Cross Ange Episode 22

We begin Episode 22 some time after Episode 21, and Salia is getting spanked (!) by Embryo while he continues working on his plan to fuse the worlds together. However, his plan apparently isn't completer without Ange/the Vilkiss, and as he slaps Salia's ass again, it's obvious he figured out Salia is really jelly of Ange and thus Ange's escape had to have had some assistance from Salia due to her being jelly. And when Salia asks why the hell Ange is so important when he's already got her (who is willing to serve him despite knowing his true nature), he flat out admits to her what we all knew at this point.

He's a man whore who likes controlling women who will throw them under a bus if he has no use for them.

And, as the opening credits begin, he basically tells her to prove her loyalty, and even though she salutes, she's definitely wavering.

After the intro, we cut to the Aurora where Mei is ordering the techies to fix up the Paramails, while Riza (who is covered by a sheet on a gurney looking like hell) is spilling Embryo's plan in full to Hilda and Sala's teams.

The Ragnamails (including the Vilkiss) act as power regulators for Aura, the energy source, and Embryo plans to use them to control the energy flux created for the world merger. Riza craps out at this point and Maggy insists she needs bed rest. Afterwards, Sala immediately proposes a formal alliance with Hilda (remember, Jill willingly stepped down and appointed her), and given the Ryushinki (the Ragna Mail according to the DRAGONs) had a tough time as have the Norma, she advocates they join forces. Hilda immediately cedes to the logic of the situation, but on the condition Ange is back when they sortie.

And that's when Embryo seizes control of Emma (remember, Mana user, so she can be put under his thrall). The Norma flip out, by Sala points out Emma's merely being used as a puppet, and after Sala tells Embryo he's a pathetic jilted bitch and that they'll have his head on a plate soon enough, Sala uses the DRAGON ability to cause people to flip out via their voices to shatter Embryo's hold on Emma.

Before I go on, it finally makes sense why this works. DRAGONs and Mana users were created from similar origins, only the DRAGONs are a mutated offspring of Dracunium radiation, and the Mana users were a more structured version of the same, but they are different enough they repel each other.

To use a Fallout example, DRAGONs are the Fallout 3 Super Mutants, created from an imperfect batch of the Forced Evolution Virus (and while far more sane and pretty looking, still prone to feral tendencies), whereas the Mana users are more like the Fallout 1/2/New Vegas Super Mutants (that batch of FEV allowed most of them to retain or even gain intelligence and gave them more upsides than downsides), but the DRAGONs voices act as a nullifying agent against Mana power, which makes sense, as it's a warped aspect of the same process Mana users use to use Mana. This also works on Norma to a degree since they were created in the same way as the Mana humans, they just lacked the ability to process Mana as an inherent trait (solved by giving them an external tuning agent like those Dracunium rings used by Ange and other Ragna Mail users).

Anyway, Sala tells Hilda they either needs to rescue Ange, or she'll eventually find her way to safety, and Hilda is a bit surprised/jealous to hear Sala refer to Ange as a friend.

We cut back to a pissed off Embryo hanging up the phone (still pissed about Sala ending the call abruptly), and Ersha walks in with a basket of the clothes from those kids who died, and when she asks him to use his magic hax to bring them back to life, he immediately pisses away any good will he built with Ersha by telling her no, on the grounds they will be irrelevant to his long term goals, and while he tries to mend fences somewhat by telling her she'll be Mom to Humanity 3.0, he basically underestimated Ersha's motherly instinct when she understandably flips the fuck out and begs him to bring back the children anyway (remember, she literally was their mother figure on Arzenal, so they are pretty important to her).

Embryo responds to this in the shittiest way possible, by Jedi choke holding her, admonishing her for lack of intellect, then tell her to GTFO.

....way to go, jackass, now you have TWO formerly loyal subordinates whose reasons to help you are about nil now.

Back on the Aurora, Rosalie and Hilda are having a fight over Ange versus the world in danger in importance, and when Hilda points out Ange IS their trump card and without her they are screwed at best (instead of losing her shit, glad to see Hilda had matured as a character), Rosalie insists she's willing yo go as far as killing Chris (despite her feelings for her), citing how Chris killed Marika as the reason, but this is revealed to be tough talk for her being emotionally tore up over having to make that decision, and Hilda decides to be nice and give her a shoulder to cry on. We then cut to Jasmine and Jill in Jill's office, with Jasmine delivering the cold facts of how Chris took down Marika and how Embryo's troops are top class opponents, which leads to Jill asking what her point is.

And that's when Jasmine delivers a What The Hell, Hero to Jill, citing that had they (Jill especially) been nicer to Salia, she wouldn't have defected, which leaves Jill with a butthurt look on her face as Jasmine leaves.

We cut back to Ersha, digging graves for the kids in the rain while realizing Embryo is full of shit. We then cut to Ange finally landing back on Tusk's island, which segues into some painful recollection moments about him and Momoka, leaving Ange to sit in Tusk's home, crying her eyes out.

We cut back to Jill, realizing Jasmine had a point, then we cut to Salia, who is still trying to cling to the idea of proving herself to Embryo if she Murders the Hypotenuse (Ange) while she slices into one of her own Magical Girl outfits with her combat knife.

Cue intermission.

We resume in the Aurora informary, where Emma is getting the news flash she's been bullshitted since day one by Embryo and his goons, and as Emma comes to the realization she's damn lucky to be on the Norma team, shit hits the fan.

Every Mana user on the planet (Emma included) suddenly loses that power, and we cut to Cross Ange's SEELE ripoffs, where we learn this is just a prelude to the world fusion and Humanity 3.0, and as they make plans to save their own asses when that happens, Embryo pulls the same stunt Paptimus Scirroco did in Zeta Gundam when he double dealt the Titans for his own gain, and tells his ex-conspirators he's making them the sacrificial lambs for the now terrified world he's about to terminate and rebirth.

To say they took this badly would be an understatement.

We cut to Sylvia, who now is no better than a Norma, and as she flips out over being powerless in more than one way, we then cut to Ersha and Chris, with Chris informing her they'll sortie soon, and Ersha making it pretty clear she feels zero reason to do shit for Embryo anymore, figuring out Embryo used them to manipulate her, and this causes her to feel like a shallow whore (a bit harsh on herself, but good thing she woke up), and after confirming Chris still hasn't figured out how duped she was, Ersha's mind is made up.

We cut back to Ange, who is lying down in Tusk's bed, obviously feverish. As she tries to get some water, she collapses, causing a diary to fall from a shelf. As she reads it, it turns out Tusk has some pretty melancholy memoirs, until he gets to the part where Ange entered his life, which ended his feelings he would die alone, and we find out Tusk is quite the romantic about Ange (though he freely admits she violent and prone to not listening to him), even calling her "light shining in from the outside world".

(Just pausing for a minute to say that is an incredibly romantic thing to say about someone, excuse me, I think I have something in my eye.......)

As he finishes with telling his late parents he found the love of his life, Ange is obviously stunned beyond description, and this triggers another flood of tears as she doesn't want to be alone, wanting Tusk and Momoka back in her life, and the sadness gets so great she quickly verifies a bullet is left in her gun, then points it under her own chin.

As she tries to find the will to pull the trigger, she flashes back to the point where Tusk begged her to live on for him, drops the gun, and just lies there, continuing to cry. Cut to some time latter, watching the setting sun, she muses how pathetic it was she couldn't even kill herself and how pretty the sun is, cueing more flashback to Tusk's more romantic moments and her blatantly admitting she lvoed him so much she never wanted him to die for her.

And that when he pops up behind her, hugs her, and thanks her for those words. After she gets up and gets a good look at him, she slaps him, thinking he's dead (shock is a hellavu drug folks), and as Tusk is like "I'm alive, srsly", Ange is so "I have to make sure" she strips his shirt off him, disrobes herself, as we get a tasteful pan shot of the shot with the two in silhouette, the romantic music plays as Tusk and Ange finally lose their virgin status.

Meanwhile, we cut to the Aurora, where Ersha is inbound, a white bra on her Ragnamail (since she didn't have a white flag available), and she willingly surrenders. We cut back to Ange and Tusk, the essentials tastefully censors as they stare up at the sky, and Ange admits she tried to off herself and that she read his journal, and as the sun rises, Ange admits she likes the world, screwed up as it is, that Embryo is full of shit with trying to destroy/remake it, and her and Tusk exchange enough sap to make several bottles of maple syrup, with Ange citing they need to protect the world to make Momoka's sacrifice mean something.

And that's when Tusk's face goes into OH CRAP mode, then we cut to his house, where a VERY MUCH ALIVE Momoka has already made a meal for them, and when Ange is like "How did not die", and Momoka reveals she stashed a frying pan under her uniform, which took the shot Embryo fired at her (presumably using her Mana powers to prevent her death by falling while she still had those powers), and Ange and Tusk learn she can't use Mana anymore.

Cue the sappy stuff ending abruptly as the world starts to shit itself from Embryo beginning the world merger, with the sky starting to warp all around them. We then cut to Rusk bring Ange to one of his backup hangars where he stashed his mom's Paramail, and Ange summons the Vilkiss with her ring.

And then we have the end credits.

The post credits preview has Ange bitching at Tusk about how managed to survive the explosion (apparently, he stashed a flameproof suit on himself and magically changed into it, with her pissed at the lame ass plot twist), and as Tusk is trying to not dig himself deeper (too late), we also see scenes of the Aurora and the Norma-DRAGON alliance flying in formation enroute to kick Embryo's ass.