Blasted back into the hallway, Jack managed to form a shield with his feathers just before the attack connected with his body.

Rolling to his feet, Jack winced as his field of view flared into an all-consuming brightness from the source of power bursting from within the chamber.

Jack turned his angelic vision off, focusing on the choir of children singing at the top of their lungs in a language he didn't understand.

But Sahaqiel did. And she wept.

Within Jack, sadness welled up, the language of the angels singing hauntingly of a bygone time that Sahaqiel hadn't heard since she was a child.

Before the war.

Before Heaven fell.

Before she became what she was.

However, that sadness quickly turned into wrath, the language of the angels being perverted into a heinous tool not something Sahaqiel could abide.

“Kill him,” Sahaqiel seethed, her voice echoing with Lilith’s with their combined rage flowing into Jack who was all but too happy to oblige.

Jack bolted forward, or, at least attempted to before the ground shook, the facility beneath Jack's feet violently vibrating.

A trap?!

No, the laboratory was moving, rising upward with red alarms blaring as Jack lost balance and began to slide until he hit a bulkhead.

“Jessica! What's going on out there?!” Jack barked through his COM-LINK as he activated float to stabilize himself mid-air.

Jessica’s voice chimed in a moment later.

“The entire city is moving! It's a flying fortress, it chaos ou-!” Jessica called out before the line went dark.

“Jessica? Jessica?!” Jack called out before attempting to reach out to Lita, Python, and Yukino.

No answer.

With his back blocked by some kind of black metal he couldn't break through, Jack flew forward, entering back into the training hall where he suddenly found himself surrounded by a barrier of golden energy.

Above the center of the room, the Green Bishop floated, cackling over his morbid creations like a machiavellian mad scientist.

Jack scowled.

At nearly seven feet tall, the Green Bishop was a beast of a man who belied the stereotype of a scrawny scientist. Instead, his body bore the telltale signs of augmentation alongside his muscular frame supported by modifications.

According to the dossier, the Bishop was a chant less caster with a background as an Cintellian Judicator. A class of warriors that served as the Theocracy’s death squads to hunt and police other awakened.

What his class was however was a secret, but from what Jack could tell, the man wasn't an angel at the least and weaker than Tenno.

Which mean he was dead.

Immediately Jack's hand went up, black lighting arcing through his arm to lash out at the bishop.

The attack failed however, the bolt of plasma smashing futility against a barrier.

“Did you believe that WE didn't know that you were coming? Did you not think that we weren't aware of your attack?” The Bishop cackled, arms outstretched as his eyes flared red behind his glasses. “For every step you take, you fulfill the path made by his excellency!”

A sickly sensation caressed Jack's skin, one that filled him with revulsion as he stared at the man who seemed to be in a state of twisted euphoria.

Lilith, Sara, I need options here. Jack sent, dodging a multitude of beams from the mouths of the captured children firing at him.

“We can get through it with Gehenna.” Lilith offered.

Jack reached out, the runes upon his skin lighting up as Gehenna came online.

At the sight of Jack's action, the Bishop licked his lips and summoned dozens of floating drones, all of them pointed at Jack with cameras instead of guns.

What is this? Some kind of experiment to him? Jack wondered, trying as much as he could to absorb and dismantle the barrier to get at his prey.

However, for all his siphoning, every ounce of mana Jack took was simply replaced as the singing grew louder.

“Yes, yes! Let's see how much you can withstand! Show your father what you're made of!” The Bishop screamed, placing his face against the barrier with his wide eyes glaring at Jack with disgusting fascination.

At the provocation, Lilith's bloodlust rose to an all time high with Jack releasing several bursts of arc repulse just to release the accumulated mana.

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Damn it! Why isn't this working?!

It didn't take long before Jack had his answer.

“Listen to that melody! That joyous love of your siblings!” The Bishop roared, tears streaming down his face as he gestured to the choir of deformed human bodies singing what could only be compared to as a church hymnal.

“The children! He's using the children as servitors to power the barrier!” Sahaqiel directing Jack’s gaze towards the sight of several collapsing bodies.

Realizing what he was doing, Jack immediately stopped siphoning the barrier as his eyes snapped towards the Bishop who now looked bored.

“You still aren’t there are you?” The Bishop said with disappointment as the madman’s eyes lost all luster. “Here you are, a mere foot away from your quarry and you still fail to take the step that is needed.”

A loud boom shook the facility, consequences of the raging battle outside.

“Every second you delay clinging to your morals is another life lost. But feet not, papa is here to teach you.”

Jack narrowed his eyes.

“Teach me?” Jack hissed, smashing his fist angrily against the barrier. “How is it possible for you all to be so cruel?! For you all to be such monsters?!"

The Bishop recoiled with an expression of genuine hurt at Jack's accusation.

“What? Me? A monster? A MONSTER?!” The Bishop spat, approached one of the singing children and knelt, taking the child’s pale hand. “Let’s ask a third party shall we? Tilly, is your father a monster?”

The small child turned her exposed cranium laced with metal toward the man in priestly vestments. What part of her face that wasn’t covered in electronics smiled at the touch of the Bishop as her voice continued to sing that haunting melody.

“Busd de cordziz, busd de ge oecrimi ge,

ofekufa ge de a ror faorgt,

Asc! asc! torzu od bring ah new future-”

Jack frowned, realizing that he could understand the words being sung so reverently.

-for humanity,

Glory to us, glory to us, glory to us, glory to humanity,

Our hope, ascension,

The sky we beg to see.

Glory to us, glory to us, glory to us, glory to humanity,

Though the path we walk, is long and tiresome,

Stalwart, we shall be,

all for humanity! All for humanity!

Hand in hand we will always walk with thee,

Stalwart are we for humanity.

Even though our bodies break,

our voices crack

All that has passed is for humanity,

Though deep our song shall be, nearer to the sky are we,

Glory to us, glory to us, glory to us, glory to humanity-”

For humanity? What a sick joke…

Jack’s eyes twitched as the lyrics he listened to from the choir made his fists ball.

The Bishop had a point though.

Outside, the battle was still raging and every second he delayed in killing the Bishop more people died.

This was war, he knew this. But it still felt wrong. Almost as if he were condemning his soul.

“Is this the face of a suffering child? Is this the face of a being experiencing cruelty?” The Bishop demanded before rushing over with one of the children to place them before the golden barrier and in front of Jack, the two separated by a dense sheen of golden light. “Look at my child. Look at what I have made! These children were all orphans! Outcasts, nobodies with no hope! No future! Starving rats that I took in! Feed! Clothed! Gave them purpose beyond the limited scope of their station! What else can that be called other than love?! Other than care?!”

“Sickness,” Jack said, his voice echoing with traces of Lilith before he reached through the barrier and grabbed the surprised Bishop by the throat.

“What?!”

Immediately the man was slammed against the barrier. Once, twice, five times until the barrier faded and Jack slammed the Bishop onto the ground.

“H-how?! How did you get past our love?!” The Bishop spat, rising to his feet only to be greeted by a knee into his chin.

The large man reeled, shaking his head, what connection he had to the mass of singing children somehow severed as Jack's feathers unfurled, stabbing the man in every limb and pinning the man to the ground.

The Bishop opened his mouth and roared, feeling his body lethargic as his power was siphoned by Gehenna as Jack calmly coldly approached.

"You! This isn't how this was supposed to play out!" The Bishop spat, attempting to fire a blast of mana at Jack only for his hand to be covered by metal feathers where the appendage violently exploded. "This... You weren't supposed to-How are you in stage-"

Lilith manifested, the raven woman standing before her creator.

“Hello Father,” Lilith spat, the answer to Jack's ability, “Did you miss me?”

“Sasha…” The Bishop let out, his face paling as Jack stood over him. “You've come back to me.”

Jack didn't know what to make of the man recognizing Lilith so easily, but he could feel a pain swell up within.

“To kill you. Yes,” Lilith said as Jack's shadow seemed to stretch, revealing black chains that snaked from the darkness towards its pinned down prey calling out Lilith's name in perverted jubilation, almost accepting his fate.

“Wait.”

The chains stopped, Lilith's ability halted by Jack's command.

“What is this?” Lilith hissed, turning her red eyes on Jack.

“I need him alive.”

“What? That wasn't what-”

“I need to know what happened to my sister. We need him alive,” Jack growled as the Bishop barked out a laugh.

“No… No! He dies here and now! That was part of our deal! He dies today!” Lilith shrieked, attempting to kill the man only to be stopped by Ruby’s shield.

Lilith turned to Jack, rage in her eyes as she realize her powers were answering to Jack.

“And he will! But first I need to know where my sister is! Lilith, stand down. Now,” Jack hissed, attempting to reel in the rampaging spirit threatening to overload his senses with bloodlust.

“HE USED US!” Lilith screamed. “Fed us lies! Gave us promises of a better tomorrow and TWISTED US! DECEIVED US! All to play out his sick perversions in the name of ascending humanity! He has to die! He has to die! Hehastodiehehastodiehehastodie!”

Lilith began to cry, the first Jack had seen from the specter as Sahaqiel appeared and held the woman back.

Jack frowned, only realizing a singular fact he had overlooked.

Lilith was still a child. A small girl taken advantage of with no chance at growing up.

He could feel her emotions as clear as day, a strong desire for closure from her tormentor who let out a maniacal laugh.

But.

That wasn't something he could give her right now, not when they knew so little about their enemies. His sister's whereabouts aside, the Bishop was better off alive for the time being than alive.

“Lilith. Give me time. I promise he won't escape justice,” Jack said, pulling the spirit back as an explosion blew upon a hole nearby and Jessica entered the chamber with several Imperial commandos trailing her heels.