In truth, Alexa couldn't fault the basic fact that Gruk was willing to assist the group so heartily. Her heart found itself pitying the man's grotesqueness, for if he were more adherent to the baseline of human standards, he'd perhaps be a worthy servant of the Emperor. As it was, he was merely good for leading them to a villain far less likely to submit quietly.

Mere minutes later, Sister Caroline died, stumbling and collapsing mere moments after something struck her from the shadows. Sister Victorine sprinted forwards instantly, and Alexa was hot on her heels, already firing up her chirurgeon's tools in preparation to save her... but to no avail. From the foam round her mouth, the toxic darkness of her surface veins, and the spark of life absent from her eyes, it was clear that the woman was no more. A mere second of analysis, both by eye and by helm, proved what Alexa already suspected - neurotoxin, and a highly potent one at that, targeted at her unshielded face.

A mere second was too long to hesitate in a firefight. The hissing of deadly Needler fire was replaced with that of a bolt pistol's report; though both she and Sister Victorine made their way back to cover, Sister Vitruvia failed to do so, felled by a bolt that split her flesh with ruthless ease, that Alexa herself could have attempted to block with her frame. Her instant reaction was to exit cover again, only to drag the hapless victim back with her - though this time, she was not dead, but simply wounded. Thank goodness. She could fix a wound, even from a bolt pistol.

She worked to open the damaged power armour, apply anaesthetic, and mend the flesh inside as her superior talked. When the suggestion of grenades was made, Alexa simply uttered 'Five of us are left, with two hands each. The traitor's armour might survive one grenade blast; it cannot withstand ten at once.' This time, the cold bark of her helmet vox was appreciated, for only now did it accurately convey her anger at the death of a stalwart ally.

It wasn't until she looked up and saw who was missing, processed the sound of additional bolts being fired, that she realised the flaw in her reasoning - if power armour could not withstand ten grenade blasts, the barely-protected Confessor certainly couldn't either. Emperor take that ruddy fool, what was he [i]doing?![/i] Martyring oneself over an ally's death was one of the most needless ways to waste one's service to the Emperor! And she couldn't hope to protect him, either, in the middle of a surgical operation... damn it. Sadly, then, it'd be up to the others to save Horacio from his own bullishness.