He doesn’t even make it to Teresa’s Log Cabin of Martyrdom before he catches up with Lucia, standing next to Jowy. Oh, god dammit. Nanami is going to be a hot mess after this, and just once Barry would like to be the hot mess instead of the grown up who keeps a stiff upper lip. Fucking Jowy. The King of Highland tries to dispatch his blonde assassin, but she tells him, “Forgive me, sir, but I’d like to stay to protect you.” Oh please, lady, go find another wrong tree to bark up. But Jowy allows her to stay, possibly sensing that arguing would be pointless.
Nanami is shocked to see Barry’s GOOD FRIEND and has no idea what he’s doing here, but Barry, you, and I all know: he’s going to make attempt number 571 to get Barry to go AWOL on the Yaoi Army. It’s getting fucking sad, buddy. “Nanami…..Barry, as your friend, I have a request. Quit as leader of the Yaoi Army and run away somewhere. I…I don’t want to fight you.” Oh, do you hear that, guys? Jowy doesn’t want to fight Barry! He’s done such a great job demonstrating it! Meanwhile, PUGGY!!! is just standing to the side, thanking the Holy Soul Eater that at least when he had to be the tough guy in the face of a former ally, it was just his dad and not one of his boyfriends.
Barry says no, fucking obviously, just like he did three consecutive times in Muse. “Why…….” Jowy whines. “There’s no reason for you to be the leader of the Yaoi Army……” Back at you, hombre! Even Nanami is all, “I know! I’ve got it! Jowy can leave Highland….” And Jowy lamely answers, “I can’t do that….” Of course you can’t! You have reasons, I’m sure. (Obviously, I know that Jowy does in fact have reasons, and good ones, but they’re really no more solid than Barry’s, so he can stow it.) Finally, fucking finally, Jowy seems to get the memo. “I see…..so that’s how it is…. Just as I can’t turn back, you can’t turn back either…. Too much time has passed….. Neither of us can go back….to the way things were…..” Oh, word? Glad we got that cleared up after you murdered the old king with poisoned cum, murdered his successor with a wooden amulet, locked down their successor with a shotgun wedding, and then tried to riddle Barry with crossbow bolts. Barry was totally sure you were coming around any minute!
Of course, Jowy also refuses to pull out of Muse, per Nanami’s second suggestion, and end the war, though he does not have all that good a reason for that, just saying, again lamely, “That…..that won’t work. Nanami…….” Not that Nanami ever gets anything, but she does not fucking get this, and she screams “Why! Why!!” at Jowy. In response, he and Barry each raise their right hands and summon their True Buttsex Runes. Sigh! They both still think the sword and shield are symbols of conflict, and not symbols of doing it. What is their deal? Nanami? Back me up, here.
Nanami’s auditioning for the Four Seasons.
Instead, Nanami starts crying at the top of her lungs. Like you do. Jowy mansplains to Barry that they are “destined to fight each other,” taking his own turn at not fucking getting it. “But even if that’s our destiny,” he says, “I’d still like to think that we each gained something from this.” Well, they each gained several more loyal boyfriends. So…silver lining? Jowy turns to go, telling them that he will bring “a new order” to the world as the King of Highland. Snappier uniforms, for one thing. Nanami tries to follow him, still crying her face off, but Lucia prevents her from getting any closer to her liege lord. Barry just stands there, thinking of the most passive-aggressive way to get back at Jowy for rubbing salt in his wounds yet again. “Poaching Richard and Julia from the Highland Army” is currently winning out.
When Barry returns to the dorm, he finds Bear and Flik waiting with Klaus and Apple, and all of them are raring to go to battle, not knowing that Nanami basically spilled their plan to Jowy just now. But whatever! When the army arrives at Muse, the city’s defenders seem sparse next to the force at Barry’s command, but Jowy and Lucia are both present, along with Richard and Julia. Lucia tells her Karayan warriors, “Everyone, listen!! Remember your oath as warriors. Our survival as a tribe depends on this!” No pressure, though.
All Barry has to do to win this battle is get one unit inside the city, which is easy enough to do after the Highlanders spread themselves out and leave themselves open to sniping from archers or from Luc and Mazus’s units. (Mazus’s unit is just as arrogant and powerful as Luc’s, but their uniforms have more Doritos stains.) Making it even easier, after the third round of combat, Richard says, “Lord Jowy, preparations are complete. We can withdraw anytime.” But that never works, Richard! (Sorry.) Jowy does not want to leave until they can give the signal for Lucia to also retreat, something you’d think would take all of five seconds, but Richard says, “Let’s not lose our chance for victory.” I have no idea why Richard would be threatened by Lucia–clearly she is not competition–but maybe the fact that Jowy is now married to a lady is throwing him off. Jowy yells at them to give the fucking signal already, and since he’s king you’d think that would mean it gets fucking done, but Richard stonewalls him again. “To achieve ultimate victory,” he says, channeling Shu and Leon, “we must not sacrifice large gains for small ones. Lady Lucia understands this.” And the large gain here is getting Lady Lucia off his man’s jock.
Finally, Jowy orders the withdrawal, and only once he’s gotten his way does Richard immediately comply with his king’s orders. But I’m sure everyone really respects Jowy’s leadership! The Karayans inform their chief that King Jowy peaced out on them to rail his lieutenants in his royal salon, and Lucia, proving Richard right, I guess, answers, “I know!! It’s enough if we can buy some time.” Another Karayan hears this and tells her, no shit, “Once I foolishly thought you only a pretty face, but now I see you have the strength of your father. I’ll follow you anywhere!” Please excuse Lucia if she is not bowled over by the power of that compliment. She ignores the man, shouting, “Listen to me!!! You cannot die!!!! For the future of Karaya!!!!!” I am still wondering what Lucia thought she was gaining from this alliance with Highland. If the game went differently and (spoiler!) Highland won, would the Karayans have been made Highland aristocrats, and Hugo would have been a stuffy noble brat with a griffin feather boa instead of a live griffin companion?
Now that Lucia is on her own, the battle can also end if her unit is eliminated, and because Muse is alllll the way over there, I lazily switch gears to this option. This gives me the fright of my life when Georg Prime’s unit goes down, and he shouts–after he’s dispatched Lucia, like a boss–“At least I will die in battle.” Georg does not, in fact, die, but I am forced after the battle to eyefuck the stone tablets a dozen more times just to make sure. God dammit, Georg! My blood pressure! I haven’t saved in a fucking hour!
The Karayans plead with Lucia to flee, and she does, with a muted, “……..I’m sorry, Beechum.” Yes! Beecham/Beechum! We have come full circle. Incidentally, so has Jowy back in L’Renouille. He made quite a mess of Richard and Julia’s uniforms. Meanwhile, at the Muse gates, the Yaoi Army finds the city still creepy and deserted, and after their previous experiences here, they are immediately wary of something bad happening. So their irreplaceable leader takes a party of muscle (including Georg, just so I can breathe easier right away that he’s alive) into the city to derp around until they get jumped by something. Good plan, everyone! Barry sure is glad this is the best Klaus and Apple can come up with. Just ties him to Shu that much more tightly.
After Bear openly wonders if a monster is lurking somewhere to devour them “like Miklotov said,” hint hint, Barry runs all the way to city hall, where a Yaoi Army Suikoclone says he thought he saw something move inside. Bear basically says Barry is a giant pussy if he doesn’t go check it out, so in they go. Still with the great planning!
Seriously, Bear?
Inside, the Suikoclones are chased out by a monstrous golden wolf stalking down the stairs. It’s now obvious that Jowy knew he was going to do this and didn’t want Barry and Nanami to be eaten, so he tried to “reason” with them one last time. But I guess his caring didn’t extend so far that he could say, “Look, I don’t want you guys to be eaten by the Highland Royal Family Beast Familiar, so please be somewhere else that day.” Pretty fucking cold, Jowy. And he didn’t have the luxury of knowing that this party with Bear, Pesmerga, and Georg in it is going to kick that mongrel to the fucking dirt in two turns. Barry is really starting to think it might be over between them.
After the battle they hear more Suikoclones screaming, and outside in the streets they see at least three more golden wolves cornering their frightened soldiers. This party could easily take them all out, but Bear finally realizes Barry is supposed to not die and advises him to run. Tough shit, Suikoclones! It’s not like we don’t have thousands of you. They make it to the gates, where for some reason, Luc is waiting for them. That reason turns out to be haughtily delivered exposition. “That family….” he says, “they’re servants of the ‘Beast Rune’.” Ugh, that punctuation is making me a servant of the Beast Rune. Luc explains further, since Bear is all “DURRRRR, WHAT’S THAT,” that it was given to the Highland royals by Sasarai when Highland was officially spun off from Harmonia. Klaus wonders about the people of Muse and what Barry and Miklotov saw, and Luc says, “So that thing really does exist, eh. The ‘Beast Rune’ can only be awakened with a blood sacrifice.” Which they just contributed to by leaving their red shirts behind. Nice job, Barry! Luc has more good news: “If it’s been woken up, I guess it might manifest itself as a huge, bloodthirsty demon…. But I think the rune itself was carried off somewhere. I don’t sense its power anymore.” You do not need three guesses as to who is the holder of the rune now. Though now I wonder if the Beast Rune makes men act like dicks to Barry. Jowy is just not himself! Barry will stop the Beast Rune and then it’ll be clear tracks for the Barry/Jowy True Love Express! Choo choo!
Sigh.
‘Except in some really dark sexual fantasies.’
EVEN BETTER, now the Highland troops are back, no doubt waiting to see if their pets ate the Yaoi Army. Big Gay Fitcher rushes up to announce this, saying they should escape to the west, but Apple senses an ambush and says, “General Hauser, get your troops together and attack north. Thrust right into the center of the attackers and then retreat. There won’t be any soldiers waiting to ambush you there.” Well, right, because he will have attacked the soldiers in the north. Does Apple think ambush traps are laid directly behind visible soldiers? I know she’s trying to take Shu’s zen koan to heart, but this is sad. Nonetheless, her bizarre logic holds up and they all manage to escape. I mean, other than the dudes who got eaten by wolves. Can’t win ’em all!
Back at the castle, Shu is relieved everyone is safe–again “everyone” is excluding the wolf snacks, sorry bros–but now, per Waylon, they are “out of options” since they failed to retake Muse. But Bear and Shu seem generally optimistic that some good idea will spring fully formed out of the ether while they sleep, and they send Barry off to get some R&R. And on that non-comforting thought, we will leave Barry and his 99 boy problems. Join me in part 18, when nothing terrible will happen and I will not sob floods of tears. You must be thinking of some other game. Until then!