Akash was very much glad that he didn't have to work alongside the human yet after all. 

The fact the creature had even been allowed entry into the Guard, let alone the fact it was being trusted on life or death missions such as this one was completely beyond him. Didn't Squadron Leader Belana know that humans were just lowly backstabbing creatures that would turn on them all as soon as they got the chance? This Jacob Lyre was likely going to be no different at all, and the sooner everyone saw that the better. 

"So, do you have a plan?" Akash asked Pax as the now separated Lyrin ran up from behind him. 

"I was thinking we could start off by doing some down and dirty detective work," Pax replied. "I know that Fal is going to be heading off to hunt down some contacts that she gained before the two of us bonded for the first time, so that's something we should leave to them." 

"In other words, you expect us to trawl around looking for clues that may or may not exist," Akash sighed, he was beginning to think that everyone around him was incompetent. It might not have just been a thing unique to the human. 

"Nothing like a bit of hard detective work to get an investigation started," Pax said cheerfully, "I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of things in no time."

That was how Akash and Pax had found themselves at the end of a dark and dingy corridor, with no way to call for backup when they were ambushed. 

Akash was very proud of his combat ability. If you asked him, fighting was one of the things he was best at, and if given the appropriate time and resources to ramp up he could become an almost unstoppable fighting machine. However, if someone did manage to do the near-impossible and manage to sneak up on him, they'd find that it would actually be quite easy to take him down with a single blow to the back of the neck. 

On the back of an Eldrani's neck, there was a pressure point that linked directly to the central nervous system, when pressure was applied to it in an instance there that point wasn't being bulked up by the natural armour that an Eldrani could summon in combat the Eldrani in question would collapse as if their power switch had suddenly been switched off. 

That was exactly what happened to Akash. 

A figure stepped out from the shadows completely unnoticed by the Eldrani. It was as if they were made up of darkness themselves, a swirling swarm of dark energy. A tendril of almost gaseous matter drifted out from the bipedal shadow and struck out hard, cracking straight into the Eldrani's pressure point. It dropped him to the floor in moments. 

Pax reacted almost immediately, but it was still too slow. 

The swarm of sentient shadow was on him in a moment, tendrils of inky black wrapping around his hands to smother the beginnings of a spell that had been building there. 

"Who… Who are you," Pax stammered, completely helpless without the use of his hands to engage in his spellwork.

The shadow did not reply, and merely moved to drift over Pax's airways, suffocating him into unconsciousness. 

xXx

Akash came out of his unconsciousness first and found himself in what appeared to be a prison cell. 

The room was small, just barely big enough to allow him to stand up to his full height without brushing his head on the ceiling. There was a gentle hum reverberating through the floor and up through his body, it was a familiar sensation, the sort of feeling that he only ever got when he was on a ship. It was the feeling that starship engines created when they were in their powered down state, just generating enough power to keep the systems of the craft going. 

That narrowed things down, he was in space, and if the height of the ceilings were anything to go by he was on a ship designed for a species that was quite a bit shorter than he was. Unfortunately for Akash, that didn't narrow things down as much as he would like. 

His cell was simplistic. There was a standard bipedal friendly toilet and a manna-sink in one corner, and a bed that would be far too short for him against one of the gunmetal grey walls. The door to the cell was nothing more than a shimmering energy field. 

If he were to touch it, it would probably repel him with some sort of a shock, so he didn't even bother. If the field was being fed manna by the core of a starship there would be no way that he could overpower it with brute force, anyway. 

A groan from the other room caught Akash's attention, Pax had been brought along to this ship with him. 

"Are you okay, Pax?" He asked, raising his voice so he could be heard by the Lyrin.

"Akash? Is that you?" Pax yelled back, "Yeah… I'm okay… where are we?" 

"We appear to be on some kind of spaceship, though owned by who I am not certain," Akash replied, "It seems that following the clues in Prespian City may have gotten us a little bit too close to the truth." 

"I told you that was the right way to go about things," Pax said. 

"Yes, well, look where it's gotten us," Akash grumbled in response, his voice like the thump of a rotten apple falling from a tree. 

"As amusing as it would be to continue to listen to your bickering all afternoon, I'm afraid we've got better things to do," A third voice chimed in, as the door to the brig of the ship they were on opened with a silent swish. 

Akash knew that voice. He would know it anywhere. He knew who they had been captured by, and the danger that they were now in. 

Lara had them in her clutches.