Kinda like that
one scene from the first Avengers movie.
And for as much as I'd like for the
party to be the ones doing the smashing against the queen at some
point, it's something we'll have to wait awhile for. What's worse is
that it's really not all that satisfying when the time finally does
come.
But even Cleyra getting nuked is
something that comes towards the end of this issue, which means there
are a few things we've gotta get to before we deal with that.
When I left off, Freya was the only
party member, and I used the opportunity to look around a little bit
more. Aside from the Emerald accessory from the King of Burmecia,
there wasn't much new to be found, so I went to the entrance to get
the plot going again a bit. Zidane asks Freya what kept her, but I
think he would have asked that even if I'd just gone straight there.
On the way down the tree, the party
runs into a few of Beatrix's Royal Guards, but not much more than
that. Just about the time I started thinking how odd it was there
weren't any random battles happening, I did get a handful of those,
too.
About halfway down, Freya notices that
the Alexandrian attack force is a little light, and I agreed. This
had Puck show up and tell the party that yeah, the main force is
already in the settlement at the top of the tree and smashing away at
things. That's all it takes for the party to go running back there
to at least try to save everyone there.
Of, course, this all goes badly, in
part because it's Black Mages in the town, while it was just regular
soldiers in the trunk. This is another of those things where we're
given choices about where to have the citizens of Cleyra go to seek
safety, but I'm not entirely sure how much effect on how it affects
the outcome. The Black Mages eventually wind up killing all but two
or three of the adults and a handful of kids. Just when we're to
think that the remaining survivors and the party are going to get
their asses kicked by the Black Mages, another Burmecian Dragoon
shows up and saves them.
Turns out this is that Fratley guy
Freya had been looking for for the last five years or however long it
had been. The really crappy news here is that Fratley wound up
getting fucked in the head somehow and has forgotten not only Freya,
who he was supposedly madly in love with, but pretty much everything
about his life before he went on his quest. Puck shows up to help
explain this, saying that he'd found the guy in his current state,
claiming that he'd forgotten so much that he barely knew his own name
and only had the vaguest sense of needing to go defend what was left
of his people when Puck came to tell him about it.
I've heard a few criticisms about
Freya's story arc because of how it ends here. I'll give it that
yeah, it really is kind of abrupt in how it ends. Fratley just runs
off again, with Puck in pursuit, claiming that he doesn't belong with
his people or his now ex-lover because he's a different man now for
all that's happened since he left. I'm fine with that part of it.
The part that seems a little odd to me is how quickly and easily
Freya seems to get over it and say she's fine with just knowing the
man she loved enough to spend a good chunk of her life searching for
is alive and somewhere in the world, even if it means he's not with
her, and that such knowledge is enough to get her to stay with the
party instead of going after him again. That would be bad enough if
we ever saw Fratley again, but I don't think we do.
As that's going on, Beatrix shows up to
hork the jewel that was attached to the harp. The party tries to
stop her escape, but there's a scripted battle that happens here.
Beatrix hands the party its collective ass again and teleports off
with a Black Mage.
With that taken care of, the party and
what's left of the survivors decide to abandon the village since it's
not safe to be there. Freya, Zidane and Vivi teleport away with
Black Mages and wind up on Brhane's royal airship. Quina runs off to
go looking for his noms all on his own because he's an optional
character.
On the ship, we first see Brhane using
Odin on Cleyra before the party's arrival. She's damn proud of her
new thing and looking more out of her mind than last time we saw her.
Afterwards, the party shows up on the boat, and for a moment, Freya
seems to be finally grieving all she's lost. Sadly, this moment is
interrupted when Beatrix shows up and is summoned to report to the
queen.
This bit reminds me very much of the
opening cut scene to Final Fantasy 4, where Cecil turns over the
Water Crystal from Mysidia and has his change of heart. Here,
Beatrix is disturbed by the fact that Brhane seems so obsessed with
her summons that she can't be bothered to even acknowledge the
general that made her last victory so easy. As she sees some Black
Mages get beamed back to Alexandria, she considers that maybe just
mindlessly following the queen's orders isn't what she really wants
to do with her life, and that there may be something to the way
Steiner's doing things with the Knights of Pluto. Helping all this
along is the queen's decision to have Dagger killed now that the
summons have been pulled from her.
Zidane and the others have been
listening in on all this and realize they need to get back to
Alexandria before the queen can actually do any of what she was
saying. The group puzzles for a bit before Vivi comes up with an
idea as to how to make this happen.
We're given a chance to save here, and
since I've been at this for about an hour, it's time to take
advantage of it and pick up here later. Until then, stay safe, keep
gaming, have fun, and DFTBA!
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