Chapter X

Dearka's gundam blasted over New York City with great ease. He flew picked up speed and continued to gain altitude as he flew past the Empire State Building and over the Brooklyn Bridge. "The spot is about five miles out." said Yzak to his friend. Dearka dropped his altitude and decreased his speed.

"Well, it should at least appear on radar." After flying low for about five or ten minutes, a small blip appeared and began flashing on the radar screen. "There she is." Dearka eased on his thrusters and hover above the spot for a few seconds before letting his mobile suit touch down. The trees in the surrounding area had been blown down for the most part from the Duel's crash landing, so the Buster set down without much problem. Dearka opened the cockpit and Yzak and let down a lanyard to repel his way down. He slowly slid down the long cord and eased himself down to the ground. The cockpit to his suit was still open and there a multitude of dirt covering the inside. He peaked his head inside and reached in to scrape off the soil and other such mess before climbing in and seating himself. He then close the cockpit and proceeded to activate his OS. He pulled down his keyboard and began to type the activation code. "God, I don't think I've ever doubted your existence," he said, "but if you to cement my belief in you, you'll act right now."

Nothing happened.

Yzak continued to feverishly type on his keyboard, but the gundam simply refused to come to move. "Fuck." he said as he pounded the keyboard in frustration. "Fuck, fuck…." The silver-haired boy clenched his hands and brought them down on the instrument panel. "FUCK!" The panel began to light up and the OS began to load. Yzak's mouth dropped slightly and he raised his eyebrow. "Thank you." he said weakly. The cockpit vibrated as the gundam began to come alive. He slid the keyboard out of the way and took control of his arms and legs. Slowly, the massive war-machine began to rise. Dearka's image appeared on the video-screen to Yzak's left. "Hey, Yzak! How's everything working?" he asked.

"A little shaky, but things are holding together."

"Good. Are your thrusters working?" The silver-haired gundam pilot activated his jets, and slowly eased the power upwards. Much like Dearka's, they were shaky at first, but as he increased the power, they began to give off a more constant flow. Finally, the Duel lifted from the ground and shot into the air. Dearka followed close by as Yzak stopped and hovered, then blasted in direction of the city.

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Zorin walked slowly back out of the barracks main entryway, a machine-pistol dangling in his hand by the leather sling. The resistance fighters were busy collecting the dead and wounded. Ben took great care to step over and maneuver his way around the various bodies of German and resistance fighter alike. He stopped only shortly to pick up some grenades and a pair of extra magazines off some SS-men, then looked up again and continued walking. "Hey," he shouted, "which one of you has the communicator?" Jack, who was sitting atop one of the parapets, his face buried in his hands, lifted his head and turned his it around. His face was somewhat dirtied by soot and blood and the grime was washed away in certain areas by tears.

"That's me." he choked out. Zorin walked forward and stood in front of the boy.

"I need to use it." Jack stood and removed the device from his vest pocket, smacking into the Zaft agent's palm. He then walked over to help with the moving of the bodies, among whom, Vin and Miko were both counted. Ben stood silently for a moment, looking at the destruction, his eyes fixated in almost a trance-like state. He snapped out of it and turned his head down to look at the communicator, flipping open the panel and pressing in the small red button. "Yzak? Yzak can you hear me?" There was static on the line for a few seconds until Yzak's voice came over.

"Yeah, I hear ya. What's going on?"

"Listen, Hibiki's barricaded himself in the main facility, and he's activated the generator."

Shit thought the silver-haired gundam pilot. "Is there any time left to stop him?" he asked.

"Well, I know another way into the facility. I'll try to get in and stall him, but I'd say you've only got about twenty minutes until the generator is fully operational and he can actually open a portal."

"Alright, do what you can."

"I'll try. Now listen. There's a way to reverse all this damage, but the process is complicated. Once I'm in the facility, I'll call you again and give you some instructions. Whatever you do, do not damage the generator."

"Noted. Over and out."

"Wait!" said Jack as he grabbed the communicator from Zorin's hand. "Yzak…don't fail us on this. We all want our lives back."

"I promise we'll fix things. That you can count on."

"Thanks for everything."

"You're welcome." Jack smiled as he said good-bye and flipped the communicator closed. He handed back to Zorin who turned around towards the gate. "You're not going to tell him?"

"I think it's better if he doesn't know. He can't afford to have his judgment clouded right now."

Zorin turned back and took a final look at all the carnage that had been done in the past two hours. "You better hurry. They'll hear about this soon enough." This time, he could feel his heart-strings being pulled.

XXXXXXX

The Duel and Buster gundams continued their flight over Brooklyn, trying to maneuver their way over the tops of the buildings. Yzak flipped on his comm-screen and began to speak. "Dearka…"

"Yeah?" replied the other pilot.

"I just a call from Zorin. He says Hibiki's already activated the generator. We've only got about twenty minutes until Hibiki can open a portal."

"So what does he want us to do? Just blow the hell out of it?"

"No. He said that we need to fix the changes to history, and that he'll tell us how when we get there."

"I hope he's right about this shit, for all of our sakes."

"So do I." said Yzak turned his back to his forward observer panel. The two continued to cruise for about two or three minutes before the radar picked up something. Both turned their heads to their panels to see a v-shaped formation of objects heading towards them at high speeds. "What the hell are those?" asked Dearka.

"I don't know." replied Yzak. He turned his head to look in front of him and see a formation of objects heading directly in front of him. "Looks like planes." The objects began to break off from formation and sped up. They began to fire on the two mobile suits, but their ammunition was found to be most surprising. "Shit!" shouted Yzak as more rounds hit his gundam. "Those are beam cannons." More rounds exploded on the shells of their weapons.

"We don't have time for this!" shouted Dearka, sounding aggravated. He pulled off to the side, and began to fire his vulcans. Two planes exploded, and were sent hurtling towards the earth. Yzak likewise began to fire and pulled from one of his leg holsters a beam saber. He activated it, and brought it across one of the Bf109's, slicing it completely in half.

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Captain Zorin walked carefully along the side rim of the sewer canal, making sure not to slosh into the muck. There was a drain that led into the facility, and Zorin hand entered it via a manhole in the street. He had a schmeisser slung around his back, two potato-masher grenades and pair of extra magazines tucked into his belt. He continued to look down at his watch, seeing how much time he had, picking up the pace his time dropped down to twelve minutes. He rounded another corner, and saw rays of light hanging down from up above, illuminating a small ladder. This was his exit. Ben walked forward and mounted the ladder, quickly climbing it and stopping to listen to any voice that might have been in the room above him. When he had confirmed that it was safe, he carefully lifted the manhole and poked his head up, then climbed all the way out of the tiny opening. These were the basement cells where Dearka had been held. Zorin unslung his weapon and walked forward and up the staircase. He paused as he heard the footsteps of two men.

"Yes, yes, these readings are excellent for a first phase…." The voice began to trail off as the two men passed by. The agent got out from around the door and turned to see he was in the lab. The control panels were all activated, but no one stood at them. He walked silently around the corner and up a flight of stairs to the observation cabin that overlooked the warehouse floor. He opened one of the doors that led out onto the catwalk and looked down below to see Hibiki and his men working a two control-panels. Flashes of blue and white light exploded violently on the platform in front of them, and blue waves of energy ran up and down the generator's dome. Hibiki stood with his arms crossed, looking at the platform. "It's stable!" shouted one of his men working on the panel.

"Bring it into phase four!" he replied. The scientists complied and began to push various buttons. Zorin kneeled down from his overhead position and took careful aim with weapon, wanting to make sure not to hit any of the panels. Slowly, he squeezed the trigger and let loose a burst of automatic fire. Hibiki turned his head to see the man shooting, and immediately ducked out of his line of sight. He ran towards the stairwell as his men took cover and tried to fire back. Ulen waited until Zorin was reloading before running up the stairs.

As Ben turned to see what was coming, Hibiki lunged at the man and threw him to the ground. The two struggled as Hibiki tried to reach over and tried to grab hold of the weapon. Zorin placed his hand over his adversary's face and began to squeeze it into a claw. Ulen latched his hand around the other man's neck.

"I'm not letting you get in my way! I've crossed centuries for this moment!"

"No! This ends now you..... psychotic bastard!"

Zorin reared his leg bag and put it on Hibiki's chest. He thrust it out and Hibiki was launched from his position on top of his former colleague. Zorin kipped up and ran over the doctor who was at present trying to recover himself. He launched into a jumping front kick and his foot found its way to the side of the doctor's face. He landed with a thud, and stood up to deliver double chop kick to the back of Ulen's knee and head, finally finishing with a beautiful straight-leg spin kick that sent Hibiki flying over the railing onto the floor below.

Almost immediately, Ben turned and dive-rolled back to his weapon and continued to fire. Slowly, the combat ineffective scientists dropped one by one until finally, it looked as though Hibiki's entire team was dead. Zorin threw his weapon and wiped some blood from his nose, then walked down the stairway. As he reached the ground level, the explosions of light began to increase. Slowly, a form began to take shape as the light collected into a swirling vortex. It truly was an awesome sight to behold. Zorin stopped and stood in admiration of the power before him, his mouth dropped and his eyes fixed in a dead stare.

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Yzak and Dearka continued to fight their way through Hibiki's squadron, their weapons blazing against the quick maneuvers of expertly engineered pieces of German weaponry. More beam rounds smacked against their gundams, but the two expert Zaft pilots took them as mere mosquito bites as they slashed and shot their way through the planes. "One behind you!" shouted Yzak as he brought his beam saber across on of them, just missing Dearka's head.

"Thanks!" said Dearka as his head vulcans continued to blaze away cutting down two more of their adversaries. As their numbers dwindled, the remaining planes began to veer off and turn around, retreating from the now seemingly invincible weapons. The pair said nothing to each other as they once again picked up speed and blasted in the direction of the facility. Slowly, it came into sight, and both of them let up on the thrusters and landed just a few blocks away. There they waited.

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"Holy shit." said Ben rather un-eloquently. He continued to stare upwards at the marvel of engineering until he felt the vibration of the communicator in his pocket. He absent-mindedly pulled the device from his pocket and opened it. "Ben?" The captain said nothing, still taken in by majesty of the vortex. "BEN! Are you there!?" Zorin snapped out of his trance and looked down at the communicator.

"Yeah. I'm here."

"What do you want us to do, Ben?" Zorin walked over to the control panel and began to adjust some of the switches.

"Okay, listen carefully. The portal can be re-shaped, but it requires a huge amount of electro-magnetic energy. Does one of you have a beam saber?"

"Yeah, I do. What do you want me to do with it?" asked Yzak impatiently.

"Rip open the ceiling warehouse and one of you stick your saber into the generator. It should give you a momentary energy boost necessary for opening the portal wide enough for both of you. Now, I'm resetting coordinates on the generator to send you back to Berlin in 1935. When you arrive, destroy the Ginn, and then re-enter the portal before it collapses. It should take you back to your own time."

"Is that all?"

"No. There's one vitally important detail. I also resetting it so that when you re-enter the portal, it will send you back to your own time, right to where the lab is located. Destroy it."

"What? But you'll be…."

"I know. But my life doesn't matter. It's going to be a small price to pay compared to the lives you're going to save."

"No! There's got to be…"

"Yzak. Listen. This situation offers not alternative. You have to do this. Either I die, or millions will."

Yzak began to choke as tears rolled down his face. "I have never served with finer soldiers than you."

"Thank you." said the boy sobbingly.

"Just remember something. Your…" Zorin's words were cut off as a shot was heard. The agent yelled out in pain before a crashing sound followed by static.

"Ben? Ben?! BEN!" screamed Yzak. He got no reply.