Laker has arrived in Geneva, and it's starting to look like inter-faction politics will be humanity's greatest enemy after the Aerogaters and DC remnants. The EOT Council, and Albert Grey in particular, intends to resume negotations with the Aerogaters and even surrender if that's what it takes, although none of the others agree. Norman Slay
thinks they should just use the 30 days they've been given by the Aerogaters to prepare their forces, while the president of the UCC, Brian Midcrid, only thinks they should first gather more information on their enemy. Albert's diplomatic stance is mostly because he fears the enemy's technology and firepower without even having much information on them, which makes him look like more than a bit of a coward here.
Eventually, they come to the decision to prepare their forces for an assault on the White Star but continue negotiations, and the EOT Council bars the EFA from attacking the enemy in the meantime. That is totally not going to come back to haunt them, I tell you. Still, the EFA will be building their strength for the next month, but then again the Aerogaters might be doing the same. In fact, the characters speculate quite a bit on why they were given 30 days in the first place, since this doesn't seem like mere kindness on the enemy's part. Of course, Albert's the only one who actually believes that is the case.
At least we'll get to go out and have adventures during this month, right? Unfortunately, Albert has also ordered the Hagane and Hiryu to protect Geneva instead of going anywhere. As Norman and Laker don't intend to go against orders, that means adventures will have to come to us. Still, Brian has managed to impress the rest of the EOT Council by managing to negotiate this agreement. The mysterious Nibhal also makes another appearance discussing this matter with Karl, ensuring that negotiations with the aliens are going well. There are some suspicions that he's siding with the aliens, though he claims he has absolutely no connection to them. We'll have to take his word for it, then. Not like the game offers any more background on this guy.
On the Hagane, the pilots are as of yet unconcerned with all of this, as Tasuku is telling Irm about his hopeless attempts to get a date with Leona. Irm thinks she's just playing hard-to-get, though I think it's equally likely Tasuku is not exactly Prince Charming himself. Oh well, stranger couples have happened. Kyosuke's there in the hangar with them to check out the Wildraubtier, which has a rather interesting link to his past that clears up some of Irm's previous comments.
It turns out he was the test pilot for this thing before he got the Alteisen, and miraculously survived after he crashed. Looks bad on his track record as a pilot, but at least he's still in one piece. This is a peculiar thing about Kyosuke: he's been involved in multiple crashes, but somehow survived because he's got the devil's own luck and no one can explain why. Well, in so far as you can consider repeatedly crashing to be a sign of luck. One thing he didn't know yet, as Irm informs him, is that Excellen was another person that survived a shuttle crash that he was involved in. To him, it's certainly food for thought, even if said thoughts quickly return to the matter of the Wildraubtier. As Irm implied back then, the ever-malevolent Hans was responsible for the test crash by giving a reckless order. Kyosuke's still feeling slightly responsible, but seemingly not as much as before.
Given the earlier discussion about Tasuku trying to date Leona, Kyosuke decides to test his famous luck by agreeing to one of Irm's bets: whether Tasuku will succeed or not. Since Tasuku is standing right next to them, he is slightly offended, even more so since Irm is betting on his failure. Well, people have to bet for and against, otherwise betting doesn't really work. As if summoned, Leona arrives, although it's to speak with Rai about family matters and provide further exposition about the Elpis Incident that killed Elzam's wife. To summarize: having to make a very difficult choice, Elzam blew up a docking bay along with his wife to save the entire colony, and Rai still considers this the wrong choice even though he's still alive only because of Elzam's choice. Usually Rai is the cool guy, but in this scene he's significantly arguing more from emotion than usual. Has to be quite the sore issue for him if he reacts like that.
Hans, for the matter, is finally putting his dastardly scheme in motion and quickly absconds with the princess, under the pretense that the base is no longer a safe place and that they're taking her elsewhere. Plenty of protesting from Joyce, who hasn't been informed of anything and tries to prevent the princess from being taken, to no avail. The princess isn't too happy with this either, especially since she wanted Rai to come along, but at this point Hans is tired of playing along and just takes her. He orders a lowering of the detection level, gets into a transport plane and starts taking off without clearance, leaving Sakae utterly confused for a moment as he tries to work out what's going on.
Sakae promptly orders everyone to detain the transport, which for now just means Kai and a few grunts since the Hagane and Hiryu aren't there yet. They hold back as they see Shine is a hostage, and Hans gloats some more about his imminent escape as Thomas brings in a DC transport to pick them up. The transport provides some covering fire for them, causing explosions across the base and wiping out our grunts. Guess it's just Kai then. Thomas casually takes the princess over from Hans, who is slightly miffed that Thomas is showing no respect to his superior. As far as Thomas is concerned, he doesn't care about a mere spy, and considers Hans expendable. Not that he's been so cold to leave Hans without an escape route, though. He is, at the very least, reliable.
As I mentioned, I only have Kai right now so I gotta be slightly more careful than usual. I decide to spend most of his SP on Will boosts, in order to maximize the damage he deals. Still saving some for emergency healing, though. His M95 deals decent damage, but not enough to instantly destroy his target. Fortunately, it doesn't deal too much damage, so Kai will probably survive this. On the second turn, Hans makes his definitive escape, and the rest of the enemy group near Kai now starts shooting at him. I take back what I said about them not dealing too much damage: Kai survives by a hair, and I have to use the full healing I kept in reserve. I have him move to one of the buildings to increase his defense and evasion, and continue attacking them. The two groups further away from him aren't doing anything just yet, probably expecting Kai's current opponents to handle things. All the better for me, though I'll have to see if they're willing to approach my current fortified position or if I'll have to go there.
This cover strategy pays off, as Kai barely suffers a scratch this time while dishing out highly effective counterattacks. On the third turn, the Hagane and Hiryu finally arrive, and I get to deploy my usual team. Kai will still have to handle those two remaining groups himself, since the carriers spawned on the other side of the map. I buff everyone like crazy with spirit commands, and send them straight into the fray. The enemies have about 7000 HP each, but that's really no problem for my troops. I do have to keep Rai in the background because he's taking a little too much heat from their railguns, but otherwise I'm practically unopposed; even the Hagane and Hiryu get a few shots in. Well, as long as the Hagane uses Guard, but still.
The second group of enemies has finally decided to start moving towards Kai, and they still pose no threat to him as he continues to snipe them with his standard gun, disposing of them with surprising speed. Thanks to my buffed units, the rest of the enemies are also dropping like flies, eventually pulverizing them to the point where all I have to deal with is the submarine. Kai can come out of cover and engage the last group of his enemies directly, being able to instantly obliterate one of the four with his Jet Magnum attack. The rest of them don't fare much better as they're taken down with counterattacks, and the submarine is mostly a sitting duck whose armor does not survive a few hits from super robots with Valor. Well, that was a more one-sided battle than I would have imagined, I even got my Battle Mastery earlier than expected. Must have been all that money I pumped into upgrading my units.
Back at the base, the crew ponder where Hans could have taken the princess, while having absolutely no clues at their disposal because Hans disabled the security grid and knows the location of every EFA radar site. Rai thinks they should just stay put for now since they don't know where to look and need to be on guard for an attack from the White Star, which provokes severely agitated comments from Rio about just sacrificing people to a greater cause. Rai immediately notices the parallels with his own backstory and, hopefully, his hypocrisy in this matter. At least he's picking up on these things faster than most people.
Anyway, he does assure the others he intends to rescue Shine as soon as possible, it's just not clear yet when or how. For now, their orders from Ingram are to stay at the base until Laker returns, and Ryusei is informed they'll get more training once Aya is back. Not sure what kind of training, but it's probably gonna be good if it requires the entire team. For now, they're all still getting over the fact that Hans turned out to be a spy, which apparently is to be expected given the number of EFA personnel that defected to the DC.
IRM: Like Major Sanger Zonvolt and Major Elzam Branstein?
Since not everyone was present the first time it came up, Excellen once again explains things to the crew members wondering who Sanger is: Sanger Zonvolt was their team leader, a former member of the Aggressors, and the one who trained Kyosuke and Bullet. He's basically the ATX team's equivalent of Ingram, and we'll get to meet him eventually. Also, Bullet doesn't seem to think Sanger's a traitor, but rather working behind enemy lines to gain skills for their common goal. Let's hope his suspicions are correct, because having the support of someone like him would certainly be useful.
In contrast, Hans is quickly decided to be just a plain spy, rather than the stealth-ally kind. To them, this also explains why he let Kyosuke crash the Wildraubtier, since he didn't want the EFA to have a working PT for fighting the DC. Kyosuke's certainly burning to get his revenge on Hans, even if he still has the same poker-face as always. Frankly, even his teammates think he's scary when he's like that.
EXCELLEN: (I wonder how the princess is doing...why do the DC want her? Maybe they want her to be THEIR princess...)
Wonderful bit of logical reasoning there, Excellen. Yes, naturally the DC is in need of a princess. Anyway, Laker has returned to the base and is informed what has happened, while Sakae makes empty apologies for screwing this up. Laker denies that Sakae is at fault here, however, and just tells him to gather the crew of both ships to tell them about the Earth Defense Council's new plan, including the "30 days" thing. They still don't know what the enemy can do or what their motives are, so again a lot of guesswork ensues without any clear answers. While they don't agree with the orders they're given, they're just going to comply for now because there will be no one else to protect the Earth if they're arrested for treason. A surprisingly practical mindset in this situation, which seems to be pretty much in line with how they do things normally.
Meanwhile, Lune is having the memory of her Valsione checked since she figures it might contain hidden data, given that it was built for her by her father. She must either be clairvoyant or she really knows how he thinks, because it actually turns out it does. It's passworded, but once again Lune figures out what to do.
RYOTO: It says:"What should you do in the face of evil?"
LUNE: Simple. Just enter: "Don't wait for heaven's judgment."
And whaddya know, this actually is the correct password, which she claims is a quote from an old TV show. Still haven't figured out what show that would be, but you're welcome to guess. After entering the correct password, a video message is displayed in which Bian explains to Lune that the information provided should help her decide what to do, and said information turns out to be a treasure trove of classified DC plans, EOT and Aerogater data, which ought to help them find the DC main base.
It does seem we'll be getting Aya back for the next mission, since she's reporting to Ingram that the R-3 is ready for battle and can be used in the next mission. Well finally, it only took more than half of the game before the development of that thing was complete. Well, time for Ryusei to start his training, then. She does ask Ingram if he knew about Ryusei being the son of a former test subject, which he confirms.
From Lune's data, Radha has managed to deduce that the DC base's most likely location is the Earth Cradle*, which makes sense as it's not only a hibernation facility but a fully-equipped stronghold. Too bad they can't actually go there right now because they've been ordered to stay in Geneva, although they figure there's a good chance the DC is gonna come attack them anyway if they don't head over there, so they lose nothing by letting the DC make the first move for now.
Well, as promised in the previous chapter, I'm dumping all of the battle money into upgrading the Valsione's speed, putting it on the same level as the other top mechs. That Psychoblaster of hers is really useful in wiping out large crowds. No wonder she's paired with Masaki.
