"That's a bold statement you know." Sigma reached across and grabbed his brother's right wrist, pulling the hand over so he could inspect the tattoo. "You show up like a hero and proclaim you're going back to fight the Jahari. Very bold."

"Who are you to judge?" Porter laughed, pulling back his hand. The pair were sitting on a log nestled amongst the trees, watching the waves crash into the beach. They had slunk off after the meeting, finding their own time to reconnect, something they just never really got, ever. "I got filled in on you chasing after Syn all on your own before. As if you're all reserved and calculated."

Sigma frowned at the mention of Syn, the mood evaporating around him. "That thing has to be stopped somehow."

"And that's what I say every day, about every evil I'm facing. War and extinction. Those are the two options I'm faced with, and I have to go at them every day."

"I'm faced only with madness."

"Maybe it's the madness you know might be inside yourself too. If you ever felt like it, you could do everything Syn does."

Sigma's eyes rotated in their sockets, adjusting as he refocused on his brother, analyzing him intently. Vital signs and biometric readings flashed by his vision, registering as tiny lines in his irises that Porter could stare at. "You've changed quite a bit, you know. You're growing up."

"And you're regressing," Porter giggled, poking at his brother and trying to shove him away. The android, unsurprisingly, did not budge, which meant Porter ended up pushing himself away instead, nearly falling off the end of the log.

"If I recall, I lost most of my adolescence because I was being built."

"Well I lost mine being alone without a family." The two stopped their bickering as their stories crossed, the depressing aspect of what they were saying coming forwards. "How stupid of us, having a pity argument."

"Better to stumble forwards, than to stare at your feet."

"Isn't that a passage from the Book of Enia?" Porter scratched his head, realizing he had been completely neglecting any religious studies since leaving the academy. "It's in there somewhere, right?"

"Doesn't matter anymore." Sigma raised a hand up to the sky, his fingers partially blocking his vision of the sun. "You know I can stare at that thing and it won't hurt. I can quote any passage from the Book of Enia, and sometimes its a default behaviour." Sigma fell quiet, his hand dropping down to his lap. "And I've killed people like they were nothing. And yet you people all wander around me every day, like there's nothing to me, like I can't become a second Syn in an instant."

Porter leaned back on the log and hummed his way through his thoughts. "If I had paid more attention in class, I could quote some lines from the Book of Enia. When I'm in my Goliath, I can stare straight at the sun. And I've killed people like they were nothing, only to realize later that they weren't nothing, and they held more value than that, but it was all too late." Porter patted Sigma on the shoulder. "We can do everything you can do, and can struggle with all of it just as much. End of the day, you're just my brother."

Sigma grabbed Porter's arm and, in the blink of an eye, hurled the young man straight out from the tree and out into the water, where he crashed into the ocean with a splash. The android stood up and strode away from the spot, leaving his soggy brother to drag himself out of the water. "It's not the job of the little brother to have all the mushy guidance.

* * * * *

Porter bent down in front of Maria, the Rose Thorn General, staring into her eyes. His hair was still slightly wet from Sigma's antics, but the nice thing about the island was the constant sunlight and warmth that served as a perpetual dryer. He still had sand in places he didn't want to discuss, but he otherwise couldn't stop smiling. Everything was better than Reaver's training. "So this is the one giving everyone a hard time?"

Irina folded her arms and stared up at some slowly drifting clouds, obviously bored with the entire situation. "Look, I know everyone here thinks you're so special and all, but I'm not a fellow student of yours who ran away. I'm a respected general of the Enian army."

"Who went crazy and got busted out of imprisonment by a bunch of teens." Porter waved the woman's words away. She had spent the entire day complaining to anyone who would listen that Maria couldn't be cracked, but as soon as Porter had offered to assist her, she had tried to pretend he didn't exist. "Doesn't say anything, just sits here and stares at the ocean?"

"Fine, yes, that's all she does." Irina tossed up her hands in frustration, pacing back and forth around the tree Maria was tied to. "The only reason she hasn't tried to escape is because that robot thing was ordered to kill her on the spot." Porter glanced back at Alpha, standing a few metres away. "So she's just there. I've tried every form of torture I can think of, but nothing happens."

"Torture doesn't make people talk. Torture just increases your tolerance for pain. You and I should both know that." Porter's eyes shifted to match Irina's. The woman grit her teeth, continuously irritated at the notion of being lectured by a youth. And Porter picked up on it right away. "Listen, I already got tossed into the water once today for talking sense to someone older than me, so I'd prefer to not have it happen again. I'll leave you to her if you think you can make her talk still, but it's not going to happen. There's only one person she's going to speak to, and she's waiting for him to show up."

"When his laughter rings in the ears of every person, the grand show can begin," Maria hissed through her teeth.

"Like that," Porter said, sweeping his hand towards the Rose Thorn General to prove his point. He turned his attention back towards the captured woman. "Whose laughter am I going to hear? I don't know what you're talking about." Irina rolled her eyes behind the teen, knowing she ha already filled him in on the cult of the Jade Jester, the Laughing Fist.

Maria smiled. "You will know his name when his performance begins. Each person on this planet, the animals, the plants themselves will sway with his words, with his song, with his laugh. His smile will be the last visage you all see, as your eyes bleed red tears and your bodies rot away. He will take you throw his last steps."

"Will he now? Then how come you're doing anything? Shouldn't you just be waiting for that day?"

"Waiting?" Maria cackled. "There is not just a single performances. There are many to be played out, and we are vessels of those shows. We must act out our parts in his plays. It cannot be finished in one day."

"And yet, you're hanging out with other people, doing what they say. Seems kind of strange." Porter examined his nails, conveying disinterest in what the general was saying. Her eyes examined him, narrowing as she took offence to his shifting interests. She shifted her weight slightly, possibly testing her bonds.

"Some hear his voice with great clarity. They shall be our guiding light in the auditorium of life."

"Like the robot guy?" Porter's eyes slid downwards, watching Maria's expression as he called out her relation. The woman bit at her lip, stopping in her tracks as her mood darkened. Her eyes stuck down to the ground now, wandering back and forth, and Porter had to kneel down lower to maintain eye contact. "Is he a vessel perhaps, or you're just afraid of him?"

"I am not afraid!" the woman snapped, pulling forwards on the rope as she tried to lunge forwards. A click could be heard behind Porter as Alpha pointed her palm at the woman, her weapon's primed to kill. Maria shifted back down against the tree, averting her gaze as she was obviously embarrassed by her outburst. "Some may garner favour that they do not deserve," she finally mumbled. "But we cannot question."

Porter stood up, satisfied with what had happened, and stretched his arms up into the sky. "So Syn is a part of this cult, on some level or another. Thought he was an Enian though, wasn't he?" Porter turned to Irina, and the woman simply shrugged.

"He could have been born an Artisan and become a refugee at some point, before getting caught as a criminal. What's more likely is that he was a criminal in the Artisan Confederate, and they caught him and then exiled him to the Enian Federation to dispose of him and also inject criminals into our population. That's pretty common between the nations." Porter narrowed his eyes, staring at Irina with disgust. "What? Generals get a lot more information than regular citizens. I'm sure nobody would want to hear about the influx of criminals from the Eastern United States or Artisan Confederate. There's always some general or another who is on border duties for exactly that reason. That's probably what happened to Syn." Irina's eyes darkened as she spoke the android's name, her fingers twitching and curling slightly into a fist.

"So when Christian created him and sold him to the Artisans in his plans, he had really been sending him back home, and he has reconnected with the cult?" Porter folded his arms across his chest, his finger tapping against his bicep. "If that's true, then he isn't really following any orders given to him by the Artisans, not that he ever really was, and may actually just be getting commands from the head of this religious group?"

Irina paused on Porter's words, processing the notion of a weapon like Syn in the hands of a religious extremist group looking forwards to the apocalypse. "It's possible," she finally said, the confidence in her voice wavering.

"Do you know what kind of goals they're really after? Who is in charge of them?"

Irina shook her head to everything Porter asked. "We just don't know that. I'm a former Enian general, not an Artisan. You'd have to ask her, or get Sigma to start hacking."

"Or call in a favour from a certain rebel group that owes us support." Porter spun away from Maria, wandering down the beach. Irina had to chase after him to keep up with the sudden movement. "Of course, that's not really my biggest priority right now. The Breach is a whole lot bigger than Syn, for the time being."

"Maybe to you," Irina muttered, and Porter glanced at her, both wary of her desire for revenge and understanding of it.

The young pilot stopped abruptly, forcing Irina to do the same. He placed his hand on her shoulder, trying to calm her slightly. "He's not worth anything right now, and he isn't going anywhere. I understand your need to have vengeance for your loss. We've all felt the same thing. So I certainly can't lecture you or stop you from what you do now. If you would like to go to war with the Artisans and try to flush out the leader of the cult, you're free to do so. I'm going to theBreach to slaughter Jahari and keep every other person safe from their invasion. And afterwards, I'll go after the next great threat to the people, their government. And finally, I will watch Sigma kill Syn. You can try any other way you want."

Irina didn't respond for sometime, her mouth constantly opening and closing as she began sentences and then cut herself off. She couldn't seem to find the right way to approach Porter or challenge him, an issue she had frequently encountered as she hung around the students more and more. Finally, she settled on something and finally got a sentence together. "How did you get her to talk?"

"Oh that." Porter grinned, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. "I learned that from an old friend of mine." Porter's eyes flicked down to his right palm briefly. "Once you get people talking about something they like, they'll never shut up." Porter laughed out loud and resumed his walk back towards the rest of the group. They had preparations to begin now, and a new fight to attend.