Part 118: Post-mission 33 Intermission and Mission 34 (Earth Route) - Prologue

Alright, time for a proper intermission – we’ve points to spend and we got more cash from this mission than from the entire Space Route. As usual, your top aces:




Skill Parts:


I’ll keep the other parts on hold for now. All I’ll use is the BP+1 on Kazuma.


BP Upgrades:


Yumi comes with slightly more points than her teammates. Seeing how Reactor Voltekka is her most useful weapon, we’ll put 20 points in Shooting, 8 points in Melee and 5 in Evasion and Accuracy.





Natasha and David do nearly the same thing: 20 points in Shooting, 8 in Melee, 5 in Evasion and 2 in Accuracy.


Unit Upgrades:






While we do have a decent amount of money, it’s not enough to upgrade all three Tekkamen to everyone else’s level.
So, I just spread it along evenly giving 2 points into every relevant stat – except for David, who had less money available and only got 1 point in Weapon and Mobility.


Unit Parts:


Reactor Voltekka is quite expensive, so we give Yumi an EN Chip plus a Hyper Sensor for +10 extra mobility.





Natasha and David also take the remaining EN Chips (no one else to use them); for the second part Natasha takes an Apogee Motor for the extra Movement and David takes the Servo Motor for a token bit of extra mobility.


With all that done, let’s move to the Prologue:





Mission 34 (Earth Route) - Wavering Feelings and Small Resolves





The new Tekkamen run into a small group of Radam while on maneuvers.
No one else of Neo-Wärter is here but Vesna tells everyone that they can deal with these by themselves.



Indeed, we can take them out without aid. In fact, I’m just gonna send Yumi out there.



Enemy Phase!



Round 1, Fight!














Flawless victory.



Queue a bunch of Mothers losing around 40% of their health.
Most of the other bugs don’t take a critical hit, so they live with a sliver of HP left; the last one plays ball and gets killed, though.



All of this bumps Yumi and Hayato up a level – taking Yumi’s Support Defend and Multicombo up to L2.



Player Phase!



Hayato has precisely 116 SP – enough for two casts of Spirit: since Yumi managed to kill two enemies (+5 morale for each), this brings her total to 130.



You know where I’m going with this, right?



Yumi is broken as shit and I love it.


















Boom.





As the last Radam goes down, Yumi is pretty pumped at yet another victory and is eager for more.
Sommer is glad to see her in high spirits today while Vesna is impressed that Yumi’s picked her own stride in just one week; however, they’re soon interrupted when a few Alien Tekkamen arrive on the scene.
They’ve been briefed about these new kind of Tekkamen that arrived on the Radam battleships but Yumi isn’t afraid – she charges in, saying she’ll show them the strength of Earth’s Tekkamen!
Her attack quickly takes one of the aliens by surprise and, while he’s weakened, Natasha tells her to finish it off.












However, the attack is stopped when one of the aliens protects his ally.
Our team quickly realize, to their shock, that the enemy Tekkamen actually possess some sort of emotions - emotions they aren't supposed to retain after the Radam mind control.







The idea that what they’ve been killing aren’t mere monsters but sentient beings weighs heavily on all three Tekkamen.
Aki tries to get in touch with Natasha, asking “what the hell”, but even the leader is hesitating.





The Alien Tekkamen take this chance to start blasting Yumi and the others are unable to reach her in time…








Luckily Renée, the Lion Queen, is on hand to save her.





The Alien Tekkaman are quick to retreat after her attack.
This leaves Renée to escort the others back to GGG’s base.



In the log, Kazuma waxes philosophical about the newborn Tekkamen's lack of mental toughness in the face of the news.
Truth be told, without Renée’s intervention, they might’ve been killed right there but, even then, it’ll be up to the three to regain their fighting spirit.



Meanwhile, Renée's sharp tongue isn't sparing the Tekkamen, and Aki is in full agreement.
Even if the Aliens are not the complete monsters imagined, the point is that they want to kill all of us; if Natasha and the others can’t get rid of their hesitation, they will be unable to protect anyone – even themselves.
Liger (re)introduces Renée to everyone, adding that she's his daughter (though Renée scowls and spits the qualifier "legally").



She all but demands your latest data on Bionet, and declines Gai's recommendation of staying and chatting with our people awhile.
The girls are trying to figure out what's wrong with her as she stalks off again - is it her "father's” womanizing ways that have her so upset? Or is it the naivete of the new Tekkamen, which she blasts again on the way out the door?



One thing is certain: ice queen Renée is the polar opposite of someone like Ryouko's explosive warmth.
Liger sighs ruefully and admits that Renée is well within her rights to hate him at least, leaving Aki and Gai to tell the tale as he walks out under a very uncharacteristic cloud.



Gai tells you that Liger feels responsible for Renée becoming a cyborg, a fact that surprises some of your people more than others.
It seems Liger had separated from Renée's mother before Renée was born, and she was raised without ever having seen his face; unfortunately, agents of Bionet killed Renée's mother while she was still a child, and built Renée herself into a combat cyborg.



Somehow, Renée found the strength to resist Bionet's control, and at the end of her one-woman insurrection ended up being saved by Chasseur.
At that point, it was discovered that Bionet's immature cybernetics had hit their limits and were about to fail, and Liger was left with no choice but to operate again in order to save her life.
Where things get messy is that Liger himself had been Bionet's real target all that time, and his wife and daughter's treatment was meant to hurt him.
In other words, Renée and her mother's fates could be over-simplistically construed as Liger's fault - and nobody ever accused Renée of being under-simplistic.



Our people can see what rage could evolve from having her life saved by her alienated father, object of such hatred to begin with.
Renée is doing her best to direct that rage towards Bionet, which explains her rather singleminded focus.
Aki explains to Yumi and the others that this is why Renée was so hard on them: she sees them as fellow beings whose bodies were modified by other's hands, and projects her own concerns onto them.
She sternly tells all her charges that, since the Space Knights are joining Neo-Warter, they’ll have more enemies with emotions to fight than just the Radam - like Zaft.



When Yumi looks dubious about fighting Humans, Aki starts shouting, informing them that all the enemy Tekkamen are based on the feelings and memories of the people who became their hosts.
If necessary, her people must be ready to fight their own friends and even family if circumstances require!
She yells that anyone who can't manage that should get out now, and in tears Yumi does just that.



Kazuma tells her partner to leave her be: this is a wall she's got to climb over herself, or further fighting really will be futile.
Gai agrees, and asks the others to understand that there are some things one cannot attain except through fighting.



David, for one, says he'll prepare for this battle, readying himself to fight whoever Aki says is the enemy.
Score one for the steely nerves of what Saburouta calls the "playboy Tekkaman".
Aki inwardly tells Yumi that she believes in her, that she can actually attain the future that "he" wished for.



Yumi has gone off to pout for a while, and gets scared out of her wits when the dragon girl robots say hi.
Recovering quickly, she recognizes them as the twin robots that Renée was fighting with; after exchanging introductions, Yumi asks them what Renée is like.
Kouryuu cheerfully says that Renée is super scary when she gets mad, and she's been mad at them very often through all their mess-ups during their training; Anryuu adds that Renée has also taught them many valuable things: everything from how to conduct an investigation to how to battle the enemy.



And more important, she's taught them the meaning of fighting.
As robots, the dragon girls were fashioned so as not to hurt humans - indeed, older model robots were incapable of allowing humans to come to harm even if it meant endangering themselves in return.
Yumi has heard of the Three Laws, but Kouryuu points out that such a system is pretty silly considering that the robots in question are alive too.
If both robotic and human life is of equal value, which should the robots protect?



This is beyond Yumi, though she grasps enough to realize that it means taking down whoever is putting those lives in danger to begin with.
What Renée taught her charges is to protect what they feel is right; for example, fighting bad humans to defend good robots.
After thinking for a bit, Yumi thanks both girls, saying that she’s starting to understand what they’re talking about, and Kouryuu is effusive with praise.
Anryuu leads her sister back to practice, and the two of them are resolved to make "that" succeed today.



Left behind, Yumi ponders this "protect what she feels is right" business, finally shouting to no one in particular that if she could actually do that, she wouldn't be having anywhere near this much trouble!



She in fact has an audience: a rather somber looking dude with a facial scar and sunglasses.
She doesn't recognize him, and after studying her intently, he asks if she's a Tekkaman; she admits she is to him but starts wondering aloud if she ought to have become one.
It was her admiration to Tekkaman Blade, forged when he saved her from the Radam in Tokyo, that made her enter the Space Knights.
Indeed, the fact that she was no longer human was far less of a shock to her than Blade's disappearance.



She always dreamed of telling Blade that she'd help defend the world by his side, but absent any way of fulfilling the dream, she at least wanted to make good on her admiration and actually be of use via the Space Knights.
She figures she's as good as washed up as Tekkaman, but the man tells her that all she needs is fighting spirit.



She finds it strange but she feels like she’s met this guy before; either way, just talking to him seemingly made her worries disappear.
Before heading back to her teammates, she asks the man for his name and he utters one syllable: "D".



After Yumi trots off, a man in the shadows near "D" asks why he isn't going to say hello to "her".
"D" replies that he's got his own battles to fight, and appreciates his companion's bringing him here anyway; "D" then departs, saying that he'll see the companion again if fortune favors them both, and the companion mutters that "D" seemingly hasn't forgiven himself yet.
He mentally tells the "general" that he's betting he can keep a grip on himself...