Not one moment could pass without Thomas hearing the unforgettable voice of Rane. This time he mocked Thomas for his attitude towards the Galactic Committee and that he actually made an effort to follow them, and of course Rane wasn't going to follow them like the psychopathic killing machine he was. Thomas saw that Rane by now had walked past them and didn't look at him, but nonetheless he gave him that killing stare with his one eye, thinking of all the times Thomas had saved his life instead of leaving him for death. And it was because of those damn regulations Rane made fun of that he was still alive. That, and that Thomas wasn't the cold-blooded murderer Rane was. Quite literately.

"Bealin' caffler..."

Thomas turned back to Val who must have wondered what on Earth was going on between Thomas as Rane, as if she wasn't nervous enough as it was. "You're welcome. And if you haven't met him already, that big lizard was Rane, insane and without a heart, be careful around him. He might be good in a fight and save your life, but he's still a nutter." Thomas said to Val as they walked behind Rane and Darius. Shortly after, they entered the docking bay, where they could see the shuttle that would bring the ground-team down, and Ace and Wrenchie making the recommended modifications to the shuttle. "Unlike you Rane, I can walk and talk simultaneously, and still notice that spot of dirt on your arse."

Without warning, the machine lunged forward towards Nafi, with a vicious Hay Maker that would have fractured a human's jaw into pieces. Luckily, she jumped back, though staggered clumsily with the sudden severity of the attack, allowing her adversary to bring another punch around. This time, the jab hit in her shoulder, and was followed by another jab into her chest. Backing up with the force of the punches, Nafi protected herself with effect, to prevent any hits to her face or head. Prosthetic cybernetics were useful in this regard, as she felt no pain when they were hit, at least at first.

The droid grinned menacingly, as it was programmed to for this particular bout. "I expected better than this from an organic This is just sad..." It laughed, and continued to jab and dance around her, trying to break her guard and stagger her again, Noticing her opportunity with a large, wide swing from the spar bot, Nafi expertly batted it's next attack away with her left hand, then hooked one arm into the crevasse of it's shoulder joint with her right, and judo flipped it on to it's back, slamming it into the ground sickeningly, before attempting to finish it with a drop kick to the chest. Of course, the machine rolled out of harm's way, a split second before her kick smashed into the floor, and used the flexibility and unlimited rotational force of it's hips to spin it's legs around 180 degrees, and land on it's feet as it rolled. Not missing a beat, the droid brought a fist up for a brutal uppercut, landing in Nafi's solar plexus.

Shit, lethality level four IS a bit extreme, was the only thing Nafi had time to think of, winded and distracted, before the machine followed through to bring down a hammer fist of terrifying speed down on her head. This she was able to narrowly dodge, feeling the wind brush past her ear as the young girl stepped to the left, trying to find an opening. "Hopefully, whoever fixes these doesn't mind a little extra work load", was the only sentence she muttered, ducking low and pummeling it's front quite speedily with clenched fists, before swinging her leg in a round house kick, directly into the machine's chest. Might have to break this one for real.

With little else to do in the hanger other than get in folks way, Rane decided to head on down to the training area. He remembered the cyborg girl, Nafi, was gonna go there and he was keen to scout out her fighting style. He heard One-eye throw an insult his way, or at least he thought it was an insult. The officer had a distinct lack of talent when it came to the old one liners, so Rane was never sure when he was being insulted or if One-eye was just making observations. Still, Rane was never one to keep his peace.

"You human's, always feeling such pride at the smallest of accomplishments. It would fill my murderous heart with joy to witness such a backwater species reach such relative greatness, that was if I actually had one, eh?" he had overheard his rival describing him to Val, the newbie. Rane thought saying he had no heart was a bit strong, after all, Canmorians had two hearts! Still, it was nice of him to say he was good in a fight, showed his talents were being appreciated.

Sauntering down the corridors Rane spotted Mylik fiddling around with one of the cameras. He was tempted to backtrack and find another route too the training facility to avoid having to see the Kiaslikian again. But dammit, why should I, I was here first! He should be trying to ignore me! Maybe I should even educate him a little about life on this ship! Filled with resolve he began to stomp towards Mylik.

"What the hell are you doing with that camera!" he growled, fiercer than he intended, but quickly deciding feroicty might be the right avenue here. "Put it back. Now. You want to know about the security systems on this ship, and I'm going to fucking show you." Rane was aware he was using alotta human swear words, but he wasn't sure if Mylik knew any Canmorian curses, and he was damn certain he didn't know any Kiaslikian ones. Come to think about it, if they were all as wet as Mylik looked then they probably didn't have any.

"You better be in the training area in two minutes. You don't want me coming looking for you."He didn't even wait for Mylik to finish putting the camera away, just started marching down the halls again. It seemed harsh, but Rane was sure it was the right way to do things. He didn't think Mylik had the stones to oppose him, but he aimed to change that. The Marauders were a dangerous bunch, and came up against dangerous situations. If Mylik was feared of talking about a little bloodshed then he would never handle life aboard this ship. More than likely he'd end up just another dead recruit. Rane was under no illusions that a trip to the training centre would have a drastic change in that, but maybe it would give the Newbie a heads up of the brutality to expect from life here.

He entered the training room. If he was in the canteen or sleeping on his favourite couch then he was usually here, breaking stuff. He was happy to see that Nafi was indeed here, practicing with a sparring bot in the centre ring. Crossing the room he relaxed carelessly against the rings top rope, keen to see the cyborgs style. Lets see how good you are.

Wrenchie looked down at his work with pride. After taking the painstakingly slow process of cutting the wings off by hand, the shuttle was ready for departure, the wings lying dead on the ground. Those would be a pain to reattach. He took in a deep whiff of the air, stained with the scent of plasma, a sharp smell reminiscent of burning rubber. He was a bit worried as to wether or not the pilot could handle it or not, but it was too late now.

So, tapping into the ships comm systems, he sent out a quick message in his deeply augmented voice. "The shuttle is ready for departure. Whenever you all become of ready, we can make the leaving." He said, his speech digressing as he went on. He leaned on his bio-wrench, admiring his work, while scanning to make sure it still held its previous structural integrity.

Jason Hunt went back to his room, lost in thought... He knew this was a rookie team... but only in the team part... from what Jason has been through, He's learned the consequences of riding solo. It sounds good at first, but then you end up in the Marauders... He was now a team player. He didn't want anyone on his team to die. To prove a point to the Committee that they won't be silenced so easily. As he entered his room, the 50's big band music started playing again, whistling to the lyrics, he made his way to the sub zero suit, what looked like a light weight suit, easy to customize he realized. It had patches of kills he's made, scratch marks from blaster fire, and on the right arm was a small rectangular patch that read "Once more into the fray."

That's what kept him going. His favorite poem.

Once more into the fray
In to the last good fight I'll ever know
Live and die on this day
Live and die on this day.

He muttered it to himself every mission. It reminded him of his father. Of his struggle being the leader of a death squad... Of the lives that he watched die while he was so lucky to live. He grabbed a small pen looking object as he finished zipping on the suit. It felt like wearing five jackets in the middle of a desert. The pen looking object was a electric whip, able to slash through a lot of things. He was a master at it. He also picked up his all purpose rifle, and attatched it to the grooves on the back of the suit. He was ready. He heard Wrenchie on the intercom, telling him the ship was ready.

He made his way down the hall, and in to the hangar, seeing his crew hard at work. Some gave small salutes and nods, Jason shook his head with a grin. "No need for a salute. A cap will do. Other than that, I'm as much of a criminal as you are." He said, looking at the shuttle. "So its ready? It'll be my first time seeing you in action first hand. Time to see what you got." He looked at Wrenchie. "give another call for all the ground team." He said with a nod. It was show time...

Once more into the fray...

Ace stepped back from the shuttle as Wrenchie announced that the work was done and gave a nod of approval. The flight parameters he had inputted seemed to be working properly, at least on the simulations he had requested Dora to run. He was sure that if he crashed and died he would have quite a few choice words to tell the ship's computer. He then headed to his locker at the hangar, he had placed all of the things he thought he would need for a shuttle mission in there just so that they were readily available. He quickly put on his flight suit, making sure to leave his revolver on the outside of it. THAT was a mistake he would never make again, specially since it had made high-g maneuvering very uncomfortable. When he was sure everything was ready he headed into the shuttle, sitting in the cockpit, placing his SMG on a secure shelf next to him and putting on his russian tank helmet before starting the procedure to "wake up" the vessel.

He was done quickly, the engines starting with an electrical sound before the nozzles lit up with a dim blue glow from the thrust system coming online. "Ace here on the shuttle, primary systems are go, secondary are all green. We're ready for departure, tovarish captain." He said into the intercomm, faking a russian accent. He grinned and turned around, looking towards the cargo/passenger bay. "Let's go, bratishka!" He yelled back at them. It was something Ace did quite often, using old russian terms, just like his helmet, when out on a mission. The ship he had been born and raised in had a high number of old russians, mostly war veterans so he had picked up a thing or two from them.

Mylik was kinda confused when Rane walked away. Kiaslikians hardly ever fought each other, they just didn't see what it resolved. Neither did Mylik. He tried calling after Rane to stop so he could figure out what exactly was going on, but his voice was too quiet and the lizard had already stomped his way halfway down the hallway by the time Mylik got it out. Even though Mylik had installed half the ships security systems already, so he didn't see a problem with messing with the camera, he responded to the Canmorians and put it back anyway. He couldn't manage to do much with it, besides, so the cameras would just have to work as they did.

He didn't at all want to fight the angry alien, but he did want to see if he could get something sorted out that didn't end in getting hit. Mylik had always preferred more diplomatic solutions. So he went invisible and followed after Rane, he sort of stalked the guy until they landed at the training room. Just at that moment a voice came over the intercom from Wrenchie telling the others that he had finished his job on the ship and another voice followed shortly after calling for the ground team. So the missions finally starting, he thought to himself, hopefully their duties on board the ship would distract Rane from anymore anger towards him, but didn't really believe that bit of hope.

Oh well, maybe he could end any bad blood between them now. He stayed invisible, but while cloaked he said to Rane "Uh...this is Mylik speaking. You probably can't see me right now, unless your species has a sort of vision I don't know about. But...uh...well, I just wanted you to know that I don't have any sort of strong dislike for you and I never meant any harm or offense to you. If I've done something to offend you than I apologize, but attempting to beat each other's faces in won't do any good for anyone." Mylik, ever oblivious to social ques, didn't realize that he might of hurt the Canmorians feelings by backing up and leaving the conversation earlier, and he hoped that Rane didn't have good enough hearing or observational skills to follow the sound of his voice. In his mind, this was all really irrational and silly. What did Rane hope to accomplish?

"Good, I've been getting eager to start the mission, captain." Darius said to Hunt as he walked by him to pick up the supplies. He carried each of the cases onto the shuttle, then placed them down inside the cargo bay. He nestled them in just right so that they wouldn't go flying everywhere if the pilot had to do evasive maneuvers with the shuttle. He quickly checked himself once more, making sure he had everything he needed, then sat down in the passenger bay seat, strapping himself in.

He was the first one on the shuttle other than the pilot, everyone else was either on their way or waiting for the others. Darius personally just wanted to get started. He removed his sniper rifle from the holster on his back, figuring he had enough time to check and maintain the weapon so that it would be ready to fire right away if he needed to shoot someone from afar. He would do the same with his SMG, but he was almost certain they were both ready for combat, it just never hurt to be even more sure.

A loud metallic thud echoed throughout the training room, as the droid reeled back from the impact of the kick, stumbling to regain it's footing. "Nice kick, but now you're just pissing me off...". The droid brought it's guard stance back up. and ran towards Nafi, fist clenched for another uppercut. This time though, Nafi smiled. The problem with sparring bots is that they are too predictable, and she knew how to use this to her advantage. As the machine swung up, she leaned back sharply, avoiding the blow effortlessly, and continued to follow the movement, bending her back 180 degrees and placing her hands on the floor. She flipped backwards, and landed a little further from the droid, back up against the tight rope on the edge of the ring, as the machine tried to get it's bearings. Now was the time to finish it off.

Nafi jumped up onto the rope, balancing on it as the machine approached for another attack, and she leaped over it once more, landing gingerly behind it and wrapping her hands around it's waist, Caught by surprise, the droid flailed uselessly, as she lifted it with all her strength, bending over backwards and slamming it's head into the ground with a large crash in a spectacular German Suplex that left it sprawled on the ground, twitching but not out of the fight yet. Nafi quickly went into a handstand and pushed herself up into the air, while the machine got to it's hands and knees to get back up. She twisted upright during the leap, and brought her knee down on it's neck, slamming it back into the ground, and with a loud metallic crunch, it's head rocketed of it's body, narrowly missing Mylik as it flew off out of the ring, and rolled along the ground.

"Simulation over. Result: Nafi is victorious, via technical knockout. Injury lethality: One hundred percent." Nafi breathed heavily, slightly worn, and got to her feet. She placed her hands on her hips, and humphed in amusement. "Well, that was disappointing..." Turning away from the scrap on the ground, she saw Rane had been watching her, and could hear what sounded like a faint whispering, though Nafi failed to notice anyone else in the room. Speaking in a joking tone, Nafi addressed Rane. "Oh hey, lizard man. Rane, isn't it? Heard you were quite the fighter, back in your day. Guess you're too old for the ring now, eh?" She could still hear the other quiet voice, and looked around, confused. "By the way, do you hear someone whispering? I think I'm going crazy..."

Thomas rolled his one eye at Rane's comment about the human race and their pride. But to Thomas, pride wasn't just a bad thing, it was something that had pushed humanity to their limits and driven them out into space. And within 20 years, the human race had become just as strong as other aliens, so who was to give human pride a bad name?

He didn't get to throw back a reply to Rane as Jason entered the docking bay, ordering the team onto the shuttle as quick as possible. Thomas took one last look at Val and gave her a nod, before he jogged into the shuttle. "Good luck up here, you'll be fine." He didn't know why he said those words, but a rookie always needed some way of assurance from a veteran, even if it was just a sentence. Still, it was better than nothing.

Thomas took off the big backpack he was wearing and strapped it tight to the shuttle's interior, not repeating the mistake of leaving it unbuckled in a high-speed craft and having it fly all over the shuttle. Darius had already entered the shuttle and was checking what Thomas recognized as a sniper rifle, and not a too shabby one either. Thomas sat down in one of the seats and fastened the seatbelts, looking at Darius and his weaponry. "Good rifle, they sure knew how to make proper weapons back in the day, didn't they? I hope you have thermal-sights on that, won't be easy to see life down there without it, if we run into anything."

"Of course, I have all the necessary attachments for this rifle, suppressor, various scopes." Darius replied, letting his voice trail off as he did not look up from his rifle to who spoke to him as he twisted off the barrel of the gun and ran a rag down into it. After a few seconds of focused cleaning he screwed the barrel back onto the rifle. He looked up at who was speaking to him and noticed that it was the one nicknamed One Eye, the human Rane didn't quite get along with.

"I don't like the fancy alien weaponry that's all the rage nowadays, nothing will ever replace simple human ingenuity. If there's one thing we know how to do as a species, it's make guns." Darius stated, looking at Thomas as the man sat in a seat opposite the ex-mercenary, flashing a quick grin before he placed his sniper rifle onto it's holster on his back along his machine gun. He then leaned back in his seat, eagerly awaiting the rest of the crew to board the shuttle.

Rane turned lazily towards where Mylik's voice had come from, hesitant to tear his attention from Nafi, but realised his team mate wasn't there. It took Rane a heartbeat to come to the conclusion that the Kiaslikian must have some sorta cloaking power. Didn't really matter what Mylik had to say after that, Rane was to busy imagining all the possibilities that invisibility would open to someone. Most of them weren't exactly legal.

"Damn, you can turn invisible! That is so cool!" Rane said, voice full of admiration, but he quickly got back on track when he realised Mylik was talking about a fight. Which, Rane supposed, was an accurate enough reason as to why he had dragged the Kiaslikian here, but he hadn't quite grasped he sword by the handle. The Canmorian's laughter rasped out, sounding like wire wool being drawn across a washing board.

"Why, in the name of the Hunt-lord would I want to fight you? Ya wouldn't last two seconds Mylik, it just wouldn't be fair on myself." He managed to wheeze out between belly laughs, before taking a second to compose himself. "Nah, we're teammates now, and contrary to popular opinion I don't want to see anyone on my team bite the big one. You're here as a learning experience." The Canmorian gave it a second for that to sink in before continuing.

"I seen your face earlier, when I spoke about the trouble we'll get into. You near wet yourself just at the thought of violence. Well I hate to break it to you, but the Marauders get into a lotta violent situations. Like all the time. I know you're gonna do your best to stay outta the way of the fighting, and I make it my mission to keep the folk like you as far as possible from the scrap, but it ain't an ideal universe. We're here to, whadda ya call it, desensitise you. You'll watch Nafi here break some bots, hopefully you'll pick up a few tricks that'll keep you alive long enough to regret ever getting on this ship." Just as he was finishing his speech though there was a loud crash, and a robotic head flew past, inches from where Mylik was standing.

"Well damn," sighed Rane. Mylik wouldn't learn anything if an opponent didn't last long enough against Nafi to actually make an impression.

"Oh hey, lizard man. Rane, isn't it? Heard you were quite the fighter, back in your day. Guess you're too old for the ring now, eh? By the way, do you hear someone whispering? I think I'm going crazy..." called Nafi, looking around confusedly for the source of the whispering.

And here we go again, realised Rane. Just another cocksure 'specialist', come onto the Marauder's ship thinking they're the shit. They here about Rane being able to swing a sword, and damn if they don't feel the need to prove something. He'd seen a hundred of her like before, but he never got tired of putting them down. Kept him trim.

"Meh, that's just Mylik, he's invisible." Replied Rane. "I brought him here to show him a thing or two about fighting. Whadda ya say Nafi, you able to go slow on this here old man, give Mylik a chance to see what a scrap can be like?"

Thomas smiled slightly at Darius's remark, pulling out his pistol and checking it himself too. "That makes two of us. It isn't much of a surprise that we have been expanding so quickly, even for our short time in space." Thomas said to the ex-mercenary, putting back his pistol in its holster. "No, us humans have our stubborn ways of reaching our goals, just like us Irishmen back on Earth. Anyway, back to the weapons, I doubt you'll need a silencer down there. From what I understand about the planet, highly unlikely we'll find intelligent life down there, most likely just the regular bacteria that survives the harsh climate. And let's hope that I don't prove myself wrong down there."

He scratched his eye-patch, grinning a little bit as he felt a small spike of pain come back, even for his medication. "And between the two of us, refer to me as Lieutenant O'Connol, not One-Eye, okay? It's not a name I take pride in, and don't ask why, and don't believe what Rane tells you."

"If we're running a military ship then I'd be Sergeant Zahra. Though don't call me that, makes me feel really fucking old." Darius stated as he folded his arms and glanced around the shuttle. "I haven't been in the military in almost 20 years, I don't need to be reminded of how I'm not a freshly trained killer like some of the other people on this ship."

"Do you think we'll actually face any opposition on this mission? It's never as easy as the people ordering us to do the mission say it is, there's always a part they left out, another kink in the wheel." Darius asked Thomas, looking at the man as he thought over all the things that could go wrong down there on the frozen rock they were being sent to.

"Wow, Mylik can turn invisible? How do you do that? That sounds cool..." Nafi vaulted over the ring, and approached Rane and where Mylik was apparently standing. :I'd kill for a cloak like that. Nearly actually had it fitted to my Harness, but it would overclock my nervous system, and I'd rather the reflexes, to be honest. Is it an active camo, or true thermal invisibility? Sorry, I just like to know this stuff..." The young girl grabbed a water bottle off the nearby table, and took long gulps of it. She didn't know much about Mylik, but she was already intrigued by him, as she is with all things she considered 'cool'.

Turning her attention back to Rane, Nafi placed a hand on her hip, and let the water bottle hang in her other arm. He was quite tall, and most would find him intimidating. She'd seen many things in her very short life, and it took a lot to really invoke any sort of feeling from her. Though this didn't cloud her judgement on the lizard man. She'd heard a lot of stories about him. "Oh, so you want to spar? Sounds good, just give me a second to cool down a bit. By the way, Rane, no swords. Heard you ripped open a Arcturus Main Battle Tank with it, and I ain't a tank, that's for sure. As for you, Mylik,"

Nafi turned back to him, "You don't fight? I mean, there's no shame in it, but still... Being invisible is a great asset in a fight. Half of it is gauging what your opponent will try next, based on their body positioning and such. With you, they can't do shit. You'd wreck them. Plus your reach is astronomical..." Nafi huffed, not realizing she'd droned on for a while without breathing. "Sorry, hand to hand is my thing. I could go on for hours. Anyway, watch us go toe to toe for a round, and observe. Then it'll be your turn, if you are up for it. Don't worry, we'll put you up against a spar bot on an easy setting. Sound like a plan?"

"As long as you'll call me O'Connol, you've got a deal." Thomas said back to Darius, trying to make the eye-patch as comfortable as possible while he still felt a little pain there. But he let it go, deciding that the more he fiddled with it, the more it would irritate him as if the pain wasn't enough. Darius said that he didn't need to be reminded that he wasn't the newly trained killer like others were, most likely referring to Nafi. Thomas smiled and chuckled lightly at him. "They might be newly trained, but they're just that, new. They're not the experienced handyman you are, Darius. I've read you're files, colonial soldier, bounty hunter, body guard, even a night-club bouncer and lastly a mercenary, you've got more experience under your belt than most of us at this ship. You're what the rookies look up too, hopefully..."

"Not on the surface if we're lucky, more likely that the ship will be attacked while we're planet-side. I know it's never easy, been on many missions nearly going to hell, but we'll get through. The worst thing we'll have to deal with is frostbite, snow-blindness and the lava. Let's hope we don't up as Scott....You heard of the first humans to the South Pole back on Earth? This Englishman, Scott, tried to reach the pole but his entire team failed because of wrong gear Anyway, we have the right gear, so we have one less thing to worry about."

Thomas turned his eye from Darious, up to Ace. "Ace! How long will the descent down to the surface take?"

Ace was tapping commands on the main screen ahead of him, mostly just going through his checklists again while the team boarded the shuttle. He then took the datapad from a pocket to the left of his chair, connecting to the ship and ordering Dora to execute the insertion to a lower orbit. "Executing retrograde burn." Dora's voice came from the datapad and the ship started to move, first adjusting attitude in the direction opposite of where the ship was headed and then activating its main engines for a couple seconds, before turning them off, coasting to its destination where it would make a second burn for orbit stabilization. Ace placed the datapad down on the pocket once more, happy with the course the ship was on at the moment, before going back to his checklists.

Just then, he heard a voice from the back of the shuttle yelling a question at him. He turned around, leaning to his side so he could look back at them, noticing it was the one everyone nicknamed One Eye. "Ten minutes tops, O'Connol!" He said, glad that he had taken the time to learn the names of the ones he was ferrying to the surface. "We'll take longer finding our LZ than breaking atmo, quite honestly." He added before turning ahead once more, looking up after a moment and flipping a switch. "Okay, all ready here! Are we leaving yet?" He said once more, leaning back on his chair and relaxing.

"I believe we will be able to leave as soon as the last member arrives!" Rae spoke up as she entered the door of the shuttle that she had been standing outside of for a little while as not to interrupt the conversation inside, having taken note that one of them was still missing as well as a few other details. She knew that the Captain was waiting outside the shuttle but that left the dragon woman,Skyler, that had not seem to have arrived. Apparently, she had not been as late as she first thought but she still needed to remember to walk the halls faster because more than half the team was already waiting to leave which was no acceptable. "I apologize for my prolonged arrival. I hope you did not wait long." Rae apologized before pulling the pack off her shoulder as well as her special bow so that she could strap it to the shuttles interior with the rest of the supplies. It would be safer there then in the seat with her and she wouldn't endanger someone else by having the equipment get loose. She had already seen what could happen with loose equipment flying around a cabin and trying to dodge it.

Once that was done, she carefully moved to a seat and ended up taking the free one next to Thomas before buckling herself in. She didn't think it would be too long now before they would begin their decent onto the planet. Skyler after all couldn't be too far behind or surely someone would be sent to go and fetch her or even just check on her to see if everything was alright.

"I don't know if I want them to look up to me. Twenty years ago I thought that at this point in my life I'd be incredibly wealthy, living on a beach somewhere with a supermodel on each arm," Darius said, crossing his arms, "But thankfully, I've still got a few decades left in me, I can still become rich and that money buys the beach house and brings the women."

"I never really cared for Earth history that much. I've never actually been to the planet once in my life. I have no ambition to go there, the other colonies are much easier to reach, also safer, less crowded and polluted. He stated, trying to keep his focus away from the long waiting for everyone else since he disliked waiting so long. The pilot of the shuttle indicated they would be heading off soon, not soon enough to him. Then a second later the assigned doctor of the Marauder vessel joined them on the shuttle.

"It's good of you to join us, Doc. It's great to have a medical professional on the mission, you know in case O'Connell takes a bullet to the arm which punctures his suit. Then I don't have to go at it with a knife in sub zero temperatures while under fire." Darius said to the new arrival with a smile, half joking about performing impromptu mid battle surgery.

Rane gave a sharp toothed grin at her 'no swords' rule. Hunt had given him the same one after an incident involving two training bots, three engineers and Thanondian who had lost his sense of sight. But the fact of the matter was that she was right, things tended to get 'messy' when the Sword of the Skyfather got involved.

"Whatever you say Nafi, I'm easy going like that. Though I've been known to tear tanks apart with my bare hands too, when the fancy takes me." He replied before vaulting into the ring. His nimble fingers went to the buckle on his baldric, the one that held the Sword in place. A simple clasp was all that held the weapon in place, seconds of work to undo, but Rane hesitated. He always hated to part with the blade, his gift from the Skyfather, even if it was only for a heartbeat. The universe just didn't seem right without the cold metal close to him, comforting him through his fears and guiding him through his trials. He began to get possessive, then suspicious. What if Nafi only wanted him to take the Skyfather's gift off so she could steal it herself. Or what if Mylik wanted it, who could he stop him, he was bloody invisible. I wont give it up, not without a fight! Come at me fuckers, I'll turn this room red with your blood, and when I'm done with you everyone will know that the sword is mi. . . .

The clasp clicked open and the sword fell to the ground, hitting the ring floor like an anvil. Heavier than you look though Rane, and he should know, he'd been carrying that weight for what seemed like an eternity. It was an immense burden, being the Skyfather's champion, carrying his sword and leading his hunts. Often were the times that Rane felt he was going to be swallowed up by the immensity of the fact, of being crushed under all that responsibility. It felt good just to get away from it, even if only for a little while. The Canmorian took a second to himself, to reflect on who he had become since being cursed with the sword, and mourn who he might have been if he had never received it before picking the blade and its sheathe back up and hanging it from the ring corner post.

He felt like he had gone ten rounds already, and he hadn't even thrown a punch yet. He always felt like this after relinquishing the sword, like somehow the weapon nurtured and provided for him, and when he let it go all that extra power disappeared into the wind. He felt tired, but it was a good kinda tired, like the sort you get after going for a long, relaxing run. To be honest, I feel free. Like the Skyfather's mission ain't quite so important anymore, like I can just be Rane again. No voices in my head, no bright colours plastered across the walls, nothing except me and my thoughts.

He lent up against the inside of the ring rope again, his shoulders sagging a little as he waited for Nafi to join him, just enjoying the peace..