I swished my sword back into its holster on my back and nailed Venad with a laser-focused stare down. Venad shrank back into their seat, cowed for now.

"I'm human, and that's all you need to know," I said, "Now, you mentioned the three clans being quieter than usual, why don't we go back to talking about that."

Venad was staring at me as if I were a demon made manifest in their shop. Scarier than any other human or any other Null Space Invader. It looked like they wanted to run and scream and never stop running.

They took a breath, long and deep, and then started to explain.

"Usually when a Guard recruitment tournament is going on like this, the three clans will restrict their business to core clients and will never deal in the most restricted items. They want to stay as under the radar as possible while still bringing in money," Venad said.

"But that wasn't the case this time, was it?" Fal pushed.

"No, this year they went completely quiet. Quieter than I've ever known them to go before. Similar levels of inactivity have only ever happened when something seriously big was about to go down," The grey alien continued.

"So," I cut in, "Logic dictates that even if the clans didn't have anything to do with the Null Space Invader actually making their way onto the city, at the very least they knew about it."

"That's pretty much the long and short of it, yes," Venad said.

<You should mention the fighting ring that you found the Invader in originally,> BB said as he rose from the depths of our Synchro mode once again.

"When I first encountered the Invader, Lara was already fighting it in some kind of fighting ring deep in the alleyways of this building. I'd never know how to get back to it, not even if I tried, do you know anything about a place like that?"

"Sounds like one of the Dragon Bowls," Venad said.

"You mean one of Clan Pren's fighting pits?" Fal asked, their eyes darting between Venad and me.

"The very same," Venad replied. "If you want somewhere to start, I'd suggest Clan Pren."

While I had no idea who Clan Pren were, it was nice to finally have somewhere to point my anger. A person to blame for the loss of someone who could have been a friend, if not more than a friend.

<Yeah, as if you would be so lucky,> BB snorted.

Either way, we'd never know now because she was gone, and Clan Pren was the reason.

"So, this Clan Pren should be our target, how do we make them pay for what they've done?" I asked, trying and failing to keep my anger out of my voice.

"We are no vigilante group, Jacob Lyre," Yr'Arl spoke up for the first time in a while. "We shall report this information back to Squadron Leader Belana and then await further instructions. This is the way of the Guard, the way of justice."

I almost couldn't believe what I was hearing. A group of people had smuggled one of the most dangerous creatures to ever exist onto the city, and we didn't know-how. There could be more and more arriving at any moment. We had to stop them, we couldn't be held back by the bureaucracy of the Guard.

<It's what they're expecting of you, you know,> BB said, <To go off half-cocked like a violent and emotional human. They're all waiting for you to take that step, with the exception of maybe Yr'Arl for whatever reason.>

As much as I was loath to admit it, BB was right. They probably were expecting the human to go running into battle with his sword swinging and his energy beams blasting. Well, I wasn't going to be that human. Not yet, anyway. For now, I was going to play by the book, until the book proved to be too slow. Then I'd do things my way.

"Thank you for your time, Venad. I wish you well in the coming days," Fal said, dismissing their chair as they stood.

"For you and Pax, anything. Though I'd appreciate some warning before you bring a human around next time," They said, shooting me a dirty look.

I let the comment slide, I'd nearly fought this alien too many times already.

"Hopefully there won't need to be a next time," Fal said sagely, before turning on their heel. "Come on, we'd better go report all of this back to Belana so we can get our next set of orders. Here's hoping Pax and Akash have had as much success as us."

xXx

Akash dodged to the side as a cavalcade of light and heat burned its way across the fighting pit toward him. He lashed out his vines and pulled himself from one side of the dip to the other.

He had no idea what had happened to Pax, only that now he was in the fight of his life. Nothing had compared to this before, not even the fight against that accursed human.

The hooded figure took a step forward, blurring as they did so, and suddenly they stood right in front of the tree-alien. He lashed out with a whip of his vines, the edges morphed to be serrated so they would do the most damage as possible if they landed.

But land they didn't.

The figure blurred on the spot, moving so fast that his vine seemed to simply pass through his opponent.

They darted forward, on the offensive once again, and gripped Akash by his thick wooden shoulders so hard that the material he was made from gave an unhappy creak. With a twist of their hips, Akash was on the ground, unconscious. The crowd watching roared their appreciation as they put a foot on Akash's face and ground down.

They would let the last of the Eldrani live, if only for now.

If only to feed the army yet to come.