Shoutout to Guest, who had the idea of Zanza…talking to Zanza. How very fitting for such an egocentric man.
When we last left our heroes, Reyn fell for Melia's tricks and hit a button. He really couldn't help it. Alvis finally drums up the nerve to declare his love for his liege, only to fall for it as well, and Melia somehow manages to skirt around Tyrea's haze by snogging with Shulk. Shulk won't discuss this, though he seems to giggle every time it's brought up. As they press on! the intrepid crew beats boredom by pestering Emperor Sorean about breaking into a tourist attraction…er, I mean, mysterious tower in which no one even remembers what went in there anymore.
"So why not?!" Shulk whines.
Sorean blinks and grunts as he sips his morning coffee, sunlight filtering into the audience chamber and casting his weathered face in a look of total annoyance. The day was not starting off well. Not after Kallian woke him up at 2 AM whimpering something about a nightmare and "wanting to sleep with him for the night."
This is why Kallian must live alone.
As he reaches over to grab the coffee pot, he scowls and shakes the final two drops from the glass container. His eyes twitch over to his son, joyously chugging the remainder of his mug's worth of coffee.
This is another reason.
With a scowl, Sorean slaps Kallian's mug away from his lips before snorting. "Because Prison Island is a sacred tower, in which our ancient Entia ancestors utilized to hole up anyone who poo-pooed the Bionite Order in front of them." He takes another sip of his coffee. "Besides, there could be skeletons or other spooky stuff. I'm not going in there."
"Spooky skeletonz~," Riki sings thinly. Xord looks down at him with a bewildered expression, and he nudges the Nopon with his foot. "What Xordy want?"
"Did you take any of those red pollen orbs the High Entia were offering us on the way over here?"
"Nooooo," he replies in a totally-guilty voice.
Meanwhile, Reyn complains. "Aw, man, come on! Alvis said you would!"
"I said nothing of the sort," Alvis replies, his hands on his hips as he walks over to Sorean's side. "Now, I may have said, 'You may break into the tower through the west entrance,' but I did not say that Sorean would let us in!"
Emperor Sorean looks up at the seer, then sniggers and stirs in a handful of red pollen orbs into his drink. "You told them that? Oh man, that's rich right there." Alvis nods with a pleased expression on his face. "You want to be locked up in Prison Island, Alvis?"
The seer stops and ducks behind the throne.
"Seriously though, why not?" Shulk asks again.
"Because it scares Kallian at night."
Dunban says, "The wimp!"
Sorean is unamused. "Kallian's also scared of Mechon, Orluga, Hedgehogs, Bunnivs, Bunnits," The man begins listing off his fingers now. "The Arachno Queen," Queeny wails and covers her numerous eyes, and Xord tries petting her to bring her comfort. "Shulk, Shulk's Monado—" Shulk squeals and grabs at his crotch. Sorean halts and screws up his mouth. His eyes narrow as he stares hard at Reyn. "Reyn's Monado, sorry. Gosh, I feel like we've gone through this before!" Reyn is unfazed as he grabs the Monado off of his back and waves it around as he watches Kallian's freaked-out expression.
"Kalley!" Melia cries out. "You told my you were chill with my buds!"
Kallian peers up from scooping up the shards of his mug. He begins slurping the coffee off the floor. "I am, I'm just currently trying very hard not to wet my pants in terror right now."
The Arachno Queen snarls and jumps forward, and the man utters a shriek so unmanly—so reminiscent of Yumea's that it makes Sorean scream and blubber something about "not being with a woman this time"—before slipping on his coffee and joining it on the floor. Queeny cackles as Sharla, with a devious smirk, pats her head.
"Kalley doesn't have to go into the tower!" Dunban exclaims. "You do!"
"Well, who did he inherit it from?!" Sorean snips in response. "Besides, Alvis showed me a vision, so I'm not going." He settles into his throne further.
"Alvis, you have visions, too?!" Shulk gasps. He stumbles forward and grabs the seer's furry hood. "TELL ME YOUR SECRETS! HOW?!"
Alvis replies, "You of all people should know, Shulk. Now leave me alone!" He disappears in a puff of smoke, and Shulk coughs and waves his hand in the air.
"So, do we get to go into the tower?" Reyn looks up at Sorean expectantly. A baby Bunniv look lingers in his eyes.
Sorean belts out this great sigh that reminds him of his fraternity years. "Ask Alvis, he has the key," he says, waving a hand lazily in the air and hitting Kallian smack in the face as he goes to stand.
Xord groans. "Isn't there any other way?"
"Ghost seer say nothing about this when Riki ask!"
"Oh, come on!" Sharla complains.
Shulk pipes up, "I'm really not feeling it."
"Yes, I guess there is," Sorean replies with a shrug, "but I'm really only letting you do this because I'M REALLY FEELING IT!" He abruptly bursts into tiny giggles as he kicks his legs out. "REALLY FEELING IT! OH GOSH, THAT'S RICH RIGHT THERE!"
Shulk slumps over, and Melia rubs his back.
"Oh yeah, it's Reyn time, baby!" Reyn whoops. "So let's start this thing!"
The group moans.
[Seals Quest omitted due to character strikes against the author]
As the party enters into Prison Island, their mouths gape. Ahead of them stands a blackened path so decrepit, so rancid in smell that it bests even Xord's rotting flesh, that the entire crew gags.
Sharla cringes as some stray Juju-juice drips from the Queen's ether-stained fangs, and Xord breaks out in a great beam. "Oh, hey, the brat!" he says enthusiastically. The medic only covers her face and tries very hard to hold her bile down.
The group marches forward, passing by very large furniture—a moldy couch; a television set stuck on FAUX-9's news report of the titan battle; a broken high chair; and a refrigerator that even managed to ward Reyn off with its stink and milk, eggs, and eyeballs eons past its expiration date—just thrown about in the hall, as if someone was rooming with the owner of this prison. A fuzzy plate of Marcia's Biscuits sits on the high chair.
They somehow manage, despite the massive scale of the place, to encounter a staircase the size of a Homs.
"Well, bust my buttons and call me Klaus! What the crap lived here?!" Shulk says. "I don't even know how to wrap my head around all of this clashing scientific evidence! Well, suck it up, cupcake, you're dealing with it whether you'd like to or not!"
The Boy Wonder gets stares as he replies to himself. He shrugs and keeps going forward.
Sharla looks at Reyn. "I'm sorry I thought you were crazy, you know, back when…"
"Don't worry 'bout it, Shulk's always been the nutter after his mum and dad dragged him up to Valak Mountain to get the Monado when he was, like, four."
"Yeah, I can't fix that," is all she replies with.
Everyone stops once they reach a totally-evil portal.
"I dunno, should we go into the totally-evil portal that'll probably either kill us or turn us all evil 'n all?" Reyn asks. "Anyone?"
Dunban pokes the dark flames with his pinky finger before attempting to lick it. Without even looking the other way, Shulk shoves him into it.
His best friend gapes. "Shulk?!"
"Is this a reveal? Crap, I totally didn't see this coming," Xord mutters.
"No, I just got sick of him drinking. This should fix him, if my observations hold." The boy fondles his growing peach fuzz. "Anyone else want a go?"
Sharla tries to go around it to find another exit, only to trip on the Arachno Queen and go pitching headlong into it. The Queen screams and tries to grab her, only to fall in herself.
"Honey!" Reyn says—and he "alley-oops" into the portal.
Shulk blinks, grabs Xord—who's grabbing Riki—and disappears with a hip swing and a strut.
With a sigh, Melia peers into its dark depths before shrugging and holding her palms over it. "Hey, this isn't too bad!" Sharla's hand comes through and drags her in.
The girl exhales as she emerges. "This actually was safe for us to go in."
Everyone gasps as they encounter…a stone wall.
Melia crouches down to inspect some ancient Entia runes scribed into the rock underfoot. "I think something's supposed to go in here, like my father's staff!" she replies excitedly.
"So, like this?" Shulk gestures to the Monado on Reyn's back.
"Like my father's staff!"
"Like…this!" With a flash of movement so sharp that Reyn doesn't even notice, Shulk snitches the Monado from him and jams it into the hole. "KY-YAA!"
The red plastic splinters and cracks as its blue blade juts out of it, but oddly enough, this worked, and the stone wall once boring now reveals the number one ultimate tourist attraction ever—a freak show.
A purple Giant with veins that pulsate, eyes that glint, tattoos that make Xord squeal with glee, kneels before them now. His massive hairy crotch matches the white of his wild beard that would make even the Guinness Book of Endless Ocean Records pale.
The Giant heaves for breath before them as his hands remain interlocked in hovering golden circles. Then: "Dude!"
"What?" the entire group utters—
—save for Shulk, who answers back with an equally enthusiastic, "Dude!"
"It's been too long, man, how you been?"
"Not bad, Zani, not too bad! And how have you been—oh wait, you've been locked up! BOOM!" The boy cackles.
"Shulk, you know this bozo?" Melia asks.
Shulk—no, Zanza!—grins stupidly back. "Well, of course! He's totally my bestie!"
"Won't you introduce us, then?" Sharla snips.
"This is Zanza. Zanza, meet my slaves."
The Giant nods and lets out a hearty belly laugh. "You picked some sorry-looking Nether Region Dwellers, Zanza!"
"Yeah, I…really didn't have much of a choice."
With a smirk, the Giant says in a totally-hazing-tactic voice, "I can get that Monado unlocked for you. After all, I made it!"
"From a freak show?" Reyn snarks back. He wrenches the weapon out of the rock. "No way, it's my Monado, all mine!"
"Come on, gimme it!" Shanza says as he dives for it.
The boy steps away. "Nu-uh! You're that whazhisname again, not Shulk! I don't trust Whazhisname!"
"The name is Zanza! Now gimme it!"
"You sound like a child!" Reyn snaps.
"You are a child to me!"
"And I don't care!"
Melia steps forward and wrenches the Monado away. She hands it to Sharla—despite the complaints from both boys—who chucks it off the balcony.
"WHAT?!" they cry out simultaneously.
"What have you done, you have just trashed a valuable piece of my mortal soul!" Shanza screams. "Now I only have Shulk and Arglas left before I'm no longer immortal, you better not kill them, too!"
He gasps and backsteps as the wind begins rushing around them. Two Faced Mechon come in from above!
"DON'T YOU KNOW TO RECYCLE! GOSH!" the first one complains as it shakes the Monado off into points unknown. Its rainbow-splatter colors shine in Zanza's jail's light as it lands, and to the group, it looks rather comical, as if someone decided to spray paint it for fun. An obscenity is sprayed all across his front.
"SLUG FACE, BE NICE!" the other, a slender, silver faced Mechon, chides. "I APOLOGIZE, HE CAN BE QUITE IMMATU—"
Reyn belts out a scream as he grabs Dunban's sword and charges the Mechon. His attack bounces right off. "Uh!"
"HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? STOP THAT! I AM A LADY! TREAT ME WITH RESPECT!"
"You ain't no lady, you vile Mechon!" The boy continues his pointless attacks. "Meh! Eh! Ugh! EHHHHH!" The Mechon looks down as Reyn leans against her foot. "Oh man, that's tiring. Don' know how anyone could do it."
The hatch of the Faced Mechon opens!
The group cries in surprise and fear, "That Mechon is opening!"
"Really, again?!" Xord exclaims.
Fiora jumps out. "Shulk, you made me go and watch Breaking Juju: Part 5 all by myself! And I couldn't just leave poor Vanea to watch it herself! She was so sad you left that she cried tearless sounds of misery!"
Shulk shrieks. "F-Fiora! Well I, I told you why," he says.
"That's not the point!" She jabs a finger at his collarbone.
Reyn, as he turns his head, stumbles away, and Sharla catches him. "Fiora, you're alive!"
"I thought she was before," the medic says.
"Oh no, that was just Alvis. But you're alive, Fiora!" The boy tackles her in a great hug. "Aw, Fiora, I missed you, I didn't think anyone was gonna come back! You only took twenty chapters!"
"You didn't react this way with me," Shulk huffs.
"Aw, Reyn…" Fiora pats Reyn's head, then turns her fierce glare back to Shulk. "Shulk, this doesn't excuse you!"
"So does this mean you'll join Reyn's merry band of eccentrics?" Shulk asks.
"Ha! No way, I wanna see the look on your face when I pitch off Galahad Fortress! Maybe then you'll stick around to suffer through awkward CGI with me!" She leaps back into the Face. "See you around, Zani!"
"Meyneth, come on!" Shanza pleads.
"Nope! And are you really going to keep using 'Shanza' to describe yourself in that poor dead boy? That's so last fall." Meyneth snorts as she flies away.
Slug Face looks around before groaning. "DO WE HAVE TO GO?"
"YES! YES, WE DO!"
"BUT I DON'T WANNA!"
"YOU'RE GOING!"
"NOOO!"
"AND DON'T YOU DARE CRASH YOUR FACED MECHON THIS TIME, I'VE HAD TOO MANY TALKS WITH VANEA ABOUT YOU!"
"BUT MECHON HATE ME! AND IT JUST CRAPPED OUT ON ME. REALLY. I DIDN'T PURPOSELY BREAK IT TO RUN WILD AND FREE IN THE GREAT EXPANSE, I SWEAR."
Slug Face wobbles as he takes off, only to accidentally go flying forward, smashing into the stone wall. The crew dives out of the way as an explosion shakes the tower. Shanza screams and rushes forward. "Zanza, no!"
"Zanza yes," Melia says. She and the girls high five.
"What just happened?" Shulk whines.
As Prison Island grows silent, the group looks at each other, then at a sniveling Shulk. Dunban shrugs before prodding him. "You wanna drink?"
The boy takes the flask from his shaking hand and downs it.
Guest (guest 1): I'm so glad it helps you. That's exactly why I wrote it. :)
Cormag Ravenstaff: From red pollen orbs, by chance? ;)