Super Robot Wars L Part #93 - Mission 40

Part 93: Mission 40 - Wings of Time

Two missions left to go, so let’s not waste time. Rey continues to crush the competition, nearly a full 100 kills ahead of the competition, but what you might notice is that Jesus decided to bump off Ichitaka out of 3rd place. I haven’t been abusing his MAPW anywhere near as much as Rey’s but I guess I did enough.

And you wanted Daiya to become HUGE, so here it is. On top of having stats to rival ships and Real robots, and enough firepower to reduce several nations into a smoldering crater, Gaiking the Great’s Squad Bonus has been buffed once again: +250 Armor, +25 mobility, 2000 barrier, +2 movement.
Daiya straight-up can no longer be killed.

Finally, as you might expect, Ichitaka and Yuu are deploying as event units, so we adjust accordingly:
Dancouga/Hilde
Daiya/Deceive
Kouichi/Quatre
Lee/Norza
Kenji/Kyo
Jeeg/Micchi
Rey/Cagalli (we’re back on land, and the upcoming enemies have a lot of fliers)
Kouji/Sawatari
Tetsuya/Canaria
Kira/Athrun
Iczer-3/Soubi
Goh/Yanma
Eida/Anna
Iczer-1/Iczer-2
Ozma/Luca
Heero/Michel
Voltes/Combattler
Alto/Brera
Shinn/Yulianne
Asuka/Lou
Shinji/Dearka

Off we go.

: De-Fold and Warp Out successful. All LOTUS vessels are confirmed present.

: No abnormalities with any of our ships. The Flag’s navigation systems are all green as well.

: And… no signs of hostiles?

*Looks around the trashed map.*

: What… what the hell happened here…?!

: It’s… awful…

: The whole area’s destroyed… There’re no signs of people, either.

: Can we establish contact with any of our facilities…?!

: We’re trying the Dannar Base, Build Base, and all science institutes – no one’s answering us!

: No one at all…?! You don’t mean…!

: We need to assess the situation on the double. I can’t even imagine how much damage’s been done across the globe.

: Satellite communications are down, though. The regular comm channels are being jammed as well…

: So the enemy first cut off all intelligence networks and then moved to conquer all relevant locations in one fell swoop…? But how could anyone…

: It’s not that impossible, you know.

: What…?

: Think back to Kiriyama’s coup of Japan. All it took was enough planning and he managed to take over the entire country rather quickly.

: But this one was an assault on a global scale. No one should be able to—

*Alarm!*

: We’re detecting a unit on high-speed approach! IDed as… GreAT’s!

: That unit… HL-1?!

: That’s correct, Ichitaka Nagumo.

: Wait, if you’re here… Was your group the one behind all this destruction?!

: Who else but we could have done it?

: But this isn’t something you could’ve pulled off easily. Mind telling us what kind of trick you used?

: It was nothing special, really. As you may know, GreAT is a manufacturer and distributor of all kinds of electronics for the entire world…

: All it took was causing all those to shut down simultaneously. That’s it.

: I get it now…! Then the reason Prof. Grife scrapped those upgrade plans for Alice using GreAT-made components…!

: Was because he noticed those parts were faulty, and realized GreAT couldn’t be trusted…!

: I am not privy to such matters. But, regardless, all major Earth nations, as well as the PLANTs, are already under our control.

: Did you raze those nations to the ground, like you did this city…?!

: How many innocent people did you kill…?!

: I ask that you calm down. You may find it hard to believe, but civilian casualties were almost nil.

: But Central is already defeated. Control of your Earth should have returned to the hands of the United Nations Government.

: Yet, here you are still attacking our world. What reason do you have for doing this?

: Before you have your answer, I have something to show you.

*Beep.*

: …

: What the…?!

: …

: F-Father! Ms. Relena!

: …

: And they are not the only ones. Prof. Kiriko Aoi, Prof. Senjiro Shiba… all of Earth’s top scientific minds are squarely in our hands.

: …

: That’s… Professor!

: You! What did you do to them?!

*Bloop.*

: Please, do not worry. They’re all simply asleep… for now, at least.

: …?! Who the hell are you?!

: Why, I’m certain Hisataka Katou told you all about me.

: Then, you’re…!

: I never had the pleasure of meeting most of you, so allow me to introduce myself. I am Ludo Gloria, president of the New United Nations Government…

: Though, in this world, perhaps my claim to fame is as GreAT’s founder.

: True, I remember reading about you in “Men’s Business Monthly”.

: And with introductions out of the way, let us return to your previous question, Col. Katsuragi. The reason why we’re still attacking despite Central’s defeat is quite simple: I want this Earth.

: Wha— Then it’s the same damn thing as that bucket of bolts?!

: Not quite, little Satoru Yamashita. My ultimate goal is world peace… mind you, by that, I mean the world I’m from.

: While Central wanted this world to sate its thirst for expansionism, I need it to help my resource-starved people.

: And is that the reason why you were nowhere to be seen during Central’s offensive?

: Not quite. If I simply wanted to make this world my own, I could have simply kept cooperating with Central. No, I actually had faith – faith that you would be capable of destroying Central!

: You had faith in us…? What are you getting at?!

: Oh, I see how it is…!

: He’s just like Mr. Birler, who’d cooperated with Grace and Leon for a while, despite his motives being completely different from theirs…!

: Very good. Even if various groups share an objective, it’s impossible for their motives to fully match one another. I’d wager that’s the same with you, no?

: So substantial revisions were then made to the plan – our own plan, not a joint one with them.

: What I’m getting from this, then, is that you saw things were going south for Central, so you decided to ditch your old allies.

: I never thought of Central as an “ally” to begin with. Though we had a cease-fire in place and exchanged technology with them, it was always meant as a temporary measure.

: “Temporary”?! But weren’t you the one who rose to power with those peace-talks with Central?!

: That was only possible because Central itself deemed they were much more likely to bolster their collective growth by exploiting humans, rather than carrying on a war of attrition with us.

: In truth, said “cease-fire” included several lopsided deals, like us having to look the other way to the Machina-Humans’ trespasses into our territory – not that the people were privy to that, of course.

: Central agreed to back our version of the story in return… but, really, it was only a matter of time before the hostilities resumed.

: So your political power was built on lying to your people? Now you’re a real piece of work.

: Dreadful business, I know. But, still, I am very much interested in establishing friendly relations with your group.

: As you saw, the professors are all safe, so I hope you’ll take that as a proof that I’m speaking the truth.

: … Get to the point. What are your demands?

: I’m glad you’re quick on the take. First things first, I’d like for us to have a nice, peaceful chat.

: I’ll be waiting for you at the Dannar Base. We’ll even hand the professors over once you’ve arrived – the sooner you do, the better, of course. Now, if you’ll excuse me…

*Beep.*

: Message has been delivered. We hope you’ll choose wisely, LOTUS.

: GreAT’s unit has left the airspace…

: …

: “Dreadful business, I know”… You’ve got a lotta nerve using that word…

*Looks at the wrecked city.*

: Is this what someone looking to “establish friendly relations” does…?! If this isn’t “dreadful”, then what is?!

Back at the Flag, Anna wonders what Gloria could be up to with this invitation; Mira and Athrun smell an obvious trap, but the guy has hostages, so we’ll just have to play along. Thankfully, not ALL of our allies have been captured and Sally manages to get in touch – she’s doing fine, and had to cobble up a comm device that could bypass the jamming and reach us.
Regardless, she confirms what we already feared: GreAT’s taken over nearly all military installations throughout the world, and while there are pockets of resistance, things aren’t looking good. Yagyuu still can’t believe they pulled off something like this. Even with them being able to shut down all electronics, how did they manage to deploy all those forces as quickly as they did?
Sally says GreAT has access to a warp device, so it wasn’t difficult for them to take advantage of the myriad bases’ failing defenses and walk right in. No one was in any condition to stop their blitz.

Kaji calls in and also relays the intel he’s available: GreAT has positioned those same red units we fought before in various strategic locations across the world. Misato’s surprised to hear from Kaji, but, no, she wasn’t worried – she’s too busy to worry about him. But he assures her that the intel’s legit: he personally came face-to-face with one of the GreAT units.
That takes Misato aback somewhat, but Kaji assures her that he’s well. And she shouldn’t look so uneasy, lest it affect Shinji and the others. Whatever the case, Yuu sees that GreAT’s mass-produced the unit we saw at Orb and Daedalus Base, and Kenichi’s expecting a tough fight if those have been deployed throughout the planet.
Worse, as Kaji relates, all countries are pretty much focused on trying to safeguard whatever they have left and can’t send troops to assist – we’re on our own, and he apologizes for not being able to help. But it’s fine and Misato asks him and Sally to stay safe.

As the call ends, Yuu approaches Misato: it’s very likely that the warp device GreAT’s using was created by Prof. Grife. As we heard before, those guys are using Grife’s brain as a tool to develop their own forces, and Haruno says it was theorized that the Dimensional Converter installed on the Rushbird and Straybird could’ve served as a basis for a warp device; the professor never went ahead with that since, one, he didn’t have the budget for it and, two, he didn’t care for the sponsors’ plans for the device.
Of course, GreAT had the budget and their Boazan brainwave scanner made convincing Grife a nonissue. And that brings us to the problem at hand, as GreAT now has all the greatest minds of Earth at their disposal. Yuu fears they’ll eventually get brain scanned as well, and the longer we take, the stronger our enemy will grow.
Plus, once GreAT figures the captives have served their purpose, they’ll likely be disposed of. We need to hurry, not just for our own sake, but for theirs as well.

Mission 40 – The Wings of Time

: Come on, come on… show yourself…!

: Welcome, my friends. I knew you’d accept my invitation.

: Yeah, here we are! Now hand over the professors!

: Patience. Before any of that, I’d like to extend my gratitude to all of you: the data we attained from you was exceedingly helpful in our conquest of Earth.

: HL-1, show it to them, if you would.

: Yes, sir… Fire!

: What the…! That was one of those Dimension Eater bombs?!

: Not exactly, it was miniaturized… that was an MDE Warhead…!

: And that is not all. We also have this.

*Photon Beam Noise!*

: What…! That was the Mazinger’s…!

: Your technology, and the tremendous effort you’ve put into perfecting and mastering it, is truly a sight to behold.

: So you not only analyzed our tech, you can now use it as your own…?!

: Didn’t your mom teach you that if you don’t give up, your dreams will all come true? And I have certainly never given up.

: I’ve believed in myself, I’ve always persisted, and, now, my dream is about to come true.

: Oh, drop the window dressing. What it all comes down to is that your “dream” is taking over the world, isn’t it?

: You’re free to look at it like that, if you like. But I think a group like yours, so unrelenting and dedicated, can understand where I’m coming from.

: But what about the common masses, those who do nothing but rely on your protection and savor the sweet fruits of your labor? Do those people deserve having guardians such as you? They know nothing of duty and obligation, always coasting on the peace you earned with your blood…

: So your point is: “we’re both hardworking sorts, so you should join me”. Are you actually serious?

: Do you find it strange? I’d like to think that I only amounted to a capable statesman because I understood the importance of belief and hard work.

: But what did all this rampant mobocracy, dominated by its shortsightedness, ever give you? War. Even now something as mundane as the correctness of genetic manipulation cleaved society in half, pitting man against man – twice.

: But that’s…!

: … Don’t, Shinn. We can’t deny the history of our conflict…

: But I value hardworking men and women like you quite a lot!

: While things may be a bit topsy-turvy right now, I’m confident I’ll create a peaceful society in due time. In fact, it’s already happening on the other world.

: Or can you stick out your chests and declare that, yes, the people would be happier if the old status quo was simply restored? Can you say that that is better for society than being ruled by me…?

: Without a shred of doubt!

: What…?

: If you let someone rule the world, who’ll be there to stop him when he makes a mistake? And, as a matter of fact, you’re already completely mistaken!

: Do you seriously think everybody is wrong, except you? You look too old to be acting like such a huge baby.

: I’ve been wrong more times than I can count… but I managed get back on the right track because I had friends around to stop and correct me!

: And when things got tough, they were always there to help me make it through.

: Ludo Gloria… do you have people like that? People whom you trust with all your heart?

: Everyone makes mistakes, and that’s fine. Because we can only appreciate what’s right when we’ve personally worked to find it.

: And that’s how people grow, from the day they’re born ‘til the day they die!

: Like the Chairman and Grace, you’re in way too much of a hurry to push society into being “perfect”, into reaching the “pinnacle” of its evolution!

: What humanity needs is time! And so long as people never lose the bonds they share with each other, there’s no way we won’t find a bright future waiting down the road!

: I suppose our negotiations have broken down… how unfortunate. Still, I am truly grateful to you all, so…

: He did have an ambush waiting for us.

: Consider this a small token of my gratitude. I hope it’s to your liking.

: And now I bid you farewell, my friends of LOTUS…

*Bloop.*

: Enemy data matched… Several non-GreAT units identified.

*Looks ahead.*

: Windams… and those are equipped with nuclear weapons…!

: And they’ve even got some Ghosts. At least they’re not Ghost V-9s.

: I think it’s fair to say that what we have here is a showcase of everything they studied over past battles.

: Hah, but they’re not beating us with just these…!

: We’re already old hands at being outnumbered, after all…!

: Misato, what about the hostages?!

: I’ve just sent a rescue party after them! Let the pros handle that while you focus on bringing down the enemy forces!

: Take care of my grandfather and the others, please…!

: The EVA has its A.T. Field because it’s meant to protect others… I’m sure of it! And I’ll make sure both Earth and everyone in it stays safe!

: Ichitaka, all meters are in the green – no problems at all!

: We’re winning this…! We’ll beat that guy and yank Earth right out his hands!

Destroy everything, don’t lose your ships, Rushbird or Straybird. We’re back again in the Dannar Base map but, thankfully, the enemies are pretty much all around solid ground – no need to worry about the goddamn water. That said, there are a lot of trees and cliffs, so your land-bound units will certainly take longer to get places.
As the scene told us, you’re staring down at a mob of myriad Earth-made mooks: Windams, Destroys, Jinrais, Ghosts, Fat Boys and the usual GreAT units. Honestly, this isn’t really hard so long as you prioritize a few things: other than the Strike Valleys, pay special attention to the Destroys due to their powerful attacks, so you’ll want to get them quick or they’ll build up the morale to MAPW.
The new Nuclear Windams… honestly, I didn’t see them do anything different. Maybe it takes a bunch of morale for them to use said nukes, but they’re all front and center, so you’ll likely kill them first.
All in all, you’ve done this song and dance several times before, so get to it. Do make sure to kill everything and save your SP by the time you take out HL-1, though, yes? Being able to rain valored attacks (and MAPWs, especially) will make things a lot simpler for you.

Any problems you might have, just throw Daiya at it until it goes away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5lunEl230U
Heey, I finally had room for one of the SEED Flunkies! By the by, while Dearka’s best attack is tagged as the shotgun, this is actually the Hyper Impulse Long-Range Sniper Rifle and I’ve no idea why they didn’t use that name.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2F3BSSjsdE
And, also, here’s the DK for the other one of Jeffrey’s new tricks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikhYLee4mdA
And after seeing it used in events twice, I FINALLY remember to get the DK of the last of Mode-C’s attacks on camera!
It’s pretty hard for a bot to look intimidating when it’s glowing in neon pink, I have to say.

Back to the drawing board with your bot!
FYI, I’d advise taking an extra turn if necessary and making sure you’ve all your units hanging by the Dannar Base before you down HL-1.

: You might be able to use our tech, but if you think that means you can make good use of it, think again!

: The effort it took to master those isn’t something you can copy that easily!

: True, we can’t install those in the Imperial Valley just yet. But it is only a matter of time. Just a bit longer and both myself and the Imperial Valley will receive the necessary upgrades.

: Then we’ll just have to take you down before that happens…! You’re not using the professors’ smarts for evil – not on our watch!

Ichitaka: “We’re not about to get dunked on by a puppet like you!”

: We’ve finally made it…!

: If we can successfully rescue the captives, all that’ll remain is a frontal assault at GreAT.

: And you presume things will simply go according to your plans? There is no “potential” left in you – at all.

: Now that’s a very mechanical prognosis. And I’ll be happy let the bonds built between us prove you wrong…!

Haruno: “Her AI is the same as mine…”
Yuu: “But at the end of the day, she’s just a puppet. You’re nothing like her!”

: You truly are strong. But both my unit and I have made plenty of advancements since our battle at Daedalus Base.

: That’s… a D-S.O.I.L.?! No, wait, these readings are different…!

: As you might have expected, a machine like me wasn’t compatible with the principles behind Factors. That being said, nanomachines work just fine and we finally perfected our faulty emergency repair system.

: You sure did your homework, I’ll give you that… But on the flip side, the way you brag about tech you stole really grinds my gears.

: Then let me show you something that’s wholly original.

: Our experiment at Orb may have failed, but let’s see how it performs this time.

*HL-1 starts zipping all around our people!*

: It’s what they used against me…!

: And your previous tactic will not work again. There’s no way for you to stop the D-Converter.

*Zips around some more!*

: Enemy unit’s temperature is rising…! Space-time distortions detected!

: It’s just like that time…!

: Damn it, and they already analyzed the trick we used before, so we can’t go with it…!

: Kosuke, there anything we can do here?!

: Give me a minute! I’m looking into it!

*Zip, zip, zip, zip.*

: Our estimates say we’ve about 180 seconds before her engine goes critical and explodes…!

: Now what?! Alice, you got any ideas? You always do!

: I-I’m sorry… I can’t think of anything that’d work!

: … Haruno, are you confident in your ability to control the Dimensional Converter?

: If I’ve your support, I believe I could maintain as much as thrice our current output.

: Thrice, with my support… but if we’ve them as well…

: What are you thinking, Yuu…?!

: Ichitaka, link our units’ Dimensional Converters together! If we use the Straybird’s wings and the Rushbird’s Dimensional Converter in tandem, we might have a shot at this!

: But controlling both Converters running simultaneously is impossible! You, yourself, came to that conclusion!

: And if we fail, we’ll destroy this entire region!

: Haruno, the two of us can manage up to thrice our regular output. But with those two… with Ichitaka and Alice…

: I believe that we can pull it off. We can control both Converters at the same time and manage an output over five times stronger! Think you can do it, Ichitaka?!

: Doesn’t matter what I think. If we don’t make it work, we and the professors are all dead… So we’re just gonna have to pull it off!

: B-But…!

: And ya know what, Alice, I think we’ll be alright. We worked really hard to get here, so have faith in me… in us!

: We’ll take everything we learned ‘til today – from Yamashita, Miu, Goh, Shizuru, Tetsuya and Noin – and bash her upside the head with it!

: …! Okay. I’ll show her all I’ve gained throughout this… every last drop!

*Zip, zip, zip, zip.*

: 60 seconds!

: Gonna have to ad lib this, then! HERE GOOOOES!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uEBDOg6mUw
Yuu: “Ichitaka, the Straybird’s wings are yours!”
Haruno: “We will manage both Dimensional Converters flawlessly!”
Alice: “This is it… Now we draw upon everything we’ve learned through these battles!”
Ichitaka: “Wh-Whoa…! That’s a lotta power…!” > “Alright… Let’s do this, Alice!”
Alice: “Diverting all energy to the Rushbird’s defense and propulsion systems!” > “Control… established!”
Ichitaka: “And… there! I’ve got it too!”
HL-1: “Master Gloria… Forgive…me…”

: We… we did it! Yuu, we did it!

: Yeah… this win’s all on you…!

: Data link terminated… Receiving combat data.

: …?! This signal is!

: Gah, they called the ones they spread across the world over?!

: And the pilots are all…

#3: Combat data received. Moving to eliminate targets.

#2: Combat data received. Moving to eliminate targets.

#1: Ours is a flawless squadron, comprised of wholly uniform soldiers. No strategy is beyond our capacity.

#1: Whereas your motley crew and your slapdash approach to combat are mired in the chaos of emotions and individuality. You cannot win.

: Yeah, we’ll see about that! It’s because we are so different that we can boost each other to do better and better!

: For all you’ve learned, there’s something essential that you just don’t seem to get!

: It’s the reason why Central failed…

: And why Big Gold could not prevail against us…!

: It’s something that comes with being human, and we’re about to give you an eyeful of it!

: The rescue team should have all the professors safe shortly! Bring your souls together and fight on, everyone!

: Aye, aye! Come on, people!

And this is why I told you to save as much SP as can be. You might expect the MP HL-1s and Imperial Valleys to be watered-down versions, but you would be WRONG. All twelve are all exact copies of the original and can be just as deadly, especially if you leave the all running prevail.
We’re not going to give them a chance to do that, though: low morale means they can’t use their long range weapon, so we’ll draw them closer, straight into Kira and Rey’s AoE and blast away. If you took your time before killing HL-1 and brought your guys closer, you’ll be in good position to throw everything and the kitchen sink at them, allowing you to kill them all in one round.
If you can’t, just take out as many as can be done and finish off the rest. They still don’t have MAPWs, at the very least.

But we do.

They spread out enough that Kira couldn’t blast all of them, but he could still tag half of the squads.
After that, it’s straight clean-up – you may now go all-out with your SP.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o60shomLtko
Oh, and it took me until now to remember that I never showed the DK of the Iczelio Boomer.

And we’re done.

: Alright, I think that was the last of them!

: And we also have confirmation that the captives inside Dannar Base have been rescued. Everyone is safe!

: Thank goodness mom and the others are alright…

: Whew… That’s the end of that, at least for now.

: Professor! PROFESSOR!! Do you hear us?!

: Hrm… Ichitaka…?

: Yeah, it’s me! And Alice, Yuu and Haruno, too! We’ve been fighting as part of LOTUS, a UN force, and—

: Gch… LOTUS…?

: Oh , damn it all…! Who’s in charge there?! Get me in touch with your captains! Hurry!

: What’s going on?!

: We need to escape right now! This whole area’s about to get blown to kingdom come!

: What…?!

: The HL Platoon was beaten… Very well done, LOTUS. That being said, it’s exactly how I expected things to play out.

: Your defeat was sealed the second you assembled on that spot. And now you and everything within dozens of kilometers will all become very familiar with concept of “scorched-earth policy”… courtesy of my ultra-long range artillery.