So the Horndog and its two companions are engaged in combat with Rhaknam, but their flaming cannonballs don’t appear to do much damage to the whale’s thick skin (or shell). The action whips back to the Little Jack bridge, where Vyse asks Drachma who owns the ship with the long, hard horn. “While we were in Valua, I heard rumors that the Armada altered their chain of command,” Drachma reveals. That would have been nice to know a bit earlier. Actually, no it wouldn’t. I jumped the gun a bit, so you already know the ship belongs to Squeifer. Squeifer, Drachma tells them, was once just Galcian’s boy toy and second-in-command, but now that he has his own big boy ship, he’s “the most feared officer in the Armada.” That doesn’t really say much for the rest of the armada, considering that Squeifer’s most fearsome trait is his ability to look like the result of Squall/Seifer mpreg. Fina murmurs Squeifer’s name, her entire being conveying, “Hey, I know this guy.” But when Pippi asks her about it, she’s all, “Nothing. It’s…really nothing.” She and Suelette must take lessons together.

PENIS!

Faced with two separate foes, Vyse finds himself confused as to his next course of action. Of course, he’d probably find himself confused with just a single foe to fight, so you can imagine how messed up he is right now. Drachma decides that they should take out the Horndog and its two companions first, as their presence will only interfere with his ability to take down Rhaknam himself. In case you didn’t catch that particular nuance of the situation, Drachma wants to be the one to kill the whale. No other phallic ship should have the honor. “Battlestations! Leave [Squeifer’s] ship alone! Take out the two cruisers in front of us first!” Drachma orders. This fictional character is more of an expert than I am when it comes to combat between flying penises, but I can’t help but wonder why he thinks Squeifer won’t participate in kicking their ship’s ass, regardless of what ships they attack.

And with that, I’m once again sucked forcibly into another ship battle. You’ll never guess what I’m fighting against — seriously, this is so awesome. It’s another fucking Valuan gunboat! Just like the one I accidentally fought before! I was just thinking how cheated I felt when I only got to face off against one of these guys that one time. But yay! This is so great for me. I’m also pleased beyond description that the camera took just as much care to stroke the contours of this ship, which appears to be identical to the first one. This game makes me so sad. Like its more ornate superior ships, this gunboat is equipped with a loudspeaker which allows its unnamed captain to express his opinion on the situation to Vyse. Here, the ship’s captain (or the ship itself — once again, it’s not clear) proves that he has received his very own copy of The Big Book of Bad Guy Catchphrases: Angry Phrases to Spout During Battle. Vyse, apparently, will come to rue his attack on the fearsome Lord Squeifer and his personal poolboy fleet. I’m sure.

I made that intro about as interesting as I possibly could, so I’m pretty much drained now. The battle itself is identical to the one I fought earlier, down to the several snooze-inducing rounds before the Harpoon Cannon becomes available. And then the Harpoon Cannon destroys the ship in a single hit, rendering everything I did up to that point completely worthless. Again. Amazing how such a waste of time can be summed up in a few quick sentences. While the footage continues playing, I have time to wonder why the Little Jack is fighting only a single gunboat and not both of those assholes. I am not complaining by any means, but it does bring up the question of what the other ships, not to mention Rhaknam, are doing. I bet Drachma would feel like the world’s biggest jackass if, while he was occupied with this nameless ship, Squeifer and the other gunboat completely annihilated Rhaknam. There would be an important lesson for Drachma in there somewhere.

I’m totally writing whatever shit enters my brain as I watch this riveting footage. Oh, and I just had a conversation with John. There we go, the Harpoon just shot up the asscrack of the gunboat. Time to get back to work. I’m sure I don’t need to point this out, but just for the record, during that entire battle, not a single other object, save for a small floating island, was visible onscreen. You would think that the massive flying whale might have at least made an appearance, maybe with one of its tail fins passing through the screen at some point. But it quickly becomes clear that the battle took place in an alternate empty dimension because as soon as the battle screen disappears, the Little Jack is flying directly above Rhaknam’s giant purple bulk. Smoke trails from the areas where Rhaknam was hit by the Valuan ships — at least that’s what I’m assuming. These could be Rhaknam’s built-in fog machines for all I know. He’d be such a hit at a gay disco!

“Alright! We’ve got a straight shot at Rhaknam!” Vyse celebrates with that single ship out of the way. However, he forgot to take into account the several rounds necessary for recharging the Harpoon Cannon. Oh wait, that’s just when I’m in control. The game doesn’t have to follow the same rules I do. Drachma’s all, “It’s about fucking time” and then he fires the Harpoon Cannon right into the side of the arcwhale. It lodges in, but it’s about the size of a toothpick compared to the overall size of Rhaknam — I bet Squeifer can relate a lot to Rhaknam right now. I’m not sure what Drachma is planning to do now that his tiny ship is connected to his enormous quarry — is he going to surf down the cable and stab Rhaknam to death with his hook hand? Is he going to send Vyse down to stupid it to death?

We never find out, because suddenly the Little Jack vibrates wildly. The camera switches to a view of what’s causing this explosive vibration, and the enormous black erection at the front of Squeifer’s ship fills the screen. “Captain! Watch out! There’s an enemy ship off the starboard side! It’s [Squeifer]!” Vyse panics, possibly flailing his arms. Like Drachma is going to mistake that huge cock for someone else’s ship. Well, I guess that’s not too much of an improbability with the ships in this game. Anyway, while our heroes were occupied with everything except for Squeifer’s ship, Squeifer snuck up behind them and poked their ship in the butt.

Faced with this totally shocking sneak attack that no one could possibly have seen coming, the Little Jack is in big trouble. The kind of trouble that involves fire and smoke and losing altitude. Pippi narrates the ship’s condition, since no one else on the bridge could possibly notice the raging flames covering all the windows or the sensation of dropping. “This isn’t good… If we keep this up, we’re all going to die,” Vyse contributes.

…

…

…

DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!

I think I just died a little bit right there. Drachma isn’t willing to give up on his fight with Rhaknam because he thinks that this is his one and only chance. I’ll concede that it doesn’t appear that he runs into the arcwhale on, say, a daily basis, but in this game alone, he’s already found him twice. I think he could manage to do so again. Like I mentioned before, it’s not like Rhaknam can easily hide. He’s fucking big, not to mention bright purple. Vyse gets all up in Drachma’s face, informing him that they need to get to the fucking lifeboats ASAP. I’m suddenly relieved that I managed to find where the lifeboats are stored when I was searching for Drachma earlier. This will save me the trouble of hunting for them while the ship plunges to its fiery doom. Drachma is stunned that Vyse would tell him to abandon both the Little Jack and Rhaknam. His disbelief is enough to cause Vyse to break out the all caps and extra punctuation: “YES!!! If you die, it won’t bring back your son! And as long as you’re alive, you’ll always have another chance!” Drachma just makes a crotchety old man sound, indicating that Vyse’s logic — I can’t believe I just typed those two words next to each other — is getting through to him. Vyse continues on with the usual types of statements like how Drachma’s drag queen son’s death will be in vain if Drachma dies and so on. I’m not sure how Drachma staying alive and killing the beast that killed his son would make his son’s death not be in vain, but I’m not a parent so I just don’t understaaaaaand or something like that.

When Drachma pushes Vyse away and makes a loud constipated sound, Vyse interprets this as agreement. So Vyse orders everyone to go downstairs and get in the lifeboats. Of course the girls were waiting for him to tell them this. An extended Black Screen hands control of Vyse back over to me. Naturally they have all the time in the world — if there really was any sort of time limit, Vyse would end up burning to death thanks to my inability to find my way around. Yeah, you heard me — apparently I was a little too optimistic in the last paragraph. What is it with me and the not learning in this recap?

*porno guitar*

There are two life boats inside the life boat room or whatever you call it. Pippi and Fina climb into one together. Awwwww yeah. How awesome is it that neither of them are trying to get into a boat with Vyse? I am so stoked over that. Not because I’m sitting here jackin’ it over the thought of Pippi and Fina together, but because this marks the first time in history that two young, attractive female characters are not tearing each other’s hair out over the young, attractive male character. But this isn’t the time to marvel over the lack of video game cliches — people are dying here. Vyse, all alone inside the other boat, frantically begs Drachma to get in it with him. Awwwww yeah. Actually, awwwww no, but I’m trying to be fair about the innuendo. Pippi joins in the begging, but Drachma stays silent.

With his blowjob face working overtime, Vyse screams and screams for Drachma to get in the fucking boat already. We’ve all pretty much figured out what’s going on here, but it takes a lot longer for these three dillholes to catch on. Pippi thinks this is the perfect opportunity to point out to everyone that Rhaknam has been wounded, which is technically kind of true, but what does it matter at this point? Drachma responds to this statement by pushing the girls’ lifeboat out the hull hole. It flies off into the fog, little side wings fluttering. Vyse is still still shouting at Drachma. Jesus. Where’s the neon sign guy when you need him? HE’S NOT GETTING IN THE FUCKING BOAT. HE IS STAYING BEHIND TO AVENGE HIS DEAD GAY SON. Do I have to explain everything around here?

Drachma just smirks as he pushes Vyse’s lifeboat out the escape hatch. When Vyse finally realizes what’s happening, his blowjob mouth becomes even more pronounced. Vyse’s last view of Drachma is the old man staring out the side of the ship as the flaming hunk of wood gets pulled away into the darkness. Vyse screams “NOOOOOO!!!!” like wanky Darth Vader, and I kind of feel the same way because the muscle of the party just offed himself. The two lifeboats experience a bit of turbulence in the foggy darkness — I hope they have their seat belts fastened. Fina isn’t concerned about her own life all that much — she’s stuck on wondering why Drachma sacrificed himself. Fina wasn’t privy to the Romantic Moonlight Conversation, so I can sort of forgive her for not being aware of all the nuances here. Still, she needs to work on her timing. Before anyone, such as Vyse, is able to fill her in on the details of Drachma’s tragic backstory, some flaming balls come hurtling their way. Vyse’s normal blowjob face morphs into an angry blowjob face, much like the Staypuft Marshmallow Man after getting hit with the Ghostbusters’ proton beams. “[Squeifer]… He fires at lifeboats!?!?” Vyse flips out. Just look at all that punctuation — he’s clearly very surprised. It’s apparently bad form to attack your enemies if they’re in boats that are smaller than their original boats. But come on, it’s the Imperial Fucking Armada — it’s not like anyone’s going to arrest them for committing a no-no. Plus, Squeifer is a total dick.

There are more shots of the Horndog shooting its cannons at our helpless heros. Vyse’s dinky boat gets hit, which I admit is a little therapeutic after what he’s put me through. The girls watch in horror (and more blowjob faces) as Vyse’s lifeboat falls out of sight. Another hot blast hits the girls right in their lifeboat as well, and they follow Vyse down through the dark clouds. I’m going to end this recap on that “cliffhanger” — will our heroes survive?! You’ll have to wait until next time to find out (unless you’re not a total idiot). Also, I know I promised you a brand new gay guy in the last recap, but we really will meet him next time, too. Until Part 12!