Elly: Captain's log. Cadet Fei and I have been stranded on the wreckage of the Goliath for the last two days. Our supplies have run dangerously low. At least the battles have stopped for a while… but I suspect I can no longer turn my back on Cadet Fei. The rigors of sea travel have somehow twisted his mind. He's got the… sea maaaadneeessssss!!!

Fei: OWOWOWOWOWOW! *gets pwned by a fish*

Elly: See what I mean? Knock it off already, Fei.

Fei: Hey, Negative Nancy, I'm not going to sit around and starve to death. If there's food in front of me, I'm gonna catch it and eat it!

Elly: You'll just get food poisoning. And dehydration from diarrhea and vomiting will kill you much faster than starvation.

Fei: Well why don't you just roast it with one of your Ether spells if you're so smart, huh smarty?

Elly: ...

Fei: What are you staring at now? Have I got a boogHOLY BEJEEZUS THEY'VE COME AGAIN!! THEY'RE HERE FOR MY ANUS!!!!!

Shevat: … *float*

Elly: That's no UFO, that's Shevat, you n00b.

Fei: Shevat? Wait a minute, that's my dad's country.

Elly: It's also the only country Solaris can't take over, thanks to that pretty yellow barrier all around it.

Fei: Uh oh, now that's a plot point, which means at some point the barrier will go down. I bet Solaris is going to get a shot at taking it over sooner or later now… GEEZ! Good going, Elly! You just doomed my home country!

Elly: Yep, definitely got the sea madness…

*Meanwhile…*

Bart: Note to self: Never ever ever open my mouth ever again. Hey, Citan, while I can't deny my good fortune at my dad having kept an extra copy of the Yggdrasil lying around for me to use, I get the feeling he didn't make it, as evidenced by the fact that this tiny crest I found doesn't match our royal crest.

Citan: Very good, bright eyes. I knew you would not notice the enormous flag.

Bart: …d'oh!

Citan: Anyway, it appears that this ship was in fact made by Shevat and sealed away by your dad because he was too pussy to use it.

Bart: Well, since I don't really have anything else to do except sail around and get henpecked by Margie, I've decided to start a holy quest to meet the guys who built my ship.

Citan: Ambition befitting a king, I see. But perhaps you should go beg Rico not to wipe the floor with your face again first.

Bart: Um, uh, hi there big fella. While you ought to be thanking your lucky stars that I didn't have you subdued and thrown overboard for beating the shit out of me, as some kings are wont to do, I'm here to say sorry.

Rico: Cram it up your noble nostril, it's out of my system. Anyway, despite the fact that I'm an ex-con and you are a highly trained resistance fighting the most powerful army in the world, I'm amazed you know how to maintain Gears anywhere near as well as I do. I've decided to drop my unconvincing loner act and join your crew. We cool?

Bart: I guess so. Better to have you beating up somebody else for a change.

*THAT NIGHT…*

Fei: Hey, Elly?

Elly: Yeah?

Fei: We are totally alone on a piece of wreckage in the middle of an ocean and we'll probably die in a few days, but the moon is up and the night is peaceful and quiet. Why are we not making out?

Elly: The exertion would make us sweat and hasten our dehydration.

Fei: God, the army must teach you how to suck the romance out of any situation. But that's okay, I'm just a loser, I might as well die next to a hot girl without even getting to touch her.

Elly: Oh quit it with the emo act, you're not a loser. You've done a lot of good things.

Fei: No, I suck. I'm the shallowest guy who ever lived, because I hate myself and I just do good things so people will like me.

Elly: Meh, so do I. Like remember when I gave you those emergency rations, after you puked that fish back up in a comical manner? It would have been in my self interest to keep them and let you cack it, but it made me feel like not such a heartless bitch to share it with you.

Fei: Wow, we suck.

Elly: Yeah, we do. But we have to love ourselves before we can love others, right? …wait a minute, I feel like I've said that to you before. But that's impossible, because we only recently met, so we could never ever have talked about this in the past, right?

Fei: Right. So…… do people from Solaris sleep naked?

Elly: …………………

*NEXT MORNING…*

Elly: Gee, you're up early, Fei. And my clothes are untouched, so you couldn't have been peeping… what was important enough to get you up at this hour?

Fei: Call it my determination to put this cutscene to bed and get on with the game if you like, but take a look at that!

Elly: …okay, none of my intelligence briefings ever mentioned anything about there being a ship the size of a city floating in the ocean, but I'm not going to complain about it being there if it means we're saved.

Hans: You are, in fact, saved. Although we don't usually make a habit of saving people like this, it's not every day we find two people floating in the ocean on wreckage with a couple of Gears.

Fei: So who is 'we'?

Hans: This is the floating city, the Thames, and it was our captain who ordered us to save you.

Fei: I guess that means we should go meet the guy…

Hans: Oooookay, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Captain: Avast! It's those two winos we found floating on the sea! So you landlubbers have arrived at last!

Fei: Winos? Avast? Landlubbers? Elly, what the hell is he talking about?

Elly: I dunno, those words weren't in any language I was ever taught. So, who are you, kind sir?

Captain: I am!

Captain: An obnoxious!

Captain: Running joke!

Fei: Look, wackiness has its time and place, but right now we're freaking starving.

Captain: Well then mates, let's stroll over to the bar next to the bridge and have us a bite to eat! Haaaaaaaaaaannnsss!! Run the ship while I go screw around.

Hans: Yes, sir. Have we established I can't stand you yet?

Part 28

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