“Your Majesty! Cecilia didn’t…” Kain (for that is his name) cries. Fortunately, unlike his WWE namesake, Kain isn’t portrayed as a chargrilled psycho, murderer, rapist or necrophiliac. Well, not yet anyway. Due to his name, I have already found a nickname for Kain in keeping with the WWE theme. The guards suddenly push Cecilia and The Big Blue Machine (TBBM for short) towards the door.

“If you’re concerned about Cecilia that much, go with him, TBBM!” bellows King Wanker. “Your Majesty!” whines Cecilia, for the 5839th time in this recap. I think he only knows those two words. It’s like the kid whose first word is ‘fuck’, and who proceeds to shout the word at the top of his voice everywhere he goes. Yup, trips to the supermarket are REALLY fun when that happens. Not that I speak from experience, you understand. *cough* Cecilia shouts “Your Majesty” once more before the guards finally manage to shove his whining ass out of the room. Thank the Lord for small mercies.

“Sorry, TBBM,” Cecilia says sheepishly once the Blue Brothers are outside the Throne Room. It looks like TBBM and Cecilia are friends…JUST friends, apparently. Believe what you will.

“Don’t worry,” replies TBBM. “He’ll put you back in command of the Red (and Yellow) Wings after this mission.” God, I hope not. One airship ride with those twerps is enough to last me a lifetime, thanks. The conversation continues for a few moments, until TBBM spouts one of those stupid “game tip disguised as character dialogue” things. You know, things like “Take care, Cecilia. Oh, and remember to use the D-pad to walk around”, as though the characters actually know they aren’t real and are just tiny cogs in the videogame machine. Excuse me while my brain melts.

So, TBBM disappears, leaving Cecilia to explore the castle. None of the random NPCs have anything of interest to say, even though their dialogue is as mind-numbing and dumb as everything else that has been said during the game.

In one of the castle’s many rooms, Cecilia suddenly stops, and a young woman with blonde hair and a skimpy costume appears. Oh God, Mary Sue alert. The woman (whose name is Rosa) skips up to Cecilia, gasping “You are not hurt? I was so anxious!”.

“We are not hurt,” Cecilia replies moodily, “How could we be? The wizards didn’t even raise their hands.” At this point, Cecilia walks away from Rosa, who runs after him at breakneck speed. She wants him badly. As she tries to get Cecilia to talk (this scenario sounds oddly familiar…*coughSquallandRinoaatSeeDBallcough*), what’s left of my brain leaks out of my eyeballs. Forgive me for not paying attention to their inane conversation – I’m still trying to get over the shock of a FF Mary Sue not being a brunette.

“Can I see you later?” Rosa wanks. God, she’s practically throwing herself at Cecilia. “Yeah. Later.” Cecilia replies moodily. Is anyone spotting a pattern here? Before I can beat myself unconscious with the TV remote, Rosa flitters back upstairs. Thank God for that.

Cecilia continues his exploration of the castle. In the jail, I find the surviving mages from the temple. So, the Kingdom of Baron slaughters the mages who won’t hand over the crystal, then locks up the others? What a bunch of wankers.

Outside, a weird-looking man clad in blue and orange appears. Say hello to Cid, peeps! Apparently, Cid and Cecilia know each other, as Cid asks “How’s my airship doing?” Aha, so he’s the one who built the airships. I can sleep soundly now I know the answer to that pressing question.

Cecilia bitches to Cid about his expulsion from the Red (and Yellow) Wings. In other words, Squaresoft ram it down our throats again, just in case we didn’t get it the first, second, third and God-knows-how-many-other times. Cid remarks that something about King Wanker has changed:

“He ordered me to make an airship, but I don’t want it to be used as a weapon!” What the fuck did he think the King wanted one for? To run a sight-seeing business over the Kingdom? To scatter flower petals from the sky? To write “Peace is the answer” in big pink smoke letters? God, is everyone in this game retarded?

Cid continues that he should be getting home, before walking right through Cecilia and disappearing into a doorway. Um, okay.

Eventually, Cecilia finds his room at the top of a tower, and gets into bed, his day of mindless killing over. There’s a clock on the wall, and suddenly we hear this REALLY annoying ‘blip, blip’ sound which I presume is supposed to be the clock ticking. In reality, it sounds more like someone is playing Pong under Cecilia’s bed. Cecilia lies awake, no doubt suffering insomnia brought on by the blip-blip sounds of doom. Suddenly, he gives another of his wanky monologues.

“What happened to His Majesty? The crystal of Mysidia…did we really have to snatch it from the peace-loving people? Never again! Even if ordered!” Zzzzzzz. Suddenly the blip-blip noises stop, and Rosa enters the room. Jesus in a jacuzzi, when will this pain end?! I wonder if we’re going to be treated to a 16-bit sex scene.

“What’s wrong? You’re not quite yourself lately.” says Rosa (from now on called Rinosa due to her chirpy-female-who-wants-the-moody-hero act). “Nothing.” replies Cecilia moodily, and turns to face the wall.

“Then…please don’t look away…” Rinosa breathes. As if this scene wasn’t dumb enough, the slow and depressing Mary Sue music kicks in. If ever murder was to be made legal, now would be a VERY good time.

For a good few minutes, Cecilia reiterates for the kajillionth time tells Rinosa all that has happened since the start of the game. Cecilia, still in Wankst Mode, continues “I am just a Dark Knight with no courage to disobey His Majesty!”

Now it’s Rinosa’s turn to look away. She angrily declares “The real Cecilia I know would never whimper like this!”, as if she, a weepy, whiny Mary Sue, is Xena or something. Talk about double standards. Suddenly, Split-Personality Rinosa is back in a ‘I loooove you Cecilia, be careful and think of meeeee!’ mood, as she tells Cecilia to take care on his mission. Eventually the conversation ends, Rinosa leaves, and Cecilia goes to sleep.

In the morning, Cecilia meets TBBM in the castle hallway, ready to deliver the mysterious and not-at-all-suspicious package to the village of Mist. They automatically exit the castle, because, you know, we couldn’t possibly manage to find our own way out, even though the exit is just down the hall. Grrr.

The screen fades in on a crappy picture of the castle seen from a side viewpoint. White writing, telling us YET AGAIN that Cecilia was expelled from the Red (and Yellow) Wings, begins to scroll quickly up the screen, followed by a lazy, bite-sized history of Baron. It doesn’t look at all out of place. In a nutshell, the text tells us that Baron’s airships helped it to become the most powerful nation in the world. It finishes with “The crystal was shedding its light silently…”. Ooh, it’s so deep and meaningful. Except not.

So, Cecilia and TBBM set out on their journey.

That’s all we have time for in this installment. Don’t worry, though, because the next recap will be a blast. Yup, we’re in for some explosive action next time. Trust me, it’ll be da bomb. Oh, and I wonder what could possibly be in that package? Okay, enough subtle-as-a-kick-to-the-head foreshadowing for now. Later!