Defend From the U.S. Force

*Defend From the U.S. Force* is the second campaign mission of Spriggan: Lunar Verse. The ARCAM excavation team managed to excavates the ruin, so they required the escorts of Tatsuki Otsuki and Jean Jacquemonde to safely extract the philosopher's stone. However, the American army unexpectedly invades the ruins. As a result, Tatsuki must prevail against the U.S. soldiers and rejoin the excavation team for extraction.

## Briefing

Graham briefs Tatsuki of his upcoming mission, in which he will have to oversee the operation involving extracting the philosopher's stone by the ARCAM excavation team. He gave a brief background of this significant material, where it does not exist in nature and it is indispensable for refining metals in rare earth that are rarely found only around the ruins. Graham was then reminded of Tatsuki's well-compatibility with the metal type similar from the one within the philosopher's stone. He then informs him that ARCAM is developing a new type of AM suit using that particular type of metal. Before concluding the briefing, Graham ordered Tatsuki to head to the quarry site immediately since the philosopher's stone is absolutely essential for ARCAM's technical research.

## Mission Overview

Tatsuki was leaning against the quarry wall when he suddenly receives a communication call from Jean Jacquemonde. He informs him that he just got in touch with the ARCAM excavation team, mentioning about the safe discovery for the philosopher's stone. Before Jean could properly introduce himself to Tatsuki, a helicopter with U.S. soldiers on-board was shown. Jean then states his full name and occupation, and asks Tatsuki if he heard his name once since he is part of ARCAM. By then, the helicopter sends missiles on the quarry wall, sending an avalanche of rocks that nearly crushed Tatsuki and alerting Jean of an enemy's presence. Jean is shocked to discover the pathway between him and Tatsuki is blocked, and is desperate to find the cause of this unexpected event. He then orders Tatsuki to quickly rendezvous with him at the excavation site.

As Tatsuki attempts to figure out on bypassing against the crumbled rocks blocking the entrance to the excavation site, Jean recommends him to break them through the use of bombs or any materials that could break the rocks. With that in mind, Tatsuki then tries to explore the quarry, but he must deal with against the U.S. army soldiers armed with assault rifles and rocket launchers, in addition to the helicopters that incessantly rain down missiles at him. As he enters into an another area section of the quarry, he is confronted by a U.S. soldier with a bazooka, who quickly fired a rocket at him. Fortunately, Tatsuki managed to evade it, but not without another set of crumbled rocks blocking another pathway behind him. He then continues on in exploring the quarry, defeating any U.S. forces who gets in his way.

Eventually, upon killing one of the U.S. soldiers, he discovers a C-4 charge explosive that could be effective in blowing up the crumbled rocks. He then backtracks to the blocked pathway caused by the U.S. rocket user, and placed a C-4 within a close proximity to cause an explosion that destroys the rocks. Afterwards, he destroys a white box that is close to him, out of curiosity, and managed to receive another C-4 explosive. He repeats the same tactic from earlier and placed the explosive charge to the rocks blocking the path to the excavation site for them to be destroyed.

With nothing blocking his progress to head towards the rendezvous point, Tatsuki wastes no time to sprint towards there. Jean then informs him that he'll be there soon. As Tatsuki arrives to the designated point, he witnesses the U.S. soldiers on board in an helicopter attempting to escape from the quarry. Jean, however, armed with a bazooka, is determined to not let them get away very easily and successfully shot down the escaping helicopter. Jean then notices Tatsuki and reminds him that without him, the philosopher stone would have been taken, and eventually thanking him for his support.

## Debriefing

Graham is bewildered by the sudden appearance of the U.S Army and prompts to form an investigation on this unexpected incident. He then discovers that Jean-Jacquemonde was in collaboration with Tatsuki for the escort mission. He questions Tatsuki that if he knows much about him, since he often accompanies another Spriggan, Yu Ominae, in different operations. Graham then concluded the debriefing with the statement that he believes Tatsuki could be like them someday.

## Trivia

* When Graham brings up Jean's background picture in the debriefing section, his full name is misspelled as "Jean Jaquemonde".

* The crumbled rock at the beginning of the stage could actually be destroyed without C4s through the use of melee attacks and firearms, though those methods require more effort, especially if the player hasn't have their attack power significantly upgraded, or if they are not using a powerful firearm.