The darkness of the tunnel flared with the staccato rhythm of gunfire. Behind me more of such sound transpired, Determinators accurately and ruthlessly dispatching biotics.

Mere moments ago we’d been alone, and I found myself whistling in surprise at the sheer ferocity that these cats had gone from ambush predators to blitzing us. Still, I wasn’t worried.

At first.

I frowned as the first bodies piled up, sliced through and dismembered, when they were picked up and pushed forward by their companions. It wasn’t what I would call a wholly effective strategy, buying them a meter of extra space at a time before the gunfire reduced them to yet another quivering mass.

But it was fast enough, considering how rapidly they moved, how powerfully their muscles rippled beneath their silvery fur.

‘They use their fallen, waste nothing, all will be used,’ Wolvy nodded appreciatively in my mind’s eye, ‘not bad.’

‘It’s kinda bad,’ I frowned, ‘they’re making progress. Towards us.’

‘Oh, yes, that part is bad. But we have enough metal things,’ it casually disregarded the danger, ‘We will be fine.’

I felt a tick in my eye-lid and exasperation fill me briefly. The biotics didn’t give me the opportunity to be any more annoyed, though, the first of them buying just enough distance with their fallen to reach the Determinators. A dozen corpses - the parts of them, at least - lay scattered in the tunnel. Behind us was laughably light, the Shade humming as it carved away at the group that had attempted to bottle us in.

In front of me, a Determinator found itself struggling with the awkward weight of one of the biotics, followed rapidly by a second that managed to imbalance it enough to fall. One of the other Determinators reached over, stabbing through the back of the head of the newcomer, before also being piled upon. Raking claws scraped metal, damaging paint and only managing to get a centimeters worth of damage on the plating, if that.

Pity for them, though, did not come. Likewise, it didn’t seem they were wholly helpless either. As I brought my rifle to bare, I noticed that they were swarming over top of the Determinators, attempting to bring them down and keep their limbs from moving as freely. We didn’t fire upon the grappling biotics, instead firing over and behind them at the remaining horde.

And, with a speed that shocked me, the first three Determinators were dragged backwards, several meters down the tunnel.

‘That’s bad,’ Wolvy commented uselessly.

‘You think?’ I sarcastically spat, aiming at the biotics that were dragging the Determinators. After a moment, though, no clear shot was available, and suddenly another Determinator was down and dragged away. I was the next in the line here, as I hadn’t expected to need to be further back.

As the first biotic moved to me, I swiped sideways with the rifle, cutting through the creatures forehead brutally and then pivoting to the other side, slamming the next with the butt of the rifle.

I shot the next one, and pulled my side arm pistol in the next instant. Beside me, the battered feline snarled, rising and leaping at me in one smooth motion. I fired once, blasting its head as I moved forward, demanding more and more of my focus and awareness by the second.

A fourth lept high, fifth and sixth coming in low.

I fired at the two lower, bracing as I lifted the rifle, bayonet attachment stabbing firmly into the open mouth of the snarling biotic. Sliding backwards on silvery much, the previous kills drenching the tunnel further.

Without respite, three more performed the same attack, my rifle still stuck in the head of the first biotic. Instead of trying to pry the weapon free, I turned my attention fully forward. Processing power and the virtue of faster-than-human reflexes allowed me to surge forward, putting one of the biotics more in the way of the other two as I could.

I lashed out with a metal fist, surprising myself when it came away gore covered. The biotic stumbled, but quickly was subsumed by the two replacements.

The first I shot in the head, but the second one finally landed on me.

I felt its claws rake against my armor, unable to find decent purchase for leverage or to deal real damage. It opened its mouth wide, trying to engulf my face when I punched it once, hard, on the side of the head. It reeled, but before I could get another one in, the previous biotic latched onto my arm, teeth putting pressure on the metal.

Anger pulsed through me as I grit my teeth, ‘These fuckers are obnoxious.’

And then everything was grey, a cold calculated bloodthirst cut through my mind like an executioner's blade. Everything that wasn’t this moment drained away, all thoughts of the Determinators beyond their presence as a vessel for my will ceased. I thought nothing of the potential for damage and death, considering only the best way to destroy the threats, and, thereby, secure my own life.

Not even the vague remembrance that this strange sensation had happened before when I cut my way up and out of a Carrier remained for long.

‘Extermination commence,’ I felt with my mind to the Determinators, a manifest control that unified them even further. I felt them all snap to attention, the nearest Determinator leaping up and over me, stomping down hard on a newcomer biotic. The gore of its head caked around the Determinators foot, and as another biotic leapt forward, it let loose with a burst of gunfire before barreling into yet another biotic.

Then another Determinator did the same, just as I hit my own biotic in the head again, this time a resounding crack meeting my ears. Unceremoniously, I dumped the biotic off of me, vaulting from the ground, covered in silvery gore. Ahead of me the Determinators were piled upon, but as I performed the maneuver like the last Determinator’s had, we kept them from being dragged off.

Further away, I heard gunfire and felt the Determinators that had been dragged away had shaken their bindings and clustered together. I embraced the full suite of my own processing power, and all at once the Determinator were as death, each shot unerring, every movement tight and efficient. We marched forward, the black army of death uttering the name Caironex as befitting our function, the ‘Hand of Death’. It was a transformation, dramatic and sudden, and what I thought was fear seemed to slow the blind offensive of the biotics.

But only one of us would leave this place alive, and so the battle continued. Screaming weapon’s fire met snarling and yowling biotic, both mine and my Determinator’s forms dripping with gore from the melee. When the tunnel twisted gently and leveled out, I knew that we weren’t far now.

The previous Determinators were ahead of us, pulled into a larger room, pushing themselves to a far wall. Several tunnels allowed the cats to stream in endlessly, but only one such tunnel was larger, and led downwards.

‘Do not lose yourself,’ Wolvy’s voice touched upon my mind, the words processing without meaning, ‘you are mine, as we are Us, after all. You do not belong to the machines alone.’

It confused my mind as it was now, the words not helpful for killing biotics. I shuffled the entity off to the side, in spite of the roiling state it was in, perplexedness coming across from it.

Rejoined, the battle did not continue for long. We dove down deeper now, ignoring the biotics that came behind us, save for the constant gunfire that droned on from the back. Idly I noted that the operation within the hive had taken fifteen minutes already, a large quantity of ammo expended.

It mattered not, though, our task continued.

Not long after the numbers thinned out considerably, leaving only strays as they attempted to bring us down. They were not Wolves, their hives were often so full that the fighting would take an hour just to get through if you didn’t draw them out first.

Like the other thoughts, though, that was unnecessary for the current situation. I filed it away, continuing my drive downwards until the tunnels opened once more.

Bare before me was the objective of this attack, a gleaming silvery grey core that rippled with untapped matter energy. Beside it was another cat, only larger by twice over.

It snarled at us, howling its challenge as fifteen of my Determinators formed a semi-circle.

The deep throated growl vibrated the air. And we answered with weapons fire.

Disappointingly, the combined firepower of fifteen Determinators and myself with the triple barrel rifle was too much for it to handle. We stood for a few seconds after, the mission nearly complete.

I set my eyes upon the core and brought my weapon to bare again.

‘Wait, what are you doing?’ Wolvy asked, the question giving me pause.

‘Objective: Kill biotics. Core spawns biotics, thereby must be destroyed.’ I felt a cold, calculating voice answer Wolvy, and then shuddered. My voice was wrong, somehow.

‘We need to have the core,’ the thing explained patiently, ‘You can’t destroy it, the others don’t have the time to spend for us to find a new one.’

‘But…’ I uttered confusedly, only soaring as I didn’t understand the source of all of this confusion, ‘Objective isn’t to kill biotics?’

Suddenly I felt something click, and I felt like a breath of air rushed into oxygen deprived lungs surge through my mind. I shook my head, clearing the sensations that lingered, feeling the connection to the Determinators even more closely than I had before.

‘Good, you’re back,’ Wolvy breathed a sigh of relief, ‘I did not want to be inside of a machine, it would be boring.’

‘Alright, look here you little shit.’ I narrowed my attention on him, ‘you being bored is the least of my worries there.’

Wolvy laughed, ‘see? Not boring! I am glad!’

Helplessly, I shook my head. Wolvy might not have been harmful, but he was incredibly self-absorbed at times. I turned my attention back to myself and inspecting what I could.

“What the fuck keeps happening?” I shivered, easily placing it with the time that something similar had happened before. There wasn’t much more to it, though, beyond what felt like a loss of emotional state, a clearness of purpose that allowed nothing other than what needed to be done to be present in my thoughts. My fists clenched, unnerved at the sheer paradoxical simultaneous increase in control, and loss of it.

This would have to wait until later, though. I approached the hive core, placing my right hand on it as channeled the Obelisks influence, letting it guide me in purifying the core. Now usable and in our possession, we made our way out of the now cleared hive.

All the while, I kept turning my thoughts