Since there are even more idiot tourists here now than during their first visit, Yuna hangs her head and murmurs, “Looks like business is booming.” Rikku wants to know what the hell her dad is thinking, like the answer is anything but a thought bubble full of dollar signs and cash register sounds. And honestly, get over it, you two. “Oh no, there are people in Zanarkand! Our favorite neighborhood crêperie is totally overexposed now! The ambience is ruined!” What the fuck is this, Portlandia? Shut up.
Anyway, all the Gullwings are really here to do is talk to Gay Ponytail Man for five seconds and tick up ever so slightly toward the Almighty One Hundred Percent, but of course he’s close to the back. Would it kill these people to hang out near the save point? On the way there, the girls have to fight a few Behemoths with glittery purple body paint and blond mohawks. Gun Mage Paine makes sure to take careful notes on their appearance for Brother’s David Bowie Halloween costume. Soon enough, they reach GPM, who is staring into the middle distance in front of the staircase leading to the temple. “Well hello,” he greets them, failing as usual to not sound like a creepy douche. Rikku asks him how work is going, eager to hear details about this strange “employment” concept. GPM acts like there’s a water cooler next to them and answers, “It’s a never-ending struggle. As you can see, the monkeys are multiplying.” I wonder why the monkeys just started showing up now. Did Thongaladriel keep them at bay with the Hope Hammer? “They were harassing the tourists,” GPM goes on. “We had to close down.” OH, BUMMER, thinks no one but GPM. Rikku sums up, “So Pop got told off by Yunie and outsmarted by monkeys. That’s gotta hurt.” Yeah, being yelled at by Yuna is a lot like dealing with a swarm of chittering monkeys.
As the monkeys continue skittering about beneath GPM’s robes and over the debris on the floor, he sighs wearily and tells them he’s gotta go. Yuna kneels down to one of the monkeys and tells it, in a voice less saccharine than the one she used with Ayde, “Now, you behave yourselves.” Don’t she and Rikku want them to misbehave as much as possible? Indeed, Rikku wonders if they should help the little pests squirt out even more monkey babies to ruin the tourist attraction and piss off her dad as much as possible. After they’re done talking, a text box labeled “Operation: Monkey!” pops up to tell me how to accomplish this task. Basically, Yuna must find each monkey’s “soul mate,” based on the names given to them by humans, so they can pair up and get to breeding. Right. Paine is not a fan of this mission, and neither am I. Thankfully, like Clasko’s chocobo bullshit, I don’t have to do it right now, which means I’m going to procrastinate and get the hell out of here.
Finally, it’s time to get that last uniform and–sigh–infiltrate Chateau Lesbianc. Though Buddy doesn’t have any new information for her, Yuna uses her demonstrable intellect to determine that the only places she and her girlfriends haven’t visited in chapter two are Bikanel Desert and the somewhat-off-limits city of Bevelle. Unless Baralai had a hot tub installed in his temple, the odds are pretty good that they’ll find more Lesbianc Syndicate femme-goons in the former.
Sure as shit, Picket the robotic comm unit zooms across the sky as they arrive, broadcasting a bunch of panicky warnings in Al Bhed. Whatever Picket is bleeping on about has Nhadala concerned enough that she wants Yuna to check out the oasis area before she starts digging, which is totally what she came here to do. Silly Nhadala–participating in a mini-game somehow makes it impossible to get credit for doing everything in the game! “Some strange stuff’s been washing up there lately,” Nhadala unnecessarily tells her. Yuna gets it–there’s stuff to investigate. “I’d appreciate it if you looked into it.” Also, how does stuff “wash up” in an oasis? I know, I know, it’s happened before, but that was apparently because of weird Sin magic and it was still stupid and didn’t make sense. Why call attention to how stupid that was a second time and still not explain it? Anyway, Yuna talks to Nhadala one more time to let her drop the anvil that some “unseemly characters,” possibly related to the Lesbianc Syndicate, have been in the area. Have they really! Goddamn, Nhadala, Yuna already said she’d go. You can stop selling her on it.
Fuck you.
When the Gullwings arrive at the oasis, it’s eerily quiet and deserted. Even more suspicious, two steps away from the hover, they spot a sphere lying on the ground, sparkling invitingly. “Look!” Rikku cries. “A sphere!” Oh Rikku, you sweet fool. Like the one they found on the Djose Highroad, this is another special dressphere, Rikku’s Machina Maw. Given the name, I was expecting it to transform Rikku into a giant iron vagina (with bear trap dentata) so she’d match Yuna, but it actually resembles a large, rotund, mechanical chocobo. But like Floral Vaglal, finding this sphere is the cue for another encounter with the Lesbianc Syndicate.
From above, Laurel shouts nasally, which I did not think was really possible, “Well, fancy meeting you here.” It’s always fancy when Laurel is involved. As two femme-goons pose to his right, Laurel spins his pistols and recites, “You can lead a Gullwing to water, but you can’t make it drink!” Rikku goes, “Ummm…” which was pretty much my reaction, too. But Paine just says tauntingly, “Say, those are nice uniforms.” But they’re way too dowdy for YRP! After a split-screen makes this look like a way more exciting and evenly matched showdown than it will be, Laurel cries, “Enough of this nonsense!” Upping the ante in fabricated pre-battle tension, as he and the femme-goons leap down, the camera spins around our heroines in dizzying fashion, like that one stupid scene in The Dark Knight.
How many lesbians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Laurel could surprise me by suddenly being about five times more competent and deadly than he has been in every other encounter, but of course, he does not. A few flashes of YRP’s goods into the encounter, he scurries off and the girls have their third and final Syndicate uniform.
A black screen later, El Celsioso is roaring through the skies away from Bikanel, leaving me to wonder if Yuna even got back to Nhadala about what she found in the oasis. Which was nothing except a conveniently placed sphere and some poorly trained Lesbianc goons, but she did want to know, right? Whatever. On the bridge, Sphere Recorder Bob stands facing the door as Yuna takes a running leap over him in her femme-goon outfit. He sloooowly pans up her body, like this is any more salacious than either her normal outfit or half of her dresspheres. But maybe SRB has a fetish for gimp bodysuits. “Well?” Yuna asks, like anyone is going to say, “You look like shit” or “Have you gained weight?” Please. Of course, Brother loves it. With Yuna’s ass outlined in unnecessary detail in the foreground, Rikku announces, “We’re off to Chateau [Lesbianc]!” I can hardly wait.
Alternate game title: Final Fantasy X-2: Bum Rush Yuna
The one and only mission available now is in Guadosodom, of course. “Change into those uniforms and charge–er, rather, sneak–your way into Chateau [Lesbianc],” the mission reads. “Let’s take back that sphere!” Oh man, I totally forgot why they were even doing this. Just to get a sphere back? Don’t they have enough of those? It is totally not worth what they’re about to go through to get it.
As they stand in the middle of Guadosodom, all their preparations completed for what that’s worth (nothing), Yuna only now begins to worry about this plan failing catastrophically. “Worry after we’re caught,” Paine tells her with more than a little frustration in her voice. Stop being such a wet fucking noodle, Yuna! You’re strong now! Supposedly! Rikku says they should change now, in plain view of Lesbianc’s front door and her guards, when they were just wearing the outfits on the goddamn airship and must have taken them off before disembarking. Well done, ladies. One last time, they are reminded of their mission–get back the sphere, because “Nobody steals from the Gullwings!” Stealing from the Gullwings means committing a crime against Queen Yuna, which we all know is a hanging offense.
At the door, two male goons go “Durrrrr, huh?” as the girls chirpily report for duty. “Thanks?” one of them responds with puzzlement. This is going great already. Inside, you’ll be pleased to know that Lesbianc has applied a woman’s touch to the dank former home of High Pedophile Seymour, with tasteful rugs and window treatments. Just kidding–the place hasn’t changed at all, down to the disturbing images of Seymour’s dead molester ancestors on the walls. The girls are chatting in the open about their mission, like morons, when they are forced to shut up and line up against a wall because someone’s coming.
Sphere Recorder Bob, who has no Syndicate uniform, takes refuge behind a bannister, where he witnesses Nooj hobbling into the room with Lesbianc wiggling behind him. “Thank you, [Lesbianc],” he tells her. “Anything for you, love,” she responds, practically purring and making me throw up in my mouth a little. Seriously, of all the wrong trees she could bark up, she picks Nooj? Ugh. Nooj ignores the fact that Lesbianc is duckfacing at him and murmurs, “Now I finally know the location of [Greyskull]. Spira is in for a rough ride. Take care.” Lesbianc would like to know all about this rough ride, but in the interest of not appearing too eager to hop on his undoubtedly crooked and unappealing dick, she just goes, “Yes, love,” and waves with her entire body while he fails to look back at her even once. When he’s gone, she moans, “Oh, how long must we be apart? These days without you are not easy on me, love.” Seriously, Lesbianc needs to get to living up to her nickname because this is just making me sad for her.
Lesbianc sashays up a staircase without even acknowledging the femme-goons who witnessed that entire piteous scene, so the girls are free to explore this gloomy insect hive. In the sitting room where Seymour proposed to Yuna, barf, they run into Laurel and Hardy, who are in the middle of a quality gossip session. “The boss is a different person when that Nooj guy shows up, huh?” Hardy understates. Laurel replies, not remotely trying to conceal his disapproval of all things Nooj/Lesbianc, “Suppressing her natural charm and acting like some housewife… She must be tense.” Sadly, this last part is about to become super relevant to YRP’s mission. “You,” Laurel says, turning to Yuna, “go to the boss’s chambre and tend to your duties.” Yes, he says chambre in a French accent. Hardy loves when his Tish speaks French.
“What…duties?” Yuna asks, not comprehending how much she doesn’t really want to know. “You know,” Hardy tells her, “use your talents to help her, uh, unwind.” Okay, that makes it sound like Yuna is supposed to go down on Lesbianc like she’s the Titanic. Since that’s not what’s about to happen, I guess it could be so much worse. Yuna, a little nervous now, leaves the room and heads upstairs, where a goon guarding Lesbianc’s chambre door tells her, “Ah, that time already, is it? Don’t hold back, heh.” Because you know this fucker is going to watch. This game.
Oh, girl. No. Just no.
So after my snark about Seymour’s Lovenasium looking exactly the same, I am surprised to see that Lesbianc’s chambre actually is decorated and appointed to her tastes. Then again, this room wasn’t accessible in the first game, so it’s not like this makes them not lazy. Lesbianc is standing near the back of the room, admiring–get this–a bronze statue of Nooj. I imagine she commissioned this work from some unemployed Yevonite who made his living sculpting High Summoners. Now, not that Nooj is exactly all about making sweet love to a woman anyway, but I have to assume he’s never seen this statue, because if he has, you’d think he would have made like any sensible person and run screaming in the opposite direction, and filed a restraining order at the earliest opportunity.