Picking immediately up where we left off before, even with some repeat dialogue
Varie: "Don't forget, Van.  Your wishes will determine the future of Gaea."
Van: "Mother!"
Varie: "Don't forget, Van."
She spreads her wings and disappears, and a glowing ball of light floats down from the sky.  Van catches it and holds it
Van: "An energist..."
Escaflowne's energist begins glowing, as does the one in Van's hand
Van: "The energist is..."
Hitomi's pendant starts glowing, too
Dryden: "What's that?"
Allen: "Escaflowne is..."
Merle: "Lord Van!"
The pillar of light comes down again and envelops Hitomi
Allen: "Hitomi!"
Well, if you thought that was impressive, a bigger one comes down and envelops Van and Escaflowne.  Allen runs to Hitomi's light
Allen: "Hitomi!"
Millerna: "Wait, Allen!"
Allen runs into the light with Hitomi
Millerna: "Allen..."
And... everyone's gone.  As usual.  Okay, where did they go this time?
Gaddess: "Wh.. what happened?"
Dryden: "I don't know."
Merle: "Lord Van... Lord Van's disappeared."

Pan in on the Zaibach capital.  There's big green glowy test tube things that the Sorcerers are working with.  They're all over the place!  Lava lamps!  Aaaaahhh!
Sorcerer 1: "The energy from the Power Spot is 70."
Sorcerer 2: "The sensitivity of the causality detector is high.  Power's stable.  All functions working well."
Sorcerer 1: "Fate Vibrator has reached its critical point.  The energy charge from the Power Spot, 100.  Flicker rate is 0.3, which is acceptable."
Dornkirk: "Finally, finally the time has come!  The day I've been dreaming of for so long has come.  Redirect fate!"
Sorcerer 1: "Redirect fate."
Sorcerer 2: "Redirect fate."
Sorcerer 3: "Redirect fate."
Sorcerer 3.5: "Redirect fate."
Me: "Redirect fate."
:P  There's some glowing going on among the lava lamps, and Dornkirk's big globe thingy that he always looks into starts to glow like a soap bubble.  The city lights up in a pattern that looks like some sort of archaic symbol.
Dornkirk: "Show me my dream, and me ideal."
Suddenly, everything goes black.  Darn that Dornkirk, he must've blown a fuse :P
Dornkirk: "What's wrong?  Why doesn't it move?"
Did you try turning it on first?  Anyway, at that moment, Dornkirk has a few unexpected guests.  Do I really have to say who they are?
Allen: "Hitomi..."
Hitomi: "Allen, Van... where are we?"
Van runs over to Escaflowne, which is here, too.  Its energist is glowing green
Hitomi: "Escaflowne."
Allen: "It's been brought here with us."
Van: "This light...?"
He tries to touch the energist but gets zapped away.  Behold, Escaflowne now has a built-in bug zapper!
Hitomi: "Van!"
Van: "What's going on?"
Hitomi: "We seem to be in a large structure."
Allen: "Structure?  Now that you mention it..."
Suddenly, the floor starts moving
Hitomi: "The floor's moving."
Like I said...
Dornkirk: "Welcome... you who are tied to the fate of the Dragon."
Van: "Who's that?  Who are you?"
Dornkirk appears in his big metal thingy
Hitomi: "What..."
Van: "Did you summon us?"
Dornkirk: "Yes.  Everything is following fate."
Van: "Fate?"
Dornkirk: "I'll guide Gaea into the future.  I'm the leader of the Zaibach Empire.  My name is Dornkirk."
Allen: "We're in the center of Zaibach."
Hitomi: "Zaibach...?"
Van: "That's the leader of Zaibach...  Because of him, my brother is..."
Van draws Allen's sword (his is still in Escaflowne ^_^)
Hitomi: "Van!"
Van: "If I kill you, the tragedy in Gaea will end!"
Dornkirk: "Is that so?"
Van: "Say what?"
Dornkirk: "War breaks out anytime, anywhere.  War is an unavoidable fate of humanity."
Van: "How could you know the fate of others?"
Dornkirk: "I have the ability to predict fate like the people of Atlantis did."
Hitomi: "Atlantis...?  Are you Isaac?"
Dornkirk: "The name provokes sentiment.  Isaac was my name on Earth."
Van: "A man from the Mystic Moon is the leader of Zaibach?!"
Allen: "The 'Isaac' Father met is..."
Dornkirk: "So, you're Leon's... You're also guided by fate.  How miserable of him.  If he had given us the secret of Atlantis..."
Allen: "Damn you..."
Dornkirk: "But I discovered the secret of Atlantis myself.  I'll complete the Atlantis Machine."
Hitomi: "You.. why did you come to Gaea?  If you hadn't come, everyone would have been happy!"
Dornkirk: "No, it's not true, little lady.  Even Gaea's been flooded by blood, the blood of war, before I came here, just like Earth.  Yes, one day on Earth, I was taken hold of by a question.  Everything shares a common principle.  There's a drawing force that acts between objects.  That's gravity.  I wondered why that invisible force exists in the world."
Yes, if you haven't figured it out by now, "Isaac" refers to Isaac Newton.  ... WHY did they make Isaac Newton, the apple guy, an anime super villian? (Of course, in Physics, you have to study his stuff so much, maybe you grow to not like him ^_^*)
Dornkirk: "People love each other, but kill each other also.  That's the nature of the world.  Death repeats again and again, and there are so many 'orders' in the world.  But what could the origin of the 'orders' be?  That's fate, the fundamental power to sustain the universe."
Hitomi: "Fate?"
Dornkirk: "What is fate and its definition?  Is there any principle?  I devoted everything I had to study and experimentation to solve the mystery.  However, I couldn't deduce the answer."
And therefore went crazy and started spouting stupid calculus jokes like "What do you get when you take the integral of 1/cabin dcabin?  log cabin!  But it's really a house boat, because it's log cabin + C!"  Um, nevermind...
Dornkirk: "My wish never weakened, even at the time of death.  Rather, it increased."
~Isaac~: "I want to know... I want to know the principle of fate."
Dornkirk: "When I awoke, I was in an unfamiliar place.  A ruined place where the moon and a blue moon appeared in the sky.  That was the land of Zaibach, on Gaea.  Barren soil, severe weather, and people who lived by depending on a very limited harvest.  They were scared, and suffered from routine invasions.  What a severe fate.  I realized that I came here to save those people.  I gave everything I had, and the wisdom called science.  I told them to overcome nature.  The science I know was for the sake of the people.  I told them to defeat the enemy, and not to follow fate, but to create their own fate.  People followed my wishes, and an absolutely idealistic country, the Zaibach Empire, was established."
And it looks a heckuva lot like Vector from Final Fantasy 6.  Er, but I digress again ^_^*
Dornkirk: "Then, I came to know the legend of Atlantis, which involves the creation of Gaea.  That was very important to me.  It was the ability of Atlantis to create one's own fate.  Since then, I've devoted all me knowledge to discover the principle, and finally I built a device to create fate!"
You think that's corny, wait'll you see the next episode ^_^*

Dornkirk: "They say the Atlanteans converted people's wishes into power, and controlled their fate.  Yes, Gaea is a creation of Atlantis also."
Allen: "Gaea is Atlantis'..."
Dornkirk: "To activate the device that can create such a wonderful power, I had to find the power of Atlantis.  It was the Power Spot left on Gaea.  It was realized by conquering Freid.  And the last key, the Dragon called Escaflowne, has come to me, following fate."
Van: "Escaflowne is..."
Dornkirk: "And what I've dreamed of, the legendary Atlantis Machine, the 'Fate Redirector', has been completed."
Van: "Fate Redirector...?"
Hitomi: "That's wrong, to change fate using a machine.  You've made so many people suffer to complete this.  That's wrong!"
Dornkirk: "Sacrifice is a necessary factor in creating new fate.  Small misfortune is a foundation for bigger happiness.  If I can create and absolute fortune, everyone will be perfectly happy."
Hitomi: "That's... that's... that's wrong!  It's wrong to become happy using fate created by a machine!"
Hitomi suddenly has a vision of the word blowing up ^_^*  Rather extreme there...  She faints
Allen: "Hitomi!"
Van: "Hitomi!"
Dornkirk: "Observe the people's new fate with me."

Finally, a scene shift.  We're back on Crusade.  Millerna is looking out over the railing
Dryden: "Nothing'll happen even if you keep watching.  We're returning to Asturia.  Gaddess agrees."
Millerna: "You mean we're deserting Allen and the others?"
Dryden: "We have no idea where they've been taken.  It's a waste of time to wander around in the ship, like this."
Millerna: "Waste of time.. You're such a..."
Dryden: "Yes, I am a merchant.  Zaibach is definitely going to destroy Gaea.  I'll stop it in my own way.  I'm sure they'll return."
Millerna: "Dryden..."
Dryden: "People's wishes are connected somehow, aren't they?  I believe that my wish'll come true someday."

Well, that was a nice interlude.  We're back in Zaibach, and the Sorcerers have captured Escaflowne and are examining it
Sorcerer 1: "This is the last key to the Fate Redirector."
Sorcerer 2: "Ispano's guymelef has such power?"
Sorcerer 3: "We have to find its secret, no matter what.  We can't fall any further behind Folken."

Elsewhere, our three heroes are all hanging out in cages hanging from the ceiling.  Hitomi was unconscious, but wakes up
Allen: "You're awake."
Got a knack for stating the obvious, that boy does
Allen: "Are you alright?"
Hitomi: "Where are we?"
Van: "They don't seem to want to kill us, at least for now."
Hitomi: "I saw a vision again.  The land collapsed and the world blew up."
Allen: "It must be and image of the fall of Atlantis."
Hitomi: "I don't know.  But it seemed to be larger..."
Van: "Could it be the future of Gaea?"
Hitomi: "It can't be."
Van: "Mother told me the power of Atlantis shouldn't be resurrected.  If the Fate Redirector is activated, Gaea might follow Atlantis' fate."
Hitomi: "That's..."
Suddenly, Van clutches his chest and collapses, spitting up blood.

Back in the laboratory, the Sorcerers are attempting to pry off Escaflowne's energist crystal

Hitomi: "Van.  What's wrong, Van?"
Allen: "They must have started disassembling Escaflowne."
Hitomi: "No way!"

The Sorcerers have called in the power tools

Hitomi: "Van, hang in there!"
She reaches out to touch Van's hand, then sees Escaflowne's hand twitch
Allen: "What's wrong?"
Hitomi: "That's right.  Van, if you feel Escaflowne's pain, it should work the other way, too.  If your wish reaches it, you should be able to control Escaflowne even if you're away from it."
Van: "Hitomi..."
Hitomi: "I'll help you.  Together, we should be able to do it."
Allen: "It's too dangerous!  You might feel the same pain he is!"
Van: "He's right.  You shouldn't feel the pain.  What're you talking about?  You might die at this rate!  Hurry, give me your hand!"
Van reaches out slowly, obviously in pain
Allen: "Hitomi..."
Hitomi: "It's alright, it' it's Van..."

Dornkirk, the peeping tom, is watching this
Dornkirk: "What are they trying to do?"
The two grasp hands, and the image in Dornkirk's bubble screen telescope thing disappears
Dornkirk: "It's gone!"

Hitomi starts feeling Van's pain as well
Allen: "Hitomi!"
Hitomi: "I'm alright.  Van, imagine Escaflowne.  Imagine it strongly!  Respond, please!"
Van: "Move, please move!"
Hitomi: "Escaflowne, please move."

It seems to have worked.  Escaflowne begins moving on its own and breaks through its restraints
Sorcerer 1: "Amazing.  Why is it moving?"

Dornkirk: "What's wrong?  Why can't I see it?"

Escaflowne dragonizes itself and flies off to save the day

Dornkirk: "Is this because of that girl's ability?"

Back in the dungeon, Van and Hitomi are still holding hands when Escaflowne breaks through the roof and flies down to them
Allen: "Escaflowne..."
Since she's still holding Van's hand, she shakes it in congratulations
Hitomi: "We did it!  We did it, Van!"
Not a moment to spare, and they somehow get out of their cages, and off they go
Allen: "Van, we should get out of this place first!"
Van: "I know."
However, it won't be that easy.  A Zaibach guymelef blocks their path
Van: "A guymelef!  Allen, take care of Hitomi!"
Escaflowne pops back into armor mode, and sets Allen and Hitomi down
Allen: "Van!"
More guymelefs are approaching
Van: "I'll take care of them.  I'll leave Hitomi to you, Allen!"
Hitomi: "Van!"
Van: "Go ahead!  We'll escape from the roof!  Go!"
Hitomi watches him for a moment, deciding she should believe in his ability to pull through on his own
Hitomi: "Alright.  Take care.  Allen, let's go to the roof."
They leave, and Van smiles after him, then immediately gets back to his battle

Meanwhile, the ever-nosy Dornkirk is watching Allen and Hitomi run off
Dornkirk: "I can see them this time, but why?"

Allen and Hitomi run into some soldiers, but Allen swiftly knocks them out
Allen: "Hitomi."
Hitomi: "Right."
Hitomi pulls out her pendant to see which way to go.  To the riiight, to the riiight
Hitomi: "This way!"
Allen: "Alright, let's go!"
Hitomi: "Okay."
They run up some spiral stairs
Allen: "I wonder if Van's safe."
Hitomi: "I think he's alright, since it's Van."
Yeah, you know, he's got that Main Character Shield protecting him.  Anyway, they make it to the roof, and sirens are going off
Allen: "You believe in Van, don't you?"
Hitomi: "Hm?"
Allen: "No, nothing..."
Hitomi: "This city looks sad for some reason.  I wonder if the people of Zaibach are really happy."
However, a group of soldiers appear behind them
Allen: "Here they come.  I won't let you have Hitomi, even if it means my life."
Buuut, it's Van to save the day this time.  He comes flying up on Escaflowne
Van: "Allen, Hitomi, hurry!"
Hitomi: "Van!"
Van: "Hurry!"
Hitomi reaches out to take Van's hand, but Allen picks her up instead and carries her on top of Escaflowne :P
Allen: "Let's go!"
Van: "Okay, hold on tight."
Now the bgm is "Revenge", a rather spiffy march-like version of the Escaflowne theme.  Escaflowne flies over the city, with Zaibach guymelefs close in pursuit
Allen: "They're gaining on us!"
They leave the city limits, but the guymelefs still give chase
Van: "Escaflowne, faster."
Still gaining
Van: "Faster!"
Still gaining.  They charge up their claw weapons...
Van: "FASTER!"
And now we see a case of "Sudden Ability Syndrome".  Esca-dragon's legs retract and its wings fold back and sprout... jet engines!  Yessir, we've got Escaflowne, the jet dragon.  Needless to say, this gives it a rather substantial burst of speed, and it zips away from Zaibach

Dornkirk: "When the Dragon and the girl get close, the vision of the future blurs.  The girl from Earth is the key to solving everything.  I must separate those two."

And, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Folken's just kinda hanging out in his floating fortress
Soldier: "Incoming object, approaching from the direction of the capital.  Unusual speed, be alert."
Escaflowne shoots by, but time seems to slow down for a second so Van and Folken can get a good look at each other.  After a few more seconds, Escaflowne reverts back to its normal dragon form, and never displays this ability again.  Van finally exhales, and Allen is gripping Hitomi in a state of shock
Hitomi: "Allen, that hurts."
Allen: "Sorry."
He lets her go, and they sheepishly look away from each other
Hitomi: "The leader of the Zaibach Empire, Dornkirk, is a man from the Mystic Moon.  Is this the thread of our fate?"