"What do you mean you've lost contact with Pax and Akash?" Fal all but shrieked as the Squadron Leader revealed the bad news.

They had supposedly lost contact with the two while we were out in the megacity, and there had been no success in either tracing them or getting their signal back online. The only possible explanation-

"They must have been captured by Clan Pren if that is who you believe to be behind this mess," Belana said. "But try not to worry, Fal, we will be doing all we can to get your partner back. I promise you that."

It clearly hadn't been the right thing to say to the lizard-like alien. Their fangs bared off their own accord and their usually grey eyes had a flicker of red flame to them.

"Try not to worry?" They seethed, "My bonded mate is somewhere out there, completely alone, and you want me to try not to worry? You would never understand!"

Before anyone could stop them, Fal had stormed out of the room and slammed the door. I couldn't grasp the depth of the emotions they must be feeling, I doubted that anyone other than another Lyrin pair would be able to understand that, but I felt I could understand to a degree at least. If anyone had taken someone that I cared about, there wouldn't be a force in the galaxy that would be able to stop me from trying to hunt them down.

I even felt a little bit uneasy about Akash being taken, and he had spent the whole time we'd known one another berating me to my face.

"Yr'Arl, please go after Fal, make sure they don't do anything that they will regret later on," Belana ordered.

Yr'Arl gave a nod and left the room just as swiftly as Fal had. It felt good to know that Yr'Arl was going after Fal, I was sure that they were planning to do something stupid like storming Clan Pren's stronghold, wherever that may have been, by themselves. That wouldn't have been a smart move in the slightest.

<I'm going to advise you to be careful again here Kiddo, something tells me that our good Squadron Leader friend here still thinks you might have had a part to play in all of this, and not a good one,> BB said to bring me out of my thoughts.

"Is there a problem, Squadron Leader?" I asked, trying to feign ignorance about the thoughts that may or may not have been swirling around the man's head.

"A problem? I doubt it," He replied. "No, I'm just trying to figure out what we should do with you. An anomaly such as yourself is… tricky to deal with."

I'm afraid I don't understand, sir," I said, refusing to rise to the bait.

"To put it simply, Jacob, you represent a bit of a black hole in our data," The squadron leader went on.

He had leant forward, resting his chin on his steepled fingers just as he had done before, with a dangerous glint in his eye.

"You have said that you come from a peaceful colony of humans, one that doesn't want to harm any other alien races."

I nodded my affirmative, it had seemed like the best thing to say at the time. Pass away the fact that I was peaceful on the fact that I was raised on the equivalent of an intergalactic hippy farm.

"Well, Jacob, such a thing doesn't exist, we would have found it."

"Squadron Leader, I can assu-"

"Don't interrupt me when I am speaking to you, Initiate," The Squadron Leader snapped. "We have searched through our records, we have conducted new deep space scans in places both known to be frequented by humans and places known to be avoided. Your fabled peaceful human world simply does not exist."

<We could be in trouble here, big trouble. If you thought fighting Venad was difficult, then you wouldn't stand a chance against a Squadron Leader.>

I fought against my instincts to submerge BB into our Synchro mode so I could bring up my corona shield. I had the feeling that the moment I unleashed any amount of manna Belana would be on me before I could even think about reacting.

"And then there is your propensity for flashy shows of manna use," Belana continued, "You somehow tread the line of incredible power and incredible lack of experience. It's almost as if you woke up yesterday with your abilities for the first time. No human has ever shown your propensity for magic. I find myself asking… just what are you, really?"

It was a rhetorical question, I knew it was, so when he turned his needling gaze to my own eyes I just sat there and took it.

"I'm going to keep my eye on you, Jacob Lyre. Your record is squeaky clean, everything's there. But nothing about you adds up, nothing at all," The Squadron Leader sighed and leaned back in his chair.

"Nevertheless, regroup with Fal and Yr'Arl. This mission has quickly gone to pot, your next task will be hunting down Clan Pren and rescuing Pax and Akash. Fail, and I'll be holding you responsible for all of their deaths."

"Yes sir," I replied shortly. I tried and failed to keep the heat out of my tone, which the Squadron Leader could only grin at. He knew he had managed to worm his way under my skin.

I left the room and gave myself a moment to lean against the wall and just breathe.

I didn't know what these people would do to me if they found out that, while I was human, I wasn't technically a human from their world. But something inside of me told me that I needed to keep the fact a secret, and it wasn't just BB.

Something told me that, if the humans of this universe discovered that there was another Earth in another Sol system filled with another completely different breed of humanity they wouldn't ever stop until they ripped it up into tiny little pieces.

I couldn't afford for that to happen. Not now, not ever.