Wiegraf tells Cesario that it was never his intent to harm or even kidnap the Marquis, and that he’ll turn the Marquis over in exchange for his own freedom. Smiles all around, and they make the switch. PPP runs to his lover’s liege’s side and Wiegraf heads for the hills. Delita comments that the Happy Sunshine Cult will destroy itself at this rate, and Cesario notes that the Marquis is uninjured. They head back to IGROS CASTLE to let Foulfellow know that the Marquis is safe, so he can call of the extensive search that he’s no doubt been organizing since the party abandoned their positions in the Castle guard.
Inside IGROS CASTLE, Foulfellow berates his sibling and his two man friends for disobeying a direct order to protect the castle and going to take care of matters themselves. Delita tries to protect Cesario from his brother’s wrath by claiming that it was all his idea, but Foulfellow brings on the punishment by telling Cesario that he’s this close to disgracing the family name and he’s selfish and wah wah wah bully-cakes.
Just then, a man’s voice intervenes from off-screen and tells Foulfellow to lay off. A very familiar-looking Noble clad entirely in purple enters the room and reminds Foulfellow that not only was Cesario a big help in rescuing the Marquis, but the Noble and Foulfellow used to be ambitious like him once, too. Until they got promoted and became hard-asses, of course, but the sentiment is still there.
Foulfellow retorts that the Noble shouldn’t spoil Cesario, lord knows Daddy did it enough as it is, and the Noble is revealed to be none other than W!LL, the WHITE LION Prince and leader of the Hokuten knights. W!LL remarks on the similarities between Cesario and the late Balbanes, and subtly hints at Foulfellow that Cesario’s youthful energy could come in handy. Totally missing W!LL’s cue to make Cesario his personal “errand boy,” Foulfellow proclaims that the mission is nearly done anyway so he guesses the party can join up.
Foulfellow tells Cesario that the Hokuten will be attacking several Happy Sunshine Cult hideouts at the same time, and tells Cesario to choose one to attack. Cesario agrees, and he and his two wankery companions leave to have celebratory buttsex while W!LL and Foulfellow talk shop. As soon as Cesario leaves the room, Foulfellow apologizes to W!LL, and W!LL responds that it’s alright, as “Gustav wasn’t much of a soldier anyway.” Duh-da-dunnnn. Could it possibly be that Gustav was on W!LL’s payroll as part of some grand design to wipe out the Happy Sunshine Cult? Turns out it could, because W!LL soon adds that “the plan couldn’t be changed after the Marquis was captured in [GALLIONE],” so it’s just as well that Cesario saved the Marquis because it leaves the Happy Sunshine Cult vulnerable to Hokuten penetration.
Just to make sure we’ve all caught that W!LL and Foulfellow are plotting diabolical plots, Foulfellow randomly reminds W!LL that “The King [Omdoria] doesn’t have much time to live,” so they should hurry up with their political coup if they want to take charge when the old codger kicks the bucket. Then W!LL throws a baby out the window and Foulfellow kicks some puppies around until the screen fades to black.
Enrgish lepeadedry stlikes!
Chibi!Cesario emerges from IGROS CASTLE on the world map just in time to see a RED form two dots to the south, but before that, he decides to check his facts in the “Brave Story,” an option on the menu that displays the many biographies of The Cast List That Puts IT!!! to shame. With this comprehensive and constantly-updating tome at his disposal, Cesario quickly does some research on the aforementioned King Omdoria, and his wife and son. The entries read that Omdoria, or Omdolia, depending which line you are looking at, is the current king and in pretty crappy shape. Not only that, but his only son is too young to rule when daddy takes the nap that needs no alarm clock and the Queen is too weak to have another kid or even rule in her hubby’s stead. This matches up pretty nicely with that lovely intro video from last time, so I guess this whole little episode takes place before the King actually dies. Well, at least I’ll be spared some NPC blowing all this exposition my way somewhere down the line, right? Yeah, I didn’t think so either, but it was nice to dream about.
After Cesario is done educating himself, something he’ll be doing quite often because I he usually has no idea what is going on with the plot in this freaking game, he leads the party south to THIEVES FORT and promptly finds himself setting up for battle. A random assortment of Generic!Recappers fill the spaces around Cesario, and battle commences.
Or, at least it would commence if somebody kept a tighter leash on the camera. It pans in dramatically around the fort, giving us a full view of the rundown shanty and the water surrounding it before zooming around to the back to for a serious round of thievesdropping. The leader of the thieves, a woman named Miluda, inspires her troops a pre-battle prep talk: “Communication with the main unit’s been cut off,” she perks, “it’s over.” Two priests try to convince Miluda that it isn’t over until the Nobles apologize, and like, what a noble cause that is. Totally worth throwing your life away for. Miluda agrees, and she tells her companion that her brother’s views are too optimistic.
Let’s see here, a male within the Happy Sunshine Cult that has illusions of grandeur and wants to get even-steven with the nobles. Sound like anybody we know? If you guessed Wiegraf, you’re right! Take a moment to bask in the glory of your own intellect. But before Miluda can beat everybody in a three mile radius about the head with her brother’s name and life story, one of the guards outside hears the tell-tale clomping of Birkenstocks and screeches to his partners that the enemies (that’s us!) have arrived.
Um, they’re already dead.
The camera zips back to the party, and PPP explains his continued presence by whining, “Cesario helped me save the Marquis. I’ll stay on till the end!” I’ll believe that when I see it. Anyway, the point of the battle is to defeat Miluda, so that’s just what the party sets out to do. Miluda is flanked by Priests and Thieves in the battle, which I’m sure you all realize are the two classes with the highest defense ever conceived in a Final Fantasy game. Somehow, the party of monks and one thief manages to subdue Miluda’s cohorts and eventually topple Miluda herself. She gives some grand speech about the common folk being human, just like the nobles, and PPP sneers some bigoted slurs in response. I think we are supposed to be picking up on the fact that he doesn’t like commoners right about now. Could be reading too much into it though. Cesario tells Miluda that if the thieves lay down their swords, they’ll be spared, even though the party just brutally slaughtered everybody. Whoops.
The screen goes black to give the Generics time to drag all the dead bodies off screen, and when we return to the hideout, Miluda, suddenly re-animated, begs Cesario to kill her if the commoners are “just animals,” like PPP claims. Cesario is dumbfounded, but PPP bitches for Cesario to kill Miluda before she bleeds on him or something. The actual prodding takes forever, because PPP reiterates himself a lot, but Cesario remains motionless and I remain uncaring about anything PPP has to say. Delita comments that he doesn’t understand why Miluda is the enemy, causing PPP to bitch him out too. Shut up, PPP!
Miluda finally gets as tired of the three’s idle banter as I’ve been for the past hour and, with a final threat to Cesario, drags her broken ass off screen. PPP acts put out, Cesario acts confused, and Delita acts boring. Scene.
“Meanwhile, at Igros, capital of Gallione, Beoulve castle…” Delita’s sister, Rinoa, screams to be let go. A solid THWACK! hits the soundtrack and the camera swoops into action just in time to see a Happy Sunshine Cultist ride away from Beoulve Castle with Rinoa’s limp form straddling his eager Chocobo. Ouch, I feel as though somebody just force-fed my imagination bleach. A second ChocoCultist, named Golagros, yells for somebody inside the castle to hurry the hell up, and a Generic thief emerges, dragging Alma along by the wrist. Alma screeches for her brother, and Gideon comes rushing out of the castle. He pushes Alma away from the thief and kills him with a wave of his hand. At least, that’s how it looked. Sprites. *shrug*
Gideon and Alma talk about the weather and their health while the ChocoCultists head for the hills with Rinoa, and Foulfellow emerges from the castle, holding his chest. So, like, was everybody just sitting in the lobby of the castle during this frontal assault, or what? Well, everybody except for Rinoa, obviously. They probably make her sleep outside.
Anyway, Gideon and Alma tend to Foulfellow, and Foulfellow mutters that he “never thought they’d come here,” to his freaking place of residence, like, what a concept, and whines that the Happy Sunshine Cultists are after him. Gideon uses his psychic powers to learn that in addition to Rinoa getting her Sue-ass kidnapped, five other people were killed. Foulfellow orders Gideon to follow the ChocoCultists and get Rinoa back, and then he faints into Alma’s arms as the camera zooms off into outer space.
We rejoin Chibi!Cesario on the world map and, after the same old party management, he leads the party north to IGROS CASTLE because he had a psychic vision that Rinoa was kidnapped he wants to tell his brother of his victory at the THIEVES HIDEOUT.
The camera pans up on Foulfellow, lying in Daddy’s bed, while Cesario, Delita, PPP, and Alma look on. Foulfellow congratulates Cesario for wiping out the enemy hideout, complete with extra ellipses so that we all get that he’s still injured. Cesario pretends to care about Foulfellow’s wound for a while, but eventually caves and asks about Rinoa. Foulfellow promises that as soon as Gideon finds the ChocoCultist’s base, he will lead a full frontal attack. Cesario is shocked, thinking that Foulfellow abandoned Rinoa, and FF continues, “[The Happy Sunshine Cult] is falling apart. Deserters are down to a few.”
You know what? I’m just going to start editing this slipshod translation as I quote it. So, picking up where we left off, FF continues, “[The Happy Sunshine Cult] is falling apart. Deserters are down to a few. [Most of their troops have deserted.]” Foulfellow also maintains that Wiegraf will be caught, it’s just a matter of time.
Cesario demands to know if Foulfellow is deserting Rinoa, and despite everything Foulfellow just said about wiping out the Happy Sunshine Cult in full force and Wiegraf being the prime directive, he assures Cesario that he’d never abandon Rinoa. “She’s like a sister to me,” he insists. Well, Cesario’s your sister too, and I don’t see you doing anything civil for “him,” ever. Whatever, Foulfellow. Scene.
…The sexual tension is choking me.
Beoulve Castle exterior. Delita, looking justifiably livid, attempts to leave the castle until Cesario stops him and tells him to calm down. “Calm down? Are you kidding? I can’t calm down!” Delita yells in response. Turns out Delita wants to go out and track down his sister, and Cesario thinks that he’ll be wasting his time, as Delita doesn’t know where Rinoa could be, and the RED marking her location hasn’t even cropped up yet. They argue for awhile, and Delita ends up hoisting Cesario off the ground by his slender, womanly pipes. Only it totally looks like Delita is feeling up Cesario’s bodice. Scalawag. Delita’s advance earns him an open-handed slap to the face from Cesario, and he drops Cesario on the ground, apologizing all the way. Just as the sexual tension begins to wane, PPP emerges from the castle.
PPP tells Dumb and Dumber that he doesn’t believe what Foulfellow promised, and when Cesario inquires as to why, PPP is more than happy to explain: “If I were him, I’d never save a common girl,” he sneers. Wait, I thought PPP loved the commoners and would do anything for them! Color me confused. Delita (he’s a commoner, remember) and PPP get into it, and Delita winds up smacking PPP square in the nose. I won’t claim that PPP didn’t deserve it, but I’m not sure that was the way to convince PPP that nobles and commoners can co-exist. I’m just sayin’.