But I’m not done picking up random characters. It’s time for Cronabe to return to the place where he almost got his ass violated — specifically, Viper Manor. Instead of taking the path through the evil woods, Cronabe just has to beat the shit out of a yellow robot in front of the gate. Hey, but I enjoyed jumping through all those hoops earlier.
The dragoons obviously figured that the giant yellow robot was an effective enough guardian, since they seem to have deactivated all the other security measures when they vacated the premises. I’m absolutely crushed that I won’t have to fight any more doors with eyes or evil candles of course, but aren’t the dragoons worried about vandals? Or kids sneaking in to have sex in the mansion? I just don’t think General Viper, brainwashed or no, would really appreciate coming home to condoms and candles in his main hall.
Anyway, stupid Cronabe manages to get lost in the manor, but finally ends up in Luccia’s lab. The purple-haired German is not there, nor is the gay Pokemon, but the dishwasher dude is in the cage where Cronabe got trapped earlier. I do not want to know what Luccia has planned for him. He tells Cronabe that he can find Luccia on the roof terrace. Cronabe, ever the gentlemen (since this guy isn’t an exotic creature), lets him out. But as you’ll recall from Cronabe’s last jaunt through the mansion, the dishwasher dude is a spy. Not a very good one, though. “Don’t worry. I wasn’t snooping around or anything…Really!” he insists, like Squall trying to swear that he loves the ladies. He skedaddles before Cronabe can put two and two together.
After contemplating whether or not he should assassinate the two remaining caged bulbs, Cronabe finally decides to leave them alone for now and hunt down his next party member. He retraces his steps through the main hall and out to the terrace where Lynx tried to maul his butt. Fortunately, this doesn’t prove to be a completely retarded move on his part. Luccia stands in the center of the terrace, staring at a flower in the pool. “Dis Homosap flower is called ‘NeoFio,'” she informs Cronabe. We can ascertain from its name that the flower is gay. So it’s the kind that Twink would like, and not an evil vagina.
So the flower is not like an otter. Thanks for the information.
But this flower is also special! Not only is it a humanoid flower (and that’s just begging for a Wind Wanker/Chrono Cross Crossover), but it’s a really kickass humanoid flower. Luccia is responsible for this wondrous being, and she’s as modest as Tidus about it. According to her, Cronabe can get NeoFio in his party, but he has to find an item first — the “Life Sparkle.” Christ. The Life Sparkle is located in Hydra Marsh, but Luccia has thus far been unsuccessful in sending cannon fodder dragoons to retrieve it, since they’ve all died horrible deaths in the poisonously poisoned waters. After informing Cronabe that the marsh would be his undoing, Luccia returns to her lab.
After following her there, Cronabe invites her to join his group. Since Pip the Gay Pokemon has deserted her (and Cronabe tries not to look guilty here), she has nothing better to do than traipse all over the place with pink dogs, animated scarecrows, transvestite rock singers, and partially-formed clown skeletons. I have days like that.
Cronabe and the others return to Termina to check on Meedo. I’m just making them sound nice — actually I have an ulterior motive. For some reason Meedo wants to go home, despite the fact that she’ll have to deal with the annoying Guldove residents. She wonders if Cronabe’s going to solve the mystery of the ages, or if he’ll settle down and raise lots of silent-yet-bitchy children with the doppelganger of his “love interest.” Cronabe would much rather risk death and dismemberment, not to mention meeting disturbing party members, than to have an even more horrible fate befall him, of course. Meedo spazzes in joy. “Life is a journey to find yourself,” she blahs. Even though she just said that she was going home, she wonders where she and the others are going next. “What? So you say we need to go after Lynx and General Viper to Fort Dragonia?” she asks immediately after her previous line. Well, no, he didn’t say anything at all, but sure, we can go there.
Then — UGH — she repeats what we already heard about Fort Dragonia being an ancient ruin. “People say they conducted strange ceremonies, and most folks from Guldove won’t go near the place,” she continues. This seems to be at odds with the fact that the ancient Guldovians were friends with the Dragonians, but whatever. I’m going to have an aneurysm if I try to find any sense in these plotlines. “You gotta wonder what they’re up to with the Dragon Tear there. It gives me the chills,” Meedo continues, giving me the mental image of Viper and Lynx playing sex games with the Dragon Tear as a ben-wa ball. God, I hate my brain.
According to Meedo, since they have to travel through the requisite irritating dungeon Mount Pyre in order to reach the fort, they need to take a boat. Meedo pauses, and suddenly a lightbulb goes on over her head in the form of three exclamation points. “I know! You can borrow this boat.” Holy crap, that caught me totally off guard. What a freaking genius! This is Meedo’s “farewell gift.” But she said she was going along….oh, I give up. Meedo doesn’t care what Speedo thinks of this, since he’s just a worthless choad anyway.
Speaking of people who want to travel to Mount Pyre via boat, here comes Glenn, right on cue. He’s too late to borrow it from Meedo, but she directs him toward Cronabe, two feet away. Well, it’s not like Glenn ever notices him anyway. For example, Glenn is totally oblivious to the fact that Cronabe overheard his entire conversation with the flower seller, since he explains his predicament to Cronabe again. “Fort Dragonia!? Wow, what a coincidence! These boys [and girl, but the game designers are too lazy or the translators are too shitty to allow for that] have some business there, too!” Well, I sure hope they weren’t trying to keep that a secret. Jesus, Meedo. Glenn recognizes Cronabe as the guy who gave them the pretty, pretty flower earlier. “You two already know each other? What great timing!” Meedo bursts out. Seriously, shut up. She makes the completely obvious suggestion that they go together to the fort. Cronabe cracks her across the head with one of the oars to silence her. Cronabe can accept or refuse Glenn’s offer to join him, but Glenn supposedly kicks ass, so duh. The funny thing is, you can’t even recruit Glenn unless you refuse to save Steve, so it’s like they’re rewarding you for dissing the Mary Sue. Score!
Glenn doesn’t want to go straight to the fort, however. He suggests that Cronabe stop at a little island to the northeast where “a retired Master Knight of the Dragoons named Radius” lives. Waaaaait a minute. Could this be the same Radius that was Cronabe’s Village Chief (that I never explicitly mentioned by name, but that’s what it is) in the Home World? Well, you’ll have to wait in extreme suspense for a while. This Radius, instead of overseeing a Podunk fishing village, used to babysit Glenn and his dead brother. I’m not sure which fate is worse. I’m also not sure why Glenn wants to stop there, as it’s totally out of the blue and all, but I’m all for knowing where the hell I’m supposed to go next.
And that’s a bad thing why?
I switch El Asso Wipo out for Glenn because Glenn is hotter. Although quite obviously gay, with that headband. Meedo takes her leave of the party — even though I can put her in my party if I want…which I don’t — by bellyflopping into the ocean and backstroking off the screen. Well, that’s one way to work off those extra pounds, I suppose. I’m pretty sure she won’t have any trouble staying afloat just from the boobs.
Because Cronabe is totally dumb, he takes a side trip and braves the poisonous venom of the Hydra Marshes in order to find the stupid Life Sparkle. In addition to the vast amount of exposition regarding this poisonous marsh, we are clued in by the misty air, green water, and ominous music. I guess I should be glad for the things that aren’t vague in this game. Cronabe stupidly forgot to stock up on healing elements before trudging into the swamp, and he is forced to leave before he loses too many HP. Supposedly, some guy in the marsh will give me the special gear I need to pass through safely, but I can’t seem to find the asshole. Cronabe must retreat for now. His little flowery friend will have to wait until the next recap. This little trip wasn’t completely futile, however — Cronabe got to stroke a phallic vine. Oh, baby.
Back in Termina, the group boards the little boat and heads toward the island that Glenn mentioned. As they draw nearer, they are greeted by the sinister sight of black smoke rising from the island. Shit. As usual, the Bad Guys Got There First, even though Cronabe hasn’t even known about this destination for ten minutes. “What on earth happened!?” Glenn shrieks as they approach the burned out residence. “Could Lynx have done this!?” No! Actually, that’s not quite correct. Harle appears on the scene to set them straight — Lynx ordered her to do this. Instead of explaining something useful, such as why, Harle proceeds to hump Cronabe’s leg again. This pisses off Glenn, but I don’t think he’s jealous of Cronabe, if you follow me. He freaks out at her, demanding to know what they did with his sugar daddy Radius. Glenn’s hissyfit makes Harle all hot and bothered. Christ. Obviously, Glenn is not interested. But Harle finally offers to tell them why Lynx had his panties all in a bunch about this place. Basically, Radius is all that and a bag of chips, so Lynx wanted to get rid of him. Uh, okay. Only he wasn’t at home, so the whole burning-down-the-house thing makes no sense. Way to go, Harle.
But she’s not done! Lynx, with his obvious psychic powers, predicted that the group would stop at Radius’s place on the way to the fort, so he also sent Harle to slow them down. Which she does, by a whole three minutes. You know, between the teleporting-into-the-same-location, the burning down of an unoccupied shack, and an inept henchperson, I’m not feeling all that intimidated by Lynx at this point, even if he can predict where Cronabe is going well in advance. He’s really going to have to pull out the big guns to raise himself to Big Bad Baddie status before this game is over, by killing puppies or something.
Anyway, Harle isn’t too upset at losing because she got to experience Cronabe’s strong manliness. Okay, seriously, guys. We get it. With some more pseudo-French, she does her magical disappearing act. And who should appear from offscreen but Old Man Radius himself. I guess he was hiding behind a rock or something. He wants to know if Cronabe is one of Lynx’s cronies. Yes, that’s why he was just fighting with Harle. Dumbass. Glenn is all giddy that his sugar daddy survived. His sugar daddy of exposition, that is. Radius tells them all about his SMRT plan to hide out when Riddel informed him of Lynx’s trip to Fort Dragonia. Somehow, he just knew that Lynx would try to do something eeeeeevil. I’m not sure how “traveling to Fort Dragonia” and “hey, let’s burn down this codger’s house” are necessarily related, but whatever. Radius makes sure to say that there’s no way in hell that his old buddy General Viper could be behind this dastardly act — nope, it’s all that big asshole Lynx. Again. Because he’s the bad guy. And he’s very, very evil. Radius not only predicted the attack, but he predicted it far enough in advance to build basically a bomb shelter underground. There’s no such thing as too much preparation, I suppose.
“Lynx must be plotting something,” Glenn states the insultingly obvious two minutes into the conversation. Awkward silence. Radius just ignores this and wants to know who this delicious blue-haired young man is. Glenn sort of tells him, in that he doesn’t come right out and say their names onscreen (again because the game designers were too lazy to allow for different party combos). Radius invites Cronabe and Glenn into his lair. Biotch follows. Radius just can’t resist some more exposition. Like many old guys, he reminisces about his youth. Specifically, when he was a dragoon and formed an ambiguously gay trio with Glenn’s dad, Garai, and Zappa the blacksmith. Okay, so that was 15 years ago, not exactly his youth. But when Garai bit it, Radius became Glenn and Dario’s “guardian.”
After Dario, in turn, bit it four years ago, Radius became a hermit in the wilderness to lament the tragic loss of one of his boy-toys. It was around that time that the business with Lynx began. Lynx lured the general with promises of the Frozen Flame. “I believe General Viper intends to overthrow the nation of Porre with the power of this legendary flame,” Radius guesses. Porre, which we remember from Chrono Trigger, and where Lynx supposedly originated, is a bad and evil place, so this is okay. “Perhaps the general envisions a bright and peaceful world, much like Guardia was at one time…” Radius keeps on throwing out the CT references for the fanboys to cream themselves over. “Or…Is he planning to find the answer as to why we have continued to hurt and kill each other since antiquity…?” Radius pulls out of his ass. Yeah, I’m sure that’s it. And not that he just wants to be the ruler of an even larger chunk of the world and get all the tail he could ever want.
Even though Radius has obviously thought about this a great deal, he’s way too wussy to involve himself. He warns Cronabe about the extremely threatening Lynx, and then suggests that they stay the night. Um. But before they go to sleep (and I hope to God that’s what they’re going to do), Radius tells them a lovely little story about how the evil undead wander the seas in the area and suck the brains of the living. Well, good night!
I can’t believe I managed to work up that much text over this game. I suppose that’s a good sign that I should stop. Join Cronabe and his insane party members next time as they explore a ghost ship. Spooooky.