"Since deserting the army, I'd come to the city of Uoodo. But this battleground city was like hell itself...and contained every level of depravity."

The Melkian spy network notes Chirico's predicament and dispatch a rescue order. Firefighters leap into the fray, dousing Chirico's AT with foam, and just as quickly disappear. Gotho arrives, curious about who saved Chirico's life. Later, Gotho patches him up and makes a business proposition. Chirico's skills could be put to good use in one of Uoodo's Battling arenas, where AT pilots fight in mock combat.

They go to an arena, where Chirico notices a mysterious cloaked woman who Gotho calls "The Phantom Lady." He introduces Chirico to the other Battling pilots, who take offense when Chirico berates their sport as "play fighting." One pilot challenges him to a match, and Chirico accepts. Afterward, though, another pilot steps in to take over - Lieutenant Conin, from the Lido operation. Now working for the Secret Society, Conin is determined to kill Chirico in the arena, but Chirico proves the better warrior.

Gotho's joy in Chirico's victory is short-lived, however, when Iskui's police arrive to take Chirico into custody.

Gotho, Vanilla, and Coconna are ecstatic about their new found riches. They have enough jijirium to live in luxury the rest of their lives. But Chirico shows no joy; he has other plans for their treasure. Elsewhere, Borough proposes to Iskui that the time has come to play their trump card against Chirico. Rochina, meanwhile, dispatches his operatives into Uoodo city to start observing Chirico directly.

Coconna reports to Gotho and Vanilla that the police are active throughout the city, looking for the stolen jijirium. Gotho realizes they will probably never get out with their treasure and suggests they instead use it to buy their freedom. Vanilla is incredulous, but Chrico agrees with Gotho's plan; it will also serve his purposes.

Shortly after Albert Killy gives Borough and Iskui permission to use the Prototype against Chrico, Gotho is brought into police headquarters. They strike a deal for the jijirium and let him go, seeing this as the perfect opportunity to nab Chrico. Gotho travels to a ruined coliseum where he is to meet Iskui. Coconna drives the jijirium truck up a policeman elsewhere in the city and runs off. The policeman reports to Iskui that the treasure has been recovered, and Iskui breaks the deal, refusing to pay Gotho anything for his trouble. Gotho slinks off and Chirico roars into action, bearing down on Iskui in a Scopedog. No the final trap is sprung. Another AT (a Brutishdog) appears and grapples with Chirico. For the first time, he is evenly matched...and for the first time, he is beaten! Police surround him as he gazes into the face of his mystery opponent - The phantom Lady!

"Who are you? Near-perfect reflexes, almost supernatural intuition. Who are you...?"

"So many villagers killed. caught in the midst of the war. The stench I smelled seemed full of the anguish of the dead."

Travelling by boat toward the inner reaches of Kummen, Chirico and the others try to keep a low profile; no easy task with the hot-tempered Kan Yu in charge. Against Chirico's batter judgment, Kan Yu stops another boat that passes by, insisting it must be searched for Veela weapons. The search turns up nothing...but when kan Yu fires a cannon at the boat, explosives hidden within it rip across the water. Kan Yu gloats that Veela Guerrillas cannot be underestimated.

Later, the boat reaches Ramoh Temple, a religious colony that is supposed to be neutral. Again, Kan Yu insists that the platoon march in with their ATs to look for enemies. Exasperated, Chirico agrees, and reluctantly follows the others into the huge compound. Nothing turns up until Kan Yu spots a boat similar to the one he blew up earlier. he repeats his action, and gets the same result - it also carries Veela weaponry.

Their cover blown, Veela Guerrillas burst out of hiding and open fire on Kan Yu's task force. The battle is joined and quickly ends...but now the secrecy of the mission has been compromised, and they must ask for new orders from EX-10. Those orders are delivered a short time later by a helicopter pilot new to the EX-10 ranks: Vanilla! Chirico wanders the wreckage of the temple, pondering this turn of events.

"What is it that leads men to the battlefield? For some, they pull the trigger to earn their daily bread. For others, the chance to fight for their ideals. For me, I can't live without the scent of gunpowder and death. This was no longer a house of God. It was now merely a pile of rubble."

Far away at his home near EX-10, Gotho receives a radio message for Vanilla, who is about to join the attack on the palace. Gotho and Coconna can do little more that wish him luck as all hell breaks loose.

Under the cover of air-to-ground fire, Kan Yu leads an AT platoon as they drop to the ground. Vanilla's helicopter is hit, and he bails out, intent on finding Chirico somewhere in this madness. Inside the palace, Ypsilon's new AT has finally arrived: the Strikedog. He jumps in immediately and peels out. He runs right into Kan Yu's platoon, and demolishes even Shako's AT with ease...but Chirico is nowhere to be found.

Elsewhere, Chirico, Fyana and Kiderra stand waiting for Potaria to return. Instead, Vanilla emerges from the palace with the news that Potaria has gone after Kangelman himslef. Chirico decides he must now go after Borough. Deep within the palace, Kanjelman retires to his quarters, content to wait for the inevitable conclusion of the battle raging outside. But Potaria appears and threatens to kill him for all he had done to their nation. Kanjelman faces him down - but then agrees to a Balancing duel.

Ypsilon is alerted that the prince is in danger, but there is little he can do now that mercenary ATs are beginning to overrun the palace. Kanjelman fights Potaria with grace and skill, but Potaria is a Balancing expert as well, having practiced against kanjelman many times in their younger days - and it is Potaria that finally gets the upper hand, piercing kanjelman through the chest in one quick motion!

Elsewhere inside the palace, Chirico finally locates Borough and bears down on him with full fury. Again, the call goes out for Ypsilon, who charges back into the palace, leaving the grounds undefended.

Kanjelman lies dying in Potaria's arms, finally admitting his reasons for doing all of this; he decided long ago that the only way for Kummen to be born into a new age was to test fate itself. If the old ways were destined to survive, Kanjelman's guerrilla war would have succeeded. Now that it has failed, he will allow himself and his followers to be swept away as symbols of the old order. Before he dies, he hands Potaria a small metal key.

Chirico finally corners Borough and holds him at gunpoint above a deep mineshaft. The time has come for questions to be answered.

"Of course I knew he wasn't the man responsible for all this...but he'd used Kummen's war and manipulated the two Perfect Soldiers all for some purpose. And that purpose...was what?"

Arron and Gurran monitor Ypsilon's emotional index from the Teltain. Now that he faces Chirico, his readings have levelled out to those of a proper killing machine. ypsilon and Chirico lunge at each other, and Fyana holds off the Tortoises, admonishing Chirico to rember that they're both fighting to live. He instructs her to get back inside and stand ready in the control room. Carefully, Chirico lures Ypsilon and his troops toward the engines of the crashed ship and leaps off the edge. Ypsilon follows - and Fyana activates the thrusters! Caught in the backblast, Ypsilon's Strikedog is smashed, and the invaders retreat.

Now convinced that a third, more aggressive party has joined the fight in the nonagression zone, Zanjeny and his staff order a task force into the area in support of their patrol fleet. On board Teltain, Ypsilon recovers from his injuries and thinks of his next battle with Chirico.

Knowing Ypsilon will be back, Chirico tampers with the verniers on the now-silent hull of Battleship X and finally realizes what planet he is on: Sunsa, the site of the bloodiest battle of the Hundred Years War...a battle he himself has remembered in nightmares. An AT landing craft appears, and Chirico and Fyana rush to the control room as it lands on the hull. Out steps Ypsilon in another Strikedog, with more Tortoises backing him up. One by one, the verniers blast away at them.

Ypsilon reports this setback to Futtor on the Teltain, who suddenly has to face a problem of his own - Balarant ships approach, and he has no AT platoon to fight them off! Forced to tip his hand, Futtor goes on the offensive, and a devastating battle erupts in space! Having found their way inside Battleship X, Ypsilon and his remaining men reach the empty control room, and discover that Chirico has set the entire ship to self-destruct! They escape just in time, and launch as the vessel rips itself apart.

chirico and Fyana has also gotten away, loading a transport truck with ATs and driving deep into the Sunsa desert. There, others await them...

"Would we ever have any peace? I felt like screaming. If there was a God on this world, he was a cruel one. Too cruel. This planet's name is Sunsa. And I know it holds no welcome for me at all..."

On the Teltain, Futtor insists that they must leave Sunsa now that Ypsilon has been recovered. Arron and Gurran reply that their mission take precedent. Ypsilon must be allowed to fight Chirico again, and they must stay to observe.

On Rochina's ship, Chirico fine-tunes a Scopedog and writes himself a new mission disc containing everything he knows about the maneuvers of a PS. Fyana speaks with Chirico, admitting she is afraid for him, but he counsels her to accept what must happen. Ypsilon is fighting out of loneliness, and will not stop until one of the tem is dead. Ypsilon, meanwhile, renews himself with a jijirium bath and launches for the surface in a new Strikedog.

On the other side of the galaxy, Melkian General Karmeny meets with Battentain to discuss the implications of what has happened in the Nonaggression Zone. Battentain is shocked to learn of Rochina's defection, and admits he never quite knew how to read the man. Despite the risk to the peace treaty, a task force of Gilgamesh battleships must be sent to Sunsa with Rochina as their target.

Chirico crosses the Sunsa desert to Siguray Crater, where Ypsilon's empty landing craft stands waiting. Chirico takes the bait, and the battle is joined! This time there are no distractions; the two clash with each other time and again. Chirico's mission disc works perfectly, allowing him to match Ypsilon move for move. Rochina takes notice and finally announces to Fyana what he has suspected all along: that Chirico is a true Perfect Soldier! And at long last, Chrico fires the fatal shot that takes Ypsilon down!

Before he can finish Ypsilon off, however, Chirico is interrupted by Fyana, who gives him the shock of his life - that he is more than human. Chirico insists that his mission disc is what allowed him to win, but then notices that the disc burned itself out only a few minutes into the fight. From then on, it was his own ability. Ypsilon insists in his final moments that Chirico has to be a PS...Ypsilon's pride would not allow him to die at the hands of a normal man.

Later, Chirico prepares to leave Sunsa, Rochina's words echoing through his mind: "You are a PS. You want proof? Then go to planet Quent. There you will learn everything."

"What was it that lay hidden in my past? I'd fought Ypsilon and won. But I couldn't believe it. There was no way I could be a PS. The Planet Quent...what awaited me there?"

Chirico shouts for Shako to power down his AT, and through Arron and Gurran are teleported away, Chirico and Shako remain standing inside the Tower of Gomor.

Rochina's Balarant fleet approaches Quent and he receives news of Chirico's progress. Elsewhere, a Gilgamesh fleet under the command of Admiral Lepard moves toward the same destination...and within a prison cell in Lepard's ship are Gotho, Vanilla, and Coconna.

Rochina and Fyana descend into Gomor. When Rochina drives their vehicle into the tower, they are instantly teleported out of it, and into one of the tower's ancient chambers of high technology. Rochina recognizes them as the remains of Quent's abandoned culture. He also explains that the superior intelligence he has been following is the product of thousands of years of Quent technology. It was created by "Overmen," who was exiled from Quent and began to manipulate both the Gilgamesh and the Balarant.

Chirico appears with Shako, having been shown images of Quent's past by the strange intelligence that lives in the Tower of Gomor. Rochina demands to know what Chirico has been told, but Chirico doesn't yet know what what it all means. The intelligence tells Rochina that the Gilgamesh fleet has arrived, but before Rochina can leave with Fyana, Chirico grabs her and teleports them away by touching an orb built into the wall.

Chirico makes plans to escape into the desert with Shako and Fyana, but Gilgamesh Scopedogs suddenly appear, and they have no choice but to flee back into the tower, teleporting themselves onto its outer roof. The Scopedogs follow suite and the pursuit begins again. Chirico and the others attempt a desperate lunge for freedom - but are instead jumped right back into the hands of Rochina, who has begun to prepare for the Gilgames arrival.

"At that moment, the mysterious intelligence's message reawakened in my mind. And I gradually began to understand its meaning."

Gotho, Vanilla, Coconna, and Fyana trek across the Quent desert. Coconna screams at Vanilla for not landing their escape shuttle closer to Gomor, and he insists that only an expert pilot could have gotten them this far. Shako appears, and though they are overjoyed to see him, he is not reassured. He explains that a child of God will soon descend to Quent and decide the fate of the Universe.

On the Secret Society ship, Chirico has uncovered treachery; Arron sabotaged their trajectory in order to delay the arival at Quent. Chirico kills him, leaving Gurran in despair. Rochina, who has stowed away on the ship, watches and waits. Later, Chirico descends alone to the Quent surface witha a new AT. Gurran resists the urge to shoot him down in cold blood, resigned that Wiseman is now in control of all their fates.

Gotho and the other assemble an old Berserga AT for Fyana and discuss what is to come next. Shako spots Chirico's ship descending and goes to meet him in Gomor. Chirico disembarks in his own AT, the Rabidlydog, and is greeted by Shako. Chirico explains that he will need the destructive power of Gomor to meet the approaching fleet, and Shako offers to take him to the control center. There, they examine the machinery and Chirico explains to Shako the cold truth behind what is happening; although the ancient Quentians tried to exile the Overmen, their final creation now lies beneath the very feet of the modern Quentians. It has used war to manipulate history for 3,000 years. Now Chirico, the ultimate product of that war, will take control of it from here on.

Shako tries to stop him and succeeds in damaging the equipment, but is overpowered and shot by Chirico. Gotho and the others, having trailed after them, burst in and open fire. Chirico slips away and plunges into the desert in the Rabidly dog. Furious, the others watch him disappear, and Fyana prepares to give chase. Chirico radios Gurran, ordering him to assemble their AT troops near the site of the Quentian villge now that the Tower of Gomor is out of commission. Fyana calls to Chirico to stop, but he rejects her and insists that she leave this planet far behind.

"My final battle was beginning. Would I be blown to atoms...or would I inherit the throne of God?"