Chao's immediately erupted before Beal's eye's as he watched the portal grow, a raging storm filled with lightning visible through it, along with more monsters than he could even begin to count. The factory wasn't idle either, not even half a second having passed before the guns he'd spotted previously erupted with massive gouts of flame and light, the faster lasers immediately lancing into the portal and eliciting unholy screeching from whatever dwelled within.

If he'd thought the factory looked like a kicked hive before there was no doubt it his mind, the number of drones exiting the factory tripled, the drones already outside holding weaponry diverting themselves towards the portal with terrifying synchronicity and the androids around him were already reacting, the machine he was riding beginning to turn within the first few seconds and the armed androids began racing towards the blooming fight. Did they really stand a chance against creatures that large?

The monsters did not take this response without their own, beasts larger than the buildings dashed out with unbelievable speed, followed by a torrent of smaller monsters. All that he could see were larger than a car, and the lasers only did noticeable damage to the smaller ones, the larger monsters bearing the beams with not but scorch marks and glowing chitin. The lesser monsters hid from the light's behind the greaters bulk. They were planning, that was an organized charge, the things were intelligent or at least instinctively knew how to fight.

Then Beal's gaze was forcibly pulled from the fighting as a golden star bloomed in the sky, not brighter than the sun, but more important. Even as panic and confusion raced through his mind he couldn't help but think it was beautiful, as odd as he logically knew that was to think about what was little more than a golden dot in his vision. Just what the hell was going on here?

He tore his eyes from it however he just didn't have the time to stare, his team was not so stalwart, still watching the sky. But the androids seemed to have better luck tearing their eyes from it in their race away from or towards the fight. That meant he saw when the fight proper started, Paragon sentinels outright flashing into existence in the midst of the tide of chitinous horrors, lashing out with heavy hammers and gouts of what he could only assume was a form of napalm filled with… lightning?!

The sentinels stood firm, forming blocks and groups and covering each other seamlessly, the flames and arches of electricity covering their forms keeping them from getting grappled and dragged beneath the flood but they just couldn't kill enough, only serving to slow the tide. The drones and lesser sentinels with them rapidly falling with bursts of shrapnel as they are dragged under or pierced through with claws. Was he watching people die? Were the sentinels people?

It slowed the bugs long enough for the first shells fired from the distant factory to hit, gouts of heat he could feel miles away bracketing his face before a shockwave followed soon after, nearly knocking him off the only thing taking him away from the fighting. He swore he saw a piece of shrapnel get deflected away from his face by the drones hovering around the group.

The explosions only offered a brief reprive though, shots drilling holes into the larger bugs before detonating and forcing gouts of flame out the bullet holes, and that failed to kill the larger bugs. They just walked on, and the explosions kept pace, more and more and more on both sides. The cloud of drones arriving and dropping yet more ordnance or swooping down and dancing through the bugs with lasers, most who risked that getting clipped by a blast of acid or clouds of spikes. Planes flying towards the battlefield launched missiles, and tanks met the foremost edge of the horde, shells vanishing into the bulk of the bugs.

How on earth did the androids plan on helping there? They were just as likely to get hit by an errant shell or missile as they were to get killed by a bug, it was charging into an active artillery bombardment.

Beal didn't stay watching much longer however, as the drones he was riding turned a corner and put the bulk of a city block between him and his view of the battle. He wasn't going to be able to see just what the androids had planned. He could however watch as the buildings around him shifted, turrets and metallic plating appearing as some routes were closed off entirely. Yet more drones working to set up more turrets here, did they expecting the fighting to reach here?

He couldn't help but think that leaving the battle behind was for the best, even if this was an informational goldmine this was just insanity. More information would only make his report more pessimistic. At the very least they'd found the theoretical enemy.

If the androids were used to fighting something like that it was no wonder they'd only sent one ship. They needed them here. Could that have been why the 'Maker' was supposedly against the androids sending help? Diverting resources from the warfront?

Beal still had no idea what was going on here, the drones were taking them somewhere however and Sapphire didn't seem worried though if a machine could feel worried was beyond him, based on those he'd seen charging into the fight it was looking more and more like they couldn't, and yet he'd seen a few of the smaller machines huddled up and crying when the explosions started. The rest of the delegation however…. Langley seemed calm, though Beal could see the white knuckled grip he held the metal grips with, Axel looked …excited? And the other two seemed oddly calm, but well they were supposed to be spooks and those types had always eluded his understanding.

Only one person would have any idea what was going on however, so he called out to Sapphire, stress lining his voice. "Just what were those? And where are we going?!" Okay well he had tried to keep his voice down, but he really felt it could be excused. Sapphire turned to face him, speaking in an… excited tone? "OH! It's a bug invasion! Usually they show up at the teleporter junctions, we should have it handled in a few hours." He could have sworn he could faintly hear her muttering about 'missing out on the fight' before continuing "though the meeting might be delayed, I can take you to some accommodations while the situation is handled!"

And off they set, passing more and more androids racing towards the fight at unbelievable speeds, utterly massive combat forms and what he swore were mechanical t-rex and dragons. Which….. This was apparently normal for here?

------------------------------------

One day I would find what god hated me and declare a war of annihilation, sure I might end up dying for my hubris and all that but at this point it would be worth it. Today had been decidedly suboptimal and I was ready to make that everyone else's problem, more than it was already turning out to be.

I watch as Balistraia guides Sapphire and the humans away from the fighting, guiding the courier drones and speaking into Sapphire's coms. I feel the ground under the courier's claws as they race, playful minds not caring about the overarching situation, trusting in me, trusting in the minds, to handle it.

First a few humans blatantly pocketing a few examples of android technology, stupid sure but not a problem for me to deal with and it wouldn't work off earth regardless needing the ambient magic there to actually do anything. Making it by default a low priority issue that could be dealt with by the androids own systems, and I'd find it funny to watch people try and fail to understand why the glorified taser they swiped isn't working.

I feel Bulwark shift the layout of the city, prepared for a situation like this and directing the flow of bugs away from more vulnerable areas, he directs the fire of a million turrets across the globes and lashes out at the insects. He slows the tide, but I watch those same turrets get torn to shreds, see drones get ripped from the walls and feel as they are devoured.

That ever present hum of anger grows louder, it sounds like a song and I long to sing with it. I do not, anger will not serve me here as cathartic as it would be.

Then Balistraias 'psychological experiments', I know I'd made her enjoy figuring out how things think and how to manipulate and predict that but I'd wrongly assumed I'd have been excluded.

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'Which was profoundly stupid in hindsight'

'I can't say I hated the situation'

'I will gut you out of this mindspace.'

'Well that's just uncalled for, didn't you mention wanting to pet the androids? A bit hypocritical now no?'

'I didn't actually do it! ALSO SITUATION AT HAND POSSIBLE EXTINCTION EVENT?!?!? NOT THE TIME'

'It is always the time, and what are we doing about the problem besides whining anyway? The minds have control of all our stuff and we haven't been relevant on the battlefields grand scale since we graduated one thousand tanks.'

Both of those however were minor annoyances at the end of the day, and arguably problems I'd caused by my own actions or inactions.

The situation at hand now? I couldn't see any way to pin this on myself.

I watch as an android on earth not even three weeks old is ripped from a building, their adult form not masking the terror their young mind feels as they struggle with weapons they were only just learning how to use that they were never meant to need, a sentinel charges and fails to save them before the insect snaps them in half, I feel as their mind leaves their body and races into my network, I cradle it towards a server bank were it will wait until the battle it won.

The song echoes louder, reaching into the machines around me, driving them to race faster as if that will let them fight. A thought dials them back, no need to burn out a conveyor belt as if that would help the battle.

I watch the portals on the range disgorge an endless tide of bugs, destroying all in their path. It is not even intentional carnage, the bugs are just too large and they don't care if they rip up a jungle to make a hive. It is apathy to all other life. One portal opens near a human's range. I know the human will be dead within five minutes. Others open close to my bases or teleporters, close enough that Balistraia can react.

An army is mustered, an army is sent, an army will fail to do more than stall.

I watch, I watch, I watch.

Across earth, the far far range, the moon, and mars and likely a few other places I didn't actually have equipment the bugs had torn open portals and poured through. The main attacks were distractions, meant to force my attention and forces away long enough for the bugs to get to ground and spread.

My troops march in the millions, my turrets and walls stand strong, the bugs wash towards us and we make an ocean of blood. Beyond my reach I see more pour through, sensor arrays made to measure and understand my own portal tell me of dozens of portals being ripped open, I have only seen seventeen.

And it was working, I couldn't abandon the junction bases and the bugs could force a battle with a steady stream of bugs. Even if I killed them as soon as they arrived I still needed units there to hold them in check.

A squad of sentinel paragons stand in the threshold of the portal, standing as they champions they are made to be and gleaming metal is christened with the ichor and oil of thousands of bodies. The lesser drones and sentinels died long before they reached the portals, and I watch as one of the paragons shields fall, their brothers desperately trying to keep the tide off of him. They fail, and he feels as the insects burrow into his internals, the defenses made to stop this situation are only moderately effective. He falls to his knees, the hammer still in his grasp and the curtain of plasma he'd helped the maintain dims without his support.

I'd known the magic would bring my machines to life, true life, the more complex I'd made them. I'd known and I'd still made them fight. I take his mind within my grasp and guide it into an empty shell, the Steadfast takes him and places him on top of his corpse, the plasma wall strengthens. The Steadfast teleports the corpse back into the base, the bugs within are purged by the repair drones and a new empty body is ready as yet another Paragon falls on another front.

It could have been worse, it should have been worse really. The bugs knew to avoid opening rifts into population centers and it would have taken hours to get units to them and they were too diffuse and sensor resistant for my orbital weapons to work once they'd gotten away from the highly visible and 'loud' rifts.

But I had the Steadfast in orbit over earth, one golden plort burnt so the teleporter's systems could break its limits and all the sudden every single available unit on or near a teleporter could be in the battle the next instant. Long range teleportation was almost cheating, which only made the fact the bugs now had the same more painful.

The portal the sentinels were standing before should have been walled off, a curtain of plasma projected from their forms. The new shields. The bugs flickered past it without getting burnt. I could only take thin solace in the slower rate of teleportation.

That only stemmed the flow on earth however, and there were several portals that the bugs got through. Two of which were underwater, which meant I had less than a day until the bugs had aquatic adaptations on a planet that was mostly water without any true competition.

A memory of a helpless struggle in the darkness of a river, the silt and sand blocking my natural sight and my other sight failing to pierce the water. Things claw and scratch at my armor, my trident all but useless and I feel as a gash is open and the cold floods in, a burst of electricity arcs out from my suit and into the water. I feel it as much as the beasts around me, the suit is comprom ised. I grit my teeth and the suit arcs out again.

I had been weak then, flesh and blood and fear and pain. Electricity would not harm me, and harm would not cause pain unless I allowed it.

The androids and machines working in or on Earth's seas are alerted, Grun wakes. Designs in my mind are sent towards fabrication.

I hate that I must send the androids to fight were I cannot, I hate that Grun, who had longed to be gentle was roused to violence, I hated that the bugs would force me to do these things, I Hated and Hated and Hated.

So I needed my own. And I needed to deal with the bugs rampaging across the Range and Mars. The Moon was actually fine, I've turned that place into a deathtrap. Then I need to figure out how to track and follow the bugs' rift ability and purge them from wherever they are going before they get too established or wipe out a reality's worth of humans or other species.

Which meant I'd need those android kill teams with android me support equipped and armed far sooner than I'd planned. Already my other selves were rushing to work and preparing for war. Small advanced tanks full of sensors and absurdly expensive, power armor rated for every situation I'd encountered yet, weapons androids could wield that could actually hurt a command bug, Mini-trons and modified pods paired with each android for support and live analysis.

Everything I could think of and fit within the tanks or armors while still keeping it small enough to fit and maneuver in an environment without needing to reshape it, including the fact they could hover. The small size also made it possible to transport them interdimensionally without crippling my power network with each one.

None of that made me feel better, not even the thought of the new war machines setting to work purging the insects from the multiverse. All I could feel was a blooming hate for the foul things, all of me agreed on that one thing, we hated. The one thing that could draw all of my attention.

It was not a pleasant feeling to understand that, or to feel it rise like acid within myself until I thought I'd hack it up.

Rational thought felt far away, even as my mind raced with perfect clarity. A loss in efficiency due to emotion couldn't be borne, it would be a weakness. But I still wanted nothing more than to use my own hands and tear them to shreds no matter how impossible it was.

So I would simply settle for other methods, and hope that the emotions would dull with time and I could actually be without needing to maintain an iron grip on my own psyche to prevent myself from rushing into a fight I couldn't win without preparation.

My main advantage over the bugs had been the other planets I had spread to, and now they were doing the same. The war had shifted dramatically, and I would keep my lead or kill myself trying.