MY FANFIC CAME TRUE

When I mentioned before that Squally was indisposed and unable to be Yuffie’s battle partner, it was because he and Bitch, aka Team MAAAAAAKE OOOUUUT, comprise the 20th seed. This is easily the toughest battle so far, and let’s just get out of the way right now that the top 19 seeds are chock full of random-ass Heartless configurations that would in no way stand up to the bastions of phallic firepower currently standing before our heroes. This is, stunningly, the only fight in the tournament I have to do twice–well, other than having to repeat the prior nine seeds–and I swear it’s because I am a dumbass and fail to prioritize killing one guy first, and not because I want to watch Squally and Bitch swing their big engorged swords around a second time. Well, not entirely, anyway. It’s blatant fan service, but I’m not made of fucking stone. And speaking of fan service, for conquering these two chiseled, broody specimens, Junior is awarded the Lionheart keychain. Token’s paopu fruit dollar store keychain sure looks like a piece of shit now.

Junior is ALIVE WITH PLEASURE.

I guess to add textural contrast to the proceedings after beating down the svelte Bitch and Squally, the following two seeds feature a group of three Fridges and then a group of three Arabian Fridges. They still take up less space than Bitch’s fully tumescent sword, though. This next flight of enemies until the next boss also heavily feature a new Heartless called Angel Stars, which don’t otherwise show up in the game except in the final dungeon. OMG, spoiler, Olympus Coliseum! Anyway, these don’t look so much like angels as they resemble winged lanterns with KKK hoods. The Ku Klux Klanterns–as irritating as they are with their elusiveness, homing beacon bombs, and defensiveness about the Confederate flag–at least go down more easily than most of the Heartless at this point in the tournament.

WHITE POWER

The 16th seed, like the 26th, is a respawn gauntlet, this time with Heartless Bombs instead of the adorable bugs, and this time with more of them. I fail even harder to keep @%$#!!!’s frivolous Firaga use in check, which is not good because, starting with the 15th seed, things get serious. Well, not really. But harder, I guess! Several of the seeds from here on include at least one Heartless with the badass moniker Invisible. Badass but also strange, because they are, in fact, perfectly visible nearly all the time, and unfortunately so, since they look like a Heartless mated with Dr. Manhattan, and the baby went to the Hunger Games hair salon before raiding the Final Fantasy phallic sword closet.

Kingdom Hearts: A Chorus Line

Is everybody sick of my pithy commentary on the appearance of random Heartless yet? Well, good, because something is finally happening here. After the Mouseketeers dispatch the 11th seed (starring three Visibles and two Ku Klux Klanterns), we segue to our heroes standing at the ready–as opposed to thrusting naked duck ass or teenage boy crotch in triumph–in front of their next opponent, who looms over them dramatically. “Yo, hey, how’re you doin’, everybody, yeah,” Hades says, taking his James Woodsness to 11. “Got a minute? Hades, Lord of the Dead. Nice to see you. Hey, guess what? I’ve got a place for you down under!” He says all of this, including the growly scream of his threat to send Junior to Australia, in the span of about half a second.

So, Hades. I remembered this being more difficult than Samcules, but memory has a way of making me look like an asshole. Predictably, most of his attacks are fire-based–he lobs fireballs like his pet Not-Fluffy, shoots fire from his hands in front of him (I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to park in front of any Kingdom Hearts boss), and, deadliest of all but probably easiest to avoid, turns himself into a Super Mario Bros. Fire Bar. Well, easiest for me/Junior to avoid. I cannot stress enough how incredibly terrible @%$#!!! and Goofy are at this. In all, compared to the unholy nightmare that was trying to aim barrel throws at a preening fuckface, this is a cake walk. The only truly shitty part is that Hades has a hidden life bar at the beginning, so he takes an entire life bar’s worth of hits before his purple bar moves at all. I spend at least the first 30 seconds of the fight concerned that the game is broken.

Oh, Goofy.

Finally, the trio and its 33 percent fire evasion rating bust through all of Hades’s life bars, and in a cutscene, Junior, with one swipe of his Keyblade, sends Hades flying, screaming, into the dark doorway at the other end of the arena. He thumps to a halt and gets to his feet in the dark, only to back against the wall in fear as something approaches him. In the pitch black, he cries, again at breakneck Jay Leno hack joke delivery speed, “Oh! Hey, kid, wh-what are you doing? Stop! Hey guys! G-Get away from me! Come on! Come on!” The bars slam closed on the presumed foyer of the Underworld, to give Hades and his new friends some privacy, and Junior gets the Graviga upgrade and Ansem’s Report 8. Jesus Christ, there are more of those? Motherfucker must work for the feds with all the report writing he did.

And now that Junior has blown his wad on the real boss of this tournament, he gets the satisfaction of…killing eight more seeds of Heartless and a totally anticlimactic, random-ass for real final boss. I’m pumped. These final eight Heartless seeds are just more of the same shit I’ve covered already in different configurations–oh boy, endless Visibles waggling their groins in Junior’s face!–so let’s jump ahead to the number one overall seed of the Hades Cup. It’s…Hades again, but with angel wings and extraneous marble statue faces grafted on his body! Just kidding–this isn’t a real Final Fantasy game, after all. The final boss is the gigantic, terrifying Rock Titan, a mass of boulders and crags that is not remotely phallic, not that this will stop me from nicknaming it the Cock Titan. (In some green room here on Olympus Coliseum, Squally is pissed that I gave his nickname away.)

I’ve seen this at least 10 times. Send help.

The Cock Titan does two things of note: it stomps on Junior (awesome), and then once Junior has hacked at its shins enough, it falls down and forms a convenient series of rocky steps so Junior can Ragnarok the hell out of its two tiny heads. That is the entire fight. Like Hades it has a hidden life bar, but this second time I am able to act all cool and unsurprised about it. When the Cock Titan goes down (hee), it crumbles into a pile of boulders while Junior, @%$#!!!, and Goofy squint through the dust in the air at its destruction, the atmosphere heavy with the silence of their fallen foes. You know, until the game throws in one more victory sting music interlude with Goofy jumping up and down in the air like a lunatic. How am I supposed to know to celebrate my victory unless the ambience is ruined entirely?

Also of utmost importance to this whole exercise is the cheesy trophy ceremony. “We’re the champs!” Junior wanks yet again as he hoists the cobalt-blue Hades Cup above his head, trying to act like it’s not agonizingly heavy in his tiny arms. From his imprisonment behind the bars of the Underworld gate, Hades shakes his head and probably wonders why he even commissioned that trophy, or why he thought waiting around for the Keyblade Master to enter a tournament was the best way to take him out. It’s while he’s at this low point in his life that @%$#!!! appears out of nowhere and uses his magic wand to put out the fire on Hades’s head, leaving an egg-bald Uncle Fester in his place, surely about to exclaim “Ay carumba!” directly into the camera and trigger an explosion of canned sitcom laughter.

‘They want me to be in HOW MANY of these games?!’

After Junior stares up at Samcules with nauseating joy, and after Samcules looks down at him with equally nauseating pride, Junior learns the Trinity Limit ability. This final Trinity ability is an attack–as opposed to another chapter from the Junior/@%$#!!!/Goofy Kama Sutra–but I am super uninterested at the moment in making room for it in Junior’s skill list, so maybe we’ll talk about its unique horrors next time.

Ugh.

Finally, since I already bothered encountering Kurt Zisa, let’s take a look at two more optional bosses I have no intention of defeating! How very exciting. Phil now has two options on his list of tournaments labeled “?????” I don’t even know which is which, but I select the first, which turns out to be the “Gold Match.” Junior enters the arena–all alone again, for some stupid-ass reason–and turns around as a massive silvery claw hooks over the wall, and then a second. The rest of the creature follows: a huge skeleton made of ice, creatively named the Ice Titan. I spend a second being bummed out that I can’t think of anything hilarious that rhymes with “ice,” until I remember he’s also made of bones. Boner Titan, then? If that doesn’t work for everyone, don’t worry–it won’t be relevant for more than a couple sentences. Like its sibling the Cock Titan, the Boner Titan’s favorite activity seems to be stomping around on the ground. Unlike the Cock Titan, however, its stomps leave big patches of ice on the ground and also hurt like a motherfucker, and poor lonely Junior dies after about 20 seconds of vainly gliding around its feet. So long, Boner Titan! I’m totally sad that I am too lame to defeat you!

Dad? Bahamut?

The more interesting of these two mystery matches is the second one, humorously titled the “Platinum Match.” Because his hair is platinum, you guys! So dreamy. Junior enters this match alone as well, not that it’s going to fucking matter. Junior finds some leafless, dead trees lending their portent to the arena, but barely has time to reflect on how fucking deep that is, because a very Final Fantasy summoning rune appears in the sky. Junior stares up at it, possibly damaging his vision permanently, until a bright beam shoots out of the center toward the ground, like Olympus Coliseum is the White House in Independence Day. (I wish.) As the light fades away–DEEEEEEP–a kneeling figure with waist-length silver hair appears. For once, a videogame outdoes me in attention to the details of a staggeringly stupid outfit. The camera lingers on his black gauntlets with blood-red bat wings, on the belts criss-crossing his bare chest, on his popped collar, and, as “One-Winged Angel” jams its way into my earholes, his single black angel wing. (“OMG SQUEEEEEE!!!” squeal a bunch of people I probably cannot be friends with.)

Those really look like they chafe.

Sephiroth–without a word, because the camera-fucking he’s getting, set to his personal theme music, is doing all the talking for him–draws his sword as Junior stands with his Keyblade drawn, and the game unnecessarily provides me with the text box, “Platinum Match: Sephiroth.” Oh, is that what this guy’s name is? Good to know. Sephiroth is impossibly fast, zooming around the arena much more quickly than Squally or Bitch managed to do, and he can slice off half of Junior’s life bar with one swipe of his fan service masturbation trigger Masamune. I am very proud of myself that Junior gets in one hit with his Keyblade–which, thanks to his hidden life bar, does nothing–before the air around Sephiroth explodes in badass fiery glory and Junior drops dead to the turf. “There’s your power of friendship, asshole,” @%$#!!! mutters in the stands as he and Goofy munch popcorn.

Wasn’t that fun? I should have ended more recaps with Junior getting his ass kicked twice in a row. Next time, the End of the World, and way more importantly, the end of the game. Wahoo! Get psyched for part 16!