3

Chapter 3

A total of 11 thousand hours of piloting a GINN should be enough for Marcus to feel just right to pilot this machine.

The reason why Coordinators, the genetically enhanced humans, went with a humanoid machine of that size was that their number is only in a few hundred million while natural humans who have Earth have numbers in a few billion.

Making the space-dwelling humans at a massive disadvantage in any sort of war.

This is where GINN came in, the thing about these machines is that they are fast, their thrusters are quite huge, and Kiana who was playing the game realised one thing… That these machines have unique abilities. Especially the Gundams.

The girl fell in love with Gundam Destiny, the Mech has a huge sword and is extremely fast with that thing! it moves so fast that it can leave after images of Its movement.

This reminded her of her Herrscher form! One could say that it's a consolidation price if she can't use her Flamescion form then she will have a huge Mech with a 15 meters long sword cleaving through stuff…

Oh, and it has a positron beam and a pseudo-perpetual Engine…

'No wonder Mark wants these… Even a regular Gundam is leagues above stuff built by Anti-Entropy!'

The girl giggled as she started to play with GN Drive-powered machines. She wants to see what the fuss is about these particles…

The first thing she notices is the particles… These machines don't have thrusters, these things are moving by emitting particles… It's kinda cool. But green is ain't her colour… She needs to ask Mark if they can change the colours. If they can then she is on board to get one of these.

Apart from that she tried out the special move when the action bar was full… This was where she noticed the 'TRANS-ARM' mode, the machine releases all the stored particles at once. Making the machine move faster and using any particle-orientated move is much-much stronger. It was OP in her opinion.

Then…she tested the Double 00 machine… She was blown away…the thing was a hack. Like using the Boss character to slaughter regular units… It was not fair… It's like using Herrscher form to slaughter pigs…

Regardless, she understood what this technology can do… Just using the Twin Drive system, means two perpetual motion engines emitting four times the amount of particles! Four times! This thing can spam AoE attacks and use beam sabers the size of skyscrapers…

Honestly, she imagined this system in her future Destiny Gundam… For a second some drool appeared in her mouth. Then she thought to ask Bronya to install some sort of autonomous mode that could assist her in a battle, while she would do her thing in her Herrscher form… It will be glorious.

'I only need to ask Mark to make this thing emit blue or red particles and I am all set to save the world.'

As she was daydreaming about her future in world-saving business Marcus finished his 'training session'.

Bronya was sorta, kind of, waiting for him to finish his simulations. She wants to see the data, specifically how fighting in this world works.

Though she didn't expect to see…several terabytes of video footage just… appear on the hard drive.

'Marcus Goldman… Mad as subject Kiana… Maybe even worse… Worrying…'

As she was trying to process him using his time powers to such an extent Marcus exited the simulator pot.

"Oh, Bronya, you 've been waiting for me?"

"...Yes. What happened? There are approximately 3 Terabytes of footage in the hard drive." She said while scrutinising him. She is wondering how long he was inside this thing! Not that she is going to tell him that she is worrying about his mental well-being.

"500 days of GINN piloting should get me above-average performance to get some good stuff. By the way, I have prepared some simulations for Kiana, she wants to pilot one of the Mechs as well." As he said that he stretched out for a bit. Sitting for a year makes him for a second forget how to walk. It was strange but he will quickly re-adjust.

'Hmm…maybe I should check on Kiana…I haven't seen that adorable girl for a long time.' Yes, he has not seen her for over a year. He has not developed to the point that he can casually gloss over a year and a half yet. Though his head is full of targeting and firing, predicting opposing Mech movements, and stuff like that.

He needs to refresh himself for a bit.

"...500 days…" Bronya mumbled to herself. She did not expect this… This guy…

"Yes. I am going to take a break. See you later." He said that while walking over to her, patting her head affectionately before walking towards the lifts.

Bronya frowned to herself, she expected it but she didn't dodge, her brain wanted but her body didn't want to dodge.

"It appears Bronya is malfunctioning…means to fix this…unknown…"

~~~

As Bronya was thinking of solutions to her problem Marcus arrived at the living room he ended up sitting on the couch and simply looking at what Kiana was doing, the girl was playing those Hack and Slash games.

Honestly, he only played this one until he fully levelled up his favourite characters and beefed up their mechs. He left the other ones at level 1. He never got a Platinum trophy on these types of games.

He might like to collect certain things but he has preferences on such things. That's why he is not thinking about collecting all the technology available, only the ones which he wants. Though with an infinite amount of time, he might get all one would want.

"Mark! You are here!" The moment Kiana noticed him she swiftly went to his side and ended up sitting next to him. The cable of the PS3 controller is long enough so she was able to do that.

Once she was next to him she started to explain with an excited tone.

"Listen! These Gundams are awesome! Truthfully I thought they were going to be boring, slow moving things Anti-Entropy usually uses. But I was dead wrong! They are super fast and have unique weapons and some sort of abilities! They are cool! But the way… Is Seed Destiny the sequel to Seed? You're going to Seed right!? Is it possible to get Gundam Destiny!?" The more she talked the more excited she was about this.

Honestly, normally she wouldn't be that hyped up but now she realised that whatever techy game they have they can visit! It's super cool!

Though Marcus just smiled and decided to explain to her a few more things.

Not that he needed much to do that as she already knew the general picture. War and stuff, the only reason she asked is that she had a small amount of hope that he could get her Gundam Destiny.

It would be very easy for him! Just go there and use his time powers. Two years into the future and BAM! He is in the sequel where this Mech gets made.

"...You know…if I cheat like this it would become boring very quickly…" He said to her with a sigh.

"B-But you use your time powers constantly!" She reasoned with him.

"Not truly. Now think this way. If I use it like that and the next world I have would be another few sets of Gundam Seed or Gundam Seed Destiny… I would not have a serious reason to go there. It would be just pure resource gathering… It kinda loses purpose. That's why I am only using my powers to prepare and just develop the technology."

As she heard that the girl just crossed her arms for a bit processing what he said, for a second she pouted but in the end, she just sighed and gave up.

"I guess…we can do that?" She said that with a disappointed sigh.

Marcus that moment patted her head.

"Cheer up. Learn to plot like the back of your hand and you will be able to know where the Gundam appears and where you can steal it for yourself. This way it's better than just me giving it to you." He said with a smile.

The girl snorted before starting to laugh. Not minding his head pats.

"...Can't believe how casually you said 'steal' an 18 metres mech."

"Hmm? Don't you steal food from the kitchen all the time?"

This time she stiffed for a bit, before looking away.

"Food is food. It is supposed to be eaten."

"And Mech is supposed to be used for Greater Good. You would pilot it not just in a single timeline but a multitude of those. So, I think it's better this way. No?"

"...Yes…I suppose…I can't believe I am agreeing to this. Sorry, Shin but I guess I will have to take your machine." Kiana apologised to the Gundam Destiny pilot beforehand. She will do that again in the future face-to-face.

While they were talking and spending time like this. Mei, who was in the kitchen area, looked at the pair very curiously. She is very interested in the pair's progress. Not the video game one, but the progress of their… bonding?

Kiana never had a high opinion of guys and it was very obvious that the White Haired girl had a huge crush on Mei.

So it's curious for the purplish black-haired girl to see if Marcus will be able to make Kiana grow up from that.

This was because while Mei saw Kiana as her most important person she never went as far as Kiana IN that direction.

She only smirked seeing that the space between them was quite nonexistent as Marcus was telling the white-haired girl some stuff while Kiana was nodding AND playing at the same time.

'He does know how to make her learn… I wonder how much did he understand about her to make her truly pay attention to 'boring' stuff?'

~~~

Time moved on and all the stationary things got an upgrade. No more ancient-looking wall terminals, instead it was solid glass holograms. Something which the trio is quite familiar with.

Apart from that Marcus used all 100 episodes of Gundam Seed and Destiny to create actual simulations of certain situations based on the series. This was mostly for the three girls to understand the world since he most likely will be visiting it quite a bit to collect the loot from it.

The creation process of the scenarios was quite interesting as in the process he created proper 3D images of the machines, an actual database on them before they even were invented. He saves quite a bit of time once he gets the parts he can easily sort them out and store them away properly.

In the end, it's all about efficiency.

"Well, if my guess is right I will be gone for just a few hours. Bronya as we have discussed before I want you to come up with a design for a sniper rifle with the technology we have.

Once we have a foundation to work with we can alter it accordingly."

"Why a sniper?" Kiana asked curiously she does know what a Mech can do with a huge sniper but still…it was a random question because she didn't know what the pair were discussing she felt like she was left out!

"Because it's good for removing things," Marcus said with a shrug. He is planning to keep one just in case he will have a good chance to nail a mech or remove unwanted targets.

The point of that is like a hunter who hits their target. The body left after is the loot. The same could be said in mech fights. Remove the dominant arm and the head and he can collect the rest.

The issue though is the pilot… Some of them can self-destruct if they realise it's pointless to fight.

"...I guess?"

"Roger, Bronya has a few ideas in mind."

Marcus nodded at her before looking at Kiana who was slightly pouting at him!

Internally he sighed and patted her head. This made her pouting disappear and instead, she got self-conscious.

When the silver-haired saw that, she without thinking started to just STARE at him. Waiting for her turn even if she didn't know.

The teen noticed that immediately, took a step toward her, and did the same thing to her.

Now Kiana looked at Bronya as if she stole her food!

"Not to be left behind…" Marcus said that with a smile as he moved towards amused Mei.

The girl had a look of shock as she instantly started to blush with some embarrassment. She knew that he would do the same thing to her!

"W-Wait!"

He didn't wait and patted her head as well.

"..."

"Good girl."

Mei just looked at the ground. She didn't know what to say.

"By the way, nice choice of clothes, it looks beautiful."

That extra compliment made her blush grow even bigger. At that moment Raiden Mei realised that Marcus is dangerous. Like super dangerous how smooth he was. No wonder Kiana got so quickly taken by him?

He doesn't even understand what he is doing or he is doing that on purpose.

Though she doesn't understand that he is so nice to all of them because he knows that they lack attention because of how bad their world is.

Honkai didn't give them time to take a breather and just do their things. This is why he is so lazy with his actions. He is giving them time to just relax and do their things.

"Gah! You commented on Mei's clothes but not mine!?" Kiana reacted first to this as she swiftly appeared next to him, for second he wondered if she used her void powers just to do that.

Which should be impossible…

"Check out this hoodie!" As she said that the girl pulled the hood on, showing her cat ears.

"Cute right!?"

Marcus just chuckled before patting her head through the hoodie.

"Yes, Kiana is just adorable." He played along, though it was too much for her as her cheeks went atomic. The teen just pulled a super effective move on her, 4x over as she instantly pulled back.

"GAH!"

At that moment she pointed her finger at him.

"You don't just say that so casually!"

"You want me to lie?" He asked with a raised eyebrow. Marcus is just messing with her at this moment, as it was starting to get amusing by this point.

"...No!...I mean…I don't know!?"

"Then just accept it." He took a step forward and was about to continue with patting but Kiana realised that she was fighting a losing battle. It was time to retreat and rethink her plans!

"Umm…I have places to be! Mechs to destroy! See you Mark later! Bring a GINN for me!" As she said that she swiftly turned around and just dashed toward the lifts.

"As adorable as ever." He said that out loud, that moment Kiana's steps faltered, it felt like Marcus delivered one last attack before leaving. Though she didn't stop as she continued to run away.

Seeing that she is not stopping the teen looked at Mei and Bronya who were looking at the interactions of those two with curious amusement at least in Mei's opinion.

"You do know how to make her self-aware of things." The oldest of the trio said with a small giggle.

"I do? Honestly, I am just going along and making sure she gets the attention she wants." He said with a shrug.

"...that maybe so—"

"It is, same with you."

Once again he patted Mei for a second. Before looking at his Mech.

While he looked at his GINN, Mei once again looked at the ground. She was wondering what he said while trying to fight the blush.

Does she want attention? She has no idea! There was never time to think about such a thing. Or if anyone ever pointed out…

"Anyway girls, see you in a few hours."

"...Take care," Mei said with a serious nod. She did that from sheer instinct by this point.

"Bring some interesting things for Bronya." While Bronya wants some spare parts. It's time for her to make a robot, she kinda misses her Project Bunny.

"Sure. I will bring at least a mountain of metal. It should be enough for you to have some fun."

To his words, the silver head girl simply nodded. Though one could see some happiness in her eyes.

~~~

As Marcus boarded the GINN the hatch behind him sealed up. He got into the seat and got himself comfortable, with a single button the three screens lit up. The ZAFT symbol appeared on the screens before changing into an outside view.

The teen pressed another button and the machine was released from its hold, he then proceeded to walk toward where the Weapon racket was.

He picked up the standard edition rifle and the Grand Slam sword.

While he was doing that he remembered something quite important.

Thankfully the trio didn't leave, they were watching him.

"I forgot to do something important. We haven't established the rules on how we are going to behave in our salvage operations." The GINN pilot said via the loudspeaker.

Not only that but he could easily pick up what Mei was saying.

"What do you mean?" She said loudly.

"I mean, we will be going to places where people will try to kill us. And knowing you three you would not kill them back." He said that while the Mech sheathed its sword on the hip.

"That's why…I am going to use my time powers actively, You three will be able to go all out without worries that you three by accident will someone while following my orders."

The trio's eyes for a second widened before they had realized their look. They completely forgot that they will be fighting people without Honkai… it's not what Valkyries stand for…

That moment of relief washed all three of them… though… Bronya wasn't that bothered… as an ex-assassin…though she is still against killing random people.

"My thanks Marcus, though what are you going to do? Can you even do that on a huge scale?" Mei asked curiously… Just how powerful are his time powers!?

"Don't worry about the details. My powers depend on what I want…" He said that vaguely as alarms started to blare up. The GINN stepped on the catapult launch pad.

The tunnel lit up in red led lights at the end of it he could see a white portal opening

Then switched to orange before switching to green a loud horn-like sound spread through the hangar area.

Before launching Marcus saw that Kiana didn't leave, she was sitting on the edge of the elevated area. One could say she was seeing him off in a tsundere-like fashion.

The teen just snorted in amusement seeing her doing this, she is just adorable, he then pressed the trigger button which activated the catapult pad, and it started rapidly accelerating at the portal.

~~~~~~Gundam Seed, Battle of Alaska~~~~~~

As he was launched through the white portal what he saw on the other side was an ice-cold snowy forestry area. It appears he was launched at the back of the base. The invasion was on the front where the river enters into the Bering strait.

His GINN landed slightly and opened up the area. He activated the sensors.

"Oh my, what a pleasant surprise."

Marcus smirked as he saw that his radar started to pick ZAFT IFF signals!

He saw one by one ZAFT forces start to appear either from orbital descent or launched from the submarines.

"I thought that my model was just randomly generated but it appears it was stolen instead. The IFF still works.

I can use that to get close, pretty sure they will send several groups to finish me off, if I am lucky…they can send Duel after me."

As he said that a grin appeared on his face. He was betting on that! He even wanted to use his time powers to see to the possibility of that. But he controlled himself and didn't do that.

Without thinking much he started to fly toward units marked as green units. To his 'buddies'.

Though his flying was in short bursts as his GINN doesn't have powerful thrusters to have a continuous flight inside the planet's gravity well. For that…he is planning to get a toy.

Eventually, his eyes landed on a group of GINN which started to engage the defences of Alaska's base. The Alaska base was the HQ of Earth's Alliance which means the defence of this place was the most secure.

Then all hell got loose as the fire was opened back, and cannons, tanks, and all sorts of weapons fire spread through the area. Though Marcus didn't pay too much attention to any of that. He was quite used to all of that.

Instead, his eyes were on the gliders used by ZAFT's GINN.

His GINN's hand went for the Grand Slam Sword on his Mech's hip.

"It's time for Treason!"

The teen said with quite an amused tone. He never was part of ZAFT but…oh well…

His GINN then swung the sword at the ZAFT GINN and chopped the legs off.

"What the!?"

The pilot exclaimed with disbelief and shock via Comms.

"Friendly fire! We have a traitor! How could you join those disgusting naturals!" The other four GINNs opened fire on Marcus' suit. But it used the thrusted to the max and burst forward and with a flip, it landed on the glider.

"...Does this make me the Green Goblin of Gundam Seed Verse? Hmm, a discussion for later. But anyway…time to start gathering my loot.

The rules are very simple, once the Mobile suit is incapable of fighting… The pilot is teleported out, we don't want the interior to be stained with blood after all."

As he said that he switched his sword to his left hand while his right one will be holding the standard edition bolt rifle.

Though there was not much time as the now hostile GINNs tried to take him down. Though with the glider he could now fly around to dodge.

'This thing is great. The gravity was always the issue for the GINN.'

Marcus blasted off to dodge the bullets before turning around and starting to fire back.

A grin appeared on his face as he felt very natural at doing all of this. The moment he locked on he released a short burst of bullets.

Shredding one of the GINN's main cameras. He didn't stop as he swiftly targeted another one and did the same thing.

This left two more GINN who started to do battle tactics on him. Taking evasive manoeuvres and trying to pincer move on him. Trying to attack from the left and right sides of his.

'Yeah…but no… I had to experience this for over a year…if you think this basic going work…'

The pair were doing this to make Marcus falter, instead, he just focused on one machine and shot down the rifle while then charging at the incoming GINN. He used his sword to chop the head of this GINN.

This led to a small explosion which made the GINN fall into the forest below. The pilot was already back in the Submarine from which it had launched.

Marcus was wondering if he already started to cause chaos in the ranks of ZAFT forces.

The more they are confused the more he could have the resources.

Once he took out that GINN it only left him and one member of this GINN squad.

"What the hell!? Why is an Ace like you are piloting a standard edition GINN!? And —"

Seeing his chance Marcus sniped the main camera of the GINN before destroying the rifle of the soldier's machine.

This meets his self-imposed rules which allowed the guy to be teleported out of the suit and right back into its launching ship.

Well… it's not teleportation, it's more like a rewind of time. For the pilot.

"This makes five GINN and five gliders." As he said that he landed on the ground and started to do some manual labour bringing all five mechs to one spot, piling one on another.

As he was doing that he started to think about how he will deal with the trap set in the Alaska base. The fanatics in Earth Alliance decided to destroy their HQ and take the whole invasion force of ZAFT. Even as the bait they used one of their state of art vessels to draw in more of the space-dwelling people forces.

It's great and all that, but Marcus is not here to play war or pick a side. He is here to get the loot.

Though as he was doing all that labour he realised that he has no set rules on how to return or do some sort of objective.

"Right…time pause."

That moment stopped and he summoned his black book and pulled out a pen.

He opened the book and the pages were empty. As he asked the book to clean up the pages.

"So, let's go with basic sort of requirements? Like those Sandbox games. Loot, destroy, and acquire stuff."

As he said that he started to write the 1.1 version of his 'diving system'.

A few moments later a notification sound rang and a familiar window screen appeared in front of him.

[Salvage Operation]

[Take down a mobile suit and prepare it for removal]

[Requirements to leave the area: At least a single mobile suit or 24 hours]

[Time left: 23 hours 45 minutes, paused]

"Looks good for the alpha stage, in future we can work to make it more complex." He thought while checking the notification. After inspecting it he dismissed the window and resumed the time flow.

His gaze went to the battlefield raging above Alaska's wilderness.

Without thinking much about it he went back to his glider and then started to fly to look for more targets.

'Duel…where are you? This is going to take ages if I continue like this…' He then tried to look at the IFF screen but he still doesn't quite get how it works. He knows Green is on 'his side' and reds are the Earth Alliance but this is just basics.

'I guess I will pretend to be a ZAFT soldier for a bit.'

Sure enough, he did just that, he joined a squad of GINN and started to assault the Earth Forces. It was even embarrassing for him how easy it was to deal with them. They have no Mobile Suits at this point and time. Only tanks and some basic mobile armour.

One GINN can easily take down five to six tanks with a few salvos of their Bolt Rifle. The only way the naturals can fight back is with surprise attacks.

Though his fun only lasted for around an hour as then he heard the familiar voice of Kira Yamato over open comms.

"Everyone stop fighting! There is a Cyclops system hidden in Alaska's base! It's going to explode soon!"

As Kira said, he made his mobile suit start shooting in all directions to get the attention of all forces.

"Well… that's my cue…." Marcus was the first one to stop stomping on the Earth Forces and started to fly toward Freedom Gundam.

He is not planning to fight this beast. That thing has around 6 to 8 times the power of a GINN, it's simply not a fair fight.

His target was something else, it was Gundam Duel, the Gundam who made a stupid mistake and went on to face Gundam Freedom.

The exchange was absurdly short as Kira who was piloting the Freedom smashed by kicking it away opposing Gundam and then proceeded to chop the legs off with a simple beam slash. The whole thing lasted less than five seconds.

Seeing that it was his time Marcus flew swiftly and grabbed Gundam Duel which was falling into the delta of the river.

Since the Machine was sorta… totaled? It fit the rules and he simply teleported the always-angry pilot of Gundam Duel back to its ship.

"My Thanks Kira Yamato."

Marcus, being a nice guy, thanked the Gundam Freedom pilot before flying towards his stash with new loot in his hands.

Kira, who thought that he thanked him for the reveal about the Cyclops system, could simply nod to himself.

"...Wait…how does he know my name?" Kira asked himself as he saw the GINN flying away in a strange direction… Well, it doesn't matter as long as they get away…from this location.

And so…Kira never learned who thanked him… it was a strange end of the battle of Alaska for him.

~~~

An extremely loud sound spread through the whole Garage Dimension.

The trio who were doing their things felt a metal grinding sound that sent heavy goosebumps through their spines!

Kiana who was playing another match on PS3 jumped on her feet from sheer surprise.

"WHAT WAS THAT!?" She said with a borderline hissing tone. She was like a cat on whose tail someone stood.

"It came from the main hangar area! It sounded like something heavy dropped on the ground." Mei said that with a frown as she looked toward the source.

"...Hnnn…It sounded like metal, Marcus Goldman should have returned." Bronya said with a deadpan tone.

"Let's check out." Kiana with a giddy tone has put the controller down. She was happy to pause it here as she was losing against the silver-haired girl anyway…

Kiana thought she would have an advantage as her mech was higher level and had better equipment but Bronya constantly sniped her from distance. It was not fair!

Anyway, the trio rushed to the Hangar. What they saw made sense for that loud bang.

It was around a 50-metre-tall mountain of metal. On the top of it, Marcus' GINN was sitting leisurely

"Phew…that was close. I was nearly cooked alive." Marcus exclaimed via the comms of the mech as the pair approached the pile of metal.

"I-Is that a Gundam!?" Kiana who spotted the iconic head of a Gundam exclaimed with shock did he get one of those!? But his mech should have no means to damage with the current weapons he has!

~~~~~~Meantime…Back In Gundam Seed World~~~~~~

One moment he was about to face that pesky pilot of Strike who had a new toy. Next moment he was back in the changing room!?

"What the actual fuck!?"

The silver-haired teen and pilot of Gundam Duel exclaimed with confusion and serious anger.

"That Bastard! Whatever tricks he is doing I am going to get him for it! Damn you Strike Pilot!!!"