-Domino’s P.O.V.-

For hours we repeated the deadly cycle, drawing prey up from the depths and utterly destroying them. Blood flooded the waters, flowing deep into the darkness and staining the murk with silver and chunks of biotic flesh. Instead of becoming comfortable in our routine, we gradually grew more and more unnerved.

It got worse as time went on, to the point where I began to wonder if we should turn back, maybe try another approach. Clearly something strange was going on, and no one had any answer as to what it was. This went beyond merely being uncomfortable, and had gradually crept up into an omnipresent fear. Alice especially seemed to grow more and more jumpy as time went on, staring down into the depths as though she was waiting for something to happen.

Even through it all, though, Terry and Matthew seemed almost entirely unaffected. Though, I could tell that Terry was getting more unnerved by proxy; few of us were holding up well in the depths.

I grit my teeth, turning my eyes to my team as we hovered in the water. Emma, Harold, Eric, Venezuela, Jessica, Covina, and Rachel, not a single one of us untouched by the sinking dread that nipped at the corners of our awareness.

A flicker of movement caught my eye on the peripheral of my sight, and for the fifth time in as many minutes, I snapped my head in that direction.

And, just as the dozens of times before that, there was nothing there. Nothing in the darkness, the sun having already set and disavowing us of that life-giving light. Not for the last time, I told myself that I was freaking out over nothing, that this was unprofessional and that I should be better than this.

Yet, I couldn’t ignore the pervading wrongness that seemed to permeate the water. In any other situation, perhaps I would have found it beautiful beneath the seas. In the absence of the light above, I witnessed tens of thousands of lights come alive in the gloom, rising steadily like a cradle of stars. For all their twinkling beauty, though, I realized that their illumination was not to be relied upon. Depth perception was difficult, and every now and then I would watch the lights flicker out of existence, only to come back up. For the first while, I assumed that meant something had just broken my line of sight with it, swam in front of the light. But as time went on I realized that these things would just wink off from time to time.

It made trying to tell anything visually difficult. By now, I’d begun utilizing motion sensors far more zealously.

I clutched my rifle, modified with Reaper tech that Matthew had sent to R&D, tightly to my shoulder. My eyes settled on the back of our leader’s head as he led us upwards once more. Others might not have been able to tell, but I noticed the way his movements had become sharper, the information updates on our many HUD’s coming more and more frequently. It was a lifeline in the dark, to have someone constantly watching over your shoulder, backing you up. To say that he didn’t notice our plight would have been erroneous; Matthew knew well what we were going through, but what could we do?

We signed up for destroying biotics, hunting them down and burning them out wherever we could. This mission in and of itself was a pivotal point for what the Legion could become. I doubted the others fully understood the breadth of what getting to this island meant. The Legion would establish itself as a major power with control of the space over our heads. We needed that, or no organization would take us seriously. In the old world, the same was true. If you wanted something from another country, having the nuclear option didn’t so much open doors as it did give you a seat at the table. With how the world was now, who knew how many dictators and warlords had cropped up and taken control? We needed a threat that didn’t rely on fielding an army, a looming sword of damocles, rods from gods, whatever form it needed to take, we needed to have one on our side.

Would we ever use it? That question hadn’t had an obvious answer to me a day ago, even a few hours ago. Now though, I had the answer to that question, but not for the reasons I’d ever thought I would. Yes, we’d use such a weapon, but not on people. Whatever lurked down in the darkness here, that is what deserved the full breadth of our might.

Uncontrollably, I felt goosebumps and shudders roll through my body for a few moments, my breath quickening before I clamped down on it. No, whatever was down here, we could kill it, no biotic existed that we couldn’t destroy.

“There’s something watching us.” Emma was the first to speak up and ascribe sensation to the feeling.

“Please don’t fuckin’ say that,” Daniel’s voice had an edge to it that sounded utterly out of place for him.

“We all know it,” Harold cut in, trying to keep his voice even, and failing.

No one knew what to say after that, the quiet looming as surely as whatever lingered in the dark.

“We still have work to do,” I said, “Try to keep calm. Whatever’s causing this, it’s not coming from you. It has to be some kind of biotic that’s doing this.” I spoke, miraculously able to convince myself at least marginally of my own words. This cloying dread had to be the work of a biotic, nothing else made sense.

Of course, that left unsaid what kind of hellish abomination could do this to experienced veterans and trained recruits alike.

“Well said,” Matthew nodded to me, “Domino is right. Whatever is down here, it clearly has some tricks of its own. But, we’ve dealt with strange biotics before.”

“Matt, there’s something really, really bad here.” Alice spoke up, visibly shaking even in the water. “I don’t think any of us should be here.”

She wasn’t the only one who’d begun to think so, and the fragile shred of bravery that I’d found quaked. We all knew that Alice was different, that she had some level of psychic powers. Normally, I envied her for that… But seeing her pale face and wild eyed stare in the camera feed, I couldn’t help but feel pity for her.

“We…” Matthew started, before trailing off. The man shaking his head as he considered things. For several seconds I watched as he lingered silently and without movement, knowing that he was likely awash in the data from several hundreds of viewpoints and personnel. After a long while, he shook his head and connected a feed to the Leviathan Brigade’s leader, a woman that I knew he was on friendly terms with.

“Adira, I need a word.” I watched him turn his head in Alice’s direction. Richard was beside her, trying to be some measure of comfort in the darkness.

Her words cut a little sharper than otherwise. “Have you found anything?… No, nevermind. What was it that you needed?”

I blinked at that, but couldn’t find it surprising that we weren’t the only ones unnerved. If anything, I’d seen the other Brigade teams begin to falter more than the Legion had, perhaps because they had a frame of reference for what it was like hunting the deep waters. For us, this was our first time, anything was unusual to us. For them, this was like going hunting for deer, only to realize there was blood on all the trees and no sound for miles.

“I have reason to believe a powerful biotic is in the area. Some of my people are psychic, and they’re all reporting the same thing. I would like to withdraw and regroup to a safer distance where we can send in some automated scouts, at least until we can see what the actual hell it is we’re dealing with.” Matthew’s voice sounded out calmly and reasonably, and I realized with a start that I was hoping with all my might that Adira would agree.

Adira said nothing as our groups approached one another, her eyes surveying the field below, the ongoing train and the other teams that were culling the group. More than once during this voyage I’d realized that Adira was much more dangerous than almost anyone I’d run across before. It was no small wonder that Leviathan Brigade was one of the premier groups in Basilisk, but I had to admit that I’d still felt that the Legion on average was better. I believed that until I watched her turn the ocean into a boiling pot.

“Alright. I’ll take your word for it, but I hope you realize that we’re going to have to have to fight for every inch when we come back again, there’s so much blood in the water that we’re bound to attract the bigger threats.” The leader of the Brigade spoke, but couldn’t quite keep the note of relief out of her voice. None of us wanted to push further in, that much was clear. Though, I wasn’t keen on fighting any of the stronger biotics in the area, either.

“I’ll have the fleet reverse course, so we’ll hard cull the trains now and start pulling back. If you’ve got explosives, lay them behind us to slow down pursuers.” Adira began sending orders to the fleet and the rest of the Brigade, mirrored a moment later on our side as Matthew began passing orders.

“Legion, we’re pulling back. Support the Brigade as we get moving, and keep an eye out for more powerful biotics.” Matt’s voice resounded in my ears as each of our systems updated accordingly. There wasn’t so much as a sigh of relief, but I knew the solace I felt was shared across the Legion and Brigade at that moment.

It was true that we were retreating, but I didn’t think that was a bad thing. Whatever was out there, we had no information on it, and time and again we’d found that a lack of information against any high Gen biotic could be fatal.

“Alright, we’re going to help the train beneath us.” Matt spoke to the team, “The other teams will be doing the same. Don’t worry about pulling them so much as just dealing as much damage as possible. Daniel, Harold, Terry, the three of you are going to leave mines behind us as we go. Everyone else, just be sure not to be in front of Kaiju.”

“Copy,” I stated, moving alongside the others as we dove, this time parallel to the other teams.

The head of the train continued to dance to the beat of his music, but was slowly making a wide arc upwards, towards the teams. He exposed the broadest amount of the trailing biotics as he could, and when we were in position around eighty meters away we all took aim.

Matthew waited for the last of the teams to get into position, and then glanced to Adira.

“Prepare to fire on my mark,” Adira called out, the water around her suddenly humming. Further down the line others prepared, this time heavier ordnance being used. Matthew would probably use that terrifying gun and spit out a metal storm into the crowding biotics, while Daniel would no doubt utilize the zone killing rockets and numerous projectile weapons at his disposal.

I shook my head, readying my own rifle, keying the underslung smart-grenade system to my HUD and taking aim.

“Mark.” Adira said, just as the head of the train passed her field of fire. All at once ten teams unleashed devastating volleys of fire into the train. Explosives interlaced with projectiles, and directed bursts of microwave energy flash-fried swaths of biotics. Previously, I’d thought that the biotics had been violent and chaotic when harmed, this was unlike anything I’d ever seen. They thrashed so much that I wondered at how they didn’t tear themselves to pieces.

And noticed that, in fact, some of them were in fact tearing apart, wounds that had been suddenly gouged through them deep enough that they died in moments. I aimed as much as I could, but amidst the carnage I had to admit that I could barely tell where one biotic began and another ended. They were, however, beginning to split up, and those of us without heavy area attacks rapidly began killing the runners.

Then we moved upwards, gradually letting them disperse outwards as we continued to dismantle the formation.

Still, even as we did so, I knew that these were only the Gen 1 biotic Leviathans, they were dangerous to be sure, far more so than wolves, but they lacked the power to threaten us. It was no surprise, then, that we were taking them to task so thoroughly. I could barely even see further than twenty meters now, silver blood and shredded corpses all that remained after six minutes of our action against the horde.

“That’s nasty,” Covina made a face, seeing the cloud of meat and gore lingering below us.

“You can say that again.” Harold shook his head in disgust, “I never wanted to know what a biotic would look like after being shoved through a blender. Now I know what a few hundred biotics look like after.”

We stared after the carnage, moving only as Matthew and Adira guided us upwards slowly. They were talking to each other on a private channel, I’d guess, but while I felt curious at what they might be saying, I settled on keeping an eye on our surroundings.

The other teams were visible, especially the train leader, whom now only bore very plain non-colored lights. The man was doing a once over to ensure that no one was still in the low visibility area, keeping his strobing lights on.

“I’m glad that’s over with.” I breathed in relief, “How is everyone doing?”

“I’ll be better when we’re out of the water,” I heard Jessica chuckle in spite of her nerves.

Rachel grunted in assent, “I second that. I feel like I need a shower after seeing all that down there.”

“I don’t think I can eat fish again for a while.” Eric added in, looking slightly ill.

“Yeah,” Terry agreed, “I was wanting sushi, but uh… yeah. No. I’m gonna have to take a pass for a while.”

We chuckled quietly at that, until Richard’s voice cut in with a wary note, “Where did the lightshow guy go?”

I turned my attention outwards more, blinking in confusion that the lights were off. “Hmm… maybe he turned them off?”

Venezuela clicked her tongue, sighting her rifle, “I don’t see him. His suit is white as hell, he stands out.”

Our attention didn’t go unnoticed, one of the other teams nearby calling out to us from the Brigade, “Hey, what's going on?”

“The train head might be missing, you see him over there?” Daniel answered, mech hovering a little lower in the water as he warily moved for another angle.

“I don’t see him here, but give me a sec, I’ll pass it down.” The lady stated before turning and talking with the others of her team. In a short few seconds, the teams ceased their ascent, and very quickly the reports came in.

“Nothing, we have a missing in action here,” the lady calmly reported, “We’re gonna have to spread out a bit, but we shouldn’t go down through the cloud…” She was torn, and I could guess as to why. Nobody wanted to leave someone behind, but it was beyond unwise to move through the chum field below us.

“The fuck!?” Daniel shouted, “Get ba-” he started shouting, just before something massive blasted upwards through the cloud. It dwarfed the other Leviathan we’d seen, that much I could tell instantly. It was a fleshy, silver and inky black spear of rippling muscled flesh, overlapping and smooth plates of chitin growing over twelve arms. It shot towards Daniel faster than anyone could react with such short notice, and I watched as four long-reaching, boneless arms shot forwards. Hooks as long as my legs flared from broad pads at the tips of each arm.

Daniel tried to dodge then, mech thrusters kicking into high gear a moment before the arms impacted him. I could hear the shock of the strikes against his armor, and hear the squeal of hooks against metal. My stomach sank at the sound, immediate fear coming to mind of what would happen if a breach were to happen down here.

He didn’t get the opportunity to fire, the massive thing that I now recognized as some kind of immense squid pulled him straight down with a hard jet of water that pushed a swath of the cloud of debris upwards like a geyser.

A second later, deep below, I heard and saw several bright flashes of light and explosions, and the accompanied roar of, “Get the fuck off me!” from Daniel.

“Rally! Gulper Squid on the prowl! Tight formations now!” Adira bellowed over every live channel, coming immediately towards us.

“Daniel! We’re coming down!” Fran shouted, beginning to move, only for Adira to reach out and catch her by the leg.

Fran looked to her with shock and disbelief, shortly turning into outrage, “W-what? Why?”

“They never hunt alone, don’t break formation.” Adira’s voice was solid as steel, and Matthew looked down into the darkness. I didn’t imagine he planned on abandoning Daniel for a second.

Fran opened her mouth to say more, but Matthew stopped her, “Keep calm or we lose him.” He didn’t spare more than a second on the statement, but I could almost see it like Fran had just taken a physical blow. Matthew turned his attention down again, as did I, watching as much as I could for any titanic bodies moving far faster than anything that size had right to be. “Daniel, I need flares, everything you got, bright as you can right now!”

“O-” something hit him from the side hard enough that I could hear the clang of metal from here, “God fucking damnit! How’s this, assholes!”

A moment later I saw dozens upon dozens of what looked to be spiraling little lights in the depths, hundreds of meters down. Then I swore and clamped my eyes shut as each one exploded in a brilliant cascade of light, flares that each could bring the sun to the dayless world below.

“Oh my God,” the words slipped out of my mouth, my stomach flipping as my visor adjusted for the sudden influx of light. Daniel was grappling with one of the creatures, firing pulsing shots of red hot metal into the Gulper Squid that was trying to crush him down. Deep scouring marks had peeled the paint away from the mech, and shreds of the metal exterior plating had already been gouged.

All around him were more of the creatures, though they put distance from the lights in shock, unable to see. All hell broke loose then, the Gulper Squid shunting away, even as cries of panic resounded from other teams. I spared one glance just in time to see a squid spirit away someone from another team that had strayed too far from the group, this one grasped firmly in tentacles as it darted straight down. The team followed after, keeping themselves close as they descended.

Adira turned her hands upwards and fired into the water, convection pushing and pulling the cloud of debris out of the way. To my horror, six squid darted out of the cloud at the passing of the superheated water, back into the cool depths.

“Heads up!” Harold shouted, giving me only a few moments of advance notice before I looked down.

Huge arms reached up towards me, immense hooks that I had little doubt could penetrate my armor if I was enveloped in a deadly embrace extending towards me. I turned my rifle, getting two shots in before the arms swept in around me.

Before they could latch on, though, I felt someone grab me and pull, throwing me away from the grasping tentacles.

I saw the black metal and the red light for a moment before the tentacles grabbed onto the new target and darted down into the depths.

“Matt!” I heard someone cry out, but couldn’t place who in that moment. Panic rose, but I reminded myself that losing control would only get me killed here. Instead, I began to set my smart grenades to flares and immediately painted the area between the newly lit zone and ours in bright white light.

We could see in infrared, but if my hunch was right, these things had difficulty hunting with bright light in the way. Several more light sources erupted into being around our new battlezone revealing the voracious Gulper Squid as they rushed upwards. The light struck their massive eyes, disorienting them enough that they had more difficulty in locking onto prey.

And yet, someone would be dragged down sooner or later, perhaps someone without as much armor, or be torn apart by the squid themselves.

A drumbeat of explosions shook me from below, the sight of Daniel hammering through one of the Squid, snarling in wordless fury, shook me into action. Fran and Emma guided rods of metal through the water, keeping a perimeter check and striking the Squid. Even so, the squid powered through the attacks, and another one came towards me as the squads finally formed up a single cohesive wall.

The Squid took the brunt of the impacts delivered by our firing line, harming it, but not killing it. The biotic blasted back into the depths, leaving me gaping in disbelief that it was still alive. Several more attempted the maneuver, only to accrue grievous injuries for their efforts.

Our wall of squads stabilized, and then Adira made the command, “Move down all together, keep everything lit. When we get any survivors out of there, we’re hammering the area with plasma.”

‘Ah, so that’s how they normally deal with these ones.’ I thought grimly, unable to keep my mind off of the fact that Daniel and Matthew were down there. It was chaos, barely controlled as Adira took the lead and created entire fields where the squid wouldn’t move through.

More explosions resounded, and I realized that Daniel was even deeper than he was before. I moved to tell Adira when suddenly an ear piercing noise streamed from the depths. It carried on for what felt like an eternity, and the water shook followed by an almost sullen silence.

“Halt advance,” Adira called, suddenly wary of what just happened. We all worried about the same thing, that there was a new biotic that we would have to contend with at the same time.

From below, I could just make out something moving up towards us, and let out a breath in relief.

“It’s them, they’re coming back up.”

-Matthew P.O.V.-

I pulled hard on Domino’s power armor, a maneuver that would have pulled his arm off without the metal shell. Even with his machine, I knew that the Gulper Squid would have little trouble penetrating through with a little time and constriction. These were Gen 2 creatures, and they were dangerous in the extreme.

Even so, I would trade places with Domino any day, knowing that I had a better chance at surviving than he did.

Still, as the hooks closed in around me, scraping against the super-durable skin of my power armor, I did have a moment of trepidation. I shook it off, though, honing myself into that razor point of focus that I knew I would need. My awareness skyrocketed, and I carefully calculated how fast we were dropping. The pressure increased dramatically, and I felt the ocean press on me harder than the arms of the squid could in that moment.

When I estimated that I was at the right depth, I fought back. My shoulder weapons sprang to life, the lances striking each tentacle repeatedly in the span of a second, each blast eating through flesh. I pulled hard, feeling the rubbery flesh tear with a sickening snap as I took in my surroundings once more.

I moved in bursts, darting around another of the squid even as my shoulder lances took it upon themselves to begin firing into the biotics nearest to me. And, luckily, it seemed that I’d come out just where I wanted to be. Daniel was firing some kind of weapon into another of the Squid that grappled him, fragments of metal pushing deeper into the tough flesh seemingly of their own accords. Knives, or something like them, stuck out all over several nearby creatures, and I watched as they steadily punched themselves deeper with some onboard mechanism. Whatever they were, the Squid were distracted with trying to remove them for the time being.

I swept in next to Daniel, bringing my rifle up and switching it to the fully automatic setting and pressing the barrel against the huge lidless eye that only now took notice of me amidst its grapple against him.

A gushing fountain of blood and scraps of flesh exploded from around the entry wound. The Gulper Squid shuddered and tried to pry itself from Daniel’s mech.

“No you fucking don’t!” I heard the outraged shout bellow from the mech itself, ringing out into the empty ocean, “You picked the wrong guy to fuck with!”

I then watched as Daniel lifted his right arm, the metal splitting and realigning into what looked like a boxy gun barrel. When the weapon was fired, I felt a blast hit me in the chest and felt the biotic go limp beneath my grasp.

“Daniel, you alright?” I called out to him, ignoring the car-sized hole in near the mouth of the Squid, “We need to start making our way back up.”

“I’m good.” I heard him say, shocked that he seemed more angry than anything else, “But you probably shouldn’t have come down here. I can take more depth than you can.”

“Then we’d better not go deeper,” I stated flatly, annoyed. Even as we were talking, though, we didn’t allow ourselves to lose track of our environment. Several of the creatures were lingering on the edge of the light that Daniel’s mech cast, some of which appeared to be from a weapon system that protruded from his back, four bulky, robust turrets that spun and sighted targets, but refrained from firing for the time being. The search-lights that they bore seemed more for intimidation than anything else, given that the Gulper Squid appeared to be intelligent enough to realize the light meant that they were being targeted. In a handful of seconds, several would move forward, only to peel off from their attack as the weapons cast their lights upon them.

That was even without Daniel’s sun-like flare that illuminated the creatures.

“Grab on,” he gestured to his back, “I’ve got a plan, but you’re not gonna want to be anywhere in my firing field for it.”

Wordlessly I moved, grabbing onto the hull and having my power armor lock into place there. I felt more like a glorified turret in that moment, but at the same time my firepower certainly wasn’t anything to baulk at.

It was, in a way, nostalgic that we were fighting like this again, considering that we’d done just this shortly after Daniel had received his first mech. I chuckled, “Just like old times.”

Daniel paused in confusion before he snorted, “Yeah. I could do without the water, though.”

Just then, another of the creatures darted forward in an attempt to close the distance. One of the turret heads snapped in its direction and fired several bright rounds that streamed through the water, sizzling and exploding on contact. The Gulper Squid pushed onwards, and I noticed then that the turret had only fired a single barrel.

That was fairly cheeky, considering that the spherical weapon platforms had eight a piece. I doubted that it had been an accident either.

Instead of weathering the assault and closing, the Squid was suddenly concussed with the remainder of the barrels opening up. It didn’t die instantly, but it was so heavily disoriented that it could only flounder as another second of sustained fire dug deeply into its flesh.

Meanwhile, Daniel brought up the weapon mounted to the top of his left arm that protruded like an acute triangle, flat side pointed forwards and outwards on three planes. Several holes were apparent, and in the next moment streaks of metal flew out at incredible speed from them, unerringly hitting several of the Gulper Squid and digging deep. I noticed then that the projectiles were the dagger-like protrusions that I’d witnessed before, digging deep and continuing to chew deeper into their targets with twisting sections. A dozen more Squid were punctured by more than twenty a piece before Daniel ceased firing, switching to a weapon underslung on his left arm.

This one was more conventional, a trio of vulcan miniguns that spat shells into the biotics around. It was one of three sets, the other two emplaced on the hips of Daniel’s mech in heavy-armored casings. They roared to life, each fired in different directions with tracer rounds keeping the onboard aiming assist programs keyed in on their targets.I felt the vibrations in the steel as these weapon systems came online. The spine of the mech below me opened, thirty-two missile ports opening up and disgorging an equal number of the thermal missiles that he’d used previously.

I knew I couldn’t match up with the amount of firepower that Daniel was putting out, but likewise there were too many Gulper Squid around even for his barrage to cull. Silently I sank into the Reaper’s Eye state, allowing only what was truly important in this moment to rise to the top. I lifted my repeater up, switching between full auto bursts and with cartridges filled with toxic, stinging solutions that dispersed through the water when far enough, or after embedding into tissue.

I urged my own pair of shoulder mounted turrets silently to life, spitting black, energetic streams that collided violently with the water and the biotics. The energy clung stickily to the biotics, weakening the connections between the tissues and breaking down the material before my eyes. They fired bundles of unstable and overcharged pseudo-nanorobots that aggressively dismantled materials and were heavily overcharged with energy in the first place. Violent physical disintegration occurred rapidly as the nanorobots dove through the bloodstreams of the targets, shocking their systems with spazstic electrical bursts as the devices discharged excessive energy.

Even so, they required time to work, especially with such large enemies. I grit my teeth, mentally priming the Reaper Ravager Disk weapon system that sat on my back. If necessary, I could deploy all of my explosives remotely through fast moving drones.

Before I could do so, though, I felt everything jerk downwards, and saw with a start that five of the behemoth Squid had joined in striking us from below. Their long arms grappled with Daniel’s mech and before the turrets could so much as adjust their aim the Squid jetted hard, pulling us even further down.

I felt the pressure increase, but my armor held in spite of the groan of the external layer of metal. Daniel’s mech seemed undaunted by the change, and rapidly cleaved through the arms of the Squid before they relented and fled.

“Matt, you good?” He called out, swearing under his breath as The Dauntless’ hull shuddered, even more weapons unfurling from his shoulders and the veritable casket that was the weapons platform on its back.

“For now,” I answered, twisting back and forth to watch for any Squid, several hundreds of meters down deeper than we were before. We were more than four thousand meters deep, firmly in the abyssal zone of the ocean.

Daniel’s mech shuddered once more as several plumes of light erupted in the gloom, once more casting the following predators around us, but nothing else. The open ocean beyond showed me a picture of utter emptiness and crushing depths.

“Well, at least we know we can go this deep.” I muttered to myself before refocusing on the issue, “I have a lot of explosives I can use.”

Daniel grunted, “Hold onto them, if what I’m doing doesn’t pan out, we’re gonna need to break out.”

While I wanted to know what he was planning, I didn’t have the fortune to pause any longer. The Squid seemed to become more aggressive the deeper we were, though the light still interfered with their ability to accurately target us. By now, some of the bright balls of light were obscured behind the swirling wall of moving Squid around us.

I fired into one side, only to have the other flank surge forward. If it weren’t for Daniel’s extra firepower, I suspected they’d have been more than capable of overwhelming me from all sides. Even so, they were becoming bolder by the moment, learning rapidly about our limitations, and exploiting them intelligently. Already I had to focus a great deal more beneath us, several more of the Gulper Squid seeking to engulf us from below and drag us further down. It was no small bonus that Daniel was too large of a target to devour whole, giving us just enough room to leverage our advantage in sheer firepower and killing strength.

Another ten seconds passed, an eternity as I twisted to and fro, weapons linked up into my mind to guide them to cover weak points and punish overeager Gulper Squid. The water itself was an enemy now, with enough of the Squid moving together and downward to create a siphon that pulled us deeper, albeit slowly. They’d become faster in time with practice and coordination, something that I knew would come quickly. Their numbers hadn’t decreased dramatically either, many of them retreating before they could take debilitating damage. Though, the combination of Daniel’s overwhelming volume of firepower with supreme destructive capacity and my own single-target lethality amounted to no small number of dead.

But the living were plentiful, and at this rate, I knew that we were in dire straits.

“Alright, brace!” I heard Daniel call out, and immediately flattened myself against The Dauntless’ hull.

Throughout the battle, Daniel’s knife-like weapon system had been working overtime, embedding deep into flesh and working deeper as time passed. It would kill a target slowly, a sort of backup plan for all of the heavy armaments that Daniel sported thus far. That was, of course, if that was all they were designed to do.

In that moment, hundreds upon hundreds of bladed explosives detonated, each one packed with super-reactive materials that made what was about to happen a matter of course. Any given spike blasted outwards, tearing flesh apart and sending smaller bladed spikes deeper into the innards of the creatures. Those blades then did the same a moment later, directed claymore-like explosions that sent the spikes diving through meat like a pin dropped through air. This repeated across every single dagger, and unlike what I would normally expect, the result wasn’t an awe inspiring explosion, and lacked any of the flashy aplomb.

Hundreds of fairly loud cracks followed by thousands of smaller crackling snaps was all that really resounded. But in the aftermath I watched as the vast majority of the Squid simply ceased to move.

“What…” I started before trailing off in wordless shock.

Daniel picked it up after me, no less stunned, “..the fuck?”

The Gulper Squid around us that remained fled in moments after they realized the sheer amount of death that had transpired around them. Meanwhile, the two of us, still shell shocked, ascended quickly before anything else could go wrong.

“So… anything else you haven’t tested yet?” I joked in the silence between us.

“Yeah, a few,” he murmured, “A sonic weapon, and an artillery weapon.”

“You’re serious?” I frowned, “You’re a walking gunship.”

“Dreadnought.” He answered with a grin and chuckle, “I can’t wait to fight above water again, though. This sucks.”

“Soon enough. For now, though, we’ll regroup and scout the area out. I don’t want something nasty creeping up on us.” I nodded, still grabbing onto the mech.

“Definitely.” He pushed upwards, accelerating through the open ocean with the still flaring lights all around us.