Final Fantasy X Part #55 - Episode XLVII: Reinforce My Racism

Part 55: Episode XLVII: Reinforce My Racism

Rides ze Shoopuf?

*tilts head toward water* “Take a look."

"What?”

Tidus gets up and peers over the railing for a few seconds…

Underwater Ruins

"A machina city -- a thousand years old! They built the city on top of bridges across the river."

"But the weight of the city caused the bridges to collapse, and it all sank to the bottom."

”Are you sure Sin didn’t just trash the place? Every other ruin I’ve seen has pretty much had the ‘and then 1000 years ago Sin stomped in and smashed it’ footnote going for it.”
*shrug* “I am just repeating what I have been told.”

"Right. It's a good lesson."

"A lesson?"

"Yeah. Why build a city over a river, ya?"

"Uh... Well, it would be convenient, with all that water there."

”I mean on the map this looks like right in the middle of the continent. It would make a pretty good port what with all the ro—“

"Nope, that's not why. They just wanted to prove they could defy the laws of nature!"

”In fact I think I am going to straight up call BS on that one, guy. I mean who came up with that dumb idea—?”

"Yevon has taught us:"

_{_{_{”…Of course.”}}}

“When humans have power, they seek to use it. If you don't stop them, they go too far, ya?"

“Like the stadium and stuff, right?"

”I mean we just road a big elevator thing to get on this shoopuf deal. Which by the way—WAY less exciting than I was led to believe…”

"Yevon, it decides...which machina we may use, and which we may not."

"So which kind of machina ‘may we not use’, then?"

"Remember Operation Mi'ihen? That kind."

"War?"

"More than a thousand years ago... Mankind waged war using machina to kill!"

"They kept building more and more powerful machina."

"They made weapons so powerful... It was thought they could destroy the entire world."

”On top of that they were horribly impractical doomsday weapons. Ones with pipe organ instead of proper controls, designed to look like demonic fiends with massive phallic cannons bulging from their throats and security systems with ill-designed emotion sensors that would cause it to quit the field if someone was angry around it. We are talking some truly idiotic vanity projects of destruction.”

"The people feared that Spira would be destroyed."

"But the war did not stop!"

"Wh-What happened then?"

"The war ended...and our reward...was Sin."

"So, Sin's our punishment for lettin' things get out of hand, eh?"

"Man, that's rough."

"Yeah, it is."

”…You know I think we’ve all sort of-kind of accepted I’m somehow from Zanarkand a 1000 years ago, right?”
“Sort-of kind-of, ya."
“Yeah. So this whole machina war thing… never heard of it. I mean I didn’t keep up with news besides the latest blitz scores but I think I would have heard something about World War Machine.”
“It was probably all those machina keeping you isolated from all that was happening or… or...”
“That doesn’t even make sense, man. Auron back me up on this.”
“I do not know and have no opinion.”
“Gee thanks.”

"But, it's not like the machina are bad."

*punches chair* "It's because of people like the Al Bhed screwin' everything up!"

Enemy Attack

Wakka’s latest racist segue in the conversation is interrupted by the ferry shaking. Granted I am not sure how a fantasy elephant maintains a super smooth ride at all times to begin with but…

”Someones feed ze shoopuf cheese agains? Terribibble gas! Terribibble gas! Shoopuf sheets bricks like rocket mahns? We blastins off to moons?”

Everyone decides the best course of action to take in a violently rocking moving vessel is to stand up like a bunch of buffoons and tumble about the platform.

”Is this honestly something I have to tell you people?”

Yuna is then suddenly abducted by a goddamn Al Bhed Ninja. Sure… Sure, why not? Al Bhed Ninja. That’s a thing. I am just going to go ahead and mentally replace all of Wakka’s dialogue about Al Bhed with the word “Ninja” to make him a more palpable character. He’s not a racist fuckhead. He is a man with legitimate serious concerns about crafty ninjitsu practitioners.

In any case, Wakka and Tidus are on the case. Lulu would sink like someone with a pair of cement shoes lugging about all those belts, Kimahri is a cat, and Auron cannot muster a fuck to give for yet another filler boss in the same week. So they’ll all be sitting this one out.

Welp… Yuna’s ninja kidnapper has stuck our abduction prone summoner girl into a bubble atop some manner of aquatic mecha. You would think with her being in combat stance that Yuna would perhaps assist a bit in some small way in this battle. But you would be wrong.

Meet the Extractor. Even with just Tidus and Wakka in the battle party, this is a piss easy boss.

Being a machina enemy, Extractor is weak to electrical attacks so if Tidus or Wakka are sporting weapons with that trait it is worth switching to those for the battle (just remember to switch back to something a bit less specialized afterwards.)

As usual, Tidus ought to be buffing the party with Haste and a few rounds of Cheer to make an already pathetic boss battle even more of a cake walk. Within about three turns I had Wakka and Tidus going twice for every one round of Excavator and dealing 500-700 HP of damage a piece against a boss with only 4,000 HP total. Needless to say this was a very short fight.

On the offensive Excavator only has a pair of fairly unremarkable attacks. Aqua Shooter has it deal a couple hundred HP of damage against a single one of our party. I’m not sure if the Excavator is meant to be a similar type of machina as the Oblitzerator or if they just got lazy with enemy design for this fight. Either seems fairly possible.

Excavator’s second and far more damaging attack is the Depth Charges. This attack will hit the entire party for 500+ HP of damage. However it takes two rounds to actually commence the attack and if over 500 HP of damage is dealt toward the boss before its follow-up turn then the attack will be cancelled.

Needless to say it never got to use its Depth Charges…

With a thorough trouncing by blade and blitzball the latest Al Bhed kidnapping attempt is thwarted. Good thing Yuna vanished from her stasis field atop that thing or else Tidus and Wakka would have felt very silly when she was eviscerated by shrapnel from the exploding machine.

Thanks for nothing, Yuna. Do us a favor and keep your back to a wall at all times if a guardian is not walking behind you.

A bit later…

"No, I'm fine."

”And surprisingly dry.”

*exhausted sigh*

*shakes fist* "Grrah! Those Al Bhed!"

”Whys there dead Al Bheddas bobbining in waters?”

"Yuna!"

Yuna learns quickly from her mistakes of not immediately sitting down and shutting up when told by Auron to sit down and shut up.

And thus the majestic shoopuf cruises from 1 MPH to 1.5 MPH!

A bit later…

Rides ze Shoopuf?

"What do they want from us?! Could it have something to do with Luca? What are they after Yuna for..?”

“Wait! They're mad they lost the tournament!”

“Or, wait! They're mad about Operation Mi'ihen!"

“Didn't Kimahri's clansman say something...about summoners...disappearing?"

<’Clansmen’? What Kimahri part of grass skirt wearing tribe now…?>

"Ah! So the Al Bhed are behind that!”

”If I had my way, I’d take all them Al Bhed and I’d stick them all in a camp and then I’d make them all—“

“Chirp.”
“And after that I’d make sure that they could never have no more grease monkey kids by—“

“Chirp.”
“…with a whip only if they saw the way of Yevon. But if not I swear I’d take a torch and stick it—“

“Chirp.”
<Man I liked this guy better when all we talked about was blitzball and the weather…>