"You're going to be intervening outside Cholet." Chandana's arms shot out to either side of her, grabbing the interior of the shuttle so she could steady herself. The Jade Fang had leant them one of their faster ships, but it did not provide a smooth ride. The rest of the students were strapped in tightly to their seats, facing each other, as the craft shuddered once more. "This thing is a piece of garbage," Chandana angrily mumbled, trying her best to kick at the closest thing she could, but the shuttle suddenly swerved through the air and nearly sent her flying. "I'll take Ling's head in compensation when I get back."

The rest of the students gulped on behalf of the doomed rebel leader, and the boys nervously crossed their legs, suspecting where Chandana would strike on the man.

"You're going to be stuck in the open a bit." Chandana pulled up a projected map in the centre of the carrier. "Much of this area used to be a little more populated with forests and pretty scenery, but human development wiped most of it. The Artisans only replanted trees in more populated areas, but out here in rural sections, nobody cares."

"How come you know so much about the Confederate if you're the leader of an Enian rebellion?" Ardwen scoffed, chucking a bit to himself before withering under a glare from the woman.

"We have some connections there, a few friends among the Silver Lance." Chandana shook her head at the constant ignorance and buffoonery she was surrounded by. She had never expected to be rescued from prison in the manner she was, and had assumed that someone with the resources to control multiple battlesuits, two of the powerful androids, and a Circuit Breaker would be a powerful individual capable of uniting the rebel factions in each country and driving forwards a global revolution. Instead she had goofy kids lead by their hopeless champion. "Wait, where is Porter?"

Heads began to swivel in the seats. It had never come up that Porter hadn't been with the group when they had left or done any planning; it just was assumed he would be around. "Come to think of it, I really haven't seen him for the past few days." Riya's innocent voice helped to dull Chandana's fury at Porter's absence, but the woman was still grinding her teeth.

"He left for specialized training with a specific teacher," Raul said, in a very matter-of-fact manner, as though nothing were out of place.

"How come you never mentioned that," Chandana growled. The only reason she wasn't strangling Raul was because she needed her arms to keep herself balanced in the shaking ship.

"I thought you knew, since you usually talk with Shotuku and Sigma."

Chandana gulped down the rest of her anger, recalculating and figuring out her new plan. While she did, all eyes turned to Nami, quizzical looks plastering the faces of the students. "What?" was all she said in response to the sudden stares.

"Well you are his stalker, after all."

"Sure, and I have notes on it right here." The little girl pulled out a notepad, turning it around to show everyone. Everything grew quiet as the page was examined, then some snickering began. Confused, Nami took a look at the page she was showcasing, her face running red as the notebook was littered with hearts and doodles of Chase. "You're all just jealous. I mean, he was my boyfriend after all." She rustled through the notes until she was showing the correct one, a page that indeed identified Porter leaving the island for training. "Nobody asks me about this kind of stuff, so I don't announce it."

"Fine, enough of this." Smoke was almost visibly streaming out of Chandana's ears as she once more thought about being stuck with kids instead of the powerful allies she had been banking on. But she calmed herself once more, reminded of the time she spent in prison reflecting on her actions. "I need to think things through a bit, but that old bastard left a message for all of you." She pressed a button, changing the map into a face of Shotuku.

"Greetings students. I'm sure you're all aware that Rex is joining all of you in this mission." The group twisted their heads to eye the young boy, and he gave them all an oblivious wave. "He is obviously a bit inexperienced when it comes to combat missions. But he has been trained in basic fighting and operating a Goliath, so I am confident his natural talent will assist in the success of the mission. Still, I would ask that you all make sure to keep him in mind, and watch for him to ensure his safety."

Shotuku stopped talking, though his head still floated in the centre of the room. It left the students at a loss for words, temporarily, as they expected more to come. Finally, Ardwen broke the silence with a simple question. "So then who is the leader for this mission witho-"

"I thought you might ask that Ardwen." It seemed Shotuku had pre-recorded his answer, but had anticipated Ardwen would ask the question a little sooner, and had ended up cutting off the teen's sentence. "In this instance, you will all be joined by the former General, miss Irina." The illumination's cheeks blushed slightly when thinking about the gorgeous barbarian, and someone muttered "old pervert" under their breath. "Her leadership experience should prove invaluable, and she appears to currently be in control of her emotions. However, I would ask that all of you do your best to maintain vigilance around her, as do not know when she may undergo another psychotic episode. If that were the case, do not hesitate to break orders. Fall under command of Ardwen."

"Yes, sir!" the group exclaimed unanimously.

"Always remember, that I am your teacher, and only your teacher now. You have all chosen to leave the school, and turn your backs on your country. It is not I who lead you, but one among you, and each of you make the decision to follow him. While we do our best to give reasonable commands and try and help keep things organized, you hold all the power in your next moment of indecision." The hologram faded away and Shotuku's voice was silenced as the recording ended.

Chandana pulled up the map of the Artisan Confederate and the area around Cholet. She appeared to have composed herself once more after the earlier mishap, and was ready to give out her orders, contrary to the final words Shotuku had just imparted to the students. "The old man is right, Irina is following in a secondary shuttle. For the moment, we would like to keep her isolated, in the event she experiences some sort of trigger that causes her to relapse. Once she's in her Goliath or whenever she is out in the open, things should be fine, but the extent of her abilities with her chi, as indicated in reports from her rescue, seems quite dangerous in confined spaces. She will be leading you on this expedition, but make sure that if she jumps off the deep end, you don't jump with her. Just pull back.

Everyone listening nodded in understanding, preparing themselves to work next to the Ice Queen. Chandana kept going, highlighting a patch of land several kilometres away from the town of Cholet. "There aren't a lot of options for cover or surprise going into this. Keep in mind, this isn't our own country either, not that any of us have one. All I'm saying is that our enemies have an advantage in their familiarity with the land." The map began to pan and zoom, circling Cholet and drawing in closer. It continued to move way from the town, heading down into the highlighted zone and giving a panoramic view of how the area appeared on the ground. There were some spare trees here and there, a boulder in one area, a pile or rocks in another, and some remains of old farm homes, but otherwise it was nothing but grass on the ground and some dirty patches of bare earth.

"As you can all see, there is almost no tactical advantage to be found here. It will be a fair fight, a straightforward one at least." Chandana paused, mulling over the phrasing of her next statement. "I'm obviously not a Goliath pilot. I've never even been inside one of the things, let alone driven it. You may see this map and already plan all the ways you can fight. That's good. But I'm afraid my expertise ends here. I can only grasp the land from my experience on the ground. What it's like to duel in one of those machines is totally different, I'm sure. So I hope you can all put faith in Irina and yourselves that you will be able to succeed here."

The Red Scarf leader finished up her motivational moment, taking her time gazing into the eyes of each of the teens around her. "You'll be dropped off along the coast, in a little barren strip slightly north of Cholet. It's the best we can do considering the state of defence and military operations within the Confederate. Your Goliaths should already be there, as Sigma has been working to ferry them over the ocean all day." Chandana checked the watch she had strapped to her wrist, the same watch she had always put on her person whenever she had conducted an operation. Time had great importance to her. "It will be nearly midnight when you're dropped off, and the strike force heading for Cholet is estimated to be in the designated combat zone by ten o'clock in the morning tomorrow. Rest up when you get there, maintain cover, and then head straight to your objective."

As the instructions were finished being administered, the ship began its descent, drifting lower through the clouds, internal systems working tirelessly to try and regulate the pressure of the cabin. The entire craft gave a final shudder before entering into the final moments of its landing, an unexpectedly steady and calm event when compared to the trip in between.

Doors opened on either side of the hull and straps released automatically, freeing up the students to leap out of the vessel's metallic belly. Their feet touched down on soft and sandy beaches, sinking in just slightly as the loose sand was scattered slightly under their weight and movements. Moonlight shot into their eyes, reflected off the shimmering waters, disrupted only by the odd wave passing through.

Chandana could be seen waving over their shoulders as the ship ascended once more, doors sliding shut. The air was quiet as the craft flew off into the night, the vessel having been expressly built for stealth operations before the Jade Fang had stolen it. The students were left in the cold and silent night. While it wasn't frigid, compared to the nights on the tropical island, it was a bit chilly, and Nami's teeth started to chatter a little in response to her body's dropping temperature.

"And so we get to meet again." Irina's voice broke through the cold, and the teens turned to find her sitting further up the beach, observing them from her slightly higher angle. Behind her, the hulking forms of the Goliaths were enshrouded in darkness, their outlines visible in the moonlight. To a normal person, the common people who were often disconnected from observing a Goliath in action, the sight of the battlesuits would have been daunting and terrifying. To the students, they were an everyday occurrence, and their massive size that dwarfed their own existences, and the incredible firepower they contained slipped straight past all of them. Only one thing on that beach could possibly be considered intimidating, and that was the woman watching all of them.

"I don't think we've ever met, actually." Rex sauntered forward, blissfully unaware of Irina's previous mental condition or her history. There were numerous deaths piled up behind her, sitting among her accolades, and quite a number of them had been accrued during her last fight an an Enian general, when she had gone ballistic. There were corpses that could never be buried, their frozen bodies shattered to pieces during her rage. And now she would be in command of them, in charge of their lives.

"That's fine, young Rex," Irina responded, her voice calm and smooth. "I know of you and your supposed talents. I'll be sure to put them to use if I can. The same goes for the rest of you." Irina leaned around Rex and nodded to the group. "I've extensively studied your files from the school records, the ones Shotuku brought with him. You're all an incredibly skillful lot, it would seem, so we shouldn't have any troubles ahead."

"I'm sorry, but Shotuku has our school files with him?" Ardwen asked, popping up next to Rex.

"Yes, he rather enjoys showing them off to anyone who isn't from the academy, typically at dinners when we're having a good laugh already."

Ardwen grit his teeth, balling his fingers into a fist. "I'll bet he does, that fiend," he mumbled.

"So I would hope we'll all get along then." Irina picked herself up off the ground in a single, graceful movement, gliding over to the rest of the students as though she were on ice. "After all, we wouldn't want anything bad to happen, right Riya?" The general stopped next to the girl in question, placing an icy hand on her shoulder. The shock of the sudden statement kept the everyone from responding as they recovered from what had been said and implied.

"E...exactly." Riya bowed her head slightly as she responded, and Irina moved along as if nothing had happened.

"I'll see all of you in the morning then. I trust you'll find your own way to get some rest before we move out. Wouldn't want anyone tired on such an important mission." The woman strolled off down the beach, her careful footing never slipping for a moment as she drifted away.

It was a wordless night for the rest of the group. None of them wanted to discuss what they had just experienced, or what was coming, and nobody particularly wanted to talk to Riya about the incident in the north. It was a scramble, instead, for bed.

* * * * *

"Originally, it was suspected that Irina's powers stemmed from the black chi." Sigma's voice shocked Riya for only a moment. He had a habit of popping up unexpectedly to talk to people, and while Riya thought that might have ended when they were away from the island, it seemed he had travelled with them, or was hanging around for the time being. He stepped out onto the rock with Riya, sitting down next to her as the pair gazed out over the endless expanse of water that stretched out in front of them.

"If it weren't for the cold, you would think we were still on the island." Riya attempted a smile as she failed to divert attention from her problems. She hadn't gone to sleep like the rest of the group. She had shuffled off on her own and found this spot, and it had been here where she had been contemplating her powers and their implication, and the great threat she seemed to pose to everyone else in the world.

"Old reports say that at least." Sigma ignored Riya's words. He knew her practice of diversion, and the way she would bring up that which was unrelated in an effort to move away from things she didn't want to speak about. "Everything I have brought up in researching her shows her as a registered threat, largely outcast from the military due to the volatile danger she may possess. It wasn't until the past few years that she able to gain the trust of her comrades and become a general."

Riya did a little better with her display of emotion this time, maintaining her smile a bit longer. Part of her wanted to ask why Sigma was saying any of this, but another part of her already knew. The android was trying his best to recapture what it meant to be human, to feel empathy and compassion and understanding. He wanted to both comfort Riya, but also help her to comprehend Irina's emotions. Finally, Leif and Sigma were coming together, with Sigma's incredible machine powers complimenting Leif's heart and sincerity. "I appreciate this Sigma, but you shouldn't be talking about other people's personal lives. It isn't polite." The girl tucked a loose strand of black hair behind her ear, her pale skin glowing under the lunar rays.

Sigma's irises shifted and whirled as they analyzed Riya, exposing that the android was pondering something. "Hmm, I can see why you and Porter like each other so much."

The young woman's face turned pink and she snapped her head to stare at Sigma. "How..how did you-"

The cyborg halted her words with a signal to his chest and a grin. "A brother can tell." He laughed, a strange, metallic sound that seemed to echo around inside his chest before springing out. "Also I can read biometric signals and vital signs at all times. Heart rate increases, hormones fluctuations, the like. They always seem to change when you two are together. Or even when one of you happens to look at the other." Sigma trailed off into his memories of the pair's antics, and Riya turned a deeper shade of red.

There was a splash that cut through the night, as the mechanical man allowed himself to be pushed into the ocean by the frail female. "Sigma! You can never tell anyone, ever!"

"Not even Porter?"

"Especially not even Porter!"