Back in the war room, Miklotov demands to know what’s going on with Ridley, while Camus mutters smugly, “The State Army’s bad habit has shown itself.” Hey, just because you’re Barry’s new favorite doesn’t mean you get to be all insubordinate. After some bickering, Shu quiets them down and states, “This is no time to attack Ridley. We need a strategy to weaken Kiba. Everyone get some rest. The rest is my job.” He adds with a covert wink, “Lord Barry, you should get some rest too.”
Everyone in the war room says something along the lines of “Ridley………………….” and Barry gets sick of that after about five seconds, so he decides to return to his room and wait for Shu to show up for their “strategy meeting.” Unfortunately, Eilie is waiting next to his bed. UGH. NOT NOW, LADY. As if it’s not bad enough that she’s invited herself into Barry’s bedroom, she asks him, “Whoah….are you okay? I heard it was a lost cause.” She should know about lost causes. “C’mon perk up!” she adds, and that is not happening in a million years, Eilie. “In war, it’s the last one standing who wins. Well, see ya later.” Barry manages to not throw a chair at her as she leaves the room.
As Barry drifts off to sleep, we transition to his nightmares, where his ex-boyfriend is making final preparations for his wedding to his worst enemy’s sister. He’d rather be awake again, making out with Eilie, but he has to suffer through it. King Agares–seen here for the first time outside of a sepia-toned flashback–asks the bride, “Jillia……you’re certain this is what you want?” I’m kind of amazed anyone thought to ask her. She has about as much agency in this plot as a poker chip. But Jillia replies, “Yes……I will have him as my husband.” Oh, this poor woman. I mean, she met Barry and Jowy, and even let them tussle around on her canopy bed. She knows what’s up. King Agares, now that he knows his daughter is fine with being chattel, gives them his blessing, and Jillia leaves with an escort, so Jowy can take something called the “Knight’s Oath.” Only the king, the prospective knight, and a witness, in this case Adolf, can be present. Adolf giggles out loud as Jillia leaves, so I’m sure nothing bad is about to happen.
The second Jillia is off the screen, Agares announces, “I hereby recognize you, Jowy Atreides, as a Knight in service of the Highland Kingdom.” All these fucking knights and their needless capitalization. It’s starting to get worse than the punctuation plague. Jowy faces Agares and speaks his part of the ritual: “I, Jowy Atreides swear eternal fealty to King Agares Blight of Highland and I seal this oath with my blood.” Then Adolf accepts a glass of wine from some dude in a skirt. “As witness, I recognize the ‘Wine of Fealty’,” he says. He takes a sip immediately, not even bothering to swish it around a bit or sniff it. Ugh, how unrefined. Then he announces, “It’s taste is good….” Siiiiiiiiigh.
Dude.
To complete the ritual, Adolf takes the wine glass over to Jowy, who…well. What he’s actually doing is cutting his wrist with a dagger and spilling his blood into the wine glass. What it looks like he’s doing is taking out his penis and jacking it in front of his new liege lord, before shuddering in release. Yeah, it drips red, but as we’ll see in a moment, that could just be a reaction to his recent diet. Jowy offers the traditional jizz wine to his king as proof of his loyalty, who accepts it graciously. “Knight Jowy Atreides, just as your [semen] is added to my own, so too are you added to the life[semen] of the Highland Army.” Agares drinks deeply, savoring the flavors of oak, chocolate, and cum, and intones, “Now as loyal knight in service of the Highland Kingdom and the Blight Royal Family, I ask you to….to………” And before he can tell Jowy what he wants him to do–but let’s be honest, it’s probably to give him more jizz wine–he drops to his knees and spits up a red liquid which could be anything in this fantasy I’ve invented from one suggestive sprite animation. The priest in the skirt runs out, yelling “Call the King’s physician!!!” at himself, and very smartly leaving him in the room with the two men who most recently handled the wine he was drinking.
Those two men, for their part, stand together and stare at Agares dispassionately. Adolf, his dream of getting rid of his father realized, has a moment of circumspect levity. Just kidding! He goes, “He…Hee…………..HEE HEE HEE HA HA HA!!!” He is the worst. Since I already Godwinned this guy years and years ago, I feel comfortable in saying he is carrying out the Holocaust on the English language. Agares, from the floor, gasps at his son, “You…..this is poison……….. S…so you were planning….. But….but how……” I think people in this game just leak punctuation when they die. Adolf indulges his father in exposition, since he’s not going to be able to tell anybody. “Yes, it was difficult,” Adolf agrees. “You’re a hard man to reach. You don’t even take a sip of water without having it tasted first. But now I’ve finally managed to rid myself of the last weight around my neck.” It should tell us something about Agares that he doesn’t want to share his jizz wine with any tasters.
Agares asks with more lethal ellipses drips if his son is so far gone that he’d kill his own father. It seems like Jowy was the killer here, not Adolf, but let’s not quibble when Adolf has a metric ton of daddy issues to get off his chest. “Ha!!!” he barks. “You old fool!!! How dare you call yourself ‘father’?” He walks over to Agares, like he’s going to kick him in his old man balls. “You couldn’t protect your own wife! You’re a coward who made peace with a country of dogs!!!” All Agares can do is sputter incoherently. “Who did nothing when my mother and I were callously dishonored!!! Who was trembling on the throne when we were finally saved by the imperial guards!!!!!!!!”
So, I’m not sure how much of this is lost in translation, or is left purposely oblique here, but Adolf is upset because his dad ran away while his mom was gang-raped by some Musian criminals. And then his mom died after giving birth to Jillia, a.k.a. her rape baby. What a light-hearted family history! Wonderful. Like, don’t get me wrong, Adolf is still a complete psychopath, and murder is, like, not okay. But man. This is rough. I want to go back to visualizing Jowy ejaculating into a wine glass.
Okay, now you know the story. Let’s move on before I get too sad. “This is your punishment, old man,” Adolf says, facing away from his father. “Your sentence is death. All that remains is to wipe the unclean ones off this planet. This world must be cleansed….” Agares weakly asks, “What about….Sara……” which is his dead wife’s name, so you can imagine that Adolf doesn’t take that all that well. And with those last futile words, Agares Blight dies. A character dying in his first scene with spoken lines has to be a new record.
Once his father has stopped moving, Adolf regains his sense of humor. “Well done, Jowy Atreides,” he tells the probably TMI-stricken Jowy. “So…you were the last knight to swear allegiance to Agares! Hoo hoo hoo ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!” This moment is so unbearably awkward for him, in fact, that he too drops to the floor. Adolf keeps talking like this did not happen. “That was a brilliant idea,” he says to Jowy’s unconscious body. “Drinking antitoxin daily and then poisoning your own blood….” That wily Jowy! Using his cleverness to kill a crazy person’s dad.
Because it wasn’t awkward enough in here, Jillia overhears the commotion and runs back into the room. She screams, “Father!!!! Open your eyes! Father!!!” only for Adolf to smugly inform her that her pleading is too late, and also that he wasn’t her real dad anyway. Dry those tears, Jillia! He wasn’t your real dad. Jesus. Jillia is so upset that she just sobs into Adolf’s chest and doesn’t even ask why her soon-to-be husband is passed out on the carpet. This horrible scene, which started with such amusing promise, mercifully fades to black.
The next morning, Barry is roused from his horribly vivid nightmare about Jowy by Dr. Huan, for no real reason. I wonder if the random assholes in HoYay Castle draw straws each morning to get to wake their Dear Leader. Not really rested and feeling distinctly irritable, Barry flops out of bed and walks downstairs to the war room, where everyone is waiting again. Just once, he’d like this meeting to be about what he wants to do for his birthday (roller disco party) and not his imminent defeat and death. “Okay, everyone’s here,” Bear says. But, but, Gengen’s not here! We can’t start without Gengen! Bear ignores me and asks, “Well, Mr. Strategist, have you come up with a plan?”
To set up his strategy, Shu has Apple explain that the Highland Army has left South Window and Radat and is marching on HoYay Castle, in a “frontal assault like before.” Not Barry’s favorite kind of assault, truth be told. Flik calls Kiba a “one-trick pony,” even though it was Salon Jhee who tried that before. Shu explains the plan. “We’ll leave half of our army behind. Lord Barry will lead this as our main unit,” he tells the group. Barry is in charge of the main unit! He’s gonna command that unit so hard. “The other half will be divided into 4 units led by [Bear], Flik, Tsai and Camus. They’ll line up on the right and left sides. When Kiba is right between them, they’ll fan out and surround him.”
Camus asks a tough question, but makes sure to phrase it in the sexiest way possible: “If Kiba ignores the ambush and thrusts his way in, will we be able to stop him with our smaller numbers?” Barry tries and fails to avoid thinking about Klaus thrusting toward him. But Shu non-answers, “Kiba and his son won’t be able to defeat my plan.” Shu may as well print “I AM UP TO SHENANIGANS” on some business cards and pass them around, but Bear misses this glaring foreshadowing and wonders, “You’re pretty confident. You’ve never miscalculated before?” Shu basically ignores him and says, “The explanation is finished. Lord Barry, if all is ready, please give the signal to deploy.” Barry immediately complies, like Shu is the world’s hottest Hypno Toad.
South of the castle, as Barry’s lone unit faces two groups of Highland units to the south and east, Apple informs Shu, “Lords [Bear], Flik, Tsai and Camus have finished their preparations.” Shu says gently to his lover, “Lord Barry, Try to lure General Kiba in without moving.” Barry shrugs and orders his men to drop their pants and start vigorously waving their peckers at the Highland soldiers.
At the sight of the Yaoi Army’s naked, jiggling genitals, Kiba says, “This Barry is a brave young man indeed. Twice he has dared to face us. He is truly the son of Genkaku.” I bet Genkaku wagged his penis in his buddy Han’s face too. Kiba adds, anvils dripping from his every word, “Without Ridley, it seems they have little chance, but… What do you think, Klaus?” Klaus quickly and easily identifies Shu’s plan, or at least his stated plan. “They’ll attack once we’re close enough,” he tells his dad. But when Kiba suggests splitting up their forces to counter this, Klaus says, “The enemy strategist, Shu, despises us. He probably thinks we haven’t noticed his ambush. That’s our best chance. Even when the ambush is sprung, tell our men to pay no attention and continue to drive forward. Defeat Barry and we win.” Oh, that clever young man. Why are all the hot ones from Highland? Kiba praises his son’s savvy and commands, “Give the order to strike like the wind!” The Prick, with his men in the eastern group, says less inspiringly, “Remember if you mess this up, it might hurt my career, too.” It’s a wonder he hasn’t been promoted.
After a few turns of Barry playing coy while Kiba and Klaus sloooooowly move their men northwest, Shu says, “Okay, give the signal,” and over Apple’s argument that it’s too soon, the rest of the army appears around Barry. Camus says something dumb about his sword, named “Uriah,” cutting through his enemies. I wonder if these guys all name their penises, too. It would make the Warriors’ Village tradition of sword-naming a little awkward. Klaus is delighted that his instincts were correct, and commands his men, “All forces advance!!! Go for their main unit!!!” Klaus knows what he wants, guys.