieutenant to assist them!

Addy isn’t completely clear on the concept, but Jigsaw’s eyes are drawn to a scantily-clad Slick, trying to “appeal” to Jigsaw better. (It doesn’t work.) Meanwhile, Jason is “torn” between picking either Daisy or Alice, and Daisy is trying to feel out Jason’s motives… which goes south in a hurry as Jason decks her, gathering the attention of every other female in the room… and causing Jigsaw’s Dead Eyes to come out in force!

The combined effect causes everyone’s thoughts to race at once, which is too much mental noise for the mind-reading Jigsaw! She falls to her knees, curling up on the floor. Cypress seems annoyed, but takes care of Jason first, telling him to hurry up and pick somebody instead of continuing to make a scene.

In a last-ditch effort to be picked,  Alice shows him a demonstration of her transforming powers to become a near-duplicate of Daisy — and it works! (Not everyone is happy about the choice — they think Jason chose her because he was turned on by the demonstration!) Slick tries to appeal to Adharia out of pity soon after, which also seems to work pretty well.

We catch up with Alice telling Jason about her home world, Celigo — the world run with an iron fist by the Celeste. Jason starts to ask more questions, but gets cut off by Nate telling them to strip down for the clothing scanners — it doesn’t work as well with clothes on, apparently!

Meanwhile, Jigsaw is still curled up on the floor, and Arikos is talking trash about her — but White Noise the Anyr is having none of it! He doesn’t care if Arikos is telling the truth about her being a djinn, and sees right through his manipulations — and while he’s on a roll, takes the time to insult Xanatos the Kaydin, CG-86 (Siege) the Robot, and Geisha the Kendril as well!

It’s only when it looks like he’s about to pick Daisy for his lieutenant that Jigsaw suddenly gets up, leaping off of Cypress to grab Daisy all for herself! This makes Cypress suspicious, but lets the decision stand, causing Daisy and Jigsaw to tumble onto the floor.

Back at the scanning station, Adharia has arrived ahead of schedule, refusing to undress and (temporarily) stop wearing a strange bottle bauble… Slick comes up with the solution to let him hold onto it while she goes into the machine… and after some convincing, she lets him have it. Just in time, too, as Jason and Alice step out in blue and gold uniforms, announcing themselves as Team Corvus.

There’s only one more team left to pick… and Cypress is convinced that White Noise needs to go ahead and select Arikos, because a certain planet is invested heavily in the show… and once White Noise ‘twigs it’ and figures out that it’s Celigo, he refuses outright, going in and blindly picking Qin Xu to be his new lieutenant!

Cypress calls her father, Vince, to give him the news directly, but he’s having none of it, berating her for not keeping things under control. Cypress is left in tears, and asks her legal/referee squad for advice.

Slick and Adharia, meanwhile, have just hopped out in their new Team Gemini outfits, just in time for Jigsaw and Daisy to show up. Jigsaw appears just a hair too knowledgeable about Nate’s fashion sense, and suddenly finds herself on the defensive.

Fortunately, Daisy covers for her just fine, convincing Jigsaw to go along with her explanation that she’s an undiagnosed light child (as opposed to a vampire), which seems to get the job done, even if Nate’s not fully convinced of this. Jigsaw and Daisy hash it out telepathically, only stopping once Nate drops their uniforms onto them, still suspicious.

They come out wearing their Team Andromeda uniforms, still bickering slightly, but no worse for wear. White Noise and Qin Xu appear as Team Equuleus not too long after, and Qin teases White, claiming to know some special information about White’s long-lost daughter… but White’s having none of it! Cypress is finally calming down a bit, but she walks right past Andromeda, and Jigsaw ruffles her feathers one more time, only driving Cypress’s paranoia even further…

5. Bleed On Me

It’s the start of a new school year on Planet Arael! Sudoku and Slider Forte are being seen off by their parents and companion cybee dolls… who are way too eager to get out of there and go find their runaway daughter, Jigsaw! Sudoku helps Slider understand the full gravity of the situation (as far as she knows), while Meridian and Cypher continue to argue about what to do about Daisy and Jigsaw. Speaking of them, Jigsaw is in the middle of trying to prey on a sleeping Daisy, having trouble coming to terms with how vampires feed… then deciding ‘to hell with it’ and sinking her teeth in.

This actually works pretty well until a new voice startles her — Jigsaw forgot that she was carrying her own cybee, Gangrel, and Gangrel’s batteries are running low!

Daisy finds out that Gangrel had been left alone for almost three months (and thought Jigsaw was dead!), sparking another argument between the two. Cypress calls to check on Team Andromeda, cutting their argument short; Jigsaw notices she can’t read Cypress’s mind through the screen.

Cypress, as it turns out, is working with the Star Org to prepare for Veled’s arrival, and she has enough problems on her plate as a result. Vince shows up to help shore up Cypress’s confidence, but she’s still having trouble keeping her composure. The crowd assembles to greet the ship, and… out comes a relatively low-ranking official from Celigo’s Ministry of Joy, Melody Niaida!

Cypress is relieved, but Melody tips her off, and Cypress quickly tries to recover the situation, ordering (unsuccessfully) for the crowd to salute the ship, since Veled’s coming out of there any second now… but Veled’s already beaten Cypress to the punch, teleporting in behind the crowd.

Cypress goes up to greet Veled properly, and Veled manages to get a read on Cypress’s thoughts as soon as she touches her… but tries to play it cool, using the moment to rag on the Star Org instead. It gets a rise out of one of the soldiers, giving Veled a chance to spook the crowd, pretending to ‘rip out’ the soldier’s soul and almost ‘feeding’ it to Jason’s dog, Sunny. Melody wisely steers Veled away, defusing the situation, even though Veled is now disappointed and bored.

Veled suggests they go visit Team Andromeda, butting heads with Cypress (who doesn’t want to deal with the problem right now), but backing down once Veled sees the resemblance between Cypress and her mother (who apparently had run into Veled several years prior). Instead, they go to visit Team Gemini (as Cypress suggested), who is just waking up — Slick hasn’t even had a chance to change out of the harem attire he apparently slept in! (Not that Veled seems to mind…)

While Cypress steers Veled towards Adharia, Melody and Slick get a chance to talk — and Melody informs Slick that Cypress thinks they’re going to die first in tonight’s episode. Meanwhile, Adharia and Veled are getting along suspiciously well — it turns out that Veled helped Adharia get onto the show, even though Veled would rather keep this a secret as long as she can.

6. Episode Two – The Executioners’ Tournament

An episode of “Good Morning Nurovidia” is broadcasted live — and the day’s big news is the leak of Daisy Archanis’s confession tapes! The tapes reveal that she’s the ‘renegade’ Scout Arael of the Galaxy Girl Scouts, who apparently toppled the organization from the inside-out! (Daisy doesn’t take to the news well.)

Of course, the show must go on, and soon everyone’s heading to the arena, which is already buzzing with excitement… including Veled, who is watching with great interest down below as the players see all the folks who’ve shown up to watch them fight for their lives!

After Jigsaw reminds Daisy to put on her Autie lenses, Cypress takes the lead on the show, and Golden Braun explains how the battery deflectors on the player’s powered armor works. Cypress then takes the lead again, pointing out Veled as a special guest spectator up in her skybox… fueling speculation on Daisy’s part that this whole mess is a trap.

The players are set to face off against a cadre of “celebrity guests”… which turn out to be four of the current Galaxy Girl Scouts, including the current Scout Arael! After they offer to let the other players live if they’ll sacrifice Daisy, the Kendril scout pulls out a sniper rifle, taking potshots at the other players.

Golden remembers to activate some barriers for the players to hide behind, but before Daisy can get to them, Veled locks Daisy’s leg, forcing Daisy to tumble into a teleport and disappear. Her disappearance shocks all but Veled, even though she appears behind the barrier (much to her surprise, since she wasn’t sure if it worked) soon after.

Jason wastes no time in wanting to waste Daisy, but Qin Xu makes it clear that they’ve suffered serious injuries as is, and he wants to check and see if Daisy’s okay as well. After Qin Xu explains that he’s spent much of the past couple millenia working as a doctor, he gives a quick overview of everyone’s injuries, and the prognosis is grim.

Having commandeered Addy’s bauble, Slick tries to take control of the situation, threatening the scouts to back down before shooting off into them… but to almost everyone’s surprise, there’s a strange goat-girl that flies out, splatterng the Kendril scout’s brains all over the place!

It looks like Addy had a genie in the bottle… specifically, she had an Efreet in the bottle, and while Slick is boasting of his new accomplishments, White Noise makes her call it back before it can wreak any more havoc. (Shame…) Meanwhile, the current Scout Arael (who appears to be the group’s medic) is quick to pronounce her teammate dead… perhaps a little too quick.

The players take advantage of their momentary victory to regroup, surprising the still-bickering scouts. Slick gets stuck with watching over Kuvaela’s corpse while the other players get to fight, only to be surprised when Kuvaela comes back to life… this time as a zombie who has only one thing left on what’s left of her mind — taking revenge on Slick!

Jigsaw sounds the alarm, but it ends up being Scout Arael who comes to the rescue — a ripped jacket reveals Arael’s tiny Touched wings, making it her duty to destroy the Zombie (and how)! Arael ends up surprised from behind by White Noise, who forces her to surrender — and Cypress to declare White Noise the Captain of the Executioners, with Jason as his second in command.

7. The Bite is Young

Backstage, Jigsaw and Daisy argue about the results, with Jigsaw saying how Jason doesn’t deserve his spot — only to be silenced by Cypress and her family, who are quick to quell any discussion. White and Jason try to calm the situation down… but Cypress isn’t done yet, nearly choking the life out of Daisy, while Vince demands that Addy turn over her Efreet friend in the bottle!

Jigsaw thinks fast, planting a thought in Nate’s head to go check the show’s ratings, and the good news is enough to distract Cypress. Suddenly she’s quite happy to let them go on about their business (as long as they fill out reports explaining their “new” talents), which makes Addy so happy she up and kisses Jigsaw! In the ensuing chaos, Jigsaw finds out where she’s been feeding on people in their sleep — she went to Addy for blood in full view of the cameras, and the Vaeo family’s been mistaking it for a secret lesbian relationship.

An embarassed Jigsaw goes and hides in her room until Cypress informs her she’s been scheduled to spend some time with a fan. Jigsaw puts on the revealing dress left for her to wear, and walks to the fan’s room, catching a glimpse of the city of Wonder contained inside the space station. Jigsaw arrives in the room, distracted by the reflective aquarium floor… but only momentarily, as it reveals Veled lying in wait behind her.

With next to no options, Jigsaw opts to get snarky, striking a nerve with Veled and leading to an otherwise pleasant encounter… at least until Veled starts asking about Jigsaw’s sire, who Jigsaw has no clue about.Thinking she’s foiled Veled, Jigsaw tries to walk off… only to be forcibly transformed into her beastial Zombie form, and left writhing on the floor, ripe for Veled to just reach out and dig up Jigsaw’s repressed memories for herself.

Jigsaw suddenly wakes up in a different hotel room, reliving her memories as she meets her sire, kicks him out of a thirtieth-story window (without a shirt on!), and learns that Daisy’s been taken prisoner and press-ganged into playing Last Res0rt, revealing her reason for volunteering for the show. Veled helps ease her out of her flashback, giving her some more information on her sire, and then informing her why Jigsaw’s just so damned important — apparently she’s a sign of the impending apocalypse!

For now, though, Veled is content to watch and observe, and shoos Jigsaw out to make room for seeing her next guest, leaving Jigsaw outside the room to figure out what the heck she’s going to do next.

Buy the Book today!

Volume Two – Split Second Chance

8. You’re Just a Riot, Aren’t You?

In the Star Org’s observation room, a chance observer finds Melody and Scout Arael (in new outfits, with Arael as her civilian persona, Binary) discussing Daisy Archanis’s leak and what it means. While Scout Arael / Binary is adamant that if Daisy were to be revealed as Scout Arael, it would lead to war, they’re interrupted by Jigsaw wearing a ridiculous disguise pajama outfit.

While Jigsaw is disturbed at how casually the two of them are taking this situation, Melody explains that she hoped to put Jigsaw at ease by holding their meeting in a public location, such as the Little Arael neighborhood in the city of Wonder.

Asking them point blank why they don’t just kill her, Melody and Binary explain that in order to keep her status a secret from the public, they actually need to keep her alive while she’s on the show. While Jigsaw is debating with the two of them, another Talmi is triggering a planned-out protest against Daisy’s participation on the show, just underneath their notice… at least until it’s too late to do anything but watch it unfold as someone claiming to be the older “Scout Arael” arrives to give a big speech! Jigsaw’s trying to figure out who this mystery person is, but the Star Org won’t wait to send out a sniper either way!

Jigsaw’s gambit with Gangrel works, hijacking the fake Arael’s Autie lenses, but it’s too late to stop the sniper — good thing this fake Arael has on some type of forcefield! He doesn’t stop there either, striking Jigsaw while everyone else (fake Arael included) runs off in the ensuing panic!

Of course, Daisy’s already figured out who our mystery person is — it’s her own daughter, Maggie! Back to our plucky Talmi trio for now, where Binary and Melody hide Jigsaw from public view while Jigsaw comes back in Zombie form, all too eager to take out the sniper herself!

Our sniper calls for help in vain, as Jigsaw has vaulted her way up to face the gunman head-on — only stopping once she’s fed on enough blood to come back to her senses! Binary catches back up to her, helping her escape Wonder without any further complications, and also giving Jigsaw a special disguised aura to hide her vampire identity. There’s no time to waste, though — plans for the next episode are well underway, with White Noise modeling their new armor while he explains the new task at hand (and Jason unwittingly giving Jigsaw even more information)!

9. Episode Three – That Could’ve Gone Better

With the previous week’s events sufficiently covered up by Melody and Binary, the new episode kicks off ahead of schedule… on an apparently empty ship! Undeterred, the players fan out, searching for anything or anyone useful… Jigsaw and Daisy find a blood-marked door, leading to a room with an unprotected nanotech reservoir.

Jigsaw concludes that if nothing else, they’re walking into a Public Relations trap, and Daisy orders Siege to commandeer the tank. Siege complains about feeling used, leading to an argument/backstory between her and Xanatos about how she got onto the show, while Daisy and Jigsaw call for advice.

Addy and Slick, meanwhile, find something a little more useful — Slick recognizes the speakers to be the same brand his treacherous Celeste bodyguard installed, prompting Slick to ask White a few questions and Gabriel to go ahead and spring his real trap — A silent Tone sent through the speakers to hypnotize anyone on board, including Cypress and her Star Org bodyguards!

Vince figures out that Cypress has been hypnotized, and starts screaming for White and the others to go help her. Andromeda gets called off to help round up the others, while Addy notices that their guns have changed shape right in their hands — and there’s no time to think as Addy shoots Sedja off to face the incoming crowd of… happy, welcoming teenagers?

This stops Sedja in her tracks, at least until the Celeste of the bunch still tries to fight her. Sedja opts for a non-lethal solution; even if it’s no less disgusting, it certainly gets rid of the teenagers in a hurry.

Meanwhile, Daisy and Jigsaw have managed to gather up almost all of the other players, only turning tail as soon as they run into their own happy throng. The others double back to the shuttle, but Jigsaw and Daisy still haven’t found Cypress — and since they’re back where they started, they may have missed her entirely!

As luck would have it, they’ve run into two of the hospital’s patients trying to transport her — but Daisy’s attempt to snap her out of it backfires, and she leaps into the nanotech pool! Siege manages to get the pool to drain, but as she disconnects, there’s a side effect — she’s been turned into a ponybot of some kind! Cypress looks all sorts of survivable (but still not good), but as Jigsaw surveys the damage, another kind of ponybot appears — and it’s got only one thing on her mind!

This new ‘bot shows off her two captives — a Tone-hypnotized Jason and Alice — in trying to goad Jigsaw into attacking her, but Daisy has other plans. Daisy then kicks the robot into the empty pool, and takes this time to explain the full gravity of their current situation to Jigsaw. She then tries to free Jason and Alice from their tone, but this backfires, as Jason attacks Daisy instead! Even blinded with rage, Jason still manages to grievously injure Jigsaw and Daisy, and only a merciful Tone manages to keep Jason from finishing the job.

Back at the shuttle, White tries to recover the situation ASAP. Jigsaw quickly recaps the problem, and Geisha (of all people!) has the solution: Get Siege to carry Cypress out on the stretcher first, and return for Daisy second (who should last long enough even with her injuries, given “a little help”). Jigsaw convinces her Cybee doll, Gangrel, to help Siege carry Cypress back to the shuttle, and out of harm’s way… but Gabriel’s forces catch up to Jigsaw and Daisy before the shuttle leaves, and they end up left behind!

10. Making the Picked Up Pieces Fit

Jigsaw’s parents run into trouble during a routine pit stop on planet Terth! Cypher’s not doing any better with convincing the local Star Org operatives to look the other way, either… fortunately, he doesn’t have to be. Jacek catches up with both Cypher and Meridian, paying off the Org officers and offering the two Talmi assistance…