天下制覇

Who got awesome action in my squad combat training series?

As always, caps will be replaced when a raw above 320 appears. The slightly better stuff is up. They won’t be changing again.

Impressions:

I seriously need some form of Cliff’s Notes to keep all these damn villains straight. That said, probably one of the best episodes to date. Lots of action, lots of drama, zero training, and etc. The fights could have been a little more interestingly done, but with Vita, Rein and Hayate around, they were pretty one sided anyway. That’s really the only complaint I have with the episode.

And I’m joking about the training stuff. From my perspective, I haven’t seen a training episode that didn’t end in a Teana beatdown since close to April. I just think it’s funny that the show picked up that rep based on the first four episodes.

Lutecia’s Capture and Escape

The Aces’ First Encounter with the Numbers

Summary:

This episode starts off with a bang as Agito lays down some carpet fire and the Garyu presses the attack. Teana tries to figure out a plan to deal with them, but luckily, Vita and Rein are just about there and bust into the scene. Rein casts a freezing spell around Agito and Lutecia while Vita knocks away Garyu. Unfortunately, it looks like all three of them escaped. The area is starting to collapse so Subaru creates a wing road to the surface.

Hayate is still up above beating down Gadget Drones, but she’s starting to get tired too. The cranky general from an episode or two isn’t particularly pleased with how things are going with the situation, especially how Hayate’s the one in charge of the situation. He seems mostly uninformed though, while his assistant Shirou is the one full of all the angry looks.

Back with Lutecia, Agito is yelling at ‘Lu-lu’ for dealing with Sacglietti and getting them into this issue while there’s a giant beetle sitting below doing… something. I’m not really sure what. Chains appear out of nowhere and seal the beatle and the Cadet crew leaps to the attack again. Erio’s speed lets him get the drop on Lutecia while Agito finds herself surrounded by daggers. Both are bound and taken in.

Up on a rooftob, we see Quatro and another of the numbers (Dieci? We’ll go with that) scouting out the ship where Shamal is holding Vivio (the KOed sewer-loli). She unveals her weapon, a giant gun cannon and they receive their orders to attack because… and I’m sure I’m off here… but something about the true queen would be able to survive the attack or something along those lines. At any rate, it’s relatively random foreshadowing that our little sewer loli is more than just some homeless bum. How… uh… expected.

Lutecia gets a message from Quatro chewing her out for getting into trouble and asking if she needs help. The team then senses a massive magical buildup for the S-level as Dieci charges her weapon. Quatro begins speaking through Lutecia and warns/taunts them. Dieci fires her gun and tags a direct hit on the copter.

HQ has lost contact with it completely and another artificial human shows up and snatches the Relic-device from Erio by phasing through the ground. The number then saves Lutecia by phasing in the same way. The numbers are celebrating their victory, but the copter reappears out of the debris, protected by Nanoha.

Quatro and Dieci are attacked by Fate and chased. Hayate helps to corner them and then rains death on their faces in the form of a giant evil energy ball (Diabolic Emission if you remember back to A’s). They run, but end up trapped between Nanoha and Fate. Another numbers is on the scene though and powering up. Nanoha and Fate shoot at the two, but they sense that it missed.

The new number (III if you’re curious, which would make her something like Trei, though Quatro calls her ‘Torei’ so… we’ll just leave it at that for now… Japanese mangling Italian is not something I’m really prepare to give an accurate spelling for) saved their asses and it looks like she has a technique close to Nanoha’s own flight one. HQ has lost the signals of every one of them. Vita’s a bit cranky and yells at Subaru when she tells Vita that there’s something about the Relic.

The numbers and Lutecia open up the container they stole from Erio… and there’s nothing inside, but it’s marked as VI. They open up the old scans and realize that the cadets hid the Relic in Caro’s hat instead of the case. Furthermore, Teana gave it the illusion of a flower. Up on a building Signum and Schach (Carim’s assistant) are watching on.

The numbers are puzzling over the Relic’s case while Lutecia and Agito wander off. At HQ, Vivio has yet to wake up and the staff is still debating on how to deal with her when she wakes up. Nanoha buys a small stuffed bunny for her and places it on the bed next to her and then settles in to wait.

Next episode has more Zest and Agito chained to a wall. Scary.