Cross Ange Episode 13

Before I begin, the Episode title is "Arzenal in Flames", which says quite a bit.

Anyway, we start with the "it's okay, we just want to give you juden a nice shower, here's some bars of soap" bullshit from the previous episode, and while everyone is in "what?" mode, Momoka is naive enough to think it's sincere. Jill shows up in the comm center and outright calls that bullshit and orders anti-air defenses, and we get undeniable proof of her respect amongst the troops when they don't question this at all.

Julio sees this, muses he regrets this couldn't have gone peacefully, then tells the Imperial fleet "ok, they're traitors, shoot to kill". As they start firing off missiles and flak, Jasmine orders Ange and the others to haul ass as Momoka is all 0_o. Most of the initial missile barrage gets shot down, and as Ange and the others are heading for their Paramails, we cut to Tusk cursing how late he was as he speeds towards Arzenal via his own machine, and hopes Ange is safe.

The opening credits start and are somewhat more solemn than the first one, and frankly, I really dig the gothy opera in the background, though the James Bondish naked women cut ins kinda mar the awesome a little, though the somewhat Renaissance era painting like pose done by the main cast at the end is a nice touch.

We cut to inside the base, where the senior members of Squad 1 are trying to keep order as Rosalie and Chris are pissed they were lied to, and that's when Jill, enroute to the underground hangar, throws down the gauntlet and tells everyone "surrender or resist, make your choice now."

Operation Libertus now begins.

As Jill tells Salia not to forget to get Ange out intact (and Salia has grown up and accept this without complaint), Jill leads the comm tower staff into a battleship that had been waiting for this day. Meanwhile, Hilda is stoked for the chance to finally say an official fuck you to humanity, so when she asks Jill for orders, Jill tells her to sortie in the Paramails. Ersha's onboard, and while Rosalie and Chris are like "this is nuts", Hilda dares them to be badasses and realizes Ange isn't there. Meanwhile, Mei and the engineering staff are making sure the Vilkiss is flightworthy,

After we find out quite a bit of the remaining Arzenal pilots are willing to follow Hilda in fighting back, we get a brief cut to Salia escorting Ange, then back to Rosalie and Chris noticing the enemy has deployed the Cross Ange answer to Half Life 2's Manhacks to kill them, only these are bigger, can latch onto paramails like magnets if they get close enough, and are being deployed in hordes.

Meanwhile, Jill is having engine trouble since power to the base is down, but she just orders rerouting auxiliary power and discovered the base has been infiltrated. Meanwhile, some Imperial soldiers are examining some captives, apparently with Squad 1's commanding officers as their targets, and they are wondering if they are really supposed to be participating in a mass slaughter, and that's one of them goes full SS and reveals they have three goals.

1. Capture/kill Angelise.
2. Capture/destroy Vilkiss.
3. Capture/kill Paramail riders.

Everyone else, well, do to them what Hitler wanted to do to the Jews, and they proceed to start using machine guns and flamethrowers to do just that.

Before I go on, after being willing to do this, they have a lot of brass claiming the Norma are the savages.

Anyway, as this quickly becomes evident and a full on retreat is being ordered, Ersha runs off, presumably to evacuate the kids, and we cut to the infirmary, where Maggy is leading the evacuation of the wounded, and when Emma tries to save herself, a bullet through her hat makes it clear they consider her expendable. She soon catches a bunch of soldiers attempting to capture the comatose Vivian (she's part of their third objective), and almost gets cut in half with machine gun fire trying to stop them.

We cut to the mech bay, where Hilda refuses to pussy out while Chris is doing just that, and Hilda even takes a hit for her and takes the guy out, and tells the shocked Chris she refuses to let anyone die to the enemy. We then cut to Salia still escorting Ange (at gunpoint) while Jasmine has an unconscious Momoka over her shoulder, and the two of them get into a bitch fight over why Salia is throwing everyone else under the bus to get her out alive on Jill's say so, and Salia bitch slaps her over striking that nerve, and that's Momoka reveals she faked being unconscious, uses some spice shakers as improvised smoke grenades, and her and Ange leave a shocked Salia and Jasmine.

We cut back to Jill getting a call from Tusk, and she lets him know they'll need help tracking her down, and after brief cut to Ersha shooting it out with some goons,  Ange and Momoka discover the horrifying killing field the Imperials made of the mess hall, with dead, burned bodies of Norma everywhere, and as Ange tries to throw up, Embryo shows up, and even he's a little disgusted over the brutality and tells Ange Julio is responsible and the dead were collateral damage in his attempts to take her out. And that's when we hear a scream and gunshot.

Cue intermission.

We found Momoka was barely able to shield herself in time as Ange caps some Imperials in the head for daring to hurt her. She decides to get answers out of a survivor, and after shooting his arm as he tries to raise his gun at her, he tries to invoke the "just following orders" defense, and Ange is so pissed his head winds up a red stain on wall before he finishes that sentence.

In fact, she's so fucking mad she empties a full clip into the guy, not that I blame her.

Turns out Momoka got grazed across the shoulder but little else and tries to get Ange to calm down, and that's when Ange realizes what she has to do. Her and Momoka show up and kill some goons trying to ice Hilda and the others, and as she leaves Momoka in their care, she hops in the Vilkiss.

The runway is blocked, but Ange solves that by firing a few missiles (killing a lot of the goons in the process), and as she files off, Salia decides to give chase, Hilda decides to help out Ange, and Tusk  rescues Vivian as he starts doing action movie shit to kill off her would be captors, and as he asks Jill where Ange is, Jill sardonically tells him 'Well...."

Cue her flying overhead, him facepalming at her insanity.

Meanwhile, Julio get a report of a few mail rider captures, but none of the priority targets, which makes him mad, but cheers up once he's sees Ange is inbound. Meanwhile, as Ange is taking down the Manhack ripoffs, Salia shows up to take her back, pissed Ange isn't even letting her do the one thing that is in her power (since Ange can do all the shit she wanted to do by now).

Ange tells her, despite the fact it was a prison, she really did like it at Arzenal (cue several flashbacks to the funnier moments), knocks off Salia's Paramail arms, tells not to follow her or she dies, and promises to make Julio a fucking corpse for taking away what little happiness she had left.

As Salia hits the water, still pissed, the Vilkiss turns red (literally) as Ange starts opening up a can of whoopass on the Imperials. Meanwhile, Hilda and her former groupies have metaphorically kissed and made up as they sortie.

And that's when a not quite dead imperial gets a lucky shot and kills Chris. Well, not immediately, but a second or so later, yeah, she's dead as Rosalie goes apeshit.

....well, if Embryo approaching Chris' apparent corpse means anything, maybe not.

Ersha makes the tragic discovery around this time of finding out those children she tried to save were murdered despite her best efforts, and as she's weeping, Embryo (how does this guy keeps popping up everywhere?) shows up behind her in apparent horror.

Meanwhile, Ange has discovered the Vilkiss now has it's own Phase Shift Armor (Gundam SEED)/Absolute Terror Field (Evangelion) hybrid, and takes advantage of this to start killing the Imperial fleet with scenes right out of Gundam SEED stock footage (you know, the scenes where the Gundam flies right at the enemy ships and starts slicing them in twain, minus the grunts shitting themselves and screaming 'IT'S A GUNDAM!", but same basic idea).

Anyway, Julio is starting to panic as reports of friendly vessels exploding around him keep mounting, and shit officially fills his pants as the front half of his own ship's bridge is sliced off, and the Vilkiss is right in front of him. As Ange pops out to have a word with Julio, we see Riza making a discreet exit.

Julio barely gets her name out of his mouth before she leaves a bloody hole where his right kneecap used to be with her pistol and orders him to call off the massacre. He does so, then freaks out as Ange rears back the Vilkiss' sword arm. He's like "this wasn't the deal!" and starts trying to get her not to kill him, and just as she's about to kill him regardless, her sword is blocked by an enemy Paramail.

It's apparently piloted by Riza (though Embryo is standing on its shoulder), and we get a few reasons to like the guy as we get some flashbacks to him reviving Chris and one of the kids Ersha tried to save with his apparently God-like powers (okay, maybe Jill calling this guy God wasn't far off), and even though Ange realizes this is the guy Jill has a raging hate on for, and to her surprise, he's willing to ice Julio in her place (apparently, he was pretty sickened by Julio's brutality), and even starts singing the Endless Song (you know, the one Ange's mom taught Ange).

As he's singing and Tusk and Vivian are like 0_o, we see Riza (apparently having escaped manually, so who the hell is piloting the Paramail Embryo's on the shoulder of?) naked from the waist up, wings flapping in the air some distance away, kinda pissed at Embryo right now, and that's when he reveals he's got the same wave motion guns the Vilkiss does as he kills Julio so bad it leaves a massive hole in the water, to Riza's shock.

Meanwhile, Jill is about to haul ass, as the final prep is confirmed, the battleship Aurora begins it's maiden voyage.

Around the same time, as Ange wonders what Embryo's true motives are, Tusk shows up attempting to put a few holes in Embryo's head, warning Ange to get the hell away from the guy, and this pisses Embryo off as he prepares to blow Tusk off the map. Ange dives toward Tusk, the Vilkiss turns blue, and teleports herself and Tusk away from the blast, leaving Embryo now floating in mid air with a brief 0_0 look on his face being both disappointed and impressed.

Cue end credits.

The post credits are funny as hell, with Ange being all pissed her and Tusk are on another deserted island, her warning him not to do anything perverted, him putting his foot in his mouth again, cue her being even more pissed. We also see what look like the ruins of a former civilization and more sentient DRAGONs.

....okay, this was fun. The plot is really kicking into high gear, and now it's kind hard to say just WHAT Embryo's real motives are. True, he kinda signed off on the whole "remake the human race' thing, but was more than a little sickened by Julio's methods and killed him for it, even reviving Chris and one of those kids Ersha tried to save, though it seems Tusk pisses him off epically.

Also, despite not calling himself a god, he sure as hell has all the powers of one, or the closest equivalent.

Finally, it looks like he and Riza are at cross purposes now, love to see how this turns out.