Reid successfully dueled Amuro one-on-one, though by the end only four High-Energy Laser Funnels remained from his funnel arsenal. However, Reid himself hadn't utilized burst systems like Trans-Am either.
It could only be said that Amuro, piloting a highly maneuverable Mobile Suit, was indeed much more troublesome than Char who was stuck with a mediocre machine like the Hyaku Shiki. Reid recalled when his system-rated MS piloting evaluation was still "Ace" - back when he piloted the Mystic Lightning against Char in the Hyaku Shiki, he had routed the enemy with almost no damage to his own machine.
But today against Amuro, his funnels were nearly wiped out. While this was partly due to funnels having poor compatibility against top-tier Newtypes like Amuro, Reid felt he still needed to review the funnel system settings with Nein afterward. The way Amuro had so easily destroyed his funnels required improvement.
As for why Char piloting contemporary machines was so lackluster, one could only say Char before 0093 was just inferior.
Of course, through this battle, Reid confirmed that his MS piloting ability was still slightly below Amuro's level during the Z era. The evidence was during their close combat exchange where they tried to deceive each other's lock-on systems - Amuro had almost purely relied on experience to trick Reid's lock-on despite his vigilance, while Reid had needed specialized Decoy Balloons specifically designed for lock-on deception.
Regarding this issue, Reid could only tell himself that if he was lacking, he needed more practice. Coincidentally, the other battle was still ongoing, so he decided to join in.
However, when Reid turned to observe the other battlefield, he found he might not have an opportunity to intervene.
Rewinding time slightly to when Reid charged toward the Z Plus A1, Noin - who automatically assumed frontline command in Reid's absence - ordered: "Alright, the commander has rushed off for another duel. It's time for us to move too.
Kyubey EX and Z Plus Gundam will form the fire suppression team, pouring long-range fire to separate the enemies.
Dark Hunter Gundam, activate the Obscurant Umbrella System and conduct patrol sniping.
Orga, you command the Phoenix Pack Phantom Jegan Squad to protect the fire suppression team.
Everyone else, focus on harassment to draw enemy fire until the suppression team splits the enemies apart.
Note: The enemy has formidable firepower this time, so prioritize evasion. Even though our machines are relatively sturdy, they can't withstand fleet-level firepower either."
With Noin's commands issued, everyone sprang into action.
By this time, the A-Laws squad originally intending to eliminate the inter-dimensional Gundams had been completely wiped out, with only the GN Cannon Zero that had been recalled to protect the landed Guyana-class Land Battleship surviving.
Thus, when the three Kyubey EX and Z Plus Gundams began pouring down fire, they successfully drew all the enemy's aggression.
Eight Beam Rocket Launchers, one fixed cannon equivalent to a Buster Beam Rifle, and one high-energy long rifle - this firepower was also at fleet-level.
The beams fired from the Z Plus Gundam's fixed Buster Beam cannon would destroy any Mobile Suit upon contact unless it possessed an I-Field like the Ex-S Gundam.
Without hesitation, the Ex-S Gundam immediately positioned itself as a shield in front of the less mobile FAZZ against such overwhelming firepower.
Meanwhile, the Full Armor Red Falcon Gundam, Kapursli Muninn, and Gundam Swan immediately dispersed and began evasive maneuvers.
When the bombardment ended, all five Gundams remained unscathed.
The I-Field Generator mounted in the center of the Ex-S Gundam's chest could form a small I-Field Deflector for defense. Since it didn't need to cover the entire body, this single-sided I-Field Deflector focused on localized protection, boasting defensive capabilities comparable to MA-level I-Fields, making it more than capable of blocking an ordinary Destroyer Beam.
Due to the saturation bombardment, no other beams could follow up along the Destroyer Beam's trajectory, so the Ex-S Gundam and the FAZZ behind it naturally remained unharmed.
As for the other three Gundams, the Full Armor Red Falcon Gundam and Kapursli Muninn's machine possessed sufficient mobility to evade effortlessly.
Although the Gundam Swan's mobility was relatively lower, it was equipped with a 20-meter-tall tower shield, capable of blocking three to five Beam Rocket Launchers without significant issues.
Having been attacked, the five Gundams naturally retaliated.
The Gundam Swan could share some weapons with the Hyaku-Shiki, so its right hand was currently equipped with a miniaturized FHA-05M02 MEGA Beam Launcher as its primary weapon.
Since this weapon required charging time for a full-power Super MEGA Particle Beam shot and couldn't achieve rapid fire, the Gundam Swan had largely held back during the earlier battle against A-Laws mobile suits to avoid overkill, only providing supplementary firepower with its shoulder Gatling guns.
But now, facing four "mosquitoes" that could drain its health in one bite, the frenzied Asuna Elmalit in the Gundam Swan immediately retaliated with a full-power Super MEGA Particle Beam.
Simultaneously, the FAZZ ceased conserving its firepower, unleashing its Large Hyper MEGA Cannon at full power while launching a full missile salvo.
Compared to the Super MEGA Particle Beams fired by these two machines, the attacks from the Full Armor Red Falcon Gundam, Kapursli Muninn, and Ex-S Gundam could only be considered supporting fire.
Confronted with such overwhelming firepower, Gaia, Ortega, Mash, Hilda, and the Tekkadan members unanimously acknowledged they were outmatched and promptly executed Evasion maneuvers.
It must be said that Reid's design philosophy of ensuring most mobile suits had excellent dash speed proved correct.
Otherwise, facing this barrage of missiles and beams, the Otherworld Conquest Squad would have surely lost several members.
As it stood, everyone dodged the direct beam hits, and the FAZZ's moderately homing missiles were dealt with by triggering premature detonations through various methods.
However, after this exchange of firepower, Noin realized that the machines designed by Reid—who suffered from severe firepower deficiency anxiety—seemed inferior in firepower compared to the enemy.
Earlier, Noin had considered firepower suppression but didn't anticipate the enemy possessing two machines capable of firing Super MEGA Particle Beams.
Now it appeared that avoiding being suppressed would be an achievement in itself.
That said, inferior firepower only prevented head-on exchanges—warfare wasn't about stationary shooting. When the enemy ADC deals high damage, simply send assassins to eliminate the backline.
Thus, as the Ice Phoenix Gundam, NT-X2 Gundam, and Gundam Eclipse initiated assault maneuvers to harass and divert the firepower and attention of the Full Armor Red Falcon Gundam, Kapursli Muninn, and Ex-S Gundam...
Assassins appeared beside both the Gundam Swan and the FAZZ.
The Gundam Swan was confronted by the Mystic Lightning here.
The stealth capability of the Mirage Colloid System surpassed even that of the Obscurant Umbrella System, though the heat from aerial thrusters remained impossible to conceal.
Thus, Belfgang had Tekkadan assist him in executing an unconventional maneuver.
At this moment, the attention of the five otherworldly Gundams was entirely focused on the Custom Machines of Reid's squad.
The half-squad of Phoenix Pack Phantom Jegans that hadn't opened fire was gradually being ignored.
So Belfgang ordered these soldiers he had trained himself to carry the cloaked Mystic Lightning to high altitude and simply drop it toward the Gundam Swan.
Of course, the Gundam Swan wasn't a stationary target—it constantly moved during combat.
But this posed little problem for the Mystic Lightning descending from above. After passing through the defensive fire network while cloaked, it could simply activate its thrusters to adjust course based on the Gundam Swan's position.
By the time the Mystic Lightning activated its thrusters, the distance to the Gundam Swan wouldn't be too great, and by then it would be too late for the Swan to react.
The execution of this tactic proceeded smoothly. When the berserk Asuna Elmalit detected abnormal heat signatures around her Mobile Suit, the gold-and-black form of the Mystic Lightning already filled her camera view.
Fortunately, the Gundam Swan was equipped with a Bio-Sensor, allowing for relatively quick reactions.
So when faced with the Mystic Lightning's crimson dual blades, Asuna Elmalit raised her Mobile Suit's 20-meter-tall tower Shield to block.
Unfortunately, Belfgang, being a close-combat expert, naturally knew that using dual swords against a tower Shield would likely require multiple strikes to break through—giving the enemy opportunities for support and counterattacks.
Thus, during his assault charge, Belfgang immediately combined the twin swords back into a Greatsword and brought it down upon the tower Shield.
The impact force of a Greatsword was incomparable to that of dual swords. The Gundam Swan's tower Shield was instantly split into a Y-shape from top to bottom by the high-temperature Greatsword, jamming it at the shield's rotation mechanism.
Seeing this, the berserk Asuna Elmalit decisively abandoned the Shield, using the impact force to propel herself backward to create distance while aiming the barrel of her right arm's MEGA Beam Launcher at the Mystic Lightning, preparing to blast this ambusher into oblivion with a single shot.
However, seeing the enemy discard her Shield, Belfgang promptly controlled his Mobile Suit to switch to wielding the heavy sword single-handedly with its right arm while drawing a Beam Boomerang from its waist with the left and hurling it at the Gundam Swan.
Thus, the Gundam Swan's act of turning its MEGA Beam Launcher toward the Mystic Lightning caused the weapon's barrel to directly intercept the incoming Beam Boomerang.
The MEGA Beam Launcher's barrel was unsurprisingly severed.
This directly caused the still-charging MEGA Beam Launcher to detonate, incidentally blowing the Gundam Swan into a one-armed warrior.
What followed was inevitable—the Mystic Lightning finished off the Gundam Swan with two shots from its right arm's twin Beam Cannons.
Just as the Gundam Swan was eliminated, the FAZZ was also taken offline.
Unlike the Mystic Lightning which needed to approach stealthily, the Blade Angel Gundam that eliminated the FAZZ was noticeably more brazen.
Ange successfully piloted the Ice Phoenix Gundam to distract the Ex-S Gundam that routinely guarded the FAZZ, then the Blade Angel Gundam directly activated Trans-Am to instantly close in on the FAZZ.
The FAZZ was a Mobile Suit with significant design flaws.
Its major flaw was that to ensure terrifying long-range firepower, its close-combat capabilities were reduced to almost zero.
Yes, as a pure fire support unit, the FAZZ was never equipped with any close-combat weapons from its initial design phase.
Even though its role was equivalent to the Guntank, at least the Guntank's wrist-mounted 40mm quadruple grenade launchers could serve some purpose against charging mobile suits.
As for the FAZZ, aside from its large beam rifle, it only had missile launch ports.
Using missiles in close combat... Aren't they afraid that just as you open the missile launch ports, the enemy might fire a few Vulcan rounds directly into them, causing the missiles to detonate inside the mobile suit?
Therefore, if the FAZZ was engaged in close combat, its only means of attack was to rely on its massive tonnage to ram the enemy.
In fact, if someone told Reid that a 0079-era GM had defeated a FAZZ in close combat, he wouldn't be too surprised.
After all, no matter how crudely made the first-generation GM was, it at least had a THI-BSjG01-type beam saber. In a purely close-combat scenario, soloing a FAZZ wasn't impossible.
So, if a 0079 first-generation GM stood a chance of soloing the FAZZ in close combat, what would happen when it encountered the Blade Angel, specialized in close combat and with its Trans-Am System activated? The outcome goes without saying.
The moment the FAZZ was closed in, half of its right arm's Large Hyper MEGA Cannon was sliced off.
Within the next second, various parts of the FAZZ went flying. It didn't even need to explode—dismantled into components, it directly vanished into red code.
And this was the scene Reid witnessed as he prepared to join the fray.
Meanwhile, Kati Mannequin, who had been observing the SDP's eradication of the Otherworld Entanglement from start to finish, fell into silence.
Based on previous battles, she knew that the performance of A-Laws' main mobile suits still lagged behind that of the SDP's. Four years had passed, and she had thought that at the very least, their mobile suits' performance would have caught up to the SDP's.
But it turned out to be a case of "the mountain looks deceptively close"—while the performance gap had narrowed somewhat, the disparity remained vast.
That said, the existence of the FAZZ made Kati Mannequin feel like she had gained new insight. So, a mobile suit could possess such terrifying firepower.
After the FAZZ was shot down, Kati Mannequin asked the bridge CIC:
"CIC, was the entire aerial combat recorded?"
The CIC operator of the Guyana-class Land Battleship immediately replied:
"Reporting, Colonel. The footage has been fully recorded. However, due to the distance, the performance parameters of their beam weapons can only be estimated."
Kati Mannequin nodded and instructed:
"Find a way to record it in more detail. The generational gap between our mobile suits and the SDP's isn't insurmountable.
This battle has already revealed a clue: even the SDP's mobile suits have to avoid direct confrontation with powerful beam firepower. And such firepower can be concentrated on a single unit.
Therefore, we must record the structure of the Otherworld Machines in detail for the weapons development department's reference."
When Kati Mannequin said this, the CIC operator naturally hurriedly responded "Yes" and proceeded with more meticulous recording and analysis.
However, the adjutant beside Kati Mannequin asked at this moment:
"Colonel, you mentioned transmitting the data secretly to the prison server, right? After the battle above concludes, SDP might not spare us. Should we withdraw now while no one is paying attention?"
Upon hearing her adjutant suggest retreat, Kati Mannequin immediately shot a fierce glare that made the latter shrink back in fear.
But in the end, Kati Mannequin didn't reprimand him, instead saying:
"You did remind me. CIC, covertly transmit the data to the server of the Earth Federation's anti-government forces detention prison. This is to prevent these materials from being lost if we truly get shot down.
However, there's no need to mention retreat again.
The Earth Federation Forces' main units and A-Laws troops have already surrounded the area. We must use every means to delay SDP when they try to retreat after dealing with these Otherworld Machines.
While our single ship's forces may indeed be no match for SDP, the Earth Federation military has a full 40 million troops - they could simply overwhelm them through attrition."
Note: The 40 million Earth Federation Forces in AD Universe comes from Season 2 Episode 3.
Online discussions suggest this could represent all Earth Federation Forces units, or just the A-Laws unit alone.
The operation tends to favor the former interpretation, and it likely includes logistics, medical, and administrative personnel.
If all 40 million were combat soldiers... that would be total war-level troop numbers. Would the original plot require this many forces just to fight Pure Source? (This many troops existed even before Celestial Beings reappeared)
For comparison, World War II had approximately 75 million registered military participants...
--Enjoying the story? Want more chapters? Check out my Patreon and support me for 40+ advance chapters.
Just search for "LegendaryTL" on Patreon!"
Thanks!