"I can't believe he's been gone a month," Nami kicked a stone across the sand, watching it tumble to a stop. Riya smiled as she walked alongside the smaller girl. "Like, how long does he think he can just leave us here."

"He'll come back when he's ready." Riya knelt down and scooped the stone up from the ground. She glanced out across the waters of the ocean, before whipping the rock across the waves, watching it skip and bounce before finally sinking. A few gulls lazily drifted through the air above it. More and more of the birds had come by to gather as the students had continued to live on the island. The increased consumption of food was suspected of having attracted them here.

Rex's voice could be heard wafting over to the girls, and he could be glimpsed splashing through the water with Ardwen and Raul nearby, both of whom seemed to be trying to relax and not get sprayed in the face. Nami shook her head. "Can you believe him? What a little kid he is."

"If I recall, Nami, you're the same age as him, aren't you?" The young girl's face turned red at Riya's words, and she pulled her hands together in front of her self, keeping her eyes lowered out of embarrassment.

"I'm nothing like him!" Nami turned her nose up and away from Riya, trying her best to appear entirely opposed to everything Rex stood for.

Riya stopped, turning to stare down at her companion. Her slender frame was significantly taller than Nami's tiny body, and she could pat her friend's head with ease. "Perhaps that's the problem. You should be more like that, not the other way around. You don't have to grow up so fast. Chase wouldn't like that anyways." Nami sniffled slightly in response, the edges of her eyes beginning to fill with tears. Riya gently wiped them away with a single stroke of her finger. "You cry enough already, every night like this. Now is just the time to play." She pushed the smaller girl forward sending her stumbling towards the waters and the frolicking boy.

"Strong words, coming from you." Riya spun around to find Chandana and General Irina approach her. Chandana had a wicked grin on her face, while Irina held on to a much more reserved smile. The rebel leader strolled up to Riya first, placing a hand on her shoulder and spinning her back around to face the group as she continued speaking. "Want to explain why you're sending all the children off to play like you're not one of them?"

"Who isn't also crying at night?" Irina chipped in.

Riya's cheeks quickly turned rose, and she averted her eyes downwards into the sands, realizing she had been caught. "Well, it's just, they need to be happy, and I'll be ok."

"Like hell you will." Chandana flipped the girl back again so she would be forced to look at the woman. "Listen mother-figure. You miss your own little crush in your own little way, that's fine, and I know you feel for the lives we have lost and taken. But this is a war, and we're the rebel faction. And if there's anything I've learned about being part of that rebel faction, it's that you play when you're given the opportunity, or you go crazy and run out onto the next battlefield trying to kill everyone in an insane attempt to get yourself killed because you want off the psychotic loop that is war." The final words hung in the air, leaving the two to simply stare each other down. Riya gulped as a response, her terrified face expressing all of her emotions. "Now go!" Chandana spun the young pilot once more, and shoved her towards her compatriots.

"How sweet to be young and innocent again," Irina murmured, watching everything with a glimmer in her eyes.

"Oh, give it a rest. Just yesterday I caught you chasing seagulls down the beach like some little ten year old."

"Like I told you before, it stole my shoe!" Irina balled her hands into fists, stomping in the ground as she tried to make her point clearer. Chandana, easily one of the tallest people on the island, raised an eyebrow in response as she looked down on the petty general. She simply patted the woman on the head and started to walk away, waving over her shoulder.

"Ain't nobody even need shoes on the beach," she yelled back.

"Get back here, you giant brat!" Irina took off after the rebel leader, catching up with her as the pair resumed their walk along the island's edge. "I'm trying to conduct a serious investigation with our hostage."

"Like I told you, you can't torture her. People like that, torture doesn't mean anything to them."

"Torture doesn't work on anyone, Chandana. At best, they'll just say what they think you want to hear, not what they actually know...but yes, torture didn't work on her."

"Don't know why you tried, I warned you." Chandana folded her hands behind her head, tilting her head back to soak in the sun above her, letting the warmth spread across her skin. "I wouldn't care for her info anyways. Since the Breach opened up, we've got more important things to plan."

"Her knowledge is relevant to me at least. You people broke me out, I get that, but I have my own things to do here."

"You mean the other soldier out there?" Chandana smacked Irina across the back, sending the smaller woman reeling, and gave out a hearty laugh. "I can't stop you from a stupid desire of singular revenge. I've been there too. I mean if I ever cross paths with that kid again, I'll probably give him a good pounding, but what can you do? Even before I had my troubles with the law, I was bitter and angry, and I used that fuel to drive myself to the top of the Red Scarf Gang. And what did it get me?"

"I don't need a lecture on the subject." Irina waved off her follower, dismissing the subject completely. "It's not what I'm here for, and it's not what I talk to you about."

Chandana smiled and left Irina to wander away further. "You'll figure it out eventually. Like you said, we can't hold you here forever."

* * * * *

"The Breach is a serious concern." Shotuku sat on his usual log, staring into the fire in the centre of the circle. His arms folded across his legs, his lengthy robes piling up around them. The man rubbed at his chin slightly, constantly thinking. There was a shiver beside him, and a splash of water hit his face. The elder grumbled slightly. He was surrounded by the teens from the academy, who had spent the entire afternoon goofing around in the ocean. Now they were huddled around the fire, wrapped in cloths to dry them off, and their exhaustion showed through their faces. "Your carefree attitudes help show me you've all been thinking about it a lot recently, as well." Shotuku sighed and scratched his head.

"We were going to have this discussion," Ardwen started, "but a certain somebody swore they saw a shark and wanted to follow it."

"I heard you can grab their fins and ride them," Rex shouted back, in his own defence. He sneezed and a massive glob of water and snot shot out of his nose.

"That's not how sharks work at all," Nami replied, shaking her head in disappointment.

"Besides, your odds of ever seeing one are far too low, seeing as how they're basically extinct." Ardwen folded his arms across his chest to emphasize his point about being smarter than Rex.

"That's not really what I'm interested in," Shotuku said, cutting through the argument. Everyone flinched in response, noticing the professor's fingers had twitched slightly. All of their reflexes had been over-tuned to handle the black slipper style. "The Breach has been open for two weeks now, but we haven't seen a large-scale counter-invasion from any of the allied countries. There have been some containment-level skirmishes at best, but both the Artisans and Enians have remained silent on military action, and since the Breach sits on their border, they're going to have to be the first to make moves."

"But at least now the Jahari have made clear they're starting a war from there," Nami added, though she was silenced from further speech by a glare from Shotuku.

"For the time being, yes, the Breach seems to now be their major point of entry above ground. We can only assume they will use it to release significantly larger weapons than before, or push massive armies above ground all at once, similar to what happened in the north. That was more a gathering from many small openings, though, so we're unsure what could come out of the Breach, given its size and scale."

"More importantly," Shotuku continued, waving Sigma over as he spoke, "we've finally received an update on the situation. It would appear as though there is going to be joint action taken by both the Enian and Artisan government, with support from the Eastern United States arriving as well. It's expected to be a bit of an invasion into the underground tunnels surrounding the Breach, in the hopes of drawing out the Jahari to be massacred in a chokehold and funnelled through the exit point."

"Their strength becomes their weakness," Rex mumbled, much to everyone's shock at the wisdom coming from his usually nonsensical mouth. "My uncle used to say it a lot."

"It's going to be big," Sigma said, his eyes casting a projection into the middle of the circle. A digital version of the Breach appeared, a massive tear in the Earth where the Jahari had begun spilling out from continuously for a month. Tiny digital figures began to appear, showing military forces arriving and attacking the Jahari, eventually pushing into the gaping hole. "This will be the largest joint venture ever for the major nations, and the majority of their forces will be at the Breach."

"Thus, you all see the conundrum." Shotuku brushed his hand over the projection as he spoke. "The Breach is a major source of Jahari activity, and may be where they win or lose this war. It could be a fight to determine our futures, and I'm sure the military forces there would appreciate a group of elite, specialized Goliaths arriving. That being said..." The hologram shifted, rapidly moving to display some of the major cities in the Enian Federation and the Artisan Confederate, cycling through them continuously. "It means that the governments of those countries will not have their best forces back defending themselves. The gates are open."

The group's eyes shifted between the projection, and each other. There was nervousness that showed in all of their faces, save for Rex who did not fully understand the situation yet. They could feel the weight of the information, and of the decision that came with it, but none of them wanted to be the first to weigh in on such a critical issue.

"So we are choosing between the common enemy that threatens everyone, and the true enemy we want dismantled?" Ardwen pulled his glasses off his face, cleaning them in his shirt. Tiny scratches had formed on the lenses from constantly living on a beach, and his rubbing often created more of them if a grain of sand was caught up in the action. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend, or just also my enemy?"

"You children are the ones who decided to take the pathway of rebellion and to form this group on your own, with the information you had been given previously. And so this isn't a decision that I can make, nor Chandana, or Irina, or anyone else here."

"Porter could make it," Nami mumbled, poking her index fingers together sheepishly.

"Porter isn't here," Raul answered, immediately. "We can't rely on him for this choice."

"Why not?" Porter's voice cut through the circle, and their hands all rapidly twisted to see him approaching the group, with Reaver behind him. The assassin's face was wrapped in cloth, hidden away from everyone now. As he had explained previously to Porter, when he was trying to blend in and go undercover, he obviously wouldn't wear something that draws attention to him and is his trademark. And with so few people knowing what his face looked like, he was his own best disguise. But among a group that could contain anyone, he would go back to hiding himself away.

"Porter!" Nami jumped out of her seat, racing up to tackle the boy, jumping at his neck. Her arms wrapped around him, and the rest of him collided with his body, but Porter didn't flinch. Nami's head spun around for a bit as she tried to process the situation. "You didn't get knocked over?"

Porter's eyes looked straight past Nami, out into the horizon as the irises swirled with dark memories. "Much worse things have been thrown at me." Porter tried to glance over his shoulder at his mentor, but Reaver had already vanished, leaving everyone slightly confused. "I wouldn't worry about him. He can't get off the island without Sigma anyways so he'll be pretty frustrated when he figures that out."

"Glad to see you're back then, Porter." Riya had approached the teen, her tone incredibly soft as she reached up and began to peel Nami off Porter. She had to put in a bit of effort, as Nami was desperately attached, but the girl eventually relented, letting Porter push his way into the circle and take a seat.

"I'd requested for Porter to return," Shotuku continued, resuming his prior speech, "but I hadn't expected Reaver to relent and actually do it so soon." Porter shrugged, unable to answer on behalf of his teacher, or explain his actions. Even though they had been together over a month, Porter still knew next to nothing about Reaver's strange behaviours or decisions. All he knew was that he had survived a very special form of hell. "Nonetheless, the conundrum remains the same for everyone."

"What conundrum?" Porter smiled, his eyes roaming over the faces of his friends. "There's no choice here to make. We jump into the Breach with them." The groups eyes went wide with shock at Porter's declaration. As the person who had always been the largest advocate of rebelling against the world governments, the option to strike at them while weak seemed the most appealing. "My fight is with the government, not the people. If the government falls now and the turmoil of revolution begins, who is going to stop the Jahari? We can't make it easier for them to slaughter us. We kill them, and show the people we're willing to fight to protect them, and work to spreading the knowledge that it is the Kaiser who is responsible for the Jahari in the first place."

"You think we can even fight against the Jahari?" Nami's giant, glassy eyes, revealed her thoughts and emotions, and her memories of the last time a major conflict against the Jahari had occurred. One of them hadn't come back.

Porter patted the little girl on the shoulder, his smile never wavering and glanced down at his right palm. He had made a special journey to visit a tattoo artist during his training, a trek to the city that Reaver had forced him into doing. Across his skin now were black lines that made a cartoonish flame, the same symbol that had been kept on the shoulder of the South Star, as Chase's insignia. "After all, I have to fight for two people."