Well, crap. As soon as she speaks, PUGGY!!! knows he’s shit out of luck. Not that I, the player, can hear any voices (except the ones in my head), but come on — you know that waifish little thing doesn’t speak in a booming bass. Sure, Kasumi could still be an underage boy, but it would be extremely difficult to lead the Lubrication Army from prison. Plus…yeah, those are definitely boobs. Bummer.

Kasumi reiterates that she (sigh) is from the ninja village of Rokkaku Bukkake. Their special ninja powers kept them free from those fuckhead Imperials until Teo McDohl had to come along with his super powerful anti-ninja army. PUGGY!!! doesn’t know why he should give a crap that his dad plowed through a town of lame ninjas, but before he can say a word (or give a meaningful look), Kasumi nonconsensually joins the Lubrication Army. God, lame.

Kasumi begs PUGGY!!! to hurry up and beat his dad’s army, like PUGGY!!! doesn’t have ten thousand better things to do (yes, even recruiting shitty pirates would be on that list). “So this day has finally arrived,” Cleo comments. Hey, wait a minute — who’s the leader here? Just as PUGGY!!! starts to think that this must be some sort of estrogen-based conspiracy, Pahn declares, “I am to fight General Teo.” As depressed as they sound over this outcome, they sure didn’t make the tiniest attempt to fight it. Even Mathiu supports the idea of fighting PUGGY!!!’s dad. Well, fine. But only because Teo’s approaching the castle and not because of some stupid ninja girl.

Cut to a tense outdoor scene where Gen’s sprite moves in a perfectly vertical and horizontal fashion around the front of the castle. He speeds offscreen as the camera cuts to him and his slit pupils zooming into the war room to inform the group of the arrival of Teo’s troops at the far shore. And there’s a fuckload of them, too. Well, even Teo’s army of (most likely) young men is no match for the awesome power of the Lubrication Army! Bring it on!

“Commander, PUGGY!!!, I suggest we first engage in a brief skirmish to test their power,” Mathiu says. He clearly means that they should find the exact number of troops necessary to beat Teo’s army with as few enemy casualties as possible — after all, committing all of the Lubrication Army’s impressive power to the battle would result in a horrifying massacre. Even Teo with his lack of respect for personal space doesn’t deserve such a fate.

PUGGY!!! can agree or admit that he’s less than enthused about fighting his dad. He considers the second option since that will show all these pushy dillholes who’s really in charge here. But he recognizes this as one of those false choices, and attempting to get out of this battle might cause Kasumi to beg and cry and possibly rub her boobs on him, so he just agrees.

Cut to the army battle screen complete with dramatic music. Teo’s character portrait pops up in order to give us (or PUGGY!!!, rather) a piece of his mind.

Okay, you know all those news stories where some guy did something bad, like murder his wife or rape a bunch of women or shoot up his school? And his parents are all, “Oh, [Fucktard] would never do something like that! These allegations are totally false!” even though dogs know the guy did it? Because expelling someone out of your crotch (or expelling the material necessary to produce said person out of your crotch) mysteriously creates the world’s biggest blind spot to their glaring issues (which is probably why they turned out the way they did, but I digress)?

Well, Teo is pretty much the opposite of those types of parents. “Traitors! I’ll show no mercy, not even for my son! I swear by my name, Teo McDohl!” he screams. Wow, this is so much worse than the time PUGGY!!! came home with a bad report card. Milich and Kwanzaa don’t bother to point out to Teo that hi, Emperor Assarosa and his psycho bitch Windy are total douchebags, so maybe he should think about why some of his fellow generals up and joined the Lubrication Army. Which probably wouldn’t have worked, but would have at least been nice of them to attempt, the lazy fuckers. Pahn has a short Moment of Angst before the battle gets underway, which is also extremely helpful to the Lubrication cause. Thanks, army.

On the army screen, the mismatch in power becomes rather obvious. Not just from the numbers — Teo’s 14000 to PUGGY!!!’s 11125, which isn’t all that bad, really. Nope, I’m talking about the fact that every single member of Teo’s army appears to be mounted on some sort of beast (not like that…gross) and brandishing an oversized phallic weapon that makes Auron’s sword weep with penisy jealousy. It’s like a whole army of overcompensation. PUGGY!!!’s miniature troops have no chance.

PENISES!!!

Even so, I have to go through the whole boring charade of issuing commands. Mathiu retardedly allows Teo to decimate the entire army before deciding that perhaps a retreat is in order. I thought this whole encounter was supposed to be a skirmish to test the strength of the other side. I think they accomplished that when a third of the fucking army got wiped out after Teo’s first pointy-weaponed charge. I guess Mathiu wanted to be really sure the Lubrication Army was outmatched. Ass.

Indeed, back on the regular gameplay screen, Mathiu suggests to PUGGY!!!, Pahn, and Cleo, “At this rate we’ll be wiped out. We’d better pull out before we receive any more damage.” It’s so heartwarming to know that whenever a Captain Obvious dies, another one steps right in to take his place (not that we have a shortage of COs in this game). Also, hee: “pull out.” The group makes their spritely way offscreen while Teo, two knights, and a guy on an armored velociraptor pursue them. Tense!

Teo randomly stops as about eight more velociraptor knights join them. I love how Teo and his two…ahem…companions can outrun their own cavalry. Well, outrunning velociraptors can only be a good thing — just ask that guy from Jurassic Park.

Anyway, we can now see Teo’s two special knights in more detail. As one would expect, they are both young men. One has black hair and is dressed all in red and white armor with a red cape. The other is blond, with identical armor and cape, only in green and white. How precious — it’s like Christmas! Well, I’m sure Teo feels that way, if you follow me. He addresses his matching pair of knights: “Alen, Grenseal, go after them. Crush the [Lubrication] Army.” Okay, not that the Lubrication Army has that many troops left, Mathiu, but can these two really take down the entire army? Imagine what they must be like in the sack!

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Back to our heroes, who have also randomly stopped to chat. Pahn decides to sacrifice himself for PUGGY!!!, holding off Teo and his raptors so that our bandana-clad hero can escape. I’m not sure how Pahn thinks he’s going to accomplish this — didn’t it take a freaking T-rex in Jurassic Park to off the velociraptors? Cleo points out in her usual blunt way the dumbassery of this course of action. “I don’t plan to [die],” Pahn responds vaguely, like he can plan such a thing. “But unless we are willing to risk our lives, we’ll never stop Master Teo.” Apparently, engaging Teo’s army in a battle where 10000+ people died doesn’t count as risking their lives. I’m sure all those soldiers would appreciate that sentiment.

“Good luck,” PUGGY!!! tells Pahn, most likely in a sarcastic manner. Pahn’s all, “See you for dinner!” just to remind us that he likes to eat. Otherwise we might think he only likes to fight, and that would just be poor character development. PUGGY!!!, Cleo, and Mathiu run away like Twink at a Goron orgy just as Teo and his two sexy boytoys appear onscreen. Sans velociraptors. Because that makes total sense — leave the dinosaurs and the guys with giant phallic weapons behind.

“Pahn. Get out of my way,” Teo orders, like one weaponless guy could stop all three of them. Pahn obviously does not heed this command. Although it would be hilarious, after Pahn’s “Blah, blah, I am noble” speech if he totally pussed out. “Dare you defy me, Pahn?” Teo demands in a tone that suggests Pahn is totally not welcome back at the McDohl House of Man-Love if he persists in this foolishness. Well okay, he is, but only if he really begs. Like that. Pahn reminds us all that he betrayed PUGGY!!! once before, “But now… Now I know exactly what I want, and how I want to live. Now that I know those things, I cannot let them go.” He doesn’t elaborate on what, exactly, “those things” are. Fighting? Eating? Is he implying that a penisy castle full of Lubrication Army recruits is way hotter than Teo’s lame, underpopulated shack? I might be able to believe that if I hadn’t actually seen the majority of the recruits. Uck.

Teo, resigned to fighting against one of his former boys, orders his two latest conquests to “stand back” so that he can face Pahn man-on-man. The two sprites walk forward to look at each other. Oh, the suspense! Cut to the one-on-one battle screen.

Under normal circumstances, some loser wearing a set of claws might find himself at a disadvantage against a fully-armored swordsman with vast combat experience. No, this is not an invitation for you to explain in detail how I am wrong. I don’t care if you’ve taken a bunch of karate classes and have a collection of ninja swords. Keep it to yourself for once.

Teo, however, is unaware of Pahn’s extensive training against bunnies and holly fairies, not to mention his numerous, expensive trips to the blacksmith over the last several months. Maybe Teo himself is too cheap to sharpen his weapon that much, or maybe he’s not a greedy jerk who hogs all the money. More likely, he spent his cash on gifts for his matching set of sexy young knights. Only fanfiction will tell. Or one of those people who have spent much more time researching the background to the Suikoden series than I have.

The point is, Pahn manages to predict Teo’s moves based on the general’s suggestive-sounding taunts and ends up using his own expensive armor and weaponry to beat Teo’s ass into the ground. Though the one time he misses and gets Teo’s Desperate Attack thrust right up his ass gives Pahn a taste of just how fucked he’d be without his near-psychic prediction skills.