Just as Alex is about to take his next step toward her, Gams’s demeanor changes. Her eyes dim and she laughs without mirth, as she did at the top of the Black Dragon Fortress. Then she gets a bit more forceful: “HA, HA, HA, HA, HA!!!” Whoa. Don’t wear out your vocal chords before the big Goddess Festival, Gams! It’s probably time for the next one by now, and everyone will just die if they miss out on your voice a second time! But Gams, uh, isn’t home anymore, and if she’s appearing at any piddly shit Goddess Festivals anytime soon, it’ll be under different circumstances. “If one named ‘[Gams]’ once resided within this wretched skin, she has taken leave of it,” Not-Gams says. “All that remains of the one you held dear is the shell you see before you. And that body, once torn from her innocent control, was freed to serve its one true purpose.” I take it, then, that one true purpose is not garnering praise from loved ones and strangers alike, because Gams very much had that directive on lock. Also, I want to say Not-Gams seems cool, because she’s…not…Gams. But what she really seems like is Ghaleon’s brain inside Gams’s body. I really hope that’s not what we’re doing here. For just so many reasons.
With a flash of lightning in the distance, the light in the sky dims. “Farewell, Alex,” Not-Gams says. “The last grain is about to fall from the top of the hourglass…” You see it too, right? It’s like Ghaleon made her memorize this. It’s either that, or Ghaleon has been, all along, modeling his style after a certain other being. BUT WHO?! Another lightning flash transforms Gams further, into a new outfit. We’ll get to the entirety of it in a minute, because HOO BOY, FRIENDS, but for now I’ll just note her stupid jester hat with the little jewels on the tips. What the hell is going on here? This is a real chicken-or-the-egg situation.
Gams’s headscarf and fit-and-flare were apparently load-bearing wardrobe items, because the whole of THE GRINDERY shakes, the walls around the platform start to fall away, and four green crystals on spires that look like Creamos rise up in their place at the tower’s four corners. Kyle groans, “She’s trapped us!” Which I don’t really see, unless the walls that just came down blocked the door, which is off-camera. Whatever! This doesn’t seem like a situation where they’re leaving by the door anyway. Or at all. Boy, if this keeps up that happy ending that was just in Alex’s grasp might be in jeopardy!
Once the rubbing-a-fingertip-on-a-wet-wineglass-rim sound effect of the crystals setting into place has subsided, roughly an hour later, Alex shouts, “[Gams]! What’s happening to you?!” I’d say puberty, my man, but she’s 15 and we tend not to work like that in most cases. Her answer is to Ghaleon-speak at him some more, “Step forth and witness a demonstration of the power I now command!” and then zap him halfway down the stairs. This jolt is so potent that it blasts the entire scene into anime.
Now that Alex has been knocked to the ground, the game has an easy excuse to go first-person and pan up Not-Gams’s body, the better to scope out her new, completely ripshit bonkers outfit. It gives me no pleasure to say I can only describe this ensemble as Slutty Magic Emperor. And I mean that literally: it is almost exactly how the Magic Emperor outfit would look if it were recolored white and purple, and then the robe part were ripped out and replaced with purple pasties (gotta preserve that Teen rating). The hat, the gloves, the striping details, and very crucially, the genital mudflap belt are are all straight from the Ghaleon leitmotif. Once again, if I didn’t know where this was really heading, I would think Gams were in actual fact possessed by Ghaleon’s ghost.
She also gets to keep the cloak–you know, to keep the cold out.
Not-Gams gazes coldly at the camera Alex as lightning strikes with increased frequency behind her. “You shouldn’t have interfered,” she tells him, with a bit more malice in her eyes now. Though that could just be her new eyeliner and eyeshadow, which are ON POINT. “Haven’t you figured it out? There’s no way to stop this.” Alex has figured out precisely jack and shit, lady, and you know it. These mental powerhouses would have to know what they shouldn’t have interfered with in the first place to know they can’t stop it. Sure enough, the camera pulls back to Alex sitting up with a confused, hurt expression to mumble, “[Gams]?” again. He and his friends watch, with expressions ranging from dumbstruck to constipated, as Not-Gams turns away and marches to the edge of the platform. You guys! I don’t think that’s Gams!! I’ve just got a feeling!
As before with the battle vs. Vein, several wide shots, silent but for the thunder, establish THE GRINDERY’s new target: Althena’s Tower. A massive bolt of lightning strikes the valley between the two, probably incinerating the last few evacuees from the Magic Guild. Not-Gams stares the tower down from her perch at the edge of THE GRINDERY. Then her eyes glow red, she raises her arms and her face to the sky, and she begins to sing. So Gams is still in there somewhere!
This is fine.
All of Lunar was desperately in need of an encore of the Mary Suebonic Plague Aria, and Not-Gams is here to deliver it, and not the shortened radio version, either. Nobody shows any ill effects from the song, but it’s possible that’s because Not-Gams is singing this “at” the Goddess Tower and not at them. Alex goes, “[Gams], what are you doing?” Which I think is just a great question, since all she’s definitely doing at this moment is fucking singing–there is no evidence of her doing anything demonstrably evil yet. I mean, to be clear, “yet” is operative here, look at that fucking outfit. But Alex is still so, so dumb, guys. And if he’s this clueless still, can you imagine the stuff Squeak is thinking but not saying at this moment? It could probably rip a hole in reality.
Down in the bowels of THE GRINDERY, a pair of eyes glow white in reaction to the Dark Black Song. These belong to Quark, but soon the eyes of the other three dragons light up as well. My buddy Blue Dragon is going to have NOTES on your look, Not-Gams, just you wait. And after this whole bondage battery mess you’ve literally tangled him in, he’s not gonna be nice. The power of the dragons is channeled into the four green crystals, and as an invisible orchestra strikes up an accompaniment (the angelic backup singers are MIA), the power of Not-Gams’s song combines with the power of the dragons and coalesces into a white ball of light that floats upward from her and shoots a beam straight at Althena’s Tower. The first reaction to any of this comes from Kyle, who grunts, “What the?” I know I just made fun of Alex reacting to Not-Gams’s evil deeds before she’d even done anything, but Kyle not saying a word until this moment is also hilarious.
Not-Gams is really getting into the juicy bit of this solo as explosions light up the entire mountain underneath the Goddess Tower. Lines of energy streak outward from the tower throughout the valley, which I think are leylines until the ground splits apart along them, so I guess they’re just fault lines cracked wide open by this Mary Suequake. It only takes a moment for the entire mountain to blast apart and reveal that what had been known as Althena’s Tower all this time was merely the bepenised tip (hmm) of a massive fortress. This colossal white structure–with phallic crenellations and upside-down staircases sprouting off of it on all sides, like a level in Monument Valley–blasts off like a rocket as the ground below glows with its blue afterburn. So that definitely does it for those Magic Guild evacuees, right? It’s canon, they’re all dead. Once the whole thing is airborne and Not-Gams has finished singing, the spotlight around it–yes, really–dissipates, and the music stops. But this monstrosity is not yet done! This is only the cue for the runes all over the structure, from its wide base to its many tips, to glow blue and summon a magical set of purple and white rings to slowly orbit it. What do these rings even do? Who cares? It’s phallic as fuck and got neon holograms to boot. THE GRINDERY sits in tiny, shriveled-on-a-winter’s-day shame in the shadow of the new biggest cock on the block.
It’s like Xenosaga parked its car in Lunar‘s spot.
Alex’s friends are staring, mouths comically hanging open, at this development. Nash asks, sounding either devastated or supremely horny, “What happened to the Goddess Tower?” as Mia breathes next to him, “This can’t be real…” Remember, like, an hour ago, when these goons were terrified of Ghaleon’s powers because he had some dragons hooked up to jumper cables? Good times. But they’re about to be shocked out of their shoes even harder, as they hear a familiar voice cackling evilly. Alex even goes, “My god…” like he can’t fucking believe it. Also, he’s still looking at Not-Gams as he says this, which makes it about 200 percent funnier.
Living for Kyle’s expression here.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Ghaleon’s voice says, plainly having saved up every ounce of mirth in his existence for this exact moment. “Behold, the long-forgotten Fortress of Althena.” Kyle blurting out, “That’s the voice of Ghaleon!” and Jess adding, “Impossible!” is just the cherry on this perfect sundae. “No shit, Guy I Never Knew the Name of,” Ghaleon does not reply. One final, massive bolt of lightning strikes the platform, and when Alex can see again, he’s treated to the sight of Not-Gams in full, besotted simper mode, cuddling up to Ghaleon, who is now out of his jester helmet and in more or less an entirely new, still evil getup, with giant eyeballs on his shoulders. This is seemingly just to fuck with me after I just made a huge hairy deal out of him and Not-Gams being that irritating couple who wear matching outfits. I can’t make fun of Alex and Co. anymore, when Ghaleon is one step ahead of me at all times too. Oh, wait, I fucking can and will, as 15 GODDAMN SECONDS pass before Alex says, somehow astonished to his core again, “Ghaleon?!” Is this why Squeak usually doesn’t let Alex talk?
I really hope Laike was never meant to be teaching Alex etiquette. He was focused on…other lessons.
The anime cutscene ends with Alex’s brain somewhere on the steps below him, as he looks up at Ghaleon, who has a real superior-ass smirk on his face. Deservedly, I acknowledge. Back in game mode, Nash is the one who has to say, “This…this is impossible! We defeated you!” just to make me sad. And also so Ghaleon can make him, specifically, feel stupid: “Now, now, Nash! I would have thought that surely YOU would have detected the illusion! You see, what you defeated was just that…an illusion. And not a particularly interesting illusion at that.” Enough sassy commentary out of you, jerk–you are wearing a collar that looks like a wedding cake. “Your longing to believe what you see is somewhat endearing…” he goes on, “but I do find it a tad insulting that you so readily believed I was defeated by YOU.” Ha. Nice. How can I stay mad at this guy?
Alex is having none of Ghaleon’s words, because none of them explain what he’s done to poor, sweet Gams. After tutting Alex for tone–which, again, nice–Ghaleon deigns to explain what’s going on, no doubt doing the mental math and realizing these dolts are never going to get it unless he does. “I have done nothing to her that wouldn’t have happened anyway,” he says. “For you see, the girl you have come to know as [Gams]…is actually Althena herself!”
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!?!?!?!?!?!