Raul took in a deep breath and pressed the metal rose close to his chest. He was against one of the academy's walls, just inside a classroom, waiting for Nami to come by down the hall on her way back to her room. If he didn't give her the flower now, he feared he never would. He needed it to catch up with Chase and Ardwen, who had already gone on dates with the little girl. He needed to get the advantage on them so he could ask her to the dance. He needed love in his life after so much serious training. Raul was a romantic at heart.

The ninja heard Nami's soft steps as she approached and decided to finally step out. Time to make his move! "Nami I-" But Raul was silenced when he saw Ardwen leaning against a locker, already chatting to the stalker. He was fidgeting with his glasses in a cute, embarrassed way that made Nami giggle, a twinkle in her eyes, and Raul knew he had to interfere.

"Hey Raul," Ardwen said nervously as he saw the larger teen approach. "What are you-" A swift chop to the neck had downed the captain of the CRU in the blink of an eye. Raul did his best to smile it off in front of Nami and distract from what he had just done.

"Oh come on now Raul, we all know you're a big softy. You didn't really hurt him did you?" Nami played with a little bit of her hair, twirling it around her finger as she spoke in an effort to be as flirty as she possibly could. Milk the jealousy, she thought. Nurture it.

Raul blushed. "No he's just incapacitated for the next little bit. He'll be fine aside from a minor headache." Raul gripped the rose behind his back. "But I wanted to-"

"Nami!" Chase shouted as he walked down the hall. "Fancy running into you here."

"Chase I walk home this way every day..."

"Right." Chase nudged Raul, trying to push his way into the conversation. "Anyways I'm sure you saw my radical bowling skills today on just my first try ever at that sport. Won't be long before I'm the ringer on the team right?"

"Oh yes Chase you were..." Nami searched for the appropriate word to say that wouldn't be a total lie. "Amazing?"

"That's what I thought!" Chase pumped his fist in the air with glee at approval from his targeted girl. "So now I was thinking-" Another strike to a nerve from Raul had Chase crumpled up on the ground, unconscious. The ninja kicked the two downed boys aside to make it just himself and the female.

"Nami I want you to have-"

"Porter!" Nami cut Raul off as she spotted her love further down the hall, walking a different way. As soon as he heard the stalker's voice he froze to slowly turn his head and look down at her and Raul. And then he bolted, leaving a blazing trail behind him on the metal floor. "Get back here you!" Nami pushed past Raul and took off after her true crush.

"Love them Nami, love them!" Porter shouted over his shoulder. "I just want to go back to my room and sleep!"

Raul sighed, left alone once again with the flower in his hands. Ardwen and Chase groaned as they groggily rose back up to their feet. "What happened?" Ardwen asked as he rubbed his temples.

"Yeah what happened to my Nami?" Chase added.

"Porter happened," Raul plainly stated.

"Boys it seems we have a common enemy," Ardwen mused. "I propose we put aside our squabbling momentarily so that we can eliminate the Porter." Ardwen pulled out a chalkboard on wheels and begin scribbling mathematical equations on it. Chase and Raul put on round-rimmed glasses and nodded at the things being written.

"Right."

"Yes, quite."

"And so, by moving the 'x' value from here, and carrying the one, we will remove the 'p-factor' from our chase for Nami, which thus gives a thirty-three per cent chance to each of us at Nami, evenly, with a one per cent error rate."

"Agreed."

"Of course, it's so simple."

The three stared at each other momentarily in silence, each one shifting their vision from one of their opponents to the other. "You two didn't understand any of that did you?" Ardwen remarked.

"No."

"Not at all."

Frustrated by incompetence, Ardwen erased the board and redrew a much simpler statement: "We get Porter, then we get Nami." The other two read it a few times before doing their own calculations on papers and swapping notes, cross-examining and peer-reviewing before handing them back and nodding to Ardwen, who had been bashing his head against the board the entire time.

"Then we're all clear now? Yes Chase." Ardwen pointed at the student, who had raised his hand.

"So why are we asking out Porter first then Nami?"

Ardwen resumed smashing his head into the chalkboard, a sound that echoed down the halls of Saint Maurius Academy.

* * * * *

There was a gasp from many of the cult villagers as Sigma's cloak settled around him and his body gleamed in the light of the sun bursting through the dissipating clouds. The air was still vibrating with the shattering of the sound barrier that Sigma had caused when he approached and it had blown out many of the windows in the town. Some of the townsfolk had fallen to their knees in prayer and praise but were sapped out of it by their leader.

"He is not our saviour!" Zolraq screamed. "He is one of Ishiyama's demons! Kill them both!" The villagers took up the chant of "Kill them" as they resumed the approach on the general and his new partner.

"It seems you have brought quite a lot of attention to yourself Ochenkov." Sigma tilted his head with a smile as he slowly advanced on the barbarian. His eyes were scanning every inch off the man picking out any weapons or other objects he might be holding. They came across the crystal discs Ochenkov had tucked away on his person, and Sigma's own memories bubbled up for a moment, of discs just like that being handled outside the vat he was born in.

"Stay away foul machine," Ochenkov waved a hand in front of his body in a half-hearted attempt to scare away an animal, his exhaustion keeping him from reacting stronger.

"It seems you used up all your energy with that blizzard," Sigma observed. "What a shame considering the situation you find yourself in. But it looks like you have something on you that is of value to me." The android pointed at where the discs were kept. "So I'll need to-"

"I kill you if take discs. Need for saving country." Ochenkov fell to his knees, his weakening legs giving out from under him as he tried to fend off the approaching menace. But Sigma could not get closer. One of the cultists leapt at him, trying to latch onto his back. Sigma spun out of the way, the metal rod of his inactivated scythe coming up and bashing the attacker in the face, sending them careening over the edge of the house. As soon as he had finished with one of them, another had filled the space made by the last cultist, and the mob's circle grew tighter.

"These pests grow to annoy me," Sigma said as he threw another one aside, shrugging them off as though they were snowflakes that he simply had to brush away. Another sweep of his scythe had knocked a row off their feet and sent them toppling to the ground. Sigma had to defend Ochenkov as well, bashing those who tried to grab at the general, lest they accidentally destroy the discs. "Enough! I didn't want to do this but they leave me no choice." Sigma wrapped an arm around the tribesman's thick body. "Do you care about this town Ochenkov?" The general merely shook his head, too tired to respond with his mouth. "Excellent." Sigma's face took on a sinister, dark look.

The cyborg took off straight up into the air and hovered over the town, with Ochenkov thrown over his shoulder. The lift off had destroyed the home, tearing a hole through the centre and causing it to collapse, with all those on top falling with it. Sigma pointed his free hand down towards the village, the hole on his palm opening up and a familiar light beginning to form. A searing beam of energy leapt out, crackling when it hit the snow-covered ground below, leaving burning scorch marks wherever it travelled and incinerating everything in its path.

Ochenkov drowsily opened an eye to be greeted with a black "S" burned into the ground, one that would take hundreds of years to ever be erased by Earth. Sigma was chuckling to himself a bit like a little gleeful child. Then the pair took off further north. Somewhere down below, Zolraq was swearing vengeance...

* * * * *

Namio sat at one end of the long table that made up the war room. Across from him was General Christian, who was looking over a tablet spewing out information. The two had been staring each other down in silence for a while now, since the news had broken of the incident in Narrius. They were still waiting for more information and an identification on the escaped prisoner but in the meanwhile it was tense silence in the war room.

The Kaiser longed for the times when it had been Marian and himself sitting in the room, discussing different war reports and strategies and laughing off anything that had been bothering them. Marian was gone for war though and Christian wasn't a terrible replacement, but the two didn't have the same friendly history as Namio and the brigadier general. And Namio was beginning to wonder what Christian was doing in his free time. He wasn't usually in the government building and sometimes Christian would opt to personally oversee operations and travel great distances for reasons Namio didn't always understand.

Feet and fingers started tapping in impatience. Some news, any news, would be nice. The last thing the Federation needed now was to deal with prison riots when they already had a super weapon on the loose and the threat of the Artisans beginning to use their best generals after seeing Cross Marian on the battlefield. On top of all that, the Kaiser still had his secret meeting with the Jahari to prepare for as he desperately searched for his key bargaining chip: Sigma. Then the news broke.

"They identified the prisoner sir." Christian looked up from his data-slate momentarily and met Namio's eyes before glancing down again. "It's a captured Artisan, Major Orellia. And he's..." Christian stopped and placed his hand on his mouth to hide his shock.

"He's what?"

"You'll have to see it for yourself sir." The martyr general shook his head in disbelief. Namio pulled up a screen in front of his face, a holographic projector that sprung from the table. It immediately synchronized with Christian's tablet and began playing a video feed of the mutated Major Orellia tossing aside soldiers and giving a speech about his Jahari nature. Namio slumped back in his chair and hit replay. He did it again and again, over and over, watching, searching for something comprehensible that he could draw from it. Yet he couldn't.

"It seems they've decided to play their hand now," the Kaiser finally stated with sadness in his voice.

"Then the meeting is off?"

"Temporarily. Maybe they will speak to us differently if we capture the Major in this new form. Or if we manage to kill it." Namio placed two fingers on his forehead and closed his eyes in thought. "So much easier if we simply had Sigma. Do we have any leads?"

Christian pressed a couple of buttons on the screen of his machine. "He made a couple of jumps here and there, quick little shots up into the sky, but he lands and moves before we have a chance to better locate him. He's good sir, very good. He knows what he's doing."

"So he should, he was built that way. We abandon the meeting then until further notice. Perhaps this is a good chance for us to stall for time and continue the reclamation of Sigma."

"Yes sir, right away."

"And Christian," the general froze as he went to exit the room and looked back over his shoulder at his leader. "I'll need you here for the next little while, around the clock. You can take vacation hours later but I want you by my side throughout this turmoil for your invaluable assistance."

Christian paused for a moment, reflecting on what he had been told. Namio leaned forward in his chair, scrutinizing his worker. "Yes sir, of course." As the general left, Namio resumed watching the video again and again before finally shutting it off. He spun his chair and opened up a section of wall behind him with the push of a button, revealing a window. He peered up into the sky towards where he hoped the academy orbiting Earth would be.

"Ah sister," he said aloud. "I hope you don't have to endure the kind of confusing hardships I do daily. Your school life is so simple, the way I always hoped for you. Good luck Nami."

A/N: Plans forming, shifting, changing, everything! And if you didn't know by now Namio is indeed Nami's brother!