The Central Treatment Room was nearly untouched by the ravages of war and time. Almost all of the equipment was gone, the charred spot where he had tossed a grenade was still there, and there was a lot of dust on every surface. The raised area where the Treatment Chair was located gleamed like new. Unfortunately there didn't seem to be a soul alive.

"Glen!" Alex called as she headed right towards the steps up to the dias.

Harsh coughing from the chair was her only answer but it was an answer.

"Who's there!" she asked, cautiously making her way up the steps.

A familiar lab-coated figure staggered out of the chair.

"You're here," came a hoarse, weary voice.

"Glen! You're alive!" Alex's voice was a mixture of relief and disbelief, "Are you alright?"

Ogawa staggered over to the stand of tray's in front of the Treatment Chair and retrieved an automatic injector. He stumbled and fell to the ground as he turned to them. Derrick and Alex rushed to his side. Derrick noticed how ragged and dirty Glen's clothes were. His hair was completely white and when, he looked up, Derrick saw that his face was heavily-lined.

Probably stress.

Glen held up the hand not holding the injector, "Lend me a hand, will you, Derrick?"

Derrick gently held Ogawa's arm in both hands and helped him to his feet. He put the older man's arm across his shoulders and let him catch his breath.

"I can not die, not yet." Glen said, his voice full of unimaginable sorrow and exhaustion, "Not until I give this to you."

Ogawa held up the injector. There were two vials connected to the body of the injector. One was filled with red liquid while the other was blue.

"What's that?" Alex asked, her brow furrowed as she stepped closer.

"Time was all we had in abundance, Derrick..." Glen turned to Alex, "This formula is completely pure." Glen hit the button on the side of the injector and the side vials emptied into the main reservoir to produce a indigo solution. "This is the Ultra Accelerator."

"Ultra huh. Sounds-" Derrick was interrupted by a tremor that shook the room.

Glen flew from his grasp, the Ultra Accelerator flew from Glen's hand, and Alex stumbled backwards before she could grab it. The injector bounced on the floor and disappeared beneath a loose grate in the floor. In an eerie repeat of past events, the door on the landing above opened and T'lan emerged from it. This time it was a group of four Elites.

"Derrick! Use the Accelerator!" Glen yelled from the floor.

"I'll hold them!" Alex shouted as she drew her knife.

Derrick vaulted over the rail to his right ad spotted a gap in the paneling to his left. He squeezed between the dias on his left and the raised monitoring area on his right to reach it. He dropped beneath into the gap and beneath the floor into the narrow maintenance tunnels beneath the grated panels. Derrick followed the tunnel through several turns until he came to the end and saw the injector.

"Get back, Glen!" Alex shouted before giving a cry of effort.

Derrick scooped the injector up and placed the needle against a prominent vein in his left arm.

I hope it doesn't hurt much, Derrick thought as he shoved the needle home and pulled the trigger.

The Accelerator seemed to drain in a flash and the effects were instantaneous this time. Pain far greater than even before flared in his left arm. The pain spread into his torso and from there to the whole of him. He dropped the injector and flung himself into the wall as muscle spasms rocked his body. He held out his arms to see the brilliant white light shift hue to violet. Even his gut churned and howled at the concentration of T'langen that had been introduced into his system. Then, just as quickly as it always did, the pain of Acceleration faded and Derrick was a new man.

This... this feel right.

Derrick could feel the energy coursing through him. The power in his muscles sang to him of their destructive potential. Everything looked so must brighter, crisper than it ever had, as though he had never been able to truly see. He could hear six'Beats, four of them T'lan, one human, and the last unique.

Alex.

Derrick bent his knees, raised a hand, and sprang upward. The heavy steel grating conformed around his purple lightning fists like wet paper and he flung it away as he reached the apex of his jump. He looked down to see he was four meters above the dias... nearly touching the ceiling. An Elite had Alex backed into a corner while the other was coming up on her left. The third was stalking Glen on the opposite side and he assumed the fourth was dead. They all looked up at his sudden appearance.

"What the fuck?" Alex shouted as Derrick floated down as slowly as a piece of fluff.

"Our savior is born!" Glen shouted melodramatically as he slid away from his pursuer on his elbows.

I have to get down faster, Derrick thought and just like that he was falling like a rock.

Derrick landed in front of Alex and watched as Glen was stalked on the other side. His gut churned and adrenaline flooded his system. He had been experience the effects of overstimulated adrenal glands all day, one of the reasons he assumed he got so tired after using his powers, but it was nothing like this. Everything around him slowed to a crawl as though the world was in super-slow motion.

Gotta move, Derrick thought and proceeded to do so with a speed and fluidness he had never known.

Derrick backhanded the nearest Elite with all his might and the blow sent the T'lan careening into the air... in slow motion. Of course his neck was twisted almost completely out of place so Derrick wasted no time in planting a spinning sidekick into the next one's gut. That one folded up a pancake as he sailed through the railing behind him. Derrick sprinted across the dias, palmed the Elites face from behind and kicked his feet out from under him. While the T'lan was still rising, Derrick smote him down with a crackling hammerfist that made the T'lan sink into the dias floor.

Derrick took a deep breath and the world sped up again. He offered his hand to Glen and the older man took it. With little effort, Derrick hoisted him to his feet. Another tremor rocked the room, the alarm klaxons shut off, and a Behemoth entered the room through the lower level doors. A single Assault T'lan appeared on the upper level.

"Watch him!" Derrick told Alex as another jolt of adrenaline pushed him into overdrive.

Derrick posted off the rail and practically floated to the upper level across three meters and up four. He landed behind the Assault T'lan and, before it could think to turn, he broke its neck. A rush of energy filled him as he held the dead T'lan by the neck and threw him into the trailing Behemoth as it came down the ramp leading to the monitoring area beside the dias. Derrick vaulted over the rail on his right, the same he had just jumped over, and came down in front of the lead Behemoth.

At that moment his burst of hyperspeed chose to run out.

The Behemoth didn't even act surprised and Derrick leapt forward with a front-kick. A T'lan Behemoth could overturn armored vehicles with ease, so it was inconceivable to its small brain that a human could hope to stop it. Derrick's boot connected and the Behemoth slid backwards clutching its abdomen. Derrick followed up with a spinning sidekick that completely folded the T'lan in on itself.

The second T'lan came at Derrick with a shoulder-tackle and Derrick fired a pulse-sphere in the blink of an eye. He casually stepped to the side as the headless corpse crashed into the wall. The final Behemoth finally got to his feet and cautiously approached. Derrick charged the T'lan and delivered a full-force straight punch that drove the Behemoth back a meter. He stayed on his feet somehow but the white light in his beady, little eyes was dimmer. Derrick went inside the Behemoth's range with a series of lightning-fast, brutally damaging jabs before stepping back, spinning on his heel, and delivering an overhead straight punch that punctured the Behemoth's midsection.

Exhaustion slammed into Derrick but he simply drew T'langen from the corpse he held up by his arm. When he was done, feeling practically invincible, the body disappeared in a flash of light. It even left his hand clean.

Derrick turned to find Alex staring at him with wide eyes.

Yeah. This is the moment.

Wow... you're amazing!" she shouted with glee.

"Let's check on Glen," Derrick said, grinning at her.

"Glen... Are you all right?" Alex called, rushing around to the stairs of the Treatment dias.

Derrick followed her but as soon as his feet touched the first step he knew something was wrong. It was as though he were attached to a bungee cord that had been stretched to the limit. No matter how hard he strained he couldn't move an inch. White mores of light began to orbit his body. Then his feet left the ground and he was floating before the dias. There was no pain... only a curious stretching sensation.

Alex turned and took a step back in shock, "Now what!"

"It's the Pendulum Effect!" Glen shouted.

Suddenly the doors Derrick and Alex had come through opened. A squad of soldiers came into the room being led by a young black man, teenager really, that looked vaguely familiar.

"Jameson!" Alex shouted, waving.

"Goddamn, it's good to see you Alex! Where's Ernest?" the teenager asked, gesturing for his men to cover the entrances.

"He didn't make it," Alex's voice was somber.

"What's up with him?" Jameson asked, hoping over the rail on the other side of the dias from Derrick.

"He's Derrick Cole," Glen said, stepped to Jameson's side.

"Ah," the kid shot Ogawa a look, "Pendulum Effect?"

"Yes," Glen nodded, "Stand back, everyone, or you'll get pulled in!"

Circles of light began to revolve around him as though Derrick were the center of a huge gyroscope.

"Did any of the others make it?" Alex asked, her eyes fixed on Derrick.

Jameson sighed deeply, "I'm sorry, Alex. No. You're the last."

Alex walked up to the top step of the dias.

"What are you doing, Alex?" Glen asked, only Jameson's hand on his arm kept him from coming closer.

"If I don't go, who's going to make sure you save the world, hotshot?" Alex smiled sadly, "Isn't that right?"

Glen lowered his head, "But if you go... you will die."

Alex shook her head, "But the future will be saved."

"Alex..." Jameson sounded like he was going to cry.

"Just tell me one thing," Alex still had her eyes fixed on Derrick, "What should I do?"

Ha! That's a big thing.

"First," Glen said, stepping closer as the circles of light began revolved faster. "You must meet up with me in the past. And then you must save Derrick!"

Yeah. Great way to sum that up, Glen.

"You don't have to come!" Derrick shouted but it was as if no one could hear him.

"All right."

Glen turned to Derrick, "Derrick, Alex will be killed by Solus. But you may be able to change the course of your destiny!"

Alex turned quickly, "Goodbye Glen. Derrick, you're father would be proud of you."

Sheesh, the kid's got my name.

"Never give up, Alex! Remember that!" Jameson shouted as Alex hopped off the dias and the sphere of light quickly pulled her in towards Derrick.

"Now go!" Glen cried as Derrick caught Alex by the shoulders, "Go save our world!"

The world disappeared in a white flash as Alex shifted Derrick's hands into hers. When the light faded, they were racing through the strange tunnel Derrick had gone into the future through.

"I don't know how long this'll take, Alex," his voice had an odd echo to it, "I still don't know that much about you. So... wanna share?"

"Where should I start?" she asked, focusing on Derrick and not the tunnel.

"At the beginning?"

"Well... I don't remember much before our first treatment. I was young and you know it messed with your memory. We were all orphans; some of us put up for adoption, some of our parents were dead. The Science Center adopted us for the Beta Project."

Derrick growled, "That's fucked up."

Alex shrugged, "There are worst things. I didn't start training until after the T'lan Invasion started..."

Time seemed to hold no sway as Alex told Derrick about her life. How Michael Jameson had arrived in Tokyo to help train the Beta Subjects and reunited with his brother as well as bringing his wife and son. About her friendship with Ernest and the kinship of the Beta Subjects. She cried when she talked about Ernest and the others, but underneath it all Derrick could detect a deep loneliness. Alex didn't talk about it much, just a sentence here or there, but Derrick got the distinct impression she had been exception even among her fellow enhanced comrades.

It would explain how she keeps surviving when everyone else dies. And why she's not used to someone treating her like... a person. Shit.

"So, Derrick, what about you?"

"Nothing much to tell. You're the only thing I can really remember and in a while you'll be living it too. Just remember not to say anything about this future business. I'll freak out."

"Okay," Alex nodded and bit her lip, "It's my fate, isn't it? I'm going to die."

"I won't let you die," Derrick growled fiercely.

Alex laughed, "That sounds like a promise!"

There was a flash and Derrick was watching the moment before the 'nuke exploded in reverse. Alex was there and began speaking backwards as well. Then Alex and Solus were fighting. Derrick was whisked back to lying in front of Solus.

Then Derrick flashed back to the tunnel to find he had lost his grip on Alex.

"Fuck!" he spat through gritted teeth as he tried to catch her flailing arms.

"Derrick! Don't leave me!"

"Never!"

He flashed again and watched the T'lan rockets descend into their pods. Derrick watched Gianni come back to life and then he was back in the tunnel. Alex was even further away this time.

"Derrick, we're going to materialize at different times! But I'll find you somehow... I swear!"

"You will find me!"

Derrick flashed and watched Stefania rise from the dead. Then she rose back up to the base of the tower. Another flash and Alex was further than before.

"Derrick! I'll see you again!"

"I will save you!"

This time the light faded slowly and when it did Derrick was standing in front of the giant's skull. Time reversed itself until Solus was standing on the giant's shoulder. Light flashed and Derrick could move. Before he could gather himself to jump, Solus was leaping away.

I'm coming, Alex.