The Brigadier wants to know, “B-But what about security at the altar?” An altar? Is this finally the shrine to the naked male form I’ve always known would be in this series? But why hide it on a mountain? It should be in the center of every town on the continent, like the Althena statues. The Mask assures him that the Altar of Man Love will be fine, and no such security will be necessary–I mean, they’re only going out to invade a village and maybe get the mail! The door will be unlocked for like five minutes! No one’s going to get in!
When they’re alone again, Sarah asks about this emissary from Caleria the Mask mentioned earlier. “Are you talking about Yuber?” she wonders. Yes, that Yuber. Since Jeanne spells it out in the Suikoden recap, I will skip playing dumb: Yuber is the Man in Black. I know this is a shocking revelation–an ageless blond villain who likes wearing black shows up as an ageless blond villain who likes wearing black! Staggering. Anyway, no, that’s not who the Mask means, as he has procured himself a different bodyguard detail for whatever the fuck it is they’re even doing there. Well, plundering the Altar of Man Love is part of the plan. Obviously. As the camera pans away from the pair, we see that Joker is crouched behind a wall, listening intently.
These posters are unsettling for reasons I can’t put my finger on.
A black screen later, Joker has explained the imminent threat to the Altar of Man Love. Ace says Joker must have “devil’s ears” for hearing this so well, while Joker insists it’s more about lip-reading skill. “Oh. An unusual skill,” Ace replies. “Foreign magic, huh?” Oh, just fuck already. Good grief. Geddy ignores their sexually charged banter and brings them back to the Altar of Man Love discussion. Ace suggests they ask Iku about it.
Back in Iku’s home in the basement of a mantor hive, Geddy and Ace get Queen up to speed. When they get to the bit about the Altar of Man Love, Iku helpfully chimes in, “The altar…? Oh, are you talking about the altar of the Mantor trainers?” Called it. Iku explains further, “Well, when the Flame Champion invaded Harmonia, back when this village was still fighting as part of Grassland, the Flame Champion Isaac built an altar on Mt. Senai in the north and asked that it be protected. Because of the Harmonian occupation, the insect trainers began referring to the altar of the Flame Champion as their own so that the authorities would not destroy it.” I am pretty sure this place is just an ornate bath house and they don’t want the Harmonians using up all their scented soaps.
As Geddy stands there stone-faced, Ace concludes that standing around Iku’s house and expositing is not getting them anywhere. “If that bishop general is after that altar,” he suggests, “maybe we should go ahead and beat him to it.” Iku agrees to show them the way and joins the party as a guest, and only then does Geddy unhelpfully murmur, “The altar of the Flame Champion…” It becomes apparent after a while why Ace thinks he’s the one really in charge, since Geddy seems to mentally check out when they’re actually trying to make decisions.
After a quick trip to the inn to save, where Geddy is handed a no-doubt terrible spec script surely intended for Nadir’s future theater, Geddy gets ready to leave Le Buque, but not before running into another cutscene featuring the Mask, Sarah, and the Bug Brigadiers. He informs them that the emissary has arrived, so they’ll be heading off for war against their former countrymen now. “I expect great things of you, so do well,” the Mask adds. Don’t forget, young Bug Brigadiers, that victory will mean being treated merely like poor people, instead of not like people at all!
Because Franz is special, he gets a moment before mounting his mantor to run up to Iku and try to guilt her into accepting his morally dubious choices. “I’m leaving now….” he tells her unnecessarily. “I wish you understood why. I’m…doing this for the village…. No, the truth is, I’m doing this for you. You’re what I’m fighting for. Remember that…. Farewell.” Even ignoring my normal penchant for dismissing any heterosexual relationships in this series, I am having a really hard time with the concept that Franz and Iku even like each other, let alone that they’re in squishy hetero love. All they’ve done since Geddy got here is frown at each other in disappointment. As if she’s trying to bring me around, Iku calls for Franz to wait and pleads to his back, again, “All right. I won’t try to stop you. Not if it’s what you really believe in. But, please…be careful…. And make sure you come back alive.” Nope, sorry Iku, still not buying it. I’m sure if he died fighting for the Harmonians she’d sigh deeply and maybe even cry a little, but I get the sense she’d forget his name in a week or so.
As they all watch the Bug Brigadiers take off, Aila asks Iku why she didn’t hold him back. She responds, “I believed what the people of the village were saying. And I still believe it. However…however…I also know that Franz is doing this for the village. And…if I don’t believe in him, who would? I think he’d give up hope for good.” Didn’t he just tell her that he’s really only doing it for her personally? And if she believes all the nasty shit everyone she knows says about him, does she really believe in him? I mean, just break up. Seriously. No one is happy here. Aila puts it more succinctly: “That’s her reason?” I know, right? Ace, of course, replies that Iku’s totally existent feelings of love for Franz and his penis are “too deep for a child to grasp.” Meanwhile, Joker hears him say “too deep” and wonders what private details of their love life Ace is blabbing about to the girls this time.
The 12th Unit walks to the village entrance, finally unhindered by cutscenes, but Iku ruins it with one last intrusion on my freedom of movement. “Remember the road I showed you before?” she asks them. Um…no? Did I miss some other cutscene? How could I have possibly missed any? Well, this phantom road will lead them right to the Altar of Man (and maybe Bug) Love, she explains. Queen thanks her for this baffling advice, and adds, “Stay tough, girl. You need to with such an intense boyfriend.” I would totally agree if it seemed like either of them had any emotional attachment to each other whatsoever. Iku goes, “Uh, thank you,” because what else do you say when people keep assuming the town douchebag is fucking you? And with that, Iku walks back to town alone. So showing our heroes the way to the altar means telling them to follow the road she never showed them and then bailing before they’re even out of town? What?
Aila decides to ask Joker what’s going to happen to this village, and whether it will remain part of Harmonia or be returned to Grassland. Joker doesn’t answer, “I’ll let you know when I become a fortune-teller,” but he does offer some vague hand-wavy bullshit about how hard it is for some to change lifestyles “when their native blood runs thick.” Like we didn’t just spend that entire time in Le Buque making clear that it’s not even up to the locals which country they will be a part of. Good call, Joker. Aila puts the cherry on top of this inane conversation sundae: “Hmm…. Well, I’m Aila of the Karaya Clan. I don’t think of myself as anything else.” Everyone else present thinks of her as that girl who won’t shut the fuck up. As for the guy who won’t shut the fuck up, Ace chimes in, “Hahaha! That’s my kind of thinking. And I’m Ace, the most able and desirable man in the number one defense team.” Joker responds predictably, that is, with anger and jealousy. Queen, who isn’t fucking the idiot who said this, just shakes her head and laughs about him thinking he’s a desirable man. Finally, Geddy can’t stand the sound of any of their voices anymore and starts walking out of town. Thank God. Out on the world map, they have an easy jaunt to the east to Mt. Senai.
Check out Joker throwing shade like a pro.
Naturally, the Altar of Man-Bug Love rests within a dark, deep, secret cave inside the mountain. The path to the altar is a mess of fissures in the earth crisscrossed by wooden catwalks, but while that sounds like a setup for a labyrinthine mess of a dungeon, there is actually only one way to go. Not that that’s going to stop Ace from complaining. “Phew!” he spits at his companions. “This is no fun. They get to fly those Mantor, and we have to hike up this steep mountain road with no rest in sight.” Joker asks him, incredibly, “Why ride on one of those when I could make you a magic broom instead?” The magic broom would be used for neither transportation nor cleaning work, obviously. But Ace gets all mad at this remark. I guess he doesn’t like having the surprise of his birthday present ruined. Queen says with a smirk that Ace riding this magic vibrating broom would be worth seeing, and now I’m seeing Queen and her presence in the 12th Unit in an entirely new light.
Our heroes fight their way through the cave and its denizens–primarily floating seahorses and skeletons with phallic skull horns, you know, the usual–until they reach the halfway mark, where they spot an alternate entrance to their right. And from that entrance emerge the Mask and Sarah, marching purposefully toward the back of the cavern. Geddy’s group is in plain view and they don’t even try to hide, but they aren’t spotted, even after Aila shouts out, “Hey, look!” like an idiot. Joker is like, “We see them too, stop screaming,” and then laments that they didn’t get the drop on them or get to check out the altar first. Geddy says cryptically, “Well, we can always count on our swords.” I don’t see how fighting the Mask is going to allow them to reach the altar first, given what a lead he has on them, but whatever. Ace, though, can’t let this comment go: “What?! We’re up against a bishop, you know! We could get into big trouble if we pull something here! Remember that!” Not only was this Ace’s idea, but oh, God forbid anybody get in trouble. He is such a baby. If he ever even did, though, Geddy has stopped giving the slightest shit about Ace’s whiny objections. “We’ll see,” he replies, not even looking at him. “Maybe it’s my age, but I’m starting to forget things lately.” Ace cries and flings unfinished paperwork into the air until everyone leaves him behind again.
Oh, dear. That is not a healthy discharge.
It’s a pretty uneventful journey from there to the back, where the gang finds an elaborate pillared entryway to the altar, complete with penisy torches. They mill around the entrance a bit before Ace asks, stupidly, “Did we lose them? Well, there’s only one road.” Like they’re not through that fucking arch you’re all standing in front of, oh my God. But for now, that doesn’t matter, since Joker points out they have company, and on cue Duke saunters in, followed by his weird doppelganger crew. Gazongas quickly disabuses Ace of the notion that they were following the 12th Unit: “Don’t flatter yourself!” she tells him. “Why would we want to follow the likes of you?” Why, indeed. As Duke explains, they are actually following the Mask, on his own orders, as he wanted “the most able man [sic] among the defense units” as bodyguards. Joker can’t resist the slam dunk burn: “The most able among the defense units?” he asks. “That’s strange. He should’ve gotten in touch with us instead.” Gau the nearly mute Kobold just utters “Well…” at this while giving Joker his best canine side-eye.
*motorboat noises*
Meanwhile, Queen is doing that thing again where she stares angrily and cattily “at” Gazongas but is really having a staring contest with Gazongas’s melons. Queen demands that she and her friends and her girls clear out of there before she deflates her chest with the back of her earring, but Gazongas evenly replies that the members of the Geddy Gang are the ones who need to get the hell out, since her gang is watching out for the Mask and that supple ass of his. It’s all very tense and Aila stares at them the whole time like she expects them to make out any second.
Picking up where Gazongas left off before jiggling to a corner, Duke tells Geddy to go home and let this one lie. Now, I have a choice as to what Geddy will say next, but he opens by shaking his head obstinately at Duke, and sure enough all three choices are some variant of “Fuck you, we go where we please.” Nonetheless, I have Geddy choose the most conciliatory option of the three, “We’re both in the defense force.” His logic is that, as brothers-in-arms or some bullshit, Duke should totally bail on his duty and let them pass to see what the Mask is up to in there. Duke tells him where he can shove that idea, and Geddy tells him they’re getting through no matter what his ginger ass says. And naturally, Duke takes this whole thing as one more personal slight, since he has a big old hatecrush on Geddy anyway. He reaches for the sword at his back and snarls, “It’s that attitude of yours that I don’t like!” No, he’s still talking to Geddy, not Ace.