The Warlock's stronghold seemed to be an exact copy of her own.

The rooms served the same functions with little variety other than some personal touches the Elder had saw fit to place; such as banners of his insignia and a more than notable increase of Priests over regular troopers. Hecate, surprisingly, had tried to suppress a quiet anxiety about traveling to such a place. But the Assassin could smell such fear and tension and made a note to inquire about it at a later date. After all, what Priest would not wish to step foot inside such a magnificent temple? In any case, she allowed the Priest to remain at her own base.

Jax-Mon kept her stride purposeful, ignoring the respect proffered to her by her brother's followers. It was annoying in her own keep and especially irritating here. She had not proven herself to these zealots, yet they more than happily saw her as a holy warrior. It was nothing more than a breeding ground for ego and arrogance that she wanted no part in.

Finding her brother was easy. His psi-signature was an overbearing presence that would force even the most hardy of tempered wills to bow. Thankfully, she was immune to such mental suggestions and would remain proud when facing him.

"Sister," the Warlock addresses the second she stepped foot in his chamber. Much like he; she had a signature that could be read a mile away. She certainly hadn't given herself away through sound, for her steps were too light and breathing too controlled. His closed eyes opened; burning bright like purple fires, like his veins that criss-crossed exposed biceps. " – To what do I owe the pleasure?"

He gestures to the meditation mat opposite him and she obeys, slipping down to her preferred lotus position.

"I wish to learn, brother." She does not see it as a weakness to ask. She feels nothingness; and in that void she can sense how forceful and irrefutable her elder brother's emotions were. Disgusting. She makes no mention of it as she continues without pause. "I am not blessed with a mastery of my psionic connection. I overloaded a prisoner of mine that I attempted to extract information from – and I can hardly probe a corpse."

"How.. unfortunate." He knew the feedback she must have endured from the sudden severing between her mind and the prisoner's, but if he offered sympathy; it was lost within his sardonic tone. "Nevertheless, you should have a Priest within your ranks, do you not? I hand-picked her especially from my flock. For feeble minded creatures; consider using her to extract the information for you."

If Jax-Mon possessed eyebrows, they would furrow angrily. "That is not what I asked. I should be perfectly capable – "

"If you should be, then I fail to see why you need to learn..? Were you not created to be Their perfect vision? Yet you enter my temple, claiming that you require my aid."

The Assassin drew a calming breath, then exhaled, matching her brother's eyes with a hard stare that could form diamonds. Now she understood why he was being so facetious, what he wanted her to do. He wanted her to announce her imperfection; her flawed being, which ultimately would elevate him in stature. Proven that he still remained as the Elder's true child, not her. Had she pride, it would snarl at the prospect, but her task needed her to grow in order for it to be completed.

Her blade whispered in the air as it was unleashed from it's prison, the point slamming just at the front of the meditation mat. She rolled to the balls of her feet, now instead of sitting as his equal, she knelt subservient. "Brother, please. There is still much for me to learn.. to understand and I want only to make our Elders proud. Would you truly deny your adjuring sister? They have told me that you are my guide. My better."

With each heavy footfall of his boots, her grip on her katana tightened. It would be so easy to drive this blade through his neck …

His clawed gauntlet came into view, gesturing for her to rise now that his dominance had been established, face twisted into a tart, haughty grin. She obediently rises. "Then I shall teach you how to control your psionics, sister. Come, let us proceed."


"You were apart of my brother's followers?"

Hecate's fingers pause over the data pad she was monitoring, head canting towards the sound of the Assassin's voice. Once again she found herself delaying to answer until deciding on a neutral tone; "I was.."

"But not any more."

"No." She did not expand further and she could sense Jax-Mon's vexation at the candid nature of her responses. She settles the pad down on the desk, moving away from the station she was tasked to monitor on her behest and offers the Chosen her full attention. "Your brother ... selected ... me to be apart of the team that would work with you upon your arrival in this world at our masters' request."

Jax-Mon stalked closer, suspicion clear in magenta eyes. She towered over the Priest, lip curled back in a sneer. "To spy on me?"

Hecate's voice remained the same dulcet cadence as it always did. "To be rid of me. No reason will stand with the Elders to kill a Priest, not even a Chosen's immunity grants you reason. But he can disgrace me and send me away."

That drastically changed the Assassin's course. Confusion twisted her features. " - You perform all of your duties to an acceptable standard. What about you is so offensive that you would be expunged from his sacred temple?"

Instead of the answer she sought, she was given something else; " – Defence Captain Fiducia wishes to speak with you in the Armoury and sparring ring, Chosen. The.. ripjack, as he calls it, has recently been fabricated. In addition to a working grapple system as per your description of it."

Jax-Mon leant forward; warning her before she left; "We will continue this conversation."


"I reviewed the field footage that you captured, Chosen. Their arsenal employs non-standard ADVENT inventory with an emphasis on close quarter combat, although unlike our own melee combatants, they intend to kill rather than incapacitate." Fiducia begins his presentation once she enters, not one to idle any more than he had to. He directs her attention to the workbench he set up.

"All Skirmishers, as they call themselves, prefer to use a bullpup, one that utilizes a twenty-by-forty millimeter cartridge." He gestures to the dismantled one for her to study and she picks at the various mechanisms of the magnetic example. He lifts a replica, handling it as if he had done so his entire life.

"The main benefit is it's length and maneuverability, though given it's flexibility for modification, it's drawbacks can be tweaked away. While you should not expected highly accurate shots: prepare for a hail of projectiles."

He clears his throat, gaining her attention as he gestures to the grappling system mounted on the plate of his gauntlet. "The Skirmishers have also perfected an art of combat with the grapple. They have exchanged the grapnel for something more bullet-shaped – able to pierce through even the most durable of alloys to pull the victim to them or pull themselves to the the victim. They can also overload the wire to send a devastating electrical shock."

"Close-quarter specialists.." she muses with a fanged grin showing through her usual neutrality. "A fitting opponent for a warrior such as myself. It is no wonder I was made for the purpose of fighting them. Do you spar, captain? I would like to get acquainted with the Skirmisher's tricks of the trade so that I may prepare against them."

"If sparring is what you will of me, I would be honoured to be your partner, Chosen."

Jax-Mon traded her katana for a practice sword, as much as she preferred to have a spar be as close to actual combat, one strike from her blade would cut to kill. Likewise, Fiducia traded the cartridge for blank rounds. They both entered the ring, the captain slipping under the ropes as the Assassin merely maneuvered over them. She circled around his still, tense form, sword pointed; steps impossibly light.

He fires and the bullpup kicks in series of three; brat-tat-tat! Each blank deflected with her expert exhibit of swordsmanship, advancing closer on the defense so that she may seize the attack. But, much like her brother, the Hunter, he tried to utilized his grapple to flank around her charge. Jax-Mon would not fall for something twice, so as the bullet-shaped hook soared, she caught it by the grapnel and yanked him off-kilter.

Fiducia stumbled as the system continued to propel him forward, but now his knees crashed across the sparring mat, losing traction and stopped him dead at her feet. She let go of the grapnel and it snapped back into it's compartment. Practice blade brandishing, she twists it around and drives it downwards. She expects him to simply roll away, but subverts her by instead riposting with the ripjack, knocking her grip looses intending to disarm her.

For someone sparring in full plate, he was surprisingly limber, but could not compare to her. She smacks his head down with the pommel of the sword, disorientating him just long enough for her to grab him by the cape and toss him forward, slamming her boot square on the ADVENT emblem on his chest. She points the tip of the practice sword at his forehead. " – Dead."

"Would I be?" he questions, demonstrating by tapping the claws of the ripjack on the in-seam of her suited leg. " – Ripjacks can pierce through alloy and though your armour is durable, it was designed for agility than defense. Were this a real battle, I would not hesitate to strike."

"You would not even realize you were dead were this to be a real battle!" She frowns. Petulance … No, this was not her. Perhaps it was time to step away from her older brother's influence. She slips her foot off Fiducia's chest and yanks him back to his feet, much to his off-balanced protest. Backing towards the furthest corner, she barked; "Again!"

They sparred for what must have been hours. The majority of the matches, the Assassin indubitably won, though the few times Fiducia attempted a tactic she had yet to see, it threw her off track and earned him a few solid matches. Tactics that were never repeatable, for Jax-Mon only required to see it once to learn and adapt from it. She recognized some of the moves he pulled as unconventional orders on the human Commander's behalf – strange commands that had netted their XCOM fake victories over the alien forces – and made note to recreate them for her own benefit.

Hecate arrived to spectate after the third hour. Jax-Mon was tailored to have enhanced endurance and stamina and could run a planet-wide marathon without tiring her muscles, but the same could not be said for her partner. The Priest sounded vaguely amused when she commented; " – Ah yes, the strategy of wearing your opponent out from utter exertion. Masterfully executed, Chosen."

Indeed, Fiducia had been rather sloppy in that particular match. Being made of considerably more human genetics than she, he could never hold a candle to the physical prowess she possessed. The Assassin barely even had to move to avoid his weakened strike and a mere firm push from her sword sent him spiralling to the mat.

"... I believe we have done all that we can today." she announced and she was fairly sure he made a sound akin to muffled relief. "Hecate?"

"Yes, Chosen." the Priest murmured, understanding her order before she even had to say it. She wandered to the sparring ring, tugging the ropes upwards and assisting Fiducia down. He drapes an arm around her shoulders to support himself whilst she slips her own around his waist, her free hand steadying. Jax-Mon watches, head tilted, stricken with the comparison of the human couple she had saw on her first excursion out of the stronghold.


"... Lucretia has still not been found? I do not believe this is a kidnapping on behalf of the Reapers, Mox. Stealthy as they may be, you would be admitting to them stealing her right under your and her squadmate's nose." The static voice of Betos tempers in and out on the unstable video feed, the image distorting at various places, or jerkily cutting out all together, but the sound remained somewhat in-sync. "Additionally, it is not in their tactics. They have made it abundantly clear they much prefer to kill than waste time and resources into elaborate captures."

"Then they are adapting," snarls the veteran, his anger for vengeance outpaced by the grief and worry he felt for his still missing soldier. "As you say, they care only for their kill-count, and what better way than to lure a squad right to whatever death trap they set by promise of returning our own!"

"If only you could turn such active imagination into battle tactics, she might have been found already." chews his commander in a rare bite of scathing tone that often went unused for him. He shirks back a little. "I will not listen to your conspiracy theory that the Reapers are kidnapping my soldiers. The threat may be closer to home than you are willing to look: you were, after all, close to the facility. We are trying to pave peace and until tensions with them settle, we cannot achieve that."

"Your vision is admirable, Commander, but they only speak in violence and death. They will never settle until every one of our kind is dead, be it ADVENT or Skirmisher."

"Do you think this conflict has been one-sided, Mox? We endure our burdens everyday. They have a right to want justice and their vision is no less clouded with anger and grief as yours is for our missing sister." The flickering image of Betos stalls and cuts out entirely, leaving only the audio. " – You have your orders, Captain. See to it that it does not involve another dead Reaper at your hands."

Pratal Mox nearly snaps the data pad in two. He recalls how his temper and unnatural anger had earned him a deadly reputation as one of ADVENT's most heinous field generals. Whose bloodthirst and brutality was second only to the Chosen Hunter's. That thought drains the fury out of him and he settles the unharmed, still functional pad back into his knapsack. He truly did admire Betos and her unwavering bastion for peace, even as enemies all around her were determined to tear her down.

But he had his orders. Thankfully a simple mission: accepting more freed kin from the clutches of ADVENT. Betos herself usually handled the introductions, but with her hands full, she extended the diplomacy to him of all people. He would not squander her faith in him, even if he does not see himself in the same light she is able to.

His hands plant on either side of his full-covering helmet, easing it off and clipping it to his belt – and catching sight of his blurry reflection on a shard of glass. Even after two years since Betos accepted him, the gorges across his jaw that kept the ADVENT helmet firmly in place still had not healed. That was always the hard part: weathering the pain of removing the drilled-in components.

Mox gestures to his waiting squad talking among themselves to flank him and they obey, following similarly with removing their masks or helmets. To ease these newcomers' idea about it. The meeting place that he had chosen was a secluded ramshackle area that was marked for redevelopment into some extension of the mega-city. The human settlers that showed promise of loyalty had been reallocated and the rest – exterminated, leaving only a barren area for now.

Betos had expressed that they will greet them with peace, but Mox always prepared for the worst. In the case that ADVENT were growing more aware of their plans, that they were setting up these fake meetings in order to lure out Skirmishers to kill. His bullpup may be holstered, but his ripjack and grapple were ready.

An hour passes standing in the dusty, abandoned town and he grows weary. An additional ten passes, making them late.

He spots the garish red of an Officer's armour appearing through the sand first, before the figures emerged. A trio, one Officer, two Stun Lancers. Even though the pod had plenty of time to shoot them, they did not. He relaxes a margin. They stop before him, dropping their ADVENT weapons in peace.

"Well then? Are you Elder puppets or freed men?" Mox resisted the urge to wince at his tone. It was beyond him why Betos believed he would make for a great diplomat. Nevertheless, the trio made no comment of it and moved to discard their helmets or visors in unison.

Right in front of his eyes, the world crumpled before him. The Officer made a strangled cry as orange blood spurted out of the wound in his gut, a katana made of material he has never seen before sticking out of it. Mox and his men jumped to action, bullpups drawn and searching frantically for the threat. But as the Officer dropped to the floor, dead, nothing was present but the sandy wind.

"What – " one of the soldiers under his command questioned, only for his speech to be replaced with sputtered gurgling, throat slashed. He clawed at the injury before falling to his knees and then prone in a collecting pool of his own meld-infused blood. There! Mox saw it, the psionic camouflage falling as the wind whipped and sand stuck to.. it.

It might have been beautiful, had it not been for the twisted, misshapen features of human physiology mangled by alien genetics in a way that was clearly more alien than it was human. It was unlike any creature Mox had ever seen, fought or worked with before. Not Sectoid. Certainly not Archon, or Muton, or – and then it struck him, when it's head turned to appraise him with the most intense pink-purple eyes.

He shot first.

It merely jumped in a bounding leap, dodging his fairly accurate bursts of gunfire with impossible reflexes and even more mind-boggling flexibility. He struggled to keep track of it's acrobatics, for it managed to weave out of his squad's and the newly freed kin's saturated fire like nothing. He was sure it would be able to dodge raindrops on a heavy downpour.

It's hands planted on the shoulders of a Stun Lancer, flipping around and gathering his arm's to subdue him. Mox felt sick to his stomach as his bullpup already kicked and now his bullets were embedded into lancer's chest, killing him. It discards the corpse and flourishes that alien blade to deflect.

"Go!" He orders, "We cannot fight a threat we do not understand – leave!"

"Traitors.." it hisses, voice scratchy and a pale imitation of femininity. ".. and now cowardly. Fight me like the true warriors you claim to be! I long for a battle to prove my worth!"

They did not raise to it's – Mox guessed it was supposed to be a 'her', – bait, obeying his order and dashing back towards they had came. But she was not about to let them live, not now. Not after seeing her. The Skirmisher captain releases his grapnel towards her, hoping to provide enough distraction for his squad to make it out, but she seemed to expect that. Like she knew how he fought. A mere deflect from her katana sent it back into his wrist launcher.

She drove her katana into the ground and he did not need to have the Gift to feel the raw psionic energy that gathered at the tip, drawing from the very Earth itself. He could not do anything for his fellow squad, merely use his grapple to propel himself away from the path of the psionic wave that furiously washed over the retreating forms of his troops. They fell, one by one, crippled and overloaded with the intensity of her power. The very air crackled with the lingering energy; like a thunderstorm brewing on the horizon.

"What.. are you!?" cried Mox, bearing witness to this. He did not wish to leave any of his kin behind, but trying to carry them out one by one whilst this.. alien assassin lurked would be impossible.

She tilts her head, plucking her katana out of the dirt and wiping it clean on her thigh. With a twist of her wrist she brandishes it and approaches him slowly. Her eyes were alive – glowing with the power of her attack, but distracted. Enough that she did not hear him reach for his grenade as she contemplated his question.

" – A guardian angel." she echoes something he isn't privy to. "A Saint."

He lobbed the grenade at the last second, barely giving her time to react as it exploded at her feet. Her caterwaul of a pained screech would haunt his nightmares, but for now he focused on escaping with his life, unaware of the weakness he just discovered.