For the fourth time in this game — and the second time in this recap alone — we see the Stabbed!Steve FMV. I’ve already mentioned the lack of blood from what should by all rights be a rather gushing stomach wound, and it is no less ridiculous when we see it for the fourth time. Not!Lynx roars, jealous that he wasn’t in his own body when it shut Steve up. The camera lingers on Dead?Steve for a while — accompanied by a melancholy (or arousing, if you’re Seymour) boys’ choir piece — before focusing on the dripping red blade. I originally thought it was supposed to be blood, but now I’m suspecting that Wannabe-Cronabe took advantage of the ten gazillion minutes of Steve FMV to smear gobs of ketchup all over his weapon. And that came out wrong once again. Hey, stranger things have been used as lube, I’m sure.

The FMV finally finishes, undoubtedly biding its time in order to show up fifteen more times as a flashback throughout the course of the game. Meanwhile, back in regular gameplay mode, Glenn the Stupid Asshat is all, “Cronabe!!!! Why did you stab Steve?!?!?!” You see, even though a miracle occurred and Steve somehow managed to figure everything out, she didn’t come right out and explain her discovery in minute detail. So these fucking Einsteins are still standing there with their heads up their asses, all “DURR?! It’s dark in here!”

Wannabe-Cronabe loses it at this intense show of stupidity and shoots a black ball of electricity at Glenn, knocking him out or possibly killing him. This would obviously be a devastating loss if the latter were the case. W-C orders Biotch to shut up as well, even though she hasn’t said anything. Don’t get me wrong — she still deserves it for the dumbassitude she’s exhibited thus far. “……!? N-Noooooo…!” she screeches, proving herself the lovechild of Suikoden and Darth Vader before succumbing to the black lightning treatment.

Ah, silence.

Alas, it only lasts for a short time. W-C informs Steve that she’s about to die, although by any form of earth logic, she should be long dead. I mean, hello, huge dagger. Stabbing. Supposedly bleeding out despite T-rated lack of blood. With her dying breath, Steve sputters, “U-Ugh…! Y-You’re Lynx…ain’t ya!?” You know what time it is!

DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!! DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then something even more ridiculous and asinine happens, bending the space-time continuum with the impossibility of that occurrence. Just as W-C pulls Steve’s head off the floor and raises his dagger for the killing thrust (ew…”thrust”), he suddenly lets her go and tards, “I’ll finish you off later.”

???

Okay, so let me get this straight: first, Steve is “miraculously” cured of a deadly poison by a mysterious stranger who just happens to have the extremely rare antidote in his possession when he strolls on through the tiny island Podunk where Steve lays dying. Then, Steve somehow does not die within a short time after being quite severely stabbed by a rather impressive-sized dagger, conveniently cheating death once again. Finally, her archnemesis decides, for no apparent reason, to just kill her “later” rather than, say, RIGHT NOW WHEN HE HAS A DAGGER TO HER THROAT. At least give him some sort of motivation, game designers. Like…maybe his cell phone rings. Or he remembers he left his stove on. Or even a sudden bout of explosive diarrhea. Anything besides, “Oh, hey, I shouldn’t kill her because the script says she’s not supposed to die.”

Well, what do I know — maybe there is a very important reason that the game designers will reveal to us at a later point.

Hee.

Anyway, Wannabe-Cronabe, whose character portrait has taken on a distinctively evil flavor — purpley-black hair and red eyes (not that any of his “friends” would notice the difference!) — takes a moment to snerk at “Lynx.” “Heh heh heh… Excellent! The enmity is growing! The only thing pure in this world is enmity!” he blahs, straight out of The Big Book of Bad Guy Blathering. He says some more stuff that I’m not going to bother to recap because I’m tired of him. The gist is that with this body switch now completed, Cronabe (the actual one, stuck in the fursuit) is totally pointless. Like he so wasn’t before. Then Wannabe-Cronabe leaves, finally, presumably to bore the general population to death with his jabbering.

Oh, but wait! He’s not done! God, I actually fell for it and thought he would just walk out the door. I’m such a moron. First W-C has to grab the stupid Dragon Tear and Sekhmet, “Finally, I have the key. The key to the gate of Fate! The time has finally come for the Frozen Flame to awaken!!!” This might very well be a bad thing. What does the Frozen Flame do again? I’ve been working on this recap so long, I forgot all the rest of the “plot” I read. And it’s not like I’m going back to check it out — that would imply that I care.

W-C, instead of leaving like he freaking said he would, does his “teleportation” thing over to Not!Lynx. So diarrhea of the mouth was not the only ability he retained from the body switch. Despite the fact that W-C just said Not!Lynx is totally worthless to him now, he still invites him to the Sea of Eden(!) (symbol shamelessly borrowed from the Xenosaga recap) “should [he] wish to end [his] dream of 10 years ago…” Again, I’m not quite sure what he’s referring to here — the 10 years thing makes me think it’s that panther demon FMV we’ve had shoved down our throat several times already. But didn’t that actually happen to Cronabe? Why is Lynx referring to it as a dream? When has Cronabe ever indicated that he felt anything one way or another about that “dream” or wished to do anything about it? Why am I asking these questions about a game that’s made it clear that it cares nothing for plot, characterization, consistency, or coherency?

Speaking of which, W-C does the black lightning thing again, which doesn’t knock anyone out, but instead causes Glenn, Biotch, and Viper’s corpse to disappear (Steve is still lying there not in a pool of blood) and all six of the dragon statues to shatter. I’m not sure what this means, if anything, but I can’t say I haven’t wished to do that myself at various points of the dungeon. This dramatic display of something-or-other is not enough for the furry in the body of an underage boy. Spewing text onto the screen without even bothering to use a text box, W-C screams, “Now, let love bleed! Darker and deeper than the seas of hell! Heh heh heh…! HAH HAH HAH HAAAH…!”

Do they just throw random “deep” sounding words together? Seriously, “darker and deeper than the seas of hell”? What does that even mean?

Throughout this hissyfit, the screen shimmers and the purple lightning envelops Not!Lynx. Soon, he vanishes into a Black Screen of I Don’t Even Know Anymore. At least I can take comfort in the fact that all the nonsensical shit is over, right? Right? Why are you all looking at me with pity?

FMV time! I suppose it’s not even worth mentioning that this, too, is a reused FMV. It’s the one where the camera closes in on Steve, who looks at the camera as it disappears into her eyeball. Then there are some shots of the sun from beneath the ocean. With lots of fishies! End FMV. Well, that had even less point than anything else in the game. Let’s move on.

The camera does this flashing thing to make it seem like something is wrong with the TV. But it’s not! Oh, those tricksy game designers, how clever can you be? In actuality, Not!Lynx, who I shall now refer to as Cronabe — with the understanding that he looks exactly like Lynx — finds himself in an Impressionist painting. Perhaps this is some sort of meaningful and artistic statement by the game designers about reality, fate, dreams, and other such dubious themes of the game. Or maybe the bong-shaped structure in the center of the screen is a better indicator of the game designers’ thought process.

Apart from the bong building, there is also what looks like a hollow tree with one hole containing a save point and another containing a pair of glowing eyes. If the game designers had any sort of human compassion, the save point would be immediately accessible. I think you know what I’m saying here — obviously I must complete a puzzle in order to get to the save point. Unreal.

A small hut sits near the top of the save point tree, and to get inside, Cronabe has to climb a painted cliff near a painted waterfall and knock a painted fruit off a painted overhanging branch. He notices another Day-Glo building at the top of the cliff, but he files its existence away for later. He’s all about the save point. Well, except for the boulder-blocked treasure chest that he absolutely must have. I wouldn’t even bother to mention it except for the interesting fact that the text box refers to him as Lynx when he opens the chest. Hopefully no one will get confused if I continue to call him Cronabe. Well, no more confused than usual when we’re talking about Chrono Cross.

When Cronabe finishes his fucking around and drops the fruit, a tiny person in a pointy, floppy hat runs out and grabs it like a game designer spotting a crack rock. Cronabe uses this opportunity to break into the person’s house like the thief he is. The Black Screen of Breaking and Entering skips ahead to when the house’s owner returns, meaning that Cronabe apparently went in the house and just stood there with his thumb up his ass until s/he came back. The owner…well, the owner looks like a dark blue-green version of Dobby the House Elf. Except I think it’s a female. And she speaks in a Cockney accent. Sprigg — obviously referred to as Dobby from here on out — flips her shit over Cronabe’s presence in her home.

She approaches him, obviously unafraid of furries in her house. “Hmmm… I figured you for another wanderin’ spirit…” Oh, good lord, another inanity-spouting weirdo. I am so happy right now. “‘ow many yearz has it been since a physical bein’ wandered into this world…? Very strange indeed…” I think I read an erotic fanfic like this once. Dobby wanders over to pop her fruit into something that looks like a painted birdbath, spouting bullshit all the way. “Rightly so, the world is controlled by chance and chaos.” That sort of makes sense — with that giant wang, chaos could totally take over the world. The next several text boxes can be summed up with “Blah, blah, blah, things are impermanent.” Like, wow that is so deep. Then, she heads over to a hammock, still running off at the mouth — this time about how life has no meaning — and tells Cronabe to rest. You don’t have to tell him twice — to the save point! If this blabbering house elf talks him to death, he doesn’t want to have to redo the whole end of Fort Dragonia.

That sound you hear is me cheering over finally reaching the end of my footage. Sure, Cronabe is trapped in a fursuit while his enemy undoubtedly wreaks havoc using his nubile body, and that totally sucks for him, but I don’t have to recap any more lame dialogue for a while. Whee! Join me in part 9 when Cronabe…well, I don’t remember what comes next in the game. But you can be sure it will be totally action-packed and deep. See you then!