"That's impossible!" Porter screamed into the cockpit, fury suddenly springing up from deep within his body, "my father died-"

"In a what?" Sigmeund interrupted. "In an accident? From a crash? A robbing gone wrong? A disease? Mysterious illness? I know all the excuses Porter, all the reasons. I went door to door to give them. I had to give them to the orphanage when we dropped you off there. I know how the system works and the lies we spun." Sigmeund threw his lance up in front of his body, leaping backwards as he deflected an enraged attack from Porter.

"No you didn't!" Porter gripped his controls tight enough to turn his knuckles white. He felt static electricity coursing through his body, raising his hairs as sparks shot off his skin. His twin blades whirled around in front of his face, trying in vain to pierce through Sigmeund's defense. "No you didn't, no you didn't, no you didn't!"

"Yes I did Porter." Sigmeund continued to taunt the boy as he stayed just outside of his range, flirting with the edges of Porter's attacks. The tip of each sword could only cut through the air as they missed over and over again.

"Porter." Ochenkov spoke with a surprising calmness for the situation, understand that this was only a sparring match that Sigmeund had desired. "Sigmeund not lose twice. Once he fight somebody or watch them once he figure out how to beat them any other time they meet in the future. You not win this fight when attack him so recklessly. Must be creative."

"It's a lie!" Porter shouted, tears filling up his eyes and blurring his vision. "He didn't kill my father." Hot, salty tears started pouring down the boy's face, dropping onto his outfit in large, warm drops.

"Then why do you fight me like this?" Sigmeund smiled inside his battlesuit, predicting each strike with ease. When anyone was emotionally disturbed their attacks slowed down, even if they felt like their rage made them faster. Blows became awkward, clumsy, and dull. They could be gauged and watched with ease and Sigmeund, who had already intensely studied Porter's style, was hardly breaking a sweat dodging out of the way. "A part of you knows this is all truth Porter. A part of you must know. Maybe you remember my face from so many years ago, when I held your hand and gave you over to the orphanage. Maybe meeting your brother helps you to understand. You cannot deny the emotions you are feeling."

"Nobody can insult my father, my family, and make up lies like that. I'll kill you!" Porter disappeared in a flash, the entire White Storm vanishing. This was to be expected by Sigmeund, knowing everything Porter would try and do to win this fight. The Goliath reappeared just in front of Sigmeund, lunging forward with blade extended. The general fended it off with his lance but the weapon passed right through the image, an illusion created from speed.

Porter's sword thrust through the Artisan Goliath's abdomen, piercing straight through to the other side as the true White Storm materialized behind Sigmeund. The youth withdrew his weapon, the blade glistening with oils and hydraulic fluids. "You can't do it can you?" Sigmeund laughed, his words bouncing around Porter's cockpit. "With all your rage and anger you couldn't just kill me. You angled your blade at the last moment to miss the cockpit." The only response was Porter's choked sobs from within his warmachine. "I'm disappointed. Since you didn't kill me yet, we aren't finished, are we?" Sigmeund spun around, the thick shaft of his lance smashing into Porter's chest, sending the boy flying over the edge of the precipice and careening down into the valley below.

Ochenkov sighed at watching this, remembering his reckless self in the past. Sigmeund turned to glance at Ochenkov, making sure the barbarian wasn't making any moves to intervene. He knew the warrior held to honour in these cases and would not stop the match. With that settled, Sigmeund leaped over the edge, chasing down his foe.

Porter felt like he was floating, his tears having stopped as he drifted through the sky. A little part of him knew he was falling, but most of him didn't care regardless. It was just Sigmeund's words going around his head. First his brother, now his father. What if his dad really had been killed and really had tried to renege on the deal for Sigma's body? It made a lot of sense it was just...how could his father have been so stupid? He must've known that it was going to cost him his life to go against the government.

But wouldn't you have done the same? The voice came from a strange part of Porter's mind, resonating up from the deepest portions. Would he have? To save his brother he had fought Sigmeund once before, alone, and risked death. His father wanted to try and reunite their family, or at least let Leif die to execution instead of becoming a tool for the government. Maybe he had thought he could get Leif out of jail, clear his charges. Maybe a lot of different things. But it didn't matter anymore because Porter's dad was gone and his brother was missing, forever altered now by the Enigma Project.

The White Storm bounced off the side of the mountain, rattling Porter in the cockpit as the shocks tried to adjust to the impact. It shook the teen out of his thinking, and he immediately flipped in the air, driving his twin blades into the rocky earth and sliding to a stop. He quickly leaped down the rest of the mountain, his Goliath moving at rapid speed as radars detected the incoming Sigmeund. Eventually he ended up in the valley, his battlesuit's feet covered in snow. He glanced upwards, gauging Sigmeund approach and trying to figure out his best way to defend against the general.

Sigmeund landed down in the snow, sending a plume of it shooting straight up while the rest exploded outwards as his impact formed a crater in the snow. "Well at least you're conscious. That's something right?" Sigmeund twirled his lance around as though it were a stick, weightless in his experienced hands.

"Who are you Sigmeund?" Porter's normal thoughts began to return to his brain as he dried his eyes. He was burying his emotions for now, needing clarity at this time in order to win. "You're an Enian, you're an Artisan, you wanted Sigma before...who are you?"

"Who am I? Or maybe what am I? A double agent? A spy? Something more? It's funny that the world is just so damn black and white to everybody. Even when four nations are constantly at war we try and boil it down to left and right, yes or no. What if there are other options, other alternatives?" Sigmeund dashed forward with his lance, the point aimed straight for Porter's chest. The young pilot sidestepped the attack, only to be swept aside by Sigmeund as he quickly changed directions. "Why can't I be something more than Enian or Artisan? You think that this world is only one way or another, that there are no alternatives other than a couple of defined paths?"

Porter attempted a counter attack, ducking under Sigmeund's lance and trying an uppercut, but the savvy general had already planned for the move and spun aside. "I don't understand what you're talking about," Porter huffed as he tried to keep up.

"Of course not." Sigmeund brought his lance down from above and Porter had to cross his blades in order to hold the general back from delivering a crushing blow. "You are too confined to existing ideals. What if there are groups beyond all this? What if this world is about so much more than Jahari and Enian and Artisan and war? What if some of us see beyond it all, and simply play our part while the real show takes place behind the scenes?"

"Like conspiracy theories?" Porter dodged another swing, jumping backwards and flipping in order to land properly. As his feet touched down, Sigmeund scored a blow, a thrust from his lance grazing along Porter's leg, shearing through the top layer of armour. Porter quickly kicked away again but Sigmeund held pace, following the youth at every turn. Damn, Porter thought, he knows my speed better than I do.

"Not necessarily. See, even when you try and break out of thinking you can't come up with anything that hasn't already been framed for you a certain way by the government. It's not conspiracies and secret plans and controlling. The governments for each nation already do enough of that on their own. I mean look at the fight we are about to begin with the Jahari. None of that would've come about were it not for government conspiracies. Or your brother, yet another secret project. No what I am talking about goes far beyond anything you can imagine. I am talking about freedom from this world, of a different system, a different way of life."

Porter bent backwards to avoid a thrust and pushed the weapon away with his own, wriggling away from Sigmeund before the general could pin him down. If he knows me speed, then maybe I need to change it. Porter's mind began to race with ways of beating Sigmeund without entering into a trance. He had used his chi once to confuse Sigmeund but he was beginning to suspect his adversary had allowed it in order to test him.

"You won't get it Porter," Sigmeund continued, his lance becoming blurry as he jabbed with increasing speed. "It takes a lot more experience to open your mind." The general withdrew his weapon for a moment, holding it with poise in front of his face. "But you're close. Maybe soon you will join us."

"Is that why we're really fighting?" Porter stalled for a little bit of time in this free moment, trying to think through hours of lessons and studying that he had barely paid attention to. How to defeat a foe who already knows how to beat you...

"Perhaps. Just a test, I suppose, to see if you can hold up on your own without immense bursts of chi. Wouldn't want you to put yourself in a coma every time you had to fight." Sigmeund lowered his spear again and leaped forward, his lance tip aimed for the White Storm's head. The attack brushed by Porter, hitting nothing but air. The youth hadn't moved at all.

"You work with predictions, calculations. Your technique requires knowledge of the other person's technique. But if they have no technique, neither do you. The worse a fighter gets, the better they are at beating you." Porter gleamed inside his cockpit, thinking of Chase's brash fighting style. "I have a friend who would be your nightmare."

Sigmeund grit his teeth, caught off guard by Porter's quick turnaround in the fight. He pulled back and lunged again, and Porter fell sideways, as if he were an uncoordinated, unbalanced pilot. As soon as he hit the ground he rolled close to Sigmeund then kicked straight up, trying to flip up onto his feet. The action failed but still managed to smash into the enemy Goliath's jaw, sending it reeling backwards.

"You're a bit presumptuous Porter," Sigmeund said, shaking his own head to clear it of its rattling "By becoming less talented, you simply become easier to kill. I don't have to predict your movements anymore. I can simply react and kill."

Porter was suddenly in front of Sigmeund, using his chi-boosted speed to move lightning fast. His swords swiped across Sigmeund's chest, catching most of the armour before the Artisan had jumped away. "Not if I still know what I'm doing."

"Hmm, a technique of no technique. Interesting. At least your creativity shows promise, even if your form is awful."

"My form doesn't have to be good. My form just has to be good enough to win."

* * * * *

Grimsley stood silently in the tunnel. Ronald had been gagged to prevent him from making any stupid remarks. Goulet was holding up his hand, the signal for them to stay quiet. This would be the third time they would have to stop and hope they wouldn't be noticed. Each time Grimsley caught himself holding his breath, even though his intercom was not on public broadcast. It was simply a habit he had, one that was sourced from hide and seek games with Gretta where he held his breath as she walked past him. This game had a much different ending if caught.

Goulet's sword whipped out, embedding itself in the flesh of a Bahari and pulling the monstrosity close. The general then uncurled his weapon and drove it through the creature's red core, killing it instantly. It happened so fast the beast barely had time to make a squeak. Grimsley could only see it through holographic reconstructions on his viewscreens, rendered using sonar and thermal cameras.

The young man winced as the body hit the ground with a splat, and Goulet kicked it aside. "When you are going to be caught anyways, you may as well make the most of it."

"Better safe than sorry right? "Grimsley tried to chip in but he was feeling queasy from the constant nerves and stress. This wasn't fun or easy and was far more difficult than he ever anticipated his journey being. He had never planned for a stealthy assault on the Jahari within their own catacombs.

"Not holding up well?" Goulet seemed to always read Grimsley's mind, or at least his emotions, constantly checking in with the youth as they travelled through the tunnels. Ronald couldn't give any support as it was feared his loudmouth would echo within the cockpit enough for a Jahari to hear. Goulet had already explained how they would be detected with hearing in the black tunnels, then by smell of the Bahari got close enough, something the dead one on the ground obviously had been about to do.

"I've been better." Grimsley winced, trying a weak smile in his Goliath.

"You know even if I could see you faking a smile inside that thing I would still know you were faking it." Goulet spoke with a calm precision, almost without emotion, but his words always somehow were filled with compassion and understanding and they soothed Grimsley. "I don't think it is much further now before we start to hit major chambers. Geological information on the area reports a lot of old mine shafts that used to go down quite deep before they were closed off. Those were the good old days of sucking up the resources in the earth. I always wonder why there wasn't enough foresight to predict the economic collapse that would surround a finite resource. But, then again, we're always at war so who are we to judge right?" Grimsley simply uh-huh'd and nodded his way through the lecture, confused and missing the historical information needed to understand Goulet's opinion.

There was a little ping in front of Grimsley, the radar detecting one of the caverns Goulet had just mentioned. With it came a host of smaller dots, tiny Jahari moving around with larger Bahari striding among them. There was an organizational movement to the little blips, a flawless synchronization as they shifted. It was as if their actions were linked, perfectly orchestrated by a single controller. Little groups would split off seamlessly, travelling about and changing directions all together.

There was one larger blob that moved through the opening, the size of a Bahari, and it did not seem to follow the cohesion of the rest of the group. While others would never collide or touch, moving perfectly past one another, this one seemed to cut right through, disconnected from the rest of the group's synchronization. It moved without a connection to the rest, even pushing other dots out of the way as it cut through.

"Are you seeing that one Goulet?"

"Indeed. Quite curious that it is not as unified. I always suspected the Jahari had some sort of synapse connection or collective consciousness and most of these movements would confirm that. Couldn't tell you about the one that just cuts right through."

"Maybe it is different from them all, like something else?"

"Then it would be dead by now. Nothing could invade the Jahari tunnels so freely. There aren't even insects living down here."

"What walks among the Jahari then?"

"I don't know." There was something disturbing to Goulet's tone, or perhaps the words he spoke. The general seemed to know everything about anything. For him to be confused over something so simple was a bit scary. Were the Jahari so mysterious that not even the learned Goulet could guess about their actions? "We need to move through it though."

"Through it?" Grimsley repeated, a bit stunned by the notion. "Not around it but through it?"

"Through it." Grimsley heard Goulet's sword crack as it snapped straight at the man's side. "We don't have any alternatives at the moment. By the numbers, we can take them, though only through killing as many as possible in the first moments of surprise.

Grimsley fidgeted in his seat, quite nervous suddenly at the prospect of diving head first into the lair of this army. It was almost like planning to shove your hand into a wasp nest. How many could you kill before they stung back? Granted, most of the forces in the chamber were the tiny Jahari, each only slightly bigger than a normal human but petty to a Goliath. The remaining Bahari would hurt though, and enough Jahari clambering all over a battlesuit could certainly bring it down eventually.

So where did that leave the two pilots? As far as Grimsley knew, he only had the one option of assault. There was no retreating now at this point. Nothing ahead but combat and violence, all to protect those he loved. The young man's eyes darkened, turning grey and cloudy as he began to sink deeper into thoughts of those he had lost, those war had taken away. "Let's go."

A/N: A second duel to the death, this time with no trance? What is the mystery behind Sigmeund and who is he really? Can he open Porter's eyes to a whole new world?