Further up the mountain, Celes stops Twiggy to chat. This is totally the time for getting to know each other! “So, you were born with the power of Magic!?” she asks, barely concealing her glee. “Isn’t it a lovely gift…” Twiggy, who experienced Edgar and Winona treating her like a leper because of her “lovely gift,” is a bit at a loss, and settles for asking Celes the dumbest question ever, “You…can use Magic, too?” Celes tells her about her childhood, in which Michael Jackson injected her with magical fairy dust while she was in her test tube and she was raised to be a Magitek Knight. The totally reasonable follow-up question from Twiggy: “Have you…loved anyone?” This girl. I don’t even know what to do with her anymore. Celes is all “???” like anyone would be. “What’s that supposed to mean!?” she adds. Given that this is on the heels of Edgar’s little pep talk, I’m sure Celes now thinks that the mission of the Rebel forces is to passive-aggressively force her to sleep with Winona, and then hang her for a treasonous harlot. I’d get a little defensive about that, too.
Unless he spots a penis, I don’t think he’s changing his mind.
After some more walking, Kyan stops Celes to talk. I’m starting to sense a pattern. He snits, “Don’t think for a moment I trust you!” If she had spoken even one word to Guile, I would think this is also a “BITCH STEP OFF MY MAN!” moment. Celes tells him she basically doesn’t give a shit what he thinks, and they start walking again. Can she talk with Gau next? They can discuss the economy!
Thank God, everyone is done treating Celes like the pretty new girl in class and they can get on with the business of defending the Esper. The party is standing in a football I-formation–Winona, Celes, Kyan, Edgar, Guile, and Gau lined up, with Twiggy behind them and TSL behind her. This makes Twiggy the quarterback, and sure enough, she is the one I can control. A save point twinkles merrily behind them, in case I fuck up and let Kefka have his way with that poor Esper.
As soon as Twiggy tells TSL she’s prepared–even though Twiggy seems unprepared for everything, including the sun rising each morning–a moogle escorts our heroes to the Black Screen of Meta-Game Commentary, to initiate the game’s second Split Party Rough ‘Em Up. “Save the Esper from Kefka!” he demands. Okay, Mr. Bossypants. “Need some info?” The only needed piece of information is that, if Kefka or his forces reach TSL, they lose. What is it with that guy? If anyone even brushes a hair out of place on his giant bushy head, we’re all fucked, every time.
My general strategy here is to create one kick-ass team to bullrush Kefka and two shitty teams that can at least hold the fort if necessary. For Team Kick Ass, I choose Guile, Kyan, Edgar, and Twiggy. As much as I wanted to make it a boys-only special buttsex club, I can’t place fucking Winona in Team Kick Ass, because it would ruin their whole vibe of not being lame. Also, Twiggy can heal. Winona and Gau, the two characters I could kind of take or leave at this point, form Team Eh, It’ll Do. And Celes, that special snowflake, gets to be on Team Celes! Mostly I put her by herself because she can handle it, but also because I was sick of everybody feeling the need to engage her in conversation and thought it would do everyone some good to quarantine her for a while.
Just to prove my point that Celes is getting way too much attention, after I’ve finished forming these three parties, Kefka approaches from the south and immediately says, “Oho!! It’s General CELES, the traitor! How delightful! This’ll be fun!” He cackles, because WACKY, and whistles to call in his dozen troops in lime green and mocha brown. They form neat rows, except for one poor asshole in brown who can’t stand in line because of the terrain, so he just has to stand behind everyone else. Kefka orders them to “Get those vile insects!” Wacky! Evil! Everyone drink!
Carrot Top?
Team Kick Ass, led by Kyan, charges headlong into Kefka’s forces. Regardless of their sprite’s uniform color, on the battle screen they are all in reddish-brown and are all holding their swords at full, erect attention. The occasional group has a soldier riding a ginger dinosaur, or a bulldog in spiked armor named “Fidor.” I guess that’s supposed to be Fido? Whatever. Team Kick Ass basically punches holes through their guts all the way to Kefka. It’s actually kind of embarrassing in retrospect that I didn’t break up this group a little bit in case I screwed up and took too long–Edgar alone probably could have held off all these minions. Anyway, it’s amazing how easy this game is when I deliberately ignore the “right way” to play it, stack one group with all the good characters, and can enter the combo for Aura Bolt consistently.
Soon enough, an opening to Kefka presents itself and Kyan charges right in, forgetting that Twiggy is low on mana and will now be a paperweight in red fishnets. But hoo boy, speaking of funny clothing! Kefka appears in more than his sprite form for the first time, naturally five times the size of any of our heroes. But the increased size also provides more detail on his garish clown wardrobe–shamelessly stolen from Milich Oppenheimer’s closet–including his technicolor dreamcoat, purple leggings, buckled shoes adorned with bells, three scarves under his ruffled collar, and dainty lemon-yellow opera gloves. He looks like he just went swimming in a vat of rainbow sherbet.
‘My favorite makeup boutique is here!’
Other than his predictably absurd appearance, there’s not a lot to say about the battle itself. The party uses its most powerful attacks–except for Kyan, because I’m still too impatient to go past his first–but Kefka bows out of combat before they actually kill him. “Don’t think you won,” he tells them, even though they won. He’ll be back, he won’t forget this, blah blah recurring villain platitudes blah. Kefka spins around in a frenzy and teleports out, leaving Edgar and Winona to wonder if the Esper is okay. No, it’s totally gone now, but good job keeping an eye on it!
Just kidding. It would serve them right if Kefka had just teleported it out too, but it’s still sitting there, frozen in ice, looking mysterious. Our heroes stare at it uselessly. Kyan asks, “Can it still be alive?” to which Guile responds, “Impossible…right!?” It’s an Esper, not a goldfish, you two.
Suddenly, Twiggy violently backs away from the Esper, meaning that her sprite bounces backward. The menfolk fall all over themselves worrying about her, and as the screen starts pulsing with a blue glow, she thanks Winona for his concern by nearly blasting him off the cliff. Celes helps him up, y’know, so he can protect her better, and they all circle up around Twiggy. Given what just happened to Winona, you’d think they’d realize what a terrible idea that is, but for reasons I think we’ve painstakingly established, I don’t trust these guys to make smart decisions.
Obviously, right when they’re all leaning in to check Twiggy’s temperature and see if her pupils are dilated, she pulses again and knocks all of them nearly to their deaths. I must say, they’re all really good at grabbing onto cliff faces. Not one of them actually tumbles off the cliff. And Guile doesn’t even jump off on purpose to fight a purple octopus! While he’s hanging onto the cliff for dear life, Edgar has the time to grunt, “TWIGGY ‘n the Esper…” Guile, from his spread-eagle, hello-brother position on the ground, replies, “There’s…some kinda reaction!” The reaction, other than the blue glow, amounts to a sound like the Esper was struck with a tuning fork. It’s somewhat irritating.
Gau only needs one hand, like a boss.
Twiggy and the Esper stare each other down until they enter a battle screen together. The Esper is labeled as Tritoch, and it doesn’t want to battle–it wants to have a chit-chat. Twiggy cries out, “What!? What am I feeling!?” Tritoch pulses a little at her, and she responds, “Huh? W…what’s going on…?” So is this Esper actually communicating any information to her, or just blinking inscrutably? Poor Twiggy is more confused than ever. She just needs someone in this game to sit her down with a cup of tea and let her relax for a few hours. It can’t all be nonstop existential angst.
Outside of the mind-meld these two have going, everyone else is sitting in the peanut gallery, commenting on the “action.” Celes says she can feel the Esper’s mind, but Edgar and Winona, who are the most terrified of Twiggy’s powers, just want her to get the hell away from it. But Edgar’s plea comes too late: Tritoch and Twiggy, in time to the dramatic music, join together with blue lightning, leaving Twiggy transformed into a pale pink sprite, in both senses of the word. She looks like the Pink Princess.
While everyone is still hanging from a cliff or splayed on the ground–which they could have remedied instead of talking that whole time–Pink Princess Twiggy rockets into the air and flies away. In the distance beyond the cliffs, she looks like a flying save point. Tritoch the MacGuffin Esper doesn’t change its expression, but if it could it totally would have this “But what about ME” look on its face, like my dog when I’m making dinner and not giving him anything. We cut to Pink Princess Twiggy flying around Little Olde Tokyo (or the world map, whatever), and it looks fun as hell but I’m sure emo Twiggy is taking absolutely no pleasure in it, despite her cheerful new look.
WHEEEEEE!!! … *sniffle*
We leave Jem to her joyless flying to return to Narshe. Celes enters one of the Baron’s bedrooms to check on Winona, who’s still out cold from…something. Celes was the one face-down in the dirt the whole time Twiggy was glamming out, so I got nothin’ here. Winona mutters “Unhh…” at her and stumbles out of bed. As soon as he’s shaken his grogginess away, he demands to know where Twiggy is. Celes hangs her head, because this is totally her fault. “She changed into a…something, and…took off,” she tells him. “She looked like…an Esper…” Why didn’t Winona see any of this? Did he somehow fall into a coma without falling off the cliff and splattering the rocks below?
Edgar enters the room, also all concerned with Winona’s well being. He charges in between Winona and Celes, lest they accidentally touch each other and he has to get in a hair-pulling fight for his man’s love. Once he’s established that they were not doing it behind his back, he gets back to the story. “Something happened to TWIGGY…” he says to the floor. “There seems to be some connection between Espers and her…” DURRRRRRRRRR! You don’t say! Thank God Edgar is here to cut through the bullshit.
Their only lead is that she is off to the west, doing loop-de-loops through the clouds while crying. Winona heads to the living room, where Kyan and Guile are cuddling by the fireplace and Gau is masturbating in the corner, according to my Ph.D. in Sprite Body Language. Everyone turns to Winona as he tells them they’re heading out to find Twiggy, because he personally promised her his protection, even though that apparently applies to every woman he’s ever met in his life. Edgar and Guile remind him that they have other duties, like protecting the Esper and helping TSL and the Rebels execute their grand plan of doing nothing to stop the Empire.
Eventually, through a series of synchronized head nods, they agree that helping Twiggy is the most important task, but that everyone not involved in that should stay in Narshe. There’s no reason they couldn’t all look for her, beyond game mechanics, but let’s just pretend it would be pointless for more than four people to conduct this worldwide search. For this elite team, Edgar suggests they use Figayro Castle to shuttle to the west and the towns of Kohlingen and Jidoor.
Compassionate as always!
As before, as much as I want to make this an all-boys outing, because rowr, I kind of hate Winona and want him to be lonely. And Edgar, Guile, and Kyan are more than enough beefcake for this search. Celes takes Twiggy’s spot in the group–at this point I trust her to at least stay in another room, read a book, and enjoy her own company if the boys want to make out. Winona and Gau can stay in Narshe and take turns guarding TSL and making sure he doesn’t accidentally do anything important.
Because I have such an amazing sense of narrative timing, instead of ending my play session with this game-changing decision, I instead have Edgar go shopping for everyone and futz around in menus for the next 15 minutes. But I can’t think of a more boring thing I could recap, so how about we just end it here? Next time, our heroes begin The Search for Twiggy, I’m sure in the most efficient way possible. Until then!