In the castle’s library, a very beefy young man, the Guile lookalike from the movie, finds Edgar sitting at a table. “Brother,” he asks, “what’s wrong with father? What’s all this talk of his successor?” Edgar’s all, “Oh my GOD, you are a dumbfuck! HE’S DYING!!!” and then he runs out sobbing. “Tears… …!?” he wonders, as if to imply his brother is just so macho that he’d never cry. Right.
Edgar’s brother gets his turn on the Black Screen of Meta-Game Commentary: “EDGAR’s twin brother, who traded the throne for his own freedom…” I don’t even get him in the party in this recap, but I get to name him anyway. Suck on that, Ryan! I choose to change his name from SABIN to GUILE, for previously explained reasons. Though I do notice, too late, that Guile never had a stylin’ ponytail on the back of his crew cut. Alas.
The old matron finishes to Twiggy, “Yes… His name is GUILE. Oh, he looked so like his father! When he ran away, he was a sweet little child. I wonder what he’s like now?” So he looked like that as a little kid? Goddamn, by now he has to be one giant, pulsating pectoral muscle with a couple ‘roided-up arms sticking out. A few other people in the castle have some info on Guile: Edgar’s chancellor, who is stunningly not scheming to take over the throne (I’m serious!), tells Twiggy that Guile ran off because he didn’t want to be the king. Which was fucking obvious already. But he adds that the successor was decided on a flip of the coin. So apparently Edgar didn’t want to be king, either. Sucks for him. On the positive side, that’s one more thing from the FMV that actually makes sense now. I feel so enlightened.
After Twiggy’s done ferreting exposition from every corner of Figayro Castle, she finds Edgar back on his throne. He’s sitting down, so I guess we know who was on the receiving end. Right when Edgar’s asking her how she likes his little love nest, one of his men runs in to inform him that they have an Imperial visitor. “Probably Kefka!” he says. Yes, let’s see what that wacky asshole’s up to, shall we?
In the middle of the desert, Kefka loudly complains to his two men-in-tow about being forced to come out here on the Emperor’s orders. Then out of nowhere he jumps about six feet in the air and screams, “EDGAR, you pinhead! Why do you have to live in the middle of nowhere?” Man, that’s what I’m sayin’.
‘Bend over and get it!’
Kefka enters the castle and confronts Edgar, who wonders what Kefka’s doing there, if the Empire and Figayro are allies. Um…okay. I would think it would be okay for allies to be in your territory, and the real problem would be enemies in your territory. But this game is so deep, there’s probably some tiny nuance I’m not getting, like Edgar and Figayro not really being the allies of the Empire. Layers upon layers.
Edgar and Kefka make small talk, until Kefka gets to the point: “A girl of no importance recently escaped from us. We heard she found refuge here…” Edgar correctly labels this girl as the “witch” he’s heard tell about from his gossipy guards. Kefka denies this, but asks if she’s in the castle. Edgar hems and haws, then answers, “You see, there are more girls here than grains of sand out there. I can’t keep track of ’em all!” Actually, there are maybe four girls in this whole castle. And one of them is on death’s door. This hyperbole on Edgar’s part leads me to believe that he is overwhelmed at having even that many girls in his castle, because he’d rather like it to be his males-only playplace.
Kefka, even though he lets off a laugh like a spritely hyena, is not amused. “I truly hope nothing happens to your precious [Figayro]…!” he threatens as he leaves. Edgar runs back to his lover. Winona apparently heard the whole exchange, and notes, “I’d say that guy’s missing a few buttons…” I know Kefka’s batshit and all, but “missing a few buttons” doesn’t seem to quite hit the nail on the head. Edgar asks, “…Where’s TWIGGY?” When she shows up at the mention of her name, Edgar pulls Winona aside and asks him to take Twiggy to her quarters. So the boys can have some more alone time, no doubt. Edgar makes some lame excuse to Twiggy before taking off back into the castle. Twiggy follows Winona to her room.
But, but, when they reach Twiggy’s bedroom, Winona doesn’t immediately bail to run into his king’s arms! God dammit. Instead he stays there and assures Twiggy that everything’ll be fine. She interrupts, “You’re WINONA, right? EDGAR told me about you. Is it true you’re a thief?” Oh God, here we go. “That’s TREASURE HUNTER!” Winona whines. But surprisingly he drops it there.
“On the surface, EDGAR pretends to support the Empire,” Winona tells Twiggy. “The truth is, he’s collaborating with the Returners, an organization opposed to the Empire.” Wait, Edgar wasn’t being honest? NO! Winona confesses that he is Edgar’s link to the Returners, and that Baron Liverspots von Oldentimer III is also a Returner. See, if only Twiggy could have stayed awake back in Narshe, she’d already know half of this and I wouldn’t have to hear it again. Stupid Twiggy.
“Empire…but I’m a soldier of the Empire…!” duhs Twiggy. Oh my God, THANK YOU for clearing that one up. I thought you were selling Amway products. Winona tries to make Twiggy feel better by telling her that she was only part of the Empire because they were using her. “Things are different now,” he insists. Twiggy wonders what she should do. If she’s really dumb enough to be considering going back to the Empire I will stab my eyes out with this pen.
To his credit, Winona isn’t all, “Dumbass, you have to join US!!! The GOOD GUYS!!!” Instead, he leaves it to Twiggy. Of course, this could backfire if she’s really as confused as she seems to be. Winona leaves her alone to wonder “which way is right.” Better get the man back in here, so he can make her decisions for her. Otherwise we might be here for a while. Fade out on Twiggy looking really depressed for the six hundredth time in this recap.
Sometime at night, we fade in on Edgar’s bedroom. Bamp chicka bow bow chicka. Unfortunately, he’s alone, but he realizes immediately that something’s wrong. When he gets outside, he sees that the entirety of Figayro Castle is engulfed in flame. I’d laugh at the flaming bit, but I’m too busy wondering how all the stonework caught on fire. The wizards are working overtime in this recap. I wonder who’s paying them.
Edgar’s guards don’t do crisis training.
Kefka shows up as Edgar’s standing around staring at the flames and doing nothing. Kefka asks for the girl in exchange for…I don’t know. The castle’s kind of already on fire. And I don’t see how Kefka would be able to put it out any more expediently than Edgar’s guys. So Kefka kind of cashed in his bargaining chip already. Whoops. Edgar runs back to the door to his throne room and tells a guard to “Get ready.” Kefka takes this as Edgar changing his mind about giving up Twiggy, but in totally atypical fashion, the hero has a trick up his sleeve and the villain is left looking stupid. With Kefka standing there with his mouth hanging open, Edgar jumps over the castle wall and onto the back of a chocobo, with two more behind him. Around the back of the castle and over to the other side, where Twiggy and Winona jump onto the other two birds’ backs. Kefka chides Edgar for bailing on his people, until Edgar cries “OK! Dive now!!!” and the whole of Figayro castle pulls together and submerges into the sand. I just know there’s a buttsex joke in there somewhere.
As Figayro sinks below the desert on the world map, Kefka is left lying in the middle of the sand. Instead of doing anything himself, he sends his two bodyguards, now in Magitek Armors, after our heroes. Everything is going fine until Twiggy casts a simple Fire spell on one of the Magiteks. Edgar, clearly having forgotten to take his pill this morning, jumps into the fray, nearly impaling himself on the claw of one of the Magiteks. Winona’s all, “What the dilly-o, babycakes?” Edgar, bug-eyed and very ruffled, stammers, “Dddddddid you just see what I saw…?” Winona assumes he means Twiggy. Yeah, I know, vaginas are terrifying, Edgar.
“She’s amazing!” he squeals, off his nut with fear. “That was magic! MAGIC!” Now it’s Winona’s turn to freak. Again. “M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-MAGIC!? She used magic?” The two of them huddle in the middle of the battle to confer about this, because they’re excitable asshats. And I don’t even know why Winona has his panties in a wad about this, since he watched Twiggy use a zillion spells in the five years it took me to find Figayro. Meanwhile, Twiggy stands in the corner looking put out and depressed–and for once I’m with her on that feeling, since these two are acting like dicks–and the guys in the Magiteks stand and wait for the conference to end as well, instead of killing all three of them right now.
Finally, Edgar asks, “TWIGGY…where on earth did you learn that?” Twiggy doesn’t know, since SHE HAS AMNESIA!!!, and Edgar is just beside himself with shock. Fucking A, calm down. Winona, on the other hand, apologizes to Twiggy for having such an apoplectic fit over the whole thing. Edgar apologizes too, saying that he just freaked because it was the first time he’d ever seen Magic, but he’d still like to know how she can do it. “EDGAR, TWIGGY can use magic, and we can’t,” Winona says reasonably. “That’s the only difference between us.” Well, that and the genitals. And the red slut ensemble. Anyway, they both come to the conclusion that wherever she got her Magic, Twiggy is an asset against these Imperial fuckers. She thanks them both profusely, even though all they really said was, “We think you’re a freak, but we need you to save our own skins, so WHOO GO TEAM!” But with that “heartwarming” moment out of the way, everyone can return to fighting the patiently waiting Magitek guys. Dumbasses, all of them.
Loading ...After the Magiteks have been disposed of, the three of them race away from Kefka on their chocobos. Twiggy asks who that guy in the makeup was back there, and if he was a bad man. “I…I’m scared…” she whimpers. I think I just sprained something rolling my eyes. Edgar says that he’d like Twiggy to meet the leader of the Returners, some guy named Banon. “‘Magic’ is going to be the key to winning this war,” Edgar tells her, once again basically saying that they’re using her for her powers. Also, I like how Magic is suddenly the key to winning this war, when they just realized they had Magic at their disposal 10 seconds ago. Edgar also brings up the incident in Narshe. “That Esper seemed to…react to [Twiggy],” he says, like he was even there. “Can there be some connection?” You know, I really think it won’t be a factor. I also think that Edgar is straight and that the sky is purple.
Edgar lets slip in the middle of this conversation why he was so shocked by Twiggy’s Magic: “But no HUMAN is born with the powers you have, and…” Twiggy immediately falls behind on her chocobo, stunned that she might not be human. Edgar feels all bad for saying so, but honestly, she was going to find out sooner or later. And she was probably going to get mopey about it no matter when she found out. Just like now. Hell, Twiggy probably gets mopey when her Lucky Charms get soggy. While Edgar and Winona are at the pharmacy getting their Ritalin, she should pick up some Prozac.
So Twiggy is convinced by Edgar and Winona to go meet Banon so the Returners can protect her from the Empire and help her figure out her powers. It’s totally not because they want to use her power for themselves. Me oh my, no. At any rate, Edgar says for my benefit that there’s a cave leading to South Figayro–guess where–south of here.
And that’s where we’re going to stop, because I’d rather not embarrass myself further by recapping the 20 minutes I spend running around the world map trying to find the cave. You can safely assume that I eventually find it. Stop laughing. Next time, Ryan will take over the helm and get our heroes to South Figaro and beyond. And he gets to meet a martial artist, a ninja and a giant purple octopus. I’ll try to overcome my seething jealousy by part three.