The Hagane continues its advance on Aidoneus, and Bian receives word that his Barrelion squadron has been defeated. Adler, now being just as full of single-minded fervor as those below him, makes the excuse that these new models still need to be refined and asks permission for a new assault on the Hagane. Bian doesn't seem to care much, and Adler gets permission to do whatever until the DC starts its invasion of Central Europe. Adler has figured by now that sending waves of mooks at the Hagane isn't going to work, though, and he has someone in mind that'll help him execute his new plan.
On the Hagane, Eita receives an encrypted message from Mao Industries, sent from a space station that was previously taken over by the UCC. Daitetsu concludes that the other team on the Hiryu must've liberated it, which would've been playable on the other route. Basically, everything that would happen on that route is currently happening in the background, and we'll occasionally hear about their accomplishments. The message was addressed to Rio Meilong, and was sent by Yuan Meilong, which makes the crew wonder how he could send an encrypted message using codes that only the CEOs possess. Perhaps...he is a CEO? Just a guess. Daitetsu is allowed to see the message, but he decides to just have it delivered to Rio in person.
In the hangar, Rob and Aya are busy configuring the R-3's T-Link system, going through what sounds like a regular routine. Initially this poses no problem, but beyond a certain point Aya starts screaming and Rob aborts the procedure. Turns out this mech interface is actually physically harmful if anything goes wrong, which may impede its use in the field a bit. From what we've seen previously, it's a fickle system anyway, given how much fine-tuning is required before it does anything.
Aya is brought to the medical bay with a fever, while still apologizing for her failure to complete the test. Rob says he's the one that should apologize, though, as he pushed her too far, and he agrees with Kusuha's opinion that she should rest. Due to her hardcore job dedication she still thinks she should be preparing for the invasion of Aidoneus, but they manage to talk her out of it.
In the briefing room, Irm is going over Rio's simulator results, as she would like to be a PT pilot as well. Irm wonders why she would want to do that, as it's a much more dangerous job than being a bridge operator. Rio gives some incredibly cliched reasons like bringing peace and fighting for justice, leading Irm to question her a bit about her ideas on justice. After having a bit of a chat on moral relativism, he concludes it's not wrong for her to see this in black and white, as long as she knows what she stands for. A bit of a mixed message, but Rio seems to have understood. He takes his leave, and Eita comes in with the message he was supposed to deliver to her.
Rio listens to the recorded message from her father, Yuan Meilong
, which is the usual worried letter to his daughter in the Army. She braces herself for another lecture, but he has decided not to complain about her career choice any further, he just hopes she's okay and that she'll come home after the war since he and her mother are worried about her. For this same reason, he also hopes she doesn't become a PT pilot. Man, either he knew this was gonna happen or the SRW universe just loves irony.
Rio has barely managed to stop going "awww" at her father's heart-warming message before the usual "enemy alert" siren blares across the ship once again. Surprisingly, only a small force of AMs is attacking us this time, which under most circumstances might actually be a reason to worry. As usual, Daitetsu thinks it's a trap, and tells everyone to deploy and keep their guard up. Aya's still not in any shape to fight, so the others will just have to pick up the slack.
However, Rio wants to take this chance to fight in Aya's place, even though she only has simulator experience. In a hilariously hypocritical moment, this point is brought up by Ryusei of all people, who quickly shuts up when Rio brings up his mecha gamer background. Ingram just sees it as a good chance to test her abilities, and agrees to let her fight. Very shrewd, Ingram, if a bit careless. Eita and Tetsuya still wonder if there could be an ambush unit nearby, and finally notice Rio isn't on the bridge anymore when they want to ask her if there's anything on the radar. In hindsight, might've been a good idea to arrange this with the bridge first.
We are now introduced to two of the enemies we're facing, Thomas Platt and Ryoto Hikawa. Thomas is Ryoto's commander, and Ryoto is a rather spineless pilot who is not all that enthused about his orders to singlehandedly attack the Hagane. He was another one of the people hand-picked by Adler due to his Burning PT prowess, but has no actual experience or interest in real-life battles. Thomas has a tough time motivating him to fight, frankly considers him a chicken, and only manages to push him far enough by threatening to have him punished for insubordination. That always helps to boost their courage.
Rio's mech is ready to go and has Rai's motion data installed, and if she is in danger she can simply activate autopilot to escape. Ryusei thinks it would be better if she used his motion data, since she's piloting a Type TT like he used to, but Garnet retorts that she'll come back alive with Rai's data. Unsurprisingly, it actually takes a moment for Ryusei to realize that she made a joke at his expense. It's a miracle how he manages to survive with reaction times like these. Eita finally discovers that Rio is piloting a PT, but she tells him she'll explain later, and that he'll just have to cover her shift for now.
The battle starts, and it's the same damn map as always. We'll get new levels soon enough, but for now we'll just have to do with cut-and-paste islands. This is not a difficult battle, and it's nothing we haven't seen before: 3 Lions, 3 Barrelions, Ryoto in a Lion F and Thomas in a Guarlion Custom. Getting the Battle Mastery for this map is something different than usual, though: defeat everyone except Ryoto. We'll just have to avoid his attacks for a while as we kill his fellow pilots.
The usual frontline troops immediately charge forward into the group of Lions, and I keep my second line back for a turn or so, just to make sure nothing funny's going on. Only Ryusei, Irm and Masaki get to attack this turn though, as a lot of them are still out of range. The enemies are hopelessly outmatched by the troops I have sent forward, and while none of them are destroyed, they still suffer heavy damage from counterattacks. Depletes Ryusei's energy quickly, but I don't mind too much. On the second turn, the others join the fray, even Giado and the Hagane. The Hagane doesn't suffer too much because I mostly let it torpedo critically damaged units, and Giado gets to Jet Magnum the crap out of them because Barrelions have no point blank counterattack.
After two turns, Ryoto finally starts noticing that Thomas isn't helping him attack, who claims he's staying back in order to issue commands. Ryoto is doubly disheartened now, though Thomas points out an easy target for him to defeat: Rio. In fact, he orders him to shoot her down and promises to help Ryoto if he does. Ryoto agrees, though his morale has hit rock bottom as it's obvious to him Thomas just doesn't give a damn. From what I've seen so far, becoming a DC commander probably requires you to fail a psychiatric evaluation or something.
Ryoto will now exclusively target Rio, and Thomas himself still does nothing even though he's got a Guarlion Custom at his disposal which could probably mess us up. On the next turn, most of the units are still cleaning up the damaged Barrelions, although Masaki has already engaged in combat with Thomas himself, whose 18000 hit points are only decreased by hundreds at a time.
THOMAS: You left your mother ship to face me? I'm honored...but, you'll never defeat me!
On the fourth turn, only Thomas and Ryoto remain, and for obvious reasons I'm not attacking Ryoto. For less obvious reasons, Thomas is STILL not attacking me. Rio can easily survive by using her Alert command every turn, since she only needs to dodge one attack, and all the others now swarm around Thomas. Now it's just turn after turn of pounding through his armor with the heaviest attacks my units have while he just sits there, and he finally bites the dust after 7 turns. Took a while to obtain this BM since I have no armor-negating weapons or techniques yet, but at least there wasn't a time limit.
Ryoto sees Thomas' defeat as a sign that they should retreat, but doesn't get a chance to do so as his engine suddenly stalls and his mech crashes into the ocean. Even though there are no enemies left, the Hagane crew is still expecting an ambush to happen any moment now, but for once there is no sign of any further enemy activity. Once they have secured the area, they decide to recover Ryoto's mech and keep him as a prisoner.
Interrogating him initially seems difficult as he is just as spineless in conversation as he is in battle, and repeatedly needs to be told to speak up. This invertebrate answers "....." so often it's no wonder it starts pissing Tetsuya off. He eventually manages to identify himself as Master Sergeant Ryoto Hikawa of the 15th DC mobile force, which is sufficient information for Tetsuya to officially consider him a P.O.W.
RYOTO: P.O.W.? Oh, that's right...I'm your enemy...
Thank you, Master Sergeant Obvious. Tetsuya decides to continue the interrogation later and just has Ryoto hauled off to the brig for now. The others witnessing this are surprised to learn this was the guy they just fought, as he doesn't look like a soldier at all. Ryusei was expecting the DC to recruit obvious thugs instead of fragile nerds, giving him second thoughts about his enemies. Let's not talk about the kind of people the EFA recruits, then. Rio's confused about Ryoto's reasons for joining the DC, as he doesn't seem the type.
MASAKI: What's up, Rio? Thinking about that guy?
RIO: Yeah...
MASAKI: Is he your type?
RIO: What!? No! It's just...oh, shut up!
Yeah, yeah, we get it. Anyway, in the meantime Ingram and Rob have been investigating the Lion that Ryoto crashed, mostly checking for any traps before they bring it aboard. Rob hasn't found any explosives, and if there was a trap at all it would probably be a computer virus or something. They still think it's a bad idea to bring an enemy mech on board, but they need all the firepower they can get and they might gain useful data from analyzing this model. Rob has an additional motivation, as he wants to see if he can use the miniaturized Tesla Drive that allows these mechs to fly. And so, despite their reservations, it's decided they'll take it.
So, this was a remarkably short and easy map. The main point, I think, is that it introduced Thomas and Ryoto, and not much more. I think Ryoto's got a bit of Shinji in him, but that'll improve soon enough. Rio is now a permanently playable character, and in the future I'll mostly be using her as another support unit next to Aya. I have also gained about $19000, but I don't really have anything that I want to spend it on at the moment, so I'll leave it for later.
