Penis!

Making haste to the tower housing the waterway’s entrance (in a miraculously guard-free area of town) the party unlocks the door and head down into the depths. The monster set for the area is generically aquatic — you know, mutated fish, evil clamshell creatures, and huge blue penises. Your everyday water-dwelling beasties. They’re all weak to lightning, meaning that I breeze through the tunnel with a combination of KaMan’s thunder-element claws and Lit2 spells liberally flung around by the mages. I suppose I could chalk this up as another example of Cecilia’s astounding fortune in this recap, but I’m actually pleased I don’t have to spend an hour fighting these critters, so I won’t.

Before long, Cecilia and the gang emerge in Baron castle’s moat, then weave their way around the perimeter wall until they find a tiny door near the bridge. This door leads them directly to the mysteriously-deserted courtyard. The lack of people in what was once a bustling square should be a huge fucking clue that there’s an imminent ambush, but they’re all still dazzled by Cecilia’s outfit to notice. The group searches the dungeons for Cid, but they’re empty too. With all other options exhausted, Cecilia makes the decision to head for the throne room. Which I’m sure will end especially well.

Without even taking two steps, Cecilia is startled by an unseen person calling him — like that hasn’t happened enough already in this recap. This particular voice belongs to Baigan, King Wanker’s advisor, or whatever his actual job is — I don’t know. He’s such a minor character that I had to go back and reread my first recap to recall what immature nickname I gave him, and, once I’d recovered from the shock at the shittiness of my earlier work, I noticed that I’d renamed him Pussy, in honour of his high school-esque bitching to the king about Cecilia’s “rebellious air”. So, Cecilia comes face to face with the one thing he thought he’d left behind after his “chrysalis to a butterfly” moment. It’s quite moving, really, especially as Pussy greets him so warmly.

This level of gullibility really shouldn’t go unpunished.

“You aren’t controlled by Golbez!” Cecilia squeals, resisting the urge to embrace his former kinsman, who, despite being named after a ladygarden, has retained his blond hair and buff body. Oh, the hours Cecilia spent fantasising about this man, back in the days before he agreed to take hold of the king’s package and subsequently turned his world upside down. Still, Cecilia tells himself, times have changed, and so has he; even though he’s now open about who he really is, that ship has long since sailed. Oh well, maybe Pussy can help them find Cid, so perhaps this painful reunion will actually result in something other than heartache. Lord knows he’s seen enough of that, what with the love of his life betraying him and all.

Pussy assures Cecilia that he opposes Golbez too — after all, as the Captain of the Guards, his loyalty lies with the state. Yeah, the Captain of the Guards, employed by and having sworn an oath to the king, isn’t loyal to him at all. Honest! Cecilia actually falls for this, but his capacity for critical thinking is probably clouded by the memories of his past crush, so I can allow him this lapse in judgement.

Practically falling over himself in his eagerness to offer Pussy a place in the group, Cecilia tells him he could be a great help to them. Hmm, I bet he could. Pussy’s all “You don’t have to ask me twice, studmuffin!”, muscling his way into the party faster than a speeding chocobo. I even get the fanfare and “____ joined the party!” message that always come up whenever I get a new party member. I’ll give the game designers credit for once — they’re certainly pulling out all the stops to convince me of Pussy’s sincerity. Why, I almost believed it for a second!

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Sadly, their hard work is undone TWO SECONDS LATER when Phil & Lil stop in their tracks, apparently noticing that something isn’t right. Cecilia wonders if they need the potty or something, but they warn “It smells! Like a monster!” “Where?” Cecilia duhs, looking around the room, despite the fact that the twins have their discriminating eyes firmly fixed on the newest member (hurr hurr) of the team. I have no idea why they’re the only ones who pick up on Pussy’s true nature, but as the plot is moving at a lightning pace (compared to before, anyway) I’ll leave the fanwanking to you guys this time.

I actually expected him to pull out a buttplug at this moment.

Not attempting to keep up the pretence, Pussy dramatically swirls his cloak and announces “I was given a great gift from my Master Golbez. I’ll show you!” And without further ado, we’re plunged into a boss battle. I actually take a few shots from Pussy because I’m too gobsmacked by his monstrous true form to concentrate — allow me to describe it to you. Okay, first of all, he’s apparently turned into some kind of ninja turtle, except he’s a fruity blueberry shade and doesn’t have an eyemask. Then there are his arms, which have become writhing snakes from the elbow down. Oh, and he seems to be wearing a fuchsia gladiator outfit, complete with exposed midriff. The overall impression I get is that someone in ancient Rome mated with the Incredible Hulk, dipped the resulting baby in a vat of blue dye, and then left it to be raised by Miles Edgeworth. Gay AND monstrous — that’s quite an achievement for whoever was responsible for smoking the crack designing the monsters in this game.

WTF?

Crack-induced appearance aside, Pussy is a pushover, especially when I discover that Phil’s Quake spell bypasses the dickish Wall magic he seems to like casting on himself. Bye bye, Pussy! Cecilia allows himself a moment to mourn the passing of yet another old friend who betrayed him, while also shivering at the realisation that the guy he once crushed on was actually an icky blue gladiator monster. It’s something we all have to go through at some point in our lives, I guess. Phil & Lil chide him for being so trusting, but to their credit, they don’t keep harping on about it, as Rinosa would undoubtedly have done had she been around for this little revelation.

With the treacherous Pussy a distant memory, nothing stands between Cecilia and the throne room. King Wanker is waiting for him, and greets him as warmly as the other ninja-turtle-in-sheep’s-clothing did. Why, it’s almost like the whole Mist event never happened! Surprisingly, Cecilia is a little warier this time around, stopping short of bowing to his former boss. The king soon sheds his friendly mask, too: “I see you’ve become a Paladin. But I do not like that. That’s not good, Cecilia.” So, as well as being a genocidal wanker, the king is a bigot too. But wait! “King Wanker” suddenly drops the bombshell that he is not, in fact, King Wanker, but an impostor. Apparently the real king refused to surrender, so Golbez staged a little hostile takeover, installing his assorted ineffective subordinates into positions of power within the kingdom. That horrible cad — his evilness keeps ascending to greater heights!

“Wanna see the King?” Not!KingWanker gloats. “Don’t worry! You’ll see him soon enough. I’m not like Milon, see?” Well, that’s a positive — he could hardly be any worse. With a flourish and a flash of the screen, Not!KingWanker leaps into the air and assumes his true form: the “Fiend of Water, Cagnazzo Kainazzo!” Naturally, this means yet another boss fight. Disappointingly, Kainazzo’s design is substantially less freaky/awesome/fruity than Pussy’s — he’s just a kinda demonic turtle with a human head. He likes creating giant tidal waves to engulf the party — not quite sure how that’s possible in a completely dry environment, but go with it — and sporadically hides inside his shell, but he still goes down far more quickly than he probably expected. God, these Elemental Fiends are pushovers. I hope Golbez took out a money-back guarantee.

Literally a second after they’ve sent Kainazzo to Crappy Villain Heaven to join such luminaries as Milon, Necron, and Yu Yevon, Cecilia and the others are startled by the sudden appearance of Cid, the very guy they’re here to rescue. Where the hell was he hiding all this time? I guess we’ll never know. After exchanging greetings, Cecilia introduces Cid to his ragtag group of companions, just as he did with KaMan a few minutes ago. I have a personal rule to never recap the same scene twice (which makes recapping the Breath of Fire games something of a challenge), so we’ll just skim over this little conversation. More importantly, the party limit in this game is five characters, and for those of you keeping score, we now have a group of six. What this means, of course, is that one (or more) person will be taking their leave fairly soon. And by “fairly soon” I actually mean “in ten seconds”. I sure hope it isn’t anyone likeable or useful!

A smelly joint? Was he being held captive in the game designers’ ‘relaxation room’?

As they leave the throne room and attempt to pass through the small corridor linking it to the entrance hall, the gang are stopped in their tracks by the screen darkening and yet another bodiless voice booming into their ears. “I didn’t expect you to defeat me…” it screeches. “But this does not mean anything to this Kainazzo…why don’t you accompany me to the Dark World! Hee-hah-hah!” Someone needs to sign all these guys up for a Villainous Laughter Masterclass.

He may not be able to laugh convincingly, but Kainazzo has an entirely more devastating trick up his shell — enchanting the walls to close in on the party. Some “Oh shit, we’re all going to be crushed” music thrums out urgently as the screen begins to shake. For some bizarre reason, rather than run out through one of the doors (it’s never stated that Kainazzo has somehow locked them, and you’d better believe this game would draw attention to it if he had), Cecilia, Cid, and KaMan just stand around like vegetables. Due to the adults’ sudden onset of uselessness, it therefore falls to Phil & Lil to take action. And boy, do they take action. Quickly saying their goodbyes, they pick a wall each and promptly turn themselves to stone, as is prudent to do in such a situation.

Okay, so this is a moving and noble sacrifice and all, but it makes little sense. Try to act surprised. For one thing, I’m not sure a stone statue the size of a child would be heavy enough to stop an entire freaking wall from advancing. Second, why didn’t Lil just use her Exit spell to spirit the entire group to safety? Or do magic spells only become available for use in cutscenes when it’s convenient for dramatic effect? For all my grousing, this is quite the poignant scene, especially when Tellah’s Esuna Heal spell fails to work because the twins sacrificed themselves of their own free will. Excuse me, I think I have something in my eye.

“…Fools! An old man should fulfil his share first!” Tellah cries. I think what the botched translation is preventing him from saying is that an old dude like him should have died before a pair of chyyyyldren. Don’t worry, Tellah — your time will come soon enough.

That time, however, will have to wait — I’m all recapped out. Next time, the party takes to the skies, enocunters an old friend/foe, and (reluctantly) rescues Rinosa. Oh, and Tellah gets his long-awaited shot at Golbez, which will undoubtedly result in much melodrama. We might encounter yet more Elemental Fiends and phallic symbols, too. Try not to die of excitement in the meantime!