After their delicious kielbasa dinner–during which, I’m sure, there were no suggestive glances between the men, because they were all too busy pining for Chris, obviously–the knights sit around their meeting room, looking pensive. Roland stands with his back to the wall, staring sideways out the window in an insufferably pretentious manner. Chris sits rod-straight on a sofa, eyes closed and mouth set in a line, until Tootie and Percival return from doing the dishes or playing grab-ass or whatever. Percival says robotically, “I hope you found our culinary creation enjoyable.” Borus responds, “I’d expect such talents from you, Percival, but I had no idea Lord [Tootie] could cook.” Sassy! Borus has probably seen Percy in a pink apron and nothing else, bent over a stove. Tootie, again with the stiff deadpan dialogue, responds, “My family has always enjoyed preparing food.” Bubba thinks his wiener was “a little bland,” and not full of the spicy juices he craves. Percy promises his will be good and spicy next time, and offscreen Borus is probably glaring daggers.
The boys are so engrossed in innuendo that they’ve all probably forgotten Chris is in the room, but she says from the sofa, “I’ve certainly enjoyed everything from the food to the company. I’m grateful for all your hard work, gentlemen.” Hee hee. They work hard, and they play hard. Percy falls all over himself to soak up Chris’s praise, putting himself in the lead in the beard arms race.
Now that the niceties of stilted socializing and thinly veiled innuendo are taken care of, Chris says briskly, “Let’s get down to business. I would like to hear your opinions.” She finally tells the entire group that they have new orders from the Zexen Council, which are, in Chris’s words, “To subjugate the Lizard Clan.” I guess the Council is sick of looking at those tails and feeling emasculated. Roland immediately says, “Conquer the Great Hollow? That is not a pleasant task.” Like they don’t desperately want to fill up the Great Hollow. With soldiers.
Bubba is worried about the logistics of filling up the Great Hollow. “I don’t mind giving those scaly creeps a hard time,” he says, while I giggle, “but to crush them, we’d need at least two months to prepare.” But Chris insists that the Council doesn’t want to plunge into the Great Hollow and destroy it; rather, she says, “I think it’s a matter of saving face and retaining the upper hand.” Remaining the top in their diplomatic relations, as it were. Percy thinks this is a cynical ploy by the war hawk members of the Council to bump their poll numbers in an election year, and he’s probably not wrong, though I really don’t care. Only Borus seems unreservedly excited about their mission: “And we can retaliate for our last defeat. We have to save face too!” Someone else is still feeling tiny and impotent! They all agree that they want to avenge the deaths of Myriam and Lanchet, those two guys we never met, but they’re less enthusiastic about charging dicks-first into the Great Hollow, like it has anal dentata or something.
‘Humans ride their horses like this, but elves ride their horses like thiiiis.’
Tootie agrees that attacking the Hollow directly would be a mistake, and adds, practically trolling me at this point, “The smartest move would be to open fire and finish before we reach the Great Hollow.” All the other knights agree to adopt Tootie’s strategy, as much as they’d obviously like to show off their stamina in front of those fucking lizards. Tootie says Operation Great Hollow Bukkake will take a few days to prepare, so Chris agrees that they’ll set out, figurative (and literal) dicks in hand, as soon as possible.
Before the meeting breaks, Boy reminds Chris that there’s something she forgot to mention. When she asks what that is, he announces, “That you were formally appointed as the captain of the Knights.” Chris is offscreen so I can’t see her icy frown, but she must at least be thankful he didn’t call her Captain Silver Maiden or something. Because Boy is clearly swelling with pride at his lady’s promotion, it’s actually a little sad when Bubba laughs at him and tells him no one gives a shit. “The Council’s approval does not determine the appointment of a captain,” he tells the crestfallen child. Borus adds as he stares creepily at Chris, “[Boy], the captain is someone who we, as knights, can entrust our lives to. Nothing more, nothing less.” See, she’s already the captain of their hearts. Barf.
The knights refuse to give the Council the satisfaction of toasting Chris’s promotion at their hands, so instead Bubba proposes a toast “with our captain” to Operation Great Hollow Bukkake. Tootie stands up and voices his agreement. “Splendid idea,” he says. “Let’s do it. [Boy], how about……a tall, frosty glass of milk for you?” I initially read this as “frothy” and I am ashamed to say where my mind went with this. Which was, “Who’s filling up the glass?” As Boy cries that he has to drink “milk” and doesn’t get booze like the adults, Chris permits herself a small smile, like it’s her once-a-day treat for doing so well on Weight Watchers.
The next morning, Boy walks into Chris’s room, heavy-lidded and sluggish like he stayed up all night drinking “milk” and rapping LMFAO at the top of his lungs. Actually, it turns out that he really is hung over on actual wine. “Let that be a lesson for you,” Chris scolds him. “Percival sure had fun getting you drunk.” Yeah, Boy sure was in the wrong there, and not the adult who funneled wine down his throat. Shame on you, Boy! You practically roofied yourself!
I need to get away from this scene before I really start ranting. Chris leaves her chambers and checks in with Tootie, who was no doubt also complicit in getting Boy drunk. Tootie sees the look that Chris always has on her face and assumes something is wrong, but she’s fine, and “feeling a little better,” I guess after she too did Jäger shots with Boy. “I’m going to make my rounds,” she finishes. Making her rounds of the castle and town sounds like the world’s safest and most boring activity, unless she catches Percy and Borus making out behind a weapons rack. Nonetheless, Tootie says seriously, “Please do take care.” She might chip a nail on a doorknob!
Bubba’s entering Ass Castle’s biweekly wet T-shirt contest.
Chris tells Tootie she’ll worry about their battle preparations later and fills up her party with the rest of her knightly entourage. For the record, when Borus is put in the party he promises, “I’ll show you my blade.” Clearly, he is not addressing Chris.
The knights level up a bit on the plains–Roland, at one point, shoots an arrow between the legs of Percival’s horse. That has to be a metaphor. After having a picnic lunch of Tootie and Percival’s leftover wieners and spending some skill points at Buttfuck Castle just to help out those poor vagrants, the knights return to Ass Castle. Chris still needs to sit down with Tootie to go over their army’s logistical and tactical concerns heading into Operation Great Hollow Bukkake. I’m kidding–Chris just tells Tootie she’s ready to fight the Lizard Clan and then they leave. I’m sure Tootie took care of that stuff on his own, since he got left behind while the sexier knights were off screwing in the boonies when Chris’s back was turned.
‘They won’t even make it Facebook official!’
Five minutes later, the entire Zexen army is outside, with our principals in the front, mounted and ready to go. Chris delivers a truly emotional pre-battle speech: “We will now follow through with our Zexen Council orders and attack The Lizard Clan of the Great Hollow!” Who wouldn’t be ready to run through a brick wall after hearing that? Whoo, following through with our orders! Tootie shouts, more stirringly, “Revenge will be sweet. Stay in battle formation. We will prove that Zexens are a force to be reckoned with!”
Sadly, the game skips what I’m sure would have been titillating travel banter among our knights and gets straight to the battle outside the Great Hollow. Tootie notes that they will have to contend with both the Lizards and the Karayans, who we know relocated there after Chris happened to their village. The goal here is to defeat five enemy units, and of course I lose if anything happens to precious Chris. After a Zexen redshirt confirms that Borus and Percival are “in place” elsewhere–I shouldn’t have to tell you what they’re doing–Chris orders Bubba to take the lead in a spearhead formation. “You heard the Captain!” Bubba shouts giddily. Before taking off into the fray herself, Chris also asks Tootie to personally signal for Borus and Percival to get dressed and enter the battle. “I want the timing right,” she tells him. She doesn’t want to ruin their romantic moment, after all.
The three visible Zexen units, led by Chris, Bubba, and Roland, move conspicuously forward. The lizards, on their turn, basically go, “Conspicuous Zexens! Get everyone out here to gawk at them!” New Grassland units appear, led by Well-Endowed Dupa, Shiba, and a new Portrait Lizard named Bazba. The lizards on the front line attack, only to be truly embarrassed by Chris and Roland. On their next turn, Lucia, Beecham, and the Karayans show up. “For you, little girl, getting out of here alive will not be so simple!” Lucia yells across the battlefield. Chris is too busy icily glaring back at her, so Bubba responds, “By your cowardly acts, our comrades are gone forever. But now we will have retribution!” See, it’s ironic and stuff because both sides think they are justifiably out for revenge when each did nothing wrong.
Right when Chris’s unit–her unit of fighters, you guys, though that would explain why her knights are all so crazy about her–is getting tired of wiping lizard blood off their armor, Percy and Borus pop up from the north and south. I am totally disappointed that they were on opposite sides of the battlefield and therefore did not have a pre-battle tryst in a secluded glen in the woods. Later, perhaps. Making up for the lost opportunity, I guess, Percy cries, “Follow me in!” He’s penetrating the Great Hollow!
This explains why he was hip thrusting over Beecham’s body.
Percy and Borus make short work of Lucia and Beecham’s units, and after cleaning up the remnants of the generic lizard units, Dupa and Lucia order their troops to withdraw back into the Great Hollow. Chris shouts, stealing Percy’s thunder, “Follow me in!” But Boy hangs back to pluck something off a Grasslander corpse. Borus explains that these are the “spoils of war,” their just reward for chopping off so many lizard tails. It’s an Evasion Ring, not a dildo decorated with feathers and beads, so Borus loses interest and lets Boy keep it.
Outside the Great Hollow, the knights approach as the fighting at the entrance is already underway. Percival tries to tell Borus and Bubba to keep their rage boners in their pants, but they’re not having it, because blah blah revenge for some guy and some other guy. Chris tells them, “Your point is taken, but today, our main goal is to demonstrate our power. Don’t get distracted and stray from the main group!” Yeah, Borus. From about a half mile back, Tootie says, “Milady, I will take up position at the rear to observe the progress of the battle.” All this hard work killing lizards, and Tootie is always the one to take up position at the rear. The other knights are no doubt annoyed by this.
This obviously happens a lot when they’re together.
After Tootie warns her to be careful again, for the love of Percy’s homemade wieners, the knights fight their way through a few rounds of generic, hung lizards and make their way to the entrance. Borus shouts at the gaping hole, “Is anyone in the Lizard Clan brave enough to challenge the Six Knights of Zexen?” I’m sure there’s at least a tiny part of him that hopes no one answers, because he doesn’t want to take the risk of looking tiny and shriveled in front of Percy Chris. But almost immediately, Shiba and five Lizardclones charge out of the Great Hollow, spears in hand. Shiba’s unit was defeated by Chris’s unit in the army battle, but I guess he’s all better now. “You inferior hardheads know nothing of the honor of fighting!” he yells at Chris. “Let me be the one to avenge the murder of our late chief!” Before Chris can reply, “What?” Shiba charges forward.
The battle against Shiba should be fairly straightforward, but Bubba, bless him, charges in, determined to steal Borus’s limelight and be the one who gets to make out with Percy in the woods next time. As a result, he takes the collective beating of six grief-stricken, testosterone-filled lizard warriors and drops dead in two turns. I am extremely disappointed that Roland does not berserk at Bubba’s death, since that is the one unmistakable sign of true love in the Suikoden series.
Obviously, the remaining knights are able to pull out (hee) a victory. Shiba mopes, “As I feared, the Six Knights were too much for us!” They retreat back inside to escape the sight of Borus openly masturbating. Tootie rides up, gives Borus a pointed look to tuck his dick away, and tells Chris, “Events seem to be going well, Captain.” Bubba and Percy are ready to knock more lizard skulls together, but Chris says, leveling her gaze at Borus, “Let’s not get carried away. We’re here to show them the dignity of Zexen, not exterminate them.” This catches us up with what Hugo witnessed last time, but just so the narrative doesn’t get weird: Lucia, Well-Endowed Dupa, Bazba, and Beecham come out of their hidey hole to yell at Chris for both burning down Karaya Village, which is fair, and killing Chief Zepon, which kind of isn’t. When Dupa mentions his “oath of vengeance” for Chris’s act of treachery, she just sneers that she has a duty to protect Zexen. At no point does she go, “What? I didn’t kill any lizard chieftains.” Though I think the narrative with multiple viewpoints largely works well in this game, in this specific case, I just want to yell at the screen, “Tell each other what you know!” like this is an episode of Lost.
Before things can get even more heated, since no one present feels like addressing this clear contradiction of their respective stories, a Zexen messenger runs up to Tootie. “Sir! The Harmonian army has reached eastern Grassland! We must retreat! Immediately!” Oh, right! The Harmonians. I hope you’ll forgive me for forgetting everything that happened in Geddy’s first chapter, because it almost never gets referenced in the rest of the game. The 12th Unit is an island. Anyway, this message comes direct from the Zexen High Council of Assholes, which suddenly means it is beyond suspicion or cynicism. Whatever. Tootie and Chris order a full retreat, so we at least know now that it wasn’t Fubie screeching that made them leave. Good, because that would have been insanely stupid.