Super Robot Wars Z Part #73 - Mission 21 (Rand)

Part 73: Mission 21 (Rand) - Prologue

We’re using the same squads are mission 20 (because I forgot to set up the people that were in events…whoops!)

Word of the wise, though: to have an easier time with the Skill Point, equip the Gunleon with the Minovsky Craft (a High-Spec Radar or a Booster/Megabooster also helps).

Location: Siberia

This path opens the same ways as the other but, this time, Renton’s using the UN terminal at the Freeden.
There’s the Del Cielo talk and, after Eureka runs, Renton goes after.

As Renton runs off, Rand sees his passion and waxes nostalgic about his own youth.
Bello and Sara can’t, for the life of them, even imagine a young Rand but he says even he was once energetic and full of dreams like Renton. Mel gets worried that he’s unsatisfied with how he is now and asks if her beloved isn’t happy.
Rand calms her down, saying they’d be wasting precious time if he answered that and Mel remembers that it took some convincing for Jamil to allow them to borrow the Freeden’s UN terminal – so, Rand and Gainer start a missing person’s search.
As they go, Garrod wonders if this’ll work but Tex says the UN has many uses besides transmitting the news and acting as a database: for people like Gainer, it can be used to set up gaming matches across long distances and, in other cases, there are free spaces where people can post any messages they want.

As in the other path, they wonder what Renton was searching that caused Eureka to run off like that and Bello explains that the kid used the Freeden’s terminal because the Gekkostate isn’t too keen on using the internets despite how it could benefit their publication.

Mel has no such qualms with using the UN, though, hoping to find some information regarding her father in there.
Of course, Tex raises the point that there’s a ton of bad information floating around the UN, so he wants her to be aware that the chances of her finding what she wants aren’t very high. Mel understands that but says they don’t have any other option: the Exodizers asked about her father in all the places they’ve been to and even Tifa’s foresight couldn’t find anything.
Of course, Mel doesn’t blame Tifa and she’s plenty happy that she used her power to try to help her. Garrod asks if Mel writes down the results of her ongoing search in that “memory notebook” of hers and, indeed, it acts as both her diary and the Beater Services’ ledger.

She lets them take a look and Sara finds a detailed account of everything that happened thus far, including the day they all met each other. Tonya also notices several beautiful pictures and figures this would sell nicely if Mel decided to publish it.
Bello notices that her notebook is marked “volume 7” and Mel says writing stuff down is something of a hobby to her. There are another 6 volumes of her notes and way back at volume 1, you’d find her account on the moment she and her father first met Rand.

Garrod is quite interested in seeing that but Mel vetoes it, saying it’s too embarrassing.
Witz asks what was our resident stifling old man like during his youthful days and Mel says, around the time they met, he was a really angry man and constantly annoyed and fought with her father. Tonya can’t even picture Rand without his usual grin but her father once told Mel that teaching Rand how to smile was even harder than teaching him how to work as a mechanic.
Sara realizes that Rand’s trademarked grin came from her father and, indeed, Mel says the “Heat Smile” is all because of her. Whenever Rand got into a fight with her father and scared Mel to the point of tears, he’d make that face to calm her down.
Despite how overbearing that smile is to others, Mel has been in love with Rand since then.