Sleep in Vanilla's home is broken by the sound of thunder. Police units have begun to literally take the city apart to find them, and before they know it they are boxed in with no escape! Vanilla, Gotho and Coconna despair for their lives until Chirico snaps them back to attention and leads them through an impossible route to safety. Having lost everything, they refuse to go on, but Chirico does not expect them to, in any case.

Iskui and Borough receives reports from their assault units, who report that Chirico's hideout has been destroyed, and now they ponder wheat to do with their troubled "Prototype." On the streets below, Chirico makes his way into the AT hanger of a Battling arena and goes to work on a Scopedog. Gotho and his companions prepare to leave Uoodo through the underground tunnels when Coconna demands that they turn back to help Chrico. Gotho and Vanilla are typically reluctant, so she turns back on her own. She follows Chirico's trail to the arena, and Vanilla appears in the nick of time to save her from being caught by a guard.

Reunited once again, the three find Chirico inside, building a Scopedog into a heavily augmented Red Shoulder style AT. This is when Gotho makes the connection - Chirico was once a Red Shoulder, one of the deadliest AT pilots in the war. No sooner have they agreed to aid him in his continuing battle, that the police arrive and prepare to move in. Chirico takes cover, ready to return their brutality in kind.

"They could never understand the pain of being a Red Shoulder. Thinking that, I prepared to meet the advancing energy. Only by fighting could I forget the horrors I'd seen. I fought on only so I wouldn't remember. But someday..."