I watched them as they walked through the open doors, much larger even than they had been. Matter energy used in conjunction with the obelisk for construction had a wide array of uses, not the least of which was converting existing buildings and materials into other materials. It took time, though, and it couldn’t be used on organic substances because they moved around too much. That was a good thing, considering there had already been a few people who decided to stick their hands in glowing silver energy.

It occured to me that the overall change to the building might be a bit too shocking for them.

Daniel, Fran, and Alice all moved into the building. Each had different flavors of the same expression on their faces. Bewilderment was probably the best way to explain it.

“Guys,” I called out to them, holding a hand up to let them more easily identify me. By now I was on the ground, near the elevator as people still sorted themselves in front of the screens.

They walked up to me, and before I could explain anything, Daniel spoke, “What the hell happened?”

“And who are all of these people?” Fran added.

Alice followed up, “There’s a cafeteria?”

I shook off my hesitation, “A lot. Apparently someone started calling me ‘Boss’ around here and it stuck.”

Daniel shuffled, “Err… I was joking with them, but I guess that they took it seriously?”

“I told you to be careful,” Fran uttered, “But how did… this happen?” She gestured at length to the building.

“There were problems with people starting to give the Bulwark a lot of flak, not that they didn’t deserve a little kick. But, I figured that the situation was going to blow up in our faces before long, at worst we’d have a complete civil breakdown and everyone would be at each other's throats. Like with what Daniel pointed out yesterday.”

“Err… what?” He blinked, and then flinched, “Oh. The part where I told you that soldiers shouldn’t be forced to go fighting stuff they didn’t sign up for, along those lines?”

“Yes, in a milder form.” I nodded.

Fran pinched the bridge of her nose, “I think I know where this is going.”

I pretended she wasn’t doing that, “So I went in front of the Bulwark and the people’s representatives and presented a third option. Bulwark would focus on providing defense and helping to structure the citizens, those people would then go on and continue producing goods and performing services. In order to sustain these two groups, The Reaper’s Legion will provide a quantity of M.E. to the Bulwark to continue sustaining everyone. Of course we’ll be getting paid for our services, but I also intend on watching them closely to ensure they aren’t wasting our resources.”

“How did you get them to even agree to that?” Fran asked with exasperation, “They might not realize it now, but that’s giving us a lot of power, isn’t it?”

“I showed them the alternative.” I grinned.

Alice clicked her tongue, “You showed them Wolven, didn’t you?”

I was surprised that she got it that fast, “Yup, I didn’t want too, but some military guy insisted he could do my job better.”

She hesitated for a moment, “W-wouldn’t that hurt our chances of getting more people? I mean…”

“I thought of that, but so far that monster is an outlier, I haven’t seen any designation coming close to that on the obelisk systems radar, and I’m looking closely. Not that we’ll know any kind of exact location, but it shouldn’t be able to hide from Sis for that long anymore, even if it does come from outside of the range at first.”

“Didn’t you just drop a whole lot of responsibility at our feet?” Daniel tried to smear his face, but couldn’t even touch his head with his mech hand. That was probably for the best.

“Yes and no,” I shrugged, “This’ll be business as usual for us if you think about it. But now we’ll have a self-growing organization behind us.”

We moved the conversation after a few more minutes of back and forth upstairs. There they saw places to set their exo-suits when they weren’t using them, and we sat in my office to speak. It wasn’t repurposed yet, but that was partly due to the fact that it wasn’t just my room.

Most of what I talked about was to convince them not to get too angry with my decision. In the end, we came down to what I’d said to the possible new recruits, and they were again aghast at how awful I was at attracting talent. Then I told them that around half had stayed anyways, and they assumed we had a large number of psychopaths with us. I couldn’t necessarily say they were wrong, but I hoped they wouldn’t be quite like that.

[The Reaper’s Legion’s Codex is complete.] I heard Smith pipe into our conversation, [I released more general information about biotics in it, as well as tactics that should be used when facing larger numbers or bigger known variants. I’ve also included our policy on unique biotics.]

“Which is?” Fran asked, looking at me while she talked on reflex.

[Strictly scout only until we can gather more information and assemble multiple kill-team’s to exterminate the target. It would do us no good if we lost multiple teams against a Unique like Wolven.]

We shuddered at the thought.

“Anyways, I wanted to go hunting for a day or so, there’s a ranking system for the Legion to give some way to measure everyone's efforts. I’m toying with the idea of adding rewards for being higher level on the leaderboard. I’d like there to be rewards for the top five places, considering our team’s going to take the top.” I beamed with confidence at that.

No one said anything on that count, “I think that’ll be a good idea, so long as we don’t make the rewards too nice. We don’t want people taking unnecessary risks.”

“Good idea, probably a smaller amount of M.E., or I’ll give them a higher tier reaper weapon.” I nodded. “Anyways, you guys ready to go?”

“After food. I’m starving.” Daniel patted his stomach, something that the other three agreed too immediately. It struck me that I’d been so busy that I didn’t notice I was hungry.

The cafeteria was surprisingly well designed and outfitted. In the end, I didn’t have the slightest complaint about the food either. I’d gotten a chef salad with some beer battered fish, lemonade was my drink. Daniel had a steak, medium-rare, and a pile of mashed potatoes with gravy, a soda of some kind on the side. Fran had a pile of fettuccine with alfredo and pesto in the sauce, a fruit medley on the side, and a rich red wine, though only a small amount of it. Alice was busily devouring a slice of baked apple pie, a large and thick slice of pizza, and what looked like four different drinks mixed into one--one of the mixed amounts being energy drinks.

“Alice, you’re meal is very… interesting.” I chuckled, my armor coming off around my head and hands. More than a few people were looking to us in the corner of their eyes, and it was a little unsettling. Luckily, we were in a side booth that could obscure some of them, but the fact remained that I could feel their eyes on me.

The others were just as uncomfortable. “I couldn’t think of anything else. It’s just been so long.”

“Where did the M.E. come from for this?” Fran asked, trying to distract herself from the onlookers.

“From the Legion vault, there are some people hunting already, and since it doesn’t take much to actually feed people…” I paused, seeing Daniel get up from the table. “What’s up?”

“I just got an idea,” he was grinning from ear to ear. We watched him go to the cafeteria and get a large mug of beer, a rich froth at the top.

“Hey, Legion! It’s a little stuffy in here, so how about a toast! Eh?” He shouted out, catching people's attention. The man was positively brimming with charisma, and it almost seemed like his time in the exo-suit had only made him more imposing. “To the Legion, and to good hunts in the future!”

At this point, the others had caught up, and they rose whatever glasses they had on hand, laughing. Daniel shouted out, “Cheers!” And tipped the mug back to his lips.

He drained the whole thing in one go, a few avid drinkers in the crowd cheering him on. It was infectious, and before long, the atmosphere went from that of silent and awkward reverence of us, to a much more comfortable, homely tone.

When he sat back down, I could only shake my head helplessly, a smile plastered on my face.

“As usual, you’re much better with people.”

“It’s a special touch,” He grinned, and looked to Fran with a wink. She blushed, and elbowed him fiercely.

Alice looked to all of the people, a small smile on her face that looked perfectly in place. The thought caught me by surprise, but I enjoyed it all the same. She was in a good frame of mind, our victory, even if it was a draw, with Wolven had meant a world of difference.

“Let’s dig in,” she turned back to her meal, biting into the still warm apple pie first, practically gushing over the flavor.

“Starting with dessert? Alright, I dig it,” Daniel nodded, cutting into his steak, eager to get some food in his stomach. The beer would do almost nothing to him, it wasn’t anywhere enough to get him drunk, maybe a little buzz though.

We ate out lunch in peace from then on, and as we left we made some small talk with a few of the members of the Legion. I figured it would be good for them to know that we were going hunting.

It took us less time to get out of the city. After walking off our lunch a bit, we started running after hitting the wall. Daniel, Fran, and Alice were all much quicker than I was at their full speeds, especially Alice after some modifications to her leg gear. Now her attachments beneath her feet would spring back with more force, sending her over greater distances. It was like spring-loaded stilts, though they were only a foot and a half in length.

Still, I was running much quicker than a human should have been able too, at a sprint at that. I did this for ten minutes without breaking a sweat. Alice was doing quite well, too, since her exoskeletal suit relieved a lot of the effort that would usually involve moving so fast and for so long.

Fran and Daniel, of course, were completely unphased.

“Yep, we need a vehicle, asap.” I shook my head, to which Alice could only resignedly nod. She could outpace anyone, even Fran, but she couldn’t do it for long.

“I’m fine,” Daniel shrugged, “But, it would be nice if we could get something that could go over all of the buildings.”

“It’ll be on the list, I guess.” I shrugged, “Anyways, Doug’ll keep things in order while we’re out. So, to the west is one of the packs that hit the walls. I want to clear them out.”

“Is there a bounty listed?” Fran asked.

I nodded, and then sent them the listing. We opened it and looked at it together, seeing that it was eight miles to the west of us, roughly.

[Kill 0/700 Wolves]

[Destroy 0/1 Hive Core]

[Rewards will be based on completion and bonus objectives completed during Bounty Hunt!]

“That’s it, probably it won’t be too terribly hard. But we already know how jacked up this can go.” I nodded to them. “I think there’s a group already out here from us, I sent them invites to the Legion, but we’ll try to leave them to it. I’d rather they didn’t get too comfortable with the idea that help wouldn’t be far away if they needed it.”

They nodded, getting into a situation where you needed help would more often than not mean that you’d be dead before anyone could get to you. Better to not lull yourself into a false sense of security.

We ran, the dark clouds overhead letting brilliant beams of light through in places. Some of the forested mountains in the distance were spectacularly lit. Eventually the skies would clear up, some of the larger chunks of the meteorites had ejected massive amounts of superheated debris and dust into the atmosphere. It’d been settling for months now.

Before, I thought it painted the forests I loved in a terrible light, making them seem cold and remorseless. Now though, I could see the end of the tunnel, things might just be getting better.

After running for about thirty minutes we slowed, nearly at the location. A few times as we moved, we snapped shots at some wolves we passed. They were lingering, smaller packs, and they didn’t have the frame of mind not to run into us. It wasn’t a problem at all, and after the first few times, we didn’t need to slow at all.

Finally, we came to some high ground. We were careful about our area, spread out just enough to have the best handle on the area we were in. Fran carried me up over the treeline where my reaper eye could be best put to use. It was a fairly lush forest, but hardly half a mile to the north west, I could see a large, twisting tree, like a dozen oak’s that banded together.

“Well, I think we know where we’re going.” I commented dryly, to which Fran nodded, “Give me a second, I’m going to see if I can get anything else.” At that I concentrated more, letting my reaper eye and helmet synchronize. My vision pin-holed to a single area, brought up in crystal clarity as the image expanded.

I could see many wolves, granted they were colored grey instead of black, but that was all, surprisingly nothing else had begun to pop up at this hive. The trees for three hundred feet around it had all been strangled out by the hive augmented tree.

“Hmm… I only see wolves.” I frowned as Fran settled us back down onto the ground.

“I don’t like that.” Alice mirrored my expression as my helmet came off.

“Neither do I… let’s take it slow. We’ll see what kind of trick they’ve got up their sleeves.” We moved closer, slower than we were going before. Stealth wasn’t our strong suit, but for the most part we did actually approach without notifying the forest we were there. Daniel was the main issue on that count, his stomping steps, while quieter than expected, were still heavy and jarring. Anything that could snap or be crushed under his feet would do so, and do so loudly.

Alice was the one who noticed them first. She brought a hand up to stop the rest of us, slowing and crouching. Daniel slid to a stop and hunkered down, his darker shape at least hard to spot if you weren’t actively looking.

“What is it?” Fran asked Alice. She saw the same things I did a moment later.

“Wolves, a lot of them.” She pointed them out. They were the same type of wolves I’d seen earlier, grey instead of black.

“I think they’re different, right?” Daniel asked aloud.

“Just coloration… No, nevermind, it’s better to assume it’s more than just coloration.” I shook my head. “I’d like you to take a test shot at one, Alice. Use enough force that would kill a regular wolf.”

She nodded, though she moved away from us, retreating expertly into the trees. I could track her, but only because I knew where she’d started from. Her legs gave her great jumping capabilities, and I found myself surprised at her mid-air shifts in direction and position. Either she was quite the gymnast before all of this had started, or she’d gotten a lot of practice.

A minute later, I heard the wolves howling, and they moved away from us, more to our left and forward. We held our breath as we waited for her to return.

She did only thirty seconds later.

“Definitely stronger. I’d say roughly double? But their senses are still pretty bad. Smarter, though, almost as good as an actual dog!” She spoke up cheerily.

“That’s… almost a backhanded compliment?” Fran’s smile betrayed that she was very amused.

“Well, that’s great. If that’s all it is then we can take out this hive pretty easily I think. Still, don’t break formation. We’re not in a good position to come up with a really great plan, the layout of the terrain doesn’t give us any chokepoints. I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t want to get surrounded.”

“Use me as bait,” Daniel clanged his chest, “I’ll clear us some space here and Alice can draw groups to us.”

“I’m fastest in a sprint, so that works.” She nodded, “If I need it, I’ll just jump over the tree line until Fran can catch me.”

Fran put a hand on her hip, her wings flaring, “I think that’ll work out, then. I’ll keep to zone control.”

“It worked pretty well before,” I nodded, “I’ll target stragglers and flankers. I’ll position myself in a tree at the edge of our perimeter. Alice, you’ll jump over Daniel and take a position firing around him, you’ll be safest there.”

“Sounds good.” Her giddiness was contagious, we had a solid strategy.

“Alright, bring ‘em in, I’ll have the area cleared by the time you get back.” Daniel nodded to Alice, who took off running. Fran followed over the tree line, hovering thirty feet in the air, darting between the trees to keep from losing line of sight on Alice.

“I’ll back off, go nuts.” I thumped the back of Daniel’s mech.

He gave me a thumbs up, “Don’t miss, alright?”

I set myself in a tree about fifty feet away. Daniel swept through the trees just as he’d said, smashing through them with a combination of cutting power and brute force from his axe. After clearing out the trees, he stacked them behind him, giving Alice an easy firing point when she got there. I appreciated that move, it’d make things a lot easier.

As I focused, I let my vision slide out of the normal visual spectrum and brought up infrared, and let it mix with motion acuity. I heard the howling as I trimmed out the movement of trees and the heat given off by the environment.

[You’ve learned well,] Smith smiled, happy with my selection. I nodded internally and thanked him for the training. Although, I also added how I never wanted to go to that hell world again.

Alice flew out through the trees, a look of anticipation on her face. She cast one assessing sweep over the cleared woods, and then jumped high, clearly over Daniel’s firing line.

He grunted, “Welcome to the grinder!” His left gauntlet lifted, a pair of rotating barrels coming alive.

Shotgun bursts erupted into the wolves as they cleared the tree line. The trees themselves immediately in front of them shredded from the shrapnel. He didn’t even have to try, the blinks of heat and shower of mangled steel tore a dozen wolves to pieces in an instant.

“There’s more! At least a hundred!” Alice called out, the microphone picking her up loud and clear.

“Good, keep chipping away at them.” I called out, firing sparse bursts from my rifle, not bothering to switch it to the sniper form. It was close enough that the accuracy wouldn’t be affected at all. From overhead, Fran kept a swarm of feathers striking four different spots. She didn’t use any railgun-like shots as of yet, instead conserving energy for if it was necessary.

Suddenly, I heard the wolves howl louder, calling out from a much greater distance.

I spat, “Alice, can you check around? I think they just yanked another group in.”

“Got it… I’ll try this way first.” She streaked off through the forest, jumping over the wolves effortlessly.

“Fran, check the other way, if we get pincered, I want to know. We can handle this so far.” I relayed.

She pipped in, “Alright, I’ll be quick!”

Daniel’s load increased briefly, but there was nothing the wolves could do. I quickly repositioned, expecting the possibility that I’d be flanked from behind. Within a dozen more seconds, we’d dispatched the horde, leaving many bodies around.

As I reloaded, I asked, “How many more rounds do you have?”

“I’m loaded for war,” he nodded back, the belt fed pack leading to a device on his back, “Thousands of ‘em.”

“Good.” I turned, hearing the baying of the wolves in the distance. I hopped up on the top of the pile of wood that Daniel made, scanning the forest. A minute later, Fran and Alice were back, confirming my suspicions.

“I’ve got another hundred or two coming from my side.” Alice sighed.

“Same for mine, I think it’s the rest of the horde.” Fran checked her feathers for any damage, satisfied only after making sure they could each fit back into her wings.

“Hmm… they’ll definitely try to pincer us then. They probably expected this horde to pin us… down…” I faltered in my thinking, and then amusement played across my face.

“Bro?” Daniel turned to me, “You’ve got that scary look again.”

“Do I?” I shook my head, “I came up with a great idea.”

Fran and Alice looked to me with about equal amounts of concern.

I rolled my eyes, “C’mon, if they’re trying to pincer us, we’ll go straight down the middle to the hive. If we try to go out further, I’m pretty sure they’ll flank us. Let’s go, quickly, before they catch up.”

We were running before anyone could exchange any opinions on the plan. No matter what the case was, we weren’t keen on getting hit from all sides.

Out of curiosity I looked at the bounty, checking our progress as we went.

[Kill Wolves 158/700]

“We’ve gotten 158 of the wolves already.” I announced with more than a small measure of shock. “That’s… a lot already.”

“We’re doing work!” Daniel shouted with happiness, “Kicking their teeth in!”

Fran laughed as well, leaning down as she floated and fist-bumping Daniel as offered it.

“It feels wrong somehow.” Alice called out.

“They’re just biotics, I don’t mind killing them.” I chuckled, “It’s not like they’re actual wolves or anything.”

“No, not that,” Alice shook her head vigorously, “I feel like this is too easy. That can’t be it. The biotics are supposed to get stronger over time, right? Everything we’ve fought so far that had regular wolves also had a unique with them, or at least bears.”

“Could it be that we were just unlucky, you think?” Fran asked, hopeful.

I opened my mouth to speak, a hand coming to my chin habitually as I thought. “I wouldn’t chalk it up to just being unlucky at this rate… Good catch, Alice. Be on your toes, keep your eyes peeled for anything else out here. I don’t want to get caught flat-footed.”

Our previous joviality wasn’t completely gone, but we didn’t talk more at that point. Daniel was the only one who didn’t enjoy much in the way of a sensory boost or an edge in that department. His suit could only really collect information from line of sight, nothing beyond that. My helmet could filter through many different means to collate information from the environment, not the least of which was infrared. Fran could get a much higher vantage point, while April was a gifted scout in her own right. Even before the obelisks landed, she was probably excellent at finding the wolves. Now, with some hardware to augment those senses, I wasn’t terribly worried about anything sneaking up behind us.

None of us needed to strain ourselves to hear the howling behind us.

I felt a shiver run down my spine at the sound, it was different on a primal level from anything I’d heard from the abominations I was used to seeing from the wolves. It was pure toned sound, no garbled noise, no fragmented vocal range. The sound echoed through the forest, carried through the trees in an almost ghostly fashion. A part of me felt that it was a beautiful sound, but a dread cut any feel-good sensation I could have derived from it. They kept going with that howl, and as they did, the sense of wrongness only increased. Ten seconds, then twenty, finally thirty seconds later the tones stopped.

“What the hell was that?” Daniel was the first to talk as we stopped in front of the massive tree, two hundred feet around it completely void of any other trees.

“I don’t know, but I don’t like it one bit.” I shook my head, turning to look at the hive. “We might be better off fighting inside of the hive now, there are at least tunnels in there. But, it’s their home turf. Thoughts?”

“I think we’re in trouble,” Alice gulped, “Check out the bounty list.”

I frowned, I’d just checked it, we killed 158 of them.

Still, we all looked.

“What…” My gut felt like it was filled with steel.

[Kill Wolves 0/700]

“That… that can’t be right.” I breathed carefully, looking to the others.

“You’re sure of the number you saw?” Fran asked me, though I could tell by the look on her face that she highly doubted that I’d somehow miscounted.

I nodded. This was bad. This was very, very bad.

“If we fight out here, we’re screwed.” Daniel was the first to speak up. “We need to get deep into the hive until there’s only one or two paths that they can take to get to us. Fran and I will hold the tunnel while you guys go deep.”

“Is that a good idea?” Alice was already moving towards the hive in spite of her question, “Shouldn’t we move as a group?”

“On the off chance that the two of you don’t find the hive quick enough, or if it’s another living thing, then you’ll need all the time you can get. Dealing with a pseudo-hive and a horde of… reviving wolves, if that’s what they are, sounds like a recipe for a disaster. I agree with Daniel.”

“It’s my turn to say I don’t like this plan at all.” I grit my teeth, moving ahead with Alice, the two of us nodding to each other with Daniel and Fran on our tails. “But, I don’t see a better choice.”

As we went I dropped a reaper mine at every intersection we came across. Maybe because the wolves were very fast but couldn’t turn on a dime, there were comparably few intersections. Alice, as we went, pulled out a small disk and threw them out to the ends of adjacent tunnels, and then put a hand to her helmet while nodding.

“Here everyone,” she said, a sudden blip popping up on our obelisk connection. I looked at it as we jogged, trying to keep tabs on our surroundings as much as we could.

“You’re mapping it?” Surprise colored my voice.

“Echolocation, they help.” She said while she threw more, the map expanding even as we left the tools where they were.

“That’s perfect.” I smiled, Alice surprised me again. Her happy-go-lucky attitude was no indication to what she brought to the team. She put two thumbs up and grinned widely, and my assessment for happy-go-lucky only heightened.

“Alright, it looks like this next intersection will be where you guys hold them off,” I nodded, seeing that there were only two other directions they could go through. I handed two mines to Fran. “Put these down those halls, about four hundred feet. Be sure to have your helmets on and don’t open them, it's gonna get hot in here.”

She nodded, knowing exactly how ruthless these things could be. Daniel stopped at the middle of the intersection, rolling his shoulders and checking his weapons. “I can’t believe those things didn’t die though…”

“Probably something to do with the other wolves,” I said, hearing Alice concur on the side.

“I think we have to get rid of them all to keep that from happening, maybe bury them so that nothing can get at them while they decay?” Her theory might be correct, even if it was incredibly frustrating to deal with.

“In any case, be careful guys. Avoid using too heavy of ordinance in the tunnel, we have to have some kind of path back to the surface.” I waved over my shoulder, Alice and I quickly making our way down.

“What, no farewell or good luck?” Daniel called back.

My helmet let up, “You guys don’t need luck. Just hurry up and take care of them in case we need to be bailed out.”

Daniel chuckled. I’d already resolved myself to trust fully in my team, if they said they’d do it, they’d do it.

We went deeper into the hive, warped wood and roots clustered around in large tunnels almost twelve feet across. I could see uncountable numbers of claw marks against the bark, and it occurred to me that we hadn’t seen a single wolf the entire time we were down here.

“Nothing’s here.” Alice frowned, walking upright and steadily, confident in her senses.

“Why, though…” We shared an uncomfortable silence. Neither of us had any idea as to why.

Running now, we made quick progress into the darkness, lit in my vision by my reaper eye. Alice had her own means, a visor that lit up the darkness with a usually invisible spectrum of light, one that her helmet picked up. Excellent for stealth if your enemy couldn’t see in that particular wavelength.

“Right up ahead,” she pointed, her hearing picking up something. “I only hear one thing, though. But it sounds… big.”

“A bear, maybe.” Focusing my own hearing, I tried to pick it up.

“It’s way too quiet to be a bear.” Alice shook her head.

She was right, I couldn’t hear whatever it was in the slightest, I didn’t even know how she could tell it was big.

When we entered the open hollow, dozens of feet of space overhead and from the middle, I realized what she was hearing. The core sat in the middle of the room, and tendrils of energy coiled out from it, feeding into a larger wolf, something smaller than a bear. It looked up to me with hollow eyes.

“I don’t think… I don’t think that’s a Unique.” I frowned, finding its expression to be void of the same kind of intelligent spark that I’d seen in other uniques. Unlike Karaslava, the bear, or Dread, or even Wolven, there was a glassed over look to it.

“What is it then?” Alice frowned. It hadn’t moved yet, still sizing us up.

I shrugged, “Dunno. Maybe just a bigger wolf.”

It moved then, fast for its size. There was still plenty of space for us to move, though, and Alice immediately tore off to the right, pelting it with several arrows in the span of two seconds. Energy struck it, two of the four arrows she fired biting into it. She whistled, “He’s a tough one, nimble, too.”

It turned towards her, and she increased her speed, finding that it was slower, but only just. It tried to cut across the uneven terrain, hoping to press her into the wall.

“Well, one way to find out what it is,” I muttered, bringing up my rifle. At once the three barrles bloomed with heat, superheated plasma slugs hit the wolf in the side, burning through it.

It yowled in pain, turning to face me. I only stopped firing to see what its decision would be.

Unexpectedly, it ran towards me.

I frowned, “Definitely just a regular biotic.” It could have potentially caught Alice, but it went after what hurt the most. A basic instinct. If it was like Wolven, it would have gone after the weakest member first.

“Hello!” Alice shouted, suddenly leaping on top of the wolf. It turned its head just in time for her to spring off of it with her feet, a shockwave shunting it hard into the floor. Expertly, Alice flipped into the air, using her spring-loaded feet to convert the energy into more speed. Bouncing off of objects made her much faster, even Fran couldn’t keep up at this pace.

Anytime it rose, I would tear into it with more rounds. Thick, shaggy looking grey fur ran red with heat, pierced in places with energy arrows. Anytime it ran towards me, Alice would interrupt it, either using her arrows to hit its legs or to drop next to it. It flinched when she approached now, expecting another pummeling shot.

She kept those to a minimum now that it expected them, but it could only dodge one of every ten shots now. I was uncertain I was even needed.

But, time was ticking. I heard the drumming cacophony of a gatling shotgun shredding biotics in the tunnels behind us. Expectedly, perhaps, I also heard the long howling. Several loud explosions drowned out the wolves, the reaper mines never a disappointment. The explosions rocked the side tunnels, burying and incinerating any of the wolves that had gone there.

[Kill Wolves 200/700]

I watched it, the number hovering at around 200 for a few seconds before spiking suddenly to 300. That number steadily increased. Whatever damage we were dealing, it was taking them down faster than they could get back up.

“Alright, let’s end it here.” I called out, to Alice. She nodded, keeping clear of the large wolf. It’s white eyes almost seemed confused for a moment at the ceased assault.

Then I emptied my clip into it, the half that remained, in the blink of an eye. It kicked, the full auto function adapting to use all three barrels. Fire erupted across the wolf, heat billowed out from the heat vent at the front of my rifle.

Its fur melted like steel, and the pulsing of the core became more insistent, feeding more power to it to keep it alive.

“So that’s the trick.” I turned to Alice, “I’ll dump another clip into it, keep it down.”

A new clip materialized in my hand, the catch undone on my weapon dropped the spent one. It vanished even as I slapped the new one in, the bullets eagerly injected into the rifle. It spat them back out at the wolf in a handful of seconds, streaking lines of red and smoking plant matter cast the room in an ominous glow.

A loud snap resounded, the smell of burning ozone entered my nostrils. The arrow that struck the wolf tore through the weakened hide and fur-metal shell of the wolf. It exploded then, shattered in half as though it were made more from glass than flesh.

I didn’t take any longer to appreciate the damage. The bastard was pretty hardy, much more so than a bear was at that. If biotic cores all had a guardian like this, then it would make it fairly challenging to get rid of them for most teams. If we cleared hives, we’d have to have a minimum of three decent teams, or two good teams. Unless they were up to our armaments, in which case they might be able to take one with a good plan. We were still down two possible members, after all.

The moment I reached the crystal, I felt a tremor run through the hive, like it was trying to lash out at me. Immediately I felt the wolf, melting and half destroyed, turn its gaze upon me with a killing intent. It was surreal, to actually feel something like that on my back. Deeper in the tunnels, the howling became more desperate and fervid, they pushed harder.

Daniel fired more, and I heard Fran’s feathers whistling even from here. Tunnels were an awful place to fight them.

“Matthew, whatever you guys are doing, do it fast, they’re pushing us back,” I heard Fran spoke, catching me off guard. They were pushing them back? What the hell?

I put my right hand on the surface of the silver and black sphere, the size of my torso. Immediately, the reaper tattoo gleamed a bloody read, and a red sprawling web of energy began to snake out of it. If I hadn’t already begun to be accustomed to freaky things, that might have turned my stomach.

[Hold us here for a while, I’ll sever the biotic core’s connection to the hive.] Smith’s voice rang in my ears. [Be sure not to let go. The backlash is nothing short of debilitating.]

“Awesome.” I frowned, “Just what I like to hear.”

“It could be worse?” Alice landed next to me, “At least that things not… oh.”

“What, ‘oh?’” I narrowed my eye, peering at the wolf.

“It’s… uh… getting back up?” Alice audibly gulped.

Following her gaze, I realized she was right. Both halves of the wolf were getting up.

Both were forming new wolves.

“That’s great.” I glowered, “Try to keep the one with the head away, the other can’t move at all yet.”

She didn’t need my input, though. She already held the bow, charging an arrow shot. As the head-half started sprouting ridiculously small legs, it’s skull exploded. The charged shot was altogether something else, I had to admit.

Another charged shot kept it down. She swapped to the leg-half after that, but they were beginning to outpace her damage.

The thundering shotgun blasts Daniel unleashed became louder. By now, the smoke was clinging to the ceiling in a black cloud.

Glaring at my hand, I saw the spider webbing energy halfway around the core. It shouldn't take much longer, but it was like these things had just been pumped full of energy. They probably had, the core realized it was in great danger. I imagine I could have just blown the thing to pieces, but if we could actually take them whole and arm ourselves, I’d rather that any day.

“Guys, we’ve got problems!” Daniel shouted, turning his head and seeing the abominable appearances of the two large wolves, shredded and reforming, “Oh, so do you.”

Fran pierced them with what I imagined would be a disgusted sneer, “Nope. Just no, that’s not happening.”

She picked the many feathers that speared them up, throwing the two large wolves at the opening of the tunnel. They were far more durable than they looked, the shotgun pellets shredding and scattering on some of the fur. Luckily, most of it pierced.

“Thanks for the assist!” Alice called, moving quickly over to the pair. She hopped on top of Daniel’s shoulders, standing and steadying herself in spite of how the machine bucked with the force of the shotgun. The weapon glowed red, and I wondered if it would melt before long.

“What the fu-- Warn me next time, Alice!” He scoffed, adjusting his posture. Fran seemed perplexed at the situation, but decided that it couldn’t be helped. He provided great line of sight, and she was very busy with manipulating her magnetics.

“Not much more, guys!” Shouting, I felt the energy of the core falter, rippling against the webbing pattern that worked to choke it.

“Good, I’m about to run out of my goddamn ammo reserve!” Daniel cried out incredulously, “If the damn thing doesn’t melt first, anyways!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I checked the bounty again.

[Kill Wolves 112/700]

This was absurd. If it was literally any other team at this point, I think they’d have run out of ammo.

“Just a little more.” I grit my teeth, willing the webs to spread faster, to kill the damn thing. “Just a little mo-”

The sound of the gatling shotgun jamming was the loudest sound in the world. “Incoming!” Daniel immediately leaning forward, Alice balancing perfectly between the two shoulder weapons as they came up. The cannon fired first, bursting the first batch of wolves. Small rockets tore forward, and out of the corner of my eye I was horrified to see the leaping wolves intercept them, blowing the rockets up with their own bodies as their cohorts darted into the wider space. Fran punctured dozens, trying to keep them in place in the mouth of the tunnel.

They found the mouths of their fellow wolves shear their bodies apart, dragging them forward even as they reformed, literal body shields. Alice shouted, knocking three of her mass arrows and firing them in a spread. The sheer kinetic force shattered the bones beneath the metallic hides of the grey wolves.

Daniel pitched forward, Alice leapt off of his shoulder then, caught by Fran and setting her closer to me. They backed up, every third cleaving sweep with Daniel’s axe accented by the boom of his cannon. The rockets fired on the eighth, the hive shaking with the impacts. Fran struggled to keep them from being able to encircle us, having to continuously fight the grey wolves to get her feathers back and to force the bodies of wolves to block them.

“Matthew!” Alice shouted, “Tell me you’re done!” She let out the last three mass arrows she had, connecting with one of the larger wolves and blowing it in half. It scooped up a smaller wolf, devouring it hideously and reforming instantly.

It then was sent cleaved and flying by Daniel. The other wolf snapped onto his arm, and dug several inches through instantly. Fran tore its head off with three feathers, surgical precision taking even the jaws with it. It fell at his feet, and he ensured to continue stomping on the head anytime it reformed.

Then it happened, I felt a pulse of energy in my suit, and all at once it was like a red lightning bolt ran through me. It was painful, but in a strange kind of way, like I was channeling straight malevolence and the will to kill straight through my arm.

It hit the core, and Smith spoke, [And the Reaper’s hand did touch the heart, and so did the heart stop. For the Reaper’s hand was Chironex, and death did it bring, even to the deathless.]

Okay, that was pretty awesome, definitely badass.

Smith’s distant prideful chortling at my approval of what he’d said also unfortunately came with the reminder that he was another impression of myself, so I was effectively impressed by my own wittiness. I’m not exactly sure how to feel about that…

The wolves stopped all at once as a pulse rang out, red lightning arced between them, and when it did they boiled and fell apart, disintegrating so rapidly that I almost couldn’t believe they’d been standing there at all.

“It’s… over, right?” Daniel sank to his knees in his mech, looking at his arms and body. I hadn’t noticed, but several ravines were carved through it, claws and fang marks marred him.

“Daniel? Daniel, are you okay?” Fran landed next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. His faceplate opened, his breathing hard and sweat running down his face.

“Yeah, yeah, just gimme a sec. Whoooo… that was a little intense.” Daniel hadn’t let the fear hit him before, how close they’d gotten. We sat around eachother for a moment, and a it took a few seconds for us to realize it.

“We just cleared a hive. We actually did it.” Alice laughed, almost a hysterical, flabbergased laugh.

We joined in, and then, when we realized that some of the tree was on fire, we decided to vacate quickly.

“Let’s get back home to celebrate.” I smirked, holding the core. Instead of white and silver, it was now black and red, different from anything I’d seen. Perhaps it was because of what Smith did.

In any case, we made sure to make a much quicker exit, and as we did, we heard the systems notification of the completion of our bounty.

[Kill Wolves 700/700 ]

[Destroy Hive Core 0/0 Modified! Special Exception!]

[Kill Hive Guardian, Wolf 2/1 Special Exception!]

[Additional rewards based on completion of Bounty ahead of schedule, bonus objectives, and lack of environmental damage… calculating… calculating…]

We all looked at eachother as it continued attempting to calculate.

“I think we broke it again.” Daniel laughed, “Sis is gonna just start visiting us regularly.”

“She’s kinda nice,” Alice grinned, “Ohhh, think we can extort more matter energy from her.”

I coughed, “I didn’t extort it… just… uh… W-well, it’s a wonderful day outside, right guys?” I quickly changed tact.

It was actually pretty nice out, if you didn’t include the ashen clouds, the burning innards of the hive-tree behind us, and the smoke that would surely be building over the next few hours. If nothing else, there wasn’t anything nearby that would catch fire.

[...calculating… failed. Specialized Intelligence System engaged… error… request refused. Reinitializing request. Specialized Intelligenc--]

[“Alright, alright!”] I heard her shout as she popped into existence. She looked far more human like now, and I could even see that her overall appearance seemed far more disheveled. Sis looked to us, an exacerbated look on her face, [“Do you have any idea how much processing power I’ve had to reserve just to be able to be in so many places at once? How many times are you guys gonna-”]

She paused and cleared her throat, leaving us all acutely aware of her imposing form. Wow, she’s actually almost like an older sister right now, is that intentional?

[“Excuse me. I’m somewhat spread thin at the moment. You all especially somehow keep confounding my automated system.”] She put a hand to her chin, the blue model that she consisted of almost looking like it was flesh and blood.

“Uh… about that, what’s going on?” I asked, and then I saw the gleam in her eye, and I knew I’d just opened up a can of worms that I should have kept shut.

[“Oh? You guys want to know? Well, I guess if you insist, I can tell you.”] She grinned.

We didn’t even get paid yet, so I probably shouldn’t tell her I’m not interested after all...