It’s finally time for our moon heroes, and Squeak, to get down to the business of kicking ass and chewing bubblegum–and they are out of bubblegum, since there is no gum on the moon. So let’s catch up on what got them to this point: in part 12, Dragonmaster Alex and pals flew their repaired airship to the Frontier; found out that Vile Tribesmen Are People Too, in a general sense but also specifically meaning Fellatio; confronted Nash in his magical steampunk dildo mech and slapped the heel turn out of his mouth; and witnessed the activation of THE GRINDERY, which is basically Ghaleon’s magical steampunk dildo mech. It was a big day! THE GRINDERY has now rolled its way out of Ruid and is heading toward civilization, so the teens hop back in their zeppelin and hope to beat it there and maybe come up with some kind of plan on the way. Jess deems THE GRINDERY “like Kyle…big and slow!” so she figures this shouldn’t be an issue. Given that the thing is a big ol’ dong, I guess Kyle should take this as a compliment?

Indeed, the airship quickly catches up with THE GRINDERY. Nash whines, “But how are we supposed to get inside of it?” True, it would be a role reversal. Look at that thing. Kyle says they should get close enough to “look for an entrance,” and I am really not okay with how mixed this metaphor is getting. Jess, concerned about potential magical defenses, nonetheless banks the ship downward, only to bounce off in a crackle of lightning from its forcefield. Right as I breathe easy that at least Ghaleon’s iron hog has a condom on and we’re back on track with the symbolism, Jess says, “I might as well be trying to dig through a mountain with a toothpick…” My head hurts. Also, don’t sell yourself short, Jess!

Ribbed, but evidently not for her pleasure.

Thankfully, Nash changes the subject before I start pulling out the yarn for my crazy wall that’s just every phallic screencap here on VGR. “Excuse me, but has anyone noticed the direction in which the Grindery is moving?” he asks. I’m guessing “Duuuuuuuuuuuuh, south” is not what he’s going for, even though that’s all it’s done, and relatively that moves it closer to, well, everything. Oh no, Ghaleon is going to attack Lyton and kill all those singers he didn’t kidnap the first time! But Mia finishes Nash’s thought: it’s heading for Althena’s Tower. “Ghaleon created the Grindery not to terrorize the land…but to destroy Althena!” she declares. Why not both? Mia believes the combined powers of THE GRINDERY and the Magic Emperor could pull this off, though we still don’t have any understanding of either of their powers. And Jess points out that Althena is literally the creator of their world, or at least of life on it, and that “Ghaleon could never hold that kind of power!” Yup! Ghaleon sure couldn’t. …I mean, who could? I can’t think of anyone else involved in this that they might be overlooking.

But when Jess sighs that there would be nothing to be done about it even if Mia is right, Mia surprises her. “There is, Jessica…but you have to take us to [Vein]!” Mia doesn’t explain, just urges Jess to move her ass with enough ferocity and sudden caps deployment that Jess snaps to and does what she says. This doesn’t even change their trajectory, since Vein orbits around the damn Goddess Tower anyway, but at least someone here seems to have an idea of what to do.

And a black screen later, after the airship zooms toward Vein on the map, Mia has brought her friends–minus Nash, oddly–before her mother and the rest of the Magic Guild leadership to lay out this plan. She tells Lemia they haven’t any other choice, and “The only way for us to stop the Grindery is to use the true power of [Vein]…” Lemia knows her daughter is by and large not a fool, so she trusts her and agrees readily to whatever this “difficult decision” entails. But speaking of Mia hopefully not being a fool, she picks up on Nash’s absence immediately and wonders what’s going on with that–shouldn’t he be here in this “darkest hour” nuzzling his face under her hand like usual? Kyle offers, grinning, “I don’t think he has the guts to face you, Lemia…” Yeah! That seems likely. Jessica, playing the peacemaker (?!?!), shushes Kyle and then explains that Nash is helping to evacuate the city down at the Transmission Spring. Are these three some kind of poly circle now? Does she know she has to play nice with Nash to keep Kyle happy? Lemia sighs that that’s nice and all, but “Kyle’s theory also has merit.” Yeah it does. “And I don’t blame Nash, either. Any respect I once held for him has been lost…” I like that she doesn’t tell us how much respect that originally was. Because we know.

“Oh, Mother, please don’t say that!” Mia chides Lemia, seemingly without much energy. “He knows that he made a grave mistake…” Only because he got slapped so hard it literally put his head back on the right way. Lemia reminds her, a little severely, that they all have shit to do and can debate later whether Nash should be exiled to Meryod with Lunar’s other MAGA creeps. She tasks Alex with retrieving Nash, as whatever they’re planning will apparently require everyone’s presence, and tells Mia, “begin your preparations to enter the Silver Spire.” You’ll recall that Vein has not one, but two phallic spires thrusting majestically toward the heavens, and now Alex will finally get to find out what the second one is like. Ooh, maybe Dyne got to climb its heights once! Exciting!

Jess reads the entirety of the Mia Ausa casting call.

Once everyone has commented on how Mia is, like, SO STRONG now (except for Kyle, who just says he’s getting a bloodlust boner), Alex leaves the reception hall to find Nash. Did I say find Nash? I meant find softcore pornography! This seems like a good time for it. Alex comes across several guards and instructors in the guild hall who have defied evacuation to remain behind, but only one student. In the guild’s easternmost classroom, this ginger boy is in a panic, gathering all his most prized possessions before he leaves the city. “Here…” he says, “can you keep this for me? I’d die if anything happened to it!” I don’t know why he can’t just carry it himself, but whatever. Alex reluctantly receives Mia’s Bromide 2. Thank Althena, this one, despite being titled “Short Shorts,” is nowhere near as gross as the last one of Mia Alex found, as Ms. Ausa is clothed, kind of posing, and also could not possibly be unaware of the camera’s presence. It’s practically not creepy at all! Weird.

Wholesome bromide take: Mia should go for the high ponytail more. It’s a cute look!

Most of the townie residents of Vein have already evacuated, save one family who insists Althena will save them (orrrrr let’s just wait and see on that), one weirdo who just seems to be rubbernecking by the Transmission Spring, and the Magic Guild’s librarian, who whines about nobody staying behind to help him protect the books. Motherfucker, maybe you should get a dolly and some banker’s boxes if that’s such a priority for you. Or: unless Ghaleon lights Vein on fire, they will be fucking fine anyway. (No spoilers.) Alex does find Nash doing exactly what Jess said he was doing, namely getting a wheezing old lady onto the teleporter pad. She is safely away before Alex even talks to Nash, and the only other person here is Rubbernecking Lady, but Nash is nonetheless in the middle of shouting, “Everyone! Stay calm and maintain order! I repeat, stay calm!” This couldn’t be a better illustration of why Nash was the exact wrong person to lead this effort, meaning Kyle is of course correct about why he’s really out here. Squeak explains that they have come to get him so they can all go to the Silver Spire, and at this name-drop Nash loses his shit. “That means Mia is…oh, no! No! Come on, Alex! We have to hurry!” I find it odd that Nash didn’t have some inkling of Mia’s plans before everyone else, given that he lives here and knows what the Silver Spire is. But he might be concussed so I guess I should cut him a break. Nash joins up and the boys return to the Magic Guild.

‘It’s Earflap Hat Guy! Please snoop around in my boss’s bedroom to your heart’s content!’

Instead of proceeding directly to the entrance to the Silver Spire, Alex talks to everyone again with Nash in tow in case he still is, post-humbling, a smug dick to everyone (he is). But he was not expecting Lemia to, after five minutes, come around to Mia’s line of thinking re: this man her daughter can do better than. She asks, as “a very concerned mother,” that Nash help Mia, which Nash of course takes to mean he should lay his life on the line for his girlfriend, despite demonstrating that he is terrified to die at basically every turn of this game. But Lemia does not mean that, though I’m guessing the thought of Nash dead fills her with at least a brief moment of satisfaction. “No! You must both stay alive…because you and she are the future of the Magic Guild.” Yikes! Why not just hand him a diaper bag and a baby bjorn while you’re at it, Grandma? This time Nash very clearly takes her meaning as he smiles with the delighted surprise of a man who just earned his first begrudging request that he call his new mother-in-law “mom.” He replies, “I…I understand, Lemia.” We all do! No diagrams necessary! …Well, diagrams might in fact be necessary. I don’t think the Magic Guild covers that in their curriculum, and Hot Girl News is not painting a full picture of the process.

The party reunites in front of the Silver Spire’s doors on the west side of the guild. Jess notes she’s never seen Mia look so serious before, which is really saying something of the most taciturn person in all of Lunar. She wonders, then, what is inside the Silver Spire, since Mia and Lemia somehow discussed using it without explaining this at all. “Something immensely powerful, Jessica,” Nash says. “Something which will cause great destruction.” I’m guessing that’s about what the Ausas said, too. Mages sure do love being opaque! He adds, “I know what you mean to do, Mia, but I have to ask anyway…are you certain of this?” I’m trying to give Redemption Arc Nash the benefit of the doubt here and thus hope he isn’t second-guessing Mia’s judgment. “Absolutely, Nash,” she says. “It is the reason for [Vein]’s existence, much as we might not want to admit it. It is my responsibility to make decisions of importance. None more important than this…” Is…is Mia officially the leader of the Magic Guild now? I mean, she still asked Lemia for permission, didn’t she? Whatever, it doesn’t matter. Nash accepts this answer, like he has an alternative, and Mia, deeming this enough time wasted on nattering at each other, unseals the magically locked door to the spire. “We must hurry! I can already hear the Grindery approaching!” she says. Fine, it wasn’t quite enough time wasted on nattering.

Alex leads the conga line through the door, and strangely enough, down a long staircase. This is no way to climb a magical penis! What gives? The staircase ends at a doorway glowing with green light and festooned with decorative chains. This area looks nothing like the rest of Vein, and is closer to the sensibilities Ghaleon showed off in Ruid. So maybe he designed this place? Within they find a chamber cut of the same dark rock as the stairwell, and a glowing green rune on the floor. Mia recites, I guess to the floor, “In the name of the Ausa dynasty, I send you the power of my heritage.” Well, this got sinister in a hurry! I promise there are no Confederate States of Lunar flags in this room. The rune takes a quick blood sample of Mia to make sure she is as noble and pure as she claims, and in a flash she and her (presumably also noble and pure!) friends are transported to another room entirely. HOPEFULLY at the tip of the Silver Penis, otherwise I don’t know what we’re even doing right now.

Squeak wants to know why they had to cast a spell to enter this room. I feel like “And why did it have to be so eugenicist about it” is left unsaid, and Nash only answers the explicit question: “Because in this place, the magical power of [Vein] can be fully unleashed…and access to that kind of enormous power must be strictly controlled.” Controlled by one ruling family, apparently! I wonder if not being able to use this spire fed into Ghaleon’s clear overlooked-little-brother complex. Then again, he was able to use the other spire, but back then, Mia didn’t have to name-drop her pureblood wizard forebears to bust the door down. Am I overthinking this? I am overthinking this. After all, Mia is about to use her vaunted stock and pedigree to do some cool shit.

This chamber, too, doesn’t look much like the rest of the Magic Guild. The plush purple carpet features the same rune transporter the kids used below, and jutting out from the rug are three pairs of metal poles with blue balls on their ends. But they won’t be blue much longer! Wokka wokka. I totally could have written for Working Designs. Mia approaches the pair in the center and fiddles for a moment to summon a projection of the valley below. “Alex…Kyle…Jessica…Nash…and [Squeak],” Mia says. Only Mia would think to include Squeak here. I’m pretty sure Alex wouldn’t. “Focus your thoughts upon me. Allow me to use the strength of your hearts and minds!” Is she just doing this to make them feel like they’re contributing? Or is the Silver Spire actually going to channel Jess and Kyle’s HEARTS THAT BELIEVE (in making each other miserable for at least the next 10 months)?

Nash joins Mia at her blue balls, Kyle and Jess take the pair on the left, and Alex and Squeak the pair on the right. They each have something stupid to say as they take up their positions (Alex, of course, excepted), and obviously Kyle has to quip, “I’ve never said ‘no’ to a girl before, and I’m not about to start now…” Sure, man, whatever you say. Jess correctly deems this not even worth responding to and just tells Mia to make her mom proud. Nash wants to show Ghaleon “the strength of the people of [Vein],” like Ghaleon didn’t fucking live here himself. Squeak just asks what Mia’s going to do, and still gets no answer, because THE GRINDERY is now approaching! Or at least Jess says it is, because the display still shows an empty valley. Spared no expense! Everybody grits their teeth, and Mia tries to get hype: “C’mon Mia…you can do this.” I would be concerned if this were in the hands of literally any other person here, so I’m in your corner too, Mia! Feel free to use the power of my contempt for hetero romance as you see fit!

Out on the world map, THE GRINDERY rolls northwest, seemingly out of the ocean, toward Althena’s Tower. Vein very conveniently is on course to intercept it, and comes to a stop between the two phallic towers, its own twin phallic towers turning it into a tiny diorama of the larger scene. But has Vein always been able to stop like this? Is there a group of wizards taking shifts manning the brakes for this flying island? Where’s the city’s phallic gearshift with a big blue ball on the end?

Getting the sense that wizards are all operating out of the same stylebook.

In Anime Vision, the treads and gears of THE GRINDERY tear up the green valley as the penis tank slowly rolls to a stop. Two cannons mounted on its front whirr and grind into position, seemingly leveled at the tower in the distance, with Vein in the line of fire. Inside the Silver Spire, we get a closeup on Mia’s face and then pull away as she raises one hand, making all the blue balls in the room glow. Outside, the tips of the two spires begin to glow as well. Erotically, it should not need to be said. This energy forms a ring around the whole of the valley surrounding Althena’s Tower, which becomes a warding glyph of some kind. Pretty nice of Ghaleon to not just roll THE GRINDERY a mile or so closer and therefore within the barrier, even though there is no possibility he didn’t know about this defense system. Nash fucking knew.

The effort to even raise this barrier has exerted poor indoorsy Mia, who is already sweating as she brings her hand back down. Through the onscreen projection, she stares down THE GRINDERY. In a wide establishing shot of the valley, Vein and THE GRINDERY metaphorically stare each other down. In turn, Alex, Squeak, Jessica, Kyle, and Nash stare at Mia, as she stares at THE GRINDERY. And we are back to a close-up of Mia’s face that pulls in even further on her eyes, as yes, we stare at Mia as well. If this anime suddenly turns into a webcam feed that’s pointed at me as I look at Mia, I’m going to freak out. This goes on for what feels like an hour. There’s also no music, so all this happens in dead silence, which ratchets up the tension even further. (This is absolutely the longest Squeak has ever gone without speaking.) Finally, Mia narrows her eyes and lets out a little gasp, a split-second before THE GRINDERY shoots its payload. For once I am trying to make this less sexual, and yet here we are. The air whooshes around Mia in bullet time as she throws out her hands in a fingers-crossed conjuring gesture and shouts, “WAAAAAAAH!” She’s a-Wario, she’s-a gonna win!

This is the coolest anyone will ever manage to look while wearing a Snuggie.

Mia’s sphere of white-hot light flies toward THE GRINDERY as its magical bullets zoom toward Vein. That is, they pass right by each other, as Mia’s goal is apparently to hit THE GRINDERY and not to block its attack. Which makes me wonder why she waited to fire–why not cripple it before it can attack at all? But ignore me, I’m trying to nitpick a scene where a flying island and a tank fortress cross wieners with each other as they fight for another wiener’s honor. And getting back to said wiener fight, the black bolts of force from THE GRINDERY suddenly morph into roaring black dragon faces, in case we hadn’t yet guessed how Ghaleon is powering his self-esteem howitzer. It turns out, both the Black Dragon’s energy and the power of Vein are enough to shatter each fortress’s defenses: THE GRINDERY is rocked backward, as pieces of its armor go flying; and Vein’s magical ward is penetrated, letting through a blow that strikes the island right across its bow. It actually looks like the dragon bullets nail Vein directly in the penis spires, but then instead of the teens screaming and being jostled off their feet as rubble falls from the ceiling, they would be evaporated and dead, so I must be wrong. The whole of Vein is on fire as it plummets from the sky and crashes at the base of the Goddess Tower (the Dualshock goes bonkers at this, as if it’s connected to all 20 vibrators onscreen).

Just in case CERTAIN PEOPLE IN A CERTAIN OFFICE need a refresher on the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction.

Back in Sprite Vision in the Silver Spire chamber, which is not visibly damaged (no expense!), everybody is sitting on the ground by their blue balls and Nash is yelling, “Mia! Be strong!” Jesus, she’s Yunaing all over the place, you don’t have to tell her twice. Mia has her norovirus face on, last seen when she and Jess fell victim to the Dark Black Songstress. “Are you all okay?” she asks. “I’m fine. Dizzy, but fine…” Everybody is, of course, fine. It takes more than a crash from thousands of feet in the air to take down these hardy heroes! Mia explains for the slow–hi, Squeak–that her blast damaged THE GRINDERY’s forcefield but failed to damage the structure itself. “We’ll have to enter it in order to stop it…” A shocking turn of events! Even Squeak isn’t fazed by the idea, and tells Alex they should use the White Dragon Wings to get out of here. Not that there’s anything visual in this scene to convey this, but teleporting out is necessary because the magical elevator they used to come in is busted. As Alex activates the wings, Mia sighs, “I’m so sorry, [Vein]…I never believed I would play a part in this sad fate.” This very much reads as Mia knowing Vein would eventually get blasted out of the sky like a clay pigeon, but thinking someone else might do it. Mia is a fatalist!

Kyle would say it’s like kissing your sister, but the simile would be lost on Alex.

Alex reemerges at Vein’s Transmission Spring. A mulleted sprite nearby burbles excitedly about the showdown he just witnessed, and adds, “The noise [Vein] made when it fell from the sky was louder than my wife’s supersonic flatulence…” I love this game, but I also really, really hate it. The wizard shift manager here is obviously quite upset that Vein, which “has floated gracefully through the skies of our world since time immemorial,” got its shit wrecked. He calls it “a tombstone for our dying world,” like he’s already mentally composing verse for his incredibly purple epic poem about this day. More to the point, he tells the kids the Spring of Transmission is not working, “and without it, we can’t enter [Vein].” Time to magic yourselves up a fucking staircase, nerds! Indeed, not only is the teleporter pad non-functional, but the gang can’t enter Vein from the world map and the White Dragon Wings won’t even take them there. I have no idea why the wings wouldn’t work, since they function on dragon magic, and it’s not like Vein is gone, it’s just…relocated. Not that it actually matters, since going down in a blaze of glory was the only thing Vein had left to contribute to the story. RIP, Haughty Dweeb Island.