The Slave of the Game

The Slave of the Game
Airing date:	December 13, 1999
Episode N°:	09
Previous:	Mouth Wide Shut
Next:	Guilty or...

The Slave of the Game (Japanese: スレイブ・オブ・ザ・ゲーム) is the ninth episode of the Wild Arms Twilight Venom anime.

Synopsis

The episode starts off with Loretta Oratorio losing a card game to a poker Queen named Estelle (voiced by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn). Sheyenne Rainstorm, Dr. Kiel Aronnax and Issac arrive together shortly after to Las Gomoras, a Las Vegas-type of gambling hub, and meet Estelle themselves after a man (apparently named "Dennis") menaces her with a knife and then quickly runs away. Kiel quickly assesses that she is another Crest Sorceress and has a conversation with Estelle, and she mentions the end of the jihad and the loss of King Keanu.

Sheyenne and Issac run into Mirabelle Graceland, who tell them about how Loretta's loss caused her to "sell her body"; the man from earlier, Dennis, approaches the three, and when Sheyenne threatens him at gunpoint he offers to help them get Loretta's money back. He takes them to a vault and opens it by listening to the tumblers, and Mirabelle is able to retrieve their things. Dennis finds a photograph of himself among Estelle's collection, revealing that he was her husband and that she took his assets and used them for gambling while using her feminine wiles to seduce other men. As he is talking to Sheyenne, Mirabelle finds a door leading to a hall of other doors, and ends up being chased back into the vault by a monsters that Dennis identifies as the guard to Estelle's safe. The characters managed to explode through the wall and escape, destroying the vault door and leaving a gaping hole.

Sheyenne meets up with Kiel with Dennis still present, while Mirabelle stakes the little money she has, plus herself, challenging Estelle to a poker game to get Loretta out of debt. Mirabelle loses, and Kiel exposes Estelle's cheating by grabbing her as she is walking away and pulling a card out of her glove. Estelle then uses her Crest Sorcery to make a getaway, and Sheyenne's group chases her into an arena, where she tries to wade through the crowd and falls into the center of the ring, where Loretta has been wrestling this whole time as the way of "selling her body". Loretta knocks Estelle to the ground in one fell swoop, and as her husband is laughing, Kiel drops him in for Loretta to trounce next.

Jerusha and Issac squabble over the feeling of a married couple, while Estelle and Loretta talk as fellow Crest Sorceresses. Estelle plans to return to her hometown and asks Loretta what she is looking for, and Loretta tells her she's seeking out some legendary treasure. Estelle believes Loretta to be the "hope of [their] family" before riding off in a wagon, and Loretta addresses her as her "elder sister".