--------Roman--------

That day when my sister ran off into the forest was a day I knew I would never forgive myself: I was her brother, I was supposed to protect her, to keep her safe and away from danger. But I did nothing when she ran off again. I'd just gotten her back and not even two days later she'd run back into the forest.

When she said that this Xaez had been the one that killed Prone I'd been too confused to react, too shocked that she'd been that close to a monster like that and somehow survived, but she seemed terrified of something. Her entire stay at the camp she wasn't acting like the sister I knew: instead of being thoughtful and observant she'd been terrified, fanatic and obsessed with leaving because of one person. This Xaez had did something to my sister, something unforgivable and I vowed then and there, the day she'd fled into the woods, that I wouldn't rest until I'd found and killed them. 

After Kat had left there was a small search party made to track her, but after a mile of following her tracks, and the signs of several other Xeno's and predators in the area they'd had to give up the search and come back. Vance came over to kneel in front of me with a hand on my shoulder, "I'm sorry kid. We couldn't go any further. It was getting too dangerous." I wanted to yell at him to continue looking, that she wasn't like this and needed help, but it wouldn't do anything. She was too far and it was still dark out. 

"Ya sis is a survivor. Even I could see dat," Sasha added, walking past and Stephen came over to kneel by my side. Looking out into the forest as if that would bring her back. 

"Sasha's right Roman. Your sister has survived this long out there, alone or not maybe she just needs some time and well be seeing her again when she's ready." 

The rest of the night went by like that: people coming by and wishing me their condolences, or telling me to believe in my sister, pray for her, keep hope that she's alive and able to come back someday. But I knew--I knew that day was the last time I'd see my sister for who she was then: it wouldn't be the same next time, and I feared how much would have changed next time. 

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-------Kat-------

I can't believe this. I was going on my own. Doing something for The Queen...for Xaez on my own! I couldn't get to the base fast enough, I didn't know where it was, but I knew that Xaez was never wrong in wherever he was going or leading me towards in the past, so it was definitely in this direction--

A light came sweeping over the hill, passing through the trees the short distance ahead and I came to an immediate stop. I'd need to be careful about this. If I wanted to get in and find who I needed to I would need to sneak in first, and they were definitely not familiar with me, and even with me being the size of a large truck I shouldn't have any problems in getting in if Xaez was anything to go by. 

I stalked over the hill, peeking over the edge to look at the base below: there were high wire-lined fences like normal, a lot of tanks and several stations of spotlight towers and what looked to maybe be rocket launching things I've only seen online. I could see what looked like several helicopters near the center building--one of them was even at the very top of the building. The other normal things would be cars, trucks, and plenty of armored people going about with rifles and plenty of other guns. 

The hard part would be staying out of sight here, but I was determined to try the harder route of speaking to the higher ups to get them to leave, over outright destroying everything there. Though if I had to, I wouldn't care about so many people's deaths if it meant that me and Xaez could live in peace here. I started my plan and looked at the base, this was only one of the many surviving bases not only in this country, but around the world too. If I was going to be doing this a lot, some practice would definitely be necessary. 

I spent the next half hour going around the entire base, mentally noting places of entry or points that didn't look checked often, as well as keeping out of sight of those giant spotlights. If I was going to be just storming this place I would've just taken out the lights, then the tanks, then the transport vehicles and those turret things, and it would be a free for all from there pretty much. I might not even have to do any work at that point because I'm sure that some other Xeno's would ultimately join in once all the action starts. 

Once going around the place a few times I set my plan in motion: the next pass of light with a slight change of direction to keep the glare my armor gave off to a minimum I jumped over the fence, hid around the various containers of things and sometimes even a few soldiers, and slowly made my way over to the biggest building. I was thinking I could grab one of those covers they use for vehicles and hope that they didn't check them often, but that was an idea for later if I had nothing else to go off of. 

I made it halfway there when a familiar sound caught my hearing. 

"Can't you do something to try and find my sister? Or at least give me a weapon and some supplies to let me look for her myself?!" Roman was here. I'd completely forgotten about that...should I? No. I definitely shouldn't.  

But it wasn't like the leaders' building, or the leaders themselves were going anywhere...

I turned and followed after Roman, making sure to stick to areas that had the most shadows and trying to keep the natural shine of my armor dulled and moderately unnoticeable. 

"Kid I will not tell you again, drop it. Your sister is gone and any resources spent trying to find a lost cause is a waste of time and valuable man-power at this moment. I am the commander of this company and I will not be told what to do by a kid barely in his teens. You will listen to me when I say that you will not be leaving this base, unless we are attacked and overrun you are staying here." The man looked to be on the edge of yelling at Roman, and I didn't know how to feel about that. Sure I was plenty angry seeing it, as by my claws digging deep grooves into the foundations of the building I was hiding behind, but I didn't want to fail my own premise and have to go the violent way with things just yet. 

But that was a commander after all, so maybe I could just do this quickly and follow his scent afterwards...right? I was about to leave my hiding spot and trail after where my brother was being lead to, when said Commander nearly brushed my nose on his walk towards the big building. 

Huh? That was lucky timing. I snorted in amusement, purposefully to get the man's attention, and he froze in his tracks. Eyes wide and mouth partly open in fear as he turned to face me. I gave him the signature grin I imitated from Xaez and pounced. He immediately went for his gun, whatever papers he was carrying dropped and forgotten about, and I cut off the offending limb before he could even begin to grasp the weapon and grabbed him by the face as to muffle the screaming of pain. 

I had to do this quickly. I didn't want him alerting the others, but I also didn't want him dying of blood-loss until I was done with what I wanted to do. Surely this was the guy in charge of this place right, so asking him a few questions would, by example, lead to the decision of the entire area right? 

Gently I dragged him from the little alley I'd found, and back over the fence, avoiding the lights swinging to and fro as I did so, and going what I assumed was at least a mile out before stopping and making sure he was still alive. And what I mean by that is by dropping him against a tree roughly. He hit the trunk and collapsed to the ground with a shout of pain and started to mull out a whole belt of curses at me. 

I tilted my head this way and that, weighing my options: I didn't want to deal with someone that was swearing at me constantly, but I also didn't know if there was anyone else at his hank or higher in that place, and I wasn't too keen on figuring out a new way in, so I would have to make do with this for now...I guess. 

I'd sneak in again after to see Roman and make sure he was okay. 

I looked at the cursing man leaning against the trunk of the tree, not particularly caring about what came from his mouth at the moment, and making him care more about the giant talon in his leg. Swearing is bad, you should stop old guy. 

It took a moment before he would actually look at the ground towards what I'd written and when he did his face scrunched up and went into a series of different emotions: disbelief and surprise, shock and pain, pain, agony, then fear, and lastly complete fury towards me. Like jeez, I'd only written "Peace?" on the floor and his potty mouth got probably a thousand times worse. 

Bottom line was: "You want Peace? How about the Billions of ------g people that you and your kind have slaughtered in ------g cold ------g blood!? NO! You can go ------- ---- your entire ------n ------g race and ---- off!" 

.And that was putting it nicely; So...yeah, I guess humans weren't going to just leave if asked kindly. Well, whatever, I came to do a task and that was just a little side-addition to said task. Now to the next side-task I wanted to do...Speaking with my brother. 

This will be the last chapter for tonight, and I have something interesting planned for the final events to go down. 

See you in the next one!