Episode 47 - Epilogue I: Making Like a Sandwich and Splitting
When Gendo finally awoke, what greeted him was quite shocking. The first thing he noticed was that his right palm was all bandaged up, as if something had been surgically removed.
"Looking for this?" a voice asked.
When he turned towards the source, he was met with Ritsuko Akagi, holding the fragment of Adam in a specialized container; it didn't take long for him to figure out that she'd done the deed. Looking beyond his former mistress, he also noticed that the JSSDF was present, with two soldiers currently holding him handcuffed. In addition to Ritsuko, a number of faces greeted him with derision, from the EVA pilots (his own son included) to the remaining command staff of NERV (Fuyutsuki turning away while shaking his head). Even that cursed Kaji was there, sloppy grin on his face, giving him a smarmy little wave goodbye, the kind one would see Bill Murray give in one of his movies.
In addition, Freakazoid and his allies were also present, watching as he was escorted to a JSSDF APC. He then noticed that the SEELE-hired mercs were also being escorted into other transports. As Gendo was beginning to figure out, he was to be transferred to a military stockade until his day in court. Before he was led any further, he took one last look at a particular individual he'd relied upon for his plans: Rei Ayanami. She was standing hand-in-hand with a girl he felt looked familiar...Right, the pilot of the Provisional Unit, from what he remembered of his files. What really stuck out to him was how Rei was glaring daggers at him, something he'd never thought he'd see. The only other person who'd do that with such similar intensity was Yui, whenever she'd get mad about something.
"Rei..." Gendo started to say.
"You're a creep. Go away," was all Rei said, further shocking the now ex-commander of NERV, if not most of the others who knew her well. With that, Gendo was led further until they reached the APC and he was placed inside. Unsurprisingly, he wasn't alone, as a handcuffed Gutierrez was already sitting in there, brooding.
"Sheesh, I can't believe I used to be scared of him," he heard Shinji say. "What a weenie."
Hearing that wound up pushing both of their respective buttons.
"Don't say that weenie word!" Gendo and Gutierrez both shouted simultaneously, surprising them both. At that moment, the door to the APC closed and it was soon on its way to their new 'residence' until their respective court dates. The sound of the two masterminds' petty arguing could be heard as it departed, eventually fading the further away it moved from NERV HQ.
Suddenly, without any warning, a bright green portal opened up behind our heroes and the others, and it deposited a figure onto the ground. The figure was a short, bald little man wearing a cloaked robe, a bandolier and matching belt, which had a couple of pouches hanging from it. The man looked up at his 'audience' with a sinister grin and began to chuckle. Freakazoid (and those from his particular circle of friends and former foes) recognized him on the spot.
"Jeepers?!"
"At last!" Waylon Jeepers exclaimed in triumph. "Finally, I've made it back from the dimension I'd accidentally exiled myself to! And now, with the new arcane powers and techniques I mastered while there, I shall-"
"Jeepers, hold your horses, will ya?" Freakazoid said as he put a hand on the sorcerer's shoulder, snapping him out of his reverie. "It's done, over, the fight's finished, you missed it."
Jeepers, stunned by his words, immediately became disappointed.
"You mean-?" he began to ask.
"Sorry, pal, we just got past that. We're already on the first epilogue," Freakazoid confirmed with a shrug.
Jeepers, letting those words sink in, sighed. "Well, that's just great, what am I supposed to do now?"
It was then that Vorn stepped up to the man who had originally summoned him to Earth in the first place. "I think I can help with that," the monster warrior offered. "You see, there's a trainee spot I've been looking to fill at the store..."
Two days later...
It had been quite the 48 hours for the world. News outlets reported on the arrest of the other SEELE members for their respective participation in at first one plot of world annihilation and later one of world domination, as they were located and escorted from their respective hiding places. With Freakazoid and Freakazette's help, even Lorenz Kihl would be brought to trial; the two had gotten custody transferred to them from the folks of Internet Prison so he could be tried out in the real world. Surprisingly, Kihl was relieved, as he wouldn't have to endure the over-enthusiastic ramblings of the Fan Boy Program any longer.
On the more positive side of things, people had been returning to Tokyo-3 after the evacuation order had been lifted, allowing the pilots to reunite with Hikari, Mana and their families. The two were introduced to Marie and Mari, who with Major Danger's go-ahead were allowed to stay in Tokyo-3 for a little while. Misato was especially happy to have Pen-Pen back with her, as was Rei when it came to Kablooie the kitten, who she had also entrusted to the Horakis until the crisis passed. (It didn't take long for Kablooie to take an immediate liking to his owner's new girlfriend.)
As for the Freaks themselves, today at NERV HQ was going to be a significant one for them, and it had to do with what Roddy, Ritsuko, and Maya had put together in one of HQ's labs. The two were presently standing in an odd-looking apparatus; the apparatus itself brought to mind the transporter from Star Trek, only it was built with two squares top-to-bottom, and what looked like two columns on each side, with full-body scanners built in. Misato, Kaji, Makoto and the pilots were on-hand to watch; Hikari and Mana had been given passes so they could join them.
"Soooo, remind me what this is all supposed to do again?" Toji asked, scratching his head.
"One Cliff Notes explanation, coming up!" Freakazoid replied.
"Basically," Freakazette started to explain, "me and 'Zoid here originally bonded with a couple of humans when we made our debuts, only after they'd accidentally activated the Pinnacle chip."
"We'd switch back-and-forth with them thanks to a certain code phrase or two," Freakazoid added.
"Oh yeah," Makoto said. "Sort of like Captain Marvel!"
"You mean the guy who says 'Shazam'?" Shinji asked.
"No no, the other one," Makoto corrected him. "Different publisher."
"Before the start of the new millennium, we were able to split off from our original hosts so we could stop the Y2K Bug," Freakazette continued.
"Huh, so you're the reason so many hoarders were embarrassed on January 1, 2000," Ritsuko noted while making some final adjustments on the apparatus.
"An' it was thanks to this piece of hardware that they were able to split off in the first place," Roddy elaborated. "Think of it like a strainer-only instead of drainin' water from pasta, it'll separate the human from th' digital superhuman, lettin' all parties regain their agency in th' process.
"Will it work?" Rei curiously asked.
"Of course it'll work," Roddy answered confidently. "Lucky fer me, unlike last time, I'm in a place where there's more than enough of the right components to put this baby together."
"So when all's said and done, I'm guessing we'll be finding out who was 'under the mask' all this time," Kaji stated.
"Sounds about right," Misato added.
Finally, Maya closed a panel and then wiped a bit of sweat from her brow. "All set here," she said.
"Good. All right, lads n' lassies, ya may wanna step back a bit," Roddy advised. The others proceeded to step back a ways while Roddy, Ritsuko and Maya got to their respective stations. "Goggles up!" At that, everyone slipped on a pair of tinted safety goggles before the trio began activating the apparatus. Once they did, the platform below the Freaks' feet and the panels above them began glowing, as did the scanners in the side columns. The lights became brighter and brighter, as a grid-like pattern began to run through the Freaks; strangely, sounds similar to the Star Trek transporter could be heard. Finally, a big, super-bright flash of light briefly enveloped the room, causing the others (despite wearing goggles) to briefly shield their eyes with their arms. When they brought them down after the flash subsided, they then removed their goggles, and when they looked towards the platform, shocked looks appeared on their faces.
Standing next to Freakazoid and Freakazette were, respectively, a couple of faces who were very familiar to most of the people in the room.
"KENSUKE?!" Shinji and Toji both said.
"GEEK-STOOGE?!" Asuka followed.
"MAYUMI?!" Hikari and Mana added thirdly.
Marie had a very dumbfounded look on her face; though she didn't know the bespectacled twosome personally, she was still very astonished at how two kids in her age group were secretly the alter-egos for a couple of superheroes.
Mari, on the other hand, appeared pretty unfazed by this revelation as she turned to the quite surprised Rei.
"You sure have some interesting friends there, Blue," the smiling Unit-05 pilot commented with her newfound term of endearment for Rei.
Kensuke and Mayumi shook their heads to clear some of the cobwebs out. It was then that Freakazoid playfully gave Kensuke a slap on the back.
"It worked!" the male wacky wonder said. "You're free, old buddy old pal, free as a chip n' dip sample at Costco!"
Having regained their bearings, Kensuke and Mayumi then looked at their shocked friends' faces, before briefly looking to each other and then back, now with sheepish expressions of their own.
"Uuuuhhh, hey guys," Kensuke said with a small wave.
"Ummmm, surprise? Heh-heh..." Mayumi said with a shrug.
One day later...
After spending most of yesterday giving Kensuke and Mayumi's friends the full explanation of their unusual partnerships, the now-fully-independent Freaks and co. were now at NERV HQ for an entirely different reason. That reason was hanging on a giant metal cross, and was now fully-regenerated after Rei had removed the Lance of Longinus and had reabsorbed the LCL that formerly made up the lake in the Chamber. In Freakazoid's own words, they (they being the Freaks themselves, Kensuke, Mayumi, Roddy, Misato, Kaji, Ritsuko, Rei, Asuka, and Shinji) were there to have a long-awaited talk with Lilith. Ritsuko was wondering especially why she'd been asked to have the Adam-in-a-jar with them in particular, but was told by Freakazette that she'd get her answer soon.
At that moment, a smiling Freakazoid looked up at the white giant and spoke to it.
"It's all good, you can come down now!" he said cheerfully.
Lilith, in response, nodded its head and phased its hands out of their bindings. From there, they removed the strange, seven-eyed mask from their face and tossed it to the side, just as they began to grow quite brightly, forcing the others to shield their eyes. When the flash subsided, the others brought their arms down, and unlike the Freaks, were met with a very astonishing sight:
The giant on the cross was gone, and standing a few feet in front of them was a very pale, beautiful-looking woman with long, snow-white hair that went down to her waist. She was barefoot, and wore a pair of bell-bottom blue jeans, a tye-dye top, a necklace with both a peace sign and a female symbol hanging from it, a headband, and a pair of purple-tinted, little round sunglasses. The woman yawned and stretched her arms before addressing the group of people in front of her.
"*YAWN* Aaaahhh, man, does it feel good to have the breeze between my tootsies again," she said wistfully, the most serene-looking smile on her face.
To be concluded (I promise!)…
**Author's Note(s)**
We're gettin' there, don't be antsy. One key part of creativity is patience, after all.
Rei's words to Gendo are a low-key callback to "Dance of Doom". You all know which scene I'm talking about, the one where Waylon Jeepers asks Freakazoid if he wants to see something 'strange and mystical'...
Speaking of, Jeepers himself finally makes an appearance, albeit a brief one! Remember the first part of the 'back to the USA' section of the story? Well, Jeepers had accidentally sent himself to another dimension (one that looked like something out of a watered-down Conan the Barbarian) to learn more powerful magic, and he was stuck there for some time.
The way the Freaks get separated from Kensuke and Mayumi was partly-inspired by a device from the Nickelodeon series Danny Phantom, which in one episode managed to separate the 'Danny' from the 'Phantom'.
Shinji and Makoto briefly reference both DC and Marvel's Captain Marvel (DC's being the 'Shazam' one and Marvel's being the one who would trade places with Rick Jones when clanging his Nega-Bands together).
