Caption: 30 minutes later…

SIMON: Hmmm!! That was some really good soup, and my nerves needed the celery. Thank you. And thanks again so much for forgiving me. You’re good for my sister, Wild. Any you two made a very spirited kid. 

SIMON: Ahhh… I was not as fortunate, though. I was forraging for berries for my family…

SIMON: Evan caught me as a Sonee from behind with a Quick Ball.

SIMON: He and his crew force-evolved me to something of their M.S. Paint “design”.

Screen: Troll-velution 3.5

SIMON: I was not the only one caught for their “collection”.

SIMON: They “trained” us with abusive attacks from their level 100 Beedrills.

SIMON: We were all kept locked in cages; mentally dumbed-down with videos of the seriously mentally-challenged.

Man on TV: Duh-er!

SIMON: Over the time, I’ve heard talk of a familiar name. My sister Simonla. I tried to contact her. I found her number on the CWCville Construction Company’s website. I sent her links to the videos of Evan abusing me.

After Simon comes to his senses, he monologues his entire life story to Wild and Sandy, who have presumably seen very little of him aside from immediately following Simonla’s “death”. His life thus far has been rather tragic: as a Sonee (a yellow Sonee, notably, granting further credence to my theory that most Sonees/Roseys are supposed to be yellow/pink respectively, then evolve into their primary element’s color) he was kidnapped by Evan and then forcibly evolved, brutally trained with other EHPs, and they were forced to dull their senses and intelligence. Despite the fact that by 2017 when this was written Evan had long left the trolling sphere and Chris’s feud with him was over, Chris continues to add false charges to his quote-unquote “rap sheet”. What is Chris doing, continuing to paint Evan as an animal abuser behind his back? Given that Chris’s fervor towards him had otherwise subsided, is it possible that he wrote Evan like this in a rare display of continuity, since Evan’s character was established during the period of loathing? Notably, Simon says that Evan forced him to fight with Beedrills, the Pokemon species that Evan claimed was the inspiration for Simon’s drills (seeing as Chris wouldn’t have gotten the Gurren Lagann reference).

Simon did make attempts to reach apparently his only living family member (despite saying he was foraging for his family earlier), Simonla. Apparently, according to this weird wording, Simon sent Simonla videos of Evan’s abuse over the phone, because the only thing he mentions is having Simonla’s phone number from the CWCville Construction site. Even if we are meant to assume that he also got her email there, he tried to reach her through her work email and not a personal one, though she did reply sympathetically, according to the next page. I question though how Simon was able to record videos of the Asperpedia Four abusing him. This was 2008, when cell phone video cameras were rather primitive, and given Evan’s other treatment of him I don’t know why Evan would let him even have a cell phone. Apparently, according to the next page, Simon used one of the A4’s phones, but how then did they not notice Simon stealing their phones to record their abuse and later alert his sister?

SFX: Bam! Bam! Bam!

METAL ASPERCHU: Illogical!

METAL ASPERCHU: Bullets bounce off… flame resistant… searching for options…

CHRIS: Bang!

SFX: *Zap Cannon*

SFX: *Protect*

CHRIS: Hasta la vista, roboto!

CHRIS: Is everyone alright?

SWIFT: We’re all okay Christian.

MICHAEL: Hey! There’s Alec!

ASPERCHU: Let’s go kick his a** for giving us Aspergers and drawing us sooo terribly!

CHRIS: I think all our problems here in Minnesota will be resolved very shortly.

SONICHU: Actually, Chris, there are four caged Rosechus in Alec’s basement.

CHRIS: Oh. Well, I’ll teleport them all to safety, then finally deal with Slaweel.

Metal Asperchu is anticlimactically destoyed with zero injuries on the side of good. Whatever celebration they might have been planning is cut short as Michael spots their former abuser, Alec Benson Leary, and the seven Asperchu hedgehogs beat him to a pulp off screen. Alec doesn’t appear on screen until later this issue, when he kills Simonla, then gets fried.

At the bottom of this page, Chris is incredibly antsy to call Mission: Minnesota a wrap. When Sonichu brings up the Basement Rosechus, Chris offhandedly remarks how he’ll rescue them but he’s really got his eye on his next great villain he must destroy: Mary Lee Walsh. This entire page reeks of boredom - I imagine that, since Asperchu’s rise was rather meteoric at the end of 2009, that Chris didn’t include this sequence when he originally outlined Sonichu 10, and that he originally intended the reawakening of Zelina to be immediately followed by Mary Lee’s defeat. Now he wants to get back on schedule, so he wants Metal Asperchu out of the picture (why even have a boss fight at all if you’re so strapped for time?), to squeeze in one last potshot against Alec by having his characters beat him up, even if off screen, and then get going to defeat Mary Lee. In practice, there’s a good ten more pages of Alec/Asperchu bashing before we actually get to Mary Lee.

MICHAEL: Thank you, sir. We are very excited for your arrival. Alec is not the best caretaker here; he gives more care and attention to Asperia, Max, Benny, Sitting Chu, Jonas, Dixie, and that nameless green one. He formed us to look low-resolution, blocky, gross, and retarded; is that a notion of a caring individual? No, it is not.

BOBBY (ALEC’S WILD): He cursed us seven with his own Aspergers and negative influances. Even worse, he pushes homosexuality onto me with Evan’s Simonchu… it is a constant nightmare to me, even being forced to do the act in the “honeymoon” video… wahhh!!! God, please release me of this hell!!!

KITTY (ALEC’S BUBBLES): We never wanted to be named after the original ones in your world; I wanted to be named Kitty. “Sonichu” wanted to be called Mike, “Wild” Bob, and so on. Alec tore the spikes and tails from some of us. We were all born here in Minnesota from our father Sonichu who was also born here. Upon breeding the bunch of us, as well as Asperia, Benny, Sitting Chu, Jonas, Dixie, and the green guy, there were five Roseys that Alec decided not to care for at all. They get treated like hamsters.

TRISHA (ALEC’S ANGELICA): Actually, there’s only four of them now; one tried to report Alec to the ASPCA, but before she could make it there, she lost her life by the hands of Dino Dash… that was one example that scared us all with intense fear. The remaining four have grown to be regular Rosechus now… caged in Alec’s basement. My name should be Trisha.

WHISP (ALEC’S PUNCHY): Uh!!!!… Uh!!!!… I’m Whisperin’! You know what I’m sayin’? My name’s Whisperin’!

SWIFT: I used to have my psychic powers, but Alec numbed my mind with the Aspergers… Numbie be my name… the “Grandpa” Sonichu was our father… he was 20 when the last of us was bred between him and Alec’s Ditto… Dad became old with Bill’s age-acceleration machine… headache!!!

ASPERCHU: We never wanted Aspergers; we never wanted to look stupid, gross, and retarded, and we are sick and tired of Alec and his crew. This body type and these glasses are terrible. I need a girlfriend too.

SONICHU: My God! Well, Chris and I will set the girls free and get them well-fed and started on a better life. For now, y’all gather round. I will cure y’all of your mental blocks, improve your looks, and raise your IQ and self-confidence greatly.

TL; DR: Alec’s a jerk and he forced us to be in Asperchu, we’re not the original Sonichu/Chaotic Combo, we’re not gay, we hate our names, Alec keeps four women tied up in his basement and killed a fifth, but don’t worry, GodJesus Sonichu’s love saves all.

Michael’s speech tells of how Alec gives preferential treatment for stuff like page time and not getting brutally murdered to the various OC’s Asperchu introduced: Asperia, Asperchu’s dream daughter from the future, much like Chris’s dream daughter Crystal, who would eventually be born as a hideous deformed mutant Rosechu; Max, a friend of Asperchu’s who is a pink puffy blob that can copy the abilities of people he inhales and is a 100% original character and not Kirby in any way; Benny, a one-shot character from issue 1A, who worked with the fundamentalist Christian couple John and Kendra who feuded with Asperchu that issue; Sitting Chu, the Asperchu version of the Anchuent Leader of the Cherokian Clan; Dixie and Jonas Chu, Asperchu’s dream girl and his romantic rival; and the “nameless” green Sonichu, actually named Peter, is a minor friend of Jonas Chu’s. For whatever reason, Chris omits from this list the greatest Asperchu character, Jivin Pickles.

Bobby goes on about how they were not born with Asperger’s and Alec cursed it upon them, and that, unlike Asperchu’s version of Wild, he himself is not homosexual. In Asperchu, Wild Sonichu and Evan’s Simonchu, the True and Honest Simonla, were a gay couple to mock Chris’s decision to make Simonla a girl and pair her with Wild. As you can well guess, Chris was not a fan of this relationship, or their “honeymoon video” that Magi-Chan mass debates to.

Alec’s Bubbles, Kitty, explains that they had no desire to have the same names as Chris’s EHPs, and that they each had picked a name for themselves. Kitty also implies that, in order to make these EHPs resemble their Chaotic Combo counterparts more accurately, Alec painfully disfigured them, implicitly I think we’re meant to assume that Alec had the tail removed from Whisp Sonichu to make him more resemble the unnaturally tail-less Punchy. Also according to Kitty, apparently they’re all brothers and sisters, along with the OCs of Asperchu, and this quintet of Roseys that apparently were of no use to Alec, thus they were ignored and caged in Alec’s basement. These Roseys have no basis in Asperchu canon, as Rosechu herself had yet to appear in Asperchu at this point.

Trisha’s speech tells the tale of the tragic fifth Basement Rosechu, who apparently got reasonably far in an escape before getting killed by Asperchu’s version of Clyde Cash, Dino Dash. Her death was used as an unsubtle warning to the remaining Asperchu cast that resistance against Alec was futile. This is a weirdly dark plot point, and yet the surviving Sonichus and Rosechus seem to not care particularly much about their fallen comrade (Kitty even introduces their group as a quartet until Trisha corrects her). The surviving Basement Rosechus don’t express any sorrow for the loss of their sister, who isn’t given so much as a name. It’s almost like this character was just created to defame Alec. Hmmm.

Whisp offers no useful information with his eighth of the page whatsoever. His “whisperin’” name is possibly meant to be ironic, as he appears to be yelling in his speech bubble.

Swift, despite apparently having been a long-ignored prophet a la Cassandra two pages ago, has apparently been stripped of his psychic prowess thanks to Aspergers, and suggests that he has been cruelly nicknamed “Numbie”, possibly by Alec and crew. He also goes more in depth regarding the team’s genealogy than Kitty did, explaining that the “Grandpa Alzheichu” was in fact their biological father, their biological mother being a Ditto, a Pokemon famous for its ability to breed with most other Pokemon in the game. However, to sync up the ages of the Chaotic Combo (presumably 19 like rest of the team) with the age of Alzheichu (elderly), Swift says that he was exposed to an age-acceleration machine, made by none other than former Team Rocket lead scientist Bill Schwartz. Okay, two questions. One, aside from wanting to make Alzheichu more closely resemble Bob Chandler, what’s the point of even inventing an age-acceleration machine? No one likes getting older, so it seems like this machine would have no practical use. Two, we see Bill at the end of this chapter, for the first time since Sonichu 1, and he’s completely turned “good” and is working for CWCville’s hospital. He even specifically mentions ditching Team Rocket to save lives at the hospital. He makes no reference to ever working with the Asperpedia Four. Granted, given that by the time he reappears the Asperpedia Four are wanted murderers I wouldn’t exactly blame him for wanting to hide any former affiliation with them, but it’s nevertheless an unexplained plot point.

ALL ASPERCHU HEDGEHOGS: Our savior! The original Sonichu!!!

ASPERCHU: *Gasp!* Mr. Sonichu. I am not worthy.

SONICHU: At ease, fellow Sonichu. I am mortal like y’all are, yet I have read of your plights, and we are here to help.

MICHAEL: Ooh! Ooh! Is Christian Weston Chandler here too?! It really broke my heart when Alec made me betray the image of Christian and make a false god out of the brown-striped one. And I froze up while watching him get set on fire by Alec’s metal monster. I prayed for forgiveness from the real Christian. Sonichu, will he ever forgive me?

SONICHU: It is alright; Christian is a good man; he forgives you.

Ultra Sonichu’s arrival is framed much like the second coming of Christ: the EHPs of Asperchu stand there, mouths agape, and proclaim the descending Sonichu to be their savior. Asperchu claims he is not worthy to be in Sonichu’s presence, but Sonichu, playing into their deification of him, insists Asperchu be “at ease”. Sonichu tells them that he has read Asperchu and has been appalled by the treatment they got in the comic, and he is here to save them from having to be in Alec’s comic.