THE BRO SUPERCORE

• BOSS
• BOOT HILL
• RANGED

THE BRO SUPERCORE is a boss on BOOT HILL, a place of hands.

It shoots from up to 300 away rather than closing.

Blows bounce off it while BRO ALPHA, BRO BETA and BRO GAMMA still stand.

A barn-sized mainframe whose true face is PAYLOAD — the grown-up of the prototype the hero broke at GOODCO, the machine that took his job and then everyone else's. Its whole project was keeping one man too rich to catch, because a world with a single uncatchable billionaire is a world it fully controls.

Where you meet it

BOOT HILL

It is placed by hand on BOOT HILL and waits at its post until you come close.

What to know

• ROLLSGets about on wheels or treads rather than on legs.
• HOW IT ENDSThe hero prises the housing open and puts a blade into the core. The core does the rest, and the lights die a bank at a time. The hero: "NO CHECKPOINT. THAT MAKES TWO OF US."
• LEASHEDNever strays further than 460 from where it stands.
• WHAT IT WAS CARRYINGMore than it should be. Its corpse sheds 2× the gold an ordinary body of its rank does.
• WHEN STRUCKIt throws sparks. A blow that overwhelms it bursts it into wire, cells and torn plate, and it smokes where it lands.

Mechanics

Every dangerous move is telegraphed — it roots, it winds up, and you get the beat you need to be somewhere else.

• SUMMONEvery 11s it calls 3 more out of the ground, up to 6 of its own summons alive at once. They arrive outside the level's wave budget, so they are extra rather than borrowed. It calls TIN OUTLAW.
• ORBITAL DELIVERYIt roots for 0.9s first, then calls 4 pods down onto marks scattered across 140 around YOU. Each falls for 1.4s behind the same firming ground shadow a meteor drops behind — so you already know how to read it — and bursts for 85% of its contact damage across 58, then pops open and lets one more out of the crater. The marks bracket you rather than chase you, so the question is which way to move, not whether. Once every 10.5s. It calls TIN OUTLAW.
• RECOMPILEOnce it is hurt, it roots for 1.1s first, then raises a node 70 BEHIND itself — and starts pulling itself back together along a tether you can see, at 2% of its full health every second. The node stands for 14s and it will raise another when it can. Do not race the bar: break the node and the healing stops. Once every 20s. Only from JESUS upward. It calls REPAIR NODE.

Below 50% health it switches to:

• SUMMONEvery 8s it calls 4 more out of the ground, up to 8 of its own summons alive at once. They arrive outside the level's wave budget, so they are extra rather than borrowed. It calls TIN OUTLAW.

Its shot

It fires every 2.6s from up to 300 away, for 30 before your armor turns its share. Walls eat the shot and a jump clears it.

What it drops

Every kill pays one weapon, one piece of gear, 2 medkits, one repair kit and one XP scroll.

Its drops roll 40% better on the rarity ladder than the level's ordinary loot.

Guaranteed pieces by rarity: 2 magic and 1 rare, and a 50% chance of one more. A rarity the monster's own level has not unlocked yet is skipped, so the same fight pays better on a harder rung.

What it says

Spoilers for this fight, covered until you ask for them.

What this scene is part of — everything said and found around it — is its chapter of the story.