By The Festum turn their attention towards the Tatsumiya forces and the Fafners take defensive positions. The carriers prepare to take off unaware that the Gregory type is onboard watching Miwa. Emery says that their Mir is still alive and tells the Festum to return to nothingness. The Festum are destroyed but more break in. The UN forces engage the Festum, Jonathan ordering the air forces to defend the airport while the ground forces go to Varca. Ai is reluctant to go, but Billy says the only way they can escape is by air. Narain wonders how there could be a traitor when they have Esperanto who can read minds. At another Neo UN base the commander is told not to help Srinagar by a man named Dustin Morgan. Dustin adds that HQ will probably bomb the area. Dustin returns to his men and says they might have to sortie. Keith Water asks if their targets are human or Festum and Dustin reminds her that their job is to eliminate those who have been assimilated. Dustin thinks that he doesn’t want to lose more lives attempting to save assimilated people again. Ai reinforces the Tatsumiya Fafners as one of the planes start taking off. Jonathan and Billy head towards Varca and get in contact with Walter. Walter tells them to stay away because Diablo type Festum are there. A Diablo type has several cockpits impaled on its sword arm and attacks with disc shaped worm spheres. The cockpits are assimilated and turn into smaller Festum which latch to and take control of several Fafners. The identification codes are still active which prevent Billy and the others from firing on them. Narain can’t activate the Fenrir either so he declares all codes to be disabled. Hiroto wonders why the UN forces are attacking each other and Akira realizes it’s due to assimilation. One of the small Festum latches onto Ai’s Fafner which crashes as she begins to get assimilated. Kyosuke tries to take off as Ai begs Maya to shoot her. Maya tries to cut out the cockpit instead. A Festum bursts out of the ground, taking out the wing of the plane when Kyosuke tries to avoid it. The damage to Ai’s Fafner regenerates leaving Maya no choice but to take up her gun. Miwa apologizes to Yumiko for not being big enough to prevent this from happening. Yumiko assures her it’ll be fine because help has come. Maya senses the crossing.
The Mark Sein and Mark Nicht arrive, taking out many Festum in the process. Soushi asks Kazuki if he had peaceful dreams and Kazuki thinks he had a nice dream. Miwa assures Emery things will be find now and Emery recognizes it as a power even the Festum fear. Kazuki frees Ai from the assimilation and devours Festum that attack him. Maya asks why he’s there and he says he’ll protect everyone because that’s why he’s still alive. Soushi draws off the Diablo types as he tells Kazuki to deal with the assimilated Fafners. Kazuki covers a wide area with his power and frees the pilots, although half of them are already dead. Narain calls it a miracle and reactivates the safeties. The Diablo types attack the Mark Nicht’s cockpit but Soushi is not impressed. He assimilates one and steals its disc shaped worm sphere ability. He then assimilates a ship to destroy Festum in the water and then takes over a large tentacle using Festum. The tentacles reach down into Varca and destroy the Festum down there. Kazuki takes out another large number of Festum and Maya apologizes for being unable to protect everyone herself. Soushi destroys another Diablo type and is attacked by a large whale like Festum but Kazuki takes it out. Kazuki assures Soushi that the Sein hasn’t devoured him yet and the two attack Roadrunner.
The first half of this episode did a pretty decent job of creating tension, though not as effectively as episode 7. We simply don’t know Jonathan and co. well enough to be particularly concerned about them and the Tatsumiya forces weren’t shown to be in serious peril. The Mark Sein and Mark Nicht finally make their return to the battlefield and their power is truly awesome to behold. But as entertaining as it is to see them wipe out hoards of Festum, they’re simply far too powerful and it kills any sense of danger. For the longest time the only thing capable of matching the Mark Sein was the Mark Nicht but now that they’re working together what can oppose them? Hopefully the Azazel types will be up for the challenge.
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