In the last recap, which you probably just finished reading two minutes ago, Barry traveled all the hell over the place and recruited eight fuckbillion people for the Yaoi Army. Seriously, Marines hanging out in small-town Walmart parking lots don’t get these kind of numbers in a day. Nonetheless, Barry would rather like to actually go where he’s supposed to now. For once.
Leaving the vibrant, thriving metropolis of Lakewest behind, Barry proceeds directly to Two River. That is, he would if the person controlling him weren’t a heinous time-waster. Instead, he travels south to–gack–Kobold Village. As advertised, it is full of moronic kobolds. Happily, though, none of them feel like joining the Yaoi Army’s grand cause, so for the time being Barry doesn’t have to deal with more than one daft, slobbering dolt covered in fur. Unless we’re counting Bear. What Barry can do here is waste a good deal of his money at a couple of the local shops, which surprisingly sell more than rawhide chews and squeaky tennis balls. This feeble joke is my way of reminding you that kobolds are dogs. I’d also remind you that they’re proud, formidable warriors, but something tells me we’ll be hearing that later on. Again and again and again. So for no reason whatsoever, Barry spends a boatload of money here in Kobold Village, instead of saving it for the surely more promising shops in Two River. What? He’d been looking for a leather collar anyway.
Barry finds the regional lobotomy clinic.
Now, now, Barry enters Two River City. The poor dear has nary a chance to poke his well-groomed head through the city gates when a street urchin with ugly great black bat wings plows into his backside. And by backside, I do not mean his butt. The pov runs off, yelling “Ha ha!” over his shoulder as he goes, and with a sudden jolt of dread Barry realizes his wallet and the remainder of his hard-earned potch are gone. Muttering under his breath about dirty vagrants and what he’d like to do to them (not involving ramming things up their asses, since Suikoden males enjoy that too much for it to be a punishment), Barry decides to run around and check out the town anyway. It’s pretty darn big. In the first of its three districts, Barry doesn’t find much to tickle his shopping fancy. What he does find is a bunch of human Suikoclones who like to express themselves, at great length, about how much they hate non-human Suikoclones. Specifically, those flea-ridden kobolds and those irritating wingers. Barry suppresses, with difficulty, his kindred feelings of winger racism when he realizes that’s what the little dicklick who robbed him must have been. Then again, Barry thinks, that band Winger had that sexy lead singer named Kip Winger who posed in Playgirl. So not all Wingers are bad. Some of them are even hot.
At the nearby New Leaf Inn, Barry encounters a positively breathtaking young man on the second floor. This fellow, named Hans, is wearing a floor-length indigo robe and a matching hat atop his wavy blond hair, giving me no choice but to call him Gilderoy Lockheart. Gilderoy seizes Barry by the yellow ascot and cries, “Please here [sic] my tale! I came all the way from Zexen, far to the west, because I heard I could open a shop here.” I think we all know where this is going. Yup, Gilderoy Lockheart, Armorer Extraordinaire, is quite desperate to find a place all his own, where he can create fabulous fashions for peerless prices. Barry’s all, “Shack up with me, sweetcheeks,” and Gilderoy is all, “Ooh, I would simply die to go to Hogwarts HoYay Castle!” He is so enamored of the idea that he asks Barry how much the rent at HoYay is gonna be. 30,000 potch? 300,000 potch? Barry reels at this small dilemma. As much as he would love to have that much money, especially right now, he also wouldn’t dream of charging such an adorable hunk of man to be his personal wardrobe manager. Trying hard to think of all the invaluable benefits of having Gilderoy around the house, Barry responds, “You don’t have to pay me.” Gilderoy squees like a Mary Sue fanfic writer at the idea of living at Yaoi Army headquarters. “This must be fate!!! I’m so lucky!!!!!” he squeals, and then runs off, practically skipping and emitting happy sparklies in his wake.
Now in a slightly better mood with the thought of a useful army recruit in his clutches, Barry walks right on to the second district in town, the winger district. This one is decidedly less nice than the human district. To be exact, it’s a bunch of wooden shanties built directly over the river. Like Lower Valua, but with more mildew. This place, too, has no good shopping, so Barry is starting to feel not so horrible about the loss of his money. Unfortunately, his slight buzz is totally killed when he runs into the winger wanker who ran off with his benjamins. Barry fruitlessly chases the winger boy, named Chaco, now named Cocko, around the district until he corners him on a rickety wooden platform. Far past the point of being peaceful and good-natured, Barry screams, “You little punk, I’ll kill you!!!” Cocko gets out of a beating at the hands of this enraged gay teenager by opening his wings and flying off, and acting like this is a stunning, amazing escape in the process. Yeah, I would have never guessed that the kid with WINGS would FLY AWAY.
Despite the utter predictability of Cocko’s flight to safety, Barry is nonetheless left alone and seething with rage. And the absence of any dashing ’80s front men in ripped jeans and ruffly blouses doesn’t improve his mood. Cursing the world, Barry walks straight over to the other side of the river, where the kobold district is. I must be a glutton for punishment, talking to all these kobolds in one go. It’s like two whole villages full of dogfaced Shions.
As in Kobold Village, there’s no one here at the moment who feels like tagging along with Barry on his grand gay adventures. Temporary sigh of relief. There is, however, a rather fantabulous armor shop just begging for Barry’s missing cash, as well as an item shop selling all sorts of weird Kobold delicacies. Yeah, I’m all for a expanding your palette and so on, but kobold pie sounds about as appetizing as spotted dick.
Loading ...Feeling distinctly grouchy now, as he really wanted to try that “Dark Chowder,” Barry slumps back to the human side of town. But once he gets there, he sees something that makes him forget all about Cocko, his money, and the IQ points he lost in the kobold district.
On the steps of Two River’s town hall, Big Gay Fitcher is pleading frantically with a Doberman-like kobold. “For the crime of desertion while on a reconnaissance mission to South Window,” the Kobold, named Ridley, is saying, “and then compounding the crime with a lie about bringing back the person who defeated the Highland Army, you, [Big Gay] Fitcher, are hereby sentenced to 100 lashes!” To emphasize his point, Ridley cracks a whip in his hands. Big Gay Fitcher, instead of saying the safe word, shrieks that he didn’t lie about anything, and that “Lord Barry will be here any minute now!” Before he goes to make his presence known, Barry digs a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and crosses “Dominatrix kobold whipping scenario” off his list of Kinky pornos to look for at the video store.
When Barry intrudes on this sexual roleplay, Fitcher points at him like he’s Harry Potter, insisting to the crowd at large that here stands the person who kicked Salon Jhee’s ass. Shockingly, several people, including Ridley, comment that Barry is just a kid, too young or scrawny or gay or what-have-you to have bested the Highland Army. “His right hand!” Fitcher shrills. “He’s got the same rune on his right hand as the hero, Genkaku, did…the Bright Shield Rune. That should be proof enough!!!” Ridley demands to see Barry’s lightning-bolt scar rune. When Barry holds out his delicate little hand, Ridley immediately capitulates. “It is the Bright Shield Rune! I understand. Please come this way. I’d like you to meet Lord Makai, the leader of our town.” Barry follows Ridley inside, away from the Two River citizens, all murmuring among themselves about Genkaku. You know, Barry’s (grand)dad.
‘Yes, master!’
Barry is escorted by Ridley into a large office rather like Granmeyer’s office in South Window. There he “meets” Lord Makai, the feeble-chinned guy on the dumbass side of the table back at Jowston Hill. Makai introduces himself as the “plenipotentiary of Two River City.” Barry pretends to know what that is so they can get down to business. Makai seems all giddy about the idea of joining up with Barry and his Yaoi Army so they can give those Highland jerkwads a sound beatdown. This is quite a turnaround from Makai’s previous attitude, but hey, Barry will take all the able-bodied men he can get his hands on. Wink.
“Incidentally, Lord Barry,” Makai inquires, “I heard you were involved in some sort of incident here in Two River?” He is, of course, referring to that fuckstick Cocko pickpocketing our hero. I don’t know how he “heard” about this, since Barry was alone at the time and hasn’t told anyone about it yet, but whatever. Barry confirms that he’s missing his man-purse, causing Ridley and Makai to blow up about “those punks,” the wingers. “Those flying freaks are nothing but trouble,” Makai whines, and adds some exposition: “Originally, they lived in the mountains beyond here, but in my grandfather’s day, about 80 years ago, they came to live here….” He goes on that they’re official Two River citizens and all, but that no one likes them because they’re poor and they’re jerky. We all know this is going to turn into an important lesson for everyone in Two River, because Wingers Are People Too, but I don’t see how the wingers are really improving their lot in life by robbing innocent tourists and scampering around barefoot. That’s really helping the old public image, guys.
Now that the diplomatic niceties have been dispensed with, Big Gay Fitcher escorts Barry back to the New Leaf Inn, where they’ve already checked him in. Knowing Big Gay Fitcher, Barry is going to open the door and find himself in the Jungle Room or something. But in fact, when he gets to his room, Barry finds Cocko waiting by the open window. “I asked granny to read that ‘letter of introduction’ for me,” he tells Barry. “Are you really the leader of the Yaoi Army?” Barry says that he is, not that the winger brat cares: “Sorry, I can’t believe you. See ya. By the way, I went ahead and ate up your dinner for you!” With that, he flies out the window. Barry can’t do much except lean out the window and shake his fist.
Fucking wingers.
The next morning, Barry wakes up and goes downstairs to find Big Gay Fitcher hopping from foot to foot and wringing his hands. “Lord Makai and Lord Ridley are fighting!” he lisps frantically. “Something about a Highland spy….please hurry to the assembly hall.” Because it’s not only Barry’s business if Makai and Ridley are having a lovers’ quarrel, but it’s also his job to be the peacemaker. Stupid Big Gay Fitcher. But since he has nothing better to do, Barry does as asked and returns to Makai’s office.
Sure enough, Makai and Ridley are having quite the row when Barry walks in. Makai is in the middle of promising Ridley that he’d never plot behind the kobold’s back, or have relations with the kobold’s pool boy brother. “I don’t know whether it’s the whole truth or not,” Ridley says, “but we can no longer afford to fight side by side with you humans.” And seeing Barry standing there just exacerbates the problem, as Ridley immediately assumes that Barry is taking Makai’s side like a typical icky human. Before anyone can protest, Ridley storms out in a huff–maybe to go calm down over a steaming kobold pie. If you follow me.