To a point, the Vivis keep multiplying as Roxas wipes them out with swings of his own blue dildo, taunting him with mirthless Children of the Corn laughter all the while. It is not, whatever the Vivis think, a laugh riot. I’m not sure why exactly they stop popping out of the ether, but once Roxas manages to fell three at once, the single remaining chuckling jerkoff is left alone. And when Roxas takes that last one out, more static intrudes on his “fun.” This is getting irritating. Can’t Roxas do one thing without getting mind-wiped, even if that one thing is starting a fight club with a bunch of cloned Muppets?

When the static subsides, Roxas is alone in the center of the floor, until Vivi toddles in from the tunnel. “What is it, Roxas?” he asks, all sweetness and yellow eyes. He brandishes a Struggle bat again, but only to offer it to Roxas, who he figures needs it. “Planning on getting in some practice, I bet,” he adds, only holding back on the knowing wink because it makes him look like he has one eye. But to my relief, this time, Roxas seems to remember what just happened. He protests that there were just “so many” of Vivi in the room, to which Vivi can only reply, “I don’t get it.” Join the fucking club, kid. He leaves the Struggle bat behind, insisting he’s done with it, now that he’s used it more or less never.

‘I insist, go slow. I’ll be watching.’

Chumlee runs into the tunnel just as Vivi is leaving, and reveals he must have been eavesdropping for at least a few seconds, since he immediately concludes, “So the mystery voice was just Vivi practicing.” Roxas, bless him, tries to get through to his friend. “Listen, there were a whole bunch of Vivi clones here just a minute ago…” But Chumlee just stares blankly at him, like this is a mild hysteria that will pass with a nap and maybe some sea salt ice cream. And in fairness to Chumlee, what difference does it make to his explanation if there were multiple Vivis? Maybe casting Mirror Image on himself is how he practices for the Struggle! He does have stupid wizard powers, probably. Unseen by either boy (even though Roxas is facing the door), the Vivi that is walking out turns into a zipper-headed Dusk and flies down the tunnel. Are any of the Vivis we’ve met the real one? Is there a real Vivi? Is he Mr. Robot?

Someone helpfully hauled Roxas’s skateboard–or someone else’s that looks just like his–all the way into the tunnels, so Roxas hops on and goes back into town. Near the neighborhood’s western edge, he finds Olette looking into a place she’s deemed “suspicious” for no stated reason. (This spot is marked on Chumlee’s map–something about people seeing “Doppelgangers” around here–but Olette says nothing about this.) But Roxas figures she’s the least dumb of the four of them and looks around. He quickly finds an odd fountain set into the western wall: a decorative waterfall that is flowing from a grate and cascading down, perfectly vertically, to a drain in the ground. That all seems perfectly fine and normal, at least for this bizarre town, but when Roxas examines the water feature, he takes a moment to admire his perfect, pouty reflection in the rushing water. Waterfalls tend not to work like that! And definitely the reflections do not then emerge from the water, turn into shadow versions of their real selves, and attack. Fine, Olette, you win. This place is a tiny bit suspicious.

Just like that, Roxas is thrown into battle with Shadow Roxas. Anyone feel like they’re maybe accelerating Roxas’s hero’s journey a tad? For no reason? Because he will be around for the entire game? The shadow is a slightly more talented Nerf-batsman than Roxas’s previous opponents, so it takes more like 30 seconds to take him out. Of course, more static ensues. I have to be honest that I do not know what exactly is happening when the static comes. It doesn’t seem to be erasing Roxas’s memory (except for the first time, and that was probably just bad writing), and doesn’t seem to be affecting anyone else, either, since Roxas keeps finding this stuff with no witnesses around anyway. Is each discovery somehow restoring Junior further? Is Junior the one into Ancient Aliens? God, he probably is.

ANYWAY. Chumlee, who must be the slowest walker in history, rolls up on the scene to find Roxas face down on the ground in front of the fountain. After pausing for like three seconds, he finally shouts, “Roxas!” and jogs toward his friend. Once he’s determined Roxas is fine, and has no follow-up questions about what he was doing eating dirt a second ago, he turns with Roxas to admire the waterfall and their mirrored selves. “Now that’s spooky!” he says, like they’re in a carnival haunted house. “I thought I saw someone, but it was just my reflection. I bet this is one of those seven wonders!” It’s…on your map? And described as this exact phenomenon? Did Chumlee make that map and then immediately forget its contents wholesale? As the teens walk away, Roxas still has doubts about what’s happening here, not that he articulates them to Chumlee at all. And both of them miss the shadow of Roxas lurking, dickbat at the ready, behind the water. Why, these children aren’t doing diligent research at all! They’re half-assing this summer project! My stars and garters!

Oh, cool your jets, horndog.

There’s one mystery left on Chumlee’s map, something about a bag that moves on its own. A living sack, if you like. Warm. Sensitive. Bulging. If I can figure out some kind of genital metaphor or connection for those stupid stairs by the train station, we’ll be five out of five on this. The fleshy brown sack in question is at the top of the highest hill in the neighborhood, surrounded by a triangle of blue trash cans, like someone threw this sack of garbage assuming it would land in one and wound up missing all three. Roxas examines the sack, and several long seconds pass where he stares at it and it does nothing, because it’s a fucking garbage bag. But of course, eventually it reveals itself as something more, suddenly hopping up and down in rapid succession and then whooshing away from Roxas. “Try to stop the bag from moving by jumping on it!” the Disembodied Minigame Describer instructs me. That seems a little harsh! You don’t just sackstomp someone for no reason! I mean, at least tell me the sack is a sexual predator or a Nazi first.

(The bag also has a green health bar labeled STAMINA. This is perfect and beautiful.)

In practice, this is more a rodeo minigame than a steel-toed boot exhibition–pressing triangle while jumping over the sack allows Roxas to straddle it and ride it around the top of the hill. This looks as stupid as it sounds, I assure you. The sack attempts to throw Roxas by barreling into the trash cans, which strikes me as just as damaging to it as it is to Roxas, but it is nonetheless effective, or at least it is when it takes me five attempts to correctly time the leap over them. Thankfully, no matter how many times Roxas takes a trash can to the face, the sack’s STAMINA bar doesn’t recover from its hard riding and it eventually tires out. Roxas stands triumphant on top of the exhausted sack and pumps his little fist. This time, he is the master of his domain!

Imagine opening your kitchen window and seeing this.

After the requisite, unexplained static interlude, the sack deflates with a sad slide whistle sound. “Yikes!” Roxas says, because a moment later, a dog has emerged from the sack. A border collie of some kind, to be precise. Chumlee, keeping with his pattern, shows up too late to see or do anything. “Oh, it was just a dog,” he says. “Did you let it out of the sack, Roxas?” Roxas just nods, leaving the truth, that he first rode around on its back and steered it into trash cans like a demolition derby car, unsaid. That’s probably for the best. Before we get too mad at Roxas for this heinous act of animal cruelty, the dog transforms into a Dusk and undulates away, fully in view of the two boys but still unseen by them. Do their necks not work, or are they just fatally incurious about the world around them?

The boys return to the train station to review what they’ve learned. This is a real switch-up, but Roxas is wearing a sad expression. He sighs, “You know…that last wonder wasn’t exactly wonderful.” Yeah, you did kind of treat a dog like a Power Wheels. You should have to sit with that knowledge for a while. Chumlee tries to convince him that it’s all going to be fine: “But this next one’s gonna be really great! Wonder number Six!” The implication here is that Chum was holding this one back because he knew the first five were flimflams for gullible marks, and Roxas seems less than impressed with this ploy. Hayner and Olette join them a moment later, Hayner saying they got “another lead,” labeled by Olette as “The Ghost Train Mystery.” It turns out this is the same phenomenon Chumlee was sitting on, and he peevishly says “everyone” already knew about it. Well, “everyone” evidently doesn’t include any of Chum’s friends, so maybe he can fuck off?

Olette has the one piece of actionable intel here, which is that this supposed ghost train can be seen from the top of Sunset Hill. Before returning there, Roxas speaks with each of his meandering friends, who are in various stages of grief at this project being a complete bust. Chum is still convinced THIS one will be real, and will probably keep saying that until the end of time; Hayner is annoyed that each of these has had a mundane explanation and calls them the “seven misunderstandings”; and Olette just thinks it’s cute that a dog was wandering around inside a bag. Good on her for finding a silver lining to this waste-of-time cloud.

If I don’t accept that this is an intentional Little Engine That Could joke, I can’t believe in anything anymore.

The trash can rodeo barrels have been cleared away when the foursome arrives back on top of the hill. “If the rumors are true,” Chumlee says, “it’ll be here any minute… For they say the train is empty. No driver, no conductor, no passengers… NO RETURN.” What does any of that have to do with what time it’ll show up? And also, excuse me, what is this “empty” nonsense? I want a train that is itself an actual fucking specter, or is at least ferrying ghosts to the afterlife. What I will not count for this exercise is an automated train car that is just running during off-peak hours. Once again, Chumlee has sold his friends a bill of goods.

The kids settle in to wait, and a black screen indicates some time has passed. Olette, face cupped in her hands as she lies on the grass, says, “We’ve gotta make it to the beach next year.” Well, next year don’t let anybody else hold the munny. That should help. Hayner also has the solid idea that they should all get jobs “the second vacation starts,” a suggestion I would take more seriously if it were coming from literally anyone else. Granted, the Candy Grandma probably can think of all kinds of stuff for them to do.

Speaking of perverted old ladies, I am one, and here to remind me of this fact, with a friendly greeting of “Good afternoon, slackers,” is Twilight Town’s alpha hot boy. How is it that every time Seifer shows up, he always finds Roxas and/or Hayner sprawled out on the ground, perfect for looming over with his intimidating muscles? Does he get some kind of notification on his phone?

Seifer wants to know what they’re all doing up here. “Slacking,” one of them would say if they were smarter. Instead, Hayner’s all, “What do you care?” with the exact right amount of pissy sulking. “I don’t. Tell me anyway,” Seifer replies. Ha. He’s a gem. This would be a great time for one of them to invent a totally cool reason they’re up here. They’re smoking weed! They’re hiding from the cops! Olette is about to show them a dead body! “We’re waiting for the ghost train,” Chumlee intones seriously. God dammit, dude. At least he doesn’t add, “IT’S FOR OUR SCHOOL PROJECT,” but what he does say is still plenty for Seifer to laugh at.

Roxas leaps to his feet and gets up in Seifer’s face, like he himself hasn’t been skeptical of this idea from the jump. Seifer purrs in his face, “Why does looking at you always tick me off?” Roxas replies, with less seduction but still a non-zero amount, “I dunno. Maybe it’s destiny.” Chumlee and Olette are in the shot over Roxas’s shoulder so we can see them frowning, but Hayner is offscreen, and a good thing, too, because he has to be FEELING SOME STUFF.

Ever the contrarian, Seifer thinks about a destiny of foe-yay with this tiny ska boy and decides that’s for chumps. “In that case, let’s be friends.” Or…more! Just give it some thought. Seifer turns around and stares at the setting sun like a total drama queen. “I don’t feel like cooperating with destiny.” This is a canon admission that he knows “destiny” has ripped him away from his one true love, a grown-ass, deep-voiced man on the other side of the gummi galaxy, and nothing anyone says will convince me otherwise. “When have you ever cooperated with anything?” Roxas asks. He believes in rules! And discipline! God, Roxas, it’s like you don’t know him at all! He’s not just a walking set of abs! There’s a beating heart in there!

…And ‘Save as Wallpaper’…OH HI

Seifer looks like he wants to give a sassy reply to this impertinent and stupid question, and a range of emotions from “brooding” to “confusion” to “horniness” cross his face in an eyeblink. Then he finally laughs, thumps his chest with his fist, and walks away, the lens flare making his aquamarine eyes sparkle. This game is cyberbullying me. Olette calls after him, since she hadn’t gotten a line yet in this scene, and Seifer just goes, “I know. Tomorrow.” Tomorrow what?

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But forget about stupid Seifer–no, don’t, he’s the best–the train is coming! Roxas cries out for them all to look, but as a single purple train car appears on the tracks, with a stupid pointy wizard hat on top of the indeed empty engineer’s compartment, only Roxas is looking. His three friends are standing back from the railing, staring at him and frowning. Chumlee in particular looks disgusted with him, which is a fun reversal. It’s easy to see where this is going, and it makes me sad that Roxas hasn’t gotten there yet. He bounces back from the railing as the train goes into the tunnel under their feet. “It’s really true… And there’s really no one aboard!” he says. Barely noticing how his friends are looking at him like he not only farted but is himself a sentient fart, he goes on, “What’s the catch? There’s gotta be a catch, right?” They keep saying nothing, and are now looking to each other, each one appealing to the other two to make Roxas come to Jesus, but they are all seemingly caught in some kind of speaking-the-harsh-truth Mexican standoff. Roxas continues to not see this. “Then it’s real!? Let’s go to the station!” Why are they letting their best pal twist in the wind like this? It’s unkind!

A black screen later, Roxas is charging up the non-wondrous stairs to the train station, where the supposed ghost train is stopped. “Let’s go in!” he says, and STILL THEY SAY NOTHING. Only at the last minute, when Roxas is about to get on the train, does Hayner grab him by the arm and roughly pull him back. And even then it takes Roxas angrily asking, “What?” for Hayner to open his mouth. “Um…you’ll get hurt,” he says, continuing to look at Roxas like he has lost his marbles (which, uh, he also literally has). When Roxas turns back, the train is now gone. I have to say that while this is the sixth time today the Nobodies or Saruman the Red or whoever the hell have purposely fucked with Roxas’s mind, this particular prank gets a full assist from the Wanker Squad here. How did Roxas get all the way to the station without a single one of them blurting out that they didn’t see shit? What possible purpose did it serve to maximize how crazy and stupid he now feels?

The real train arrives a moment later and offloads some dorks from town, including Fuu and Rai. (I wish so badly they would stop to loudly tell Chumlee they are here to fact-check his dubious stairs-counting.) Hayner says they should go, but Roxas is still stuck on this ghost train business. I CAN’T IMAGINE WHY. He appeals to all of them to tell him he’s not nuts, and while Chumlee and Olette just continue to swallow their tongues and look uncomfortable, Hayner boils over with irritation, growls wordlessly, and frog marches Roxas onto the damn train car. Jesus Christ, kids, I know this is a difficult time for you all, what with the unceasing sexy thoughts and the increase in body odor and everything, but is it really that hard to say, “WE DIDN’T SEE A FUCKING TRAIN”?