Pixie: Where is Mister Drake? He hasn't been back in a while, and it's really hot down here. Demons as weak as me shouldn't be down here...
Mastema: Perhaps I was wrong about him. I was beginning to think he was at least sincere in his foolishness, but it seems he's run off when confronted with the reality of his actions. Typical human.
Drake: Hey guys, I'm back. Sorry, I had a few promises to keep. Let's see... I returned Odin's horse, solved the mystery of Cerberus's meat, finally got Anthony through his girl trouble, trolled Kudlak and Kresnik (heh heh), and let the Dwarf make me some weapons. I think that's about it. It's time we challenged our last enemy. Everybody with me?
Maya: Hmm, destroying the Great Mother. I cannot say this sits well with me, but preserving your world may depend on it...
Kama: I just want to see how it ends!
Demiurge: Mm. Mem Aleph, creator of the land in which I was chained. I feel I have met her before, as if in another life...
I wasn't really concentrating on sidequests on this playthrough since I did most of them last time, but most of them end in some pretty Heartwarming Moments that give development to the demon world and/or redeem the demons' image of humans somewhat, so I went back and did a few. With that out of the way, it's time for the final boss, Mem Aleph, the primordial mother goddess and creator of all the previous bosses.
Seraph: I believe I shall join you for this battle, as I did last time.
Seraph is my favorite demon in the game, and extremely powerful. The top Herald, he packs both Big Bang and Salvation meaning he's useful as both a healer and as an attacker. Normally, you ca't get him on the Neutral path, but thankfully, his password works so I just decided to wing it. My party for Mem Aleph is him, Demiurge, and a certain 11th-Hour Ranger...
Demonee-ho: Whee-ho! A powerful enemy up ahead-ho? I can take it, I am the spirit of the DEMONICA-ho!
Drake: Who the heck are you?
Demonee-ho: I'm the Secret Character-ho! I always show up late because I'm a true hero! That's how these things work!
Mem Aleph is, obviously, behind the imposing-looking door in the center of the bottom level of the Schwartzwelt.
Poltergeist: Cliche!
Normally, she'd be so powerful as to be invisible, but with the superior knowledge of the Earth entrusted to Drake by Commander Gore, he can now see her, and, more importantly, fight her.
Mastema: Drake... don't get yourself killed.
Drake: Since when do you care about me?
Mastema: Oh, I don't, it's just that... Lord help me I've grown oddly fond of Lady Zelenin, and if she were here right now... I wouldn't want to be the one to have to tell her you're coming home in a bag.
Drake: Thanks?
Mastema: Irina.
Drake: ...eh?
Mastema: Her first name. You said you wanted to know it?
Drake: ...
Mem Aleph makes her grand entrance, a golden, statue-like being representing the archetypical Mother Goddess. She admonishes Drake for not learning his lesson and siding with humanity instead of her, claiming she knows that they will never choose to better themselves.
Drake: Ugh, why must they always make such good points?
With breath that shakes the entirety of the Schwartzwelt, she attacks.
Whereas Demiurge is just hair-pullingly monotonous, Mem Aleph is a legitimate challenge. Even having the most powerful demons in the game such as Demiurge himself, Seraph, and Shiva is no guarantee you'll survive against her, as she has every attack in the book and then some. To begin, she has the eighth-tier elemental spells of all the elements, which are exclusive to her and are simply named "Fire," "Ice," etc., nature in its purest form. This includes "Light" and "Darkness," the most accurate instant-death spells in the game, so I gave Drake the Dragon Ring, which revives him once per battle upon being hit with an instant-death move. She has Reason's Start which, as the name implies, "resets" her by canceling all debuffs, and an Almighty move, Great Flood, but her deadliest attack is by far Mother's Kiss, the most powerful Phys move in the game. This hits up to eight times on random targets, so if you get unlucky and it hits your character every time...
Fight her as you did Demiurge, by spamming Almighty up the wazoo. She can also change her weakness, and although she's not as cruel about it as Demiurge it's still recommended to use Almighty. Jihad debuffs her quite handily, leaving her vulnerable to Big Bang and the Meteor Dragoon's Moan Bullet, which she eventually goes down to...
Demonee-ho: I'm beat-ho. I'll tag off to you, Sir Destroyer-ho.
Shiva: Verily, this isn't over yet!
Reality warps around us as Mem Aleph sheds her Mother skin to release her Empty form. She's been weakened and can no longer reshape the Earth in this form, and now simply desires to destroy everything to spite us.
What Empty Mem Aleph lacks in cutscene power she makes up for in battle prowess. She's got more health than her previous form, hits harder, and comes packing two new moves: her eponymous "Mem Aleph," which demonstrates her mastery of all demons, Law, Chaos, or Neutral, by forcing all of your demons of a given alignment to retreat.
Demiurge: Even myself cannot resist this? What is Mem Aleph!?
Drake: Pull yourself together guys, she's trying to control you! We stop here and both our worlds are toast!
The second skill is MA, which instantly kills anything it strikes, including, unlike Light of Order, the protagonist for an instant game over. Fortunately, it seems extremely inaccurate (I've only ever been hit with it once).
Demiurge: Mem Aleph... I feel as though we have a past. Whatever it is... I feel I deserve some retribution. JIHAD!
And with that, Mem Aleph is destroyed.
Drake: But the adventure isn't over yet.
The Schwartzwelt itself now needs to be destroyed. To do this, the nuke and the Cosmic Eggs are synthesized together in the lab, in the final display of the terrifying omnipotence of the technology in this game. We the travel to the Vanishing Point in Eridanus, where Arthur explains the plan to eject the carrier section to return to Earth, and detonate the engine section... and himself.
Orcus: Eh, excuse me?
Arthur believes that with all the knowledge he has gained, humanity will come to be completely dependent upon him if he were to return, and so has decide to sacrifice himself to ensure the bomb's detonation. However, oddly enough... seemingly growing beyond his programming, part of him doesn't want to, experiencing fear for the first time. He asks Drake to empower him with the power from Commander Gore to help him past this dilemma.
Drake: ...yes. Looks like there has to be one more loss for everyone to be saved. Arthur, Zelenin, Jimenez, Commander Gore... thank you all.
The carrier section ejects through the portal, while Arthur stays behind and triggers the bomb.
Pixie: *sniff* Home...
Mithras: That poor... computer thing... I have something in my eye, it seems...
Drake: I'll try to get you guys back home some day. Provided your friends don't decide to invade again, of course.
The ship touches down in... Antarctica! The Schwartzwelt has disappeared and the Earth is saved. The Joint Project calls again and sends a pickup.
Koppa Tengu: Hey, didn't dey betray you before?
Demonee-ho: Yeah, whatever happened to that plot-ho?
Drake: The Schwartzwelt Investigation Team's mission isn't over yet! We still have to tell the world everything, and MAKE them believe us. It'll be a lot of work, but that's the price of being human, I guess. But first... all of you, thank you. Yes, even you, Mastema. Given that I've made about seven krillion dollars off this mission, I think I'll treat you all to one of the most wonderful things in the human world. It's called: beer.
Hsing-Hsing: *hic* I likes the sound of that!
Drake: My name is Sinclair Drake. Ex-USMC, and, so I'm told, altogether unremarkable. And today I KNOW I saved the world.
-MISSION COMPLETE-
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