In another room somewhere in the bowels of the building, there’s a new type of switch. Once activated, it shoots a text box into the air and the Phantom Text God excitedly crows that the navigation system has been activated. What this means is that the doors in here will now be marked with coloured circles, each denoting whether the room beyond has been explored or not. I would love to know who implemented this system, and why he or she didn’t think to roll it out to all the other unnavigable hellholes on Feelgayer but, much like the question of who filled up all the treasure chests in these far-flung locations, it will remain a mystery.

On what the navigation system tells me is floor 6 of the ruins, Vagina comes across a locked door whose switch sits smugly on a ledge below, meaning that she has to jump down to activate it and then retrace her steps back to the floor above. Fuck. As if that weren’t bad enough, once she steps on the switch, a female voice calls out “Why, thank you. I never imagined a rival Drifter would be so cooperative.” The owner of the voice, a blonde girl wearing an orange dress, steps into shot and glares down at Vagina, hand on hip. We don’t find out her name yet, but I have to reveal it right now — it’s Maya Schroedinger. The girl is one of my favourite characters in this game, but that won’t stop me from changing her name to Maya Schlongtingler (I’m sorry; it had to be done). Judging by her appearance, she’s a blatant expy of Calamity Jane, which is fair enough — after all, both characters were created by the same people. There’s also an in-game explanation for the similarity, which I’ll go into in future recaps. However, I’ve seen people attempt to fanwank the whole situation by claiming Maya is a descendant of Jane, hence the similar (read: identical) appearance. I may be able to buy them having similar features — after all, we already know that in RPGs people look identical to others in their bloodline, but this theory fails to explain why Maya has exactly the same taste in fashion as her supposed ancestor. I mean, I’d probably get some strange looks if I started wearing my great-great-great-grandmother’s clothes, you know? It’s bad enough when I wear my grandmother’s.

Separated at birth?

…Moving on. CalaMayaty Jane Schlongtingler’s entourage joins her on screen as some buffoonish music cues up. Her companions include a talking cat with a bandaged face, a young boy with a backpack full of dynamite, and a katana-wielding butler with shades and an afro. This is fucking amazing. Vagina seems taken aback for a moment, before composing herself and muttering “It’s not [Anus]…but still thugs, nonetheless.” Uh, isn’t that a little presumptuous? Afro wonders if she’s referring to him, to which Maya dismissively waves her hand and declares “This lassie needs to get out more.” Who the hell says lassie, apart from Groundskeeper Willie? Maya’s cat, perhaps thinking the same as me, urges his mistress that they should press on, but she seems to have a bee in her bonnet over Vagina. “What are you doing here, anyway?” she bitches, causing Vagina to cough and splutter indignantly. Maya correctly deduces that they’re looking for the second demon shask, which means they’re after the same bounty. This could get ugly.

“What makes you think you can find your way around the wasteland?” Maya continues, riling Vagina even more. I fully expect a full-blown catfight to break out any moment, since male game designers don’t seem to think that two women can be in the same room for more than thirty seconds without hissing and clawing at each other. The important thing to note here is that Maya, in mere seconds, has reached the conclusion that Vagina isn’t cut out for being a Drifter. “It’s posers like you that give female Drifters such a poor rep,” she rants, continuing that Vagina is going to end up hurting herself or worse if she continues “pretending to be a Drifter”. “Pretending?!” Vagina yells in disbelief, as Clive, Jet and Gallows all look at each other and think maybe, just maybe, Maya actually has a point. I mean, Vagina doesn’t exactly have a proven track record. Verbal smackdown complete, Maya turns on her heel and stalks off through the newly-opened door, cat and samurai butler in tow.

You mean she’s…holding back women’s lib?

Dynamite Kid, who reveals himself to be Maya’s brother, apologizes for her outburst and explains that she always speaks her mind, which often makes her come across as harsh. That’s one way of putting it. With Vagina still in a stunned silence, he turns and follows Maya and the others through the door. “I know I’m just starting to take flight, but still…the nerve of her!” Vagina exclaims, and ugh, bird metaphors again (Vagina Avian Reference Count: 6). Nobody else seems sure what to say, so the cutscene wraps up and everyone merges back into Vagina.

Another couple of rooms along, there’s yet another lever, this one raising a small walkway. The only way to access said bridge is to find the other entrance, which involves doing a broad u-turn around the adjoining room. But of course, that’s not enough of a hurdle. When Vagina reaches the walkway and tries to cross it, Maya scurries out from behind and resets the lever, lowering the bridge again. As she hightails it out of the room, Vagina screams “Hey!? So that’s how it’s gonna be, huh?!”, steam practically shooting out of her ears. The tension between the two chicks is almost palpable at this point.

After flipping the lever for the second time and finally being able to cross to the other side, Vagina notices one last lever, this one opening the inner chamber’s door. Fortunately, one of the Guardians, Gamefaquon, speaks into her heart and advises her to use Gallows’s Jizzer Doll to freeze the lever after she’s hit it. She does so, then watches with glee as Maya pops up and tries her usual trick, only for the bitch to be foiled. She tries to kick the lever a few times then, realizing even her awesome kicks won’t be able to break through the ice, she barrels past Vagina and through the door. Oddly, when Vagina follows her inside, the rest of Maya’s group are already there waiting with her even though none of them could have gone through the door before she opened it. Whoops, game designers.

“You are such an eyesore! Who do you think you are, anyway?” Maya asks mockingly, knowing full well the reaction she’s going to get. Vagina wigs out again, yelling that she’s not going to stand for Maya laughing at her when she’s trying her best. God, she really isn’t doing anything to prove Maya wrong about her lack of maturity here. In response, Maya challenges Vagina to “prove just how far [her] best will take [her]”, then boom, boss fight.

There’s an interesting dynamic to this battle, as all four members of Maya’s party perform different roles — Afro heals and can inflict confusion, her cat uses magical breath attacks, her brother throws explosives around, and as for Maya herself…well, she pulls a PENIS out of her skirt and shoots her load in Vagina’s face. I guess all that tension had to come to a head somehow. Afro is first to go down (thanks in no small part to Clive’s epic PENIS), closely followed by Dynamite Kid. For those of you wondering, this means that Schroedinger’s cat is indeed still alive (sorry). It doesn’t take too much time to put Maya and her kitty out for the count, too, after which we’re “treated” to yet another verbal exchange between the two females. You know, I’m starting to get the impression that these two actually have the hots for each other. If fanfiction.net is to be believed, I’m not alone.

Aw, how sweet — she’s reading the strategy guide for her brother while he plays the new Professor Layton!

“You are tenacious…and stubborn!” Maya admits, as Dynamite Kid examines something that looks like a Nintendo DS. “But let’s see if you can handle…this!!” She produces some kind of book from the folds of her dress (which is nothing compared to what she’ll pull out of there later), but her brother interrupts before she can continue. He mentions something about “the radar” giving an unusual reading, and that “the team that went in ahead” is making its move. Hmm, I wonder who that could be. Actually, I don’t, because I’m not a drooling vegetable.

Upon hearing Alfred’s words, Maya puts her book away and tells Vagina that she got off lightly. Yes, because we totally lost that fight. “We don’t have time to play with you anymore,” she says, turning to enter the door behind her, “and we are the renowned Schrodinger Schlongtingler family. Don’t you forget it.” Vagina gives Maya her name, too, and Maya says she’ll remember it for now. Oh, I bet she will. We aren’t actually told the names of the others in Maya’s group yet, but I’m tired of skirting around the issue — so, the cat is called Shady, Maya’s brother is Alfred, and her afro-sporting butler is named Todd (although I’m going to call him Afro Samurai, or AfSam for short). You can all rest soundly in your beds tonight now that you know what these guys are called.

*insert innuendo here*

With the second shask still in their sights, Vagina and the others head through the door the Shlongtinglers just used. Two rooms ahead is a wall like the one in the Ruins of Memory, proudly displaying another three shasks. “The [shask]! I think we’re the first ones here!” Vagina cries happily. Hold up. There is no fucking way the Schlongtinglers wouldn’t already be here, given that they had a head start on the party and there were no possible diversions for them to take. Vagina even comments on their absence, but is quickly distracted by the shiny shiny shasks. As before, only one is genuine — the red shask at the top of the display. Rather than asking the tallest person in the group (Clive) to grab the damn thing, Vagina gets up on her tiptoes and struggles to take it herself. From offscreen, Anus’s voice asks if she needs a hand. In what is probably intended to be a comedic moment, she’s all “Oh thanks, could you get this thing down for me–hey, it’s you fuckers!”

So, I have no fucking idea what’s going on here. Maya and her gang are nowhere to be seen, despite charging in here ahead of Vagina and the others, and the Three Cocketeers have just appeared behind the party even though, according to Alfred’s DS radar, they should have already been in here. What the fuck? Are there invisible teleporters dotted around the room or something?

Gallows, shut up.

“Oh man…are they the team Maya was talkin’ about?” Gallows wonders. Excuse me just a moment.

DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!! DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry about that. As I was saying, Anus and his butt buddies have shown up, also intent on snagging the second shask, but Maya’s team is nowhere in sight. Gallows, Jet and Clive react with a mixture of confusion and exasperation upon catching sight of their rivals, causing Dario to wonder aloud why everyone hates them. How long do they have? Romero, clearly still hurt that Anus left him and Dario to die earlier, replies that it’s because Anus has no social graces. Anus’s civilized response is to calmly backhand Romero across the face without even turning around. “I just choose to work efficiently,” he retorts, not even acknowledging Romero’s bleeding nose. Does this count as spousal abuse?

Vagina and Anus have yet another debate on morality, one which I won’t transcribe here as my head is about to fall off already. The paraphrased points from both sides are as follows:

Vagina: “You’re a heartless asshole! You betray people’s trust! I can no longer see the good in people because of you!”
Anus: “You’re just butthurt because I outsmarted you. I can’t help it if people are too dumb to see through me. Only the strong survive in the wasteland.”

Lines of dialogue I never thought I’d read, Part 1…

Naturally, the conversation degenerates into yet another boss fight. It depresses me to inform you that we haven’t even reached the halfway point in terms of the number of Anus battles throughout the game. You know the drill: the Ambiguously Gay Trio pulls a number of cheap stunts, and then Vagina and her Merry Men wipe the floor with them, earning a frankly insulting amount of EXP and Gella in the process. The end.

Since when did cowboys have white pants and blue hair?

Hilariously, though, neither of the groups manages to claim the shask; as they continue to square off, Shady, Maya’s cat, flies overhead and plucks it from the wall. Figuring that he hasn’t abused Romero enough yet, Anus smashes him in the face with the butt of his bayonet to release his frustration. Ass. “What are you doing standing around!?” he yells, flicking his hair theatrically. “That’s no ordinary cat! It belongs to a Drifter!”

We cut to the door, where Maya and the rest of the Schlongtinglers are gathered, shask in hand. Maya brags about snatching it from under the noses of both teams, then declares herself disappointed that “the notorious Cascade” didn’t live up to his reputation. Feeling emasculated, Anus shows his true misogynistic colours by asking when women gave up their modesty. Managing to stop herself from slapping the dick taste out of his mouth, Maya informs him that “women have been living proudly for a long time now.” I take this to mean that she’s out and proud, confirming what I suspected earlier.