The captain hid his frustration behind a stony composure; Bryo and Mika were also sharing this quad and Ryan didn't need anything more disturbing the already delicate balance of their unity. But goddamn, why that decent pussy of a man...? Ryan loved Davn for who he was, as he loved all his men... he was an excellent soldier. But he would have traded the guy in for Zion any day.

Zion.

Zion... dear god, the hell in his memories... as much as he hated that traitor Jayde, perhaps Ryan had loved him better than he ever did any of his other brothers... perhaps this was why he couldn't get the nightmares out of his head. Zion couldn't just have disappeared into thin air as it had seemed... he was too good for that. As he had been too good for the Jaydes.

The Jayde knuckled his temple, forcing the images out of his mind. He wondered if that redheaded bitch Kat had made it to Command School. Not much of a doubt, actually. "Bitch" was probably why he would actually be surprised if he wouldn't see her in here. Running a hand through his coarse brown hair for a moment, Ryan chuckled in remebrance of those torturous days they had spent on earthside when he, Zion, Kat and Jax had been sent down for reevaluation. Bitch as she was, she was still a gorgeous ho. A beautiful monstrosity sent from hell.

Davn settled into his area slowly, deliberately. He felt Ryan's resent for him radiating from the boy's turned back, he felt the nervousness of Mika and Bryo as they bantered lightly on the other side of the room.

"... damn, brah... there be some foyneass shawties up in here, neh..."

"...oh hell yeah. Hey Jayde... why don't we get to bunk with the girls like we used to in battle school, eh...? For real, I mean, don't they trust us?"

"Ahah, ahahahh... 'trust' my ass, son! Sides, would they even need to worry about you? The only intelligence you ever have sex with is your computer, neh? Aww, dissed you...."

"Eh, better than with my hand like you do, you dildo!"

"Anyways... you know the guys do get to bunk with the ladies, for real. The other guys, I mean. Not us. Ah, the Plague of Jayde, my brotha..."

"Aw, fuck."

They were fit enough. That was something. But they all carried that troublesome air of unity about them that she had been worried about, casting glances at each other and back at her. She was already the outsider and she hadn't spoken yet...and she didn't like the predatory smiles they were beginning to grow.

She straightened unconsciously, the commander stripes below the wolf head on her uniform easier to see. "My name is Bianca. I'm the Commander of Wolf and I'm here to evaluate you." She kept her voice cold, authoritative. "State your name and previous army position. You first," she said to the boy with the rough brown hair that was staring at her in disdain. The leader, it looked like, from the way the other three looked at him.

"Commander Bianca, I am Bryo Jayde, second of this Jayde team." He fought the impulse to take the commander's hand and kiss it the way he would pimp on all pretty women... but this shawty didn't seem to be too in the mood. Maybe later...

Mika introduced himself, a little smirk playing on the corner of his mouth. Boy always seemed like he was trying not to laugh, Ryan thought... and he noticed that Mika had grown considerably since their days in Battle School. Ah well- in this family he would always be the shrmp no matter how tall he got.

Ryan Jayde was inside.

She waited until he was finished talking to the commander, and the older girl walked into another cell. He was alone, and with languid grace, Kat sauntered into the barracks and leaned against the doorjamb, lounging with the readiness of a cat about to pounce. Ryan glanced up at her with a startled flash in his eyes that he couldn't hide, and baring her canines in a grin, Kat purred quietly at him.

He hadn't changed, not really. Taller, stronger, more handsome. Still with that arrogant pride and cocky demeanor she'd grown to expect. They hadn't known eachother well, until their Launches combined... and it was he who called his Jayde boys off of Jax one day, he who respected her lust for revenge and allowed her Jax's life to take. Ryan and one traitor Jayde named Zion... she hissed at the remembrance, still watching Ryan with appraising emerald-gold eyes as she half-hid behind her coppery curls and ran her gaze over his body.

They'd all been sent Earthside: herself, Jax, Ryan, and Zion... iced for re-evaluation. The three of them were deemed safe enough to be freed, while she; she'd been targeted for the Charybdis Institute, that harsh hellhole, her home of eight godforsaken years. But the one day before she'd been dragged away had been all she needed. Ryan had remained behind, Jax and Zion accompanying her on a little "walk" in the guarded property. That bastard Jayde was gone before he knew what hit him, Jax following with surprise in his eyes as she stabbed him in the back as he stood over the fallen Zion. That is when she'd taken the ring, ripped the Jayde patch from the boy's uniform, and buried them both in shallow, undiscovered graves.

Ahhh yes, Ryan. Kat smirked again, reaching into her breast pocket silently, pulling from within the torn and dirty patch. She'd hidden in for years, waiting for this moment when she could show him, show him that he'd always failed to kill the traitor Jayde, while she had managed it so easily. Waving it teasingly, mockingly in her fingers, she threw the patch toward him, and it fluttered heavily and landed at his feet.

Until she threw the Jayde patch onto the floor at his feet. Ryan's blood heated in some indignation... how in the hell did she get her prying little hands on that insignia? Stole it, no doubt... it looked as if she'd torn it right off of some Jayde's uniform...

Ryan froze.

The memories coursed through his mind at a million miles per hour... Zion had been made to wear a Jayde uniform while they were on landside because they wanted him to rejoin the brotherhood... IF had been considering making him the leader in Ryan's place; he had been that good and Ryan had hated him for it. Dear God... Zion had had that dark green uniform on the day that he and Jaxen Narita had so suddenly disappeared. Dawning with furied realization, Ryan slowly raised his eyes to meet Kat's maliced green... And in an instant, he was on her, pinning her body securely to the ground under his own and wrapping his fingers like a noose around her slender neck... he stared at her, insanity threatening in his eyes. In the deep recesses of his mind, Ryan knew he must have already known... it was just that he could never have imagined...

"I never knew you cared, Ryan..." she purred, gasping a little as his hand tightened around her neck. Kat managed to get an arm free, reached up and dug her fingernails into the soft unprotected hollow between his neck and his shoulderblade, hissing quietly. "You want to know where Zion is? Go find Jax then, merdana... they're both buried in the same place..."

Ryan's mind swirled. His eyes glazed as they wandered off to gape at the Jayde insignia lain on the floor like a fallen flag floating upon the sea... The blood on his shoulder was soaking into his uniform, but he didn't feel it, he was a million miles away.

Zion. Zion was gone, he was dead... Ryan should have already known that. Nothing in the universe would have stopped that man from striving to kill the Formics. Nothing except for death. He gazed down numbly at Kat beneath him, his mind uncomprehending for a moment. How had she done it? What sick, innoble, backhanded motive had she used to kill his dearest brother? His brother who had been the life and soul of the Jaydes... for all Ryan knew, the rest of his men were still expecting Zion to come and join them. Gods, how could heaven and hell just take the life of the being who could have been the Earth's very salvation himself? Did the stars really want mankind to die? Zion was more in himself than Ryan had ever been... he knew it, his boys knew it, the Academy knew it... Ryan knew it. And the result now was this incredible whirl of emotions that Ryan could not, even in his sanest state, ever hope to overcome. Such extreme relief, the laying down of this hate... and such agonizing grief, for no other man had ever understood him as well as Zion had, no one had ever had so much ambition as they had...

Ryan came back and realized that though his face was stone still, the tears were coursing down his cheeks like a spring. Yet he didn't let himself turn cold as he glared down at the gorgeous, hellborn creature still smiling up beneath him... for the water when it freezes breaks the rock. So he let hismelf grow hot, as hot as he wished himself to become... and letting out a wallshaking roar, he took a hand from Kat's neck to backhand the girl across her beautiful face. Not letting her recover, Ryan swung again and assaulted her jaw in an uppercut, pulling her out from beneath him and slamming her up against the wall. He was completely beside himself, forgetting that this was a woman whose stomach he was battering as she leaned weakly against the wall... no revenge possible... and whose face he was bloodying like a raw piece of meat... Jax is dead too, I can't ever kill him, can't ever give this bitch the hell she's given me... ah, God! Ryan stopped. He couldn't kill this girl here. He would be sent down to landside once and for all, he'd never be kill this whore for what she'd done...

Strangely, Kat had always felt some measure of sympathy, some form of understanding for Ryan, which is exactly why his brutal beating had been anything but a surprise. If he had killed Jax before she was given a chance to complete her revenge, he would have found himself next to Zion, throat slit and body shallowly buried in some hidden forest glen. He would have paid tenfold for his theft of Jax's life... so with a gasp, a single tear ran down her cheek, smearing crimson on her face. She'd taken what was rightfully his, stolen his treasure of bloody retribution.

Still. Zion deserved his death, just as she'd deserved her beating.

"...ain't no mountain high, ain't no valley low, ain't no river wide enough to keep me from gettin' to you, babe..."

Davn glanced up and smiled, joining in with his own charmingly Puerto Rican-accented tenor. Nowhere close to Bryo's mastery, but good enough. Mika, hearing them, quickly dug up some mp3 over the Net and played the incredibly old song they were singing...

"...if you need me, call me, no matter where you are, I'll be there in a hurry, cuz baby, there ain't no mountain high enough, ain't no valley low enough, ain't no river wide enough, to keep me from getting to you, babe..."

There was a knock at the door and six of their brothers suddenly barged in. Erik came in grinning cockily as he slapped his thigh in mock disappoinment. "Aw, man... I heard music, I was so sure there'd be strippers up in here..."

Bryo laughed and gestured for his brothers to relax on the beds. "Eh, brahs, you miss us already? Hell, I'm sorry- I didn't know you cared so much... even though I coulda lived a few thousand years neva seein' yo faces again."

Kevo nodded, smiling slightly as he said, "Eh then, Sisqo, if Showtime is over at the Apollo, where's Ryan? We're going over to the Game Arena to play out some sims. Show all the other pussies on this rock who their masters are gonna be."

"Well, I'll tell ya what Jayde, I think our captain's off somewhere gettin some booty. Ahah, he went out into the common with Wolf's commander and we haven't seen the brotha since!" shaking his head, Bryo smiled in what he mocked off as a conspiratory air.

"Ahah, is that right?"

"That's right, my brotha."

As a rule, Jaydes were trained to keep themselves at top physical condition and Davn upheld this as well as any of the others did. But not in many years had Ryan ever worked the brothers so hard as this. Never since that week a long time ago when Zion's sister died and the boy consequently turned on the Academy. Davn's mind began to wander, searching for connections or clues as to what was happening to his captain, what in their common, long-lived hell had finally caused the man to loose his anger the way that he'd done in practice. It frustrated him that he didn't have the slightest notion, save for some nagging thing in his mind that wanted to incorporate Katera Quistin and her knife into all of this. Davn forced himself to dismissed the thought. Kat had nothing to do with the Jaydes, too encompassed within her own messed up little world to give a shit about the buggers. Still, there was the intuition. And Davn did not fall into sleep easily.

On his bunk laying idly in the dark, Mika was far too exhausted to rest his body the way Bryo and Davn had instantly been able to after they hit their mattresses. It was now several hours after lights out, and yet Ryan still hadn't returned to their room. Still hovering in the nongravity of the Battle Room, no doubt... mulling over in his mind whatever torment it was that had given him the passion to nearly faint the brothers during practice... Mika contemplated dully that he didn't care. For despite the closeness of the brotherhood, Ryan was the only one who never allowed himself close to the Jaydes. He was their captain, their brother... but he refused to be their friend. According to him, war di not need friends. So that as far as Mika was concerned, he had better know well how to take care of himself if the problem did not involve the buggers or winning.

The desk's glowing screen cast a blue tint across his face and Mika tapped concentratedly into a daze. He was looking for something... something that seemed to keep disappearing from his files... The IF did not want students discovering all of their documents, after all. But there it was, the roster for an incoming group of new soldiers. Not really important in itself, but Davn would want to see a certain name printed at the end of the list. Zhiyuan. Mika scanned through the girl's dossier, recalling a mental picture of those strange violet eyes, so unlikely soft within the walls of Battle School. She would arrive tomorrow night. Mika picked up his shoe and chonked it blindly in the sleeping Davn's direction.