"Very good," Shotuku praised Riya as the young girl stepped away from Sigma, her bout against the android complete. Her brow was covered in sweat, thick strands of raven hair clinging to her skin, absorbing the moisture to create bunches. She moved away from Sigma, bowing in respect before grabbing a towel and a cup of tea from Rick.

Porter narrowed his eyes as he watched the pair, permanently suspicious of anything Rick did. "Where did you even get those things on a tropical island?"

Rick looked up from his own cup of tea, staring at Porter over the brim of his drink. "One should always be prepared wherever they go."

"So you're saying you packed up towels and a complete tea set specifically for your trip down to Earth where you didn't know you would never be returning?" Porter's attempt at an accusation came out as nothing more than selfish jealousy, and he received a collective glare from Shotuku, Riya, and Sigma, leaving Rick to simply sip at his beverage.

"Yes." The response bashed Porter over the head, ending his assault on Rick's intentions. It seemed like for every step Porter took towards Riya, he took two steps backwards at the same time, and then tripped over himself trying to move forward again. Were things getting better or worse between them?

"Regardless of baggage we brought with us," Shotuku said, trying to exert his dominance and refocus the group, "we have training to accomplish, and Riya's form looked quite impeccable during that last match-up."

"Well thank you, sir." Riya blushed, a cute red filling her cheeks. Porter had to avert his eyes, switching his view down to his own feet, as he was unable to watch Riya any further without blushing himself. She was just so pretty, so adorable in every tiny detail, that he knew he would lose his focus and swoon if he kept looking at her. "But I don't think I was that good. I'm not very strong after all."

"Nonsense, my dear." Shotuku continued to fawn over the attractive young woman, praising her endlessly and showing her different movements. He would grab her arms, adjusting them into different positions to explain "flow," and all the while Porter seethed. "It is not about strength, but about prediction. Your goal is not to beat your opponent through physical power, but through mental fortitude. You, I believe, have the greatest potential."

"I thought I had the greatest potential," Porter whined, recalling private training sessions with the elder. An angry glare shot down Porter instantly, and he slumped forwards on the log, his eyes roaming around out of boredom. Ardwen and Raul were off elsewhere, along with Nami, and Doctor Roth was near the shuttle on the beach, surrounded by different computers and mechanisms. Even Alpha had disappeared, normally so attentive to Sigma and Roth, she had wandered away under predetermined commands to ensure the survival of all humans on the island. She was probably gathering food or more firewood for the night.

"Now then Porter," Shotuku grumbled, his posture suddenly deflating at the very thought of having to work with the seemingly hopeless teen, "it is your turn once more. This time, try not to go with any flashy light shows."

Porter stuck out his tongue as a response, standing up and stretching a bit as he approached Sigma. His brother barely moved, only endlessly watching Porter with his robotic eyes, the irises shifting and twisting as they adjusted and focused. "I'll get it this time."

"No you won't." Sigma spoke in such a bland manner, his tone completely flat and devoid of emotion. Porter could never tell if the android was messing with him, or seriously couldn't understand the situation. It was strange dealing with a cyborg whose mind was partially mechanical.

"Well, I guess I will just have to prove to both my teacher and my older brother, that I can get this." Porter threw his tongue out at each of them in turn before taking up a fighting stance. He was immediately hit with a punch in his gut, sending him reeling back while doubling over. "W-what...what was that," he wheezed.

"I was authorized to engage in two-way combat." This time, Sigma spoke in his monotone with a grin across his face. "If you are going to get it, you will have to get it while actually fighting me."

"That hardly...hardly seems fair." Porter hadn't been hit like that since he had been bullied by Chase in school, before he had even become a member of the Crisis Rescue Unit or been picked for the mission to Easley. Mixing with the physical pain he felt was the emotional pain of his loss, but he sucked in a deep breath, trying to bury all feeling in his body as he did so, and stood up straight once more. "Fine, we'll do it your way."

"That will be the best way."

* * * * *

Raul felt the warmth of the rock through his clothing. He had chosen this spot on the beach, on a far side of the island without contact with the others. He enjoyed his time alone, and there were certain days where he wished he could return to his prior school days. There had been a time where he had attended Saint Maurius, done all the classes, gone through the training, and been able to sit alone at the back of the class, been allowed to wander to his room and meditate, or to find a private space within the school. Since he had gone down to Easley though, it had always been different.

The sun bathed the young man's body, heating him down to his core. He had always enjoyed the sun, always loved its glow and feel, but he never got chances to experience it anymore. He was perpetually locked away from his escapes, trapped in constant fighting and war. Maybe this movement away from the Enian Federation was a good thing, even though the price had been steep.

Did I kill Chase? Raul rubbed his hand across his face, pulling down on his eyes as he did. It had been him who had been running around Porter at that time. While Ardwen had constructed his plan for the spear formation, Raul had opted into assassinating other targets, scattering himself around while a weakened Porter was forced to lead a charge. Had he been there with them, had he fought alongside them, had he even noticed fast enough that Porter was endangered, could he not have saved them all?

Raul held his hand up in front of his face, imagining the sweat on his palm as little drops of Chase's blood. If this is how I feel, he thought, what's it like to be Porter? There was rustling in the bushes behind him, and Raul instinctively reached down to his belt, ready to pull out any one of an assortment of weapons. This was more than likely a friend, as there were almost no animals on the island but birds, but he could never be too careful.

"Why are you sitting there, Raul?" The question was not sarcastic or malicious, it was not angry or disappointed. It was just a question for the sake of knowledge. This person genuinely wanted to know why he was sitting on the rock, and that meant it could only be one person.

"I am resting Alpha. The sun feels nice."

"Does it?" Alpha seemed to process the information, storing it away for future use. Raul had twisted his head to watch her, propping his chest up on his elbows to do so. "What does it feel like?"

Raul squinted a bit at his compatriot, skeptical about Alpha's capacity. Roth had already explained her situation to them, and it was quite clear she was nothing more than an artificial intelligence, but her constant desire to learn irritated the young man. Why would a normal computer ever want to know so much when it could just download all the information in the world? Every answer to every one of these questions was surely online.

"Your facial expression would indicate you do not trust me. Have I done something that would be considered untrustworthy?"

"No." Raul mulled over the question in his head. It was just his own fears that were clouding his judgement this time. Alpha was a special kind of machine after all, and Sigma certainly showed that the Enigma soldiers had an incredible capacity for retaining both human emotion and computer intelligence. But Syn and Sigma had left many destructive paths in their wake. Without any human thought, what was keeping Alpha from doing the same? "Why are you here then?"

"I am in search of food. Many of the plants will not be ready again for a short period and are to be allowed to grow. Until then, I will be retrieving fish. This area is indicative of containing the highest number of biological organisms that would be classified as fish."

"You could just say there are a lot of fish here." Raul settled back down onto the rock, resting his hands behind his head as he lay on the stone slab. His words shot up into the air, but he knew the robot could hear him even if he just whispered. He didn't have to feel guilty about formalities with a cyborg.

"There are a lot of fish here." Alpha strode past the youth, wading into the water as though she were still walking on land. She went out quite a fair distance before reaching the edge of the island, where the sudden drop began. And then she stood there, completely still and silent. After a while, Raul had to pull himself up again to check on her, making sure she hadn't shut off in the water. As he stared at her, there was a flash, her arms moving in a blur before withdrawing a fish in each hand, their scales glimmering in the sunlight.

"Why are you doing that Alpha?" Raul threw the joke out into the air, half-expecting a response. He knew that the android always had to answer a question, no matter how simple or ridiculous.

"This was the command I was given."

"Do you always have to follow commands?"

"Do you?"

Raul sat bolt upright at hearing this, and gazed out at the cyborg, who was staring back at him. Her once plain features and simplistic design had taken on a more sinister look, and he imagined her blank stare held something deeper behind it. Alpha had never answered a question with a question, unless she needed more information regarding details. That was not a detail-oriented answer; it was a metaphysical one. That was not the answer of a machine.

* * * * *

Ardwen pushed through foliage, enjoying wandering the tiny forest that made up the centre of the island. Through the sparse leaves, he could see the dominating shapes of the Goliaths, all five of them standing shoulder to shoulder along the beach. Gretta would be over there now, working on repairing them all and bringing them back up to speed. Once the battlesuits were fixed, they could take them back across the ocean to the mainland, waging whatever kind of revolutionary war Porter had planned against the Enian government.

The teenager found a small clearing and settled down on the ground, leaning his back against the trunk of a small tree, watching its leaves rustle over his head as he shook its foundations with his weight. It had been a while since Ardwen and Gretta had some private time to develop their relationship further, but he didn't want to disturb her during work. He knew she could become quite focused during those times, and it had resulted in more than one wrench being thrown at his head.

"One day we'll have some peace together," Ardwen mused out loud to nobody in particular. He had found he was a bit more talkative with himself of late, finding solace in his own thoughts. It had always been this way when he had first come to the academy, and even times before that. Being smart, thinking all the time, his brain never stopped, and he always felt he had to relieve the tension inside his head every so often or it would explode. This, the conversations with himself were born.

But they had tapered off of late. Porter had been there, and Gretta, and sometimes even Nami and Raul and Riya. There had even been his contest of bravado against Chase, the one that had left him chasing after Nami, feeling something for another person for the first time in his entire life, the ordeal that had lead him into the arms of Gretta now, someone who really understood his love for Goliaths and his knowledge.

Before he could say anything else to himself, Nami stumbled through a bush, rubbing at her eyes as she tumbled onto the ground at Ardwen's feet. Her tiny head landed on his legs, and she lay there for a moment, her body heaving for a second before she slowly started to move.

"Are you alright Nami?" Ardwen asked, sucking back his own shock at the sudden entrance of the small girl. She turned her head to stare up at him, enormous eyes glossed over with a liquid film, red bordering the whites of her corneas. A blond tuft of hair fell across her dirtied face, her innocence quickly fading from her childlike form as she was continuously exposed to the harshness of reality. It took Ardwen aback, and he saw her for a moment in two lights at once: she was broken and battered, and yet she was older and more mature, carrying a certain beauty with her.

Ardwen blushed, averting his gaze, before Nami answered. "Ye...Yes I'm ok. I'm alright. T-thank you Ardwen." Nami produced a faint smile, one that barely formed across her trembling lips. she sniffled between words as she spoke, clearly battling with the emotions inside of her, and Ardwen could feel his own desires welling up inside himself. On the one hand, Nami was a fragile flower, in need of protection and comfort in this dark time. On the other hand, there was a certain beauty in her state, something he had never seen before.

"That's good." The young man pulled at the girl's shoulders, helping to pull her up slightly. He eventually moved her onto his chest, and she quickly took to using it as a pillow, resting her soft skin against his clothing. "This is about Chase isn't it?"

Nami burst into tears once more, and Ardwen felt the warm liquid seeping into his shirt."Yes, I'll just...I mean he's gone..." Nami spoke between sobs, unable to contain what she had kept pent within herself before. How foolish Ardwen had been, focusing his attention on Porter's guilt instead of on Nami's grief. Nobody had comforted the girl at all, leaving her emotions to fester and boil over.

"I know Nami, we all liked him, even me." Ardwen winced a bit at admitting to his secret joys of having Chase as a bit of a strange friend, but he knew Nami wouldn't spread that fact beyond this moment.

"But I loved him...and now I'll never have that back."

Ardwen sat in surprise for a minute, processing the words that had come out of Nami's mouth. Her tears continued to pour forth, soaking his chest and seeping through to his skin but he didn't stop her. "You loved him? I mean...but you two were barely together that long..."

Nami's head snapped upwards, a slight fury in her eyes that was quickly quashed with sadness. Ardwen was once more taken aback by the sudden sharpness in her looks, the maturity she had seemed to absorb from life. "Don't you love Gretta?"

"Well I mean...that's kind of...it's complicated right?"

"So you don't like her then?" Nami tried her best to raise an eyebrow and impose her power over the conversation, but her expression fell back into crying too quickly, even as she attempted to suck back her tears.

"I like her...you can't just pin...I mean like and love are..." Ardwen continued to flounder around before Nami finally settled back down on his chest, apparently satisfied in watching him struggle. "Look, what happened to Chase was really awful, and I'm sorry that I...I'm sorry I-"

Nami placed a finger on Ardwen's lips, ending his attempted apology. She rose up above his body, stabilizing herself on her knees and one arm, Ardwen's body splayed out beneath her. "Don't say it Ardwen. I know it was nobody's fault in the end. I just didn't want to lose him." As she spoke, her eyes bore straight through Ardwen's piercing into his mind as she stared at him. Before, when she had been looking up, there had been a weakness in her gaze, but now that she was level with him, there was a certain power her eyes possessed.

"Nami, you really did deserve him though." Ardwen's sudden shift in tone surprised the small girl, her massive eyes somehow growing wider upon hearing him speak. "I mean, I saw what he did to try and beat me, to try and be with you. And I know what he did once he had you. Nobody was more loyal, more protective, than Chase. More loving you could even say and...well I think that's the kind of guy someone like you deserves. You're a very unique...umm very pretty kind of...girl...but Chase really earned the right to be by your side."

The two remained motionless, trapped in an endless stare with one another. Ardwen's words hung in the air, his true feelings having been expressed. He really did have a respect for Chase, and for Nami. She had been his biggest rival since they had met in class, and he had always looked up to her in many ways for the effort she put in at her age. As the leader of the former Crisis Rescue Unit though, he had done background checks on all of the members, trying to learn as much as possible about them, and he knew Nami held on to a particularly rocky past. That's why Chase's protective nature had seemed like such a good match for her in the end.

Ardwen's thoughts were cut short as he felt Nami's lips pressing against his own, and he realized her gaze was gone, her eyes now closed as the pair were locked in a kiss. As Ardwen's own eyes slid down, his mind melting away into a bizarre blissful acceptance of what was happening, he felt the cold air rush back to his mouth as Nami pulled away. The little girl's eyes fluttered open, panic suddenly forming on her face.

"That wasn't supposed to happen," she gasped.