So, the Trio makes for the BWP that leads to Truce Canyon 600 AD and spend the next several minutes tumbling down the mountain, fighting the same monsters that they have to fight every time they use the Truce Canyon gate. The experience margin is non-existent. Sigh.

Truce Canyon to World Map to Southern Continent to Frog Forest. Punk leads his fabulous companions back to Frog’s Pad of Amphibious Angst, deftly dodging the onslaught of ampitiles that spring forth like grubby panhandlers from the sides of the path. In the relative safety of Frog’s Pad, the Trio arranges themselves in some sort of Mystic, sloppily-animated triangle, summon the Masamune from nothingness, and telekinetically float it in Frog’s direction.

‘Oh! Ooooh! Yeah!‘

Frog –you guessed it– creams himself in the presence of the mighty phallus, and quite forcibly tells the Trio that they’re to “remain’eth” in the Pad for the night whiltht Frog pondereth thith turn of eventh. The thcreen thlips into darknethth, ath the Trio getth thlapped in the fathe by a thudden bout of narcolepthy.

Diagonal pan from the northwest as flickering torchlight and a few bars of appropriately chosen thematic music establish Guardia Castle’s throne room. Queen Leene leaps forward from her throne, all but hiking her tongue down Cyrus’ (remember him?) throat as she begs him not to leave. Cyrus is all, “It’s time we took back the [Hero Merit Badge] from the Frog King,” babbles some inconsistency about the Masamune, and makes to leave before Leene can wrap herself around his leg and hump for all she’s worth.

Well, there’s Viagra for that…

And oh, how he’s foiled, as the humping comes from the King instead. King Guardia pouts to Cyrus that the kingdom neeeeeeeeeeds hiiiiiiiim, and begs for Cyrus to make a speedy return. But we already know that Cyrus is going to die, so nobody really cares. Cyrus eventually manages to back out of the throne room and into the castle’s doorway, where it’s the Castle Guard’s turn to molest the Heeeeeeeeeero. They do so with gusto. Cyrus somehow manages to extricate himself from the mob and approaches a lone, green-haired youth at the Castle’s front gate. Cyrus apologizes for letting his groupies keep him distracted for so long and suggests that they hit the road. Leene dashes into the frame to awkwardly introduce the youth’s name, “Glenn,” and give him a half-hearted “You be careful too.” Contrasted to the huge send-off Cyrus just got, that’s pretty callous. Glenn flips her the bird and he and Cyrus hit the door. My spell-checker just offered to change that sentence to “Glenn flips her bird and he and Cyrus hit the door,” which is delightfully lewd. Pick your favorite and let’s move on.

Penis!

This next part features a new variety of our old friend the Black Screen, the Black Screen of Disjointed Memories Across Time. The next couple of scenes are very brief and move quickly from one to another, so I’m not going to bother mentioning the appearance of each BSDMAS. Just so you know. Anyway, a trio of Naga-ettes from that Cathedral place attack Cyrus and Glenn, and Cyrus pummels one in the ovaries with his impressive RED phallus sword. A simply gigantic frog flanked by two toadies (geddit?!) taunts Cyrus with the “Badge of Courage” and gets a uterus full of Cyrus’ eager blade. Glenn is also standing next to some random chick for some reason, which is ridiculous, because Glenn and Cyrus are totally doing each other. The Frog King screams like a girl and pitches the Hero Merit Badge before hopping off into the wilderness.

Speaking of wilderness, the past scenes took place in the Wooded Wonderland that doubles as Guardia Castle’s front lawn. Which is fucking ludicrous. They have to be just reusing the map. Please, tell me they’re just reusing the map. Otherwise, the overly done goodbye scene is just pointless because all the adventures take place TEN STEPS FROM THE GODDAMNED CASTLE. Whatever. I mean, even if they were leaving and all this garbage happened on the way out of the forest, the BSDMAT’s would so not have been necessary. Again. WHATEVER. You’d think I’d know better than to expect something in the game to make sense.

Anyway, the scene shifts, and the camera focuses on a waterfall from the Denadoro Mountains. Somewhere off-screen, Glenn screams. There’s a shattering noise. Glenn whines to Cyrus that the Masamune is broken. Like Cyrus wouldn’t be able to figure that out for his own damned self, considering it’s his weapon. Sheesh. With all that pesky needing-to-be-animated garbage out of the way, the camera snaps to the top of a high outcropping on the Denadoro Mountains, where we can see Ozzie and the back of a mysterious silver-haired man in a navy cape facing off, as it were, against Cyrus and Glenn.

Ozzie is all, “Is that the best you can do? Without your sword, you’re nothing!” Even as Cyrus’ penis shrinks to microscopic proportions, he maintains that Ozzie and the Mysterious Man will never beat him. He’s just that much of a hero. Glenn decides that now would be a fine time to sit down and whine that he’s a “g…goner,” which I don’t believe I’ve ever seen spelled out. It looks like it should rhyme with boner, not honor. Anyway, Cyrus tells Glenn that he’ll keep Ozzie/MM at bay whilst Glenn makes his escape. Cuz he’s a Heeeero!

Bzzzzt!

Thoroughly disgusted by this display of heroism, Magus (who’da thunk?) whips around and tells Cyrus that he ought to worry more about himself. Cyrus charges at Magus, who whips out the game designer’s favorite special effect, Old Sparky, to knock Cyrus on his ass. Cyrus skids to a stop at Glenn’s feet, the two share a touching moment, and Cyrus bursts into flames and evaporates from the screen. Tear.

Magus taunts Glenn to attack him, Glenn pussies out, Ozzie suggests that Magus try using a Polymorph Others spell on Glenn. A lightning bolt sizzles down from the heavens on Magus’ command, strikes Glenn, and as the kid shifts colors and spins around blindly, he tumbles off the cliff. Ozzie yells after Glenn that he’s a spineless wimp, but it’s not exactly like Ozzie had a vital role in the previous events, so whatever, Ozzie.

Fresh off the flashback reel, the camera fades up in Frog’s Pad. Rosie, Punk, and M!Sue are strewn about the room, sleeping in various uncomfortable-looking positions. Frog the insomniac takes a few steps toward the Masamune. The Masamune has been left on the cold, dirty floor all night. Way to care for such a magnificent weapon, guys. Sheesh. Frog mumbles to himself that 10 years hath passed and mourns Cyrus. What? I don’t understand. Frog wasn’t present in any of those flash-back scenes! How does he have this exclusive insider info? And what happened to Glenn?! So many questions left unanswered!

The next morning and a chipper “Awake’th, Punk!” stirs the party members from their slumber. “Though we may fail… let us go to Magus’s lair,” Frog suggests. When he asks if the Trio realizes what they’re going up against, Rosie whips out her gun and poses, asserting that “Nothing can beat science!” M!Sue prances in place and perks that the party can’t possibly be beaten by a bad guy. Neither Punk nor Frog has any obnoxiously positive sentiments, I guess, because the scene ends as we’re prompted to pick a third character to accompany them to Magus’ castle. Bye, M!Sue.

Punk spends the next fifteen minutes getting Frog properly equipped with armaments and the shiny Hero Merit Badge, toting the amphibian to the End Of Time, where Frog learns Water Magic, much to Spekkio’s delight, and leading the party to a very conspicuous mountain to the east of the Denadoro Mountains, called the Magic Cave.

When the party enters the area, Frog walks up to the solid rock wall, as if examining it for some sort of exploitable weakness, like a fissure or magical crack. Not to be confused with the magical crack that led to the creation of this game, mind you. As Frog rests his hand on the wall, he’s promptly kicked in the teeth by another series of Frosch!Backs. (A cookie to the people that get my unbearably clever pun.)

Again with the past antics in Guardia Woods. Four purple-haired children who may or may not be demonic in origin run around a child with green hair who is screaming his lungs out. A strapping young red-head emerges from the top of the frame and tells the possibly-demonic children to beat it. They screech, “It’s Cyrus!” and run away. Even though everybody really LURVES Cyrus and can barely keep their paws off of him every other second of the day. Whatever. Cyrus wanders over to the green-haired kid and tells “Glenn” that sometimes “people simply have to grit their teeth,” and go completely apeshit on mean kids. Violence totally solves all our problems, hadn’t you heard? Glenn tells Cyrus that he doesn’t like to get hit and Cyrus calls him a marshmallow. Guess we know who’s the top in this relationship.

OMGTHEIRLOVENEEDSABETTERHAIRDRESSER

A man with dirty spiked blond highlights stares at the sea from Zenan Bridge. Glenn ambles onscreen and Cyrus, this time incarnated as the blond, tells Glenn that he wants to become a knight and that Glenn should think of enlisting too. Glenn tells Cyrus that he doesn’t want to join the army because if it came right down to it, he probably wouldn’t be able to kill someone. Then they snog. Gratuitously.

Back on top of Denadoro Mountain, what with the Ozzie and the Magus and the Polymorph Others on poor Glenn. See Glenn get struck by lightning. See Glenn spin about and change colors. See Glenn plummet off the cliff to his doom.

See Frog’s unconscious form as it lies at the base of the waterfall on Denadoro Mountains. How did he get there? Where is Glenn? What is going on? I need an NPC to fill me in, right away! The Hero Merit Badge somehow managed to avoid being fried with Cyrus and lazily drifts down the waterfall, stopping right next to Frog. “The Hero’s medal…” he groans. Fade to black.

Back at Magic Cave, Frog demands that Punk “hand’eth over the Masamune!” Punk sinks it hilt-deep into the ground instead because he doesn’t have a “give the sword away” animations. Frog’s all, “Thanks a lot, ass,” and walks back to the Masamune, considers it for a moment. “Mein Name ist Mine name is Glenn!” he shouts. Oh. Now it makes sense. Well, except for when you try to figure out where Frog got his cape and frog-sized clothes after Magus cursed him. Blah blah blah, Frog wants to slay Magus to avenge his dead lover.

Penis!

Anime! mode. The camera glides across a stormy field to Frog and Punk. Frog grasps his sheath and produces the Masamune –like, so much for it being stuck in the ground– and holds it up over his head. Lightning crackles along the blade and a gigantic beam of blue energy shoots out into space. It dissipates very anticlimactically. Frog readies the blade in front of him, and leaps forward to take a massive chop at the wall. The camera rotates dramatically to get a rear-view shot of the action, and Punk slides into the frame so he can be all shocked-like. The third party member is conspicuously absent because the game designers couldn’t be bothered to make anime scenes with every character combination.

Frog’s mighty slice sends a fissure up the mountain wall, and it splits to reveal a cave. The Magic Cave, as it were. Punk gives Frog a triumphant nod like he had some vital role in the Anime scene. In Sprite! mode, Frog leaps on the hilt of the Masamune. It shoots off a bunch of swirling spark effects, he pulls it from the ground, and it creates a blue dome that expands outward and onto the world map, where it focuses and shoots straight into the air. Wow, talk about a money shot. And I thought the Masamune was phallic before all this, too. How naïve I was.