As we neared Sunvilla, our conversations steadily declined. After the first of us discovered the signs of the biotics, we were on high alert. Even so, we've not seen a single one as of yet, at least, not with our own eyes.

Shade, however, was not limited in perspective. And from an aerial view, we could see that there was something following us in the woods. The thermal view gave us an indistinct outline, something that shouldn’t have happened. If the biotic had a method of displacing its own body heat, perhaps that would explain the oddity.

Even so, it was large, about the size of a van. It was likely quite stealthy as well, though our eye in the sky proved to be our advantage. This wasn’t something that we could allow to continue, however.

“We’ll stop ahead, we’re not far from Sunvilla anyways, and I’d like to know what we’re dealing with before we walk into more of them.” I directed the Ogre’s to a location on our map, one where there ordinarily would have been a rest stop on the side of the road.

The area was flush with greenery, trees in abundance. It smelled like rain was coming, and none of us looked forward to making our way through uncertain territory in the dark and wet.

As we made our approach around a bend in the road, the Ogre’s slowed. “Whoa, Reaper, you readin’ this?”

“I am,” I blinked, “I’m not sure what I’m looking at though.”

Warily we approached slowly, what was once a rest area now a far cry from any such thing. It looked more like an outpost, braces of wood and metal composing walls. Only, several of the walls had points near the top that were damaged, and it looked like blackened and charred pieces were here and there. It looked like explosives and bullets had torn some parts of this place to shreds, and as I inspected it closer, I could see deep riven claw marks near the tops of the wall in one or two places.

The tower that had once been overlooking the main gates had toppled, barring the way through with the Ogres. We could push forward through it - it was just wood - but I wasn’t certain I wanted to move our escape option into this place.

I had the Shade inform me of any changes in the position of the trailing biotic, but so far it was maintaining distance, circling wide.

“Alright, I’m going in to check it. Alice, Richard, Sammy, you’ll be with me.” I said, stepping onto the platform that quickly set the power armor into place upon my body.

“The rest of us will check the outside, see if we can make heads or tails of this mess.” Strauss said, his team kitting up.

I nodded, “Sounds good, Shade will keep you informed of our guest, but don’t count on it alone.”

We departed from the Ogre’s, ten Determinators awakening from their pods, the A.I.’s controlling them with a direct feed from myself. As one and like my own limbs, they moved to my will, marching toward the downed tower and immediately utilizing their powerful limbs to break it down into more manageable pieces.

“It’s like an ant colony,” Sammy mused, “I had one once. Pretty cool stuff.”

“Hey, do you directly control those? Or is it automated?” I heard Richard ask me, pointing at the Determinators.

“Little bit of both. Mostly I just let the A.I. take care of everything, though. Not right now, though.” I moved forward through the path that was cleared, support beams snapping as they sorted them to either side of the gate for use later.

Alice let out a thoughtful hum, “So, do you see through multiple perspectives at once, or something?”

“Yeah,” I nodded, “it was weird at first, but now I can walk, talk, and operate 36 killer robots at the same time.”

Richard snorted with a smirk, before his helmet slid on the rest of the way to cover his features, “that’s pretty useful.”

We paused in the middle of the road there, the parking lot having been left with abandoned vehicles of military origin. That in and of itself didn’t give us pause, but there were clear signs of alien technology in the midst, people with much more advanced equipment.

“Post-Obelisk outpost, then,” I said, “and it looks like it was left behi-” I stopped, turning my attention to something that I’d just noticed. “Ah. Well, it looks like it wasn’t left behind on purpose.”

“What do you mean?” Sammy asked, then followed my line of sight, “oh, that.”

The others looked to the red blotch on the concrete, almost black from time. In spite of the rains, it looked like some locations yet remained.

“Blood,” Alice cringed, “lots of it.”

She was right, there were several more signs scattered about. No bodies, though, either meaning that people had cleaned the area up… or biotics had picked them clean.

“Alright, spread out. See if you can find any computers that we can take. Documents, maps, anything. I’ll check inside.” I said, sending the others off. They were deathly quiet as they moved, each having gone through more upgrades in New Damond. Richard’s exo-suit was on the cusp of being a power armor, and was now capable of shifting the color and to a lesser extent the texture of its skin to suit the environment. We weren’t sure how effective it would really be against biotics, but against our own technology it performed admirably.

Alice’s gear hadn’t changed much, mostly geared towards even more mobility, and ablative plating that helped to reduce her thermal footprint. She’d already been a silent runner, but there was almost no noise as her spring-loaded steps carried her away in a few strides. Sammy was less mobile, but had mag-powered skates that, in spite of my initial misgivings, were very mobile and quick. He was only slightly less mobile on extremely uneven terrain, but was fairly quiet as well.

I could detect Richard and Sammy by sound with my augmented sense of hearing, but I had to get line of sight on Alice. None of which was a mark against them, my peculiarities allowed me a fair amount of awareness at all times.

Which was both helpful and not as I walked into the information center building that had been added on too as the outpost. It looked like it had been hastily abandoned, a host of computers and maps available within. I sighed at that, having thought that perhaps this would have been like any given horror movie situation where it seemed no information was ever present.

I flicked through a few pages, quickly scanning it into my memory to go over as I investigated the rest of the building.

As I did, though, I couldn’t help but notice that there was a draft in the building. Frowning, I moved to the back of the building, past what was a modest armory and into what was obviously converted into a medical room.

The back wall had a massive hole in it, gouges from claws apparent there and on the floor. Blood was abundant in the room, gurneys turned black with old gore. I stood at the entrance, slowly stepping through the room while making a concerted effort to read through the entirety of the room.

Months ago all this blood would have made me wary. Now, though, I registered it with discomfort and moved on. It surprised me how much things could change. Though, wanting to find out what happened here was just as important.

There were a few small surgical plates that had been knocked over, the mess of cloth, gurneys, and evidence of massacre creating a chaotic scene. However, method emerged from the madness the longer I sifted through the information available. Clearly, there were many wounded here, yet they weren’t from biotics.

Spent shells, bullets that had been pulled from those that had been injured, were scattered across the floor and covered in red blood. Many of these weren’t near the gurney’s anymore, and I had the consideration that perhaps things were far from simple in Sunvilla. These people appeared to have been wounded by other people, and then some kind of biotic came through the wall.

A predator amidst the wounded, and who knew how many other biotics there had been? Who knew what kind of biotic this even was?

I turned my attention to the ceiling, eyes searching for anything tell-tale that could help me.

“Perfect,” I grinned, seeing the small camera in the corner. There was no light, the power having likely been cut off from the source.

Methodically I searched the rest of the building, and as I found the small electronics room - a closet, really - the others had finished their search.

“Matt?” I heard Alice call from the main lobby, “we found a few things. Where are you at?”

“Back here,” I called, “I recommend not going into the back room. It’s not a pleasant sight.”

“Duly noted,” Richard made a disdainful face, one that I caught as I walked back into the lobby with a hard drive in hand. “Looks like there was a firefight between people.”

“Why would they do that?” Alice’s exasperation was mirrored on the rest of us, “we have enough problems with biotics.”

“Not everyone was in our situation,” Sammy stated, “we were lucky, most of us stuck together instead of pulled apart. And even then, if we’d gone any longer without a source of food, I think we’d have started turning on each other.”

“That’s a positive outlook for you,” Alice narrowed her eyes at him.

“He’s probably right, though,” I grimaced, “if you had to choose between taking food from your neighbor or watching your family starve, most people would steal.”

Richard looked like he wanted to agree, but also didn’t want to say it, glancing at Alice and her concerned expression.

“I don’t know,” she mumbled, “I still think it would be better to be in it together, rather than turn on each other.”

The other three of us glanced to each other and back to her, “well, who knows, maybe some people did?” Richard said as he put a laptop on the table, followed up by the other two, “we’ll just have to see ourselves what’s going on.”

She pepped up slightly at that, shaking off the depression that nipped at her, “yeah, you’re right.”

“Anyways,” Sammy gestured around us, “they had a fight with someone, and then it looks like at least one biotic showed up in the aftermath, maybe when they were all in disarray. I don’t know how much damage it did, but it looks like it didn’t bowl through any defenses.”

“Yeah, it looks like they just hopped the fence,” Alice said, sharing her photographs of the area, “probably a cat, by the looks of it.”

“Why cats, of all things,” Richard shivered.

I frowned, “not a fan of cats?”

“Oh, no, I love cats. But that's when I was bigger than them,” he shook his head. “You ever see cats play with their food?”

We paused and grimly imagined what that would be like.

“Moving on,” I disdained that prospect thoroughly, “that lines up well with what I’ve found. There was a med bay back there with extracted bullets, but it looks like the wall was broken through. I would be surprised if there had been survivors.”

Alice released a heavy sigh, “are these Gen 2 biotics?”

I shrugged, “I haven’t seen any indications of the environment being changed yet, unless these trees are the change.”

“I don’t want to see these at Gen 2 if they aren’t even there yet.” Sammy dryly noted, “can we leave this place now? It’s giving me the creeps.”

I nodded, “let's grab this stuff.”

At that moment, I paused, sensing the Shade giving a distress notice. I frowned, tuning in to what it had noticed.

And grit my teeth, “Strauss, do you copy?”

“Yeah, I just noticed,” he was alert, “it just dropped off the thermals, didn’t it?”

“All at once,” I said, going through the record the Shade provided me. One moment, the silhouette of the biotic was there, and in the next, it was completely gone.

“Do you think it knew we could see it?” Jeremy asked even as he pulled everyone back to the Ogre’s.

“Probably not, but that just means it’s done watching. Keep an eye out, visuals strictly.” I shook my head, annoyance surging in me. It probably wouldn’t go after Jeremy’s group, there were ten Determinators with fairly advanced sensors, and with super-human reaction speed.

But the four people alone in the middle of a disparate and ramshackle outpost? I could see that.

“Be ready for company.” I pulled my weapon from my back, feeling the energy within it thrum to life, ready to empart it’s deadly payload.

We moved back to back, slowly and steadily leaving the information center.