Episode 45 - Battles for the Geofront, Big and Small
It had finally come to this.
On one side were the forces of NERV and its Evangelion units (control of which strangely seemed to have slipped from the grasp of Gendo Ikari), teamed up with Freakazoid, Freakazette, and a small number of their friends and former foes combined.
On the other was Gutierrez and the greatest weapons he ever got his hands on after seizing control of SEELE: the nine Mass Production Evangelions.
All in all, it was shaping up to be one heck of a showdown.
"Shee-yoot, those sure are some big n' ugly varmints, ain't they?" Longhorn said, commenting on the appearance of the MP EVAs.
"I'll say," Cave Guy concurred. "These things look as if they sprang from Clive Barker's imagination after he saw Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira for the first time."
"Freakazoid..." Boa-Magnon warily started to say.
"WAY ahead of you," Freakazoid instantly replied as he quickly clicked the Freakazord app on his phone. In the Freakalair, the lights in the robot's hangar turned on while the doors opened up, and soon the robot itself blasted off and made its way to the hole in the Geofront. Descending through the opening, the Freakazord then landed beside Units-01 through 03.
"Naoko, think you can take the controls for a bit?" Freakazoid asked her over his phone.
The bridge...
Naoko's hologram cracked her knuckles and stretched her fingers as a pair of joysticks emerged below her forearms, signaling her having linked up with the Freakazord. "Certainly," the digitized scientist answered determinedly.
The battlefield...
Within NERV's EVAs, the pilots braced themselves for the fight.
"Uh, guys?" Toji asked. "You know I probably wasn't there for the briefin', so what's the deal with those things again?"
"Long story short," Asuka began to answer, "they're all Dummy Plug-controlled, S2 engine-equipped killing machines that have replicas of the one weapon that can penetrate AT-Fields. Like the lady once said: no pilot, no external power source, no mercy."
Toji swallowed a bit on hearing this. "So what's the plan?"
"We take them on with melee weapons, ranged won't matter much to them," Shinji said in a stoicism most wouldn't think of when meeting him. "Hopefully, our backup from NERV-2 will be here soon."
"So right now, basically, it's the three of us and Freakazoid's robot versus all nine of these things?" Toji asked a bit nervously.
"Yep," both Shinji and Asuka replied as they quickly armed themselves with their own prog-glaives.
"Just checking," Toji said in turn before he quietly muttered a small prayer while picking up a glaive of his own.
Back on the ground, Longhorn furrowed a brow over what he saw. "Well, shoot, this ain't fair," he said. "And believe me, I'd know. Lemme fix that." He then ran over to Bessie Mae and got in the driver's seat.
"What's he doing?" Freakazette asked.
"Oh, that?" Cobra Queen replied. "Longhorn gave Besssssie Mae a number of upgradessss in the intervening yearssss, on the off-chance he'd find himsssself in a giant robot melee in Japan."
At that moment, Longhorn flipped a series of switches and then pressed a big button on the dashboard. Suddenly, to the astonished eyes of all present, the big rig began to undergo a radical change. It began to lift itself upright, as the upper half of the trailer became a pair of arms and the lower half a set of legs, both of which linked to the cab as it assumed the form of a torso.
The bridge, that moment...
"No way..." Shigeru remarked with awe.
"My gosh...It's not just a truck-!" Maya started to say.
"It's a Transformer!" Makoto finished.
Announcer: "The following dialogue was made possible with the express consent of (and preemptively-paid licensing fee to) Hasbro, Inc."
The Geofront interior...
Bessie Mae's transformation finished when the head emerged from the back of the cab, looking like a helmet with big steer horns on each side and a nose ring on its faceplate. A smirking Longhorn then clicked on his CB mic. "Now this is more like it!" he said through the external speakers. "Say howdy an' how-do to the Bessie Mecha!" Longhorn then directed the Bessie Mecha to join up with the Freakazord and the NERV EVAs as it got into a fighting stance, much to the mutual surprise of Shinji, Asuka and Toji.
Speaking of those three EVA pilots, they looked at each other via vid-screen, bewildered expressions still on their faces, before any one of them spoke. The one who finally did turned out to be Asuka.
"*Sigh* At this point, nothing's gonna surprise me anymore," she said with a shake of her head.
With that, the two sets of giants started going at it as they ran into battle, weapons and fists raised high. While the giants fought for dominance, on the ground another battle was about to start, as Gutierrez began walking towards Freakazoid and friends.
"Freakazoid..." Gutierrez said as he threw off his long coat, "How good of you to return, so we can finally end this at last."
"Gutierrez..." Freakazoid replied, not amused and somewhat indifferent. "I see the years weirdly have been kind to you."
"That they have," Gutierrez said, "though maintaining a good diet and exercise regiment does help. Plus, biding my time all these years allowed me to build up enough strength to do this once again..." He then snapped his fingers, and was soon enveloped in a flash of light and static. When it subsided, Gutierrez stood transformed, powered up in a way he hadn't been since first exploiting the power of the Pinnacle chip's flaw all those years ago. His skin had changed to a light blue, and the half of his face that resembled a 3-D circuit board had been restored to its natural state. He now wore a purple body suit, black boots, and metallic green bracers; on the upper chest area of the suit was a black triangle that went from front to back and spread to the area between his shoulders and neck, outlined by two metallic green lighting bolt shapes; on top of where all three converged was a big green letter 'G'. Gutierrez's hair had become a big, white mane with a single black lightning-shaped streak on the right side, and his eyepatch appeared to be more high-tech now.
The suddenness of this took almost everyone by great surprise, no more so than the two Freaks.
"Oh..." Freakazoid started.
"Fudge," Freakazette finished.
He can do that?! Kensuke wondered in shock.
Can he do that?! Mayumi reiterated.
Those questions were echoed on the Bridge among the staff.
"Wait, can he do that?" Ritsuko asked.
"I don't know, check the script!" Misato worriedly replied. Soon the two of them got out their respective copies of the story's script and flipped through a number of pages, till they finally reached the current scene.
"*SIGH* Yes, he can, he can..." they both said, disappointed.
Back on the battlefield, the now powered-up Gutierrez smirked and made a 'come and get me' gesture with his right set of fingers, daring Freakazoid and the others to take him on. The group of them answered in kind as they rushed Gutierrez, the fisticuffs now underway. Unfortunately, Gutierrez proved to be a pretty powerful opponent, shrugging off blows from Cave Guy, Vorn, Bo-Ron, and the Huntsman, even with their particular levels of strength; when the Lawn Gnomes tried to bring him down by grabbing onto his limbs (and even trying to bite them as well), he simply flung them aside. Lord Bravery attempted to push him back and up into the air, but Gutierrez held firm, only displacing a few inches of grass and dirt, before swinging the British superhero into Boa-Magnon and Cobra Queen's snakes. As for the Freaks themselves, they too tried to land a blow on him only to be quickly knocked back into Boa-Magnon and Cobra Queen.
"This isn't going the way I imagined," Freakazoid said as he briefly looked our way.
"I heartily concur," Freakazette added.
C'mon guys, don't give up now! Kensuke urged.
Think of what'll happen if we let Gutierrez walk all over us! Mayumi added.
Knowing their 'roommates' were right, the Freaks helped Boa-Magnon and Cobra Queen back up, just as the others did to take another swing at Gutierrez.
The bridge, that moment...
Observing the events as they unfolded, Gendo Ikari thought to himself that it was either now or never.
Let them struggle all they want, he mused darkly to himself. It's as now a good time as any for my own scenario to commence...
He quietly opened a channel to Unit-00. "Rei, it is now time," he said to the girl within the entry plug. "I shall meet you in the Chamber of Gauf."
"Understood, Commander," Rei said. It's starting... she then thought to herself.
Gendo then got up from his chair, and turned to Fuyutsuki, surprised by the sudden action. "Fuyutsuki, take care of things here." With that, he abruptly left the bridge, with no one else having noticed.
"Ikari-?!" Fuyutsuki said. It was then that he made a fateful choice, and opened a channel to the entire PA system of the Geofront, surprising the rest of the crew on the bridge. "Freakazoid, this is Fuyutsuki speaking-Ikari's headed to Terminal Dogma!"
The Geofront interior...
Freakazoid heard Fuyutsuki's alert while he and the others squared off with Gutierrez, causing him to perk his ears up.
"Ikari's going to try and bring his scenario to fruition!" Fuyutsuki continued. "You've got to reach him before it's too late!"
Freakazoid felt conflicted, wondering if he should go do just that or stay to help the others with Gutierrez. He got his answer quickly.
"GO!" Freakazette urged. "We've got Gutierrez! Go already!"
She's right! Kensuke chimed in desperately. We've gotta hurry!
Freakazoid, a determined expression now on his face, nodded back at Freakazette and soon zoomed off back towards HQ.
The lowest level of Terminal Dogma, the Chamber of Gauf, moments later...
Gendo had arrived at last in Lilith's chamber, having used his own hidden program within NERV HQ's automated systems to ensure he wouldn't be locked out or impeded as he made his way down; up above, Ritsuko and the others had tried to override it, but couldn't. From the massive doorway, he took a moment to observe the environment around him. Lilith was still there, the lance embedded in her chest. The weirdly-placed battleship still floated in the lake of LCL; a part of him was still amused by how it confused a lot of people as to how they managed to get it down there in the first place. Lastly, he could see in the distance a small figure standing at the end of the walkway at the center of the lake, one he knew by the blue he could make out on their head.
"Rei..." Gendo said as he walked towards the figure. "I knew you would be here. The promised time as come..."
When he finally got close to the figure, however, he became shocked at what he saw. In truth, it wasn't Rei at all: it was a hastily-put-together sack cloth dummy, wearing a blue wig and one of Rei's spare school uniforms. Gendo growled furiously before kicking the dummy to pieces and screaming in a rage.
"GENDO IKARI...!" a voice boomed with enough dramatic ham to fill the deli counter at a Shakespeare performance.
Gendo turned at the sound and was soon met with a bizarre sight: Freakazoid was standing there at the Chamber's entrance in an over-the-top heroic pose, wearing a stereotypical horned Viking helmet with an attached blonde, twin-braided-tailed wig underneath; held aloft in his left hand was an ordinary rubber-headed mallet that one would find in a hardware store.
"...WE WOULD HAVE WORDS WITH THEE!" Freakazoid exclaimed, the scene briefly lit by a flash of lightning as the sound of thunder echoed.
Gendo just stood there, one eyebrow arched, scratching his head, and his mouth agape, utterly baffled by the wacky wonder's display. Freakazoid, in turn, became confused by the lack of a reaction on Gendo's part.
Told you he wouldn't get it...Kensuke said, shaking his head.
"Ah, nutbunnies!" Freakazoid said as he lowered his hammer arm disappointingly while snapping the fingers on his right hand. "I don't get it, this kind of thing worked for Chris Hemsworth!"
To be continued...
**Author's Note(s)**
Almost there...Almost there...
The bridge bunnies commenting on Bessie Mae's shape-shifting riffs on a scene from the climax of Mel Brooks's Spaceballs. (Fittingly, a few pieces of Transformers merchandise were used for the 'merchandising' scene from earlier in the film.)
Gutierrez's empowered form was first seen in the Freakazoid season one finale, "The Wrath of Gutierrez". He was able to do this by bribing the staff of the prison he was staying in enough to get an internet connection to his cell's computer, and from there was able to access the flaw in the Pinnacle chip (which he stated he also 'improved' upon).
When everyone questions if Gutierrez can do that, another Mel Brooks film is invoked, in this case the archery contest sequence from Robin Hood: Men in Tights.
Gendo's reaction to the dummy echoes that of Waylon Jeepers in the season two episode "Statuesque".
And lastly, Freakazoid's entrance is a big riff on Marvel's Thor comics, as well as the MCU Thor movies. Freakazoid's headgear comes from the season one segment "Conversational Norwegian".
Next time: Freakazoid vs. Gendo, with the return of Freakazoid's original sidekick! (Plus the other big battles topside, natch.)
