Anyway, Squeak hungry, Squeak want eat! I, too, could demolish a side of beef after walking around an entire city and listening to the opinions of every single person in it. If I were a politician I’d have incredible calves and also heart disease. Squeak’s incessant, toddler-like pleas for food lead the happy couple and their baby to the tavern. Once they’re done hearing about how the singer here has improved at her craft because she heard the “perfect voice” during her abduction and I have emptied my stomach into my wastepaper basket, they spot another couple coming in the door. “Alex! We’ve been looking for you! But we were just about to give up…I’m glad we decided to stop and eat before returning to Pao!” Why, it’s Tempest and Fresca, and this sure is awkward! Hey Gams, he wanted to kill you! “It’s Tempest…and Fresca, too!” Squeak says. It’s man we care about, and woman, I guess!

Tempest congratulates Alex on being the baddest motherfucker to ever wear a really dumb hat, and offers his “allegiance” (how cultish!) if Alex ever needs him, though Alex is dead out of MP forever and probably retired. Fresca says to Gams, so we have no improper mixing of gendered conversation partners, “[Gams], I have never seen Tempest respect anyone as he does Alex. You should be proud! So, tell me, [Gams]…when do you expect to begin bearing the Dragonmaster’s children?” Alison Bechdel is crying somewhere. And goddamn, this lady and her uterus. Why isn’t she bearing a shitload of children yet, huh? What’s the problem, Fresca? Tick tock! This is Gams’s first exposure to Fresca’s quiverfull sensibilities and she freezes up at the notion. Fresca takes this in stride: “There can’t be anything more wonderful than new life with the man you love! Tempest and I are planning on having a huge family. Just think, [Gams]! Our children will get to play together when we visit each other!” Trying to decide what is likelier to happen: Gams getting her tubes tied after having a single child and realizing each subsequent one would be dividing attention away from herself, or Fresca running off to Jess and Mia’s alpaca farm after her first when she realizes Tempest wants her to go through this until her uterus turns inside out and strangles itself. Almost certainly the first one, but prayers up for Fresca after she figures out what this large family will actually be like for her. Anyway, Gams is in the middle of having to explain to Fresca that she and Alex have barely even ever hugged each other, let alone NAUGHTY BEAST-WITH-TWO-BACKS TIMES in Working Designs parlance, when Squeak realizes he can bust Alex and Gams’s balls for looking like both their faces are on fire, and that ends up bailing them out of the conversation. What a good friend!

Now that icky girl stuff is safely off the table, Tempest speaks up again. “The People of the Plains will never forget what you’ve done for them…” he says, “And neither will I. Come and see us soon, Alex!” Good thing Squeak didn’t also give up his powers, because Alex is sure lining himself up with a lot of travel commitments. And the two of them turn around and leave, without even getting anything to eat! That was the whole reason they came here! Alex and Gams also leave, without Squeak getting anything to eat, either. God, he’s never going to shut up now.

The goal here is eventually the harbor, where a boat is going to take these dinguses and their WINGED DRAGON across the sea to Saith and then Burg, but for no reason at all Alex goes back to the town gate, where a voice says, “Hello, Alex.” If it’s fucking Ghaleon, I swear. But that’s way too few words, so false alarm. But while it’s not Ghaleon returning from the dead, it is someone returning from the dead: Fellatio! And the final thing that Xeboobia and Royce accomplished is undone. It’s like they never existed!

Squeak gushes that he was sure Fellatio was “toast,” which seems like a great opening for her to explain what the hell happened when she allegedly died offscreen. “Many members of the Vile Tribe have survived…” she says, “and we intend to find a place in this new world.” So we’re not doing an explanation, then. Good to know! As for that other bit, I will acknowledge that the literal only way the poor people of the Vile Tribe can get anything resembling a happy ending here is if Fellatio survived, because if she did not, nobody would be around to tell them they can stop working their fingers to the bone for Xeboobia and Ghaleon, and they would all just die at the bottom of a mine. And that would, or at least should, bum us all out, so it’s nice that that won’t happen. Also, while I’m here, I know the Frontier looks the way it does because Althena’s magic apparently couldn’t wrap all the way around the moon and left a teeny bit untouched, like Achilles’s heel being vulnerable because that’s where Thetis held him in the River Styx. But! What about the combined magic of Althena and her beloved Dragonmaster? I bet that could put things over the top and make the Frontier nice, too! My point here is that if the Frontier is still desolate and moon-like, Gams and Alex are human rights criminals and should be thrown in prison.

Fellatio isn’t listening to me. Nothing new! “We know it won’t be easy…” she’s saying, “and we know that we have to earn the trust of Althena’s children. But just as Althena had faith in her children to do what was right, so does the Vile Tribe.” All well and good for Althena to have that faith, she wasn’t the one sentenced to generations of life in labor camps and forced to get nutrients from giant egg sacs. Gams asks Fellatio where she’ll go and when they’ll see her again–you know, just making notes in your file, don’t worry about it–and she replies, “a part of the Green Earth which has never been explored. We will make it our home…and we will be reborn in the light of the Goddess. SO DON’T FOLLOW US BIIIIIIIIITCH.” Come on. It’s implied. After she says goodbye, Squeak decides the Vile Tribe will for sure find happiness out there off the Althena spy grid. If they can find a place that has fresh water I think they’ll be pretty stoked, personally. Not a hard bar to clear. “You’re right, [Squeak],” Gams replies. “Everyone has a home in Althena’s new world.” Oh, look who’s already talking up Althena again! Alex, she’s going to be sucking those powers back up within a year, dude. Best be prepared.

There is, of course, one more person Alex must check in with before they return home. Fartnoise! He still smells bad and is a genius! Of course I mean Laike, or Dyne, or Guy Who Caused All This Shit, whichever. “Ho, ho, ho!” Santa Laike says in greeting when they find him near their boat home. “[Squeak] and Alex! Are you going back to Burg already?” I have to think he doesn’t specifically greet Gams because now everybody knows what’s up there and it’s REAL WEIRD. This is a real question, as I still have a chance to turn around and talk to a bunch more Meribian goobers if I have Alex say no. “I’m going home with [Gams],” Alex replies, maybe a little cattily. THIS ONE actually wanted to be with him, DYNE. Alex tries to get out, “Dragonmaster Dyne…I…” before Laike insists that Dyne is dead. “He died with the gods whose bidding he was born to obey.” Cool story. Question: if doing some shit with a goddess and then losing your powers as a result is call for a name change, should Alex pick a new one too? Who the hell is Dragonmaster Alex? Hungdaddy Fatstacks, Mayor of Grinderyville, has never heard of such a person!

“From now on,” Laike says, also ignoring me, “our future will be shaped not by those with power or prestige… But by those with courage.” Ha! Hahaha. Imagine. This guy’s a dreamer! He identifies Alex as a person with said courage, which is just one more “Fix all the shit I broke” for the fucking road, as Laike, also presumably a person with courage, is going to fuck off for a while. “…I’m going on a journey, Alex. And this will be a long one…” Oh no, is he finally going to climb up his own ass for good? Gams is all, “Laike?” and he continues ignoring her: “This world is boundless, Alex. I’ll never claim all of its treasures, or learn all of its secrets. But I don’t feel helpless about it…I feel fortunate. Fortunate that I’m alive and able to explore a world with such endless adventure.” He may as well add, “And to do that all away from the lady I allegedly loved and then turned into a baby whom it would be inappropriate for me to ever love again! Off to never talk to another person for the rest of my life!” Maybe he’ll go live with the Vile Tribe in their No Althenas Allowed Dome.

Out of goddamn nowhere, Alex asks, “Laike…what about Ghaleon?” What about him, dude? He’s fucking dead, next! Laike says Ghaleon “perished for his beliefs,” which, I guess so. But thinking on this absolute non sequitur leads Laike to wonder, “But if there’s one thing left to do, it’s… No…this isn’t the time to discuss that, Alex. Not yet…” I have no idea what this is about. Running away together and sending Gams to the alpaca farm? Figuring out artificial dragon insemination so they don’t go extinct? What? Alex, Gams, and Squeak move out of the way to let Laike pass, but before he gets offscreen he stops again to give goddamn life advice to the people who just had to fix all his mistakes before they can legally buy cigarettes: “All of us are on a journey into the future, yet all of us live in the present. Too many people get caught up in what could be, instead of appreciating what is… Don’t fall into that trap, Alex. Appreciate what you have, and who you have… Because the future can take it all away from you.” And THERE it is. The future didn’t take shit, buddy. It was 100 percent you. YOU could have been with Ghaleon and had a happy little life being the gym teacher at the Magic Guild! YOU threw that in the trash can!

An entire generation is terrified of turning 35 and it’s because of shit like this.

Laike waves all this away as an old man’s rambling, about as clear a “I didn’t mean any of that, unless YOU are into it” as I’ve ever seen. “I wish you luck, Alex,” he finishes. And finally: “And you too, sweet [Gams]. Farewell…” I seriously thought he might get out of this scene never once acknowledging her existence. Squeak and Gams are both convinced they’ll see him again, and they for sure will, if they can spot him peeping through their windows at night from the comfort of the closest tree branch that will support his weight. Alex, knowing this and finding it inexplicably titillating, is all, “[Gams]…let’s go home.” Gotta give the old man a show!

Alex, Gams, and Squeak journey back to Burg as we journey to the credits. Guys, remember Victor Ireland? I wonder where that dude is now, and what ’90s references he’s making there. (I looked it up and the answer made me a little sad, so I don’t recommend doing that!) Once the surprisingly short credits are through rolling over an image of the Blue Star, we pan down from same to Dyne’s Monument–I assume now called Dragonmaster Alex’s Tithe Center, where people can stick coins in the empty sword slot–and Alex and Gams, looking out over the valley, the breeze gently ruffling their hair. After they look at each other, both pulled back and in close-up on each of their faces, for like seven seconds, they sloooooowly…grasp hands. Come on, you two! They are actually moving backward in intimacy! I know Squeak is here so there is no possibility of anything that requires a mood, but a chaste peck on the lips is permissible! This is the most “Remember, they’re siblings” ending possible, and given my predilections I can’t believe I’m mad about it, but I am. At least PRETEND to want to have a baby-making contest with Tempest and Fresca!

And it is here, with two dorks thinking holding hands before marriage is a huge step, that we say goodbye to Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete, which was my first JRPG! Insane but true. Imagine my translation whiplash going from this to Suikoden II. It was buck wild, I assure you. Thanks for sticking it out with me on this cornball adventure, and I hope you’ll join me (eventually) for Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete. Hopefully I won’t take as long to get to it as Working Designs did to release it. Ciao!