City Series:Volume6e Chapter7

Chapter 7: The Promise Rises

8/24/1943 02:59 – 04:20

The battle is over

The power is crumbling

Or so I thought

Or so I thought!

Part 1

Tristan’s interior was collapsing.

The roar of destruction began at about the exact moment Hazel took Lowenzahn’s hand and pulled her from the window.

She heard the damage from overhead where the metal panels forming the ceiling were bending and popping loose.

The creaking of metal came afterwards, but there was so very much of it.

The cacophony of friction filled the pit and was joined by the sound of metal breaking.

Once the ceiling and wall panels could no longer bear the stress they would break and pop out of place.

Then it all fell.

It scared her how the reverberating destruction shook her body, so she took a breath.

…I need to hurry.

She pulled on the hand, fully dragging Lowenzahn’s naked body out from behind the glass.

Hazel held her slender body.

The woman’s eyes were closed and her skin pale and clammy, but she had real weight to her and she was gently breathing.

That breathing was steady and constant, so Hazel nodded.

The destruction rang in her ears and shook her body, but she spoke the words in her mind aloud this time.

“I need to hurry!”

She turned back toward the walkway with Lowenzahn in her arms.

And…

“Eh?”

She saw the color black in front of her.

It was worn by a large man. She looked up to see Schweitzer standing there with the collapsing ceiling behind him.

His prosthetic right arm was still missing and he came to a stop a few paces away with his eyes shut.

“Could you leave her with me?”

Hazel smiled at the way he waited for her response.

She narrowed her eyes and showed her teeth.

“I have no reason not to.”

She recalled Eryngium’s song – the song that included the names of their devices.

…Yes, the Messiah isn’t the one who sets foot in the new world.

She spoke softly to Schweitzer over the din of the collapse.

“I will leave the new world with you, future hero.”

Part 2

Tristan’s launch pad provided a front-row view of the collapse.

The groan of the giant cross sounded like the roar of a waterfall.

The weight control and protective field needed to preserve Tristan had been lost, so the armor, the inner walls, and the frame were all bending and breaking.

The waterfall-like sound was played by an orchestra of falling parts.

Everything was stripped from the mile-tall structure and it all crumbled away like a sand dune.

The bottom of the launch pad bent and the exterior panels that couldn’t absorb the distortion started to come away and fall. From the upper armor of the RB-21 flying next to the launch pad, the falling armor looked like autumn leaves.

Several people were on top of the RB-21: the AIF and Geheimnis Agency soldiers who had been on the launch pad, as well as the people it had already picked up from the ground.

Two people stood on the very edge of the upper armor, waiting for someone to board from the launch pad.

Those two were Corelle and Jeanne. Jeanne looked to Corelle on her left.

“What’s taking them? Are they still in there?”

“They are taking their time. Hey, Berger, you go in after them!”

Corelle called back behind them, but received no response. Jeanne frowned and looked back to see the black-clad young man sitting in a chair-like hunk of metal with a look of disinterest on his face.

The hunk of metal was in fact a giant prosthetic arm. He pointed forward from there.

“They don’t need my help. See, here they come.”

Jeanne faced forward again to view the door that still had a black Grösse Panzer stabbing into it. A large man holding a woman wrapped in a black coat and a blonde woman were running out of the darkness beyond the door.

The launch pad shook violently at the same time.

“It’s collapsing!” shouted a Geheimnis Agent.

That was exactly what happened. The giant launch pad tilted down from its joint with the cross.

It pushed the wind out of the way while tilting with the weight and force of something sinking into water.

It produced the windy sound of pressurized air and the crack of breaking metal.

Schweitzer lowered his hips in the center of the launch pad to keep his balance.

Then he ran up the slanted floor.

The problem was Hazel behind him.

She failed to keep her balance and rolled once down the slope. And she rolled forward like she had thrown herself outwards.

Everyone on the RB-21 gasped.

Hazel rolled a second and third time, but she somehow managed to get back up and held down her skirt.

Everyone sighed when they saw her running toward them again.

When Jeanne realized how relieved she was, she looked to the others.

She smiled bitterly when she noticed similarly relieved looks on their faces.

“Why are we so worried?”

She was answered by an elderly voice from below.

“Because she is our leader, of course.”

“Witzmann!?”

She looked down to see a military two-hull warship ascending from Tempelhof Airport.

The black ship was about half a mile below them and she saw AIF and Geheimnis Agency soldiers and even her husband’s green Grösse Panzer on top of it.

Two old men stood on the front of the two hulls: Witzmann and Elrich.

Their ship was slowly but surely approaching.

Jeanne wasn’t the only one to notice it. Everyone around her was watching the girl running toward them, the man carrying their commander, and the two-hull ship.

It was that sight that led a Geheimnis Agent near her to reach a certain conclusion.

“So it’s over.”

That agent was an old man. He lowered his face a little while viewing the girl and the man carrying their commander.

“Deputy Chief, are you seeing this?” The old knight did not wait for her to reply. “The Messiah has saved the new world.”

Part 3

The AIF transport ship and the German two-hull warship approached in the sky.

Someone far below the sky was watching that encounter between the two forces.

That person was on the bottommost level of Germania.

There was a small park there so far down that the moonlight barely reached it.

A work of art could be found on the red brick ground at the center of the park.

It was a silver giant. The 8-yard giant wore silver armor, except its metal body was smashed and embedded in the red brick floor. It lay on its back with no left arm, a smashed chest, and both legs broken and burst.

The moonlight reflected off of several things on the sides of the hole that led all the way up to the surface.

Those were the places the silver Panzer had struck on its way down, leaving pieces of its armor behind.

Those armor fragments fell like sand on the center of the park where a man lay collapsed on his stomach.

He wore a terribly disheveled Geheimnis Agency officer uniform. He was missing his left arm and his prosthetic right arm was stabbed into the floor. Its metal fingers were spread out and fibrous metal wires ran from the hand to the ground.

His eyes were on the giant cross visible within the imperfect circle of the moon. And on the AIF transport ship and German two-hull ship floating next to it.

Something spread from his body on the moonlit floor.

The puddle looked nearly black in the pale moonlight.

A change occurred on the floor stained dark by that liquid.

A serpentine shadow formed on the red brick surface and that began to bulge out like a vein.

That was the result of Tristan’s power surging out into the ley lines.

A man’s hand silently moved above the red brick vein.

He said nothing, put up no resistance, and didn’t move his broken legs. He simply grabbed the floor with his right hand.

His finger armor came away and fibrous metal wires spilled out. They no longer took the shape of a hand, but those tiny metal wires moved thousands or tens of thousands of ways to grab ahold of the vein on the floor.

A scratchy voice left a bleeding mouth and spoke up into the sky.

“Is this compromise your answer?”

His eyes were on the two aerial ships in the sky.

He spoke as if savoring the flavor of the blood in his mouth.

“Instead of redoing it all, you would stage a revolution and make it so none of it ever happened?”

<Tragedy is found in the name of sacrifice.>

His forearm armor split and the metal wires controlling it were released.

“If you refuse to redo it all, then you mustn’t just forget the dead.”

The metal wires spread out across their moveable range and went taut, producing a sound like a string instrument.

“You must not hide them behind revolution. You must have the courtesy to say out loud that their deaths were meaningless!”

His eyes looked to his right shoulder without moving his head. There were two Phlogiston Plattes inside that shoulder armor.

“If this world cannot even do that, then it deserves to be destroyed!”

<Tragedy is an indelible memory.>

The man raised his voice, the words rushing from his opened mouth.

He shouted a couple of names. And then…

“Eingeweide arm Tragisch – Ober Beweisen.”

The two Phlogiston Plattes in his shoulder shattered and the metal wires spreading out across the floor swelled out.

Then he and the arm vanished.

All that remained was the dark blood puddle and the moonlight.

But a pulse pounded. The floor vein began to throb and beat.

Part 4

Hazel jumped to the RB-21 in the nick of time before the launch pad fell.

She kicked off the pad and leaped through the roar of bending and breaking metal.

For just two seconds, she felt like she would be pulled away by a great movement of the air, but then she landed on the RB-21’s metal upper armor.

She fell to her knees from exhaustion and the pain from when Rein König stabbed into her shoulder.

Everyone atop the ship paused.

But then they all shouted out loud and rushed toward her.

She tried to catch her breath while looking to the chorus of voices and footsteps.

Her allies and what had been her enemies were gathered around her.

They gave off red Lives of joy with a hint of confusion and they had smiles on their faces.

…They’re all okay.

At least for this one moment in time, the distinction between enemy and ally didn’t matter. She heard Tristan collapsing behind her and smiled while still out of breath.

But she lowered her head when pain stabbed into her right eye.

…Eh?

She felt a light itchy pain deep in that eye. The small pain was accompanied by a faint heat.

…What is this feeling?

She rubbed her eye and heard Corelle’s voice.

“Hazel!”

The sharp shout got her to look right, where Corelle stood within arm’s reach.

“Hazel. Your eye is doing its thing again!”

That freaked her out. Cold sweat instantly covered her back and pushed her to action.

She quickly pulled Rein König out from under her arm and viewed her reflection in its blade.

“My Messiah eye has turned red on its own.”

Before she could ask why, the supposedly stopped and crumbling Tristan began to pulse again.

Part 5

It was undoubtedly a deafening heartbeat.

The sky, earth, and everyone listening were shaken equally.

This was the same vibration as when Tristan was initially boosted.

That was why Hazel held her right eye and stood up on the RB-21.

“Tristan is starting back up!? But why!?”

The giant cross did not answer. It only quickened its pulse and continued shaking even as it fell apart.

The atmospheric reverberation resumed and everything shook. That tremor was answered by lights shining from Tristan’s surface. The lights came back on, starting at the bottom and gradually working their way back up, growing brighter all the while.

An old man spoke from the two-hull ship floating behind Hazel.

“It’s Tragisch! And he hasn’t just restarted Tristan with his Beweisen! He’s Schreibened into it with his Ober Beweisen! Tristan is so unstable right now this is sure to cause it’s Tons to collapse!”

That shout was followed by some Aerial Words. They came from Tristan, carried by the tremor and the pulse.

I grant power to those who were sacrificed

So that those who have already been lost

Are not erased by the hypocrisy of the survivors

They were simple Aerial Words, but their effect was seen near instantly.

Germania exploded.

“–––––!”

Everything inside the 6-mile-wide pit was obliterated and erupted from the ground.

The people, the buildings, the dirt, the vegetation, and everything else was consumed.

So much dust and ether flew skyward like a geyser. The gray pillar stretched far taller than even Tristan.

Several layers of what looked like white umbrellas spread out around the rising pillar of smoke.

A shockwave rushed out through the air.

The roar slammed into the two-hull warship and the RB-21 just as they turned their bellies toward Germania.

So many things cried out in terror and were blown away in the name of powerlessness.

Part 6

The shockwave spread the dust outwards and engulfed Tristan in a mere two seconds.

A new air current formed and the dust began to swirl. The electrification caused by the rupturing air created lightning that crackled outwards as bluish-white bolts.

Below the dust, several explosive booms sounded from the surface and spread outwards.

The gulping roar of the thunder joined another sound to race through the sky and along the earth.

That sound was a rhythmic pulse that almost sounded like slapping flesh. It sent a tremor through everything.

The giant cross could be seen as a faint shadow within the dust, but it was beginning to sink downwards.

The pulse’s rhythm gradually sped up as Tristan sank.

The swirling dust began to expand while the tower disappeared.

The electrified dust’s rotation sped up as it spread, so it had already become a massive whirlwind.

When the dust swept through, the earth and sky would crack open and the ether would destroy and consume everything in its path.

It made an icy sound like glass breaking. That sound was incessant as the thunderclouds that appeared around Germania spread out in all directions.

That movement and the pulse grew more intense and refused to stop.

Part 7

Someone came to within the roaring wind and the trembling air.

It was Lowenzahn.

She groaned and twisted her body.

Her blue eyes slowly opened below her wrinkled brow.

She narrowed her eyes against the light while her eyes came into focus and an expression of puzzlement formed on her face.

She moved her eyes to take a look around.

She saw a low ceiling overhead and she was lying on something like a chair. Covering her body was…

“A blanket,” she muttered as her eyes focused further.

There was an unopenable round window on the wall to her right.

Then she saw the massive thunderclouds rotating in the night sky.

She couldn’t tell how far away they were. They were a gray so dark it was nearly black, they extended high into the sky, and they stretched out horizontally to fill her entire view. The different layers of cloud were rotating at different speeds, creating a surface pattern similar to braided hair.

This space was a long way from the clouds. She could see the moonlit forest below.

She had only been using her eyes, but now she slowly turned her head to see further into the distance. She hadn’t moved for a while, so her body cried out in protest.

But she didn’t care. Her cheeks bent in pain as she turned her head to look out the window.

“What are those dark clouds?”

Her question was answered by a woman’s voice directly to her left.

“Half an hour has passed since Tristan was restarted by Tragisch. We are on the bridge of an AIF transport ship above the forest near Hamburg, my commander.”

It was Jeanne’s voice.

Lowenzahn nodded and viewed the massive collection of dark clouds.

The occasional bluish-white light would flash through them, illuminating their center. Even the dark clouds looked white in the light and they displayed the shape of the object inside them like they were a screen.

She saw a moving silhouette within the clouds. It looked like a great serpent.

“That devastating dragon has grown more than 30 miles long. Tristan’s Tons have scattered and formed that ether dragon which is beginning to consume this world.”

That was Schweitzer’s voice.

Lowenzahn sighed at the familiar voice and held herself inside the blanket.

“I see. So I was removed from Tristan and Heiliger took over.” Her voice was scratchy. “So I lost?”

No one answered her.

But that silence was as good as an answer, so she smiled bitterly. Then she looked out the window again.

The giant dragon silhouette was dancing within the dark clouds.

“How much longer until the world changes, Jeanne?”

“It is currently 3:45 AM. So we have less than an hour.”

“That’s not good. You get what this means, right? That is the result of Tristan’s scattered Tons, isn’t it? Then it will contain the Spacetime Tons extracted before Tristan was stopped. And without Neue Erde, those Tons can’t be extracted anymore.”

A few seconds of silence followed.

Finally, Schweitzer spoke toward the floor.

“The vision of the past we all had while fighting was of before Berlin’s twin cities period.”

“Yes. Most likely, around a thousand years’ worth of Spacetime Tons are inside that dragon. Once its Tons scatter too much and it can’t maintain that form, it will explode and destroy those Spacetime Tons. Similarly, if we destroy that dragon before that happens…”

She took a breath and then stated her guess.

“If we destroy it, it will trigger the Nibelung!”

She looked back.

She grimaced at the pain in her body, but she looked to the two people there.

Jeanne kneeled on the floor and…

“Captain, you don’t have to force yourself into such a cramped space.”

Lowenzahn laughed bitterly because Schweitzer was crouched down with his head bent over to look down at her. He accepted her laugh with a disheartened look.

“But I cannot just leave you alone either.”

“Thanks.”

Her quick response helped soften his expression while he looked at her.

She held her knees below the blanket and looked up at him with a smile.

That was all it took to communicate what they were each thinking, so they shifted to tenser expressions.

“Jeanne, do the others know about this? If Elrich is here, tell him to work out a countermeasure ASAP. We need a way to destroy the dragon but not trigger the Nibelung.”

Lowenzahn held the left side of her chest below the blanket and looked directly at Jeanne.

She saw Jeanne’s deadly serious face, so she spoke sharply.

“Your commander was bested by your leader, so I will follow her will. If Fräulein Kitty wouldn’t let me die when I wanted to, then I’m going to assume she’s safe too. And I know what she must be thinking.”

“About what to do now?”

“Yes. So as commander, I transfer all authority over the Geheimnis Agency to her.”

Lowenzahn shut her eyes.

“Of course.” She lowered her eyebrows a bit and forced a smile. “I doubt anyone still trusts me enough to take orders from me anyway.”

Jeanne immediately stood up and shook her head.

“You needn’t worry about-” she began.

Just then, a sound dropped between Jeanne and Lowenzahn.

The sound came from a metal plate slipping out of Jeanne’s pocket.

The dim reserve lighting caused the plate’s surviving text to shine bright.

Lowenzahn’s eyes slowly moved to read the few shining words.

“ ‘War’, ‘Nibelung’, ‘1943’, ‘sin’. And lastly…’take care of-’ ”

Her expression changed as she read them aloud.

Surprise colored her face and she looked to Jeanne.

“Is this what my mother placed in the underground knowledge storehouse?”

“Yes. Witzmann left it with me. He said to give it to someone who fit those words.”

Jeanne picked up the plate, frowned, and viewed its words.

She chose her words carefully while asking Lowenzahn a question.

“Take care of what, I wonder. Of the Nibelung maybe?”

“W-well,” started Lowenzahn, but she was interrupted by a deep, male voice from overhead.

It spoke a longer series of words.

“The next war will be fought over the Nibelung. In 1943, we will pass all of our sin on to the next generation. If you happen to read this, then please take care of my daughter.”

The flowing words came from Schweitzer.

Part 8

The two women turned to see the large man with a thick journal open in his hands.

He closed it and held it out toward Lowenzahn.

“I doubt anyone understands the true will of Frobel Naylor, who helped created the Geheimnis Agency. She hoped to bring about the Nibelung, but contradictorily, she was also concerned for your safety, Lowenzahn.”

Lowenzahn’s eyebrows fell and she squeezed her mouth shut.

She said nothing, so Schweitzer continued.

“But,” he began. “At the moment, we are all safe and we are waiting for a new world. I choose to believe this is the answer she wanted and it is the result of fulfilling her promise.”

When he finished, Jeanne held the plate out toward Lowenzahn.

Lowenzahn accepted the items.

And she held them tight.

Her blanket rustled as she held those two physical remnants of her mother’s will and curled up.

“It was awfully convenient how all this worked out,” she said, a smile of relief on her face.

She took a breath.

But then they heard a quiet tongue click from the direction of the pilot’s seat at the front of the bridge.

The three of them gasped and turned toward the tongue click.

Next to the cramped pilot’s seat was the seat for the navigator who also handled communications. The AIF soldier who stood from there threw his headphones to the floor and ran toward the door leading from the bridge.

“What is it!?” asked Schweitzer in English.

The answer came in a strong tone.

It was a short answer.

“The ACBS was launched!”

“What!?”

The navigator explained with panic in his voice while he ran down the narrow aisle between the seats.

“They stopped the reverse pressurization, but as soon as they learned about the dragon, the high-speed bomber fleet flying this way launched the ACBS! They’re targeting the great black dragon. The ETA is 4:42 AM!”

Jeanne stood all the way up when she heard that time.

“Does destiny want the Nibelung to happen!?” she asked through clenched teeth.

“If the ACBS collides with the dragon, it will destroy that millennium’s worth of Spacetime Tons.” Lowenzahn also stood up. “Jeanne! You and him hurry to the others!”

She stood on unsteady legs that nearly gave out under her, so Schweitzer supported her.

She accepted his assistance while clutching the two items left behind by her mother.

“I can apologize or make excuses to the others later. Now it’s my turn to trust them. Trust that they will follow my orders. …So tell them this.” She took a breath. “Every last member of the Geheimnis Agency is to serve the Messiah. Because she is sure to make the choice that gets us out of this bind.”

She smiled.

“Because she is sure to decide she doesn’t want to lose the present.”

Part 9

Hazel stood on the RB-21’s windy upper armor, staring east.

She saw a massive black storm there. The clouds highlighted the black dragon’s shape whenever the lightning flashed.

She clenched her teeth, furrowed her brow, and watched how the clouds moved.

And she thought to herself.

…Why?

“Why would that kind Karlsruhe man do this?”

She shook her head to cast the words from her mind.

She viewed the clouds around her.

The RB-21 had finished escaping, so it was hovering in the sky alongside the German two-hull warship.

She saw Sylphide’s shape in the imperfect circle of the moon overhead.

She sighed while viewing that shape in the sky and the lights coming from the windows of the two-hull ship.

…This isn’t over yet, is it?

So she gave a single deep nod before turning around.

There were around a dozen people there.

The people seated on the RB-21’s upper armor were the main fighters of the AIF and Geheimnis Agency with the exception of Pale and Heiliger. Noting Berger among them, Hazel’s expression softened somewhat.

Am I too tense? she wondered, taking a step toward him.

Then a shorter person stood up from the sitting group.

The old man in a white coat was Geheimnis Agency Development Division Chief Elrich.

His head was lowered and he kept his hands in his coat pockets.

“Are you ready now? Have you calmed down?”

“Yes. I banished all those unnecessary thoughts from my mind.”

“Then I would like to state my conclusion, starting from what I told you earlier.” His lips bent just a bit as he started to stay something, stopped, and forced it out anyway. “The dragon which has swallowed both the Spacetime Tons and the anxiety Tons will consume the entire world when its Tons collapse. And now that ACBS is on its way. If we are to break free of this…”

He paused to choose his words and Hazel saw a certain color in his Tons.

It was the yellowish-green of a troubled and uncertain kind of consideration.

She viewed that extra-yellowish color while watching his face.

He had strong-willed eyebrows, sharp eyes, and thin lips.

…He looks like a very reliable person.

But he was currently hesitating even as that reliable side led him to choose his words.

So she made up her mind. She spoke before he could continue.

“You don’t have to make yourself say it. I think this was always how I wanted to do it.”

Elrich raised his lowered head.

She spoke to the surprise and confusion on his face.

“I already know how to break free of this.”

She laughed at Elrich’s shocked reaction and then looked behind him.

Someone in a black coat sat a short distance from the ring of people.

He didn’t look back her way, but she still spoke loud enough that he could hear her.

“When I stopped Tristan, it must have already extracted about a thousand years’ worth of Spacetime Lives – bringing it back to just before Berlin came to be.”

She took a breath.

“So,” she continued, but before she could say more, Berger spat out a comment of his own, his back still turned.

“That’s no reason to believe in some stupid joke, Hazel.”

His tone rather than his words deepened her smile.

She organized her thoughts and resumed speaking.

“Um,” she began. “If my Messiah eye’s Ober Beweisen can identify the Spacetime Lives and I can tune them, then I will appear in the past as the Messiah. Just as a Tuner this time.”

“Well done.” Elrich nodded and took over the explanation. “Of course, you cannot repair such a massive amount of Tons with just Rein König. That is why we must strengthen Rein König and use Sylphide’s Panzer Emblem. It should be possible for the Panzer Emblem’s ether to combine with the Tons emitted by Rein König.”

“Really?” Hazel breathed an impressed sigh while looking up at Sylphide floating overhead. “Then is the only problem whether I am a good enough Tuner to pull it off?”

“Correct. Since you are a Tuner, you must correct the contradictions in history and control everything from the past to the present. And this control must be carefully done because you need to preserve a present day where the Panzerpolis Project happens and where the next you is given a choice similar to the one where you become a Tuner.”

So…

“So I think whether or not you go to the past should be a choice made by you alone.”

“Thank you for your kindness.”

She smiled bitterly and bowed toward Elrich.

He wasn’t sure how to respond, but finally nodded and held his head high.

The bald-headed elderly man seated next to him jabbed him in the hip. That was Intelligence Division Chief Witzmann.

“Since when were you so bashful?”

“Shut up, youngster.”

The bitterness left Hazel’s smile when she saw those two exchanging jabs.

Then she walked toward the others, holding Rein König in both hands behind her and trying to remain cheerful.

She viewed all those people seated below the windy night sky.

Corelle, Coolers, and the various AIF battalion commanders were there from the AIF. Elrich, Witzmann, Müller, Jeanne, and some other deputy chiefs were there from the Geheimnis Agency.

Schweitzer and Lowenzahn were not with them yet. Lowenzahn was still being checked over by the doctor.

But Hazel walked up to the one man who had removed himself from that ring of people.

The black-clad young man sat with his back to the others.

Part 10

Hazel crouched to Berger’s left, looked at his face in profile, and asked a question.

“Um, Berger?”

She waited three seconds, but he didn’t respond.

“Um,” she repeated. “Aren’t you going to answer, Berger?”

Still nothing.

She sighed and let her shoulders droop before gabbing his left ear and tugging.

“Ber – ger!”

“Ow, ow, ow! What is wrong with you? The Wild Hund’s ears don’t stand up, so stop pulling like that.”

He brushed off her hand and she smiled.

“So you can hear me. Then you need to answer. I have something important to discuss with you.”

She kept smiling, but he looked less than pleased.

“Something important? You mean your decision, right?”

“Oh? If you knew what I wanted, why were you ignoring me?”

“Oh, come on.” He jerked his chin toward her face without any change of expression. “Take a look at your face. I can tell you’ve already made up your mind.”

“Eh?” She set down Rein König and touched her face.

“See what I mean?” said Berger. “That bashful old fart was afraid to make you choose, but you’ve already got the look of someone who’s itching to get started.”

He was right. The smile she felt on her face was just like that.

…I’m just so happy I can do this the way I most wanted to.

When she thought back on everything that had happened – especially what had happened in Borderson – the smile grew.

“If I do this, I can stop the Wheel of Destiny…and everyone can stay almost entirely unchanged.”

She removed her hand from her face and moved in front of Berger while still crouched. She tilted her head.

“But are you worried for me?”

“Course I am.”

“But I’m not as dumb as you think I am.”

“I’d noticed. Your way dumber than I ever could’ve imagined.”

Once he said that, Corelle turned around from the ring of people.

She looked to Hazel and spoke with some exasperation on her face.

“I hate to interrupt your flirting, but have you made your decision? If Hazel is going to the past, then you’re going with her, aren’t you, Berger?”

Elrich nodded.

“Most likely, the German Tons placed inside them will react when the Spacetime Tons are tuned and returned to the ley lines. The History Tons in there will resonate with the Spacetime Tons and they might tear you apart if you don’t travel through time with them.”

“Looks like you get to enjoy a nice trip through time together,” said Corelle.

But Berger shook his head and frowned.

“That isn’t happening. I don’t think those are inside me anymore.”

His tone and his words wiped the smile from Hazel’s face.

She took a breath, lowered her head just a bit, and muttered, “So he noticed.”

“Yes,” she said out loud. “During our Live Session, I swapped out the German Lives inside him that weren’t affected by the serum with the ones inside me that were affected by the serum.”

“Did you think the Wild Hund shouldn’t be bound by anything? Not by this country and not by you?”

She nodded, bit her lower lip, and looked away from him.

She looked to the Sylphide’s cockpit so far above. That cockpit was built for the Messiah and it only held one.

“I think this is the happiest choice. It just requires some patience from me. So…”

She lowered her gaze to look Berger in the eye.

She smiled and then reached out her hand to take his.

“I will do everything I can to make it work. Once I end up in the past, I will write letters to you in the AIF. And when I return to the present, I will go to Borderson and call myself Lehrer. And…”

“And then go to Hamburg last month?”

“Yes,” she said firmly, squeezing his hand. “But I don’t intend to sacrifice myself. I will go to the past, return to the present, and then do all the things I wanted to do after the war.”

She kept his hand in hers and asked a question of him and the others behind him.

“Maybe I’m being selfish, but are any of you willing to help me?”

Part 11

“You only have to do it if you want to. Please make your own decisions.”

Hazel smiled a little, let go of Berger’s hand, and stood up.

Then she slowly, slowly looked around at the others.

But none of them responded right away, so she asked again, still smiling.

“What do you say?”

“Yes, ma’am,” replied a Heavy Barrel on the rear of the two-hull warship flying alongside them.

The speaker named himself before she could turn that way.

“Geheimnis Agency Army Division Chief ‘Eisen Panzer’ Karl Schmitt reporting in. I agree with the Messiah.”

A short man responded by standing up from the ring of people. That was Müller.

“Air Force Division Chief ‘Standhaft’ Herbert Müller reporting in as well. I will provide what little assistance I can.”

Someone else nodded next to him. Elrich pulled some plans from his pocket and breathed an exasperated sigh.

“Development Division Chief ‘Dachs’ Konrad Elrich. I will help to clean up my own tech’s mess.”

Witzmann pursued each of them with the click of a camera each time.

“I, Intelligence Division ‘Hellsehen’ Galue Witzmann, shall serve you for my own amusement and for the practical benefit.”

“Pipe down. We got to know Hazel before any of you,” said Corelle with a shrug and an exaggerated look of annoyance. “Not a fan of working with the Geheimnis Agency, but AIF Aerial Division Corelle Sevan is with you to the end.”

“Same. I don’t like a lot about this, but AIF Army Division Robert E Coolers is in too.”

It wasn’t just the ones who spoke aloud. The volunteers stood up and turned to face Hazel.

Then a higher-pitched female voice spoke up.

“Geheimnis Agency Commander ‘Neue Erde’ Lowenzahn Naylor will be serving the Messiah too.”

A hatch on the upper armor opened and Lowenzahn emerged wrapped in a blanket.

Schweitzer helped support her and nodded toward Hazel.

Lowenzahn smiled with just her lips and viewed the others.

Her eyes stopped on the black color standing up in front of Hazel.

That was Berger.

He sighed and looked her in the eye with a look of defeat on his face, but then he spoke.

“You’re being way too selfish here, Hazel.”

She didn’t say a word. She only listened to him call her name.

“But I will protect you, even if it won’t last long, Hazel Mirildorf.”

Part 12

At 3:59 AM, the RB-21 and Sylphide, with Hazel and Berger on its roof, accelerated through the western sky toward Borderson.

Schweitzer, Bermark, and Lowenzahn rode the Neue Silber transport ship and flew toward Germania’s clouds accompanied by Neue Blau and Neue Zinnobar.

They had decided the Tuning would have the smallest margin of error if the changed object was removed as far as possible from the location of the scattering, so their job was to pin the dragon in place.

Everyone else moved to the German land where the Live breakdown had begun. They equipped themselves as they saw fit and formed a straight-line formation that created a path from Germania to the North Sea.

Their plan was simple: intercept the ACBS when it arrived from the North Sea, use Sylphide’s Panzer Emblem to consume its destructive power and the scattered earth and structures, and create their own dragon large enough to compete with the Tragisch dragon.

The anxiety Lives would be destroyed using the power taken from the ACBS and the Spacetime Lives would be tuned using Sylphide’s Panzer Emblem.

If they pulled that off, the anxiety would be negated and history could continue on into the future.

Their acceleration route was a 150-mile line that passed through Borderson on the way to Germania.

At 4:20 AM, Sylphide was waiting on the border with Poland when it spotted a small light in the west and its engine gave a roar.

The RB-21 noticed the ACBS as well, so it accelerated out ahead. The atmospheric rift created by the RB-21’s passage allowed the blue ship to accelerate without having to worry about a wall of air in front of it.

Far in the distance, the great dragon released a short roar that resembled a pulse.

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