I so don’t have the energy for Billy’s entire speech–let’s boil it down to “Blah blah blah hearts are born of darkness, yadda yadda they return to darkness, whuh whuh whuh whuh whuh hearts are naturally, like, dark and stuff.” Any drinking game I could possibly come up with for this scene would kill all of you, and I would go to prison. Junior replies, sinking the proceedings deeper into schmaltz, “The heart may be weak. And sometimes it may even give in. But I’ve learned that deep down, there’s a light that never goes out!” He could have just said, “Nuh uh.” Billy Zane clearly longs to snuff out the pilot light of Junior’s annoying little heart, so he stops fucking around. Levitating into the air, he sneers, all crazy eyes, “So, you have come this far and still you understand nothing. Every light must fade, every heart return to darkness!” At “darkness,” which I imagine is Billy’s safe word, a Heartless erupts from his back, a bizarre puppeteer bedecked in wiggly antennae and bandages, and the boss fight is on.
Billy Zane is auditioning for Heart of Darkness: The Musical Spectacular!
The game will rectify this tonal oddity shortly, but for now it’s somewhat surreal to fight the final boss, a guy so connected to darkness thematically that he literally can’t go five seconds without saying the word, on the sunny, white-sand beach where Junior used to hang out with Selphie, Wakka, and Tightass. Anyway, there’s not much to this first form of Billy’s–he just floats around the beach, hurling balls of darkness at our heroes, surrounding himself in an ultraviolet protective cage that looks like an Atlasphere, and occasionally letting his creepy Heartless puppeteer float in front of him and act as a shield. When Billy summons the Heartless he says, “Come, guardian,” which I cannot help but hear the exact wrong way. The Cum Guardian’s main function is to, from time to time, detach from Billy and hold Junior in a full nelson as Billy punches him in the stomach. I approve of this.
Once BZ’s life bars have been whittled down, he disappears into the interior of the island, and after a lot of shaking the green hills beyond the beach crack like an egg, revealing a dark crater inside. Because every heart has darkness inside! And the island is like a heart! Or something! I don’t know. Billy waits inside for Junior, but at least I have time to replenish everybody’s stocked items, since it only took @%$#!!! 90 seconds to blow through four Megalixirs. He is the worst. But when Junior jumps over the cracked eggshell of the beach into the darkness, a forcefield pops into place behind him, keeping @%$#!!! and Goofy on the outside looking in. Goofy’s hat pokes comically above the rim of the crater as they sit there and watch the Cum Guardian transform into the first boss Junior ever blindly swung his Keyblade at: Darkside.
This iteration of Darkside is not really much harder than that first one. It helpfully rests one of its hands on the ground so Junior has something to stab at, and somehow getting its hand poked at enough causes it to rest its bearded head on the ground as well. Apparently the Cum Guardian is not exactly Mensa material. Darkside also summons some bug Heartless from a black hole in the ground to go after Junior, which is a borderline embarrassing stalling tactic. Finally, it gets ready to unleash a massive blast of DAAAAAAAAARKNESS from the heart-shaped vagina in its torso, X-CLITORIS-style, but by then Junior is well out of the way, whacking away at Darkside’s conveniently placed right hand again. This is enough to get rid of its last two life bars. Maybe don’t store all your life force in your fucking hands next time, genius!
Junior isn’t even fazed by beings of darkness showing him the goods anymore.
Darkside disappears into a pulsing black hole, aka Maleficent’s vagina, and Billy Zane appears again. Now I don’t know if Darkside was even supposed to be the Cum Guardian, but it’s certainly back with Billy now, eagerly humping his back, and without any preamble they begin the third phase of the Billy Zane Offensive. This time around it’s a lot harder, both because @%$#!!! and Goofy are still stuck outside and because Billy has decided to actually attack more aggressively. He still uses CG as a shield, and it also flings bolts of lightning at Junior’s head while Billy floats impassively. At the fight’s midpoint, Billy glows white and hovers while CG sends surges of darkness up through the ground at Junior’s feet. The guide recommends I use dodge roll for this, like Junior is made of fucking ability points, so instead he just glides around the room, to mostly the same effect. After this, Billy zips around the room like Riku and deploys CG to randomly hold Junior in a nelson some more, but by then he only has one and a half life bars left and it’s easy to just wait out his shittiest abilities. Of course, this means I have to listen to Billy coo to Junior, “Come, open your heart,” a lot more than I would have otherwise, and it’s more than a little skeevy. I guess that only makes it more satisfying when Junior puts him down with a–for once!–well timed Ragnarok.
I just realized how these agents of darkness are all too eager to grope little boys.
Apparently this iteration of Billy Zane is an existence-bearing boss, because following his second defeat the screen goes black, and Junior, @%$#!!!, and Goofy are shown wandering, separately, in and out of the darkness of existential dread. I know that feeling! After Junior is done whipping his head around and going “Wha?” like a doofus, Billy Zane shouts from somewhere, “Behold the endless abyss! Within it lies the heart of all worlds: Kingdom Hearts!” As he says these last two, still very silly, words, Junior’s gaze rests on a bright white door in the distance. Laughably, BZ tells him, “Look as hard as you are able. You’ll not find even the smallest glimmer of light.” Yeah, not a speck of light to be found, except for all the dramatic lighting around a white door, a color that would be completely invisible without the presence of light. But don’t let that stop your monologue, Billy! All darkness! No light!
‘Except for the spotlights on the door. I had those set up before you arrived.’
Billy tells the trio, while @%$#!!! stares at the DAAAAAAAARKNESS with his bill hanging open, how all hearts came from this place of perfect and uninterrupted darkness. “Even yours.” OH NO, EVEN JUNIOR’S?! It can’t be! Junior makes a horrified blowjob face, at first, I think, because of the irresponsible allegation that his heart is not bursting with radiant, virtuous sunlight. But it turns out he’s looking at Billy Zane’s new form, and when I get a look at it too, even I’m exhibiting blowjob face.
Okay, it goes without saying that Billy Zane’s final transformation was hardly going to be something as mundane as his body with a Heartless glued to it. This is Square and shit was inevitably going to get crazy. But even so, this is something. You know those toy vacuum cleaners with the big pop-o-matic bubble full of plastic balls? Well, what if we gave one of those a jutting hoopty hood, like El Celsioso, covered the entire thing in red, muscular flesh, gave the hood a demonic face with a bad underbite, and plugged the whole thing via multiple umbilical cords of DAAAAAARKNESS into Billy Zane’s asshole? Are we there? Does this look stupid enough to be a final boss yet? No? Hmm. Well, what if the Cum Guardian had blue balls on its shoulders and a necklace of serpents? And Billy Zane was giant and shirtless? That’s the sweet spot? Okay, great!
Da fuuuuuuuuck
Seriously, what in the actual fuck.
The Billy Zane Pop-o-Matic Muscle Car has ample time to get a tactical advantage on our heroes, since they are still staring openmouthed at this abomination. As am I. Gravity suddenly kicks in, dropping them through space (don’t even ask why there is a gravitational effect in open space) but @%$#!!! and Goofy are sucked through a portal near the pop-o-matic bubble, once more leaving Junior to face Billy Zane alone. Junior is still falling, INTO DAAAAAAAARKNESS, presumably, when time slows and he hears sweet Riku’s voice. “Giving up already?” Riku asks, a hint of amusement in his tone. “Come on, [Junior]. I thought you were stronger than that.” No, he’s totally not. Bye, Junior! Enjoy oblivion!
Obviously that’s my wishful thinking again. Junior drops into darkness, only to rise again, like a phoenix in clown shoes, covered again in the glitter of THE HEART THAT BELIEVES. He brandishes his Keyblade at the Billy Zane Pop-o-Matic Muscle Car, and round four commences. The first order of business is to rescue @%$#!!! and Goofy, or Junior will be missing the True Power of Friendship. Or, it would be, but there’s no way to get to wherever it is Billy has whisked them off to, so Junior is forced to smack away at Billy, all the way through five pastel life bars. And he literally does have to smack away at Billy, because Billy’s naked chest is the only targetable portion of the Billy Zane Pop-o-Matic Muscle Car. The rest of it may as well not exist for this portion of the fight. And being up close and personal with Billy just makes the whole enterprise creepier; while Billy does spin his Quarterstaff of Darkness around and pummel Junior with laser beams (while shouting sound bites like “Return to darkness!” and “Welcome to darkness!” and “Do you have a platinum rewards membership with darkness?”), he does so with no facial animation, since he is now, I guess, truly a puppet of the Cum Guardian with no will of his own. It’s deeply unsettling and I long to get far away from his dead eyes and Ken doll chest.
This is some uncanny valley shit.
Once Junior has managed this task, he has no time to go cry in the shower. Billy puts away his Quarterstaff of Darkness, crosses his arms over his crotch, and leans back into the Cum Guardian as a Heartless symbol appears over his face. It’s basically like KOS-MOS going to sleep in her Big Black Phallus, but instead he’s inside the torso of a demon. It’s cross-species mpreg in reverse. But as Billy takes a nap, another portal opens in front of the pop-o-matic bubble, and Junior flies in without even asking my opinion about it.
Inside, it’s pitch black except for the glowing blue Heartless symbol on the floor, which Billy Zane probably thinks means completely black. Waves of tiny bug Heartless come at Junior from the darkness, but he’s had so much experience with mass quantities of shitty Heartless by now that it’s child’s play. But if Junior thought that entering this portal identical to the one @%$#!!! and Goofy disappeared into would be in the service of rescuing them, he is quite disappointed as he is spit back out again, and the only effect to be seen is that the Billy Zane Pop-o-Matic Muscle Car grows a number of demonic, laser-spitting penises that he now has to kill to move forward. So much busy work!