-Domino’s P.O.V.-

We stood in a line, the eight of us that had passed the grueling, mind-numbing Gauntlet that The Reaper had designed for us. Our class, Phalanx Gamma, had graduated with flying colors through the gauntlet.

At least, the parts that I believed that we were supposed to beat. It was hard to put into words the sheer horror that awaited us by the time we’d narrowly cleared the fifth level. Wolven was every bit the nightmare that we’d suspected it would be, and the subsequent levels gave me all of the information I needed to know on what else we needed to work on.

Fighting biotics was easy, but when you also had to work around people? That became much more problematic.

“So, what do you think they’re like?” I heard Jessica ask next to me, a good friend of mine who was generally viewed as the leader outside of combat.

I wasn’t any good at the big picture stuff, but tactically I was better. A two-part system that had worked out for us quite well so far.

“Probably a lot more relaxed than some of the teams,” Venezuela interjected excitedly, “I can’t believe that we’re getting on Alpha Team.”

“I can’t either,” Harold commented dryly, “it’s probably not actually their team. Rumors say that Alpha’s been busy doing everything but being a team for a month.”

There was a sour moment as I virtually heard the scorn in one of my other teammates. Rachel was a mother of three, all of which were still kicking, and she was effectively the den-mother of our rag-tag group.

And had the magical power of making the normally intractable Harold reconsider some of his less personable qualities.

“Then again, I’ve been wrong before…” he ventured, and murmured, “rarely,” so low that I could barely hear it even with the cybernetic hearing aide in my ears.

Rachel gave a nigh imperceptible nod, the tough-as-nails woman as good a middle-woman as any could ask for.

The others, Emma, Eric, and Covina hadn’t contributed to the conversation as of yet. Emma was pale as a ghost under the best of circumstances, and was shy as they come. In a fight, though, her expert abuse of magnetics made her area control a terror. Generally, she looked up to the very same magneticist that had spawned a wave of copy-cats and lookalikes. Fran the Valkyrie - some had dubbed her as such - was no less a legend than the rest of the team. Such was the fame of the founder that the rest of the team was equally shrouded in mystery.

Eric had taken a page out of the big mech users notes and adopted a fairly rough mech previous to today. His main strategy was punishing bullrushes while unleashing concussive strikes through a four-armed machine, each bearing shotgun fists. It was, frankly, very anime.

But, as much as he’d been made fun of at first for the design, the results shut those mouths very quickly. He was something of a savant with controlling his mech, even in spite of the extra pair of limbs.

The member that struck the most vibrant image, though, was Covina. She’d dyed her hair a sharp, neon-blue and wore a slim power armor that hugged her frame. Being easily the most mobile member of the group, she also had the penchant for being hyperactive, excitable, and somewhat socially awkward at times.

Venezuela was generally the one whose personality could be considered the most normal of us, if any of us even remotely counted for that. Her hair always somehow seemed to have a majestic, windswept appearance to it that I swore had to have some kind of alien technology involved, and was an incredible marksman in her own right. She looked up to The Reaper for many reasons, but perhaps the biggest of all was the fact that she was more similar to him than not.

Her prosthetic legs were a type that was geared more towards functionality than to human-like in both appearance and use. In non-combat, the legs looked, more or less, like ordinary limbs. Combat, however, would see her legs reverse knee, like a predatory creature, and the rest of her red and black armor would make her look every ounce a predatory hunter.

Most of us were just reaching adulthood, another factor that saw the mid-twenties Harold doubtful that Alpha would be willing to accept us into the fold. Covina was a similar age as him, and the eldest of us was the mid-to-late thirties Rachel.

Looking around at the many other teams arrayed to be met by their Legion unit, we weren’t all that rare to look at. Plenty of us had come from Sunvilla after we’d heard about what the Legion had done for us. While some were skeptical, I decided to see for myself what kind of organization had rescued our people.

Suffice to say, I was impressed enough to want - no, to need - to become one, and to be the best I could be.

With our official acceptance into Alpha, Mr. Borham had seen to it that we all received top of the line weapons, all expenses paid by the team we were joining.

I noticed that there were a few teams who seemed to have not taken absolute advantage of that presented opportunity. Idly, I wondered if perhaps it had been a test to see who was greedy amongst us. If so, then that would be a shame, because I certainly wasn’t going into combat without the best equipment I could get my hands on.

“Attention!” Came the sharp voice of Director Daughtry at the front of the group, the many Legion aspirants-fulfilled snapping to attention. Our group was no different, I felt myself settle into a rigid line as the Director’s eyes settled over us. Like Mr. Borham, Tabitha Daughtry had fought side-by-side with the Reaper in the mines, and was a sniper of repute. She, however, had found a talent in managing the Tombstone and the recruits therein.

And not a single one of us wanted to draw her ire.

“Students,” she said with shocking warmth, “with this ceremony you all have now graduated to full Legionnaires, with all of the respect and responsibility that comes with it.”

I felt a bubbling in my gut at that, fluttering with the realization that we’d done it. Really, actually, done it.

“The path doesn’t end here, however. Your journey with the Legion will lead you to places you never thought you’d go, perhaps even to places you never wanted to,” a somber note entered her voice, “this is as much a time for celebration as it is to dig down and resolve yourself. Behind and all around you are those who have fallen-” at this, the many black marble surfaces flared red with the text upon them, indeed hundreds of names flaring on their surfaces, “-who now bear witness to your rise. It is in this passing of the flame that you now bear the duty of the Legion. To hunt and destroy biotics is our primary duty. To secure the future of humanity is our vision. And for any who would get in your path, you will show them that The Reaper’s Legion are as unrelenting as death.”

“Today, you have joined the Legion.” Her smile burned with pride, looking out upon the gathering of like-minded Legionnaires in joy. I felt an energy rise in me at that, inexorable and seeking release. The air was charged in so short a time, no need for useless flattery and overdone dramatism, we were here for a shared purpose.

And that purpose seemed, all at once, to be joined in one voice.

“For the Legion!”

-Matthew Reaper’s P.O.V.-

I watched the graduation ceremony with no small amount of my own pride. These were people who had fought through and earned their place among us.

Even the knowledge that I would be adding eight more to my team that I didn’t know personally mattered little. I knew that they wanted to be here, and I knew that they’d fought and underwent the Gauntlet for this right. Taking every blow and kept on coming; the modified mines, Wolven in full power, the jungles of Sunvilla and the people abound, and the hard decisions that came in other scenarios. They’d proven themselves in the simulations, and I felt they were more than ready for the real world.

Which was good, because our convoy was ready and waiting.

Fifty Ogre’s, ten mobile bases, and an army of Legionnaires were ready to be on the move. We only needed to wait for our fresh recruits to join us, our mission to the northern coast one that we would likely need all the help we could get.

This morning, I’d attempted to access the orbital weapons platform over our head. Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out any method that was used to actually access the device. Even by using our own mountain-top uplink, I couldn’t find any sort of signal that came from the platform. It was possible that there was something of course, but I certainly didn’t want to risk not finding it.

And, I had reason to believe that my meddling hadn’t gone unnoticed. Several other satellites that I could see were receiving many more signal updates than before. Whether it was due to my accidental destruction of a satellite, or the space-faring vessel getting through the atmosphere, I wasn’t certain.

At best, they were curious and would try to leverage their relative position of control to get the Legion under their thumb. At worst, they might have a way to deploy armament strikes onto the surface.

Perhaps that was a cynical outlook, but given what information we could gather about both the Native Government’s struggling remains and the activities of the United Governments Coalition, they were hardly good neighbors. They aggressively expanded and sought to put most of the control into their own forces, rather than enabling local populations. Our strategy, in my opinion, was better executed. While, certainly, we didn’t trust most groups with more power in an area, we at least ensured they had avenues for self-defense and to be admitted into our power structure.

The UGC tended to be manic in defanging a population, afraid of the population turning on them. For the Legion, we didn’t pretend to care about popularity contests, and the people in our cities were given the information as it stood. We used our media only insofar as to ensure that accuracy was upheld. In that degree, perhaps we were manically disinclined from the old-worlds ways.

Knowledge, information, facts, these were what we based the Legion off of, and thus far it had trickled down the line to others. Deception was not a tool we were wholly interested in using, and certainly not one we wanted to use on our own population.

Above all, though, was the tendency for the UGC to institute mandatory labor and to force a draft on the population of each city it ran across. This brought more people into their fold, and also displaced massive groups from their own homes.

For some, whose cities were too small or ill-equipped to handle biotics, this wasn’t the worst thing. Though, they often found themselves pressed into a military that was growing too rapidly for its equipment and training to keep up.

They were growing fast, but eventually I knew that they would run into a problem that didn’t exist in the old world.

Biotics didn’t care who you were or what you promised. The only thing that mattered to them was cold steel and the bite of a bullet. Something that the UGC might find very lacking in its general military if they continued to expand.

A war of attrition wouldn’t end well for us.

I shook my head as I brought my thoughts away from such topics. It was altogether possible that I was looking for a reason to be in conflict with them, but it was also true that I could bring more benefits to the Earth than perhaps anyone else could. Perhaps in the future others would reach out to the galactic community, but for now?

I was the one with a space-fleet ready to assist.

At worst, we’d just have to use long-range weaponry to destroy the satellites and then replace them over time. It would be a setback, but not an unexpected one.

For now, as I checked Shade’s inventory stores to ensure everything was in place, I wondered at how well our new recruits would do in the field...