Part 129: Mission 37 (Orb Route) - The Thunder of a Peaceful Nation - Part 1

Mission 37 (Orb Route) - The Thunder of a Peaceful Nation









How easy or annoying this battle can be depends quite a bit on how the RNG Gods treat you.
Kira is unupgraded and, even with all his stuff, is rather weak and Athrun can consistently get 20%-25% hit chance.
You dont NEED to beat Athrun but theres a catch:


Have you been following the Gundam SEED secret up until now (Defeat Nicol on 30, Waltfeld on 35, etc.)?
If so, heres the next step: you need to beat Athrun before turn 5 BUT you also need to get, at least, 3 battle encounters with him (of course, you also need to keep this route or else it doesnt count).

I dont even think its possible to beat Athrun in less than 3 fights (at least not in a first playthrough) but










See? Even with Valor, that wouldnt even have broken 6k damage.

Enemy Phase!

Here he comes again!










Keep in mind that, while Athrun doesnt have Prevail, he can very well oneshot the Strike if he gets a clean hit with his strongest attack (which, of course, means game over).

Player Phase!


Rinse and Repeat. This is the 3rd encounter and Ive just used Valor.

Enemy Phase!

YAWN!






While I did say Athrun can oneshot the Strike with his strongest attack, most times he seems to prioritize using his Beam Rifle.

Player Phase!

Time to end the fight.










*Athrun grabs Kira.*






Lowe arrives on the scene equipped with Erika's new flight unit, that he was using for the test, in time to see the battle over.
8 can discern the remains of a battle between Zaft and Archangel forces.

One of the Mobile Suits, though his body is badly burned, has an intact cockpit.
8 also detects the life signs of the pilot and Lowe decides to head over if they dont get him out soon, hell certainly die.
However, before they get there, 8 detects something else approaching.


















Well, thisll be a whole lot faster as weve given the Red Frame so many upgrades (I dont know if theres a time limit on this as Ive always killed the guy before anything happened).
Also, Lowes cool wings paired with 8s Accelerate mean we can get right on Gold Frames face.










Ah, much better.
The enemy phase fight just repeats this one, so lets skip to the end.

Player Phase!

Dont be afraid to blow Lowes entire SP, so lets pack some Valor and wrap it up.









Boom.











Back at Morgenleite, news of Lowes battle has been delivered and Mayura informs that the rest of Neo-Wärter is rushing to the scene as well.
Cagalli also wants to go there fearing the Archangel may have been involved and Mayura wonders if she wants to pay them back for helping her out; Cagalli says she doesnt feel indebted to them she just wants to lend a hand.
Erika is too pensive to stop their sortie and Juri enthusiastically rushes off to see that her beloved Lowe is safe.
Kazahana tells the timid Kisato that she's got to fight too if she wants her love to work out and, for whatever good thatll do to her, Kazahana promises to help her.

As they rush off to their vehicles, Erika tells Professor that it's not the M1 she's worried about (which is over 98% complete thanks to Lowe and Kira).
What she's privately worried about is how Rondo decided the best thing for Orb's future was testing the modified P01 on the P02.
The question is, for whom will Orb's future unfold: Asuha, or Sahaku?

Lowe manages to rescue Kira and searches for a place that can help him: he finds an orphanage ran by Malchio, a blind priest.
He notices that Kiras very young and wonders if hes a Fed soldier but Lowe doesnt know; he notes that he was aboard the Archangel and mentions Kiras name, who Malchio immediately recognizes.
Lowe notes that Kira's MS seems to have saved his life, and as a Junkman he wants to make sure the mechs death wasnt in vain.
Malchio promises to take care of Kira but, in return, hed like to ask a favor of Lowe

Im deploying everyone except Trowa (hes the least upgraded gundam) and the Nadesico folk (screw them).

Neo-Wärter arrives and quickly take note of the site of the battle of Zaft and the Archangel; they also easily spot the wreckage of the Strike Gundam.
Kazumas grief over Kira's apparent fate will have to wait until we Replace With other survivors... and Lowe, who is nowhere to be seen.
Just then, Harry detects unknown signals rapidly approaching Ryouko figures its more Zaft.


Its actually a group of terrorists by the look of their mecha.
Kurz figures its the same group who brought Kaname and Tessa over here to sell them.


Among them is a familiar-looking red mech, though Sousuke is positive it couldn't belong to Gauron, who presumably exploded along with his mech back when.

It's actually piloted by Mr. Potassium, a.k.a. Gates, who's very pleased to see our famous unit on the field.
Even better for him is the fact that the Arbalest has deployed.


With him are the twins, Xia Yu-Fan(the one with the tied hair) and Xia Yu-Lan(the one with the shorter hair), who immediately recognize Sousukes mech.
Gates seems rather unhinged, psyching himself up for a real fun game.
Ruri calmly orders your troops to defeat the terrorists first and then interrogate them regarding the location of Kaname and Tessa; it's going to fall to Sousuke to deal with the Lambda Driver-equipped leader mech, but he doesn't exactly exude that much confidence...

The enemies are all the way across the island, so we just start moving forward.

Enemy Phase!

While the enemy does the same.
Do note that Gates, Yu-Lan and Yu-Fan stay put.

Player Phase!

Gates troops have undergone through teamwork training and have developed Support Defend, so use chain attacks whenever possible to cancel it out.






Regardless of extra skills, FMP mooks shouldve really upgraded on HP.



Vesna comes by quickly and takes down both of Sousukes targets.

Kazuma cant reach the other pack of units, so hell make do with outright killing one.






Nice and easy.




Making use of Accelerate allows Aki to reach said pack and she takes them down a notch.

Blades Tek-Lancer cannot reach that far, though.






Still, doesnt mean he cant make himself useful.




Continuing the Tekkamen onslaught, Yumi swings by and chains those three together, killing the weakened Mistral (the Savage surviving with fucking 25 HP ).

David can only start his chain from the Savage, which is less than ideal, but beggars cant be choosers.







Yeah, I saw this coming.
No one else is able to get in attacking range (because of that forest in the way), so well just counter-kill them.

Enemy Phase!

Three Shadows and a Mistral attack make a beeline for Sommer.







His weakened Shadow gets killed but everything else lives with decent-ish HP.

Though the kill gives both him and Anita a level (learning Prevail L5).

A pack of other mooks go to the sides and target Duo. Two of them were out of range but this Shadow walked into cutting range.





Thats how I like it.

The twins start moving and gun straight for Sousuke (alongside Blade and Aki, with a chain-attack).


At that range, Sousuke can only dodge.

Player Phase!










*Gates charges at Sousuke and attacks.*









































I really like Clouseaus Falken AS and Ill make sure to show off that attack properly soon enough (when I can pull its dynamic finisher).
For the time being, I think this is good enough. Come next update, well show Gates what happens when you cheat at robot-soccer.
See you all then!