Final Fantasy Legend II Part #25

Part 25: Law and Order: SBU

Ugh. Bertelli, you better have a damn good reason to get me up at this hour.

You know it's three in the afternoon, right?

Judge, we...

Seriously, it's a frickin' fructose party in there!

Huh. That is a good reason. Baliff, you go confrim the evidence. You, go get Echigoya out of his cell.

Yes, your honor.

Kame! We got him. We finally got him!

Great work, Hannah. Your father would be proud.

Yeah! You really busted your hump!

...

That's cop slang, right? Hump? That's a thing cops say?

...while I admire your enthusiasm...

Echigoya Lucchese, you stand accused of multiple counts of possession of fruit with intent to distribute. How do you plead?

I didn't do nothin', yer honor. This is all just a misunderstandin'.

Yeah? When the baliffs come back with that evidence, your ass'll be misunderstood straight into a deep, dark hole for the rest of your life.

Here we go, creep. Last words you'll hear as a free man.

What.

...I see.

You're free to go with apologies from the palace.

Eeeey, ain't no big deal. You gotta do your job, right?

...this is bullshit! I saw them with my own eyes!

Shut up. You've made this a personal crusade, Bertelli. I'm not going to have you screw this up and get the shogun sued for all he's worth.

_{Uh, it's a feudal system. Can't he just ignore lawsuits?}

_{Now's probably not the time}

I'm telling you, the ship was stuffed full of fruit! These kids saw it!

You brought kids into this?! That's it, you're a loose cannon! From here on out, you're suspended without pay. Turn in your badge!

...

*fling*

Take it. Guess it doesn't mean anything anymore.

...

Later...

There were barrels of bananas on that ship. There's no way they could've gotten rid of the evidence that quick.

But that means the baliffs were lying. Right?

...son of a bitch. Son of a bitch! What if Echigoya bought the judge? What if he's on...

I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation.

Uh, yeah? That the whole criminal justice system here is corrupt?

Not really what I was going for there.

Hannah! Hannah!

*collapse*

_{*cough cough* The Echigoya family... Wanted to ch-check them out for you, get your badge back...}

You idiot! You were only two weeks away from retirement!

It's worse than that. The palace guard was following us, and they sure as hell aren't here to find out who roughed Kame up.

Where are we going to hide a samurai and a giant turtle?

Under the bed!

What? There's no way they'll fit under there.

That's a great idea! Quick, help me move him!

It's not even a bed! It's a mat!

So, Hannah! What were you saying about not seeing Taro or Kame anywhere near here?

That's a thing I definitely just said, yup!

...

...came this way. He looked an awful lot like Kame.

Must've been someone else.

...gone on a date or something.

You... realize there's only one giant turtle in this area.

Racial profiling? Wow. Is that what the force's been reduced to?

You're ruffling a lot of feathers upstairs. People are starting to notice.

Just what are you saying, officer?

I'm saying I have a lot of respect for what her father did on the force. Just drop it, Hannah. It'll all blow over, and we can get back to keeping gang crime under control.

...hmm.

Later still...

_{...anything to incriminate them. Guess I'm just a useless old man.}

Don't be stupid, Kame.

Yeah. If it weren't for you, we wouldn't have found out the entire department was on the take!

Just how far up does this go?

...I don't know.

_{*cough* Th-they know you're on to them, Hannah. The kids, too. If they can't buy you, they'll keep you quiet... other ways.}

Let's see them try!

Heather...

Nah, I'm down with Heather this time. If they're gonna come after us, we need to hit first.

Hannah?!

We have to find out how deep this goes. Besides, if the entire department is just a front for the hatamotos, what the hell good is being a detective?

Yeah! Let's go stomp some ass!

...

...uh, metaphorically speaking.

Let's all welcome Hannah aboard the Butte Train! _{_{(Tee hee)}}

Hannah's flashy, but she doesn't have a lot in the way of physical attacks. She's basically a sub-par gadget fighter, equipped with a pair of sais (called "Sypha" here) that do piddly damage but can block attacks, an item called "Temptat" which inflicts confusion, and Coin, which is just about the worst thing ever. It does a flat 50 damage at an 80% to-hit rate and I have zero idea why it exists or anyone would use it. I mean, theoretically, I guess you could use it to punch through a particularly tough boss' armor since its hit rate is completely independent. But 50 HP? Really? How is that going to help anyone?

Also, I hate confusion as a status attack. It's a token ability whose sole purpose is to justify screwing over the player. If you cast it on a monster, there's a 50-50 chance they'll just do whatever in the hell they were going to anyway. If they cast it on you, your guy immediately puts his pants on his head and throws all your careful battle commands out the window. I think confusion has been useful for the player all of once: in Final Fantasy IV The After Years, where the female ninja could drop it on roqs and have them kill themselves with 100% certainty. That's about it, though. Confusion is terrible, don't waste your time on it.

Anyway. Hannah's actually a really cool and progressive character for a JRPG, but her loadout sucks. Even still, we now have a hard-boiled detective in a kimono assisting our robotic hero's efforts to take down an illegal fruit-smuggling ring.

SaGa, y'all!

First things first. We need to squeeze Echigoya until he gives up names.

This'll be totally easier now that we don't have to get a warrant.

Doesn't that make us vigilantes? Are we vigilantes now?

Well, I'm not...

...but the Masked Esper might be.

You know we watched you put that on, right?

My secret identity's been compromised

Not getting a real good feeling about working with you four.

You get used to it after a while.

A hidden underground lair? Wow.

Yeah. At this point, I'm shocked he doesn't have a mustache to twirl.

Maybe he doesn't...

Oh shut up.

Wait! Do you hear that?

The latest shipment was well received, Signore Lucchese. You know I have the utmost respect for your exquisite tastes.

Please, yer lordship! Call me Echigoya!

Of course, of course!

And I gotta say, I appreciate you keepin' the police off our backs. That detective almost ruined the whole thing.

Hannah? She's a nobody. We've already discredited her as a detective. If she keeps making noise, I'll send the guard to fix the problem. Consider it a token of my appreciation.

Which reminds me, here's our token of appreciation.

*jingle*

...you.

Hmm...

What? You wanna count it or something? You'd really insult me in front of my paisanos like dat?

No, I'm just thinking... it could be heavier, couldn't it? For both of our sakes.

...yeah?

Gathering magi costs a lot of money.

Ha!

Dis right here's a guy after my own heart!

Hahahaha!

SUDDENLY, THIS PLAYS

BAH GAWD THAT'S ROY BUTTE'S MUSIC, WHAT'S HE DOIN' HERE

IF YOU WANNA SEE ME OPEN UP A CAN OF WHOOP ASS ON THE SHOGUN, GIMME A HELL YEAH

...

No.

Aw.

Give it up, Echigoya! Your days of smuggling the banana are over!

...

...wow. Can I have that one back?

Nope.

You again! You got no friends left, Bertelli! This is our town now!

Maybe. One small problem, though.

Yeah?

I don't have to worry about excessive force anymore.

Echigoya comes with nine of his bodyguards and a pretty good strength stat. He also has a unique weapon called Abacus that he'll sometimes drop. It's fairly unremarkable outside of its uniqueness, and I'm not entirely clear on how he uses it in combat. He probably just smashes it over your head. This whole section has some pretty weird stuff going on.

As you'll remember, the hatamotos have a small artillery at their disposal and are perfectly willing to hose our guys down with it. However, things have changed juuuuust a bit since our last hatamoto fight...

ROY BUTTE! ROY BUTTE! BAH GAWD

DON'T TRUST ROY YOU STUPID S.O.B.s

We have a tank now! And while the Hatamotos' bazookas can still get through the tank's shield, unless all nine of them gang up on Roy at once and fire their bazookas, that group of hatamotos you see there is fuuuuuuucked. That just leaves Echigoya, and while a fairly respectable mid-boss on his own...

¡Esa es una albóndiga picante!

...he's only one guy.

...it!

Save it for someone who cares. We're taking you off the streets.

Permanently.

*handcuff*

Oh boo.

I'm not gonna kill you, Echigoya. I'm better than that. We're better than that.

_{Most of us, anyway}

This is my city. And if the shogun's in on this, well, he's not above the law, either.

Are you stupid? You're not gonna win this fight, badge! The entire palace is against you now!

That's not your concern anymore, because you're done in this city.

_...ugh...

Hey, old man. Good to have you back.

Some of Echigoya's thugs tuned you up pretty bad.

...

I bet they dropped some bodies afterwards!

Okay, you can knock that off any time now.

10-4, detective!

This is all my fault. I should've done something sooner.

Not your job, Taro.

No. It is. Now that we know the shogun is using banana proceeds to fuel a magi hunt, I have a duty to fufill.

Hey, wait a sec!

Yeah. But how do you know about us?

...the Captain.

No shit?! You're Captain Butte's son?

Yup.

I thought you reminded me of someone!

...

Anyway, how the hell is Roy? I haven't seen him since I was stationed here.

...oh no. I'm really sorry to hear that. The Guardians've taken a hell of a gut punch, then. He was a good man.

Yeah. He really was.

Do you mind if I ask... I mean, how did...?

He sacrificed himself trying to save a little girl named Lynn. It bought us enough time to regroup and finish the guy off.

You got the bastard? Then you did your father proud.

I hope so.

You know... with the entire world against us, I'm not going to be able to take the shogun down myself. I need backup. You're Roy's boy, and you've clearly got his spirit. How about coming along with me?

Oh, um.

What? What's wrong?

It's just... the last time we went to a palace, things got... weird.

Yeah?

...