Athena fell to the ground, the apostle turned into a humanoid porcupine from the silver and black feathers littering her corpse.

Jack lifted its writhing head aloft, the pale skin monster still spewing flames that were snuffed by the fingers crushing its skull.

“You…” The chiten-covered knight let out, the apostle cut cleanly in half from shoulder to waist and glaring at Jack calmly despite its grievous wound. “Strength attracts strength… We will come for you, deviant. You have our attention.”

Jack stood over the apostle, catching the bone spear that suddenly erupted from the ground with his hand.

Before Jack was an angel, a being he vaguely recognized from what lingered of Sahaqiel's memory.

Without his bone helmet, he was pale of skin with red eyes and a face that was covered by healed scars. A warrior that spurred in a feeling of regret and loss, lingering emotions from his Archangel guest.

Maybe Sahaqiel knew who this man once was.

But Jack didn't.

“And how is that working out for you?” Jack said before raising his boot and dropping his heel on the monster’s face.

“We are immor-”

And like that another apostle was dead.

Reaching out, Jack gathered the ambient data to himself, contesting the call of the Infinity machine with Lilith deleting the information of what remained of the Apostles souls.

This time he didn't half ass it, instead Jack checked and double checked as a circle of a hundred feet around him became gray and clean, completely devoid of life.

After a moment Jack's shoulders slumped, out of breath as he took stock of his destroyed surroundings and his black feathers melted away.

“Is there a reason you didn't help?” Jack spat as he tried his attention to the jingle of spurs on boots that belonged to Ivan.

“What? You didn't notice the lack of nest agents attacking you?” Ivan chuckled much to Jack's chagrin. “Losing your grip bud.”

Jack elected to ignore Ivan.

“Sir,” Commander Houlihan said, standing beside Jack with a radio receiver held out. “Her Majesty the Queen.”

Jack blinked, rubbing the sweat from his brow before looking up at the sky where a fleet of airships hung in the distance before taking the phone.

“Couldn’t have gotten here quicker?” Jack said, sitting down to catch his breath, his heart pounding as his left eye bled beneath his eyepatch.

****

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“We're on a time table,” Sahaqiel said in the mayor office now crowded by Jack, Selfia, Mi’shka, Python, Tenno, and various officers from the Empire, Theocracy, and the Corpo Alliance. “Who Jack fought was Raguil, an overseer who manages other apostles. If he is active that means more apostles will be waking up and they'll get stronger, sooner or later we'll be staring down anti-army skills.”

“But Jack just killed him, deleted its data so we shouldn't have to worry about him right?” Python asked as Sahaqiel shook her head.

“It's not that simple. The Infinity Machine employs copies of its strongest warriors. Even if you defeat or delete a copy, it will regurgitate a new clone. We found this out the hard way when we imprisoned Ares and severed his connection to the machine.”

“So what stops the machine from spitting out clones?” Selfia asked, the woman already making the room her office space as Di'luke and Kamila brought in her boards and monitors.

“Protocols as far as we can tell. We ended up having to deal with two Ares and that became a bloodbath,” Sahaqiel sighed.

“Then we'll just beat them as they come,” Tenno gave off a hearty laugh, “After all one-eyed over here beat not one but two-”

“I got lucky and I had support,” Jack cut in, dashing the man’s hopeful words. “Athena wasn't at full strength and Raguil said that they were coming. We are running out of time, which leads me to my next question, how close until we can launch the boats?”

A question directed at Admiral Skirita.

“Seven days we can have them out to sea. Admittedly most of our crewmen and troops aren't trained for naval warfare or how to operate -”

“Then use the prisoners,” Jack said, drawing a look from several commanders. “I understand it's not ideal, I know that they present a security risk, but out of how many awakened we have, how many can stand against an apostle? Thirteen? Fourteen? All it takes is one slip up and we're down a man while the enemy keeps on coming back.”

“We can't trust them,” Selfia dismissed.

“But what if we could? What if I asked for volunteers and ascertained whether or not they could be useful?”

“And how do you plan on doing that? What makes you think they'd follow you after you killed their beloved general?”

“For the same reason they aren't rebelling now, they want purpose,” Jack said as he drew odd looks and placed Jena and Jazz’s notebook and letter in front of Selfia, “I believe we can give them that.”

“Your mind ripping thing?”

“Something like that,” Jack said before turning to Commander Houlihan, “Gather the prisoners, I think it's time we had a chat. Skirita, I need scouts to survey the field and make sure no apostles interrupt us while we get the boats together. Tenno and Ivan, go with them to defend the walls. Lita, have your paladins on standby with the prisoners. Just in case things don't plan out, Python, go with Houlihan and have the troops on standby, I want no surprises.”

Silence.

“Well? You heard your King, get to it,” Selfia barked, waving the officers off. “Go!”

“Anything you need us to do?” The red-headed cyborg from the Alliance asked.

“Sorry, I don't think we've actually been introduced?” Jack said, cocking his head towards Selfia.

“I'm Ryoma, this is Harley, and Bax,” The red-haired man said, extending a robotic hand out to Jack, “We did some odd jobs for the Queen, I believe our fathers were friends.”

“Is that so?” Jack said, his eye wandering to the brunette cyborg named Harley.

Then it clicked, this woman was there in the vault when he last saw his mother!

Which meant she was resistance.

Guess that's how Selfia knew so much about the Corpos.

“We’re pretty handy, so if you need anything just ask,” Ryoma continued.

“If you're handy then help Admiral Skirita with the boats and the IEDs. The sooner we get them sorted the better,” Jack said with the man giving him a mock salute before leaving with his cohort.

Now Jack was left in the office with Selfia, Sahaqiel and Violet, the bodyguard in the corner of the spacious office staring at Jack while Kamila and Di’luk went to work hooking up Selfia's office.

“Well, let's see what you have planned, milord,” Selfia said as she leaned across her desk with a smirk on her face.