From what I could see of the figures carefully making their way towards the structure we’d chosen as our base, these individuals were a far cry from any fledgling hunters. They moved with purpose, caution, a pack of predators scouring the area for any sign of us. It was clear they at least knew the direction to head in, but occasionally they would stop, sweep a building, and move on.
If it wasn’t for the fact that the Determinators were in a much more compact form as they monitored the area, I think they would have been discovered long ago. As it were, they missed their chance to discover them, having bypassed the outer containment area with them in it.
A part of me wondered if what I was about to do was truly the right thing. Certainly, killing your fellow human wasn’t going to be helpful in the long run.
But a message needed to be sent.
“Reaper is in position,” I spoke into the comms, voice cut off from the outside world.
The response came, “Last Call is ready. We’ll flush ‘em to you.”
And then silence came again, the group of would-be assassins coming to a stop at a nearby intersection, spread out and backs against the corners of a building, behind vehicles, and any other cover they could find. They were outfitted heavily, so much so that I doubted that ordinary ordnance would have done much more than batter them.
A few weeks ago, they would have been enemies to be far warier of. But combat against biotics had driven our prowess far higher, our technology far deadlier.
The bolts we’d engineered from seeing the Spindlies would be the first taste of the outside world these people would get, and very likely the last.
But, Strauss would give them their chance first.
“Hold right there,” Strauss called, his voice coming from down the street to their east. He was situated behind a vehicle, not much cover against armor piercing rounds, but he was hardly unprotected otherwise.
The men reeled, but held fire. Tense seconds filled the expanse between them and Strauss, a few of them looking around to see if there were any others in the area. They must have detected at least two people near Strauss in a building.
Denice and Yomar were those two, I’d guess, due to not having any true method of nulling their profiles against any kind of detection technology. These guys at the least would have had some reasonable technology on that front, due to the nature of the biotics they dealt with.
“Considering you haven’t shot us yet,” the leader of the group spoke, “I’m assuming you’re willing to have a conversation.”
Strauss eyebrows arched at that, “You could say that.”
The leader of the other group slowly lowered his weapon and helmet, revealing an angular face, hazel green eyes, and wariness. He clearly looked to the sides where Yomar and Denice were, a show mostly for us than anything else.
“So, I have to ask before anything else. Is the other team alive or dead?” He asked blatantly.
“First off,” Jeremy chewed on a cigar, one that I was uncertain where it’d come from, “where I come from, we introduce ourselves first. M’names Jeremy Strauss, team leader of Last Call from The Reaper’s Legion. Over there and there-” he gestured to the sides, “-are two of my team, Yomar and Denice.”
The man’s expression grew marginally tighter as he seemed to consider something, “Officially we’re nobody. But officially I’m Timothy Foster. We were told that a group of defectors with critical information about the defenses of our compound were leaked.” He gestured to himself, noting the lack of insignia, “given the equipment we were geared with, I thought to myself ‘That’s a little sketchy, isn’t it?’ and decided to ask questions rather than go in guns blazing.”
Jeremy chuckled, “Well, I do appreciate that.” His expression darkened then, “If you’re being honest, anyways, otherwise this is pretty convenient for you.”
The man shuffled on his feet uncomfortably, “I understand that you’ve probably been updated on the situation here. We’re some of the elites that Mack dispatched, but we’re only one group. There’s at least one more out there, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Benjamin’s people were on the way too.”
At the very least they were aware of the situation. I watched Strauss, now chewing at the end of his cigar perplexedly. We hadn’t really considered this possibility.
“So, your angle is, what now? Get out in front of the imminent shit storm that’ll be hanging around Mack and Benjamin’s heads and those immediately around ‘em?” Jeremy asked, and then pointed out, “Not that I’m against that, just seems rather… forward of you.”
“It is true that it might seem rather abrupt,” he allowed, “But we’re not the only ones who think this situation has gotten well out of hand. It’s not like we’re blind, but we def-” his expression suddenly warped to shock, “Get down!”
His helmet came up quickly as he himself hit the deck, a chunk of concrete tearing out of the ground behind him from a bullet. I frowned, hearing what had to have been a fifty caliber round fired from afar. Jeremy stood still, shaking his head, “really? Sending a kill team to kill a scapegoat team, but sending another kill team to kill a kill team if they wouldn’t- ah fuck it.” He threw his hands up, “whatever, Reaper, you deal with it. We’ll take care of our visito-”
The sound from him cut off suddenly as a bullet tore through him. Instead of blood and viscera, however, the hologram that consisted his body flickered, the single pane of material that had assisted in selling the illusion shattered from the bullet.
“Damn, that was useful,” I heard him muse aloud, “Adam, let me know how many more of those you got later, that’s good stuff.”
“Thanks, boss,” he said dryly, “just make sure you reimburse me for them.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Strauss waved him off before muttering, “Penny pincher.”
“Might I remind you that you’re still in a live-fire situation?” Adam continued, “Maybe you should fix that.”
I chuckled, hearing their team banter back and forth. I wasn’t worried about Arthur and his team, they were well hidden and secured by the scouts, and if someone did get wounded, Adam was directly on hand with them.
A stream of gunfire suddenly resounded from down the street in two directions, attempting to flush the first kill team into the open. The man, Timothy Foster, and his team broke formation cleanly, diving into cover where it was available. They snapped shots over cover, more than one of them having weapons designed to be able to fire around cover, feeding to a camera that they could aim through.
I was on the opposite side of them, the gunfire hitting them from the north and east. Quietly I dispatched the Determinators, intending on closing the noose around this latest group. Just outside, though, I noticed a group of three coming up on their flank from the west. I was sitting inside of a two story building, the balcony overlooking the intersection an ideal spot to exchange fire. Now, though, it was even better as a trap.
The three men came into view, wearing even more impressive power armor than Timothy’s team. Slowly, I took a deep breath, the trio on the ground below. Farther afield they might have had another sniper, but if I let these three go uncontested, we were all but guaranteed to lose several people on the ground.
Plus I was interested in the equipment they had, there looked to be some pretty impressive tech.
I started my run, darting out of the building and jumping over the railing of the building, pulling out my sword as I went. The edge immediately gleamed red, heat billowing from the keen blade. The three stopped, seeming all at once, and had begun to turn towards me. Some kind of detection device must have caught me when I burst into motion. I was faster than the biotics they’d been dealing with, though, my own power armor still a higher form than their own.
My reflexes had proven to be better, too. I landed between them, given a split second of freedom before they began to respond. Putting aside my grievances with the situation for the moment, I lashed out with my blade, carving through their weapons in three swift strokes. The final stroke saw me kicking out, hard, at one of them men.
To my chagrin, I heard something snap in the knee joint and could also hear his follow up wailing, the leg bent at an awkward angle. Apparently their armor was less supportive at the legs than I’d thought.
I corrected that line of thought when I punched out and caved a portion of another of their armor with my gauntleted fist. The more likely answer was my augmented strength was much more acute than I’d thought.
Idly, I dialed back the strength, accessing my armors settings to pull back a touch. The last man standing moved back a few steps hastily, cursing and swearing as he went for a sidearm. An instant later, even as he tried to pull the weapon upon me, I slapped the arm away, gripping his helmets face mask with my other hand.
I pulled, hard, feeling the fingers on my suit clench just enough to get a grip on it. Suddenly the man was staring at me without the benefit of his armor, and my helmet flickered with a malevolent spectre’s grin, smoky red.
“The Reaper cometh.” I whispered to him, punching him with a vastly controlled strike.
Even so, I felt his nose break, his body spinning in the air before he landed. I frowned, looking between my fist and the now prone and immobile form.
‘Shit, I hope I didn’t just kill him.’ I turned to look at the other two, but ended up snapping my rifle up, turning down range to the west.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
I shot dug into the ground just beside my foot, “Yep, my turn.”
At once my rifle extended, the three barrels compounding to form the sniper configuration of my weapon. It was far more advanced now than it had been previously, using a much more streamlined mag-rifle technology in both forms, though this was far superior to its predecessor.
For a few long seconds I scanned the area for the shooter, and saw nothing. Collecting information from the environment, I was able to estimate the angle the bullet had come in from. It wasn’t perfect, but as I was able to narrow down my target to one building. The other two were coming to their senses, apparently not as down and out of the fight as I’d initially considered.
I saw a shuffle of movement from a window, and fired, aiming low for a leg.
Even distantly, I could hear the cry, and cringed at the sudden red burst on the wall behind the window. I turned away, figuring they were likely more interested in getting away than continuing the fight. It had nothing to do with the fact that I was still unsettled with the prospect of killing needlessly. If it came down to it, I’m sure I could do it, but if it was absolutely necessary, there shouldn’t be any problem with avoiding it, right?
The two men rising, however, told me that perhaps I was being a bit too naive.
“Stay down.” I commanded, “your fight is over.”
My tone held no sign of the apprehension I felt, and I desperately hoped that they would just stay down.
To my surprise, the man with the broken leg slumped backwards, pausing with his hand on the gun at his side. He shot a look to the other, the chest of his armor caved in enough to elicit the sound of wheezing when he was breathing.
There was an unspoken moment that crossed between them that I couldn’t divine the meaning of.
They stayed down, the man with the leg slowly unbuckling the gun at his side and tossing it away, “help him out of that armor, please. He’s going to start suffocating.”
I nodded, “don’t do anything crazy, I prefer killing biotics over humans.”
The man with the caved chest struggled to pull his helmet off, the task of breathing arduous. I cranked up the strength allowance of my suit and yanked hard on the joints of the armor, splitting and shearing the metal with sharp tugs. As I freed his chest enough that he could breath, he gasped and coughed, shoving his helmet off.
“Christ, what the fuck is that suit?” He looked at me with unbridled fear.
I shook my head, and didn’t answer the question, “Again, so long as you don’t cross me further, I’ll let you live.”
The man was about to speak when another fifty cal launched, this one hitting me in the side. It was enough that I staggered to the side, my armor eating the shot without much more than a mild dent. I was surprised, but with a tired sigh I turned and looked back to the building, seeing the man I’d shot from afar still in the window sill. He didn’t have his rifle to his eye anymore, and was slowly standing, apparently having realized how much of a bad idea what he’d just done was.
I picked up my rifle, a deep feeling of regret welling within me even before I took the shot.
‘Is it necessary?’ I thought to myself, ‘I’m wearing power armor that can, apparently, tank .50 cal rounds without breaking a sweat. I’m not hurt at all…’
‘But he didn’t know it wouldn’t hurt Us,’ Wolvy pointed out, ‘the not-others that are Our friends might not have been so fortunate.’
I grit my teeth, wanting to make more excuses to not fire.
But, ultimately, I could feel the vaguest twinge of principle from the shattered remnants of all that I’d learned in my time in becoming a Reaper. Leaving a threat out of mercy, when that mercy was accepted, was one thing. But when someone took that mercy and tried to cut you from beneath its billowing cloak?
There was only one response, really.
I sighed my sniper even as the man tried to duck away, but it was far too late.
Six rounds tore through the building, the first two missing, while the final four certainly hit something fleshy, if the newly painted wall in the room had anything to say by it.
“Disarm yourselves and your friend,” I stated, turning grimly from the scene, “don’t try to leave.”
The two numbly nodded, unable to say anything in the face of what I’d just casually done. From tanking a shot that even their armor would have been unable to absorb fully, to exchanging six rounds with minimal deviance on my aim, there were plenty of examples of why they weren’t going to win against me.
Jeremy wrapped up on his end even sooner, Yomar having charged straight into three others, tearing into them and wounding them. From the north side, Allendra had counter-sniped their own sniper, but apparently the only other fatality had been from one overzealous combatant who refused to surrender from the north side. The snipers had been pinned down with counter fire, and when they moved to escape, the Determinators caught them.
For now, we stowed them in one of the Ogre’s, Adam worked on the wounded outside before allowing them to be resecured in one of the Ogre bays. Whether for thematic effect or convenience, they ended up in the Determinator’s return bay, caskets that were reserved for the robots highlighting a certain truth of what would happen if they fought us here.
I sat down, speaking with Timothy and hearing what he had to say. He was markedly surprised to hear that I wasn’t just a team leader, but the actual leader of the Legion. Apparently the leader’s here didn’t go anywhere near the frontlines if they could help it.
Given my track record for personal dismemberment, I wouldn't necessarily disagree with that line of thought.
“For now, I’ll assume you’re telling the truth. The point of all of this is going to be to make this as bloodless as possible. Can we go to Mack’s group and gain any support?” I asked, though I figured the answer would be a no.
As expected, he shook his head, “I don’t think so. There are plenty of us among the elites who are more than happy to keep riding this situation until it crashes and burns.”
“Then it seems we’re going to need to go through some more creative methods to get to the Obelisk.” I sighed, “I highly doubt Mack and Benjamin are going to leave the Obelisk unguarded after not hearing anything back from you guys and their other kill team.”
“I agree, and last I saw there were already some groups moving towards the Obelisk.” He said, “and probably even now they’re spinning a tale on how an invading group of outsiders is taking over the city.”
Our conversation went back and forth for a little while after. I wasn’t keen on this particular situation, especially because of the way that this could all go. Alice wasn’t known to be on our team, so I wasn’t so worried that they’d be used as leverage.
I paused at that thought, groaning as I realized that we did have Arthur. They could just apply pressure to him, and unwittingly also be pressuring Alice.
‘Excellent, yet another thing to look forward too,’ I resisted making another sigh, knowing I was very near to establishing it as a habit. ‘Alright, looks like we’re going to have to split up a bit. To get everything done before it’s too hard to do it.’
“Jeremy, I need you to take Timothy and his guys to Gerry,” I started talking over the comms.
“Why?” I frowned, leaning in from the next compartment to my surprise.
“We need to explain the situation and see if they can get us close to the Obelisk. I’d prefer not to brute force it, so hopefully they’ll amenable to letting us fix this mess.” I highlighted the main points, not mentioning that we’d hopefully be able to establish positive connections with at least one group before the Obelisk switched over and we began to assume our role here, whatever it would end up being.
He nodded, “Alright, that’ll be a pain in the ass, but alright. Anything else?”
“Feel free to barter with them for perks, offer them positions in the Legion if they can pass the test to get in. Not sure how much they’d be interested in that, but we want everyone aware of what we can do.” I paused, thinking another option over and quickly disregarding it, “If they had electricity we could just broadcast our plan across radios at least.”
“That’d be too easy,” Jeremy dryly commented, “If they at least at Obelisk access, we’d be fine.”
“Soon, at least.” I nodded, “Where are the scouts, and Arthur?”
“Still in the building.” He gestured, “You need Sammy for something?”
I hesitated for a second before shaking my head, “No, you’ll need Sammy more for scouting, it’s less dangerous deeper in the city for biotics, but not really safe per se. The others will be fine.”
“Got it, just send Sammy back over when you get over there, then we'll get ready.” He nodded, moving over and calling to the rest of his team. Once more I counted my lucky stars that there were enough competent people in the Legion that I didn’t have to worry over every detail.
Less than a minute later, I arrived as Alice, Richard, and Arthur with his team were packing up. Sammy was lingering at the door, looking up at me in surprise.
“Busted,” he commented, “I’m just gonna go check in with Strauss.”
He immediately slipped out of the doorway behind me as I turned, confusion apparent on my face.
“What’s going on here?” I asked, seeing Richard cringe while Alice met my gaze with something of a blend between shame and challenge.
“Benjamin’s got the rest of my family as a ransom ticket,” Alice started, “I know it’s stupid, but I’m going to go in and get them before they realize that Arthur and I are here.”
“It’s really stupid,” Richard added, receiving a brief look of betrayal from Alice, but he continued on with a smirk, “but we’re doing it anyways. This is important.”
Alice swallowed hard but nodded, her look of hurt replaced by something warmer.
Arthur stepped up as well, “We know the path well, and we can be in and out with minimal issues. With how quick and well equipped these two are, nothing less than the elites are going to be a problem.” He explained, “I doubt you need us for much more of anything at this point. We know the risks an-”
“Okay, okay, stop.” I held up both of my hands to belay their continued barrage. Steadily I looked to each of them, meeting their gazes as they held firm, if perhaps their body language betrayed the nervousness beneath. Richard was, expectedly, unperturbed, likely guessing what my response was going to be anyways. Alice was adamant that this was what needed to happen, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t unaffected by what I might say.
With a shake of my head I said, “Fine, you can go, but don’t get caught. Stauss is going with Timothy to find this Gerry person so we can see about getting some assistance in getting to the Obelisk. So there won’t be help if there’s trouble, understood?” I asked, turning to them to make sure they were aware. They nodded, thought he relief on them was evident, and I noted that apparently Richard hadn’t exactly predicted my response, because he showed the briefest flicker of surprise on his face and then relief as well.
Not sure how I felt about that…
“But,” I pointedly directed to Alice and Richard, “This doesn’t happen again. If you feel the need to do something while we’re on a mission, you come talk to me first. We’ll talk more about this later, but for now, we’re on a time-table.”
I specifically didn’t mention how I felt wounded that they wouldn’t talk to me about this first. That would have to come later. They seemed to catch the gist of that, though, guilty expressions crawling across their faces.
“What will you be doing?” Richard decided to refocus the conversation. “Since Strauss is going to Gerry and we’re going on our own?” There was an unspoken question of whether I would be going with them, I think.
“I’ll be moving with the Determinators, we have to find a hive and get a core.” I stated, feeling less than a hundred percent confident in the maneuver, but there were few options.
The uncertain glance they shared said enough as to what they thought of the plan.
“We’ll meet up afterwards,” I stated, not interested in debating the finer points of the plan. There wasn’t much time before Sunvilla would potentially be arrayed against us like a hornets nest. We needed to be well underway before that happened.
And if that meant that I’d be going into a hive with only Determinators as support, then that’s exactly what I’d do.
‘If these were Gen 2 biotics, this might be too much. But, this shouldn’t be that hard at all.’ I thought to myself, before immediately mentally chiding myself for jinxing it.