I would like to say that the next several hours had passed straightforwardly. That we’d fallen into a rhythm dealing with Wolven, shifting teams in and out, harassing the creature all the while in a perfectly predictable pattern.

Realistically, it was anything but a clean operation. Wolven learned just as fast as we did and - to my own personal dismay - it had figured out how to utilize the bodies that we’d debilitated. A hardened wall of flesh and silvery material forced large tangles of shredded wolves together, a barrier against some of our weapons. Small arms fire was all but useless on the shield, though larger ordnance still pierced it. Hence why we now had to utilize much more complicated tactics, three to four teams attacking at once. We’d hit it extremely hard with that first attempt, all four of our teams armed with incendiaries and an emulation of a toxic substance that Richard Nordsen pioneered. The Adder class apparently had access to some pretty virulent stuff, because even the basic version provided to our army overall was extremely potent.

Albeit, virtually useless against the shield walls. Fire was moderately effective, resulting in the shield mass being lit on fire every few minutes by a fuel-air-burst canister fired by our mech team, Iron Chariot. Their team was dealing the most damage by virtue of heavy firepower, shredding through the wall with impunity. The downside was that they weren’t nearly as mobile as Daniel, so the only place we could put them was towards the city. They were our ‘incentive’ force, pummeling Wolven if it ever made a full forward movement. Several times it’d run into a mine field, and now, by design, made broad curving paths. Even so, it still ran afoul a mine or two, forcing it to sacrifice mass to move forward.

The problem after the first few attacks was that Wolven now had several said shields. Given that, we pulled back our lighter teams and had them help with setting up our flanks away from the walls. It was a rush job, and we’d rapidly cleared forest around the north-east and north-west of Gilramore, riddling it with mines, clearly dug up mounds of dirt packed in around them.

We weren’t aiming for stealth on these particular mines, the entire point was to be easily visible. We needed Wolven to see the price of ignoring the wall. And, considering Bulwark was working at a breakneck pace for both mining the ground and putting up the wall, I’d say we were looking at a few hundred meters of purely mined terrain. If Wolven wanted to move through that, it’d have to move slow, though we intended to have these mines set to detonate on a network if at all possible. That way we could detonate them at will, instead of based on contact.

Which, considering the wall was adorned with long range siege weaponry, we’d be just as happy with that.

I and my team were no strangers to this effort, I endeavored to run through as many possible scenarios as possible in the time we were given. We couldn’t allow Wolven free, and we had plans for that eventuality.

Terry was still out with a small team for that project, a huge mining vehicle rumbling around his plotted route. Daniel, Fran, and Alice were busy with assaulting Wolven whenever possible, often attaching themselves to teams, rotating out with them and coordinating to the next team.

“Is this going to work?” I gestured to the cannon being put together on the wall, a crane setting its large pieces in place with the assistance of exo-suited workers.

“I sure as shit hope so,” One of the men groaned, “This thing is older than I am.”

I frowned at that information, “Uh… we’ll put a remote firing module on this one too then…” I mumbled, tagging it on a construction overlay. I’d rather it didn’t explode in someone’s face. A valid concern, considering that some of our artillery armaments were from a nearby museum. Bulwark had been refitting as much as they could get their hands on these past few days, pushing the M.E. usage to a fine science in terms of recycling. I was impressed, though I’d yet to see any of their recycled cannons in action. Though, I did see the tanks.

We had ten tanks, the exact names of which escaped my notice, around thirty armored personnel carriers, and about eighty refitted hummers. Five tanks were set just outside of the walls, clear firing lines for when Wolven inevitably made its appearance. Half of the APC’s and hummers set behind them, all facing towards the wall to quickly dive in after the initial contact with Wolven.

We’d abandon some of the vehicles if we couldn’t manage to get them back through the gates, but every shell we could get out of them would help.

The wall was coming up fast, but I couldn’t help but be nervous watching it. We needed it to be at least a hundred meters wider in both directions in order to put some distance between where the mines would start, and then we needed to force Wolven straight down the middle.

We didn’t have a lot of time left, though. Every time we engaged with Wolven, it became just a bit wiser of our strategy. There was no doubt that it was figuring out that it was being dissuaded from moving in this direction, but it didn’t want to dedicate the mass that it would lose in a straight charge.

At least not yet, but it wouldn’t take much longer for it to charge forward with impunity. Any other creatures would have long left, but Wolven wouldn’t stand for this. All the same, if it ran now, we could follow it and chip away at it. I’m sure it realized that much at least, its prey this time was faster than it was over the long haul.

If it tried to run the same way as it had before, burrowing under the ground, I’m sure we’d have been able to shred through the majority of the woven horde before it could escape.

This would be a defining battle. If Wolven could defeat us, there would be little chance that anyone else would be able to deal with it. The biotic would spread across the land in a never-ending hunt to incorporate other biotics and overwhelm a cities defense with sheer mass and endless numbers. I dread to think what would happen if it got its claws into a human. Would they be torn to shreds? Or incorporated?

I hoped I wouldn’t have to find out.

My attention shot back to our offensive, noting that Wolven was moving slower than before. A tremor of excitement ran through me at the prospect that it may be tiring. Soon, though, I felt doubt creep into my mind. The red blot that was our own personal calamity was still massive, having lost about ten percent of its overall body so far. It shouldn’t be this sluggish. Some of the teams warily put distance between them, the ones headed by my team at the moment.

One such team, however, didn’t respond.

‘Which team is that?’ I frowned, sifting through the ReaperNet quickly, finding one that I wasn’t intimately familiar with. ‘Red Racers?’

“Team Red Racers, back off a bit, something doesn’t seem right.” Wariness crept into my voice as I watched took on a first-person point of view for the team. The team leader seemed to stiffen as I spoke, grumbling something under his breath as he ceased firing.

“I don’t see anything here.” He studied Wolven, the hardened shielding almost forming an exoskeleton at this point. A few seconds later, he gestured to his people, falling back anyways.

The response was too late, though, as a sudden burst of motion surged from a small part of the biotics shield. The black and silver blur crossed the distance like a projectile, only a few feet wide, smashing into the leader. Screaming burst forth a moment later as claws and teeth snapped into his flesh, biting deep into his legs and raking into his torso.

Then a dozen other portions exploded outwards, entrails still connecting them to the main mass. Each expulsion came with a loud snap, the wolf behind the plate hardly recognizable now, just a mess of grasping claws and barely functional jaws.

Horrified, I watched as the team leaders’ point of view saw Wolven’s form rushing to meet him, the world rushing past him. An instant later, I realized that he was being reeled in like a fish on the hook. An instant later, he vanished in darkness, raking talons and teeth pressing him on all sides.

“Clear!” The team leader of Iron Chariots shouted out, suddenly filling the air with cannonfire.

A moment later, my view was exposed to light, fire, and then silence. In a horrified instant, I switched to someone else, watching as Iron Chariot deployed missiles, cannon fire, a monstrous gatling gun, and more at the position the man was reeled in at, cleaving through the rest of the tendrils at the soft location now exposed.

Two others of the team Red Racers stopped being reeled in, the others having dodged. Quickly their companions tore them from the lingering grip of the launched probes that belonged to Wolven, though it was clear they needed immediate medical aid.

A moment later the sheer volume of the scene increased, where as it was a battering rain before I could only describe this as a wave of noise. Daniels mech was stopped in place just beside the Red Racers team, broad platforms punched into the ground and weaponry brimming from his form.

For the first time I’d witnessed since it had found the mines, Wolven recoiled, a collective snarl building as a pair of mini-guns, shotguns, cannons, and small rockets pelted the weakened flank, burning deep into the mass. A second later the mass shifted desperately, turning to face any other armored part of it towards Daniel.

He punished it for a few more seconds, waiting only long enough for the team to extract before falling back. A much broader side of Wolven quivered for a moment dislocating as though to surge forward before ceasing an instant later as Daniel retreated from range. Almost a minute passed as they disengaged, the teams temporarily disengaging, taking the opportunity to swap with the next shift, the information about what just happened fresh on the ReaperNet. I looked to my few Legionaries around me, noting the tense looks, hardened eyes, some fearful faces. We knew that this could happen, of course, and it would probably happen again and again. First blood had been drawn.

“Did we save him?” The team leader of Iron Chariot asked aloud, falling back now with Daniel.

“What?” Pure confusion came across from Daniel, “You saw what happened. He’s gone.”

His teammates, two heavily injured, glared at the Iron Chariots members. I could tell some of the others I was watching seemed to be just as incensed.

There were a few, however, who looked only solemn. I breathed, knowing what the man had meant. The last few scenes played in my mind, etched into it, likely something I would be seeing in my nightmares. I doubted I would be the only one.

“You and your team saved him from Wolven,” I answered, my voice neutral.

The statement elicited shock from Daniel, warping a moment later to what was almost anger. “What-“ he stopped, realization dawned on him an instant later. “Shit…”

There was silence for several seconds then, leaving the varying groups on their own. Steadily, one of the team members of Red Racers spoke up, “Thank you.” There was a sadness in his voice, but also a deep gratitude, and I couldn’t help but clench my teeth at that. Most of the teams were composed of like minded individuals, friends, even family.

I dreaded to think what category that man fell into with most of his members.

As they spoke, I disengaged from the conversation, pulling up my Reaper menu. I had a decent amount of M.E. stockpiled, and I figured now would be a good time to upgrade.

I selected the Reaper upgrades I wanted, watching my available matter energy dwindle. “An oldie but a goodie.” I commented idly, “Well, at least this time you can’t melt me.”

-Daniel’s P.O.V.-

I clenched my fist, watching through the suit as my own fist did the same thing. It was a reflex, controlling the suit was no harder than controlling my own body at this point. That made my shifting and constant fidgeting very, very obnoxious to my girlfriend.

“Daniel, you’re tapping. Again.” Fran looked up briefly from an invisible screen. She was wearing her armor at the moment, sitting between my mechs legs and using my torso as a chair. Her wings were currently braced against me, broad, silver things that I could only compare to what an angel’s wings must look like. If, of course, that angel was a steel arbiter of death that could turn something into swiss cheese in moments.

“Yeah, my bad,” I answered with a long breath, “Hard to break that habit.”

“Well, it’s only a problem because it sounds like a jackhammer is going off next to my head.” Fran chuckled, forcing me to note the fact that my hand was in fact directly next to her head, placed on my thigh.

I cringed at that, shifting my hands to the ground, “Better,” she smiled, “Thanks, dearest.”

At that, we settled back in. Idly, I skimmed through my shop options, seeing nothing of note that I could really purchase to push my offensive power up anymore. I was at a bottleneck now. I could mount only so many guns to my mech, reasonably anyways. A part of me had even considering seeing if I could perhaps add more arms to my rig, but the problem was that I couldn’t wildly customize this thing. Matthew was right, we really needed a Research and Development division for the Legion.

Maybe after all of this was over. I shook my head, thinking about Wolven again and the fact that someone had already died. Realistically speaking, I think that we were lucky so far. I could only imagine what would have happened if it charged straight into the city.

Some of the Legion were saying that it’d probably get fed up of chasing the teams and go straight for the goal. I hoped they were wrong; this thing was ridiculously hard to kill. Last time, we’d been able to pummel it with incendiaries and shred it to pieces.

It was huge now, though, and it was damn smart. I doubted we could hold its attention for much longer. It was trying to conserve mass, probably, for the big push. All the while it was getting more efficient in using its own damaged parts. That was terrifying, and I couldn’t help myself but think about what would happen if something like this got a hold of larger and more complex biotics. If it had a horde of the salt beetles, how much firepower would we actually have to dump into the damn thing?

Already it was pushing regular wolves up the threat ladder. It took a biotic with the ability to bite through anything, given enough time, with a weak body that could be slain and pushed the letter. It made the weapons sharper, stronger, and nullified the physical weakness by stitching them together, reinforcing them as needed.

It was a damn scary thing. I can’t help but wonder what would have become of the other Unique’s if we’d let them go. Karaslava, the bear from so long ago, would it have just gotten bigger and meaner? Would it have converted the horde of wolves to something worse?

Or Spiker, had Matthew not put his life on the line to stop it, would it have created a horde of stick-limbed spearing abominations?

I bit into a piece of jerky as I tried to tear my thoughts away from biotics for a moment. I tried to think about food stalls and smiling people, the brisk wind of fall against my face, the changing leaves creating a cascade of colors in the forest. It was easy to remember that, surprisingly, and I remembered the little things I used to have. I remembered having the internet for entertainment, spending several hours doing not much at all, wasting time browsing some social network or staring at ‘flix and wondering what to watch when I knew I should have been studying at the time.

And I remembered the annoyances of things that didn’t really matter. The kinds of things that weren’t really issues, but that would bug me anyways. Getting takeout ordered and getting home only to realize they didn’t have a sauce on the side that I’d asked for. Stupid things that I realized now were laughable, and couldn’t help but chuckle.

“What’s funny?” Fran tilted her head back, her face obscured, though I could just about feel the little smile on her face.

“Ah, just thinking about first-world-problems back when that existed,” I chuckled.

Fran nodded, “Give it a few months, I’m sure we’ll have a few of those come back.”

“Like, ‘you were supposed to have my food delivered ten minutes ago,’ and stuff.” I copied a bad nasal tone that failed utterly.

Fran laughed, “That one can stay behind. Though I’m pretty sure we can even have drones do that for us now.”

“Holy crap, you’re right,” I brought a mechanical hand up to my chin by reflex, “That’s crazy.”

“After all of this is over, maybe we won’t even need to worry about basic resources.” Fran tilted her head thoughtfully, “Do you think we could set up biotic farms and just use them for Matter Energy?”

I paused, “Hmm… Well, maybe? I mean, that seems dangerous as hell, but if we could figure out how all that works then that’d be pretty useful.”

“It’d be an end to warring over basic resources,” She murmured, “Something to look into anyways.”

“Yeah, I think that’s a pretty good idea.” I nodded, “We can mention it to Matthew.”

We sat there in companionable silence for a few minutes after that, enjoying the others company. These moments were too few and far between for my liking these days.

Suddenly I stirred, “Damn, I just realized something.”

“What’s that?” Fran answered.

“When Wolven’s taken care of, there’s not too much left out here, is there?” I felt excitement well up within me.

Fran pondered that, “Yeah, I think that’s the last big one that we know of, we’ve pretty much cleared everything else out. Wolven definitely focused the rest of the wolf biotics in one place.”

“So, in other words, we can take a vacation after this?” My excitement hit critical mass.

She didn’t move for a few seconds, processing that information before stating, “…Holy shit.”

We laughed together, a heavier silence settling in afterwards. “We can do this, right?”

I nodded, gently caressing her side with one of my mammoth fingers, “Yeah, we can do this. You can do this.”

She hugged my hand close to her, a comical sight if it were in any other context given the fact that my mechs hand was as large as her torso.

“I love you.” She whispered to me.

“I love you, too.” I smiled, feeling warmth in my heart.

In that moment I knew that I would crush Wolven, and we’d have our vacation. And who knows what else? I idly thumbed the rings in my pocket, the pair of golden bands. Maybe now would be a good time?...

…Nah, not just yet. I had a good idea of when I wanted to do this. I grinned, only idly noting the timer notifying us that it was nearly back to our turn to harass Wolven.

-Matthew’s P.O.V.-

It was midnight by the time the wall was finished to any kind of reasonable level. We’d ended up cutting back the allotted area somewhat, filling the rest with improvised explosive devices that could be triggered by remote or if they were jostled too much. None of us were particularly thrilled when Wolven had started throwing objects at the teams, luckily it simply wasn’t able to do it well, lobbing trees and rocks at moving teams just hadn’t worked out for it.

If nothing else, that was refreshing, the fact that not everything Wolven was doing was turning out for the better for it. Most of our forces were as ready as they could reasonably be, and none too soon. Contrary to my fears, Wolven never abandoned chasing the teams, giving us more time than we’d expected to arm ourselves even further.

The downside was that we were dealing less damage than anticipated before it ever got to the wall. We’d chipped away at about a quarter of the full mass that was Wolven, but unfortunately there wasn’t much more that we could do in so little time. We needed harder ordnance than what most of the teams had on hand to get through the rest of it. What little that did get through was fire and poisons, and even those began to have less of an effect as the external shell that Wolven bore was expanded upon.

In light of that, we now had a great deal of anti-armor weapons ready to be deployed, ranging from single-use rockets to actual armor piercing shells in the few tanks we had. The tanks held in reserve were for the worst-case scenario. If Wolven made it over the wall, there was a veritable no-man’s land for another fifty meters past the wall. It wasn’t much, but on such short notice, it was all we had. Much of the materials from that, specifically houses, were being shredded and packed for use in incendiary bombs, albeit with great care. We couldn’t discount any advantage we could get our hands on.

All of the players were assembled, and Bulwark shared the wall with my Legion forces. Bulwark outnumbered us, but many of them took solace in the presence of my group. While we’d only been fighting against biotics actively for a short while, many of them were from groups that had already attacked Wolven and were ready for the eventual confrontation. They were the closest things to experts that most of the fellow soldiers and guards on post had on hand.

There wasn’t much that they could tell their fellows, the general mannerisms of the creatures weren’t straightforward. Wolven shifted between a raw and aggressive, conservative and plotting, to cunning and sneaky and not necessarily one by one. Different parts of the body had begun to act in concert, rather than a single amorphous wave of bodies. It didn’t bode well to our overall chances, but even so, I didn’t expect anything less of the damned thing.

It wouldn’t have much longer to learn, though. In less than an hour we’d be making first contact. I stood on the wall, ten meters off of the ground. At some point, we might even make the wall larger, but this would suit us well enough. It was thick, constructed with a hybridization form of old-earth techniques and obelisk provided technology. We’d found some locations to locally source components like lime, the expensive geological survey machine paying itself off in spades. Many other base metals were found, and trace elements that we’d need going forward.

Standing atop the wall, just above the gate and flanked by dozens of personnel, I couldn’t help but grin. We were ready.

“Alright, Legion, let’s show Wolven why we’re Reapers.” My words bounded across the ReaperNet, the Legion’s responses eager with hunger.