Well, in case you didn't figure it out, part 2 was Legend of Dragoon and Star Ocean 2.
- File 01 33:05 Smoke Mountains
Lvl 48 4013/4013 HP 210/210 MP
214758 steps 60183 GP
File 02 07:32 Kamakura Village
Lvl 12 456/612 HP 31/31 MP
5154 steps 573 GP
File 03 17:56 Jibun Trail
Lvl 22 1391/1391 HP 102/102 MP
11588 steps 20134 GP
LOADING...PLEASE WAIT
After our unsuccessful attempts to find Julio and Zan, and much cursing/celebrating, we set out to the closest town on our map, which was a little village in Alenovian territory. It was mostly open plain all the way there, save for the border gate. We strolled on down (also known as South for those of you not competent in the mystic ways of RPGaming), Hagmore in the lead, just chatting.. The conversation was mostly on random topics, like the time we were filming for a home movie when we discovered the time-lapse control, and started doing all sorts of crazy things, like multiple fight scenes, and then Hagmore -
Krrsh-krshhh!
That was when the world got all fuzzy, then condensed onto one spot, leaving the rest in a black oblivion. I managed to stop myself from spinning in a circle as the battle loaded. "What the hell...? Stupid battle loading sequence..."
That was when we heard insane laughter. We looked to see the cameraman running in circles, pointing the camera everywhere as he laughed maniacally. He ran in a circle around the enemy, then ran in front of us, then started jumping around for no reason at all, doing flips, then threw the camera into the air, caught it, and calmly walked back to where he would witness the battle. There was a long silence.
Anyway, we were fighting four EvlDemons, which were big black things with claws and big muscles and wings it didn't use. Right. Anyway, the first Demon attacked Alexander, who took some pretty deadly damage. The second used a PowrUP spell on itself, and the third cast UnHoly on us. I was fine, but the others took varying amounts of damage. Alexander was now in critical, and Sifian was almost there, too. The others were all at about half their normal HP. The fourth Demon attacked Hagmore, but he blocked it with his sword.
Cat and I attacked almost simultaneously. I immediately thought, Its Eva all over again...I went for the one than had cast PowrUP, and Cat attacked the first one. I finished mine off with two consecutive hits from the wakazashi, and Cat left hers in the red. Sifian turned his quarterstaff into a trident and stabbed the weakened one to death. Ari supplied Sifian with a Hi-potion, and Alexander cast Cure 3 on everyone. Hagmore charged the third Demon and wailed on it with his Avenger, killing it. The fourth Demon was left alone.
We all got ready to attack, all taking confident poses, ready to waste the last one. That was when it called on reinforcements. Six new EvlDemons showed up, all ready to cook our asses. There was a long silence as we just stared.
"I'm assuming we saved after that whole thing we went through..." I said quietly, maintaining a calm composure.
"Uhh...just keep on believing that, and...we...can win! Right, uh, guys...?" Hagmore said with waning confidence. I nodded to myself. Right. As much of a chance as a fish on a grill with a Fire3 spell and out of MP while poisoned and paralyzed, and the cook is berserked and has a +4 to all stats and is armed with Drizzt's Defender, and the angry mob is screaming for blood...wait a minute...
I blinked as three of the new Demons combined their strength into a forth, which powered up by drawing darkness into itself. After a moment, It raised one clawed hand and an enormous ball of dark energy began to grow. With that, it posed with style, then pointed at us and growled, "Daaku Fureiah!"
Despite the horrible Engrish that could have dealt damage to me, it was so bad, the resulting explosion that followed was rather painful-looking, but used some nice CG. I personally didn't feel a thing, thanks to my coat, but the others were...well, let's just say they got fucked. Alexander was wiped out first, quickly followed by Hagmore - he is a Paladin, after all. Cat fell after them, and Sifian and Ari were the last. I was left standing alone.
"Aw...shit."
I looked at the three demons that had not gone yet. "So, you want a piece of me, eh?" I asked with a maniacal grin. Dramatic poses soon followed - but none were by me. A group of weird people in crazy outfits jumped in and started posing as fireworks and explosions went off in the background. A HUGE sweatdrop appeared above my head. "Nani...?" With that, they all jumped off, shouting phrases that made no sense. Then a guy with spiky green hair in an archeologist's outfit fell from the sky and made a crater in his shape. Another sweatdrop.
The first cast UnHoly on me again, which did nothing. I laughed, both hands on hips. "Ha ha ha! You think you can beat me, Heath, the Lord of Darkness? Hoo hah!" The same people from before appeared and posed, then leapt away. I stared for a moment, and then returned my attention to the enemy. "None can stand up to my power! I am INVINCABLE! HAHAHAHAHA - " That was about when it hit me in the face. Critical success. I went skidding across the ground, feeling blood running across my face. I was surprised my nose wasn't broken.
"Haso...that's some major painage..." I stared blankly into the sun, waiting for the end. There was a long pause.
A shadow fell over me. Someone was apparently standing over me. I tried to see who it was when a voice said to me, "Well, well, well. If it isn't a group of wandering heroes with good intents. Why am I not surprised? You kind of people are everywhere these days, doing your damn 'good deeds' and killing my Demons. These cost me good bread - I mean money! Yes, money!"
I sat up and saw who the person standing over me was. It was a girl, probably not much older than me, with straight brown hair and bangs. She wore rather skimpy and skintight clothing, and she looked fairly evil. A pair of ninja swords hung at her sides. "But they always fail," she continued in a more confident and also mocking tone, "just like you people. I'm impressed you managed to kill even one of them, much less eight. But they reproduce like rabbits, so I'm hardly worried." She seemed to be sizing me up. "You're a scrawny fellow. I'm not surprised you almost died with one hit. Weaklings like you shouldn't even be out here."
I wanted to respond, but I couldn't think of a good retort that wouldn't get me killed. So I shut up.
"Well, how should I kill you?" She continued lazily. "You've left me with a variety of options. I could torture you, feed you to my pets, hang you upside-down for a few days...so many choices, so little time."
"Who are you?" I finally said, bored by her lame suggestions of 'torture'. She gave a coy look.
"What should that matter to you? You'll be dead in a moment anyway. Well, I guess the last thing I can tell you is my name. I am Seniana. Take that with you on your trip to Hell." Her ninja swords were suddenly in her hands, and she prepared the deathblow. I closed my eyes and waited calmly.
Again, nothing. I looked at her, and saw that a small, flying demonish thing was flapping incessantly by her. She was looking at a small piece of paper. She glanced at me and smiled.
"Well, you got lucky," Seniana said with a smile. "I've called back by my boss. But don't get too thrilled; I'll be back in ten minutes, at least. Bye-bye." With that, she created a portal and stepped through it.
I sat for a moment, thinking. If she said ten minutes, then did that mean I had exactly ten minutes, or about ten minutes? I hate when people say things like that. The EvlDemons were sitting off to the side, smoking cigars and playing poker. I wondered if they would bother with me. With that, I stood up and walked over to Alexander, pulling out a Fenix Down from the mystic item storage plane.
"Hey!"
I winced and turned. The Demons were all looking at me. "What'cha doin'?" One asked.
"Oh, nothing much. Just reviving my friends so were can kill you guys and fight the boss is all."
There was a pause as they took this in. "'Kay, whatever. Just don' make too muchuva racket, ya know?"
"Cool wit it."
After we were all healed up, Cat turned to me. "So what happened to you? Did you fight off the rest of them by yourself?"
"Sort of. I kinda got screwed over by the EvlDemons, but then this lady appeared, and she said some crap about killing people, all well and good, and then she left, but..." I trailed off as a portal reappeared where the last one had been. Seniana stepped through, looking a little pissed.
"That goddam mother f__king bitch, who the hell does she think she fu___ng is? I'm not her godd__ little se_ toy, I have my own d___ agenda! I can't just fuc__ng drop every-fu__ing-thing and leave!" I could see the censors off to the side trying to bleep out what she was saying, but they couldn't keep up. That's when she noticed us. Then she got really pissed. "What the fuc_!? I thought you all got the shi_ beat out of you!"
"Yeah, well, it just sucks to be you." Now that I was healed, it was back to the old cocky me. And that just threw her over the edge. She pointed at us and shouted, "Flame tech!" A burst of fire shot towards us, but Alexander cast Shell, which lowered the damage to minimal. Hagmore rushed her with his sword, but he couldn't lay a finger on her - she was just too damn fast. He used a sword tech, but she blocked it with a Dark Shield. Sifian tried to double-team her with Hagmore, but she made them look like bumbling fools.
Seniana was running circles around Hagmore and Sifian. Ari was standing helplessly by, unable to get a clear shot in. Cat had been hit by Hagmore's rather large sword, and was rubbing her head and giving him evil looks. Finally seeing a chance to use some of my special skills, I paused for a moment to select a good one. Then the fun began.
"Image Splice!" I shouted, flinging my arms out and down. With that, six images of me all flew out of my body. They would have all converged on her, but the second tripped and hit the ground rather painfully. The third jumped out, got tangled in the seconds' legs, and fell flat on its face. The fourth just went flying. The fifth and sixth managed at dodge the pileup, but ran into each other and fell over. The first just stopped where he was and scratched the back of his head. With that, Seniana doubled over laughing. I sighed, my face shadowed in that evil and dramatic way, as a sweatdrop appeared again.
"What's their problem?..." I muttered, my eyes twitching. "Oh, will you stop LAUGHING!" With that, my wakazashi came flying into my hands as I rushed foreword in classic anime style. I hit her once, bowling her over. She tried to get up, dazed, as I rushed in again. I hit her again, sending her flying into the air. I then ran under her, leaving a dust cloud behind. I stopped, and prepared to strike the third blow when something hit me.
"Hey, wait a minute..." I pondered. "In DBZ, isn't it always whenever someone tries to hit someone while they're flying in midair always when they get the ultimate beating of a lifetime...?" That was when Seniana twisted and kicked me. As I pulled myself out of the long trench I made, I muttered, "Yep. Sounds about right." Pause. "STUPID RED BOXES! YOU DIDN'T WARN ME!"
The battle raged on - as well as any turn-based system could rage. Despite the fact that there were six of us and just one of her, Seniana was doing some serious ass whooping. Probably because she got about six turns for every one of ours. I mean, if you think about it, each of us gets one turn about every eight seconds. There's then the delay in selecting the attacks and waiting for it to execute, making about a ten second wait. That totals up to six attacks total, at a rate of eighteen seconds an attack among us all. Seniana attacks once every other turn, including ours, meaning she attacks at a rate of once every fifteen seconds. This gives her a huge advantage in that aspect.
Well, while I was doing math in my head, the rest of the guys were getting trashed by her mathematically superior battle skills. I knew I should have paid more attention in school.
Hagmore went up to attack. He did the most predictable attacks ever, giving just enough delay in between to allow her to dodge them. With each miss, he got more and more frustrated. "Argh! Why can't any of my attacks hit her?"
"Maybe it's because you're waiting too long to attack her...?"
"I've been giving this fight my all!" he continued, ignoring me. "Is she that powerful...? We could be in big trouble, guys."
I just stared at him. "Am I the only one who finds something wrong, here?" Just then, Seniana jumped foreword and attacked the Cardinal. Despite all the time he had to defend the attack, he simply stood there with an amazed expression on his face and let her hit him.
"Ow," he said, struggling to pick himself up. "That...really hurt."
I rolled my eyes and slapped a hand to my head. "What did I do to deserve this?"
Just then, the sky darkened, and we all disappeared. I looked around. "The hell...? Alexander must've summoned something, but I didn't hear anything..."
Just then, a text box appeared at the top of the screen, reading, 'White Wrath'. I just stared at it. In the distance, a dust cloud appeared. In no time at all, we could see that it was really a white Nisan truck, with a large, unshaven man with brown hair and arctic fatigues, talking on a cell phone while staring at something else at the wheel. A group of banjo-playing hillbillies were in the back, playing away.
Vose was chatting away, not paying attention to anything going on ahead of him. He glanced up at the last minute in time to see Seniana right in front of him. He tried to swerve out of the way, but still ran her over. He winced at the sound, then glanced around to see if anyone was watching. He threw the truck in reverse and ran her over again, then put it in drive and ran over her once more. He waved to the hillbillies, who then jumped off the back and began to beat on her with their banjos. After a while, Vose motioned to them again, and they all jumped back in. With that, he drove off as they continued their song. We reappeared as Seniana stood up. I stared in horror, then looked at Alexander. "Never do that again."
Seniana suddenly doubled over, clutching her side. "Don't think you've won," she said. "I'll be back!" With that, she teleported out, leaving a large bag of gold and another labeled 'EXP'. These were collected.
"You know, she said not to think we've won, but isn't this a victory?" I said to my self, not expecting an answer. I didn't get one. Then some random idea came to my head.
"I don't want to spoil the plot line, but did anyone else notice Seniana looks amazingly like Catriana?" No one heard. "Never mind."
With the spoils collected, we headed out to our original destination, that one town that we didn't know the name of until we entered. I glanced down at the words that appeared at the bottom of the screen. "Draobdrac, huh. What a dumb name for a town."
We strolled in. We kinda meandered around as I wrote in stuff on our map, then they all gathered in a small circle. "We should split up and collect information," Sifian said. "It's what all good heroes do - besides doing good deeds."
"And since collecting info is easier than the deeds, we'll go for it!" Hagmore said. "Let's go in groups. Ari and Sifian are just kind of a must be, so I'll go with Cat, and Alexander and Heath...where the hell did he go?"
"Right here."
"They all looked around. "I don't see him anywhere," Ari said.
"You know, even though this is so blatantly screaming that Heath could be working as a double-agent, I will ignore that fact and simply change the line-up. Just in case some random side-plot shows up, Cat will go with Alexander and I'll go on my own, despite my better judgment." With that, they all huddled together, then shouted, "Break!" and ran off in their groups. I was left holding the map. "Whatever."
Draobdrac was a very happy town. There was lots of activity, a lot of weird mystic items, many an ancient legends, and was the center of all trade. Even the shops sold happy stuff. I hated it. I kicked a barrel over and broke it with my foot. Even the barrels made a happy sound when they broke. There was happiness in the barrel. The barrel even thanked me for breaking it. It was so happy I wanted to repeatedly bash my head against a wall, but was afraid the wall would appreciate the pain. The people were happy and knew about every little event about our party one could think of. They would always talk about anything different, no matter what had happened, they would still say, 'You guys have gone through 67 drawers!' or 'You've fought in 206 battles!' or 'Heath has a hidden past and would like to kill himself!' Anything could change what they said, and it would be in a happy tone.
With all of that in mind, I decided to go kill myself, but then I realized I couldn't because you can't target your own party members in this game.
Damn.
...
...what the hell. Continuing the story...
I decided not to stay in on one screen for more than five seconds, for fear that the happiness would rub off on me. I located the inn and hid in there. Townspeople never go into an inn unless something important is happening. I was sitting in a chair (a happy chair, no less), trying to ignore the cheerfulness of the walls, when Hagmore strolled in. He looked right at me and walked past to the innkeeper. After asking him a few basic questions, to which he got the same answer every time ('One night is 300 GP. Would you like to stay? -YES -NO.'), he somehow figured out where everything was. He turned and walked out, still not noticing me. As he was walking out, he misjudged which way the inn screen was facing as compared to the outside screen, and ended up walking right back in. He stared blankly for a moment, he glanced at me and did a double take.
"Whaa?" he exclaimed, a little thrown off. "When did you get there?"
"I didn't. I was here the whole time."
"Oh," was all he said, and he sat down next to me. "So what's up?"
"Nothing, except for the repeated cheerfulness of life which is starting to slowly DRIVE ME INSANE."
Hagmore simply watch me as my rage tried to surface, but was settled. "That's pretty tough."
"You have no idea. I plan to resurrect a small, cute-looking but incredibly powerful being from our distant past and use him to destroy the entire universe."
"What for?"
"No reason. Just need something to pass time."
The rest of the party gradually arrived, and in a plot-filled scene, we revealed that we hadn't learned anything of any use at all. But it all seemed really nice and spiffy.
After a happy rest at the cheerful town, complete with extra-cheerful rest muzac, we left and continued to our next destination. Wherever that was. But considering the world is made conveniently to force us to go in one certain direction, it wasn't hard to figure out which way to go.
We ended up in a mountain again. Joy. We began our climb, entering the first cave that was conveniently cut out just like a tunnel. I swear that there are a group of guys who are always just one step ahead of us, armed with shovels, picks, and drills, who carve out intricate tunnels in caves and mountains and reshape the landscape just so we go in the direction they want us to. It's really twisted.
Anyway, the first thing I saw was a giant yeti just standing there. As we got closer, I realized it was standing next to a switch. When we got too close, however, it finally noticed us and came charging at us. The battle ensued.
"Why am I standing off to the side...?"
"Because you aren't in the active party! And neither is Sifian."
"Sucks to be us..." We were suddenly standing on the opposite side we had originally been on, now next to that switch. And there were now three yetis. "I guess we can't let them throw the switch, then? So why didn't they do that before we got on this side of them...? And how did we get on this side, anyway? Must be one of those things that happens when the screen goes black."
"Here we go!" Hagmore suddenly shouted.
"Oh, goodie," Alexander said.
With that, the battle really began. Both sides ran towards each other, now in a full active-time battle system. Hagmore and Cat charged as Ari shot at them, and Alexander used his mighty white magic. The three yetis ignored them, slowly advancing towards the switch.
"You know, I could easily just walk up and block them from getting to it...but no, I'm not in the active party...when am I ever in the active party? And why the hell can't I fight? Its not there's anything that's going to stop me."
The fight continued. I contemplated homicide. Sifian just sat there, playing the role of an inactive character well. One of the yetis died and the second was getting the hell beat out of it. But the third was slowly advancing towards the switch, with only Alexander blocking its path. "We are now officially screwed."
Alexander simply watched the yeti advance. He looked at his staff. He looked at the yeti. "Oh, what the hell." With that, he dramatically ran up to the yeti and swung his arm. He cut off the yeti's arm, then reached under his robes and pulled out a bassoon, which turned into a bazooka, which he then used to blow up the yeti. He then put the bassoon-ka under his robes and stood in a bishonen-ey way.
"How...? How...?" The question was never finished, and, therefore, never answered. I just kept staring and pointing, but never got anything out. The experience was dished out and we continued on.
After several more odd battles like those before, we came across the wonderfully accented save point. These things are always put where there is no way in hell that you could ever miss them. So of course we skipped it. We came across a bridge, which got its own screen, which means...plot time!
"Hold it right there!"
We all turned and looked up the cliffside to see a giant, hulking robot standing there in a dramatic pose. "You shall all go no further!" it bellowed, doing more poses. "For I shall be your doom!"
"And just where the hell did this Getta-Robo reject come from?" I asked, rubbing the back of my head.
"Why should we listen to you?" Cat challenged. "And who are you, anyway?"
It gave a metallic laughter. "Oh ho ho...such impudence. But I shall tell you my name." It gave a dramatic pause. "There are those who call me...Plot Device C."
There was a deathly silence, the only sound being that of me slamming my head against my fist as hard as I could. "If you're Plot Device C," I moaned, holding my head with the same hand, "then where the hell are Plot Devices A and B?"
It ignored my question, but I was getting used to that by now. "Hah hah hah...now, humans, prepare yourselves for the most terrifying power you have ever witnessed!" It struck the most ridiculous pose I had ever seen in my life, then jumped up and did several impressive-looking but rather simple flips and spins in midair. It came flying down to land in front of us, but it smashed the bridge to pieces with its weight. We all went falling down into the river below. As we were washed downstream, I saw that the cliff was lined with Bugrum, all doing their ritual dance as they sang...
"Hubba hubba zoot zoot...eba uba zad zet...ah nam nam...hubba hubba zoot zoot...eba uba zad zet...ah nam nam...ah hureppa hureppa, bah hah hureppa, ah nam nam..."
- File 01 33:05 Smoke Mountains
Lvl 48 4013/4013 HP 210/210 MP
214758 steps 60183 GP
File 02 07:32 Kamakura Village
Lvl 12 456/612 HP 31/31 MP
5154 steps 573 GP
File 03 17:56 Jibun Trail
Lvl 22 1391/1391 HP 102/102 MP
11588 steps 20134 GP
LOADING...PLEASE WAIT
After our unsuccessful attempts to find Julio and Zan, and much cursing/celebrating, we set out to the closest town on our map, which was a little village in Alenovian territory. It was mostly open plain all the way there, save for the border gate. We strolled on down (also known as South for those of you not competent in the mystic ways of RPGaming), Hagmore in the lead, just chatting.. The conversation was mostly on random topics, like the time we were filming for a home movie when we discovered the time-lapse control, and started doing all sorts of crazy things, like multiple fight scenes, and then Hagmore -
Krrsh-krshhh!
That was when the world got all fuzzy, then condensed onto one spot, leaving the rest in a black oblivion. I managed to stop myself from spinning in a circle as the battle loaded. "What the hell...? Stupid battle loading sequence..."
That was when we heard insane laughter. We looked to see the cameraman running in circles, pointing the camera everywhere as he laughed maniacally. He ran in a circle around the enemy, then ran in front of us, then started jumping around for no reason at all, doing flips, then threw the camera into the air, caught it, and calmly walked back to where he would witness the battle. There was a long silence.
Anyway, we were fighting four EvlDemons, which were big black things with claws and big muscles and wings it didn't use. Right. Anyway, the first Demon attacked Alexander, who took some pretty deadly damage. The second used a PowrUP spell on itself, and the third cast UnHoly on us. I was fine, but the others took varying amounts of damage. Alexander was now in critical, and Sifian was almost there, too. The others were all at about half their normal HP. The fourth Demon attacked Hagmore, but he blocked it with his sword.
Cat and I attacked almost simultaneously. I immediately thought, Its Eva all over again...I went for the one than had cast PowrUP, and Cat attacked the first one. I finished mine off with two consecutive hits from the wakazashi, and Cat left hers in the red. Sifian turned his quarterstaff into a trident and stabbed the weakened one to death. Ari supplied Sifian with a Hi-potion, and Alexander cast Cure 3 on everyone. Hagmore charged the third Demon and wailed on it with his Avenger, killing it. The fourth Demon was left alone.
We all got ready to attack, all taking confident poses, ready to waste the last one. That was when it called on reinforcements. Six new EvlDemons showed up, all ready to cook our asses. There was a long silence as we just stared.
"I'm assuming we saved after that whole thing we went through..." I said quietly, maintaining a calm composure.
"Uhh...just keep on believing that, and...we...can win! Right, uh, guys...?" Hagmore said with waning confidence. I nodded to myself. Right. As much of a chance as a fish on a grill with a Fire3 spell and out of MP while poisoned and paralyzed, and the cook is berserked and has a +4 to all stats and is armed with Drizzt's Defender, and the angry mob is screaming for blood...wait a minute...
I blinked as three of the new Demons combined their strength into a forth, which powered up by drawing darkness into itself. After a moment, It raised one clawed hand and an enormous ball of dark energy began to grow. With that, it posed with style, then pointed at us and growled, "Daaku Fureiah!"
Despite the horrible Engrish that could have dealt damage to me, it was so bad, the resulting explosion that followed was rather painful-looking, but used some nice CG. I personally didn't feel a thing, thanks to my coat, but the others were...well, let's just say they got fucked. Alexander was wiped out first, quickly followed by Hagmore - he is a Paladin, after all. Cat fell after them, and Sifian and Ari were the last. I was left standing alone.
"Aw...shit."
I looked at the three demons that had not gone yet. "So, you want a piece of me, eh?" I asked with a maniacal grin. Dramatic poses soon followed - but none were by me. A group of weird people in crazy outfits jumped in and started posing as fireworks and explosions went off in the background. A HUGE sweatdrop appeared above my head. "Nani...?" With that, they all jumped off, shouting phrases that made no sense. Then a guy with spiky green hair in an archeologist's outfit fell from the sky and made a crater in his shape. Another sweatdrop.
The first cast UnHoly on me again, which did nothing. I laughed, both hands on hips. "Ha ha ha! You think you can beat me, Heath, the Lord of Darkness? Hoo hah!" The same people from before appeared and posed, then leapt away. I stared for a moment, and then returned my attention to the enemy. "None can stand up to my power! I am INVINCABLE! HAHAHAHAHA - " That was about when it hit me in the face. Critical success. I went skidding across the ground, feeling blood running across my face. I was surprised my nose wasn't broken.
"Haso...that's some major painage..." I stared blankly into the sun, waiting for the end. There was a long pause.
A shadow fell over me. Someone was apparently standing over me. I tried to see who it was when a voice said to me, "Well, well, well. If it isn't a group of wandering heroes with good intents. Why am I not surprised? You kind of people are everywhere these days, doing your damn 'good deeds' and killing my Demons. These cost me good bread - I mean money! Yes, money!"
I sat up and saw who the person standing over me was. It was a girl, probably not much older than me, with straight brown hair and bangs. She wore rather skimpy and skintight clothing, and she looked fairly evil. A pair of ninja swords hung at her sides. "But they always fail," she continued in a more confident and also mocking tone, "just like you people. I'm impressed you managed to kill even one of them, much less eight. But they reproduce like rabbits, so I'm hardly worried." She seemed to be sizing me up. "You're a scrawny fellow. I'm not surprised you almost died with one hit. Weaklings like you shouldn't even be out here."
I wanted to respond, but I couldn't think of a good retort that wouldn't get me killed. So I shut up.
"Well, how should I kill you?" She continued lazily. "You've left me with a variety of options. I could torture you, feed you to my pets, hang you upside-down for a few days...so many choices, so little time."
"Who are you?" I finally said, bored by her lame suggestions of 'torture'. She gave a coy look.
"What should that matter to you? You'll be dead in a moment anyway. Well, I guess the last thing I can tell you is my name. I am Seniana. Take that with you on your trip to Hell." Her ninja swords were suddenly in her hands, and she prepared the deathblow. I closed my eyes and waited calmly.
Again, nothing. I looked at her, and saw that a small, flying demonish thing was flapping incessantly by her. She was looking at a small piece of paper. She glanced at me and smiled.
"Well, you got lucky," Seniana said with a smile. "I've called back by my boss. But don't get too thrilled; I'll be back in ten minutes, at least. Bye-bye." With that, she created a portal and stepped through it.
I sat for a moment, thinking. If she said ten minutes, then did that mean I had exactly ten minutes, or about ten minutes? I hate when people say things like that. The EvlDemons were sitting off to the side, smoking cigars and playing poker. I wondered if they would bother with me. With that, I stood up and walked over to Alexander, pulling out a Fenix Down from the mystic item storage plane.
"Hey!"
I winced and turned. The Demons were all looking at me. "What'cha doin'?" One asked.
"Oh, nothing much. Just reviving my friends so were can kill you guys and fight the boss is all."
There was a pause as they took this in. "'Kay, whatever. Just don' make too muchuva racket, ya know?"
"Cool wit it."
After we were all healed up, Cat turned to me. "So what happened to you? Did you fight off the rest of them by yourself?"
"Sort of. I kinda got screwed over by the EvlDemons, but then this lady appeared, and she said some crap about killing people, all well and good, and then she left, but..." I trailed off as a portal reappeared where the last one had been. Seniana stepped through, looking a little pissed.
"That goddam mother f__king bitch, who the hell does she think she fu___ng is? I'm not her godd__ little se_ toy, I have my own d___ agenda! I can't just fuc__ng drop every-fu__ing-thing and leave!" I could see the censors off to the side trying to bleep out what she was saying, but they couldn't keep up. That's when she noticed us. Then she got really pissed. "What the fuc_!? I thought you all got the shi_ beat out of you!"
"Yeah, well, it just sucks to be you." Now that I was healed, it was back to the old cocky me. And that just threw her over the edge. She pointed at us and shouted, "Flame tech!" A burst of fire shot towards us, but Alexander cast Shell, which lowered the damage to minimal. Hagmore rushed her with his sword, but he couldn't lay a finger on her - she was just too damn fast. He used a sword tech, but she blocked it with a Dark Shield. Sifian tried to double-team her with Hagmore, but she made them look like bumbling fools.
Seniana was running circles around Hagmore and Sifian. Ari was standing helplessly by, unable to get a clear shot in. Cat had been hit by Hagmore's rather large sword, and was rubbing her head and giving him evil looks. Finally seeing a chance to use some of my special skills, I paused for a moment to select a good one. Then the fun began.
"Image Splice!" I shouted, flinging my arms out and down. With that, six images of me all flew out of my body. They would have all converged on her, but the second tripped and hit the ground rather painfully. The third jumped out, got tangled in the seconds' legs, and fell flat on its face. The fourth just went flying. The fifth and sixth managed at dodge the pileup, but ran into each other and fell over. The first just stopped where he was and scratched the back of his head. With that, Seniana doubled over laughing. I sighed, my face shadowed in that evil and dramatic way, as a sweatdrop appeared again.
"What's their problem?..." I muttered, my eyes twitching. "Oh, will you stop LAUGHING!" With that, my wakazashi came flying into my hands as I rushed foreword in classic anime style. I hit her once, bowling her over. She tried to get up, dazed, as I rushed in again. I hit her again, sending her flying into the air. I then ran under her, leaving a dust cloud behind. I stopped, and prepared to strike the third blow when something hit me.
"Hey, wait a minute..." I pondered. "In DBZ, isn't it always whenever someone tries to hit someone while they're flying in midair always when they get the ultimate beating of a lifetime...?" That was when Seniana twisted and kicked me. As I pulled myself out of the long trench I made, I muttered, "Yep. Sounds about right." Pause. "STUPID RED BOXES! YOU DIDN'T WARN ME!"
The battle raged on - as well as any turn-based system could rage. Despite the fact that there were six of us and just one of her, Seniana was doing some serious ass whooping. Probably because she got about six turns for every one of ours. I mean, if you think about it, each of us gets one turn about every eight seconds. There's then the delay in selecting the attacks and waiting for it to execute, making about a ten second wait. That totals up to six attacks total, at a rate of eighteen seconds an attack among us all. Seniana attacks once every other turn, including ours, meaning she attacks at a rate of once every fifteen seconds. This gives her a huge advantage in that aspect.
Well, while I was doing math in my head, the rest of the guys were getting trashed by her mathematically superior battle skills. I knew I should have paid more attention in school.
Hagmore went up to attack. He did the most predictable attacks ever, giving just enough delay in between to allow her to dodge them. With each miss, he got more and more frustrated. "Argh! Why can't any of my attacks hit her?"
"Maybe it's because you're waiting too long to attack her...?"
"I've been giving this fight my all!" he continued, ignoring me. "Is she that powerful...? We could be in big trouble, guys."
I just stared at him. "Am I the only one who finds something wrong, here?" Just then, Seniana jumped foreword and attacked the Cardinal. Despite all the time he had to defend the attack, he simply stood there with an amazed expression on his face and let her hit him.
"Ow," he said, struggling to pick himself up. "That...really hurt."
I rolled my eyes and slapped a hand to my head. "What did I do to deserve this?"
Just then, the sky darkened, and we all disappeared. I looked around. "The hell...? Alexander must've summoned something, but I didn't hear anything..."
Just then, a text box appeared at the top of the screen, reading, 'White Wrath'. I just stared at it. In the distance, a dust cloud appeared. In no time at all, we could see that it was really a white Nisan truck, with a large, unshaven man with brown hair and arctic fatigues, talking on a cell phone while staring at something else at the wheel. A group of banjo-playing hillbillies were in the back, playing away.
Vose was chatting away, not paying attention to anything going on ahead of him. He glanced up at the last minute in time to see Seniana right in front of him. He tried to swerve out of the way, but still ran her over. He winced at the sound, then glanced around to see if anyone was watching. He threw the truck in reverse and ran her over again, then put it in drive and ran over her once more. He waved to the hillbillies, who then jumped off the back and began to beat on her with their banjos. After a while, Vose motioned to them again, and they all jumped back in. With that, he drove off as they continued their song. We reappeared as Seniana stood up. I stared in horror, then looked at Alexander. "Never do that again."
Seniana suddenly doubled over, clutching her side. "Don't think you've won," she said. "I'll be back!" With that, she teleported out, leaving a large bag of gold and another labeled 'EXP'. These were collected.
"You know, she said not to think we've won, but isn't this a victory?" I said to my self, not expecting an answer. I didn't get one. Then some random idea came to my head.
"I don't want to spoil the plot line, but did anyone else notice Seniana looks amazingly like Catriana?" No one heard. "Never mind."
With the spoils collected, we headed out to our original destination, that one town that we didn't know the name of until we entered. I glanced down at the words that appeared at the bottom of the screen. "Draobdrac, huh. What a dumb name for a town."
We strolled in. We kinda meandered around as I wrote in stuff on our map, then they all gathered in a small circle. "We should split up and collect information," Sifian said. "It's what all good heroes do - besides doing good deeds."
"And since collecting info is easier than the deeds, we'll go for it!" Hagmore said. "Let's go in groups. Ari and Sifian are just kind of a must be, so I'll go with Cat, and Alexander and Heath...where the hell did he go?"
"Right here."
"They all looked around. "I don't see him anywhere," Ari said.
"You know, even though this is so blatantly screaming that Heath could be working as a double-agent, I will ignore that fact and simply change the line-up. Just in case some random side-plot shows up, Cat will go with Alexander and I'll go on my own, despite my better judgment." With that, they all huddled together, then shouted, "Break!" and ran off in their groups. I was left holding the map. "Whatever."
Draobdrac was a very happy town. There was lots of activity, a lot of weird mystic items, many an ancient legends, and was the center of all trade. Even the shops sold happy stuff. I hated it. I kicked a barrel over and broke it with my foot. Even the barrels made a happy sound when they broke. There was happiness in the barrel. The barrel even thanked me for breaking it. It was so happy I wanted to repeatedly bash my head against a wall, but was afraid the wall would appreciate the pain. The people were happy and knew about every little event about our party one could think of. They would always talk about anything different, no matter what had happened, they would still say, 'You guys have gone through 67 drawers!' or 'You've fought in 206 battles!' or 'Heath has a hidden past and would like to kill himself!' Anything could change what they said, and it would be in a happy tone.
With all of that in mind, I decided to go kill myself, but then I realized I couldn't because you can't target your own party members in this game.
Damn.
...
...what the hell. Continuing the story...
I decided not to stay in on one screen for more than five seconds, for fear that the happiness would rub off on me. I located the inn and hid in there. Townspeople never go into an inn unless something important is happening. I was sitting in a chair (a happy chair, no less), trying to ignore the cheerfulness of the walls, when Hagmore strolled in. He looked right at me and walked past to the innkeeper. After asking him a few basic questions, to which he got the same answer every time ('One night is 300 GP. Would you like to stay? -YES -NO.'), he somehow figured out where everything was. He turned and walked out, still not noticing me. As he was walking out, he misjudged which way the inn screen was facing as compared to the outside screen, and ended up walking right back in. He stared blankly for a moment, he glanced at me and did a double take.
"Whaa?" he exclaimed, a little thrown off. "When did you get there?"
"I didn't. I was here the whole time."
"Oh," was all he said, and he sat down next to me. "So what's up?"
"Nothing, except for the repeated cheerfulness of life which is starting to slowly DRIVE ME INSANE."
Hagmore simply watch me as my rage tried to surface, but was settled. "That's pretty tough."
"You have no idea. I plan to resurrect a small, cute-looking but incredibly powerful being from our distant past and use him to destroy the entire universe."
"What for?"
"No reason. Just need something to pass time."
The rest of the party gradually arrived, and in a plot-filled scene, we revealed that we hadn't learned anything of any use at all. But it all seemed really nice and spiffy.
After a happy rest at the cheerful town, complete with extra-cheerful rest muzac, we left and continued to our next destination. Wherever that was. But considering the world is made conveniently to force us to go in one certain direction, it wasn't hard to figure out which way to go.
We ended up in a mountain again. Joy. We began our climb, entering the first cave that was conveniently cut out just like a tunnel. I swear that there are a group of guys who are always just one step ahead of us, armed with shovels, picks, and drills, who carve out intricate tunnels in caves and mountains and reshape the landscape just so we go in the direction they want us to. It's really twisted.
Anyway, the first thing I saw was a giant yeti just standing there. As we got closer, I realized it was standing next to a switch. When we got too close, however, it finally noticed us and came charging at us. The battle ensued.
"Why am I standing off to the side...?"
"Because you aren't in the active party! And neither is Sifian."
"Sucks to be us..." We were suddenly standing on the opposite side we had originally been on, now next to that switch. And there were now three yetis. "I guess we can't let them throw the switch, then? So why didn't they do that before we got on this side of them...? And how did we get on this side, anyway? Must be one of those things that happens when the screen goes black."
"Here we go!" Hagmore suddenly shouted.
"Oh, goodie," Alexander said.
With that, the battle really began. Both sides ran towards each other, now in a full active-time battle system. Hagmore and Cat charged as Ari shot at them, and Alexander used his mighty white magic. The three yetis ignored them, slowly advancing towards the switch.
"You know, I could easily just walk up and block them from getting to it...but no, I'm not in the active party...when am I ever in the active party? And why the hell can't I fight? Its not there's anything that's going to stop me."
The fight continued. I contemplated homicide. Sifian just sat there, playing the role of an inactive character well. One of the yetis died and the second was getting the hell beat out of it. But the third was slowly advancing towards the switch, with only Alexander blocking its path. "We are now officially screwed."
Alexander simply watched the yeti advance. He looked at his staff. He looked at the yeti. "Oh, what the hell." With that, he dramatically ran up to the yeti and swung his arm. He cut off the yeti's arm, then reached under his robes and pulled out a bassoon, which turned into a bazooka, which he then used to blow up the yeti. He then put the bassoon-ka under his robes and stood in a bishonen-ey way.
"How...? How...?" The question was never finished, and, therefore, never answered. I just kept staring and pointing, but never got anything out. The experience was dished out and we continued on.
After several more odd battles like those before, we came across the wonderfully accented save point. These things are always put where there is no way in hell that you could ever miss them. So of course we skipped it. We came across a bridge, which got its own screen, which means...plot time!
"Hold it right there!"
We all turned and looked up the cliffside to see a giant, hulking robot standing there in a dramatic pose. "You shall all go no further!" it bellowed, doing more poses. "For I shall be your doom!"
"And just where the hell did this Getta-Robo reject come from?" I asked, rubbing the back of my head.
"Why should we listen to you?" Cat challenged. "And who are you, anyway?"
It gave a metallic laughter. "Oh ho ho...such impudence. But I shall tell you my name." It gave a dramatic pause. "There are those who call me...Plot Device C."
There was a deathly silence, the only sound being that of me slamming my head against my fist as hard as I could. "If you're Plot Device C," I moaned, holding my head with the same hand, "then where the hell are Plot Devices A and B?"
It ignored my question, but I was getting used to that by now. "Hah hah hah...now, humans, prepare yourselves for the most terrifying power you have ever witnessed!" It struck the most ridiculous pose I had ever seen in my life, then jumped up and did several impressive-looking but rather simple flips and spins in midair. It came flying down to land in front of us, but it smashed the bridge to pieces with its weight. We all went falling down into the river below. As we were washed downstream, I saw that the cliff was lined with Bugrum, all doing their ritual dance as they sang...
"Hubba hubba zoot zoot...eba uba zad zet...ah nam nam...hubba hubba zoot zoot...eba uba zad zet...ah nam nam...ah hureppa hureppa, bah hah hureppa, ah nam nam..."