Legaia 2 Update 6 - SEPH-I-ROTH! ... Or not, I guess.

[xyzzysqrl]

So it's dark, it's raining, Chesty's friend (or working partner or something) is dead, and we're continuing onward. He rushes on through the forest. The trail could stand to be shorter, seriously. Hitting the end, he stops and shrieks for Galvan. Why? Because a mysterious shadowy blue/white-haired figure has Galvan dangling in midair in front of him from no visible point of suspension. The music goes all orchestral chanty. Aw, crap, it IS Sephiroth, only kind of older and with a monobrow.

"Ch... Chesty, why... didn't... you..." gasps Galvan in Chesty's direction. "Why didn't you bring a really big gun?" maybe. Or "Stay put and mince about town?" perhaps. It's hard to tell. Galvan is then lifted up higher and propelled sideways (via the Force) into a tree. It looks painful. (Duh.) "Run!" he explains to Chesty. Who does. Right at Galvan. A small explosion makes him stop dead halfway to Galvan and turn to face the white-haired man, who we see has golden eyes. This leads to him being named "Gold Eyes" on the battle screen. I redub him "Fakeiroth" absently.

Anyway. There's a fight now. Chesty bravely flails at Fakeiroth, but gets absolutely nowhere. This is our first Unbeatable Boss, a plot moment common to RPGs where the bad guy is utterly invincible under the heroes pass an arbitrary plot moment, at which point they can whip out the damage once more. "What the... I know I hit him!" whines Chesty. Fakeiroth holds up his hand, tattoo-forward, as if he's about to give our hero the finger, except that instead a giant explosion hits him in the Chest... er, chest, and sends him Power Rangering to the ground.

"Demon!" claims Chesty. "No. Not a demon. The pure embodiment of power... Origin!" claims Fakeiroth, and a glowing ghosty blob with pointy arms becomes visible just in front of him. It looks like what you would get if you told a Hollywood special effects guy to make something out of pure light and then wrap it in plastic wrap. "Ori... gen?" repeats Chesty, who's probably been knocked stupid by the blast, I say charitably.

"You and I are the same breed! You should KNOW what that mark on your chest means!" claims Fakeiroth. I figure it means that Chesty got really drunk one evening and woke up the next morning with no wallet and a tattoo. Although, you know, if I had a tattoo that could shoot fireballs and make things blow up, I'd probably keep it more of a secret. (On reflection, this is a lie. I would attempt to level a major city in less than the span of a lunch break.)

Chesty peers at himself confusedly, as if trying to figure out why he's laying in the rain listening to a pyrokinetic explain himself. "The same race? You and me?" he asks, getting to his feet. The people of Mystic, Connecticut, Fakeiroth explains, are the CHOSEN ONES, the Mystics, and they all have really gaudy-looking tattoos. He explains this while holding up his hand as if preparing to flip Chesty off with his Explosive Bird again. We have a quick flashback to the white haired kid from the dream, just to make it clear that hey, they're the same guy.

"Have you seen a stone that looks like this?" Fakeiroth topic-switches, holding out his palm instead. A minute of magical flashy-effects later, we see... Hey, it's the Aqualith! The one thing that keeps his village alive! Boy, it would suck if that got stolen, right? Chesty has a painfully long flashback to watching the Aqualith hover over the lake, a memory Fakeiroth effortlessly plucks out of his brain. It's like reading a pop-up book, I'm sure. He just kind of wanders past Chesty, who looks terribly confused. "Wha? Huh?" he mumbles, in more words, and Fakeiroth fills him in that SHINY STONE GOOD and HE WANTS. He's going to wipe out all life on the planet that isn't from Mystic.

"The town is in danger! But what should I do?" thinks Chesty, staring blankly into space. There's a long silence, as if Chesty should be making a speech or something about how he'll never take the Aqualith, etc. Instead Chesty just stands there awkwardly. I think I'm succeeding in making him the least heroic person ever. Meanwhile, Fakeiroth just absently warns him not to try it, because he'd hate to kill someone of his own race.

"Yeah, you're right." agrees Chesty. "I wouldn't have much of a chance of winning." I think: "Woohoo! I've ended the game after twenty minutes! He surrenders." Then Chesty follows up, "Against a monster like you!" ...oh. Just taunting. Damn shame, really. Of course Fakeiroth gets cheesed off at this, since members of a superior race are supposed to lovingly hold hands and prace down the road to genocide together. Also, there's the whole persecuted as a kid thing going on, as we flashback (again with the flashbacks) to the burning village scene. This time, without Chesty to point at, they find White Haired Boy and kill him to death.

...Oh, no. Wait. They find him and he uses a giant pillar of light from his Magical Middle Finger to wipe out the town (and incidentally send the controller, set aside in my lap while I type, a-vibrating. Giving me a cheap thrill and nearly sending me through the roof.) Back in the present, he whips around and that glowing, giant, beefy beast appears again, and promptly impales our hero, who collapses in slow motion.

Fakeiroth is all shocked and like "Dude! You totally killed him!" and his Origin, who find is named Igohl, is all "Dude, he totally holds the power of Galea. He's a badass." and Fakeiroth is all "Whoa." and Igohl is all "Seriously." and Fakeiroth is all "Whoa." again, and then Igohl goes "We've gotta kill him or he'll be in the way." and Fakeiroth is all "...dude, he's a fricking pansy." and Igohl's all "No way." and Fakeiroth's like "Yes way. I'm a studmuffin. He can rot. L8r, weenie." So he walks off, leaving Chesty face-down in a pool of... uh, rain.

We get an oddly distorted hoving point of light telling Chesty to wake up. Then we get to watch Chesty's memories of Fakeiroth power-posing, followed by Fakei collecting a a green stone and a blue stone (The Aqualith! Gasp!) and a yellow stone. "Soon it shall begin." we are informed. Then Chesty wakes up flat on his back, in his own bed.

".......!!.." he comments eloquently. There has been no finer commentary on the human condition post being-left-for-dead before or since. I bow before his command of metaphor, his well rounded periods. Bravo, good man. You inspire all of us.

Nancy sprints to his bedside as soon as he sits up, screaming "Chesty!! Chesty!! Chesty!!". While I worry that a Beetlejuice-like spirit of boobosity will burst out of the floorboards, she sprints out again to get Galvan. Chesty stares dully after her trying to figure out what happened. After all, his chest was pierced! ... Ah, but it was a LEATHER Chest. Maybe that saved his life! Perhaps my one-stop-shopping-stop run for armor kept the plot moving!

Probably he just has Magical Mystical Miracle Plot Point Power. That's way more likely. Anyway, he has flashbacks to the giant beam of Origin pointy-armed light piercing his nipple until Galvan comes in, limping on a cane. He sobs all over the place, claiming he has no idea what they'd have done if Chesty died. Chesty stares blankly some more. It's revealed that Aston (Y'remember Aston? ... I don't think I do either. Random Townsperson.) ran out to Hunter's Wood and brought everyone in. Our Hero's been asleep for five days straight. No -visible- wounds, but he wouldn't wake up. I do the same thing when I'm comfortable. I don't see the big deal. Nancy sprints off again to make him a "Congratulations, you're not dead!" meal.

"Hey! It's too soon for you to be walking!" claims Galvan, and turns to leave. So I walk Chesty around for a while to spite him, and with a click of the save point, pause for now.