The distance between the walls and the biotics closed with a devastating toll of silvery blood. Their numbers truly dwarfed anything I’d ever seen, and I realized that the number of surviving hives in the area must be staggering to be able to produce this many biotics.

‘No,’ I shook my head as I thought the logic through, ‘this is all buildup. Probably a backup plan in case they were needed.’

Invariably, that meant that our quarry was even more careful than I’d suspected, maybe even paranoid. This many biotics could have overwhelmed Argedwall.

Even with the Legion’s presence, this was a close bet. However, if there was anything that my Legion specialized in, it was culling massive hordes.

“Ammo here!” I heard one of the Masons that we’d recruited shout out, pulling a trolley full of ammo cartridges towards groups. Briskly, the men in exo-suits nearly shoved the crates towards teams as they passed, and just as unceremoniously those men and women snapped up several kits, distributing bullets to those nearby.

The brass casings, spent and useless, were flattened beneath heavy feet or fell away off of the all below, a rain of shells that tinkled as they collided.

I was no exception, now pushing myself into that cold vacuum that was the Reaper’s Eye. Every burst of shots hit a target, many times piercing through and slaughtering several at once. Mortars and heavy artillery had now become much more abundant, and especially violent was the retort from Patrick’s team. Their grief at the loss of their team leader and teammates took the form of bared teeth and wrathful, guttural snarls of cannons. The Ogre that had belonged to them was open like an artillery platform, and the three women and one man laid down carpet bombing in the horde. Aiming wasn’t necessary, they were focused wholly on cranking out as many shots as possible.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, their Ogre possessed eight slots that bore auto-loaders, helping to keep the mech’s turned deadly strategic weapons in the fight.

I surveyed the battlefield, knowing that we were slowly losing ground, but the losses the biotics were taking were nothing short of utterly devastating.

Had this been a human army, I’m certain that a route would have occurred many times over. Regrettably, these biotics knew nothing of self-preservation.

‘Inferior,’ Wolvey huffed, ‘chaff and trash. We were much better than them.’

I shook my head at that, not exactly excited by the prospect of every advanced biotic being capable of retreating and learning. Thus far, though, I had to expect that such things might be more common going forward.

Another time, though.

“Reaper, Raijin Field is ready,” I heard Terry call, struggling for his voice to be heard over the deafening onslaught we delivered. “We’re good out to the fourth trench, except on the western side, that parts fuckin’ melted.”

I searched for him, seeing him down by the gate below, a behemoth contraption that was born from two Ogre’s having backed up together. Each bore half of a generator, and the blue glow that came from the lights placed upon it told me that it was primed for activity.

“How many do you have?” I shouted over the comms, the Reaper’s Eye trance letting up slightly, threatening to drop altogether with the distraction.

“Four generators, each cardinal direction. The other sides aren’t as heavy as this one, but that’ll probably change knowing our luck.” He pointed out locations on the map to me, the information relaying over in real time.

Each one was nearby to the gates, allowing them to be defensible. Plus, there wasn’t enough time to set it up anywhere else. These were a rush install when we pulled out from our fort outside of the city, and while the groundwork for the Raijin Field’s floor was being set up before, the generators hadn’t been placed for obvious safety reasons.

“I’ll tell you when to flip the switch. Good work.” I turned my attention fully to the horde after that, rattling off several more shots rapidly, burning through another clip in a few seconds. I dropped and loaded another one in the span of a second, mulching through another.

The biotics pushed deeper, passing the fourth trench even as we chipped through more of them. The artillery avoided hitting anything that close now, wanting to keep the Raijin Field intact for as long as possible. Only one area wouldn’t benefit from it, and that location was still on fire.

They passed the third trench half a minute later, the lack of heavy ordnance on them giving them a second wind. Another pair of waves flooded in behind them, and I could see in the distance the Centaur beginning to stir. They expected to join the battle soon, no doubt after the less valuable fodder had opened a path, or distracted us sufficiently.

That ended the moment I said, “Terry, let there be fire.”

He grinned widely, “wakin’ a god, check.”

I blinked at that, but smiled as the generator let out a high pitched siren call, a low ominous tone that rose in pitch until it rivaled a banshee's wail. It lasted only four seconds, an obligatory warning.

Then the world turned white all at once.

Electricity surged forth across the field just as the biotics touched the second trench. White sparked off of them, and just as I’d witnessed before, the crackling, sharp whistling of bodily liquids boiling into gaseous form instantly filled the air. Hundreds of biotics around half of the city suddenly ceased to be in the wake of a thunderclap, fragmented pieces that had exploded rained through the air.

Behind me, the generator quickly quieted down, no longer outputting as much power, conducting itself through its many intermediaries. The small discs buried in among the trenches performed their scans, confirming the slaughter as complete. A few remained awake, detected further intruders that, with a brief uptick in activity from the generators, also ceased to be.

The Knights and Legion let the sight uplift them, a cheer surging from their lips. I couldn’t help but smirk at that.

In the distance, I watched as the horde stilled for a few seconds, as though the most recent development had finally staggered their will to fight. In those seconds, we continued our grim harvesting, and they began to fight forward again, though seemingly with less abandon.

The Centaur, I noted, had retreated further.

“It looks like they didn’t like that one bit,” I heard Harris say, grinning openly, “we’re definitely going to need to get that tech off your hands.”

“We can arrange that.” I nodded, sharing his grin as I turned my gaze back to the flames, choking soot and blackness steadily petering out. It could be a while before that died off yet, and regrettably it didn’t actually keep biotics away from the wall itself, nor the main gate.

North, East, and South were all under control with the Raijin Field, something that I’d been very concerned about. Now, however, the reduced members that were present on the walls there would be more than enough to secure them. Here, though, with part of the field destroyed, we’d eventually have more trouble. When the fires dimmed, that would be an open road.

Something that I could see the biotics must have realized, as a large bulk of the forces on the flanks rejoined the western front.

I snorted, as I considered them, knowing that this was, at best, a brute force option. Considering the intelligence behind them, I expected something… more.

A creeping wariness trickled through my thoughts at that realization.

This was altogether too straightforward, wasn’t it?

I opened my mouth to give an order before realizing that there wasn’t much we could be doing more of. We were as aware as we could be, and it wasn’t as if there was a good way for the biotics to assault the city. Everything they did, we could see.

On that note, I could see a gathering cluster of several Carriers on the edge of the Trenches, ten of them in all. That was the largest number of them that we’d seen yet.

Perhaps that was the gambit?

I painted them as a target on the map, and quickly the artillery and our long-range fighters began to dole out pain. The Carriers weren’t necessarily slow, but with our capabilities, they wouldn’t be able to get close enough without significant punishment. Some of them would make it to the wall, but their size worked against them here.

As I thought that, though, I felt a tremble through the wall, familiar to the stampeding of a charging Carrier.

I looked around frantically, searching for where it was coming from. No biotic was nearby, and the feeling only intensified.

Until I realized I was looking in the wrong areas.

“In the fire!” I shouted out, “Carrier in the fire! Change targets!” I turned my attention into the ash, the black soot, the roaring flames. A moment later, carapace crackling with heat, larger than an ordinary Carrier, a living train thrashed forward. Its hammer-head shaped skull was broader and bore a pointed nub in the middle, protruding forward. Its legs were thicker, shaper, and four longer tentacles with barbs all along them emerged from just behind the crown of its head. It bellowed as it crashed forward, momentum carrying it even as we threw as much firepower as we could at it all at once.

“Brace!” Harris and I shouted at the same time, realizing that we wouldn’t stop this creature.

[Unique Detected! Bounty issued, The Carrier ‘Axiom Breaker,’ the Siege.]

The system notification came an instant before the Unique smashed through the gate with impunity, the wall under my feet shaking.

In the distance, I barely noticed as the Centaur roared, the flanks of biotics throwing themselves on the fire to smother them even as the Centaur themselves charged forward, stamping them into the earth.

“Breach! We have a breach on the West side! Knights, to battle!” I heard Harris' order.

I followed up with one of my own.

“Team Alpha and Team Last Call on me, we’re hunting this fucking Unique!” I shouted.

The Knight-Commander nodded to me, and I did the same to him. We both had our specialties.

It seemed that we’d get to hunt a Unique after all.