By At night, the Legion units communicate with each other as orders come down to begin a full scale combat operation. A large number of Legion units follow a Dinosauria. The Legion split up at a fork in the road, their destination being the four nations of Giad, Roa Gracia, Wald and San Magnolia. Elsewhere, Shin pulls a pillow from underneath a sleeping Raiden, telling him there’s no time and that they’re coming. The two of them walk down the hall, Shin telling Raiden the number is one big enough that he doesn’t even want to count it. Raiden says this isn’t like him and Shin replies it’s close to the worst case he imagined. Forces he expected to go elsewhere are headed for the Federacy. He tells Raiden not to connect with him during the upcoming battle unless he absolutely must. He tells Raiden he’ll let him get the unit prepared and wake the others. Shin heads to the Operations Center with his pistol with the objective of waking up everyone. Bernholdt travels with a few soldiers in a vehicle who talk about shooting the Reaper if this is just a drill. Bernholdt tells them they wouldn’t stand a chance. Shin heads to his Reginleif cockpit and sees an envelope inside with a whale on it. He smirks as the cockpit closes. On the frontline, several soldiers occupy trenches with stationary cannons on the ground above them. The Legion rapidly appear on the horizon, shocking the soldiers with their high numbers. Attacks soon come in from above and the soldiers immediately request reinforcements from the rear. The cannons fire upon the Legion, which continue on. Grethe and other officers watch a monitor from their base as a massive number of Legion appear on it, their numbers shocking everyone. Grethe realizes every area in the theater is under large-scale assault and that the western front is going to collapse. It’s announced that Roa Gracia and Wald are experiencing similar attacks. Grethe asks Shin when he’ll be ready to go. He tells her whenever, as the Nordlicht squadron are all ready. Grethe says she didn’t authorize them to prepare, but she can save the lecture until later. She gives the order to maintain the combat lines until the other units are ready to go, no matter what the cost. Elsewhere, a city is burning and several soldiers flee as Legion units head down the street. Their commander is killed, but they are saved from another Legion unit when Shin’s Reginleif appears. Shin destroys another approaching unit, and a fellow pilot defeats a third. Two more Legion units are struck by above by two more Reginleifs. The soldiers realize this is the Nordlicht squadron and tell Shin they’re the last survivors. Anju says it’s time to get to work and she fires missiles that strike several Legion units nearby. Kurena also fires from above, with Raiden backing her up. Theo’s Reginleif climbs a building and jumps across several roofs, defeating another Legion unit along the way. Shin, meanwhile, fights several more. He comes across a friendly unit who recognizes him as the commander due to the headless skeleton icon. The pilot tells him it appears they’ve driven off the first wave of Legion attackers, thanks to Shin’s involvement. Shin says that this was just an advance force and the Legion’s second force is the main one. This area will collapse if they fall back now. He tells the pilot to leave this area to him and that his unit will intercept the main wave. He ends the transmission and his unit jumps off. He tells his comrades to follow him if they want to live. Meanwhile, Frederica watches from a room overlooking a hangar as a sergeant gives out orders relating to supplies. On the battlefield several Reginleifs approach the Legion and fire upon them. Shin charges towards and slices through the bottom of a Legion unit. More attacks strike the Legion from above, but many more continue from the horizon. Raiden says it looks like they’re just getting started.
Frederica sighs, saying if she only knew where Kiri was, she could help them. She suddenly has a vision of herself on the battlefield, standing before a giant Legion unit. Grethe is told of the second wave being held off on all combat areas and how the Nordlicht squadron is advancing to the enemy’s main formation. The Reginleifs can be seen on the monitor forcing back the Legion. Someone in the room calls them monsters. Frederica opens communication with Shin, asking him if he’s listening, saying Kiri is. She sees herself in the vision again, but this time she can see Shin’s unit moving forward. She says no. Theo, Kurena and Anju sense something is off. From within his cockpit Shin smiles as shattered glass strikes and cuts his cheek. This doesn’t faze him at all. He continues pressing forward and defeats one last unit. Grethe calls out to the squadron that they have done good work, and the Legion are falling back so they should return to base. Shin touches his cut. Later, as the Reginleifs return to base Frederica stands in front of Shin’s unit and bangs on it. He opens the cockpit, and she starts tearing up, calling him a fool who is just like Kiri. He grabs her by the top of her head. Three days earlier in San Magnolia territory, wounded soldier Blackbird, from the Sledgehammer squadron, calls out to fellow Eighty Six processors saying their war is over and they did their best. Several other wounded processors are nearby. He pushes a trigger to an explosion as the Legion units approach him. At Military Headquarters, Lena walks towards the exit as an alarm goes off and a screen nearby shows footage of a destroyed city. A nearby drunk officer asks if it’s a movie and another says to turn off the alarm. A distraught Lena says it’s the Gran Mur as the video signal cuts out. Lena turns around back inside and hears from Annette and Cyclops, who tell her that the main attack has come from the north. The north has fallen, and the east and west are under attack as well. Lena is suddenly grabbed from behind by her uncle Jerome who asks her what she’s doing. Lena says she’s going to bring all the squadrons from all areas inside the Gran Mur and build a defensive line before the Legion reach District 1. By doing this they may survive. Jerome says to forget it; the people of the Republic would be better off being destroyed by the Legion than letting the Eighty Six in the Gran Mur. He says they would never fight for the Republic, those who oppressed, abandoned and slaughtered them. They have no obligation to help the Alba and will laugh and tell them they are getting what they deserve. Lena says they are not obligated to help but could use the Republic’s manufacturing and power plants, things they will need to survive. Jerome says the Eighty Six will soon realize it would be easier to fight the Legion alone than to protect useless citizens who do nothing but complain. If they’re lucky, it will just be a massacre. Lena says even so she doesn’t want to give up on everything. Even if she’s going to fail and die, she wants to fight until then. Otherwise, she’ll never be able to face those who did the same. An announcement rings out saying all soldiers and officers should come to the meeting hall. A resigned-looking Jerome tells Lena to do what she wants. She can follow her impossible dream until she’s satisfied. It’s a child’s right to dream until they wake up from their dream and are crushed against the rocks of a merciless reality. Until then it’s an adult’s job to protect her. He says he can buy her time if nothing else and says it’s time for her to be crushed as her naive dream shatters against reality. Lena tells him to wait but he walks off and she salutes him. Returning to the room where she gives orders from, Lena activates the Para-RAID. Synchronizing with the processors, she calls out to all of them, saying to gather within the 85 districts and begin combat. Everything they’ve done was for this day and they should fight until the end. Back in the present, Frederica tells Shin and the others about how Kiri attacked the Republic, and she saw a shattered wall, a burning flag and a huge Legion. Theo asks what this means. Anju asks if they are inside the 85 districts and Kurena says it’s probably all over then. Frederica pushes back against this assertion. Shin senses Kiri saying, “I’ll kill you” and Frederica shouts for him to get down.
Much of this episode is spent as part of a large battle between the Federacy’s forces and the Legion. It looks like the Legion are launching their largest attack yet, at four different nations simultaneously. The episode shows quite a contrast between regular forces getting annihilated by the Legion while the Nordlicht squadron, particularly our five main heroes, can fight off the Legion with relative ease. The mindless slaughter of the enemy makes Shin come off in quite a worrisome state and at one point he displays an incredibly creepy smile on his face. We finally check in with Lena/San Magnolia for the first time in many episodes as it is one of the nations facing the brunt of the Legion attack. It seems like the safe life the Alba lived with may finally come to an end. Lena’s uncle Jerome seems quite pessimistic about things, as if it would be better to just accept death than to try and obtain help from the Eighty Six, who he feels wouldn’t help at all after what they’ve been through. Lena to her credit argues back more so with logic than emotion here, showing her growth since her earlier fruitless conversations with him in the show’s first cour. It looks like Lena will be leading the charge for a defense of San Magnolia, but with the Spearhead Squadron no longer fighting under her, will the current Eighty Six underneath her be enough?
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