A short way away, I unwittingly walk into another cutscene. “So this is a Cathedral Ship…” Ziggy Einsteins, as if we haven’t already been here for half a goddamn hour. “It does feel like we’re inside a ship.” It does not, and you know it, Ziggy. Stop justifying the game designers’ lame attempts at deep names for things. Ziggy wonders aloud if maybe the “ship” is alien. Oh, for fuck’s sake. IT’S A GNOSIS, YOU TARD. JESUS. Shion’s all, “I wonder…” as if this line of thought has any merit whatsoever. Everyone needs to shut up and keep walking. I need digital duct tape.

Shion spots something ahead of them and points at it like a bird dog. It appears to be a sign that reads, “Ariadne Central Shopping Mall.” Straightforward enough of a hint for me. MOMO chirps from the back of the group, “Hey, it’s written in English.” My cramped, suffering brain seems to be greatly resisting picking apart this minor detail, so I will leave it to the fanboys. Shion frets over the really innocuous detail that the sign seems to be more embedded in the wall than hanging on it. Seriously, it’s not even a wall, it’s a fleshy appendage, so what’s the big deal? MOMO lets loose with the simply stunning conclusion, “Are you saying this sign is part of the Gnosis?” Seeing as it’s stuck on the Gnosis’s ribs, I think that’s a yes. Everyone is making this much more complicated than it needs to be.

Ooookay.

Everyone continues to simultaneously state the obvious and deny the obvious, making me hate each and every one of them, until Shion is slapped in the face with a vision of Red wailing about this mysterious soul Shion is supposed to be finding and saving. I hope whoever it is dies so this bitch will just leave me alone. Ziggy gives Shion a Look of Concern, because hey, they’re all stuck in a Gnosis that appears to have swallowed a planet and they’re almost certainly going to die, but something’s wrong with Shion! Stop the presses! Appropriately, Shion internalizes it and wanksts to herself. But I still have to deal with it. Yay.

Elsewhere, Jerkinov is still crazy and not dead. As he walks along, he reflects on his past, which I totally care about. The setting of this flashback is a dark room, with a few futuristic high-backed chairs and a green pod thing containing Jerkinov himself. Kinky. “…At this time, the defendant’s origins are unknown,” a female voice says. “That information was lost in the chaos of war…perhaps deliberately, I might add…” Well, you can’t actually lose something deliberately, but I get what she means. Well, I don’t, because I don’t get anything in this game, but you know. Anyhow, she goes on that the defendant, Jerkinov, can be considered a victim of the “Life Recycling Act”–the same act that brought Ziggy back to life like the Six Million Dollar Man–and as a victim, should he really be subjected to capital punishment? Jesus Christ, what did he do? The lady, who must be his lawyer, says that Jerkinov must pay for whatever it is he did, but “with all the progress we’ve made in science and the study of the human psyche, surely there must be alternative means by which he can repay society?” I can’t say I’m following A to B here, but the flashback is getting to it. Patience.

Jerkinov is sentenced by the judges–who, thanks to the room setting, are really reminding me of those awful blue and red talking heads from Xenogears–“to undergo Level 7 Personality Reconditioning.” Jerkinov stares into space like a zombie while his lawyer explains to him that he’s about to be blinked into a totally different person. “Let us celebrate, shall we?” she chirps pleasantly. Yes, a toast of moderately-priced sparkling white, followed up with a nice frontal lobotomy. Right now, that honestly doesn’t sound so horrible to me. Jerkinov continues to have no reaction at all, but the glowy symbol on his forehead from the Mos Eisley Incident flares up.

Some time later, the lawyer lady is cornered by Jerkinov in the hallway of an apartment building. “What is the meaning of this?” he monotones, brandishing a sheet of future!paper at her. “Why can’t we have a child of our own?” Wait…what? So was his lawyer his wife, or did he marry his lawyer? Or does he just want to impregnate his lawyer for some reason? It doesn’t really matter, because it looks like the relationship is falling apart anyway. Blondie Bitchpumps, her tacky makeup, and her bubble butt scoff at the silly man. “What could you want to leave behind?” she asks. “Don’t tell me you want that abnormal DNA of yours to live on.” I think that’s her way of saying she met a nice doctor. At the sperm bank.

So anyway, Jerkinov seemingly was fixed like a horny dog thanks to the reconditioning, but Blondie doesn’t want to take the chance that his chromosomes might be all fucked up. Plus, sleeping with men is so not her thing. I’m starting to think she might be Dr. Yuri’s mysterious girlfriend. Jerkinov’s all hurt and outraged. “Are you saying this is my fault?” he whines. No, she really isn’t. She’s just saying you’re a bad choice of babydaddy. Get over it. And besides, she’s a bitch, as demonstrated by her reply: “You’re pathetic…” she laughs. “A bit of nucleic acid desperately clinging to life.” And here I thought the U-GEE people were the only ones in this game who said pretentious shit like that. I stand corrected. Blondie adds that despite Jerkinov’s brain wipe, he hasn’t changed at all. She makes it very clear that she does not consider this a positive thing.

Jerkinov wants to know why they got married if Blondie hates him so much. And in return, she waves that piece of future!paper right back in his face. They never say so, but I’m guessing it’s a permit for having the babies without the icky man parts involved. Whatever floats your boat. Nutcase. “Do you know how hard I worked for this permit?” she snots. “That’s why I volunteered to care for you. What, did you think there was love between us?” So she took in a condemned criminal and married him so she could leave him and be artificially inseminated? Anybody else scratching their heads at this?

…Yeah, from 14-year-old anime nerds with acne.

Blondie finishes melodramatically, “I can get all the love I need with this!” and chucks a headset with God knows what caked on it square at Jerkinov’s forehead. I guess it’s a good thing she didn’t throw the vibrator at him, too. That could really leave a mark. She wiggles away into the next room, reminding Jerkinov to take his happy pills, since she’s “the one who’ll be held responsible” if he doesn’t. I’d say that’s as good a reason as any not to take them. Seriously, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Jerkinov, you can do much better.

Jerkinov stands there for several long moments, glaring at his soon-to-be-ex and the ground and generally everything. Eventually, he decides to take action in his life, which involves walking over to Blondie Bitchpumps and sending her to that Lesbian Orgy in the Sky. One cut later, he’s in a jail cell, awaiting Level 8 Personality Reconditioning. “With this,” some Doug Llewellen-like voice says, “defendant 12584’s human rights shall be revoked, and henceforth the defendant shall be treated as a life form belonging to the Federation.” This means, legally, he’s on the same level as those delicious Realians. Yeah, well, that shrew fuckin’ asked for it, end of story. Jerkinov’s forehead skin–whoops, almost typed “foreskin”–condition acts up again, but now the shape of the symbol is different. I’m not even going to pretend I know what that means. And for the record, I don’t care to find out, so you may ease up off your keyboards and save your novel-length fanwanking abilities for some other topic.

Now Jerkinov, still in his slippers, is wandering around Ariadne. This might be current!Jerkinov, reliving his past, or it might be past!Jerkinov himself, given the slippers. I’m very confused, suffice it to say. Whichever Jerkinov it is gazes at a girl, and hallucinates that she’s Blondie Bitchpumps. He cuts off the girl’s walking path and they stare at each other for what feels like an hour. Then the girl says, “Garbage.” Okay. Jerkinov’s pupils constrict and he just loses his shit completely. Another murder on Jerkinov’s hands, and another round of Personality Reconditioning. Yeah, those sure are working out well. The Level 9 procedure hasn’t even been used on anyone else yet, making this unstable psychopath the perfect person to test it out on. Right.

We cut from Jerkinov and his drugged, dead eyes to sunset in front of some large cylindrical building on Ariadne. There are around a dozen bodies lying prone outside it on the sidewalk. A ship flies overhead and lands, while Jerkinov sits in the midst of the dead people, hugging his knees and crying like a kid with a scraped knee. He’s also lost his slippers. Maybe he beat someone to death with them. Someone approaches Mr. Pathetic and addresses him in a familiar voice. “So you’re the one who murdered every worker in this facility, and annihilated three squads of Federation Special Forces…” Margulis exposits at him and us. “I was looking forward to meeting you.” Not that that isn’t impressive, but I don’t think anyone should look forward to meeting Jerkinov. He’s crazy, homicidal, and a whiny douchebag.

“But you…” Margulis says with contempt, “you look like a poor little stray.” He wonders if someone this lame-looking could really be responsible for the carnage around them. Jerkinov mopes to himself some more because he sucks, before taking in Margulis and his fabulous purple robes and his Scar of a Tragic Past. Margulis’s appearance must be all it takes for Jerkinov to realize he’s an annoying git who needs his ass kicked. But Margulis teleports to the side of Jerkinov’s angry bullrush, leaving the fool flat on his face. Margulis also calls Jerkinov a “Life Recycling Variant.” I even went and Googled this, just so I could report to you fine people what the hell it’s about, and all I can gather is that Jerkinov’s fucked up and crazy ’cause he was a test tube baby. But he was a military test tube baby, hence the unchecked violence. Or some shit.

A point of view I could’ve done without.

Margulis is warned by a subordinate that they’re about to be busted by the Feds, so they get ready to leave, taking Jerkinov with them. Jerkinov hesitates to go along with it, so Margulis kneels down and offers him his hand. “All you ever wanted in life was to leave behind a legacy,” he says. “Isn’t that right?” Wait, so we see one 30-second scene where he argues with his bitch of a wife about having a kid, and suddenly that’s the only desire he’s ever had? If we’re going to use that little as a basis, I say all he’s ever wanted in life is a nice new pair of slippers. Fuzzy ones.

Jerkinov is still unsure. From his point of view, we can see Margulis leaning creepily over him, with–I shit you not, here–an aura of heavenly light around his face. “Now show Charlie Murphy your titties,” he Mad Libs. Margulis’s Aura of Christ envelops both of them, providing a white-out segue back to yet another shot of Jerkinov bumbling through Cathedral Ship. God, I hate this game.

Jesus has better hair.

And now it’s back to Shion and Gang, hooray! That’s like following up an hour of kicking me in the shins with a mere five or so punches to my stomach. There’s still pain and all, but I’m not going to complain out of fear that I’ll get my shins kicked again. This next hour of fighting is filled with Gnosis called Fairies–“fairy” being Xenoese for “big-ass wasp monster with codpiece stinger.” They cast sleep spells on my party members, and given that KOS-MOS is the one doing the most damage, isn’t it wonderful that she can’t wear the one item I have which protects against sleep? And that Shion, who’s wearing the item, is never targeted by this spell at all? I love it. Even better, it’s around this time that CHAOS!!! levels up and gains his latest tech, Heaven’s Wrath. I’ve been saving up points for this very occasion, so I immediately spend all of them on Heaven’s Wrath and move it to his high-speed slot. Oh, but wait, the lightning element in this tech heals the very Fairies I’ve been fighting! As does Shion’s newest, Shock Blade. Hilarious timing gag, game designers. I’m rolling.