-Matthew Reaper P.O.V-

A small part of my mind was dedicated to keeping tabs on everyone as a general rule. Knowing whether a part of the Legion’s overlapping defenses was being overwhelmed was a benefit that I couldn’t begin to praise. Even more so as the hordes of chaff biotic began to be subsumed by the Centaur.

Their charge forward was rendered in perfect clarity to my eyes, both real and cybernetic. From several viewpoints I would pick out their shapes, vague in the smoke.

I pushed my own senses to the limit, forcing my auxillary processors to process vast amounts of visual input from the many available sources. Within moments the battlefield began to mesh into one cohesive vision for me, rather than several independant sources.

Pain began to build as I did so, a conglomerate program running every source to a single whole was not something I’d practiced in the slightest. Still, I began to see results as I could make out some of the biotics within the smoke.

Emboldened, I pushed just a bit more, bringing the picture into even sharper clarity, giving me just that much more to work with.

However, the pain and effort doubled with that, and I found myself straining to so much as move my body at the same time.

‘That’s new.’ I grit my teeth and tried to bear through it, feeling the effort lessen marginally. So much so that had I not been cybernetic, I wouldn’t have noticed.

With regret, I eased off of my attempts. ‘We’ll have to work on that some other time. If nothing else, we can work with this.’

I centered myself once more, feeling the acute pain that had been building lessen from stabbling claws to slivers of nails in my brain. It wasn’t pleasant by any means, but I’d dealt with far worse in the past.

“Legion, I’m marking targets in the smoke that I can see. Prioritize them whenever possible.” I said over the comms, glaring at the column of smoldering fire and smoke. A pungent gut-punch of burnt flesh murked the air beyond that, assailing unprotected senses constantly. Constant bullets tore through the ranks of biotics, and even so, I knew that the gate would be far from a guarantee to hold.

Below, the crash of biotics against mechanized infantry drew my attention to that very problem. The much larger mechs that had used the burn-out tactic were empty and unusable for now. The Reaver gunships would make another run soon, but we would need to hold out until then.

“We need more people here,” Harris grunted, standing beside me and considering the battlefield.

I nodded with a grimace, both of us knew the solution, but it was a risky one. “Pulling anyone from the other gates will be very risky.”

“I know.” He sighed, turning his haze backwards, past the defensive line.

I followed his line of sight, several wrecks of mechs already piling up as Centaur struck into the melee. They were rapidly learning how better to fight, and to control their impulses as they died. Worse yet, some had begun firing at range, taking pot-shots with their tails like a manticore in mythology. They were only marginally less deadly than the original product, the only virtue being that the barbs were smaller.

Past that line was the varying houses, along with the trench that Axiom left before it had perished. And, distantly, the fortress sat, housing much of the non-combatant population of Argedwall in a huge underground bunker.

Neither of us needed to consider what would happen if a Centaur made it into the complex.

“I’m going to pull most of the Eastern wall in. Those Knights there aren’t seeing any activity.” Harris finally stated, considering the options. Currently the western wall was under assault, as were the north and south, though far less. East, however, had gone virtually undisturbed as the biotics streamed in.

I didn’t like leaving a flank bare, though. “I’ll reroute Last Call to the Eastern wall to help keep an eye on things since they’re nearby.”

He nodded to me gratefully as we got to work. Moments later, I was busy feeding information to the firing line below. The unending onslaught of biotics slowly changed flavor at the wall, where once there were basic biotics were now steadily increasing numbers of Centaur.

Worse, the combatants on the walls had to switch targets frequently, piles of bodies laying against the wall providing for ample cover and space for other biotics to climb atop of. It was horrifying in no small way to witness the ramp made of corpses growing, silver blood and gore oozing from it as it disintegrated all too slowly. The gate was cleared frequently by the biotics themselves, churning the corpses backwards with claws and grasping talons. Albeit, there was still a meter high mound of corpses that the Knights struggled to fight over.

Stepping onto it to maintain an even-ground advantage was unwise as the pile shifted underfoot, gradually bleeding away. For the biotics, that was less of an issue, given that their seemingly numberless horde pushed forward regardless of the threat. And, of course, the Knights moving backwards would only give up ground that they could ill afford to lose.

Yet, there was little choice in the matter as the pile grew higher.

“Drag over debris, girders, concrete dividers, anything big and strong.” I shot orders out to those that were waiting their turn on the front line as Harris directed the bulk of the movements elsewhere. “The line will need to fall back soon, maintain the choke!”

The Knights didn’t hesitate, nor did the handful of Legion supporting the ground battle efforts. Harris was busy, but he hadn’t countermanded my order. Most of his commands oriented around the strategic front, rather than tactical. I picked up the slack there, issuing orders to kill teams and ensuring that no one side was neglected overtly.

Daniel hopped off of the wall on his mech, landing with a heavy clang that resounded in spite of the excessive noise besides. Heavy pistons hissed as they diverted the force of the impact with the ground, and more than one Knight nearby flinched at the sudden appearance of the Main Line Mech he bore.

Wordlessly, he helped move larger vehicles into place and dragged parts of the buildings that Axiom had crumbled together, laying girders and rebar together as others bonded the pieces together with spot welding or sheer mass. As they worked, I fired as unceasingly as I could, pausing only long enough to dip into the Reaper matterspace for ammo. Long ago, I’d stored a huge amount of bullets in it, thinking that it would last me a lifetime.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

I was now down the thirty percent of my original store. My rifle guzzled ammo, and I’d begun considering changing my clips to drum-clips the next time I had the opportunity.

Below, the Knights at the front line were forced back a step, the mound of corpses just beyond the gaping mouth in the wall piling ever higher. Behind them, forming a concave barrier, was the fruit of only ten minutes of labor, piling materials atop one another and forming a deep, densely packed barricade that the new and fresh wave of defenders were already standing atop of.

In the center of that formation, Daniel waited, weapons at the ready, a sentinel glaring at the choke point set just in front of them. Over their shoulders, many Legionnaires set up additional weapon emplacements that rested atop buildings, or mounted out of multistory buildings windows. No one worried about damaging any of the buildings in the area, no one had time for such things. As such, anything not stable in the aftermath of Axiom’s breach was simply brought down, the extra materials stuffed against the three meter tall barrier.

“Get ready to fall back!” Harris shouted.

I mentally sent the order to all of the Legion on the wall, backs straight and steel in their hands, an addendum to Harris orders.

“Alright, it’s gonna be a doozy, though.” Alice answered me, laughing on top of the wall, “You sure the wall can take it?”

I faked confidence, “it’ll hold. The bodies will soften the impact and get rid of some of them at the same time.”

“If you say so,” I heard another Legion member say, pulling out a bundle of explosives on a bandolier. They were strung together at the tops, a line of wire with a safety catch at the end.

“Fall back!” Harris voice resounded like a mountain boxing my eardrums, and the Legion carried out their task, as did I.

The Legion member disengaged the lock on the bandolier, slinging the entire band over his shoulder and then whipping it forward. It cracked like a bull-whip, and every explosive on the band slung forward like they’d been pitched by a major league baseball player.

I slung the scant few Reaper Mines I had left on my person off the wall, the discs cutting through the air and landing amidst the approaching biotics at the base of the corpses. The scene replayed elsewhere, Alice bearing a pair of thick poled and long arrows that resembled spears more than bolts.

The explosions rocked the corpses, and, admittedly, the wall itself. It flexed underfoot, but true to my hopeful words, the bodies must have soaked up no small amount of the power. Instead, the many flavors of percussive, incendiary, and fragmented destruction showered the battle line. Many of us had used grenades throughout, but it was general policy to hold on to one or two at least, just in case.

“Cover the retreat!” I shouted out, planting a foot on the crenellations and kneeling forward as much as I could. Instantly the air was rejoined with ever more chaos, chunks of meat still soaring and spiraling in the air from the explosives. The force of the impact had knocked much of the piles away and down, though half of the ramps still existed. They would refill soon, but for now the Legion focused on the gate.

The Knights fell back, unharried as steel rain covered their enemies.

Harris took full advantage of this fact, allowing the line to merge and fill out to a much more defensible position.

Thirty seconds later, we redirected our attention to the wall, keeping biotics from climbing it. The Centaur’s efforts redoubled, snarling in fury at our continued resistance.

One that only increased as more forces joined us on the front, the Knights from the eastern wall filling in the gaps of our defenses like mortar to brickwork.

Just like that, I could feel the tempo of the battle on the western front shift. The biotics still drove themselves against our defenses with abandon, but there was no advance. The Knights utilized cannons and our ranged weapons to brutal efficacy, drilling through anything that dared tread the gaping entrance. Funneled into the grinder, even the Centaur didn’t have the armor to survive.

There were no more weaker biotics, they’d now firmly been spent, massacred sometime in the last minutes. I hadn’t even truly noticed when they’d been spent, the motions becoming rote.

Reaper’s Eye, aim, fire, confirm locations of enemies, issue adjusted orders, aim, fire, reload, repeat.

It was a battlefield mantra in that moment, a way the world worked that simply was and would ever be.

I shivered in some part of my human mind at the sheer focus that I could achieve.

And it was that which allowed me to break away enough so that I was fully and dreadfully aware of Jeremy Strauss as he signaled a mass emergency call on the Legion’s line.

“We have enemy contact! They’re hitting the east! Request immediate support!”

‘Gods damn it all.’ I grit my teeth, turning my eyes eastward and back to Harris.

A grim set to his jaw told me what he thought was possible. It took time to move forces around, even here in Argedwall.

I tapped into his feed, seeing the amassed biotics in question. They were a horde, that was certain, but not what we faced on our side. It was smaller, composed of three fourths Gen 1 biotics and the rest Centaur. Even so, it was more than enough to overwhelm the skeleton crew of the wall, though Strauss and his team would certainly be able to bring incredible support to bear.

“I’ll go with my team,” I turned to Harris as he struggled for an answer, both of us knowing that the Knights weren’t fast enough to mobilize on that front. “I can make it in time with Shade.”

He turned to me, and then back to the droves of biotics, thinking of the best option.

When he turned back, I could see that he’d made his decision.

“Good luck, Reaper.”

“Same to you, Knight-Commander.”

We parted, my orders issued quickly to Team Alpha, Alice the first to bound out from the high tower, adrenaline surging through her body as she sprinted with augmented limbs towards me. Fran was next, and Daniel fell in besides.

“Go without me,” Terry spoke from the bowels of what appeared to be some kind of hulk of metal that might generously be called a generator, “ten minutes and I have the Raijin Field active again.”

I nodded, “good, we’ll check how the eastern side field is working.”

“Like a charm, I’m sure,” he joked, “so long as nothing too big comes their way.”

As one the rest of us shared a moment of accusing silence, Shade soaring in over buildings to rest beside us.

Sure enough, the next video feed coming from Jeremy was of a phalanx formation of Carriers, charging and tearing up the ground as they went.

“Uh, right… well, good luck!” He coughed, getting back to work as we piled into the Shade, or in Daniel’s case was locked onto the belly of the vessel.

Without artillery support readily available to the east, those Carriers might get to the wall. And, as if to prove that, the Carriers plowed through defenses, taking damage from each layer and from the punishing targeted attacks of Strauss team. Eight reduced to six by the time they hit the field, digging deep furrows through the equipment as they went.

However, they didn’t reach the wall, even if it looked as though they just might at the last leg. Only a single layer existed of the Raijin Field, and the smoking corpses of the carriers were the only evidence of the previous sections having ever operated.

“They’ll hold until we get there.” I allowed a slight sigh in relief as Shade rapidly moved over buildings to the east.

Daniel spoke next, a surprising tremor of concern in his voice, “we’re gonna be able to hold the gate, right?”

I didn’t answer immediately, seeing the horde moving in behind the Carrier’s with reckless abandon. “We have to.”

That would have to be enough.