天下制覇

The Velka Knights return to the fray.

 A decent, if somewhat unspectacular episode. For spending about 15 minutes with the drones attacking them, there really was very little particularly impressive fighting, but it’s nice to have some drama in the series, and pissed off Vita really is pretty damn pissed off. Maybe we’ll get to learn soon about whatever it was that happened to Nanoha in the A’s to StrikerS manga. 

On the way to their next mission, Fate and Hayate are briefing the cadets on the evil doctor. They’re heading over for guard duty on a conference/auction on Lost Logia and will be lead by Vita and Shamal while the Aces guard from inside/mingle in their terrible evening dresses. We get to see Yuuno chatting with some professor with long green hair briefly as well.

Everybody stands around pretty bored and chatting about various things, mostly ranks and Hayate while they wait for something to happen. I think it was mostly an excuse for some narrative while they didn’t need to bother animating moving mouthes.

Lutecia and her big guardian dude are lurking in the woods nearby and she receives a little drone which tells her about the doctor. The drones start moving in, Shamal immediately senses them, and Signum deploys the Lightning kiddos, who are amazed that Zafira can talk. The Stars team also moves to better positions to receive the attack.

The Velka knights get very short transformation sequences at this point. I think all three together were about as long as Fate’s alone. Vita and Shamal head off the intercept while Fate and Nanoha lurk in the auction hall and keep tabs on the situation.

Vita uses her croquet ball attack to take down a handful of drones and Signum somehow slices right through the AMF field to take down one. Zafira is taking fire, but puts up a shield and then creates stalagmites to pierce the ones attacking him. Teana and Subaru are watching the action and amazed at how easily they’re handling the situation. Lutecia and the doctor are not particularly pleased with how things are progressing, and the doctor tells her that her device, Ascelius, wants the data from the others. She powers it up and Caro’s Kerykerion reacts to it.

She creates some tentacles from the ground which become a swarm of mini-drones and attach themselves to the other drones which makes them power up. Signum’s sword bounces off them, and Vita starts to miss with her attacks. Caro senses a summoning spell and a ton of drones suddenly pop from the ground in front of the cadets. Rein is meanwhile encountering the mini drones in the air and is minorly wounded by one of them, but can’t fight back at all. One of Lutecia’s drones has finally found what it’s looking for, and she shoots a beam of energy into the air.

The cadets are fighting and barely winning against the drones right outside the gates. Teana has Subaru distract them while she casts a spell and tries to take them out all at once with a CrossFire Shoot. One of her shots goes stray though and almost hits Subaru. Vita intercedes and yells at her for endangering her comrade. She’s pretty damn pissed and really rips both of them a new one.

Off in the garage with the Relic/minidrone, the stupidest guard ever turns and sees a truck that has literally been torn apart and decides that a flashlight is sufficient protection to check things out. He’s as lucky as he is stupid though, and the drone has already absconded with whatever it was that they were after.

Lutecia and her big man withdraw while Shirley gives Hayate the low down. Our green haired buddy comes up to Hayate and the two talk and flirt for a little bit, including Hayate giving him a straight shot to the gut and getting her head patted for her troubles.

Over in the auction hall, Yuuno finally makes it to the stage to the surprise of Fate and Nanoha. The Velka knights are surveying the damage outside. Teana is sulking while Subaru tries to talk her out of the funk saying that it’s not her fault, but she’s crying and blaming herself.

Next episode is a Teana and Subaru team building affair as she appears to be training herself to exhaustion to make up for her screwup.