The really bad news, relatively speaking, is that now our metal-clad heroes are trapped. It’s imperative that Chris, at least, escape with her life, and thus we begin our first war battle of Suikoden III. The system has changed quite a bit from Suikoden II, as the rochambeau system is now gone entirely. In its stead we get a bunch of oval spaces occupied by any number of ally or enemy troops. In a nutshell: units move around and attack (sometimes with stat boosts from nearby units), which gives way to an extremely simplified, AI-heavy version of normal battle. It’s a fun system, but at the moment I’m none too happy with it because I wasn’t given the option to set up any of my units. So I’m stuck with a bunch of shitty generic Zexen Knights, and the one unit that doesn’t suck needs to stay out of battle so I don’t lose. Fortunately, the objective given to me is simple enough: get the fuck out of there as fast as possible.
Before Dupa’s and Lucia’s units can beat the snot out of Chris (and they would–the lizard fighters are freaking tanks), her unit fights its way past one Karayan group to the eastern part of the map to end the battle. Chris and Co. make a close escape and slow down once they’re at a safe distance. Borus, predictably, is furious. “Curse those Barbarians! I told you we shouldn’t trust them! Myriam and Lanchet! What’ll we ever do without them?” he says of the knights we still know nothing about. Everyone looks to Tootie for the game plan, and he announces that they will raid the nearby Karaya Village. Since the Karayans will have to retreat when they see their village under attack, the rest of the knights will be able to escape. Wow, brilliant! Bad haircuts must increase brain power or something. Set in their task, the knights ride to Karaya Village. Where nothing bad is going to happen. No, really. This is going to be one of those “safe” raids where no one gets hurt.
That is, no one important, anyway.
Tootie leads the men up the path and instructs the generic guys behind him to be as nice as possible in their raping and pillaging. Chris and Boy are left alone to ride up into the village, and, surprise surprise, at the top of the ride Chris immediately comes across burning huts and dead bodies. Yeah, this harmless raid is going perfectly, Tootie. “The fire is spreading quickly,” she says to herself. “Is it because of the wind? I can’t see any villagers,” she adds, as her horse steps over a dead Karayan or two. “La la la, if I can’t see it, it’s not dead!”
…No comment.
Chris doesn’t feel the need to participate in this charade herself, so she rides around the front of the village with no purpose in particular. Of course, she comes upon the coat of armor Jimba was refurbishing back in the first hour. And still more obviously, she recognizes it as belonging to her father. Who certainly isn’t anyone we know. Chris, who hasn’t read ahead in the script, is seeing red, and figures whoever was keeping this armor must have killed her father. Then comes her deliciously out-of-context line, “This village…We’ll be better off with it gone.”
And now for the encore presentation of the Death of Lulu. Jump, gasp, slash, guh, thud. I think my favorite part is the thud. Then again, the slash also has its merits. Oh, who am I kidding? The whole thing is awesome!
The scene, meanwhile, is playing out as it did before, with Hugo freaking out and Chris not batting an eyelash. She admits that she didn’t know it was just a kid attacking her. Chris, it wasn’t just a kid. It was an ignorant, whining asshat of a kid. Be happy! Chris, Tootie, and Roland, with Boy, ride away from the scene of the “crime” to the back of the village to meet up with Borus. On the way Chris gets to kill more Karayans, but no one’s crying rivers over them. When they reach their destination, however, they’re met with the horrible sight of many more dead bodies. Everyone is shocked by the carnage, like there aren’t dead people ALL OVER the fucking village. “Grrr!” Chris, um, grrrs. “Assemble our men, immediately! Sound the retreat. This infuriates me!” Again. Dead bodies. Everywhere. What the fuck ever, Chris. The big question is how these somehow special people came to be dead, but we are denied our answer as the scene ends.
Back at Brass Castle. As the injured men walk past, Tootie is in the middle of confirming to Chris that Myriam and Lanchet are indeed dead. Borus, upon hearing this, angrily punches the wall, since that’s just kinda what he does. Oh, and he bitches about the Grasslanders being no-good lying liars, the meanie jerks. A few feet away, Tootie is giving his prissy blond comrade the evil eye, because he knows something we don’t, except we do. Seems like Borus was a baaaad boy tonight.
And now it’s the next morning. Chris wakes up with one heckuva nasty bloodlust hangover and stumbles into the conference room, only to come in during a confrontation. Tootie and Roland are chewing out Borus, because they believe he was the one who whacked all those Karayans. Dude, he is so grounded. Borus denies the whole thing, and while Tootie apologizes for suspecting him, it’s evident that there is some mistrust in the room. When they all notice Chris is there, Tootie starts backpedaling like mad. “A thousand pardons, milady. We shouldn’t be at each other’s throats, wildly speculating…” Everyone makes nice and pretends Borus isn’t a hotheaded psycho.
That settled, Tootie has some news. Chris has been summoned to the Council in Vinay del Sexay again, regarding the events on the Amur Plains. Chris conceals her distaste for meeting with those dickfaces again, and announces she’ll take Boy and Borus along with her. She’s probably taking Borus to take his mind off of what he may or may not have done, but no doubt he’ll interpret her gesture as “Let’s rock the Casbah.”
Borus leaves the room to get ready for the trip. Once he’s gone, Tootie sullenly states that he’s been too hard on the pretty one. Aww, I’m, like, crying for him. See my tears? The meeting ends, and Chris goes to prepare for the journey herself. But downstairs, she runs into her other sex slaves, Bubba and Percy. Bubba’s still pissed off about losing Hugo in the castle, and doubly so now that he knows he wasted his time chasing little boys (heh) when he could have been in battle saving Myriam and Lanchet. When Chris asks about the whole ordeal, Percy laughs it off, and then tries to blame their failure on Bubba, in order to make himself look better to his silver-haired sweetheart. That Percy, what a gentleman.
What, the Village?
Those two have nothing left to discuss with Chris, so she leaves them and goes to meet Borus at the western gate. He’s got both their horses ready, even though he wants Chris to saddle up and ride him instead. Together, the two knights and Boy leave Brass Castle and enter Zexen Forest. There, like Hugo did, they run into Maximillian Knight Fred and his assistant Rico. Fred, bless him, asks Chris for any information on “evil-doers,” and by “evil-doers” he means Hugo, Duckman, and the Late Unlamented Lulu. Nice. Fred and Rico take off once Chris says she doesn’t have any info for him, though she does wonder if she’s met these evil Grasslander brigands before. I for one am so glad Chris did meet them, even if she doesn’t know it herself.
Now the trio is back in V. del Sexay, and it seems like they never even left. Chris is thinking exactly this and is clearly not pleased about being there again. Boy and Borus realize that she’s much more comfortable out in battle than she is in the life of urban luxury. It could be left at that, except that there’s some clause in the other five Knights’ fealty oath that states they must hit on Chris at every possible opportunity. “That’s our goddess of the battleground,” Borus simpers. “Let us be blessed with continuous good fortune in combat.” Somebody get Borus a nice merlot to complement that cheese.
Chris quicky changes the subject, by announcing that she will take full responsibility for all the bad shit that went down in Karaya Village. Borus wishes there was a nearby wall for him to punch in frustration at the injustice of it all. What? He’s gotta cope somehow.
Once they enter the city, Chris wastes no time in going to the Council’s summons. She’s asked to wait a while in the small church inside headquarters while the Council prepares for the meeting. Before the image of the Goddess and with the church’s ethereal music in her ears, Chris experiences some feelings of self-doubt. She remembers striking down Lulu the night before, and Hugo’s temper tantrum, and goddamn if she isn’t remorseful about the whole thing. And here I was, doing my best to respect her for doing me the immense favor of offing the little wiener. “His anger towards Borus and the other knights…” she sighs. “Could it have been meant for me?” No, he attacked you, the lady in knight armor, because he just loved knights so much. Shut up, Chris.
Mercifully, her pity party is cut short as the same Babyface Official that met with Hugo fetches her from the church and takes her to the Council’s conference room. You know, I’m somewhat tired of dealing with these bureaucratic asswipes, so in a rare display of succinctness, let me sum up the events of the meeting:
1) Chris is cool because she burned down a village.
2) Chris is officially Captain of the Zexen Knights because she burned down a village.
3) Chris is to invade the Grasslands and attack the Lizard Clan.
4) Chris is pissed.
5) Icy sigh.
Of course, the Council doesn’t give a flying fuck what Chris thinks, so she’s sent on her way. Outside, Borus and Boy ask her how things went, but she doesn’t really want to talk about it–she just wants to go home for a nice bath and a cup of tea. Borus offers to walk her home, no doubt hoping he can get himself a bathtub invite. But Chris is feeling even icier than usual, and leaves Borus at the door, denied once again in his quest for some Silver Maiden action.
Upstairs, Chris “relaxes” on the sofa while Miles Standish, Butler Extraordinaire, waits on her. She’s about to retire for the night, but Miles suddenly remembers he had something to show her. He presents to her the pentacle that Hugo delivered earlier. Like, ohmigod, it’s her father’s coat-of-arms! Like, no way! Miles tells her it was delivered by a Grassland boy, leaving Chris again wondering if it could be one of the boys from before. Chris, honey, once is a fluke. Twice is a coincidence. Five million goddamn times is a bit of a trend. The scene fades out with Chris wanksting over her “dear father.” I’m touched except not.
Chris’ chapter ends thus, and how sad is it that it took me three recaps to get to Lulu dying the first time, and only one to reach that point again? Happily, this time he’s really gone forever, and next time I get to move onto Geddy’s story, which is way more fun and doesn’t involve any stupid, annoying people. Just a lot of drunk people. Like I said, way more fun. Until part five!