Battle Mastery: Defeat all enemies within 4 turns except Guarlion Custom.
Kyosuke is suspicious of Lamia, who's still talking funny, but Lee summons them to the briefing room before it goes too far. Despite a DC remnant offensive directed at the Houston base, the Shirogane will be continuing its mission in Mexico. Lamia considers Lee's views on absolute obedience to superiors to be common sense. Lee seems to have something against the L5 Campaign veterans, but Kyosuke manages to talk Lee into intercepting the enemy at Houston, where the new mass-production Huckebeins are being tested, since the enemy may be trying to steal them. Naturally, he does it by sending the ATX team alone without the ship.
Meanwhile, at Houston, Mitusko Isurugi is on the phone with Filio Presty, head of the Project TD (Terrestrial Dream) that's also testing prototype mechs at the base. He's against arming these space exploration units, but the obvious existence of hostile aliens leaves little choice. The two pilots for the project are Sleigh Presty, his sister, and Ibis Douglas. Sleigh is highly skilled but arrogant and always flies a red unit. Ibis, well, she's nicknamed “Shooting Star” for always crashing to earth, but Filio believes in her potential.
Once the test commences, Sleigh demonstrates that she handles the Calion very well, but Ibis has some isssues. And then some DC Guarlions and Lion Fs come in, led by Archibald Grims, a real bastard you'll be seeing a lot of. Ibis refuses to fall back, so it's just her and Sleigh against 9 enemies.
Ibis doesn't have Focus yet, but Sleigh does. So Sleigh casts it and both Calions move north. During Enemy Phase of Turn 2, allied mass-produced Huckebein MkIIs appear and promptly get captured by the enemy. Archibald summons more Lion Fs, and the ATX team finally deploys on turn 3, revealing the Battle Mastery for the stage. I've always considered it a bit dirty to reveal this sort of thing late since the damn clock starts ticking far earlier. Still, the Lions go down very easily and I get another BM and Archibald runs away.
Once the action's over, Excellen's back to teasing Lamia and Bullet. And Sleigh goes pushing Ibis around for being a poor pilot. Excellen enters the hanger to see the Calions and more wordplay with Bullet. Like “Oh, I didn't know you like the rough stuff” when Bullet says Dr. Radom will smack her if she keeps calling the mech “Marion” (this being the good doctor's name, of course). At the end of this cutscene, Filio and his aide Tsugumi learn that Project TD is being moved to TLI where many of his old colleagues work.
Going into the intermission, you gain a Water Jet (mech and weapons gain S performance in water), some consumables, and a Chaff Grenade (target accuracy -50%). The Water Jet will be vital on a few stages, but the Chaff Grenade will be of limited usefulness as the game goes on since many bosses have immunity to status effects.
Lamia kill count: 11/55.
