ITEMS TO GET: [Graviton Cannon], Wizardry Ring

   Your party members (but where's Hammer!?) and Queen Zephyr hold a meeting, which, as usual, is interrupted by the arrival of enemy troops. Citan will give you a brief report on the enemy forces, and you have to assign one Gear to fight at each Gate generator. Send Elly to the first Gate, Citan or Billy to the second, Fei to the third, and Rico to the fourth. Citan then gives you a chance to prepare; use this time to go save your game. You can also buy any Gear parts you want from the orange Chu-chu (be sure to upgrade Stier and Weltall, those are the key Gears). When you're ready, go to Citan and tell him just that.

   You can fight the Gate battles in any order, but be sure to go with Gate 1 first. You'll have a chance to equip your Gear; equip a Beam Jammer (though it's not really necessary). This battle sees you fighting against two Gears and a whole mob of Solaris troops. You should be using Vierge, so just use Aerods to wipe out all the soldiers at once.

   Gate 2 is up next, it's a bit more difficult, but not too challenging. Just use regular attacks and Deathblows to take out the White Knights. There's really nothing distinctive about this one.

   Now it gets interesting. Select the third Gate, and then equip the Silver Ar on Weltall (if you didn't get any, you can still manage, it's just a bit more difficult). You have to fight a difficult battle against two White Knights and the Citadel. Use X button attacks on the Knights; don't waste any Deathblows. The Knights shouldn't be able to do any damage to you, so you just have the Citadel to worry about. It has a number of nasty attacks, including Sonic Boom (3000-4000 points of sonic damage), Gel Breath (3000 HP damage, but only around 1800 if you have the Silver Ar), and a machine gun that probably can't hurt you -- just hope it uses that more than Sonic Boom. First, heal up with your Frame HP, then hit the Citadel with the Deathblow you've been charging up. Then just just alternate between X attacks and level 1 Deathblows. It's got about 4000 HP; hopefully you can destroy it before it does the same to you. You may receive a Gold Ar when you win the battle.

   The final battle pits Stier against 2 White Knights and the Avalanche. Take out the White Knights first with X button attacks (again, they can't even hurt you), then go after the Avalanche with a strong Deathblow. It's only got around 5000 HP and can't do much do damage to you, so if you can beat the Citadel, you should be able to beat this. It will sometimes give you a Noise Filter for winning.

   After you've completed all four battles, Achtzehn will freeze all the Gears, leaving only person left to stop it... brace yourself for the shocking spectacle that follows. Fortunately, the fight is easy; just keep using X button attacks over and over. After you do at least 6000 HP damage, Maria takes over the battle. Maria's Gear already comes with a complete set of Deathblows, so you might want to build up to a high Attack Level and use one just for show ^_^. Don't use her Missile Pod option; it sucks (it's far weaker than a regular attack). Achtzehn has 15,000 HP this time around, so things should be a bit more interesting.

   You'll receive a Wizardry Ring (speeds up learning Deathblows) and Siebzehn's Graviton Cannon option when you win the battle. Then there will be a bunch of scenes, in which Gaspar trains your characters to have 7 AP, and the Yggdrasil gains the ability to fly.