Also outside in space, Albedo is watching from his mech and smirking. “Well then,” he says, “let’s just see how powerful you all are…” Considerably powerful, I think, but I doubt Erde Kaiser can do much about this situation.
Back inside, Shion asks if KOS-MOS is sure, like she’s going to respond, “You’re right, I’m just malfunctioning! Mondays, am I right?” Yes, KOS-MOS is fucking sure, and she adds, “Should its descent continue at present speed, we will enter the atmosphere in approximately eight minutes.” Eight minutes! Well, no time to waste! Let’s…stand around and talk some more! Ziggy thinks Albedo had this planned from the beginning, like that actually matters. “That bastard!” Jailbait mutters. “He’s got too many tricks up his sleeve…” Again, who gives a fuck about Albedo right now? Tick tock!
Shion decides they “have to do something…” No shit, lady. “If something as large as this impacts at full speed, Second Miltia will be…” It’s a meteor the size of Texas or some other size impossible for the human mind to comprehend. Thank God for KOS-MOS, then. “Based on the current angle of approach, breaking up the facility into approximately 28,000 pieces would result in 99.6% of them vaporizing before impact.” Well, get out your hammers, everyone! KOS-MOS already has one and I bet Ziggy’s got one stuck in his arm somewhere.
Apparently this is not as loony of an idea as it sounded coming out of KOS-MOS’s mouth, because Shion seems to understand what she’s getting at and MOMO starts searching her MacGuffiny little brain for information that would help. After the sparkly fireflies are done flitting about her head, she opens her eyes and says, “The control room… The control room on level 33 will allow us to detach the facility!” But the control room was on level 43. I even wrote that down. CHAOS!!! shouts, “Hurry! There’s no time!” You don’t say!
A quick cut of urgent corridor running later, they enter the control room on whatever the fuck level it’s on, and MOMO starts banging at the keyboard. After a moment reading the gibberish scrolling across the monitor, she cries, “Oh, no!” Ziggy asks, “Is there a problem?” like she’d say “Oh, no!” if everything was fine. Jesus Christ, Ziggy. MOMO refrains from rolling her eyes and continues, “The entire process from system startup to complete detachment takes one whole minute! That’s not enough time for us to return to the Elsa!” Maybe if they hadn’t already spent two or three minutes talking and not doing anything, they wouldn’t be in this situation. Oh, who am I kidding? They would have wasted the time some other way, like Shion falling down into doggy-style position some more or CHAOS!!! stopping everyone to yell about how little time they have left.
Ziggy finally asks a non-stupid question: “Is this the only place we can activate it from? We can’t do it remotely?” MOMO and KOS-MOS have managed to do all kinds of rad shit remotely, after all, but MOMO insists it’s impossible. “The system was built so that the command will only be accepted from here.” Crazy Joachim and his suicidal tendencies again! That cut-up!
Jailbait and Shion mope about this for more precious seconds, while MOMO cries that there totally isn’t another way, honest. Seriously, MOMO’s voice is crazy whiny in this scene. She sounds like Santa Claus just told her he’s too booked to visit her house this year.
Shion doesn’t see a problem.
Right on cue, the deus ex machina character with superhuman strength and agility, a robotic superbrain, and the ability to survive in outer space speaks up. “Please head back now,” KOS-MOS says. Shion’s all “What?” because you just know she’s going to have a problem with this, but KOS-MOS explains it to her using the tiniest words her programming will allow. “Shion, please return to the Elsa with the others. I will stay behind to initiate the detachment sequence.” Over Shion’s futile protests, she continues, “This facility will enter the atmosphere shortly. We will exceed the tolerances for maximum temperature in three minutes 28 seconds. Please hurry.” She even has to assure Shion that this is not her making a martyr out of herself, and that she is planning on making it out alive. “At maximum speed, I can reach the Elsa in under one minute,” she adds, so they will fucking leave already.
KOS-MOS is already starting the sequence when Ziggy asks if she’s sure. Will people stop asking her that? She’s a robot, she doesn’t have self-doubt. When she insists that she is, Ziggy and Jailbait are like, “Great, see you later,” but fucking Shion has to be prodded (not like that) by every goddamn member of the party before she’ll leave the room. Of course, in the doorway she stops and shouts back, “KOS-MOS! You better make it back! You hear me? You better!” I hope KOS-MOS turned off her audio functions just so she didn’t have to listen to Shion screeching anymore. I sure would.
Speaking of things I’d rather not listen to, here’s where things start to get really cheesy. As we fade out from Proto Merkabah, still motoring toward Second Miltia, a piano begins to tinkle in the background. Soon some melancholy woodwinds join in, and then a soprano. The song is called “Pain,” and I hate to even type these words because they sting, but it is more or less a love song for Shion and KOS-MOS. I mean, maybe that means it’s a love song for Shion and her sweet “deceased” Kevin, since KOS-MOS is basically their daughter, but come on. And now that I called KOS-MOS her daughter, this whole thing is even more gross. I mean, “Give me a pain as pleasing as your sigh, so I can feel you all the day and night”? Ew. Ewwwwwwwww.
I’d rather listen to “My Heart Will Go On” on loop. And come to think, that’s actually what this is, except KOS-MOS never drew Shion like one of her French girls.
Now that I’ve provided a general idea of the song, I’m going to try to focus on the action, such as it is, so I can avoid vomiting all over myself. A slow pan of the eastern stairwell leading to the control room–so it was the 43rd floor!–pulls back to show the gang, sans KOS-MOS, running for their lives. KOS-MOS, meanwhile, taps at the keyboard in the control room and examines the program’s progress calmly, even as red lights flash around her and the ground rumbles. Back in the docking area, MOMO stumbles as Proto Merkabah starts falling apart like a Jenga tower. Ziggy monotones, “Hurry! This area will soon collapse!” because it’s never too late to make me hate Ziggy more.
The party reaches the Elsa just in time, but while the others run to the bridge and tell Captain Matthews to floor it, Shion waits outside the airlock for her blue-haired muse, with tears in her giant glassy eyes. Jailbait yells to Matthews, “Proto Merkabah’s about to re-enter the atmosphere. If left unchecked, it’ll crash into the planet… We detached the sub-compartments and that’s what’s causing the shaking.” Just as I start making the “wrap it up” motion with my finger, he adds, “Anyway, we’ll get to the details later! Prepare for immediate liftoff!” If I were Matthews I’d point out that he already got to a lot of the details, when he could have just said, “Fly now! Talk later!” But–ugh–he actually didn’t mean that they’re leaving now, he meant that they should prepare for leaving, because “KOS-MOS is still inside. We gotta wait for her!” Matthews, at least, seems to value their survival over KOS-MOS’s, perhaps because he remembers she’ll be fine. But Little Master says to wait, so they wait. Meanwhile, Corey warns Matthews about all the falling pieces of Proto Merkabah that are denting the shit out of the Elsa. Yeah, waiting is an awesome idea.
Tony says they can’t stay there much longer, and Matthews and Jailbait both seem to know it. We go from a close-up shot of Jailbait biting his fingernails to another shot of the self-destructing Proto Merkabah, this time showing, among other things, one of the stairwells falling to pieces. I would have preferred to witness the imploding of one of the elevators, personally.
It’s an awesome hat, but it totally makes me not take any of this seriously. Also, Matthews is still a babe.
Finally, Jailbait reluctantly gives the order to lift off. When Shion, still outside, realizes what’s happening, she shouts into the air, “Captain, no! Wait!!” and then falls on her ass as the jetway breaks off. As the ship starts moving, she shrieks, “KOS-MOS!” with the wankiest melodramatic scream possible. Also, she’s still outside the fucking airlock, and should be running out of air. (Final Shion Cheats Death Count: 11! Eleven fucking times, you guys.)
HOW HAVE YOU NOT DIED?
“Captain, please go back!” she screams into the intercom with the air she somehow still has. “KOS-MOS is still inside!” The reasonable response would be to tell her that they already did wait and it wasn’t possible to wait any longer, but Matthews settles for telling Shion she’s crazy and to use her fucking eyes to watch Proto Merkabah, which is currently exploding like the Death Star. After futilely screaming “You can’t!” and then weeping a little for her lost blow-up doll, Shion hears Red’s voice in her head: “Don’t be afraid, Shion… Everything will be all right… See with your heart…” True to form even in this time of crisis, Shion repeats, “See…with my heart…” And then, bless her stupid little head, she closes her eyes to see if her heart eyeballs can detect anything.
And sure enough, they do! Wow, Shion was right and I was wrong. That feels terrible. In her heart’s mind’s eye or something, Shion sees KOS-MOS running along, and suddenly opens her eyes, her mouth agape and penis-ready. Turning back to the intercom, she shouts, “Captain! The wall! 400 meters to the port side! Take her in close!” Wow, that heart eyeball vision was way more specific than it looked. Matthews is all, “What is this bitch going on about now?” but Tony–because he’s totally in love with Shion and his fling with CHAOS!!! was just a phase, really–cuts him off. “Port side, 400 meters, right?” She’s all “Tony!” like she might let him get to second base for this. And that’s good enough for Tony to ignore his captain and bring it in where Shion directed.
Once more for old time’s sake!
With Shion watching the wall of Proto Merkabah like a hawk, suddenly a section of the hull starts glowing gold and bubbling outward. It explodes spectacularly, unfortunately not disfiguring our heroine’s pretty face, and out of the blast flies KOS-MOS, visor down and apparently fireproof hair streaming behind her. Shion blowjob mouths again, like she wasn’t waiting for KOS-MOS to emerge from this very spot. But she recovers quickly enough to extend her hand, screaming “KOS-MOS!” the whole time so KOS-MOS, I guess, will know to land in her lap. God. KOS-MOS grabs Shion’s hand and her body hits the side of the Elsa with a loud clank. And now for the movie cliché of one character holding another character’s hand to keep them from falling into the abyss, only their grip is slipping! Suspense! At the last second, with Shion grunting her heart out and trying to keep hold of KOS-MOS’s slippery metal fingers, Ziggy swoops in to give her a hand, wokka wokka wokka. Shion turns around to find him leering creepily over her shoulder. It’s supposed to be a heart-warming moment, and I would like to give credit to Ziggy for saving one of the few characters I don’t hate at this point, but seriously, the angle and the look on his face just ruin the whole thing.