“Suck on that! Smith!” I shouted, popping to total wakefulness. Someone peered into my office briefly, before quickly shuffling away when I didn’t seem harmed.

I wasn’t embarrassed in the slightest. I totally wasn’t lying.

Although, in all honesty, I was ecstatic to be out away from the fireball of a dream planet. I’d counted myself to be a fairly wide-viewed connoisseur of bad things, but that sucked fiercely. It was done, and I had probably shaved off a few years from my life out of sheer stress.

That said, I somehow felt well rested. Smith said that I wouldn’t need to do another session in my dreams.

If I didn’t mess up in reality.

That was a strange kind of motivation, not wanting to have to go through any more training. Especially because it almost seemed like he wanted me to make a mistake later. It was more than a little distressing. Outside, the morning sun rose, and I found myself shocked at that realization. I’d slept almost a full day.

Tentatively I stepped out of bed and closed the door to the office. Daniel and Fran weren’t back yet, and I wondered if they perhaps had other things they’d done last night. I snickered at that, harassing Daniel about that might be fun. Fran was a stone wall for that kind of stuff, so she wasn’t any fun to pick on.

“Alright, let me take a look.” I muttered aloud, removing most articles of clothing and stepping in front of a mirror. I kept underwear on, I don’t think any alterations of note had happened there, aside from digestive tract related stuff.

I swallowed hard, my lean body wasn’t the same as I’d remembered it, not at all. My right eye aside, there were a lot of other, smaller changes that I could see. The metal in my shoulder had refined, and looked a lot more like flesh, but was sturdy, stiffer than it should have been. That area had expanded, too, a few straight lines of biosteel, black with a slim dimly glowing sliver of red in the middle, ran straight down the arm to the elbow. From there, my left arm was biosteel, except the upper arm.

“Smith, next time I go under, just convert the rest of the damn arm. Seriously, what were you thinking?” I murmured, feeling him cough with embarrassment at that.

[Understood. A minor oversight, I assure you.]

The bicep was the only meat left there on the limb, there was really no point for it being there now. If anything, it was a weak point on the limb, and considering that biosteel was both behind and below, it wasn’t a good idea. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t want to surrender bits of flesh just because it looked tacky, but this kind of patchwork job couldn’t be good. If that bone broke in the middle of combat, I’d be down a limb, and that might mean another limb would be lost. Better to keep the damage down as much as possible.

I could also feel my bones, many of them, especially the spine, had been coated in a layer of biosteel, though it barely showed. Musculature all over my body had been steadily reinforced, threads of biosteel intermingling with regular tissue. Smith had stopped replacing all of the muscle that got damaged, letting it heal instead. Even so, we made sure that if there were ever a time when I needed to push beyond normal limits, I could do so, if only for a few moments.

There was one thing that annoyed me, and that was the fact that along each of my longer bones there was a just barely visible glowing red line that bisected them that showed from under my skin and tissues.

“What’s with that?” I frowned, “That’s just creepy.”

[I needed to create gaps for your blood to be released from marrow. That, and it gives me convenient access to your whole body in the event that I need to repair you with matter energy. I do apologize that it gives you a less than… human appearance, though.] Smith answered fully.

It annoyed me again, but it was already done. We’d had plenty of time to talk about boundaries while I was being tortur--err, trained. Body modification outside of repair had to be approved explicitly, no exceptions. But undoing what had already happened wasn’t on the table. It’d take too long to fix.

Stretching came next, and I surprised myself with my flexibility now. I could touch the floor with my palms, and I could jump a foot into the air just by bouncing on the balls of my feet.

[Careful not to strain your tendons, they’re only partially reinforced.] The warning came as I started to feel burning in my legs. I nodded, deciding to test my sense of balance. I breathed deeply and then bent my knees. I vaulted into the air, flipping forward as I went. Barely having to think about it, I felt corrections occur in my posture instinctively. Having my instincts and reflexes honed by a Reaper A.I. on a subconscious basis was pretty amazing, albeit quite harrowing.

After finishing my stretches, I went through some general exercises, trying to become as accustomed to my body as quickly as possible.

I realized it was going to be a lot harder to strengthen myself with regular exercise. I hit a hundred push ups before I even felt the burn. The biosteel strands enhanced my muscular strength so much that lifting my own body weight wouldn’t be an issue at all. My bones were stronger too, and I was considering just having them completely swapped over to biosteel since the marrow was already converted. I’d wait on that though, I didn’t want to go overboard just yet. I still like being human, after all. Curious, I moved over to a set of exercising equipment that we’d pilfered a long time ago. It was more for keeping us in shape for when we didn’t go out into the forest to scout, but doing that kept our minds active too, at least to some extent.

Without hesitation, I loaded up six hundred pounds onto the bar, readying to deadlift the weight. Smith braced my muscles in the background, intent on adding biosteel along with the new muscle to provide a framework if my muscles were damaged too much. Muscles like woven thread, that would probably increase my possible strength by a good bit.

As the door to the office opened, I deadlifted 600 pounds and lifted it over my head, slowly lowering it, my arms shuddering as I deliberately slowed my pace. I didn’t let myself get nervous, Daniel was probably coming back from wherever he’d gone. It would have been good if he knocked, but it didn’t really matter. I set the weight back down gently, turning to see Daniel

And two others.

The looks on Daniel and Fran’s faces were somewhere between shocked and pitying. I pretended not to see the expression, the tightening in my biosteel throat uncomfortable. “You guys have a good time last night?”

“Whoa,” the third individual breathed out, “You’re kinda… scary.”

My eyes settled on her, and she found her attention locked onto the red and black reaper eye that I bore. “Thanks, it’s a new look.”

The sarcasm leaked before I could consider doing otherwise.

I got dressed as Daniel shook off the surprise, “Damn, you, uh, look good?”

Fran spoke up next, trying to sound conciliatory “I’m sorry, we should have knocked.”

At that moment, when I was fully dressed, I couldn’t help but glare at the three of them. “Alright, really guys? I don’t want pity. This is what my body is now, I’m getting used to it.”

I snatched up my coat angrily, making for the door. Maybe I was being a little oversensitive, but I felt like they should have known me better. What did they think was happening to me? They had badass suits letting them do what they could. Me? I looked like I was becoming the terminator. It was a joke before, but now it was too real.

“Matt, bro, wait,” Daniel got out in front of me, ashamed. “Sorry man, that wasn’t cool. You know your like a brother to me, right? I couldn’t help being floored a bit.”

Fran joined in, “Me too, I… I thought you might appreciate some sympathy.”

I groaned, and flopped back in a chair, propping my head up on my metal arm.

“Look…” I felt my gut tight with agitation, and I forced it down with a few more seconds. Daniel shut the door to the office, the three of them coming in and sitting down around the desk with me. “I’m a little on edge right now to start with, I just spent a long time with Smith, and we’ve got some ground rules now. But, that doesn’t change the things that have already been done.”

“Sorry, also,” the other girl spoke, now I realized that she was unusual herself. “Its my fault we just barged in here.” She was green-haired, definitely a style, and she bore what looked like a bow on her back. I didn’t immediately notice any arrows though. My reaper eye scanned her over, and I found that the bow on her back had a very distinctive energy signature.

She was pretty cute too, and fumbled energetically with her next words, “I, they, uhm. We were supposed to, well, I was supposed to meet you and ask to join up with you guys. We’d be good together, and, umm…” She faltered, “Uh, I mean, we’d be a good team together. Sorry.”

I let out a very long, exaggerated sigh. The atmosphere was tense, due in no small part to myself. I decided to break that, this wasn’t what I wanted to deal with in the first place. I dragged my hands across my face in overdramatic fashion, mocking a mournful wail, “Ah, so the truth comes out! Alas, I may be forever without a girlfriend after all, completely unattractive! Such is the life of the terminator.”

You could hear a pin drop in the silence that followed.

Daniel and Fran shook the room with their laughter, and I smirked. Alice was laughing, embarrassment still on her face.

“Alright, we got off on the wrong foot. My name is Matthew Todd, as you can see I’m dreadfully crippled with some pretty badass biosteel prosthetics.” I looked to Daniel and Fran, seeing them back to normal for the most part. They both still stole glances to my metal arm, and if I could guess at what Daniel thought of it, it likely sat more on the spectrum that he’d failed as the tank, letting me get hurt that way.

“Alice, my name is Alice DeLeone. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, leader.”

“Nice to meet you… Uh… did you say, leader?” I furrowed my brow with consternation.

She mildly tripped over herself, “I-isn’t that what you are? Daniel said you were the leader of the team?” She looked almost accusingly at Fran and Daniel.

Both chuckled, “Well, I mean, you’re pretty much the team leader, right? I mean, I’m just the tank.”

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“And I’m... “ Fran thought up an excuse, and then abandoned trying to find one, “I’m just not taking that job.”

“You... “ Incredulously, I sighed. “Why do people keep thinking I’m responsible.”

Alice looked at me with big eyes expectantly.

Okay, I guess this is a thing now.

“Fine, fine, that aside, why do you want to join up with us? With that weapon on your back you’d be able to kill a dozen or so wolves on your own easily.” I leered with my reaper eye, “So, what’s the catch, here?”

I expected to get a chuckle, some lightheartedness maybe. They looked at me, deadpan and completely serious. I straightened in my seat, catching the tune and turning my full attention to Alice.

When she noticed that, she took a breath, “I found a… you guys call them ‘Uniques’? There was something out east of the city, it…” She spoke, straining with the words. I frowned, what exactly could cause someone so much discomfort?

“It’s okay.” Fran nodded to her, to which she relaxed again. She went on to describe the monster to me. And as she went on, I found that I was feeling a not-so-distant level of primordial disgust. A nearly amorphous creature that incorporated other biotics by literally weaving their guts together, the awful mournful wailing of the wolves that it had taken, the durability of the creature. The way it ran down other biotics. In some ways, it sounded like it was a good thing, but I doubted that would be the case forever. The last thing I wanted was a gigantic biotic to deal with.

At the same time, I tried to ascertain a strategy as I listened, going over the information.

When she finally finished speaking, I had a far off look in my eyes, staring through her as I tried to come up with a general strategy. No more going off half-cocked, especially with whatever the hell that thing was, or else we might all die.

“Umm… did you hear me?” Alice asked, to which Daniel spoke up.

“He’s thinking. It’s been a while since I’ve seen him like this though.” He leaned back, “Give him a minute.”

They waited quietly for me as I finally came to a general plan, along with some theories.

“Alright, that’s a fucked up creature.” Was the first thing I conceded, to which Daniel snorted with amusement. A withering glance from Fran quieted him. I looked back to Alice, who seemed uncertain as to how she should respond to what I’d said.

“I’m going to operate off of the assumption that everything you said you saw was a hundred percent accurate. If you think, even for a moment, that fear made you think you saw something you didn’t, tell me. Otherwise we might all die.” I prefaced my discussion as seriously as I could.

She nodded, “I couldn’t forget what I saw even though I try.”

“Alright, then let's break it down. A semi-amorphous unique is in the eastern forest. It probably hasn’t been around very long. Just to confirm, would you say only a few dozen wolves constituted its form?”

“Uh, yeah, I wouldn’t say any more than twenty or so.” She nodded.

“And when it ran that other wolf down, how quickly did it incorporate it?”

She shuddered, “It only took a few seconds, I think.”

“Then, working off the added assumption that it doesn’t need to wait that long between adding more mass, we can definitely conclude that it isn’t more than a few days old. That area was never particularly heavy in biotics anyways based on other scout reports, so we might have a few days before it’s a problem.”

Daniel raised a hand, “I think that was because she was hunting them in the area.”

I slowed, clicking my tongue, “Shit. Okay, then do you remember how many were generally in the area?”

She put a hand to her chin, “Only a few smaller packs, thirty or so unless a lot of people were in the area. Most of the larger hordes were further our, couple hundred, maybe a few thousand.”

Her understanding of the area staggered me, “Ah, okay. Well, hopefully it’s closer to the city, then. But we’re definitely going to need to move quicker then. It probably isn’t very good at finding things if you were able to hit it at range without it knowing where you were. So, we can presume its hunting grounds might not change too much for the short term without enough of a threat.”

Fran nodded, “That seems reasonable. We should keep to ranged combat as much as possible, I don’t like the idea of that thing getting close to us.”

“Yeah,” I looked at Daniel, “So we need some ranged weaponry, the heavier the better, alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it, I know.” He cleared his throat, “I was thinking the same thing.”

“Your bow, is it energy based?” I asked Alice.

“Yeah, I can fire it pretty quickly. I can also hold it to gather additional energy for a bigger hit, or to spread shot it. And these,” she patted a canister on her thigh, “I have three of them right now, but they’re supposed to be able to gather a large amount of power and explode.”

“Good, then you should be able to tear it up pretty well now.” I nodded, “We’ll set up a killzone. You’re probably quick, but I’d rather use you to flank it, Fran, how’s your flight ceiling and maneuverability?”

“24 feet up, and the maneuverability is… not top notch.” She cringed, remembering when she’d tried to make a tight turn. The magnetics she had weren’t quite good enough to let her change direction instantly.

“Then… I might have to be the bait,” I frowned, “That’s gonna suck.”

“I… I could do it?” Alice asked with uncertainty.

I shook my head, “I’d rather you hit its sides as we went, pierce legs to slow it down. You’ve already shown the ability to hit it without it being able to find you and if you get caught with no armor, that thing would probably tear you apart before any of us could help. Of course, I’d like to see what this things top speed is before actually attacking, so we need to scout it out, if possible.”

Daniel grunted, “I’m not keen about you being at risk again.”

Nodding, I admitted, “I’m not either, but that’s what we’re looking at… actually…” I frowned, suddenly studying Daniel more, then an evil grin crossed my face. “I think I’ve got a better idea now.”

“Bro? What’s with that look?”

“Well, maybe you should look into some mobility options?” My grin expanded, “After all, wouldn’t want someone too slow running from that thing, right?”

“Sounds… great.” Daniel forced enthusiasm.

“Alright then, we’ll bait it into a kill zone and rain ordinance on it. We’ll need to find a good place, but I think we can use a box canyon. Then we just need a way to get Daniel out.” I nodded, pleased with the plan thus far.

“I can do that,” Fran gestured, “If we’re adding weight onto Daniel’s mech, then I’ll need to upgrade my magnetics.”

Alice blinked at that, “Do you both have mechs?”

“Oh, yeah, it’s pretty badass.” Daniel grinned from ear to ear, “Matthew had a pretty cool suit, too.”

“Then it mostly melted,” I lifted my left arm, “Along with this.”

She cringed, “Ah… ow.”

“I’m just glad I don’t have to wait for surgery,” I shrugged, “Alright, Alice, do you have any points left?”

“Nope, I spent it all on this setup.” She gestured to a few disks on her hip, the exoskeleton, bow, and three arrows.

“Alright, let’s go downstairs and check out what we can grab. Daniel, focus on mobility first, then go for the heavy weapons. I need a bit of everything. Fran, you just maximize your magnetics… on that note, how do you know you can lift him right now?” I suddenly quirked a brow as we got up and moved out.

“I picked him up and dropped him on top of the tunnel when the Spiker was attacking you. We could tell where to drop because of your marker.” She smiled, to which I nodded. It did seem that Daniel shouldn’t have been able to break through the ceiling back then without help.

“Good to know. And, sorry, Alice, you’re gonna have to use what you’ve got, so make doubly sure you stay out of reach of that thing.”

“Mmhmm,” she nodded, “Maybe we’ll be able to clear out the rest of the area too.”

“Don’t get too greedy, though. Trust me.” I muttered. We’d been lucky, and I’d been humbled by biotics enough to know that the moment you stopped respecting their threat, they’d hit you sideways.

We stopped to take Daniel and Fran’s mech’s from a storage room that we’d converted on the first floor. Alice gaped at the both of them, impressive to look at for anyone, but daunting to someone who understood how much something like those must have cost with matter energy.

Daniel’s black and purple coloration stood out in sharp contrast to the silver and teal of Fran. Her valkyrie look had been modified somewhat, and the shine of her suit was quite the spectacle in the glinting sunlight.

We moved through the city, attracting a fair bit of attention. Some people tried to follow us once more out of curiosity, but they stopped when I looked at them, the unsettling glare from my reaper eye dissuading them from going further. This time I didn’t want anyone following us, there would be too much risk for them to get pulled into the fray. When we were on the edge of the range for the obelisk, we stopped to take a look at our options. Alice kept an eye out for any potential threats. Honestly, I don’t know if it would matter if someone saw us do this part, but we’d be far too strong with this upgrade for anyone to think about harassing us casually.

I felt that in my bones that this upgrade would be a nasty addition. I found that, after having purchased a handful of upgrades and grenades, I still had 1230 M.E. Fran and Daniel likely had closer to the 1350 range. My purchases sent my M.E. plummeting.

[Reaper Suit, Intermediate 400 M.E.]

[Reaper Reaver Rifle 200 M.E]

[Reaper Mine, Anti-personnel (x 10) 100 M.E.]

[Reaper Reaver Trench Gun 200 M.E]

[Reaper Ammo Storage Space (Lvl. 3) 60 M.E]

[Reaper Ammo (x 100 cases) 100 M.E.]

[Reaper Reaver Blades (x 2) 160 M.E.]

I almost could feel my heart bleeding at the rate that my M.E. vanished. By the time I was finished, I only had 10 left. But, it was well worth it, even though my defensive options had vanished. I didn’t need them, my fighting style had come back to what it should have been. Engage only when I could kill, force the enemy into a position where I could bring the fullest and most lethal strike possible.

My purchase had happened quickly because I already knew what I wanted. The others watched me as an orb of mercury seemed to encase me. That orb, contrary to expectation, changed from silver to a dark black, like a shadow given life. Red electricity crackled on its surface. I could feel the suit manifest on my body.

I underestimated how much of an upgrade it was. It more than suited the 400 M.E. price tag, if anything, it was a steal of a price.

Biosteel wrapped my form, a rigid, sharp plating covering my body, electrical impulses running up and down the forming exoskeleton as it interfaced with my reaper-enhanced physiology. My clothes burned and melted away beneath the suit, it wanted nothing in the way of contact. Channels of energy burned through my body as I felt it establish a connection to my nervous system. It wasn’t like a second skin, that would ring hollow in the wake of what this was doing. The suit made me bigger, it was like having a second body layered over my own, each plate was smooth until it arced to the edges of each overlapping, plate. My left arm felt more like flesh and blood than my actual organic arm. Black and barely transparent, the helmet bore what looked like additional red highlights, and augmented my vision even further. If anything, it looked like I had red cracks across my skull, smokey and mysterious. A cloak of bloody midnight covered the armor, settling on me like the Grim Reaper’s cowl. When light shined against the black fabric, a deep red reflection was returned.

My claws - yes, claws - were tipped with red, and I could tell that every movement carried a silent promise of death. Dare I say it? I was the Reaper.

Weapons formed afterwards. My old modified assault rifle went away, though I did enjoy my time with it. Instead, a reaper ‘reaver’ weapon replaced it, some kind of remorseless bastardization of the assault rifle. As it settled in my hands, I felt a heaviness that the weapon shouldn’t have had. It was like it weighed as much as three regular rifles, and it hadn’t even finished forming yet. I could lift it with ease, luckily, and the triple barrels interlocked. Verifying, I pulled the gun out, sighting it. With a thought, the three barrels collapsed and came to be one single barrel, as long as a sniper. I had my long range option together with my mid-range option.

Setting that to my side, I felt my cloak swallow it in darkness, and realized that the weapon was being stored in a similar system as my ammo. Daniel saw that, and I could virtually see his jaw drop even in his suit.

“That’s so badass.” Daniel said breathlessly, “How the hell did you do that?”

I shrugged, feeling the next weapon forming already. The reaper ‘reaver’ trench gun was bulkier than the rifle, but the barrel was shorter than I expected. A heat-shield rested partway up the gun, and I could see that the actual ammo magazine was a drum. There was no pump, this beast needed no help with reloading. A bayonet reached out hungrily at the front of the barrel, a serrated piece of biosteel that looked more like it belonged on a spear.

That, likewise, vanished into my cloak.

At this point, I had simpler things appearing, ten mines that wouldn’t show their true value until they went off. A seemingly ridiculous amount of ammo - I found that Reaper ammo was interchangeable, and I would now be buying a great deal of it from now on, hence increasing my storage capacity twice - and finally the reaver blades themselves.

They were similar to short swords if you’d also converted the ends into short scythes, but the black metal bore a bright red edge, and they also fed off of reaper ammunition. Why? I wasn’t sure yet.

I willed them to ‘activate’ and watched as the edge glowed brightly, trails of plasma on them.

This whole reaper class wasn’t so bad after all...