Part 19: Mission 6 - GGG, By the Skin of its Teeth!

Mission 6 - GGG, By the Skin of its Teeth!






Radam are attacking from the above, and GGG's satellites didn't catch them due to some kind of program error.





As the kids marvel at these monsters of rumor, they realize that Sousuke was apparently right to order the evacuation.
However, both him and Kaname are still inside.
The Radam start converging on the SDC section of the base, making it clear to Freeman that they are after D-Boy.





What's worse, the Bay Tower base is suffering from multiple system failures.
The maintenance hangar is shut tight and there’s no way to let the units inside come out.
Fortunately, the Valstork's people are ready to go, though Bless will cancel one of the past debts he owes Taiga to do so.



Meanwhile, the Dragon Brothers break out of their hangar manually, and hold the fort until everyone else can sortie.
Tessa insists on helping Taiga find whatever brought the system down, unconcerned about her own safety.
Besides, whoever could break Entouji's code is no one to be trifled with.



She asks for a keyboard, but trips along the way, not cutting the most convincing figure as Mithril's supposed genius.
After advising Entouji to bathe sometime (he's been too busy lately...) she contacts Kalinin to call for backup from Mao and Kurz.
Leo and Taiga know that the system crash is not something that the Radam usually do and, most likely, a Zondar's at fault. Which means that this is likely only the beginning...


Not much we can do here but we don’t want to go after the Radam and into the water. It’s better to join them as Chouryujin, hop onto one of the buildings for a terrain bonus and wait for them.



Enemy Phase!



Dagger thinks the forces raising hell outside will keep him from being interrupted as he was on the Orbital Ring.
D-Boy has Kazuma run and notify the others that Dagger is here.
Kazuma is worried about leaving D-boy alone with Dagger but D-boy vows to make it to the hangar one way or another.
Dagger thinks it's sweet that D-Boy let his comrade escape, but D-Boy says he has no need of comrades...or parents or siblings, or friends!



Dagger tells Blade to blame it all on his betrayal of the Radam...
By the command center, Entouji and Tessa combined can't keep up with the intruder, who counters any attempt they try to cut off his connection – Entouji knows that there’s only one person that could show such skill...



Inubousaki, Entouji's rival for chief programmer two years ago when the GGG facilities were being built.





As it quickly becomes clear that Inubousaki is Zondarized, Tessa reasons that he must be somewhere inside the base itself.
The good news is that Mamoru is actually already inside the base but the bad news is that, while he's in the base, the Zondar can potentially get to him.
His death might spell the end for mankind, and Taiga has Mikoto order Gai to find Mamoru and take the invader out.



The Radam start closing in on Chouryujin. I think this will be the only one that’s in attack range.














No problem but I think that was that attack that reduces your movement range…this may annoy me a bit.



Player Phase!






The Mithril reinforcements arrive and Kurz isn't pleased to see the Radam disrupting the charge to save their Angel.
Kalinin has ordered them to destroy the Radam at once, and Kurz muses over the irony of Sousuke guarding the pretty girl while he gets to exterminate the icky bugs.



The Valstork launches, as well. Everyone will be set as close as possible to the bugs (with Noin being farther away)



Bless has Mihiro wait in the dock for Kazuma, still somewhere inside the base fetching D-Boy.
Noin recognizes the Mithril AS's as next-generations of what the Federation army uses and Duo says that they're the richest squadron on Earth: a veritable mecha-collector's paradise.
Anyway, the battle is on outside, but "Silver" Hyuuma warns that the Zondar inside the base will emerge sooner or later too.



Noal is rather peeved that he hasn't heard from D-Boy yet.
The guy might not be able to fight, but he shouldn't be sitting on his ass moping either...


I still don’t want those bugs staying in the water and my first option would be to haul ass and drag them out…but Chouryujin’s mobility has been reduced to the point where he can’t go very far.



At least, I’ll try to position our people to draw the upper group out of the water.









Kurz has hit and away which means he can finish off the weakened bug and still move.



In there, he’ll get the terrain bonus and will be in firing range of most bugs as they draw closer.



Mao closes in near the spot where I’ll park Chouryujin and have her weaken a bugger.



Now, it’s all set for the brothers to take it out.



Since I want to give Valstork team a level or two today, Horis uses Accelerate and let’s move the ship all the way to the front lines.



Everyone gets moved a bit closer, taking care not to put our guys in range of any underwater mooks.



Enemy Phase!





As the battle outside rages, D-Boy is finally cornered by Dagger.
It seems Kazuma wasn't in time after all, but before Dagger can land the fatal blow, a new opponent darts into him.



Pizza figures that he's found his first prey.
Dagger momentarily gapes at this warrior from the legendary Red Planet but he then recognizes Pizza for a Zondarian.
Pizza is itching for a chance to stick it to the Radam by kicking Dagger's ass.
That's fine with Dagger, who wants to try his hand against the famed Red Planet's warriors, Zondarian or no.



D-Boy takes his chance and flees.
Dagger tries to stop him but Pizza blocks his way, saying that Dagger should be paying attention to him.



Son of a bitch, they stick to the water.



Hm…I’m gonna need to have Mao Support Defend Chouryujin. At least she can attack from range but he’s relying on his tonfas for now.



How the hell did that bug walk so far as to get in range of the Valstork?
This is less than optimal seeing how as most of the Valstork’s weapons are beams and won’t do crap against underwater targets.














Nevertheless, the missiles work decently enough (even though they have a C ranking in water).
Plus, the Blue Earth’s barrier completely negated the tentacle rape, meaning no one lost movement.



One more mook with movement. Mao should dodge it but I’ll leave Chouryujin as a defender just in case.














Or she could slice at his face and stop his charge. That works, too.



Player Phase!



Pizza is fairly impressed with how the Radam, staunch holdouts against Mechanization, are holding up.
Dagger's fairly impressed with the Zondarian as well, but plans to make him pay for letting D-Boy escape.



Just then, Mamoru blunders onto the scene (how unlucky is this kid?), vaguely recognizing Pizza from Gai's description.
Pizza tries to postpone the fragdown with Dagger in favor of slaying this boy with the power of G-Stones.




Pizza gets his arm wrecked when Mamoru activates his power and fights back.
Sousuke staggers in from another direction, in time to see Pizza's desperate plan: do fatal damage to Mamoru before Mamoru's aura does likewise to him.



Sousuke's formidable sidearm is of no use against the Red Planet's warrior, but we have someone who is: Gai!
Gai fills Mamoru in on things and tells him to flee, but Mamoru isn't going anywhere until he figures out where the Zondar he sensed is.
Gai doesn't argue with this much, but warns Mamoru to bail if he senses any danger.



Mamoru quickly enlists the startled Sousuke's aid, leaving Gai to face down the two intruders on his own.



Dagger recognizes Gai as an heir of the Green Planet’s legacy.
He decides to leave Gai to fight his Red Planet counterpart while he himself pursues D-Boy.
Pizza doesn’t care about him, whose only real objective when coming here was defeating Gai in battle.


Let’s start off by having Bless take down this weakened bug.










No problem at all.



Now, let’s have Duo (Assisted by Mao) kill off that other flying bugger. Click the image below to see it.





Good work.



Now, that underwater bug is the last one (besides the farthest flying one) that’s still at full health. Let’s have Kurz snipe at him to fix that.



This one here is nearly dead. Might as well feed it to Quatre because he’s also low on levels compared to some others.








Good but still no level…



Chouryujin’s Tonfas make short work of his one here.



As for that last Flying Bug I mentioned earlier, Mao takes a big chunk of his health.

I could kill the flier with Noal but then the underwater bugs would probably go after him since the Blue Earth has the least HP/Armor (remember the AI priority?) of our units and his beam won’t do jack to them.



Enemy Phase!



In the meantime, D-Boy has reached Milly in the hangar.
She assures him that they do have a way to restore his Tekkaman powers, and asks for his crystal.



Dagger tries to interrupt whatever it is that Blade’s trying to do, but takes a surprise blow across the face from Kazuma and the Space Knights' power loader he's commandeered.
Levin, apparently okay with Kazuma calling him a queer, urges him to continue the ass-whupping and keep Dagger at bay.
Bernard is in on the action too, more than a little pissed off at whatever quirk of fate keeps bringing the two of them together.



This has given the science team enough time to set up the Tekset... but with no power to the base, they can't boot the darn thing.
No choice but to wait for everything to come back on line.
Kazuma and Bernard are ready to fight with Dagger until that can happen and Kazuma shouts to D-Boy to not give up yet – he should have faith that his companions will win their fight.



One of the bugs goes after Chouryujin. I don’t want Mao to take this hit now since she already took one and losing movement range for her would be even more annoying (If the brothers get slowed as Chouryujin, it won’t affect their movement range when they’re split up).
















Thank ye, RNG gods.



The flier comes over to Duo and while he COULD swat him away, I don’t want to take down all bugs on their turn. This guy can stay alive for now.



This one, however, can drop dead.
Also, yes, I forgot to disable Mao’s support defend.



Player Phase!




Back inside the base, Mamoru has located the Zondar.
Along the way, Sousuke apologizes to Mamoru for mistaking him for someone other than one of GGG's warriors.



Before they can reach the Zondar, though, they're intercepted by Penchinon who had expected Mamoru to come this way.
Sousuke quickly realizes is one of the Zondar commander but, lucky for them, they've got an unseen ally: Volfogg.
He tells Mamoru to take Uruz 7 (that's Sousuke, who says he'll explain later) and return the Zondar to human.



For some reason, Kaname is in the same room with the Zondar, and yells to Sousuke to put that gun he keeps waving around to good use for once.
He doesn't need her to tell him that, of course.





His Glock isn't much use, but the high-voltage stun gun he carries proves quite effective against their mechanized foe.
The Zondar's momentary lapse gives Tessa and Entouji just the chance they need to run their counter-program.
Entouji murmers to Inubousaki that it's too late to resist: as always, he's forgotten something critically important.



No person, and no system, in this world is perfect; this is why people can go on improving, building on their past mistakes and defeats.
He and Tessa used something he never had to fix all the holes he opened in the system: their spirit to confront adversity, touchstone of a true Hero!
The Zondar flees outside the base as all the base's systems come back online.
This is Milly's cue to fire up Pegas.



It’s a modified humanoid cargo robot who seems more than happy to pound Dagger at Levin's urging.
Apparently the chief figured out how to make a helper for D-Boy, and Honda yells that D-Boy should be able to Tekset inside it.



PEGAS! TEK-SETTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!



TEKKAMAN BLAAAAAADE!







Of course, it works, and D-Boy is finally able to face Dagger toe to toe.
Freeman says that Pegas can complete the “circuit” that once require Blade’s crystal – the light inside Pegas creates the same matter-transforming field and allows D-Boy to transform once again.
Dagger is now pissed off beyond measure, and vows to settle everything once and for all by sending in more troops.



D-Boy actually apologizes to Noal and Aki for being out of action, and promises to make up for lost time on the battlefield.
Aki sees that D-Boy has truly become a Space Knight.





His resurgence has let Kazuma and Big Volfogg (Volfogg combined with Gunglue and Gundober) make it outside as well.
Bless praises Kazuma's work a bit, but Kazuma tells him to watch out: the Zondar is coming after them!





Not just the one but a bunch of Zondarized enemy mecha appear.
Most unpleasant, the enemy seems to have combined with some spare parts for Gaogaigar...if it’s a fake Gaogaigar, Horis calls it "Kaokaikar".
In any case, all our robots have been given anti-Zondar treatment by Leo.





Gai seems to have survived his run-in with Pizza and calls for Galeon.
Taiga orders Final Fusion so Gai can yank out the Zondar's core but Ms. Swan says it’s no good: the guidance programs for the Gao Machines have been completely erased.
The Gao Machines launch anyway.

: Now, it’s time to take a stand. Everyone, are you ready?
: Leave StealthGao to me!
: LinerGao is OK too!
: This is DrillGao: Kazuo Ushiyama is prepared! We can combine at any time!
: They’re controlling the Gao Machines manually!
: Manual-controlled Final Fusion successrate is…31.2%! That’s too dangerous!
: Chief! If we support the combination from here, the success rate will rise to 60%!
: Each person is about 10%. If we add our courage, it’ll make 100%!
: But…I don’t know if math will work that way…
: Still…this is making me so HOT-BLOODED!



Taiga gives the OK and Entouji inwardly tells Inubousaki to watch the heroic power of the organization he tried to destroy.
A Zondar tries to interfere but D-Boy puts himself in harm's way to give Gaogaigar time to combine.

: Alright! FIIIINAL FUUUUUUUUUUSIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!


Kazuma congratulates Gai on his success and, now that everyone is ready, Bless gives the order to wipe out both the Radam and Zondar.
Kazuma is more than happy to do so, eager to repay Dagger for the time he wasted running from him; Blade also calls Dagger, so they can finish their fight.


Now, this is nice. Two of our units get upgrades. Those upgrades are important enough to warrant a mini-Analysis. I’ll do this quick-like.


Blade is back and he gets the ever useful Pegas to ride upon:



This Pegas is not just for show, boy.
It adds +5 to Blade’s mobility, +1 to movement, gives him the Pegas Formation Attack (which only has 1 range but it can be useful every now and then) and, finally, allows Blade to fly.

Pegas is also considered a sub-pilot, which means he has his own spirit commands and they fit Blade like a glove:

• Accelerate (加速)
  
• Strike (必中)
  
• Snipe (狙撃) – For one turn, all your attacks get +2 to their range (unless they are MAP or Point-Blank attacks) which is AWESOME for Voltekka. Costs 30 SP.

Conclusion: If you use Blade, you want to use Pegas. There’s no absolutely no downside to having him there as he only adds to Blade. If you don’t want him there, I’m going to guess that you’re probably purposefully gimping yourself as a challenge.



Volfogg came into this battle combined with his pals Gundober (Police Bike) and Gunglue (Police Chopper), becoming Big Volfogg and it’s all good.





Big Volfogg is better than regular Volfogg in pretty much everything.
He sacrifices a bit of mobility (which doesn’t matter much since he has his Double Image skill) to get an increase in HP and Armor, and he also gets a lot of new attacks which gives him a nice increase to his range.
Volfogg is now a powerhouse on par with Duo and he still keeps his Siren attack meaning he can still dispel barriers.

Conclusion: Unless you’re only deploying Volfogg to dispel barriers and don’t care for him going into combat to do damage, you’ll want him in this mode; it ups his attacking and supporting capability with more damage and range.
I think the mobility loss isn’t very important when compared to all that he gets when combined.


Addendum: One thing that I forgot and that TheBystander and Broken Loose have mentioned is that Pegas and Big Volfogg's buddies act as a safety net.
In the VERY rare chance that they get killed, they'll just purge the extra part and come back as their normal mode (Regular Blade and Volfogg). Even more reason to use those forms!

That’s it for today. Next update, we’ll wrap up this mess on GGG island.