Someone here has to take a break from being a doofus to recount things everyone present already knows, and Junior can see that his two buds are too starry-eyed about seeing Mickey to do it. As we flash back in sepia tone to the huge white door that is Kingdom Hearts, which I remind you is LIGHT, Junior asks, “The King was locked in the realm of darkness, right?” Goofy’s like, “Duh.” But Junior has a really, really obvious point: “But we just saw him…” @%$#!!! is also all “Yup,” wondering what Junior’s getting at here. Because I still have hope in my heart, I wonder if Junior is about to ask the question I would have in this situation: “So, are we all in the realm of darkness now?” I don’t know why I do this to myself. Instead, he says, a smile creeping over his stupid face, “And if the King is here, that means Riku’s here!” The fact that my dude is absolutely correct is not taking my head away from its cradle in my hands.

@%$#!!! validates the idea that Riku and Mickey must be together and could not possibly have gone their separate ways at any point since they last saw them, and this makes up Junior’s mind for good. “Well, I’m gonna go look for Riku,” he tells his friends. “Then he and I can go back to the islands together. Kairi’s there waiting for us!” And then he can tell them both all about how he found Kairi! Yay!! “What are you two gonna do?” Junior, though he’s barely interested, remembers to ask. Goofy looks sad and @%$#!!! glares at him, and as much as I want to believe it’s because they’re sick of hearing about fucking Riku and Kairi like they’re comparatively chopped liver in Junior’s eyes, it’s actually because they can’t believe Junior even has to ask: obviously they will go where he goes! The friends who are put into comas together stay together! Best pals forever! Junior giggles at their indignation, @%$#!!! asks what’s so fucking funny, asshole (light paraphrase), Junior actually says, “Your face!” pointing to each of their faces, and the two of them realize their faces are actually hilarious, and they all lapse into giggles together. I am reading the last two paragraphs back to myself and I can only conclude these three are high as fuck. Something was getting pumped into those artichokes.

Don’t believe me? Check this shit out. Junior says they can “stick together for one more journey,” that is, to continue their endless search for their MacGuffin Pals. One of whom–to keep everybody fresh on what’s happening here–just disappeared down the street after ordering them to go the other way, and the other established in ironclad Stoner Logic to be in the first one’s company. “To…where again?” Junior asks, casually crossing his arms behind his head in a perfect imitation of Dear Old Dad. But Goofy has got this. “We hafta board the train!” he says, and Junior actually replies, “Oh yeah!” Right! That thing Mickey said 30 SECONDS AGO! And that thing that is incompatible with the mission they JUST DECIDED UPON! Riku is with Mickey! Mickey went back into town! We want to find Mickey and Riku! Let’s leave town! Do I also need to be high for this to work? Am I the problem here?

While I’m questioning if I’m just coming into this whole experience with the wrong set of base assumptions and/or the wrong chemical state, Junior leads his team inside the train station to very logically follow Mickey and Riku by getting far away from them. The Disembodied Item Describer, meanwhile, lets me know more about the items Junior received from Mickey. One is obviously Olette’s munny pouch, and I am told, “There’s 5000 munny inside for some reason.” I guess “It’s a munny pouch, what other fucking purpose does it have” is implied, but the point is, all of Roxas’s hard-earned cash is still in there, waiting to be spent by the man who stole his life, so why not his fucking savings, too? The second item is, of course, the blue marble from the Struggle trophy. “A pretty crystal. It sparkles brightly when held up to the sun,” DID lets me know. A more curious and observant boy than Junior would be simply bursting with questions about these gifts. Finally, also wadded up in Mickey’s palm was “Secret Ansem’s Report 2,” because why the fuck wouldn’t there be more reading assignments for this boy who possibly can’t read? I’m just saying, let’s not rule it out!

Junior isn’t even up to the ticket counter yet when someone calls out for him to wait. It’s Riku, and he’s wondering why Junior is walking the wrong way to find him! Or it’s Roxas’s Fake Friend Squad. Just as well if you, like Roxas and me, have given up on anything bringing joy to your life. Hayner is the one that calls out to Junior, but when our boy is all, “What?” Hayner stammers, “Nothing, but…” Yeah, you chased him all the way to the top of a hill and into a train station because you have nothing to say. Fucking teens. Chumlee is more direct: “We came to see you off. It just seemed like something we oughta do.” Chum’s tone very much suggests he doesn’t know why it feels this way to them, which makes sense, because the reason is Alternate Universe Sk8er B0i Pheromones. Junior, clearly also finding this weird as hell, replies, “Oh…really? Thanks!” And then he just stands there staring at them awkwardly, until Olette is like, “You should hurry and get your tickets.” She is very much used to men who wouldn’t remember to breathe without three increasingly pissy reminders.

Of course, this is all a naked setup for Olette to recognize her own munny pouch in the hand of this boy she only met today. She reaches for her own and shows it to Junior, and we don’t need Goofy telling us they’re the same to recognize the identical vaginal embroidery job. And I bet Olette stitched that shit herself at Girl Scout camp, too, so odds are good there’s not another one just floating around out there. Junior regards her and her pouch for a moment, looks back to his own, and then turns back to the counter with a shrug. “Three tickets, please!” Hey Olette, I think this punk stole your wallet. And, uh, cloned it.

I have to say, while I did think Junior would end up destroying the universe, I didn’t predict it being because of a coin purse.

I hate to do this, but I have to spend more of your time and mine on this fucking pouch. But if I didn’t capture all my rage at this game on the page, I wouldn’t be doing my job, right? So: to be clear, Mickey presenting this item to Junior does not fill Junior’s coffers with 5000 munny. It is a special item, and while the description clearly notes there is munny inside, and not, like, a gift card for the fucking train station, no amount of pressing X with this goddamn pouch selected dumps its supposed largesse into the Mouseketeer General Fund. I know, because I attempt to “open” it about 30 times, and Junior remains as broke as he is dumb and delusional.

“Yeah,” you might be saying to me right now (I like to believe y’all also talk out loud to people on the internet), “but it doesn’t matter, because that’s munny Junior ends up spending on the train tickets anyway.” True! But, as you’ll recall from me yelling impotently about it at length, the 5000 munny was to cover getting four kids onto the train, with enough left over for some stale pretzels and some pouty sighs from a certain someone about not getting a watermelon. And Junior just bought three tickets, because unlike Roxas he is not cool enough to have a third friend. So let’s crack that fucker open and dig out the FOURTEEN FUCKING HUNDRED MUNNY DIVIDEND! I am opening up my save to click on this fucking thing a few more times.

…It isn’t working.

Sigh.

Back to Junior, who’s frowning in the direction of the train platforms. “I can’t help feeling like we won’t see this town again…” he says. As usual, he is wrong, but it’s not like he’d know that. His purloined teen friends just stare at him, not sure what to say, while @%$#!!! just asks, “Why not?” Why not indeed! You guys have gone back to all sorts of places! “You’re thinkin’ too much,” Goofy adds, for certain the first and only time anyone has said that to Junior. This lie comforts Junior enough to get his ass moving.

Junior’s now free to roam around the station and talk to everyone before boarding the train. Hayner, out of nowhere, apologizes: “Sorry I was so cold before. Something’s been bugging me…” Hayner has been a sullen prick for this entire story, and the only time he’s ever come close to apologizing for it was in the middle of the Struggle, when he then immediately realized he didn’t have anything to be sorry for. But sure, being rude to this dweebish stranger merits an unsolicited apology! If Roxas is trapped in Junior’s spacious mind, he must be screaming right now. Hayner then tells Junior to take care in case they don’t see each other for a while. Don’t worry, Hayner, your new best fucking friend here somehow never finds himself in truly mortal danger, despite his best efforts. Olette and Chumlee–surprise–have little of interest to say, especially when Olette bites back the question she’s no doubt itching to ask about Junior fucking pickpocketing her. Chum just reiterates that he feels this inexplicable connection to Junior, though he does not seem nearly upset enough about it.

Before getting on the train that will spirit him away from the one goal he has, Junior opens three treasure chests sitting around the train platform. I only bring this up because he has now gotten all the available chests in Twilight Town. I know this because Jiminy’s journal has a handy treasure guide to each world that lets you know how many chests you have found, what was in them, and how many are still out there. I am of course using a guide (I always do for recaps, but also I would never even consider tackling this particular game without one), but a text file from GameFAQs doesn’t have the ability to tell me that I actually did find and open all those chests, and for an old lady like me who has conducted a 10-minute search for a coffee cup IN HER HAND, this is a useful service Jiminy is providing here.

This concludes the portion of the recap that has anything nice to say about Jiminy’s journal, so let’s get into the rest of it.

To back up a bit, as revealed last time by his puzzling decision to write down “Thank Naminé” and hope it would mean anything to him later, Jiminy Cricket keeps a diary. For the time being, the main purpose of the journal is to record Junior’s adventures for–sigh–posterity, including the helpful treasure tracking but also mainly comprising Jiminy’s descriptions of all Junior’s new “friends” and his narration of the plot, paragraph by earnest, maudlin paragraph. Weirdly, also, he does not include himself in their little group, though he is so much an integral part of the team that he too got the Rip Van Winkle spa package. For example, he notes that King Mickey rescued “them” from their predicament earlier, when HE WAS THERE, and then of Junior’s decision to look for Riku, he writes, “[@%$#!!!] and Goofy agreed to come along too, of course.” Leaving aside that extremely sad “of course,” he says nothing about his own feelings about being press-ganged into this adventure. Like, yes, I also think Jiminy is beneath notice, but if I were him I would likely feel differently! And I’d wonder what kind of fucking arrangement I’m in where I have to ride around in a dumb boy’s overalls writing about our travels like I’m not present and I don’t get a vote on where we go! And hello, isn’t THE ENTIRE MOTHERFUCKING POINT of Jiminy Cricket that he’s the insistent little voice that tells you the right thing to do? Your manifested conscience who definitely has opinions on what you are doing? What is even fucking happening here?

Fuckin’ LMAO

Okay, that turned into more of a rant about Jiminy the character than his spiral-bound chronicle. But worry not, the worst of this thing is yet to come and we’ll all have plenty of time to hate it. Oh, but wait! One other thing Jiminy is keeping track of is found artifacts like the Secret Ansem Report Mickey handed over. This one is apparently the second in a series and I’m inclined to leave it alone until I can read them in order, but eh, fuck it, let’s take a look. I’m sure it will be easy enough to parse!

“I have made a grave mistake,” this journal entry within a journal entry begins. “My study of the ‘darkness of the heart’ began with a simple psychological test and quickly snowballed.” If this ends with “And it’s called Black Mirror, get it, like YOUR PHONE,” I’m turning the game off. Anyway, it turns out Ansem had six–six!–grad students in Dark Heart Materials Science or some shit, one of whom, named Ienzo (I just typed this name and have already forgotten it), encouraged him to build a lab for their pursuits in his basement. Seems legit. And it was! “Unbeknownst to me, my six apprentices then began collecting a large number of subjects on which to perform dangerous experiments into the ‘darkness of the heart,'” he writes. You mean he recruited a bunch of scientists to study “darkness” and they turned out to be evil? WEIRD. And how did Ansem react to this revelation? “As soon as I found out, I called my apprentices together and ordered them not only to cease their studies, but to destroy the results of their research so far.” I’m going to bet a cool five dollars right now that they respected his wishes and immediately did as he asked. Got a good feeling.

“What on earth was happening within the hearts of my six beloved apprentices?” Ansem wonders. That “beloved” is real weird and I don’t think I want to examine it, so let’s not. “While pursuing the mystery of the darkness of the heart, could they themselves have strayed into its depths?” This dude is supposed to be smart. After noting, almost as an aside, that he started these experiments in the first place and is therefore “the most foolish of all,” he talks about how he was saved by the counsel and friendship of King Mickey, a weirdo who showed up at his joint “wielding a legendary key–the infamous ‘Keyblade,’ said to bring both chaos and prosperity to the world.” If by “prosperity” you mean “keyholes expecting triplets,” then sure. “He was very knowledgeable on many topics, and we deepened our friendship as we conversed companionably,” Ansem writes. “In conclusion, Mickey Mouse is a land of contrasts,” I append.

The Mickey thing seems like a cul-de-sac, but it is the thin connective tissue needed to get to the only thing about this report that matters: “Upon his advice, I decided to review the data obtained at my basement lab.” Oh word, you mean the data your assistants were supposed to destroy? I see they got right on that! “That is when I discovered the ‘Ansem Reports.’ Though they bore my name, the only one I had written was number 0. Apparently he had gone on to pen numbers 1 through 8 himself. Yes–the first subject in my foolish experiments.” That first subject? ADOLF HITLER.

Not really, of course, but still: the Ansem who wrote the Ansem Reports (and by number 0 he apparently means the very first one, that’s a translation error) is not the real Ansem! Does that mean that the Ansem Junior defeated didn’t actually write those reports, or does that mean he isn’t really Ansem? And what about Ansem Reports 9 through 13? Was that some kind of, excuse me, third Ansem? And how many times can I write the name Ansem before it looks like gibberish? Trick question: it always looked like gibberish.

Jiminy will come to deeply regret attempting to explain this one.

Much more on this as it develops, and becomes just breathtakingly stupid, but for now, this tidbit probably means less than nothing to our boys who, again, might be illiterate. Back to the train platform, where Junior has been standing with his thumb up his ass for 10 minutes while I leaf through this fucking journal. Extremely eager to get their thorough search for Riku and Mickey underway, Junior talks to @%$#!!! and tells him he’s ready to go. Who knows why @%$#!!! was given this duty and not, like, a station attendant. In a cutscene, Junior says bye to their new teen pals as @%$#!!! and Goofy silently wave and board behind him. “Hey, [Junior],” Hayner asks, so we all super-duper get it, “You sure we haven’t met before?” Junior thinks for entirely too long before answering, “Positive.” Hayner doesn’t even know why he’s asking, of course, but that doesn’t stop him and Junior from smiling at each other with awkward affection. There is no greeting card one can send for “A part of my soul that died in a simulation will miss you, my alternate-universe lover,” but hopefully Jeanne will agree this is an exciting venture capital opportunity.