After the intermission we get a belated opening text crawl, explaining a lot of the things alluded to in the previous chapter. It's been nearly two centuries since man went into space, but humanity hasn't advanced much because of the turmoil caused by two meteors that struck the Earth. In 179 S.E., a third meteor unimaginatively called Meteor 3 landed near the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific. The substances contained in this meteor brought completely new technology to Earth. People call this alien technology Extra-Over Technology, or EOT. Yeah, I don't know what that's supposed to mean either.
Entire organizations sprang up dedicated to EOT research, most notably the EOT Investigative Committee (hereafter referred to as EOTI) led by Dr. Bian Zoldark, which is under supervision of the EOT Council. As stated in the previous chapter, he's the guy that predicted an alien invasion, and in a fortunate twist the Earth Federal Government actually decides to listen to him. Why they decided to start building humanoid robots in response to this threat, however, remains a mystery.
We now find ourselves in Japan, where we finally meet our protagonist, Ryusei Date
. He was heading for the hospital to meet his sick mother, but is currently distracted by the sight of limited-edition mecha toys. His friend, Kusuha Mizuha (that name just rolls off the tongue), prods him to get going since he's been gawking over mecha toys for the past 30 minutes. If he doesn't hurry, visiting hours at the hospital will be over, after all.
With a bit of a grumble he agrees to at least get going, but not to stop talking about mecha. She has noticed that he's really fascinated by it, and he admits he's a big super robot fan. Like the military's Personal Troopers, she figures, but he quickly corrects her noting those are real robots, not super robots. Yes, even in fiction where giant mecha exist, people are STILL arguing over this. She doesn't really get the distinction, and our ever-sensitive protagonist concludes this must be because she's a girl. Chicks don't dig giant robots, apparently. She laughs off his ridiculous fanboying, but he says it's because he wants to pilot one for real someday.
At the hospital, they meet Ryusei's mother, Yukiko Date. He's worried about her health, but she says she's feeling much better these days. Yukiko asks how his grades are, since that'll determine if he'll be able to get into college. Ryusei says he's not going to, and that his current concern is getting a job to pay for her hospital bills. Yeah, there is no way this could be a bad idea. Yukiko says she can't let him do that:he's got his whole life ahead of him, and should be able to decide his own future. That's what his deceased father would've wanted, if we take her word for it.
Since Ryusei still has other stuff to do today, he finishes his hospital visit and turns his attention to the second-most important thing on his schedule today: winning a mecha video game tournament. This game, Burning PT, is a simulation designed by the military but commercially released as a game. And somehow, this guy will be the national champion if he can win in this tournament against his equally nerdy antagonist, Tenzan Nakajima. He says he's doing it for the cash prize involved, in order to pay the aforementioned hospital bills. Given that he's a rampant fanboy, I somewhat doubt this justification, but then again it doesn't really matter what his true motive behind this kind of charity is.
The story fast-forwards a bit and cuts to Ryusei winning the tournament. He thinks it's a shame he didn't get to fight Tenzan, who dropped out of the tournament earlier for reasons unknown. Meanwhile, two strange people (Ingram Prisken and Aya Kobayashi) are observing him; specifically, they are observing his psychic abilities. He has the most potential out of all the tournament entrants, they say. So they've been observing this entire tournament to find gifted people like that? Unorthodox, but you can't argue with results. For this reason, they intend to "secure" him after the tournament, which is probably code-speak for using him to power some doomsday device.
As usual, stuff they didn't plan for happens. The enemy bug-robots from earlier suddenly appear, designated AGX-01 by Ingram's crew. Jet fighters are sent out to intercept them, and Ingram orders preparation of a mech called the Type TT. Ryusei's about to collect his trophy and prize money, when the jets fire at one of the enemy mechs, causing it to crash through the building and interrupt his happy moment. Ingram still manages to turn this string of unforeseen events to his advantage: he considers this the perfect moment to test Ryusei's abilities, and sends the Type TT in his direction.
Aya thinks this is ridiculous, since the kid has never piloted a real mech, but Ingram's confident this'll work. Ryusei and Kusuha slowly emerge from the rubble, confirm that they are both still alive, and immediately see this giant bug facing them. He spots the robot parked near him, and wonders what it's doing there.
To add to his bafflement, the jets are ordered to retreat from this airspace and leave the bugs to him. He sees this as the military forsaking their task to protect people, and figures someone has to do something if they want to survive...sees a strange flash of light, and finally notices the mech's cockpit hatch is open. Psychic powers, sudden flashes of light...yeah, totally not a Newtype. He gets inside, and notices the mech has a similar control scheme as his game. He questions for a moment why a military machine would have a game controller, but is swiftly interrupted as the bugs attack him. He figures he has no choice now but to defend himself, and swiftly deals with these creatures.
At this point I'm finally put in control, once again having to deal with a fairly simple scenario. As shown on the map, four fairly weak bugs with hit rates that drop below 20% if I use Focus. This mech has a beam rifle and missiles with a range of 4 and 5 squares, respectively, so I don't need to go up close. Positioning myself on top of the white dome to the left of me, I can take out all four of them without further movement, allowing me to strike them down using mostly counterattacks and earning me another BM for my efficiency.
Incidentally, choosing this position also gave me significant terrain bonuses and penalties: my defense increased by 25%, my hit rate decreased by the same amount, and I got 10% energy recharge per turn while in that spot. Not that I needed it in this case, but terrain effects will become important later on.
Plot-wise, Ryusei isn't doing so hot, as the G-pull in a real machine is much higher than he had expected. He takes a severe beating from the bugs until Aya starts barking orders at him through the mech's radio. Initially Ryusei wonders who she is, but then he just tells her to stop ordering him around and start calling for some backup. Again, he sees a flash of light. Realizing he's gonna be on his own here, he continues fighting to the best of his ability and eventually succeeds in destroying the enemies. Meanwhile, Ingram is pleased with his performance. He orders an area lockdown and a media blackout on everything that happened here. He meets with Ryusei, who is looking for Kusuha. He tells him Kusuha was rescued by medics and is fine, and he wants Ryusei to come with him.
Fast-forward to the Far East Brigade Base, where Aya and Ingram are discussing the fact that Ryusei has agreed to become a test pilot for Project SRX. In return, he won't go to prison for using a top secret prototype mech without permission. Damn, Ingram, first the tournament and now this. That's a genius way to forcibly recruit people. On the other hand, they'll also pay his mother's medical fees, so it’s not so bad. Meanwhile, Ryusei is bickering with a gate guard outside because he forgot to bring his ID and pass, and he is supposed to meet Aya in a moment. Meanwhile, a new character called Raidiese F. Branstein (hereafter referred to as Rai) shows his ID and walks past him.
RYUSEI: Hey! Who was that blonde guy? He was only wearing one glove! What a dork.
Soon after, Aya meets up with Ryusei, and reveals she was the voice yelling at him during the last battle. Which she promptly apologizes for, no less. She is his team's captain, though Ryusei reacts to the word "team" as if it were some entirely alien concept. They shake hands to conclude their meeting, and this time Aya is the one seeing a flash of light. Is this a common disorder, or something? Ryusei wonders what's wrong, but she says it's nothing, it's just that he has remarkably soft hands. He is surprised by this statement, but just shrugs it off.
In a concluding scene, Ingram is talking to Rai, noting that the latter comes from a very distinguished military family. His father is commander-in-chief of the UCC; his brother is a former Aggressor, and helped with the design of Personal Troopers. Rai says he doesn't serve the UCC or his family anymore, and that Ingram knows what happened to Rai — details are not given at this point — and he wonders why Ingram would need someone like him. Ingram says he needs Rai's expertise for Project SRX, now that he's collected all necessary people samples.
