Unfortunately for Laguna, as soon as he walks up the steps and onto the stage, his leg cramps up. Yes, you read that right — his leg cramps up. I don’t know how I can resist this ultimate specimen of manhood. Dejected and pathetic, Laguna starts to limp back to his table. MarySulia just keeps right on playing. “(Sad…)” thinks whoever is inside Laguna’s head at the moment. But then Laguna has a big surge of manliness (wait, that sounds bad…) and limps back onstage, nods to MarySulia, and then goes back to his table, mission accomplished. But wait, he didn’t wave at her!

Ward and Kiros congratulate Laguna on a job well done. Apparently they missed the part where he looked like a total wanker. “I didn’t think you’d actually do it. Our popularity rating’s gone up a point,” Ward says. It doesn’t look like their popularity could have gone down much. But then Kiros tells the truth, making me have at least a tiny bit of respect for the guy. “Yeah, but you cut a pretty pitiful figure up there. I’d say you’re about a -3 on the manliness scale.” Hell, most of the guys in this game are a -3 on the manliness scale.

Laguna sits and feels sorry for himself a while longer, and then Kiros and Ward read the script and see that they’re supposed to look offscreen and make surprised noises. They suddenly tell Laguna they have to go, and for a moment I think they’re about to have a little rendezvous with each other in the supply closet. But nope, it’s just MarySulia showing up. Kiros and Ward skedaddle out of there so Laguna might be able to get lucky. Maybe he’ll even get to hold her hand. Shocking! Laguna nervously invites MarySulia to sit down, and by “nervously”, I mean that the guy’s practically peeing his uniform in terror. He panics and tries to think of something to say to her and ends up thinking about how hot she is, as whoever is dreaming Laguna wonders, “What’s this guy thinking…?” Now I’m convinced that Squall is playing the part of Laguna this evening. After all, he would be the least likely to notice that a girl was pretty.

For the next ten minutes, the conversation revolves around the fact that Laguna is nervous and that MarySulia doesn’t want him to be nervous around her. Suddenly, MarySulia invites Laguna to her hotel room. Whoa, doggie! This is moving quite fast, even for a Mary Sue. “I-In your room!?” Laguna sputters. No, up her butt, dumbass. MarySulia tries to cover up the fact that she’s a ho by saying that too many people are listening to their conversation and it would be more private elsewhere, but that’s just double-talk for, “Take me now, you big stud.” There’s no accounting for taste.

MarySulia mentions that she’s wanted to talk to Laguna for a while, meaning that she must have noticed his stalking of her. She tells him to ask for her room at the front desk, and then leaves. Um…why didn’t she just tell him her damn room number? Laguna stands there thinking about his incredible luck as Squally, from inside his head, thinks about what a dumbass Laguna is. “(I always screw up by talking about myself too much. It’s always been like that. But not tonight! I’m all ears for [MarySulia]!)” Laguna pep-talks himself. More and more, he’s sounding like a real catch. “(Ahh, time to use my manly charm, and help [MarySulia] with her problem.)” I have only one word: wanker.

Before running up to make sweet love to MarySulia, Laguna stops for advice from his friends. Even they think he’s a wanker, pointing out how Laguna couldn’t carry on a decent conversation if his life depended on it. Yeah, they’re mean, but you can’t fault them for being honest. Laguna heads up the stairs, and talks to the receptionist in the lobby, who knows him on sight. She takes him to MarySulia’s room. Hell, even MarySulia thinks that Laguna’s too incompetent to find the way.

That’s not creepy at all.

Once inside the Hotel Room o’ Love, Laguna and MarySulia make some annoying nervous small talk. We get it. They’re nervous. After MarySulia invites Laguna to sit down, he acts like he’s on some sort of stimulant. First he sits on the end of the bed, then in a chair by the window, then he walks back to Julia, who is laughing. God, this guy is more indecisive than Squally with a pair of naked Seifer twins. Laguna states, again, that he’s nervous. Please kill me now. He admits to being a fan of MarySulia’s. “So that’s why you come to hear me play so often,” she states the obvious. You think? “You…You saw me?” Laguna wonders. No, she’s a fucking psychic. He spastically runs around the room and begins pacing. “You were always smiling when listening, right?” MarySulia asks. “You have beautiful eyes. Though they look a bit scared now.” Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, this dialogue is all leading up to something. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to pluck ’em and eat ’em,” MarySulia continues romantically. “I just want to talk, gazing into those eyes.” Gag. Because it’s so attractive when a man slavishly stalks you, you know. God, I want Laguna.

MarySulia offers Laguna some wine. Because of that, Laguna is convinced he’s dreaming. I’m not sure why he thinks that, but the important thing is that the camera fades out, leaving one or two seconds for my nausea to dissipate. When the camera fades back in, Laguna is babbling about all sorts of shit as MarySulia listens. The scene fades in and out, showing us that Laguna has diarrhea of the mouth, but sparing us hours of reading Laguna dialogue. For once, I actually feel a sense of good will toward the game designers. Someone get me a drink. Finally, Laguna realizes that he’s being a scene-hogging bastard, and he unnaturally asks MarySulia what her dreams are. This is going to be a big shock to all of you, given her nickname, but MarySulia just wants to….sing…… “But I can’t. I’m no good at writing lyrics…” she woe-is-mes. Laguna sympathizes with her. Yeah, I’d hate to see any of the drug-induced shit he would come up with. “But, thanks to you, I think I can come up with something,” MarySulia gushes. Why am I having visions of a crappy songfic?

MarySulia continues, upping the ante on horrifically sappy dialogue. Gag Me With a Spoon music plays in the background. “Yes…The many faces you’ve shown me. Times when you were hurt, worried…Or felt pain deep inside you…Your smile, your face, your eyes…” Dude, he’s just some guy who watched you play the piano. She saunters over to him. “You’ve shown me something…I think I can come up with a song,” she Mary Sues. I hurl on my keyboard. Laguna, again for the love of God, wonders if this is a dream. MarySulia takes his hand and says it isn’t. Oh, just screw already.

Unfortunately for the two lovebirds, but fortunately for us, Kiros knocks on the door and says that they got new orders and have to go. I guess the receptionist just shows everyone to MarySulia’s room. MarySulia wonders if she and Laguna can get together again, and he responds, “Of course! I have to come hear you sing!” No. No, you don’t.

The scene fades out and then back in on the SeeDs. Only Squally is asleep at this point, and Selphie stands right over his head, allowing him to get a good look up her skirt when he wakes up. Selphie, don’t waste your time. The three of them try to figure out what happened with the whole falling-asleep thing. Zell’s marvelous theory is that some SeeD-hater released sleeping gas. Because that’s what I would do to my enemies — make them fall asleep for a short period of time. Selphie checks her shoes again, in case the mysterious sleep-inducing SeeD enemy snuck in and rubbed dog shit on everyone’s boots. They’re all relieved to find that no one has been hurt or molested in any way, except for Squally, who wishes he could be molested by Seifer. Selphie starts talking about her “nice” dream. I think even the biggest idiot could see where this is leading. Squally isn’t so happy. “(I dreamt I was a moron…)” he thinks to himself. After all, in his dream, he liked women.

Selphie mentions that someone cute named “Sir Laguna” was in her dream. Zell immediately says that he dreamed about someone named Laguna, too. In a magnificently unpredictable plot twist, all three of them figure out that they had the same dream, and it was the sequence we just saw. Selphie gives out the best advice of the day, telling them that they shouldn’t try to figure it out, instead, they should concentrate on their mission. This allows us to leave that whole debacle behind.

Um, ew.

Since they’re almost at Timber, the three of them leave the cabin. In regular gameplay mode, we see the train pull into the station. The buildings in Timber look rather old-fashioned, with curved ornamentation and old style lettering. Old school fanboys everywhere swoon, even though they think this game is Satan. There is one guy standing on the steps of the station, and it turns out he’s the resistance group contact. How inconspicuous. There are three choices when the contact says, “Oh, the forests of Timber sure has changed!” I’m not sure if Squally should respond to this grammatically incorrect version of the phrase Headmaster Cid told him, but I pick the one about the owls anyway. The other two choices involve Moogles and Chocobos, and as fanboys all know, those things don’t belong in Final Fantasy VIII. The guy tells Squally to follow him (making sure to use the word “sir” at the end of every sentence) and then runs offscreen. Squally follows. Random Contact Guy leads him ten feet away, to another train platform that reads “Galbadia”. A yellow train car pulls up, and apparently this is the HQ of the resistance group.

After they board the train car, it pulls away from the platform, and we get to see all the hot action that’s going on inside. Wait, that sounds wrong. A blue-shirted guy who has the posture of a pregnant woman greets them. His name is Zone, but we’ll call him Pregnant Guy, or PG for short. Squally introduces himself and his companions to PG, who tries to shake Squally’s hand. Whoever is not a complete idiot will remember that Squally doesn’t shake hands, but it’s important that the game designers beat us over the head with that fact. PG introduces himself as the leader of the Forest Owls. I know if I were picking a name for my resistance group, I would choose something really intimidating like “Owls”. PG shakes Selphie’s hand, and Zell wipes his hand off, getting ready for PG to give him some skin, too (wait, that also sounds wrong…), but PG disses him. The guy they met at the station is named Watts, but since he’s wearing a sleeveless jacket vest, I’m going to call him Marty, as in Marty McFly. Zell turns around and starts punching at the wall. Putz. “I guess it’s just our princess then,” PG says. Oh, a princess. I just cannot wait, I tell you. Marty tells PG that it’s the princess’ nap time. The princess must be a scary bitch, because PG asks Squally to go get her. I wonder if we’re being clumsily set up for an Important Scene. “She’s in the [last room], up those stairs,” PG tells Squally. “Some of our other guys are in the room on the way. Ask ’em if you get lost.” Okay, I realize that I get lost sometimes, but there are only two fricking rooms at the top of the stairs. I think I can manage.

Squally is pissed off. He doesn’t want to fetch a princess. He’s more interested in his prince. PG is scared of Squally when he’s angry. “This is the last time for this kinda thing,” Squally informs PG coldly. PG crouches down and clutches his stomach in pain. I guess he’s going into labor. One of the guys in the room right before the princess’ (no, I didn’t get lost) reiterates how scary it is to wake her up. She sure sounds like a winner.