Corey notes that the girls seem really happy, but Febronia counters, “Would you say that…if you were to see this?” And the happy scene changes: the meadow is dark, the tree dead, and the two girls are running around a dead Febronia. Feb says that this place is a trap for them, “created by mankind to control the [Golden Penis Plates].” How and why these girls are important, and have anything to do with the GPPs, I don’t know. But Feb wants them to release the two girls, “for the future of the Realians as well…” Shion repeats that back like the dippy little parrot she is, and Red clarifies that it is for everyone’s sakes that the girls be freed from their prison. Wherever that is. Red called for our heroes, and made them wade through their memories so they could save the world and change the future. “Change…the future?” Shion repeats. What did I do to deserve this?

To demonstrate the problem, Red shows the gang the vastness of space, and a blue planet hovering in it. Of course, we know it’s Miltia without anyone saying so, but that doesn’t stop Shion from saying it. And from behind them, with pretty blue robot wings, flies KOS-MOS, stopping in front of the planet. Miltia glows red and flings a beam of red energy toward KOS-MOS, and she counters it with her own enormous blue beam. The resulting blast pretty much destroys the universe. Red tells us that the red beam “is the consciousness known as U-DO.” KOS-MOS is going to fight UUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-DOOOOOOOOOOOO! Hee! Red’s in the mood for more exposition, so she tells us a little more. “U-DO was the source of the space-time anomaly that engulfed Miltia 14 years ago. What you just saw was a vision of the future, where U-DO encounters KOS-MOS in the form in which she was meant to be.” It’s the BATTLE OF THE ALL-CAPS! The organ music is the background is going fucking crazy in anticipation.

Red warns that U-DO is going to awaken soon. “The future you just saw is but one of an infinite set of potential phenomena,” she tells them. “But that does not mean that the future is already set. Even the smallest of waves can spread throughout the whole.” Translation: if the game designers, on one of their crack whims, decide this whole plot thread isn’t working for them, they can just change it and this won’t ever happen. Very handy.

Red blahs on some more about waves and ripples in ponds and so on, until Shion thumps her chest and asks, “Are you saying…that we’re that wave?” I only mention this because the delivery has that “Kingdom Hearts…is light!” kind of delivery that is supposed to be extremely serious but ends up being hysterically funny. Red doesn’t answer her–she only replies that, before this epic BATTLE OF THE ALL-CAPS happens, she wanted them to face their pasts. We still don’t know why, other than the easy explanation that they had to deliver all this exposition somehow.

But, even after all this opening of closed wounds our heroes have gone through, Red determines that they are still not ready to face what’s coming. Shion, like me (ugh), doesn’t really understand what they have to do with any of it. “Shion…” Red answers, “you were once touched by a Gnosis.” The look on Shion’s face when Red says this is pretty priceless. Like she thinks Red is about to ask her to point to the place on the doll where the Gnosis touched her. “Despite that,” Red goes on, “you remain unchanged, the same as before. That is why…” When Shion’s like, “That’s why WHAT?” Red leaves her hanging, but promises to tell her about it some other time. It pretty much means she’s not going to mutate like Jerkinov. I am deeply disappointed. “If you go back to Miltia…” Red says, as she and Febronia fade out. “The place where it all began… Then you will see…” Call me crazy, but I bet a visit to Miltia isn’t really going to answer anything, because this game is not in the business of answering its own questions.

Shion cries for them to wait, but they’re gone, off to some other virtual reality that is blessedly Shion-free. How I envy them. In their place, a door materializes in space. And we’re back to the doors again. We get a totally unnecessary close-up of Shion’s ass wiggling as she walks to the door and opens it. The force of a nuclear blast comes through the door and vaporizes all of them, Shion first, the end.

Someone has jacked it to this.

Sigh. I’m lying. What is actually through the door is KOS-MOS, in a cave, tied up to a crude stone cross with a lot of jumper cables. I bet I know where on her body Shion attaches those when KOS-MOS’s battery gets low, and I bet there’s some doujinshi out there to back me up. There’s also a sarcophagus in the cave, but we won’t get back to what this place is about until way later, so let’s just call it an over-the-top bit of ambience and move on. Shion reaches up to touch KOS-MOS’s face, stroking her cheek creepily. After a moment, the robot girl starts glowing bright blue, which is the cue for Shion to make the sign of the cross over KOS-MOS’s chest and recite the password, “Ye shall be as gods…” Still glowing, KOS-MOS states that she’s shutting down her defenses so they can get to those delicious memories of hers. Given all the pompous, pious bleating by most characters in this game, it makes me wonder if anyone has tried to break through KOS-MOS’s security system by simply reading the Bible to her until something sticks.

The glowing emanating from KOS-MOS intensifies until the whole screen whites out, and we return to reality, where Shion removes her Encephalon goggles. The others, standing around her, glare at her like the diseased harpy she is. Seriously, they all look really angry at her, and even I can’t figure out why. But there’s no time for that: KOS-MOS’s Big Black Penis home unfolds to release her from her nap. “Morning…KOS-MOS…” Shion mutters, barely able to suppress an added, “Was all that shit really necessary?” KOS-MOS stares around at them all, identifying with her Terminator!Vision that they are all intact, and that CHAOS!!!’s wang has grown three inches since they last met. CHAOS!!! is just happy that they all made it out, but Corey is beside himself: he throws himself at Shion, shouting, “I’m so relieved you’re okay!” He’s even nuzzling her with his face. My God, man, get a hold of yourself. But this moment of closeness with his non-girlfriend might, at least, provide him with some comfort when he’s in his jacuzzi tonight, with no one but Johnny Walker to keep him company.

Captain Labia is standing around looking pretty on the bridge of the Durandick when her “captives” arrive with KOS-MOS’s data. Labia salutes Shion as she accepts the disk. “Please remain within the Miltian star system until you’re cleared of all charges,” she tells Shion. I hope this universe’s legal system works faster than ours, then, or this could be a while.

Chesty and Busty are ever so relieved that their Little Master is all right and that they’re not under arrest anymore, but Busty notices that said Little Master doesn’t look all that happy. “Did something happen?” she asks. “Yeah… You could say that…” he answers, all flushed and distracted. Which is a weird answer, because nothing really happened–he just had to watch some flashbacks. Unless he hit puberty just now, and that’s what his problem is. But everyone forgets about Little Master’s troubles when Captain Labia shows up, with a freshly released Gaignun. Chesty and Busty both run over to press their boobs against him and bury their faces in his lapels. If he weren’t gay, he’d be quite the ladies’ man. Gaignun, of course, barely pays attention to the girls and instead beelines for Jailbait, to tell him how well he did and what a big brave boy he is. Jailbait plays it off–he’s gotta look aloof and macho in front of his man. “Hey, Shion…” he says suddenly, to keep from blurting out sweet nothings to Gaignun in front of the others. “That girl… She called herself Nephilim, right?” Shion answers in the affirmative, which gets the gears turning in Little Master’s head. “If that girl is somehow connected to what I’m thinking of… Then things are gonna get real busy, real soon…” On the fade-out, Gaignun gives Jailbait a look that leaves us in no doubt that he cannot wait to get busy with Jailbait. What do you mean, I’m projecting?

We cut to a bench in the Durandal’s park, where Corey and CHAOS!!! sit together, accompanied by sad music. And yes, everyone is sitting upright–there are no heads in laps. To CHAOS!!!, or maybe to himself, Corey says, “…She was crying, wasn’t she?” Corey’s thoughts take us to a graveyard on a rainy day. He is standing back as Shion cries over Kevin’s grave. “I think that’s only the second time I’ve ever seen her cry…” he says, but honestly it doesn’t look like Shion is crying. She kind of looks like she’s sexing up the gravestone. She’s putting her hands all over it and sliding her body up and down its length and everything. Of the thousands of disturbing images from this game that have taken residence in my head, this one is right up near the top.

Sometimes when we touch…

“No matter what happens,” Corey mopes, “she never shares her pain with anyone… It’s times like these when I’m reminded that I’m nothing but a subordinate to her.” Ouch, dude. I guess it’s good that he can at least see it for what it is, but that has to cut deep. Nonetheless, I have a limited amount of sympathy for the guy when he’s 1) in love with an acid-spitting gorgon and 2) totally aware that she doesn’t like him back, and when he says stuff like “I wish I could take her tears away…” my heart hardens toward him a little bit more. Even the real Corey Feldman might find that statement nauseating.

CHAOS!!!, however, is a kinder soul than I am, and tries to comfort Corey with buttsex soothing, but empty, words. Corey snaps back, “Easy for you to say. You don’t know a thing about us!” If it were me, I’d tell Corey at this point that he’s just going to die alone, in a house with seventy cats, but CHAOS!!! just smiles that serene smile that says, “Your words can’t hurt me, because I know my penis is way bigger than yours.” This look unnerves Corey, and he apologizes for taking out his blue balls on CHAOS!!!. “We’ve only known each other for a short while,” CHAOS!!! says, “but I can see that you have a good heart, [Corey].” They smile at each other, and CHAOS!!! speaks in saccharine tones about the power of kindness and friendship, and we thankfully fade out from the park before either one can get naked.

In Gaignun’s posh office, Gaignun and Jailbait are listening to Mace Windu on the videophone while Chesty and Busty sleep on Gaignun’s bed. I don’t know what to make of that, but everyone is dressed, for the record. Mace is telling them that KOS-MOS’s records checked out and that the Feds are getting ready to lift their siege. So that’s good. But Gaignun wants to dish about “Mizrahi’s 100-series,” since getting MOMO back in their clutches seems to be one of the main reasons U-GEE bothered with this framejob in the first place. Mace agrees that they will probably try to get her back. When she gets abducted again, hopefully Mace will get his hands on the kidnappers, so he can scream, “Yes, they deserved to die, and I hope they burn in hell!” Yes, I am simple, and easily amused.

And it’s back to Shion, in her bed, shoes, stockings and glasses off. That skirt suddenly seems even more uncomfortably short. Sighing, she stares at the ceiling. “I can’t believe I just handed over top-secret company info to the Federation without permission… I am SO fired…” Of course she’s not, though she doesn’t know that, but it is refreshing to see her actually contemplate her own actions and wonder whether she’s done the right thing. This may be a first for her. She flashes back to MOMO wandering, as if half-dead, off the Durandick’s bridge. “MOMO…” she murmurs. “She looked so sad…” Well, watching your father commit suicide is probably not a spirit-lifter. And now she’s thinking about Corey, remembering him asking her out for dinner, and her shooting him down like a bitch. Poor Corey. Rolling around on her bed, Shion muses that she’s feeling a bit low too, just like MOMO. Except she’s a distant ice queen to Corey all the time. I don’t care what the circumstances are–she could have just won the lottery and she still would have turned Corey down. As she’s drifting off, Shion recalls her imaginary friends. “Nephilim…Febronia…and her sisters… What does she mean…’release them’?” Red’s words about KOS-MOS and U-DO also confuse her, though that was maybe the most lucid thing Red talked about. Stupid Shion. “All this facing the past stuff…” she says to her pillow. “What… What am I supposed to do…?” The camera treats us to Shion’s ass as she concludes, “I don’t understand any of it…” A Shion ass shot, accompanied by Shion being intellectually in over her head? If there were a phallic object in the shot, that would pretty much sum up this game all in one.

After her nap, Shion gets out of bed to look for Corey, to make nice and apologize for crushing his feelings under her high-heeled boots. An email immediately pops into her inbox, informing me that Shion and friends can now virtually visit the Encephalon anytime they want! It was already virtual, but whatever! Shion has found a save point, which means I can get away from this game at long last. Next time, we’ll have more fun adventures inside the Kukai Foundation! I’m kidding–they won’t be fun at all. And now it’s time for me to go read my Bible and get in a gasoline fight.