The whining motor of the minigun slowly spun down as team Slate took in the sight before them. Piles of silver flesh broke down before their eyes, constantly releasing noxious grey smoke that was difficult for an unprotected human to breath. In only a few hours the team had killed hundreds of biotics, more than they’d run into at any one point in time in the field.

“Sitrep,” the team leader called out to his squadmates, “how are you looking on ammo, Brunswick?”

The giant of a man, Brunswick, was currently encased in an immense main-line mech. Cradled in his arms was a minigun larger than a van and currently whispered trails of white smoke from its many barrels. The man shrugged, a gesture accompanied by the near silent humm of servos as the machine accommodated the gesture, “Sitting at about seventy percent or so. I’ve got plenty of refills though.”

He accompanied his statement with a gesture behind him, namely at the five tombstone-like cases that could easily replace the one that currently sat on his back. Ammunition wouldn’t be a problem, even considering the prodigious rate in which he used it.

At least, that’s what they hoped.

“Everything’s clear,” the last of his eight man team responded, “so far, so good.”

In spite of that, no one said anything further on the matter. Already The Reaper had advised the teams that this was nothing more than a precursor event. Singularly minded, banal biotics had been released through fissures in the ground starting five hundred meters farther out from their position. It was these fissures that gradually spread, growing in number and forcing the team to adjust their firing angles constantly to cover the new approach vectors of their foes.

None of them believed they were doing ‘well’ as of yet. The enemy was either probing their defenses, or lulling them into a false rhythm. When the real attack came, the captain wanted to be sure that Slate wouldn’t be the first casualties in this conflict.

Other teams updated their information on the Reaper Net, a real time system that had evolved to keep the entire war-front appraised of the situation. The defensive lines had been packed in tighter, but thus far the teams were still far from the walls of New Damond. Just as the biotics were testing the human defense, The Reaper was testing the tools that the biotics were dispensing.

Not that he was complaining about that fact, they needed more information, and none of the Legion was so naive to think that this wouldn’t be the bloodiest battle they’d ever fought, let alone seen.

“Contact.” The team scout called out, “I’m getting… wait…”

Slate team paused as the man panned his attention back and forth, listening for the tell tale noise from the hundreds of drone sensors that he’d sent out long ago. The small devices permeated the ground through the biotics' own tunnels, a strategy employed by several teams that told them a vague sense of what they were dealing with.

Rather than say anything, the man simply forwarded his information with stoic silence. True to their namesake, none of their team panicked as the readout disgorged absolute chaos in noise beneath the ground.

“Brunswick, you’re on greeting duty again. Everyone else, make sure to keep our exfiltration options open. I don’t wanna make my last stand here.” The team leader said, his power armor humming louder as plasma channels began to roar on his back, filtering forward on a pair of projection casters mounted on either arm. He’d held off from firing so far, wanting to keep some of their abilities hidden just in case.

The majority of the team spread out in their emplaced position, clanking against a heavy metal grating that they’d deployed from their deployment vehicle. Ever the silent surveyor, Grey Warden performed overwatch over the battlefield with automated sensors and an advanced A.I. remote controlling its weapons. It hadn’t fired yet, but as the noise from beneath the ground became audible even without the drones, Slate knew that wouldn’t last much longer.

Vibrations rattled through the iron beneath their feet, the snarling, snapping of many limbs covered in chitin rattled up through the numerous rifts across the battlefield. The noise increased in volume, a near omnipresent chorus that pulled at Slate’s collective calm like a bowstring until taut.

And then, just as Brunswick began to squeeze on the trigger, everything went silent all at once. The open landscape, tainted with smoke, was raked with wary eyes and with every sense opened to their absolute limit. Confused, the scout of the team referred to his drones once more, noting their report of no noise beyond some shifting dirt.

Then it began, a low tone that was lost in the wind at first. It built in volume, a low rumble to a growl, a growl to a snarl, like all of the chaotic noise to that point had all been a lie. As one voice it grew, shaking the earth underfoot and sending goosebumps rippling across the captain’s body.

It grew so loud that Brunswick didn’t even hear the hammering of his own heartbeat, the thundering pulse lost amid the roar that swallowed everything. Even as Brunswick’s mech adjusted his ability to hear the outside world, the biotics exploded up from the earth. The rifts hadn’t been large enough for the Centaur, but that didn’t matter with the sheer number that came cascading up from the earth. The analytical side of Brunswick’s mind told him that this was a different creature that had been bred in the war of attrition with Argedwall’s Knights. It was more mobile, chitinous plating more defined and donned more alike to a suit of armor than anything natural. Reaping talons on long arms helped to pull the six-legged creatures forward, each limb tipped with flexible, lethal looking claws. A narrow shoulder protrusion with flexible muscle tissue faced forward, perfectly capable of bombarding foes with a noxious, acidic compound that Brunswick had no desire to test.

The largest alteration, however, was on the tail. A bundle of spines not unlike a mythical manticore might have tipped the end of a prehensile tail.

He opened fire in the next moment without holding anything back. The burst of light filtered through his visor would have been blinding without precautions.He could feel his body vibrate with the sheer violent roar of the rotating barrels as the procession of bullets began to tear through biotic tissue.

Brunswick’s weapon fire tore into the front line of the Centaur charge, explosive shells fragmenting just beneath the surface of their armor. Plumes of silver blood and shrieks of pain rejoined the battlefield with gusto. In spite of his seemingly violent weapon, Brunswick himself was the picture of a composed war-fighter, gazing appraisingly upon his work as he did so with the ease of a practiced professional.

Had he not been, he wouldn’t have noticed that the Centaur were abnormally defiant in the face of death. Bullets tore through limbs and burst torso’s, yet nothing but absolute devastation stopped them. The wave bore forward, carrying their fallen as barriers to dampen the destruction that could be wrought for even another second. It was every second bought that finally managed to crease the man’s brow with contempt.

His rate of ammo consumption was easily five fold what he’d utilized earlier, yet they were losing ground at a breathtaking pace. Four hundred meters hadn’t been far enough to the man before, but as the wave approached the three hundred meter mark, he knew that their emplaced position would be absolutely overwhelmed without any change.

Luckily, the rest of his team joined in the fray.

Heat surged forward like the gates of hell opened up, white hot plasma lances cut through Centaur in the blink of an eye just before they burst into flames. Secondary explosions rang out as what liquid touched the substance instantly vaporized. The Centaur charge was lost amidst a brilliant white fire, the captain’s ace in the hole weapon cauterizing the attack as it began. He swept wide, churning through the entire front and striking deeper at irregular places.

In seconds the charge overtook the initial attack zone, yet the fire didn’t cease. The wave poured on, faltering every moment, ominously crackling and filling the air with a fetid stinking smoke.

After only a few seconds, the wave’s seemingly undeniable charge faltered, the loud, unified voice distorted into numerous wailing, impotent howls.

Brunswick felt sweat trickle down his brow at the sight, in spite of not feeling the heat in his own suit. The world was on fire before them, and it didn’t look like it would cease anytime soon.

“We’re exfiltrating now,” the captain stated, the glow of the plasma lines in his suit notably dimmed after his exorbitant expenditure. “We need real defensive positions to weather a wave like that.”

They moved quickly, taking only necessary equipment with them as they mounted into Grey Warden, whilst they rigged the rest to explode when the Centaur approached.

-Matthew Reaper’s P.O.V.-

I grit my teeth as I took in all of the information from the field. The Reaper’s Net was alive with activity, live feeds of the sudden flood of enemies that belched forth from the ground like the angry blood of the earth. Snapping claws and acidic projectiles flooded my vision, and even with the speed of my processing, I knew that I would have to leave the bulk of the decision making for those on the ground. The display of control that The King showed over his forces, flaunted even, told me that these biotics were utterly and totally under its direction. That had never truly been in doubt, but it highlighted a key difference between our two forces.

His army moved as one, with one mind and one goal, even in spite of any losses. Granted, many teams possessed weapons that stalled the Centaur advance with utter destruction. In the worst of these places, the Centaur pulled back to the safety of the earth, though a second battle would not be fought. This wasn’t the place where I wanted to lose teams.

Even so, there were casualties. Not every team was outfitted with such tools, and it was these teams that found themselves overrun. Distant artillery shelling from New Damond covered their retreat, but the biotics advanced through those fields of fire with the promise of inflicting even a handful of losses upon us.

It wasn’t even a true war of attrition as of yet, and based upon our deep earth seismic sensors, the bulk of the force was still moving upwards through the lithosphere. They would find it far more difficult to tunnel as they closed in on the city, finding many static defenses buried beneath the ground.

Still, I was glad that the Legion was pulling together and exercising their superior training and experience. In that we could match our single-minded enemy, relying one one another and upon our preparations.

“Reaper, we’ve got the first line finished now,” I heard Yamak’s report go through one ear, “We’re receiving the advance teams now, they delayed the attacks long enough that we should be ready.” He paused briefly before adding, “well, as ready as we’ll ever be anyways.”

I nodded slowly, “Thank you, Yamak. Hopefully we can stall the battle for a few hours at this circle.” I rose from my chair, turning my attention fully to Yamak on a holographic display. The room around me was filled with various personnel, a war-room that took up a massive place within Reaper HQ. Huge holographic displays and dozens of smaller, group sized displays read out information as it was collected, though the room full of people was eerily quiet save for a few voices. The reason was the fact that each group was in a personal mesh suit, not unlike power armor, and spoke only to their own stations and groups. They could, of course, change that setting on demand, but it helped to keep the clutter to a minimum.

“They really do seem to be throwing everything at us this time,” Yamak commented idly as he looked over reports from other cities, “You’d think that this was a late-stage infestation that nobody had done anything about.”

I knew what he was talking about, the sheer numbers of biotics coming out of the woodwork almost made it feel like the Legion and other forces that hunted them had barely scratched the surface. The reminder that we’d killed these numbers and more during our hunts didn’t help me feel any better, nor would anyone currently embattled in the thousands of battlefields on the planet care either.

“Our project represents a change in the dynamic.” I forcibly relaxed my clenched fists, “I suspect The King sensed that, and if we can weaponize it, at worst we break his hold over his unified forces of biotics. At best, we render them utterly harmless.”

Yamak had a complicated look on his face for a few moments, before he nodded.

I frowned at that, “What’s up?”

“Ah… well,” he grimaced, “Well, hopefully it works out. It’d be a nightmare if all of this is going on for a dud project.”

“It’ll work,” I said, not allowing myself to even consider the weight of failure. “If anything, this works in our favor in the long term if they fail to destroy us. We’ll have heavily culled their numbers, so long as the cities hold.”

“Optimistic,” another voice cut in then, “but true. I am wary that these other attacks are just to keep other cities engaged away from our defense, however.”

“Maricene,” I nodded to the image, translated across cyberspace to Yamak’s second-in-command, “how is the situation in orbit?”

The image changed to that of the white-haired alien woman, her severe countenance looking more in place than the pseudo-playboy vibes that Yamak gave off. “Orbital defenses are online. We’re waiting for requests for intervention across the globe.”

“Then we’re ready to put a hand on the scale,” I nodded, able to keep the relief from showing through too clearly. “I’ll handle things as much as possible on our end then. Let me know if anything changes.”

“You got it,” Yamak answered from off screen, drawing a slight glare from Maricene.

She gave a brief salute before the feed shut off, leaving me once more to the rolling casualty report.

One of the teams was dragged screaming into the dark. Another ten suffered losses, but beyond that we still held most of our fighting strength.

I tried to tell myself that much, but every loss wasn’t just a number to me. The feed of information gave me more than just raw numbers, it gave me the moments of their deaths. It gave me their vision as they were dragged down into scything claws and acid.

“It’ll work.” I told myself again, turning my attention away from those feeds as I felt my emotions dull. This was only the beginning.

It would only get worse from here.