It would seem as if not a whole lot of time has passed since the last intermission, because when the chapter opens Aya is still ragging on Ryusei about his combat performance. Then again, it sounds like Ryusei has built up quite a losing streak in the meantime, so anything's possible. Rai thinks this is a waste of time, because Ryusei never learns from his mistakes whenever he's defeated in simulations, and he advises Ryusei to just save everyone a lot of time and quit right now. Aya once again has to interrupt their bickering and tells Ryusei he's got exercise reports to write. He thinks she sounds like his mother, and let's be honest, that's the role she's been playing since she first appeared.
Ingram, meanwhile, is worried about the team's lack of progress, and had expected they would be able to work together within two weeks. Ah, so that's how much time has passed by now. In that case, Ryusei's string of defeats sounds like the best explanation for the opening scene. Anyway, they're running on a tight schedule and the way this is going he won't have them properly trained in time, but Aya assures him she's working on it and that they'll be "ready for the test model". New mechs are always welcome, especially with the stuff we're using right now, so I can't wait. They're getting ready for a drill in the Torishima Sea the next day, which is where we'll be fighting next.
Ingram once again provides a tutorial segment, explaining that beam weaponry will not be as effective in water, so they'll want to use their machine guns or bladed weapons. He's not kidding: in practical game terms, beam rifles are completely worthless against opponents in water. Machine guns it is.
RYUSEI: These drills are killing me! Let's do it right this time!
RAI: What gives YOU the right to say that?
Before Aya can even tell them to stop it, everyone is interrupted by a sudden distress signal, and they immediately drop what they're doing to see what's going on. Turns out that a carrier of the Special Air Logistics Team is under attack by unknown enemies, and it's approximately 30 clicks away. Aya wonders if the attackers could be Aerogaters, but the crew confirms they aren't. For the record, this is what the enemy aliens from the previous chapters are called. I have no idea who came up with this name, or who thought it sounded cool, but there you go. Anyway, Ingram interrupts the exercise, orders Rai and Aya to go save the carrier, and tells them they are free to fire at will. Ryusei wonders why he's left out of the above statement, and Ingram tells him he's not experienced enough to handle a situation like this. Rai agrees with Ingram, but Ryusei keeps pleading to go along, if not to prove his worth then just to help the people that are currently under attack. Ingram concedes, under the condition that Ryusei will actually follow orders this time. Well, seems like this kid's done for.
Cut to the carrier being attacked, while Ingram's telling them he's sending backup. He's slightly confused when he gets a response since the person responding, Irmgult Kazahara
, is not even supposed to be on Earth right now. Irm (as the dialogue calls him) cuts a long story short by simply saying he ended up coming back from Mao Industries, which is located on the moon. They don't have a lot of time to discuss this matter as the unknown enemies have caught up to them, spearheaded by the first major antagonist, Tenzan Nakajima. You may remember him being mentioned a few chapters ago as the guy that dropped out of the Burning PT tournament, and would have challenged Ryusei otherwise. This is the first time we actually get to see him, though, and this kind of forward reference is something that we'll be seeing more than once.
An enemy mook tells Tenzan to pull back, but Tenzan is even worse than Ryusei is, and thus he completely ignores the order. I'd almost think insubordination was a popular pastime in the SRW universe, but Tenzan quickly adds that he was personally given orders to test this mech, the Lion, by someone named Adler. This man, Adler Koch, is someone we'll meet later as well. Tenzan is getting hungry as usual, so he figures he'll just shoot down the carrier and take its cargo. The mooks voice concerns over being spotted by the Federation forces, but Tenzan figures there is nothing about this that can't be solved by killing them all. That's right, his absolutely brilliant coverup plan consists of killing everybody who might know about this.
Our protagonists, meanwhile, are trying to identify the jets the enemy is piloting. Ryusei sees that one of the jets has arms and legs, and wonders if it's a mech. Rai considers that ridiculous, since no PT is capable of flight. Rai, normally you're a smart guy, but I have to question your logic here. I mean, what else could it be, a jet with really weird landing gear and fist cannons? At least we finally can get around to actually performing our mission, as we are put in control at this point.
Good thing too that I equipped machineguns, because this map is practically nothing but water. This is still a very simple map, as carriers are tough and the jets (F-32 Schwert) usually go down in one hit. It takes a turn for me to make my way across the map, but as I said, the carrier will survive for a while. However, the attack does trigger a cutscene where Tenzan is basically telling them to hand over their cargo, which he knows is a one-of-a-kind mech. Irm wonders how he knows that, but is more concerned with defending the carrier for the moment.
The first two jets suffer death by counterattack as they try to attack Rai, and a third one is almost killed by Aya. Don't really care about them, though, I'm more interested in Tenzan. His Lion can take a few more hits, but goes down just the same. Interesting is also that this is the first instance in the game where a boss character has personalized quotes when a specific character attacks them, leading to miniature dialogue scenes. Just to give a few examples, as they're interesting in their own right, here are the conversations for the three characters we've got so far:
- Rai asks him who he is and what mech he's piloting, but Tenzan says that's still a secret. This does not seem to irritate Rai as much as the fact that Tenzan is obviously "another fool who fights like he's playing a game".
- Aya pretty much asks the same question, but Tenzan just writes her off as an amateur, stating the Federation can't win with people like her.
- Tenzan just sees Ryusei as his first kill, but is surprised when Ryusei manages to dodge. He does think he recognizes his moves from the game they both played, though. Ryusei is just trying to keep his composure at the thought that he's fighting an actual person right now. (If you have him attack one of the mooks first, this conversation sounds rather funny, though in this case I didn't.)
For his efforts, Ryusei gains a character level up, as well as a level up for his Telekinesis skill. For now this just gives him stat bonuses, but it'll be relevant later. Tenzan is defeated and he retreats, stating he was getting hungry anyway. Upon defeating him, I gain an equippable part, a Chobham Armor, as well as a Battle Mastery. The carrier is safe and heads to the Far East Brigade base, Irm and his cargo still in one piece. In light of his first victory, Ryusei is deeply disturbed, wondering if he would still have been alive if he had been in the same position as his opponent. Aya is worried about him, but Ingram is convinced Ryusei now understands the severity of actual combat. He goes to report to his chief, commander Laker Randolph, and the scene changes.
We now find ourselves in a meeting between Ingram, Laker, Irm, and Lt. Col. Hans Weber, discussing Irm's business there as well as what happened today. It seems Laker had Mao Industries secretly repair a mech, the Wildraubtier, since its predecessor was supposed to be scrapped after an accident during testing. Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. Does Mao Industries have any other deathtraps on offer? Fortunately, Hans does note that operating it may result in another accident, but still gives the go-ahead to work on this mech. Irm's thoughts in response are slightly more cryptic:
IRM: (Whatever. It's your fault Kyosuke suffered.)
The second topic they have to address is who attacked them today. They're not Federation models, nor have they been identified as Aerogaters. The list of suspects is very short, as there are only three known manufacturers of humanoid mechs: Mao Industries, the Tesla-Leicht Institute and the EOTI. As the main manufacturer of the Federation's PTs, it's pretty obvious it wasn't Mao Industries. Irm hasn't heard anything either from the TLI, where his father, Jonathan Kazahara, is developing the Grungust mechs. Besides, he figures, if the TLI was the culprit his dad would never stop bragging about it. As things are, that leaves one possible option: Bian Zoldark, head of the EOTI. While the commanders investigate this matter further, our team goes on as usual fulfilling their regular missions.
