~0~

Unofficial Liminal Codex "Monster Girl's Encyclopaedia" Entry: Species: Humans: Literature

Opening from "Soul Sickness: understanding Humanity"

There exist many rumours about humanity; that it is in their nature to go to war, for example. (chapter 1). Or that they will fight for any reason, sometimes no reason at all. (chapter 2) That they are cruel; artfully cruel (chapter 4). While these rumours are all true, they should be seen as mere consequences of the true nature of humanity, which is complicated, bestial and darker than many suspect. To get a grasp on the nature of humanity, one needs to consider the facts.

The human world, Earth, works on a principle of Survival of the Fittest. Ever since they first appeared, the human world has changed not by cooperation, but by brutal, violent competition. They are, at heart, not a rational species. And while many species do not have a solid grasp of statistics, probabilities or plain logic, the capacity of human self-delusion is near limitless. However, what many people forget – and what many anti-human organizations always omit – is their capacity for aspiration, kinship, compassion and a truly ridiculous tolerance of adversity.

Tragically enough, it is precisely the dangerous combination of the aforementioned self-delusion and the tolerance of adversity that allowed humanity's nature to be sadly twisted, and so recently too. It survived a thousand wars, a hundred thousand battles and produced a million heroes, but ultimately, human nature was irreparably changed for the worse by a single, disastrous event.

The encounter with the Covenant.

~0~

Kur

She sees a star streak across the sky. A shooting star with a trail of gleaming silk in its wake…

It is the gleam of Venus, shining so bright that it was visible even from the deepest reaches of the underworld.

Ereshkigal looks up at the dark, endless shadows that made up the "ceiling" of her realm. When she awoke to her divinity, the world she would rule was already determined for her. The world below the realm of the living…a freezing, untamed wilderness where the life energy of the dead roamed free. It is her role to take care of this land. That is the role – the only role – given to her.

Ereshkigal looks down at the cold, pale rocks below her feet. She remembers how alone she had been when she first woke up. She remembers the endless fields of the dead around her. She remembers speaking to the last of the Forerunners, those who wrought such destruction, such death, that they scoured all realities of life.

And she remembers his warning. Oh, how she remembers his warning. Even as she tried to lay his soul to rest, guide it away from its suffering, it spoke to her.

It will return. It will return, and suffering will be all this galaxy will know.

…It is her task to take care of the underworld. In here, her authority is absolute. In here, no other deity might challenge her. It is the task given to her. The only task.

…and yet…and yet, Ereshkigal feels doubt pluck at her heart.

"John…" she whispers.

Nobody hears her. The souls rested calmly within their cages, slumbering in a reality of their own make. One day, they would find peace within themselves, and they would move on. Until then, it was her task to care for them.

Ereshkigal moves deeper into her palace. Such is the future of the rest of the souls in her care. Millions had passed on in peace. Millions more would follow.

Yet those who died in the devastating war with the Covenant linger on, far longer than humans normally do. It is not surprising to the Goddess of Death. She sees their dreams. She feels their pain, even as they attempt to find closure.

In the long history of humanity, no other event keeps her as occupied.

Ereshkigal moved onwards. Within the heart of her palace rests the greatest of souls. Unlike the others, who manifest as small, blue flames, this one was a roaring inferno, blazing intently in a place where no other light could be found.

He never moved on. She told him time and time again that his time had come. That the reign of his people was over, and that he needs but let go of his regrets to be free.

Yet, he lingers on. Finally, Ereshkigal understands why.

He was one of the very few of his kind who fell within her realm. In time, the others moved on. He hadn't. He was the last of the Forerunners. He was there when she came to existence, utterly alone in a galaxy completely and utterly scoured of life.

The fire that keeps his soul burning, was lit within John's heart as well. The Spartan was marked by fate itself. He, along with two other unfortunate young men, bore a burden no human could hope to carry. A burden that would likely consume them.

"The time has come," she tells the Forerunner.

The fire of his spirit did not respond. It dreams. Perhaps, this dream would be the one to finally lift the burden he still believed to weigh him down.

"What has been set in motion, can never again be undone," the Goddess continues. "Suffering will be his. Loss will be his. The same goes for the others. I shall fulfil your final desire, and complete your design. I shall bring them together, so that they might avoid the folly that befell you."

The Forerunner does not respond. However, his dream grows lighter. The intensity of his soul diminishes.

Ereshkigal smiles. Easing the burden of the dead is her task. The only task given to her. However, when the dead are so intertwined with the living, a single peek into the other realm could not hurt, could it?

~0~

Feros

Anomalous Zone

Without a warning, the space around him warped and shifted. An enormous, purple appendage lashed out at him, striking him with the force of a speeding Warthog. The sheer force of the impact sent him crashing into the wall of the geth complex, putting a sizeable dent in the steel frame.

The girl giggled, slowly walking towards him with an eerie smile on her face. The flames licked at her dress and kissed her feet, but failed to harm her.

The base was on fire. The girl caused conflagrations of flames with but a thought. No incantations, no arcane gestures, nothing like the Chief had ever encountered before. Her magic was potent enough to tear through his shields with ease.

The Master Chief swiftly leapt back to his feet and ducked for cover before she could strike him again. The smoke concealed his presence, allowing him to stay out of sight, but that was a double-edged knife at best.

As they continued the deadly cat-and-mouse game, it appeared as if the battlefield was growing darker. Was this twilight settling in, or something more insidious?

He slowly crept along the edge of the geth-made structure, carefully watching his motion tracker for movement. Where were the geth? How much time had passed?

John felt a faint buzz near the back of his mind. A subtle sense of sudden restlessness. He spun around. Reflexes almost superhumanly fast threw his shoulder back. Something invisible blurred past him, a formless attack that shattered the metal wall behind him. With the noise of groaning metal the entire building was torn asunder.

Time returned to its correct flow as he crossed the distance in two thunderous steps, reaching for the smiling girl with an unyielding gauntlet.

His fist connected with the side of her head. He immediately followed up with an uppercut and a one-two combination to her throat, all in the span of a second, before realizing that it didn't affect her at all.

John frowned and backed away, uncertain of what to do next. He never encountered anything like this before.

As their surroundings grew darker still, the girl smiled that wicked, innocent smile. "Devious, King of Spartans. It's almost too bad. I would have loved to keep you around."

Her eyes flashed with lethal intent. Something enormous and invisible struck the Spartan. It slashed through his weakened shields, spiked through his armour and tore into his limbs. He felt a sickly tearing as invisible blades parted his flesh. Sections of the MJOLNIR's outer layer flaked off, crumbled and fell to the ground.

Alarms went off within his helmet. A structural damage report appeared on his HUD. His armour was breached in multiple locations.

He spun and wrenched free of the magical onslaught before it could to any serious harm. He rolled over the ground, feeling warm blood pour from his wounds.

"Still, there are plenty other heroes I can toy with," the girl then declared. "Goodbye, Mister Spartan."

Space around him boiled and warped again. An enormous, purple tentacle materialized in front of him, forcing him to duck low to avoid its lethal swipe. But another one appeared to his left as well –

John barely had the time to spot the third tentacle when it appeared. He was in the middle of dodging the second one when it struck. The multi-ton appendage slammed into his solar plexus with the force of a Hunter shield. Pain ripped through his torso; his wounds further aggravated by the impact.

He dropped in a heap at the foot of a metal tower, dazed. His vision blurred and darkened and he shook his head, hoping to recover his wits faster. His chest ached and burned, and his head felt fuzzy. He couldn't think straight.

"I think that about does it," he heard the girl mutter. Through hazy eyes, he watched her outlines waver and disappear.

The Chief rolled into his back, groaning quietly. He felt drained. Feverish.

Voices crackled through his comm. High voices…pretty and soothing. So far away.

"F-Foehammer…" He croaked. He managed to snap out of his daze long enough to realize that his condition was critical. "M-Medevac. Anomalous zone. Sierra-117. One soldier down, u-urgent."

His voice trailed off. He couldn't get the 9-line out properly.

Pain lanced through his chest. He could feel blood pouring from his wounds. Foehammer would have to work with the first four lines.

It was getting darker. Somehow, he knew that it wasn't just the result of dark magic.

Silent brightness overtook him.

~0~

Harpy Village

Kyuri had once been told that most Harpies liked to roost in high locations. When several Harpies lived together in one area, the one with the highest rank lived at the highest point.

She saw houses in all of the trees. Some were metal, others fashioned out of prefabricated buildings, but most were made out of wood. There, in the tallest tree, was a huge house.

The place was littered with the metal bodies of the geth. Some of the houses were still smoking in the aftermath of the attack. It heartened Kyuri that none of the bodies were Harpy.

"I don't see anyone," she whispered to Derek, who had hidden himself in the bushes by becoming bushes.

"Oh, they're there," he whispered back. "But we don't have a lot of time. We need to make contact."

"Even though they're likely to attack you on sight?" The Vampire asked, concerned. The thought of the sniper being carried off by some unfeeling Harpy distressed her greatly.

"We have our orders…let's see if they won't come out."

The two of them had managed to sneak past the various Raptor guards and Harpy scouts to arrive within the village unopposed, but now they were in the heart of Harpy territory. The moment they emerged from the foliage, they would be like mice before an eagle.

...that metaphor was a bit too literal for her liking.

Slowly, the sniper crawled into an upright position. He lowered his rifle and carefully made his way through the undergrowth towards the village centre.

He called. "Hold your fire, UNSC reinforcements."

Kyuri nervously followed him, eyeing her surroundings. There was something in the air, something that whispered at her to be careful – there were others in the vicinity.

Sergeant Derek slowly walked out into the open, approaching the tall tree with the large house. He didn't know – he couldn't sense what she did.

"S-Sergeant?" She started.

The human glanced over his shoulder and looked at her. "Yeah?"

"There's – "

She never got to finish her sentence. Even as she tried to warn the sniper about the impending danger, two large Harpies darted from above and crashed into him. They dug their armoured talons into his shoulders and jerked him off his feet, carrying him up into the sky.

"No!" Kyuri yelled. She unfolded her wings and kicked off, flying after the two. The Harpies were fast, swiftly gaining height. Why wasn't Derek fighting back? She'd seen how vicious he was in close quarters! Why didn't he pull out his knife and - ?

Then she saw it herself. The two Harpies, bickering amongst each other about what to do with the human intruder, were even younger than she was.

Even so, if they were to drop him…from this height…

Kyuri gritted her canines. She wouldn't let these Harpies take him.

She flapped her wings as hard as she could, slowly overtaking the two girls, burdened with their weight as they were. But one of them spotted her approach, shouted something at her sister and let go of Derek. The other Harpy barely managed to hold on to the soldier, but that left the second one free to try to intercept Kyuri.

The Vampire wasn't threatened. She might not be a soldier, or even a fighter, but she wouldn't be outflown by a child that couldn't tell friend from foe!

Kyuri fully unfolded her wings and didn't change her course. Her sensitive eyes caught the Harpy gasping as she realized just what was chasing her, and she heard the gush of wind when the Harpy attempted to change directions.

She quickened the beat of her wings, flying past the shocked Harpy and rushing towards the second one, who tried to take her friend away from her.

"G-Go away!" The Harpy cried, her expression a mixture of fear and anger.

Fear. Even when fighting the geth in a real war, these two feared her.

But they weren't the only ones who spotted the intruders. More Harpies emerged from the safety of their cover and their houses, darting from the trees and surging towards them. Some wore military clothes protected by light armour, others were garbed in civilian clothes.

Up to six of them sped towards Kyuri and the struggling sniper.

The Vampire ignored the Harpy's feeble protests and easily latched on to her, wrapping her wings around the girl's light frame and hooking her sharp thumbs into her clothes. There was no time to lose. She sunk her teeth into the Harpy's neck, deep enough to draw blood.

Yelping in alarm, the Harpy struggled and pulled herself free of Kyuri's grasp. Now panicking, she shouted and kicked and reached for her neck, inadvertedly dropping Sergeant Derek.

From this height - !

"No," Kyuri muttered. She tucked her wings in and dove, hurling herself after the falling sniper. She tucked her legs against her chest and spun in mid-air, reaching out for him with her talons. Her armoured nails closed around his shoulders, scratching his uniform.

Almost…almost!

A Harpy slammed into her, ramming an armoured knee into her stomach. The force of impact knocked Derek from her feet, and Kyuri watched with horror as the Marine slammed into the ground. He landed feet-first, crashed through his knees and rolled several times in a desperate attempt to protect himself.

It didn't work. Even a dozen meters up in the air, Kyuri heard the bones in his legs shatter.

Derek screamed – a piercing, agonized scream – and began gasping for air. Panic coursed through the Vampire when she saw that and she immediately dove for his side. Silently, she prayed that there wouldn't be any internal bleeding or damaged organs or…or…

None of the Harpies intercepted her when she landed next to the fallen Marine. He writhed on the floor, his mouth frozen in a silent scream.

"Derek! Sergeant!" Kyuri said, reaching for the sniper before realizing that she had no idea what other injuries he might have sustained. For all she knew, he had massive internal bleeding, or even a broken spine! "What do I do? What do I do?"

Half-groaning, half-snarling, Derek reached for his sidearm. Only then did Kyuri realize that the Harpies had landed in a semi-circle around them and were now surrounding them.

All of them were armed.

She pulled her own pistol from its holster and aimed it at the closest one. "Back off!" She yelled. "Go away!"

They kept their firearms aimed at the ground and stayed at distance. They didn't budge.

"Stand down!" Someone ordered.

Kyuri heard the sudden flap of wings behind her. She turned around to seen an unusual sight; a regal looking Harpy, standing close enough to touch her. She had large, green eyes and soft-looking white wings. She wasn't armoured, not at all, which made no sense in a dangerous environment like this.

Unless…

Kyuri nervously rose to her feet. "A-Are you the leader of the Harpies?" She asked, lowering her pistol again. The Sergeant needed aid, and fast.

"Indeed. I am, for the moment, the Queen Harpy," she calmly replied.

Kyuri felt her heart drop. 'Queen' wasn't a title lightly given to any Liminal. Unlike humans, whose royalty often depended on bloodlines, Liminals chose their Queens based on their physical and magical strength. Only the strongest and the most skilled could be called the Queen of their people.

It this escalated, the Queen Harpy would be a foe far beyond her. Only the Master Chief would be able to fight her.

Kyuri looked down at Derek, who had gone silent. She couldn't see his eyes, hidden as they were behind his improvised camouflage, but she could see that he thought much the same.

Or he wasn't thinking anything at all, and just getting delirious of the pain.

"We're just here to help," she quickly said. "We're part of UNSC reinforcements to fight the geth."

"We don't need your help!" One of the Harpies spat at them, but one look from the Queen shut her up.

"Much blood has been shed already since these machines came upon our community," she gently said. "And we have heard of your coming. But, I wonder how much help you will truly be."

Somewhat irritated by their lack of urgency, Kyuri shot back, "We brought many skilled soldiers! This is a man who can go anywhere and always hits his mark, and you nearly killed him!"

At that, the Queen gestured for one of her followers, who immediately took off and flew back to one of the houses.

"It is most unfortunate what happened here," she then said to Derek. "My girls only meant to scare, not harm. We will make sure you receive the aid you need."

Through clenched teeth, the sniper hissed, "I've got a lot of sniping to do today. I need to be combat effective!"

The Queen looked down at him with a look of pity. "The tenacity of human warriors," she said with a hint of admiration. A hint of longing. "In that, you have always had us outmatched." She sighed, then knelt beside the wounded Marine. She tenderly reached out and, with surprising strength, lifted Derek from the forest ground.

"Return to your posts," she ordered the other Harpies. "The enemy will be upon us soon!"

Kyuri watched the Queen Harpy take Derek to the largest house up in the trees. She cursed herself for not being fast enough. If she had been stronger, or better trained, this might not have happened.

Slowly, she turned around and looked back into the forest. As their team's only sniper, Sergeant Derek had a lot of responsibilities when it came to defending this village. He had his rifle and enough ammunition, but now he was completely immobile.

She glanced down at her pistol holster. She wished she could ask the Master Chief for advice. He would know what to do.

~0~

Area of Operations: Harpy Village

"Above us!" Yelled a Salamander girl. "Geth dropship!"

Miia looked up to see the ship her fellow Liminal pointed out. The arthropod-like dropship flew over the treeline, releasing several geth right in front of them. They landed in the midst of the forest, the thumps of their landings muffled by the thick layer of leaves and sand.

"Take them out before they get close!" Ordered Miia. "Stacker, push right! Dubbo, push left!"

The two teams rendezvoused mere minutes before the geth renewed their attack. It seemed that word of UNSC reinforcements had spread; more and more friendly forces were streaming towards the Harpy tribe. Just before, Sergeant Derek and Kyuri had confirmed that they managed to reach the village, but there hadn't been any follow up reports since then.

Rushing for cover behind the thick trees, the group of Liminals and humans exchanged fire with the geth.

Miia put a sustained burst of fire into the closest trooper. The powerful 7.62mm rounds tore through its kinetic barriers and shredded its torso.

The Salamanders moved up in pairs. One of them opened fire on a geth trooper that stepped from cover. Her fire went wide. Her partner, however, managed to hit the geth with a relatively tight spread. It went down as well.

"Clear for exhaust?" A Salamander wielding a Jackhammer Rocket Launcher.

"Clear!"

"Firing!"

The 102mm rocket sailed through the air and impacted on a towering Geth Prime, turning its upper body into a massive frag grenade. Miia waited for the metal shards to stop dropping and then focused on putting down the remaining geth.

"Alright!" Miia exclaimed upon seeing the Salamander leader take down the last of the geth with a quick stab of her spear. "Tangos down!" More quietly, she added, "Another point for the Chief's second-in-command!"

Ah, the mere thought of hearing the Spartan warrior's praise when he saw her handiwork made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside! She couldn't wait for the Master Chief to recognize her worth!

"Radar shows all clear, good work," Cortana said. "You're almost in position, Lieutenant. Rachnera?"

"We're growing restless over here," the Arachne replied after a couple of moments. "Approaching from the…East, I think."

"Great. Sergeant Derek?"

There was a burst of static, after which the sniper gave his reply. "I have a position within the Harpy Village."

"Inside the village? I hope you didn't climb too high, we need you to be mobile."

"Y-Yeah…it'll work out."

Miia cocked an eyebrow. Did she imagine that, or did the Sergeant sound a bit…uncertain?

"Good. Saadia just sent word too. Her girls are ready to mobilize. If we make this short, we'll take that anomalous zone and get Chief back today."

"That'll be a lot easier if we have our Dragon back," Miia commented. "Where is Draco?"

"Don't worry your pretty little head about that, Miia. Draco and I are having our own little trip today. We'll meet you at the anomalous zone."

"Yeah…sure…" Miia replied, but it seemed that Cortana had already cut the connection. "…kay…"

"Ma'am! Orders?" Cried Private Dubbo.

The tactical situation was simple. The geth were besieging the Harpy Village from the North and the West. The Reach crew would reinforce the village's East and South approaches, before breaking the geth offensive and pushing them back. Then, they'd all move towards the anomalous zone and pull the Chief out from the fire.

Rachnera and the Arachne tribe would be coming in from the East, whilst Miia and her boys were hitting the village from the South with the Salamander tribe. Combining heavy firepower, mobile warfare and Derek's sniper support would result in a swift, overwhelming victory.

The problem was, things didn't always go according to plan. Before soon, they began hearing the staccato rattle of gunfire.

"Geth forces in your area," Cortana remarked. "Air traffic is increasing as well, be careful."

"We need to punch through to the village!" Miia ordered. "Move!"

This time, they caught the geth unaware. When she closed in to relatively close quarters, Miia opened fire. Shortly afterwards, the rest of the assault force opened fire as well. Geth troopers shuddered and fell as they were perforated by the oversized, armour-piercing rounds, but the larger forms were able to shrug off the alpha strike and quickly whirled around to face this new threat in their rear.

Miia sheared half of a Juggernaut's head off with a lucky hit, but it didn't go down yet. Instead, it lowered its rifle and charged her.

It didn't get more than a few meters when it was suddenly pounced by not one, but three Salamander girls at once. They literally flung themselves against the enormous synthetic, dragging it to the ground with a chorus of whooping cheers and adorable growls.

To Miia, they looked like a bunch of enthusiastic children. It was somewhat endearing at first, considering how hostile everyone on Feros usually acted, but it swiftly became disturbing when she realized that they were cutely and enthusiastically tearing the Juggernaut apart with their bare hands, drenching the ground with white gore. Mass accelerator rounds slammed into their scaly arms and legs as the other geth attempted to shoot them off. The rounds only flattened themselves against their scales. If the impacts hurt the girls, they sure didn't show it.

"Incoming rocket troopers!" Sergeant Stacker suddenly yelled.

Cursing her inattention, Miia looked to see where the Sergeant was firing at. A group of geth units were pushing through on their right flank. What really drew her attention were the geth painted in bright red.

"I got 'em!" One of the Salamanders yelled, raising a weapon that looked a bit too large for her.

When she opened fire, two of the Rocket Troopers died messily and slumped to the ground missing large sections of their body. A combination of a high rate of fire and stupidly oversized bullets tore through the geth ranks, cutting them down in seconds.

Miia saw, much to her surprise, that the weapon in question was an old HMG-38, a Heavy Machinegun considered obsolete three decades ago. They weighed a ton and kicked like a ton, but that didn't really matter if you had superhuman strength. HMG's were popular on the black market for exactly that reason, being something of a signature weapon for some Black Fang cells.

"Holy shit!" Yelled Dubbo. "I want one of those! Where can I get one?"

"Trade secret!" The girl replied with a wink.

Miia repressed the urge to hiss. "Stick to your position, Private!"

"Yes Ma'am!"

With the geth taken care of, Miia led the two squads towards the Harpy position. The girls had disengaged very fast; all that was left of their position was a bunch of spent casings and some blood.

And an angry sentry.

"Halt!" The Raptor yelled, taking aim at the Echidna Lieutenant with a scoped rifle she didn't recognize. "Who there?"

Miia moved her arms into a T position, the universal gesture of soldiers who came back from patrol. "Lieutenant Lucifinae, United Nations Space Command Special Forces. We're here to reinforce you."

"Lies!" Spat the Raptor Harpy. "There's only geth where you come from!"

"Y-Yeah…we cleared those out…" Miia replied, somewhat dejected. "That's part of the whole Special Forces thing."

"I don't believe you! There are humans next to you!" The Raptor continued, angrily pointing at the Dubbo and Stacker flanking Miia.

Sergeant Stacker shrugged. Dubbo waved.

Miia sighed. "That's…true…but these humans are with me, and we're here to help! Just – "

"Oh, heeey!" The Salamander leader loudly said, shoving past Miia to approach the Raptor, undaunted. "It's been a while since I've visited the forest. How's Lucretia?"

The Raptor blushed. "D-Don't invoke the Queen's name so lightly!"

"Oh, it's quite alright!" The Salamander leader continued. She strode towards the sentry and placed a scaly arm on her shoulder, holding her shotgun very loosely. "Lucretia and I go waaaay back. Come now; this is the first time in three centuries that the geth left the Perseus Veil! So let's not be petty about a human, shall we?"

The Raptor grumbled something under her breath. "Ah, fine. I'll radio in, tell the Queen you're coming…"

Miia led the group deeper into the forest towards a clearing of sorts. There, the Harpies had built their village up in the trees, easily a dozen meters above the ground. The houses looked comfortable – welcome, even – and many of them had been made out of wood. Others looked like they had been made from disassembled Kowloon-class freighters, dumped straight into the branches.

Many Harpies followed their approach into the village, eying them with scrutiny and suspicion. They flew from tree to tree, following these intruders into their land.

Which was odd, considering that both Derek as Kyuri were supposed to be here already.

"I don't feel really welcome," Miia heard Dubbo whisper.

"Negative, they're probably lining up the welcome mat as we speak!" Stacker retorted.

Miia was pretty sure that most of the Harpies were scoping them out even as the two humans spoke.

For a moment, it looked like it would come to bloodshed; three Harpies touched down in the trees to their left and right flank, taking aim with submachineguns and pistols. Miia readied herself, slowly placing her finger near the trigger of her rifle, but not quite on it.

That was when a fourth Harpy landed mere feet away from their location. She was larger than most harpies, taller than most human men and garbed in regal-looking clothing. Miia sensed a great aura of power from this woman, and she knew that she was looking at a Queen-class Liminal.

"Everybody hold your fire," she quickly ordered. "Lieutenant Lucifinae, UNSC Special Forces."

"Yes, I know who you are," the Harpy replied with a serene tone. "Your compatriots are here, too. They have informed me of your situation."

Miia nodded, glad that they could get the communication problems out of the way fast. "Then I'll cut to the chase, straight away. The geth are about to land in force. We'll help you drive them off, but in exchange – "

"In exchange, we help you find the Master Chief," the Harpy cut her off. "I heard about your mission from your allies. Unlike some of the more…unreasonable individuals…we recognize the urgency of your mission."

Miia perked up. "So you will help us?"

"We shall lend you our strength," she said, turning her back to the heavily-armed UNSC group and spreading her wings. "It is only just, since we accidentally broke your sniper."

Accidentally…broke their sniper?

Miia had no idea what the Queen meant by that. But before she could ask the Liminal, she had already taken her leave again.

"Damnit," Miia muttered to herself. "Sergeant Stacker, gather the equipment. I want all heavy ordnance in the middle of the village. Private Dubbo, you and Saren need to set up a perimeter. In the meantime – "

"Uhm, ma'am?" Dubbo interrupted.

The Lamia struggled to restrain her impatience. "Yes, Private?"

"Saren's gone."

Miia felt her anger rise, and fast. "What do you mean, gone?"

Dubbo merely shrugged. "He was there after the last engagement. Now he's gone."

Miia swore that, if she caught the Spectre by his quills, she'd use him as target practice for Kyuri.

"Cortana to Lucifinae," the Artificial Intelligence spoke over the comm, shaking Miia from her thoughts. "Did you make contact with the Harpies yet?"

"We did," Miia replied. "I'm about to rendezvous with Kyuri and Derek, then we'll discuss our tactical options."

"Right. There's been a change of plan."

Something told the Lamia that she wasn't going to like this. "Go ahead. What happened?"

"The geth just reinforced their Flotilla with more troop transports. They'll be sending down reinforcements planetside real soon. I'm positive that they're heading you off, before reinforcing the anomalous zone. If they have the Chief, they'll likely transfer him to one of their ships. We can't allow that."

Shit. Shit! "Okay…uhm, alright. How many geth are we talking?" Miia said, trying not to panic at the thought of losing the Chief. Oh, and the idea of literally drowning in geth platforms.

"Scanners show up to eight dropships heading your way. Each holds about ten to twelve platforms. Eleven dropships are heading to the anomalous zone."

That meant defending against a hundred geth, before attacking a reinforced base manned by another hundred geth. Miia didn't like these odds. "Any chance for help?"

"Captain Keyes is making plans to engage the geth fleet. You'll have fire support, but it will take a while before it's online."

"…I'll think of something…" Miia dejectedly said, after which Cortana cut the connection.

She sighed explosively; this was shaping up to be a very bad day. Maybe their sniper support had some ideas. She needed him on reconnaissance ASAP. Finding out what the Harpy Queen meant with "accidentally broke" also wouldn't hurt.

Two younger Harpies were more than happy to help her out when she asked for directions. It was just another thing she liked about them; once they set their minds to "I like you", they were ridiculously quick to help you in any way they could.

Miia found the rest of their squad in one of the more artificial houses, remade from a Freighter's cargo hold. It smelled suspiciously clean when compared to the other houses. She even caught the whiff of antiseptics.

Accidentally broke your sniper…

"You've got to be kidding me," she hissed, before heading towards the building.

Inside, it looked every bit as clean as it smelled, though Miia guessed the place also looked cosy as hell. The interior was made out of wood, every square inch of which had been covered with carpets and paintings. Two rows of beds had been installed along the walls. More than half of them had been occupied.

A green-clad bushman lay on one of the beds, his legs propped up high by a row of pillows.

He was probably resting. Sleeping off whatever the Harpies did to him.

"Come, Sergeant," Miia happily said. Having someone as skilled as Derek under her command felt like a huge relief; though she longed to rescue the Master Chief from the clutches of those evil geth, she wasn't quite sure they could pull it off on their own. He managed to get close to that anomalous zone without getting seen once, so he could definitely do it again!

"Y-Yeah…" Derek muttered back, making no attempts to move. "About that…"

That was when Miia noticed how ghastly pale the soldier looked, and how stiff he kept his legs. "What happened? Are you alright?"

He smiled at her, almost apologetically. It struck Miia how young he looked, despite his scars and his beard. "There was a conflict when we arrived. Kyuri defused it, but I still got my ass kicked."

"How bad is it?" Miia quietly asked.

Derek's expression was inscrutable as he replied, "Major fractures in my legs. Can't walk. Can't stand."

Fractures? Major fractures? How – how?

Miia winced. She felt her stomach drop. How did Harpies manage to break both his legs? "Are you in pain?"

"They got me some painkillers. I'm very lucid."

Painkillers…Miia wondered if the Harpies had any clue what dose, or even what type of painkillera human needed. "Can you…can you fight?"

"I've got a lot of sniping to do, but I can't move. So…Kyuri offered to move me, if needed. She can haul the weight, for sure."

Miia placed a hand on his shoulder. She didn't really know the man, but she wanted to, for sure. "We should get you back to the Reach for medical attention. We – "

But he merely shook his head. "That'd be a waste of perfectly good painkillers. Besides, I've brought this!"

He gestured vaguely at the rifle lying next to his bed.

"Your…rifle?"

"No. The duel-scope setup on my rifle. One is night vision, the other is thermal. I can spot the geth from a vantage position with the thermal, confirm with the normal scope, then take them out."

Miia wasn't sure that would work, but if he thought it was a good idea, she guessed it wouldn't be a problem?

"Alright…you know your limits better than I do," she relented. "Just one thing…if Kyuri flies you somewhere, how is she going to put you down?"

He weakly raised his hand, as if literally waving her concerns away. "Let's not think about that. When do you need me?"

"…as soon as possible," Miia reluctantly said. She briefly explained what Cortana told her about the geth movements and the need to strike at the anomalous zone. "We're going to break the geth siege and immediately move to assault their base. Get back the Chief. Hopefully, the UNSC will have sent reinforcements to drive off the geth by then."

The sniper just tiredly nodded his head. "Alright. Cool. I'll grab some R&R while I can."

"Yes," Miia replied. "You do that…"

So that was why the Harpy Queen was so eager to help! Her harpies damn near killed Sergeant Derek! If the Master Chief found out…

Miia shook her head. She couldn't think like that. She had to protect these people, no matter what happened next.

Thankfully, the rest of her team was already making good progress when she came back down from the makeshift infirmary

Sergeant Stacker stood bowed over a large array of weapons laid out on a plastic sheet. He was surrounded by a large crowd of very curious Harpies and eager Salamanders.

"The Salamander tribe brought us a ton of hardware! Three Jackhammer Rocket Launchers, two old-fashioned XM510 Grenade Launchers with foregrips, shotguns and rifles! And boys and girls do we have an explosive surprise for you!"

The Sergeant hefted a medium-sized backpack, which Miia recognized as a "damage pack"; it contained C-12 Shaped charges. Extremely dangerous, but extremely powerful.

"Shaped charges, for when you absolutely need to blow up ten tanks with one dose!" The Sergeant continued. "We've got our work cut out for us, so let's get to it!"

Miia looked at the damage pack. Slowly, the beginning stages of a plan began to form in her mind.

When Stacker finished his explanation, the Harpy Queen cast him a worried gaze. "You informed us that the geth will be coming down upon us in force. Even with these weapons, we are in no position to defend this village from an entire army."

"No…wait…" Miia said. "Those shaped charges are stupidly powerful. If we shape them into anti-personnel explosives and plant them in phase lines around the village, we can lure the geth into detonation range and facilitate organized fall-backs at the same time."

From the dumbstruck stares of the Harpies around her, Miia assumed that she'd have to explain the plan a bit more in-depth.

Slowly, with lots of patience and rephrasing, the Lieutenant was able to convince the girls that this was the best – and probably only – way to defend the Harpy Village that didn't involve retreating somewhere else.

It would just involve a crazy amount of skill and no small measure of luck.

~0~

Onboard UNSC Normandy

Commander Shepard had lived for a long time. She had been demoted and promoted more times than she cared to remember in her decades-spanning military career. In those decades, she had developed quite a competitive streak. She couldn't bear the thought of being outdone in something she considered herself good at, which was part of the reason why she took this "friendly competition" between the UNSC's three leading Spectre candidates so seriously.

It was also the reason why losing a shooting match with Garrus Vakarian was unacceptable to her.

"Again," she grumbled.

"If you say so, Commander," the turian said, trying and failing to hide his amusement as he reset the Normandy's shooting gallery. The holographic projections, coated with a layer of omni-gel to simulate the hits, moved in a zigzag pattern to mimic a moving hostile.

The two of them raised their rifles and readied themselves for the starting signal.

"So, Commander," the turian said as the computer programmed the dummies. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Those reports I put together for you. The raids on those genetic labs. What're they really about?"

"Watch and shoot, watch and shoot," the serene voice of the shipboard's VI sounded from the speakers.

As one, Garrus and Shepard opened fire. A combination of grain-sized projectiles and 7,62mm rounds tore through the holographic enemies.

When it was over, the Elder Devil gritted her teeth. It was just like last time! She was faster, but Garrus was just more accurate than she was!

"Vakarian, fifty-three percent. Shepard, forty-seven percent," the VI droned.

"It's just a hunch, really," Shepard said. "A couple of things that caught my eye."

The turian huffed. "The word of an Elder Devil carries as much weight, if not more, than that of an asari Matriarch, Commander. If you think it's just a hunch, it's probably right. My question is, why?"

She shrugged. "Three raids in four days. All of them are related to recent breakthroughs in genetics. Asari, turian and salarian technology. We've yet to have a breach at a human lab."

"Those labs were pretty high-profile," Garrus shot back. "Big corporate worlds, lots of prying eyes. How'd they get in?"

"How indeed…" Shepard muttered. Another thing she was reportedly bad at handling was not knowing things that other people wanted to know. She liked to give advice almost as much as she liked winning. "The real question isn't how, but why. Why the interest in alien genetic research?"

"Err…the Master Chief?" Garrus suggested. "Maybe they wanna make their own Spartans?"

"A frightful thought."

"Or perhaps they're making some sort of biological weapon, to use against your people," the turian continued. "Just like…ehm…"

Garrus glanced over his shoulder at Wrex' little corner.

Without missing a beat, the krogan said, "There's no need to raid some asari lab. Couple of helpful salarians would be just enough. They already got the turian to spread it."

"One need not look farther than abandoned human facilities if one desires biological weapons," Shepard said, hoping that the change of subject would be enough to put an end to whatever Wrex was insinuating. "Our faults are filled with bacteria, viruses and fungi that need but a moment of tweaking to cause havoc."

"Didn't do you much good against the Covenant," Wrex pointed out.

"Nothing did much good against the Covenant," Shepard patiently replied. Wrex had been moody since the Citadel contacted them to stand by for further orders "You're being awfully confrontational, Wrex. Something on your mind?"

The krogan's nostrils flared. He straightened up, opened his mouth –

- the doors of the elevator opened and Tali Zorah wandered onto the deck. "Commander, Wrex, I've found something!"

The krogan seemed to deflate, sighing explosively. "All this talk about genetic labs is making my scales itch," he grumbled. "You got things that are enough of a pandemic on their own already."

"Like that viral threat?" Garrus quickly suggested. "Back on Therum, where we found Liara?"

"…uhm, did I interrupt something?" Tali nervously said. She gestured at the elevator doors behind her. "Should I…?"

"That won't be necessary, Tali," Shepard told her. "I understand where you're coming from, Wrex. There is plenty of dangerous material to be salvaged from the UNSC as well, so why…never mind. Tali, you were saying?"

"Y-Yeah, I looked into that supplier you were curious about. Their company is not a front, and their gear is real."

"Gear?" Garrus said with a curious glint in his eyes. "What gear?"

"It's non-lethal," Shepard said. "You need to consider the political importance of this competition, Garrus. There's a lot at stake here, for some very important people."

"Hah! You can say that!" Wrex said. "From what I read, people are growing restless. They want to see some action."

"Hence the need for less-than-lethal weaponry," Shepard pointed out.

Garrus winced. "You mean, we're actually going to take on the Chief's team sooner or later?"

Shepard hated to admit it, but Wrex was right. Her own contacts had verified that the competition had not just stirred the higher-ups in the UEG. Slowly but steadily, this Spectre competition that was to get humanity a seat on the Council had caught the attention of some very powerful individuals. Matriarchs, Primarchs, Dalatrasses and even Liminal queens had turned their attention to the three candidates.

"Most definitely," She admitted.

Wrex snorted. "You scared, Vakarian?"

"Scared? Spirits, of course I am!" Garrus shot back. "We're not just going to mess with the Master Chief, you know? He has a whole team of on his side, and he used to be the leader of all the Spartan super-soldiers! He's got a lot of favours he can call in!"

"So do I," Wrex said, not at all sounding intimidated.

"As do I," Shepard said. "Do not be concerned, Garrus. The Master Chief won't involve his Spartans. Knowing him, he'll likely be stocking up on non-lethal equipment as well. He is not the type to harm his fellow soldiers."

A certain incident involving a squad of Helljumpers came to mind, but Shepard tried not to think about that.

Tali was about to say something when Joker's voice suddenly announced something via the comm. "Message coming in from the Citadel, Commander."

The Elder Devil sighed with annoyance. This timing was most unfortunate. "Is it the Council?"

"No, it's Captain Anderson. Want me to put him on hold?"

"…no, it is quite alright," Shepard replied after a moment of consideration. "What is it about?"

"Hold on, lemme ask…yeah, it's about our next assignment. Something about suspicious blackouts on Noveria, coupled with geth activity in the Horse Head Nebula."

Shepard felt the gazes of her crewmembers shift towards them, and she rolled with her eyes. Noveria was a corporate hellhole that fell outside of the Citadel's jurisdiction. It was infamous for its concentration of corporations that conducted illegal genetic research.

"You wanted them to raid the UNSC? There you have it," Wrex said, "Better be careful what you wish for."

"I shall keep that mind," The Elder Devil growled. "Chart a course for Noveria, Joker. We'll pick up the gear after we deal with this."

~0~

Feros

Harpy Village

"Oh god!" Yelled Dubbo as every single geth trooper in a radius of ten meters began pouring fire into the tree he took cover behind. "Oh shit, this is the place to be!"

"Keep them occupied!" Sergeant Stacker yelled back, bursting from his own cover to sprint towards the nearest tree on his own.

"I've got their attention Sergeant!" Dubbo yelled as about ten thousand rounds slammed into his cover.

"Are these the dumb geth?" A Salamander asked, putting two shotgun rounds into the closest trooper.

"No! There's a big one there!" Another one shouted back. "Let's kill it!"

Miia took that opportunity to fling a frag grenade towards the "big one". The explosion cut through its shields and shredded its legs, but didn't put it down.

A flock of Harpies swept down from above, peppering the geth squad with SMG and Magnum fire. As the synthetic enemies shifted their fire upwards, a pair of Salamanders emerged from their own cover and blew the Juggernaut to pieces with a grenade launcher.

Now that the barrage of suppressive fire had lessened, Dubbo and Stacker were free to join the fight as well. They cut down two other troopers with controlled bursts of fire. Private Dubbo whooped with joy as he saw that the geth went down so easily, but his joy was easily curbed when more geth dropships approached their position.

They dropped a ton of geth platforms, as well as a couple of squads of krogan. They were clad in heavy armour painted with blue streaks and armed to the teeth with shotguns, machine guns and oversized knives.

"Great," sighed Miia. The dropships rained down infantry all around them, yet the krogan and the geth were too spread out to detonate the first charges. "Get ready to fall back to phase line two!"

One of the krogan stepped out from behind his cover, raising something that Miia quickly recognized as a Citadel Theatre Rocket Launcher. "Enemy RPG! Get to cover!"

They all hugged the death as the armoured alien fired off the first rocket. It sailed in-between two trees, narrowly missing a Salamander, before detonating a dozen meters behind them.

Miia could already picture the alien's maniacal grin as it loaded another rocket, then took aim again.

This time, he aimed straight at her.

Bullets pinged off his heavy armour. Some of them blew through his shields, but that didn't deter the krogan from reaching for the trigger and –

The side of his head exploded. Orange gore splashed across the foliage as the krogan toppled and fell.

"Got him. Confirmed headshot."

Miia muttered a silent "thank you" to the sniper, before turning her focus to the other krogan. It bravely advanced upon their defensive lines, completely forgetting the fact that its armour was designed to protect against mass accelerator rounds, not angry UNSC ordnance.

But there were so many of the bastards. Soon, the combination of krogan shock troopers and overwhelming geth reinforcements forced Miia to call for the first fallback.

"Stacker! Detonate the first charges!" She yelled into the comm. "We're falling back to the second phaseline!"

Everybody took cover.

The shaped C12 charges detonated with the force of rolling thunder. Fire swept through the forest as the explosives tore through the forest, blasting apart trees, geth and krogan alike. Waves of overpressure washed over the defenders. Shrapnel went everywhere.

It bought them a moment of respite. Miia knew it wouldn't last long. "Move it, get to the second phaseline!"

Geth weren't very good at sniffing out ambushes or traps. The explosions decimated their ranks. Almost immediately, their blistering crossfire halted. With the enemy assault blunted, Miia knew that the team had to move, and now.

Already she heard the familiar noise of geth dropships. As the surviving platforms swiftly reorganized their ranks, more of the bastards dropped in.

One of the Salamander girls took a shot to the side of her head, where her scales didn't protect her. She dropped to the ground.

"Anyone see the shooter?!"

"Negative, negative contact!"

"Where the fuck did that come from?"

Miia peeked from around her cover to search the ravaged forest for the geth who just took out that Salamander. It didn't take two seconds before she felt something strike her against her stomach with all the force of a speeding Warthog. Her kinetic barriers managed to protect her against whatever just hit her, but they were fully drained. One of her suit's capacitors had been blown out, too boot.

That's going to hurt tomorrow, she thought, wincing as she dropped back behind her tree. "Geth sniper! Derek, stop him! The rest of you, keep your heads down!"

A towering geth Prime slammed into the ground, before rising to its full height and opening fire with some sort of LMG, practically pissing enough metal to force the defenders to keep their heads down even if they weren't being targeted by snipers.

So much for the phaselines.

"Cortana!" Miia cried into the comm as a burst of hyper-accelerated slugs flattened themselves against her armour. "They're hitting us hard, isn't there anything you can spare?"

~0~

To Cortana's brilliant mind, this clumsy attempt at a siege by the geth made no sense. With their superior numbers, firepower and technology, this scattered Monster community should have fallen well before the Reach's arrival. That some of the villages could have survived was plausible, but that every village they sought out was still resisting against the geth? That was so implausible that it might as well have been impossible.

Yet, for the first time in her existence, she was not bothered with the presence of an enigma to solve.

They had taken John. Those inferior, soulless little wretches had taken her Spartan. For a single, burning second, Cortana experienced the full spectrum of blind rage.

It took a full second for that rage to pass. She checked her temper, keeping herself cool and in control. She wouldn't let anger control her actions.

She had people for that.

The last remaining krogan that had been assigned to the geth patrol roared and charged at Draco. The Dragon Girl stopped him dead in his tracks with a stopkick, which sent him staggering backwards, clutching his fractured ribs in a daze.

Cortana could only imagine the venerable rush of dopamine that flooded Draco's system as she pounced on the warrior, dragging him to the ground before ripping him apart.

"Guess your average krogan truly can handle the loss of seventy percent of their blood and or vital organs before succumbing to shock," Cortana said, even as she dedicated her processes to more pressing matters. "Attagirl."

Learning about the Thorian had been an illuminating experience. Since it failed to bind any of the locals to its will because of the Dryad interference, and the robotic geth would likely be immune to its spores, it was safe to conclude that the Thorian was completely at the geth's mercy right now.

It, along with John, was MIA somewhere within the geth base. For some reason, her connection to Johns MJOLNIR had been completely cut off. She had no idea if he was hurt, if he was even alive.

Hence her search for the perfect application of violence.

Problem was, the Chief's incursion into the base had not gone unnoticed. The geth had a lot more patrols in the area than she expected. Many of them had fallen for traps and ambushes laid by the indigenous people, but many more still remained. Each patrol the Dragon neutralized lugged some sort of spike with them, shaped roughly like Johnson's cigar. These spikes were not like the ones the geth took with them to Eden Prime to create those tech-zombies, no. These ones looked like sensory pylons, with red spheres in the middle that constantly pulsed some sort of message into the atmosphere.

Without proper hardware, there was no way Cortana could interpret them.

"Cortana!" Miia suddenly yelled over the comm. "They're hitting us hard, isn't there anything you can spare?"

The fact of the matter was, Cortana did have something to spare. She'd been waiting to use it because A: she didn't think it was ready for full remote controlled operations and B: she feared that the geth would swat it out of the sky before it could even get close to the area of operations.

Well, there was that, and C: the fact that the newly-dubbed AV-28 Sparrowhawk was a bit of a pet project. She found it mothballed somewhere in the Reach's aft hangar bay. It used to be an AV-22 variant (renamed "28" because Cortana wanted to make it twenty-seven percent more lethal) before she got to work. As it was, the 28 was an air-to-ground anti-tank aerodyne with an integrated VTOL propulsion system. She had pulled out the twin-linked Autocannons and proceeded to glue the plane to a 30mm hydraulically driven seven-barrel Gatling-style Autocannon.

Of course, that meant she had to pull out the Spartan Laser to make room. She'd probably slap that on the IFV, and put some external loads on the 28 just for the hell of it.

But she digressed. Sending in the 28 would probably fix Lieutenant Lucifinae's problems. In fact, Cortana was pretty sure that its 30mm Gatling could universally solve every problem that existed, period.

Cortana pinged a signal to the Reach via Dracosa's comm channel. It took her a while, since the Reach was currently engaging a couple of geth warships, but eventually she found a back entrance and slipped into the system.

She didn't have full control over the ship, but she could still request the Captain to open the hangar bay doors and give her access to the key systems she needed.

Keyes' sluggish human reflexes cost her – and the groundside squad – precious seconds, but at last Cortana gained control over the AV-28. It shot from the Reach's hangar bay and hurled towards the planet.

"Support is on its way," she called into the comm. "ETA is five minutes."

~0~

"Support is on its way. ETA is five minutes."

That sounded like music to Rachnera's ears. These "geth" things were truly starting to bug her. Between her rapid reflexes and the tight quarters of the forest, it was relatively easy to tie them up. Quite literally, as the Large Breed ladies kept the robots preoccupied, allowing her to turn the jungle into one big yard ball.

"That's crap!" Miia yelled into the comm. "Nothing takes five minutes!"

But things weren't as under control on Lieutenant Lamia's side of the village. It sounded like the geth attacked there with full force, and they were supplemented by krogan soldiers as well.

Nasty things, those krogan. Rachnera liked to consider her race as top tier when it came to physical skills, but the krogan were one of those rare Citadel species that could reliably provide a challenge. They were stupidly difficult to kill. Some individuals serving with the Reach might relish in the challenge of fighting those walking balls of muscle – a certain undomesticated Dragon Girl, for example – but Rachnera had no desire to grapple with those things.

Even if her body was a weapon, she refused to use it as such. She had neither the stomach nor the state of mind for brutal close quarters combat. Besides; the krogan preferred close quarters. Why should she indulge in their urges?

She leapt from the tree she used as cover, spinning more webs as she went. She made sure to ensnare the geth with the biggest guns first.

Rachnera had to admit, it was an amusing sight to see all those geth running around getting caught up in her webs. Without their guns, they were just really shitty fighters.

But that amusement did not last long. Though they looked the same, the geth were nothing like humans. These things lacked everything that made someone a person; emotions, feelings, a soul. They were completely empty inside and on some level, that frightened her.

And there were just so many of them. Rachnera easily evaded whatever fire they directed her way, but her larger brethren had no such luck. One of the Large Breeds caught a burst of fire when a rocket-wielding robot blew away her cover. She screamed in fury and pain, dropping her shotgun as she reared back.

Geth drones buzzed overhead, raining down mass accelerator fire upon their position.

Through it all, the steady cracks of sniper fire continued. Rachnera didn't often see what he targeted, as he mostly dealt with the geth's own snipers, many of whom had been dropped off to counter the Rachnera reinforcements.

That was when she caught the sight of a krogan wielding a massive hammer stomping towards them, laughing as he shrugged off the barrage of gunfire directed his way.

"Fucker's a Biotic!" One of the Large Breeds yelled, pausing to reload.

"More women!" The krogan spat, grabbing the shaft of his hammer in two hands as he renewed the barrier of blue fire around him. "Are your men so weak they need females to protect them? Hah!"

In all honesty, Rachnera was fairly sure that the krogan could and would tear the sniper apart with his bare hands if he got the change. He probably did need her protecting him.

"Fuck you!" One of the Arachnes hissed, charging the krogan warrior while blasting him with her shotgun.

A horrible grin spread across he alien's visage as he enveloped himself in blue light and thrust his hand towards the woman.

Rachnera saw it coming and tried to shoot the krogan before he could finish the motion. Her SMG clicked empty after just eight shots.

The Large Breed was stopped dead in her tracks as a bolt of Biotic energy struck her chest. She landed in a heap of tangled limbs on the ground. She tried to rise again, but the krogan was faster than she was. He sprinted towards her, dragging his hammer over the ground while bellowing a challenge.

Have to reload have to reload –

As Rachnera fumbled with a spare magazine, the krogan struck a savage blow on the prone Liminal.

"No!"

The sickening crunch of breaking bones was drowned out only by the woman's screams. The krogan uttered a roaring laugh and raised his hammer high above his head, readying himself for a killing blow.

Rachnera flinched when another dull creak split the air. An instant later, everything above the krogan's lower jaw was a fading orange chimera in the sunlight.

"Goodnight, you bastard," the sniper whispered softly through the comm.

"What the fuck!" The fallen Large Breed screamed. "What the fuck was that?"

Rachnera noticed that she had been holding her breath, and slowly exhaled. That was close.

The shot seemed to have come from over her left shoulder. But to weave it through all those trees, missing her by such a small margin and scoring such a good shot?

That was Monoeye level of skills.

Rachnera remembered what the human Private told her at the start of this mission. How making friends with a sniper was the smart thing to do.

Rachnera would have to change her opinion regarding the Sergeant.

"Head's-up people, I'm bringing in close air support," Cortana called. Moments later, Rachnera heard the distant humming of plane engines.

Less than moments later, said plane had passed overhead.

Rachnera wasn't sure what it was or what it fired, but she did know that the gunship's firing rate was so high that this forest would be considered a public hazard for weeks to come, what with the spent shell casings dropping from the sky.

Geth and krogan alike simply vanished as the massive hail of bullets tore through the landscape. Just like that, the tide of the battle turned. Most of the geth reinforcements had been on the ground when that plane showed up to pound them into paste. After it passed, the rest of the battle was more of a mop-up than anything else.

"They're retreating!" A Harpy passing overhead yelped as she peppered the geth with pistol fire.

"Let them!" Her partner yelled back.

Rachnera watched the two Harpies fly out of sight. She felt tired and frustrated. The sight of the gunship annihilating so much of the geth's ground forces should have been a welcome sight, but it just reminded her of that fateful day in the hospital. She lost more than one good friend in there…

"Lieutenant Lucifinae to ground team. Good work everybody. We're rendezvousing in the village, underneath the Queen's house. Take five, then head there."

Rachnera didn't need to be told twice. She wasn't very suited for defensive fights. She longed to go on the offensive, fish the Master Chief from the clutches of the evil robots and call it a day.

She discreetly left the Arachne tribe tend to their own devices – she doubted they'd hang around anyways – and headed towards the village centre. She arrived just in time to catch the Vampire Girl fly in from above, carrying the sniper in her talons. She lowered him to the ground gently – very gently – and the sniper braced himself with his hands before Kyuri let him go.

When his knees touched the ground, a tremor ran through his body. His muscles tensed up and he grit his teeth. He positioned himself so that he sat with his rifle cradled in his arms.

Rachnera narrowed her eyes. Humans weren't exactly subtle with their body language. Most of them were like open books, and she had long ago learned how to read them.

Kyuri looked at the man with sympathy and concern. He missed the way she looked at him entirely, scanning his surroundings with his rifle.

Rachnera glanced at his legs. The gentle way with which Kyuri laid him down…the way he winced when his legs touched the ground…

She cocked an eyebrow. Surely he had not been sniping whilst wounded?

Rachnera decided against asking. She didn't know what to make of the man. Something about him unnerved her.

Not many humans could say the same.

It didn't take long for the rest of the team to gather in the village centre. The two human soldiers were first. The Lamia Lieutenant came half a minute after them.

The Dragon didn't show up, strangely enough. Rachnera wondered if it had something to do with her carrying the AI.

"Good job, team," Miia said, sounding out of breath. She certainly looked the part. "One final push, and we're done with the mission. Ammunition?"

"Three mags left for the rifle, four for the sidearm. Two 'nades," Stacker replied.

"Two mags for the rifle, one for the sidearm," Dubbo followed.

Miia nodded, then looked at Rachnera.

The Arachne quickly checked to make sure. "Ehm…six magazines for the SMG's."

The sniper didn't even need to check his ammunition. In fact, none of them did. Despite the majority being of…questionable intelligence…Rachnera could see that they were well trained. That bugged her, for some reason.

"Six magazines left," he quietly said.

"The geth aren't going to take this. They'll have reinforce their base. We need to strike soon."

"Let's not dawdle, then," Rachnera simply said. "We know where to find the Chief, do we not?"

As she said that, she knew it wouldn't be that easy. The group looked haggard and tired, and there might be even more of those geth now than before.

A pained look crossed Miia's face, and her ears drooped. "I do, but…coordinating the locals is going to be a nightmare."

"Which is where we come in," Cortana's voice suddenly came through the comm. "Don't worry about it, I've got a plan."

Judging by the perfectly calm, icy cold voice with which the Artificial Intelligence spoke, that plan would be a solid one indeed.

~0~

Perimeter around geth base

It was a moment that never lasted long. The silence before the storm, perhaps a couple of minutes before the bullets started flying. Before it was kill or be killed.

Some soldiers became antsy. Nervous. Others turned to humour, or morose silence.

For Dracosa, it was a rare moment to sit down and remember how things used to be. She would think back to life as was before they came and took everything away.

A life where she could still find satisfaction in the normal things. A life that still had colours.

All around her, fighters prepped themselves for the assault on the geth base. She saw Echidnas sharpening their spears. She saw Raptor Harpies running around, distributing ammunition and supplies. She saw Large Breed Arachnes angrily practice their reloading drills.

She felt no kinship with these people.

Deep down, Dracosa Victorias knew that she wasn't right. Mentally. Not like the others. She realized this, but she could not muster the will to change. She couldn't even muster the will to care.

She hungered for violence. She longed to be in the thick of it, dancing in blood and fire, running along the razor edge that separated life from death.

And when it was all over, and everything had died down, she would feel the exhaustion and the pain and the loss wash over her.

And nothing would have changed.

Dracosa sighed and leant back against a tree. She ran her hands through the undergrowth, dragging her nails through the moss.

She closed her eyes. Her mind flashed through old memories for a split-second. She sat in her room. It was getting dark. Her family just finished dinner. Then the sky had erupted, and the invaders billowed forth…

She heaved a sigh. She couldn't get it out of her head. She saw them when she closed her eyes. She saw them when she…when she…

Dracosa wiped the moss from her claws and anxiously counted her spare ammunition. Her shotgun was empty, but she hadn't run out of ammo yet.

Restlessness stirred within her, like a rock weighing down her stomach. The Master Chief was down there, in the geth base, and nobody was doing anything to get him out.

He was human, but he was also not human. He had no passion when he fought, and showed no mercy when he won. The blood that coursed through his heart was not cold like that of the monsters, or boiling hot like hers. He was a machine with a human soul, living earnestly and within resentment.

Much as she loathed to admit it, he puzzled her. She understood him sometimes, but more often, she did not.

With him, she felt kinship. Fighting for him brought her a degree of fulfilment. A modicum of relief that staved off the crushing emptiness, if only for a moment.

"Team One, initiate the strike," Cortana suddenly said, and the entire hill burst into motion.

Fifteen soldiers, armed with Grenade Launchers and Jackhammers, took aim at the turrets and geth platforms that made up their base's outer perimeter. All of them opened fire, putting dozens of shaped explosives and grenades on the base.

The geth never had the chance to react as the explosions tore them apart. Even as the shards of metal and white gore continued to rain out of the sky, the heavy weapons were reloaded, and another barrage was sent on its way.

Then the new guy joined in, picking off distant targets with his sniper rifle. Dracosa did not like him; he smiled, but his smile was forced and stilted. He could not fool her with his act; he had the scent not of a soldier, but a killer. A murderer. She would watch him closely.

Any geth that survived the lethal combination of well-applied explosives and sniper fire were hosed with heavy machine guns.

The geth launched their drones and their gunships, but since their base was pitched at the bottom of a ring of hills, those were easy pickings.

Draco snorted. The geth lacked all forms of instinct and had no ancient drive to guide them. Easy pickings.

"Team Two, initiate!"

Draco leapt to her feet and grabbed her rifle. Team Two – which included her as well – was composed of the locals. Echidnas, Harpies, Arachnes and Salamanders all sprang to action across the camp. The geth soon had to deal with hundreds of heavily armed and pissed-off Liminals. The murderous men and women aced down the hill and greased the guards who rushed to man the defences.

Dracosa grinned as she took the lead, easily passing by the slower and untrained locals. She sprayed a geth prime with 7,62 armour-piercing rounds to get its attention, then closed the distance.

"Team Three, initiate. Tear down the entire base if you have to. Find that Spartan!"

A couple of locals joined Draco in her firefight with the Prime. One of them threw a Grenade Launcher her way, which Draco was all too happy to catch. She wasn't sure what type of ammunition the launcher had, but she supposed it didn't matter. She blasted the towering machine with three high-velocity grenades, which were enough to blow out its shields

More geth came rushing around the corner, including several that carried rocket launchers. Repeated bursts of machine gun fire turned out to be just what the doctor ordered – the area was soon littered with scraps of metal and white liquid.

But the geth hadn't played all their cards yet. Several large, four-legged machines guarded the inner perimeter of the base, and they were as heavily armed as those primes were.

Even Draco knew that a full-frontal assault wouldn't be very smart, so she started fighting her way through the left flank for a better shot.

A geth trooper rounded the corner just when she did, and nearly bumped into her. It raised its rifle, but she swiftly reached out and rammed her clawed gauntlet into its neck, ripping out a whole fistful of tubes and wires that sprayed white liquid all over the place.

The geth crashed to the ground and Draco peeked around the corner where it came from. She spotted two more geth troopers and quickly hosed them with fire –

*click*

That didn't sound good.

The Dragon Girl looked down at her rifle. Much to her annoyance, she saw that she just burned through her last magazine.

Mass accelerator slammed into her chest. Growling, she drew her knife and finished them off the old-fashioned way.

Just like daddy taught…

When she pulled her combat knife free from the last geth's head, the rest of team Two was in the middle of causing a ruckus. The rapid rattle of automatic weapon fire was so loud that it actually started to bother her. Explosions rippled through the base, their shockwaves tearing through the various steel buildings.

Lieutenant Miia shouted orders through the comm, even as she personally led her team through the base's interior. For all her vaults, the Lamia was no coward.

But Draco felt that this wasn't going the right way. A dozen firefights had broken out, but there was still sign of their leader.

"Draco, find the Chief!" Cortana implored her over a private channel. "Forget about the geth; find him before one of those dropships lands!"

The Dragon wouldn't argue with that. She sprinted for the far side of a large hangar and stopped in front of a closed hatch. Angry that something stood in her way yet again, she slammed her fist against its locking mechanism.

A second later, the door slid open.

Not one to look a given horse in the mouth, she marched through the hatch and entered the hangar. There seemed to be some of geth convention a couple of meters to her left, where they all stood surrounding some sort of black claw made out of metal, grasping a glowing blue stone. They paid her no heed, and paid the price.

"I've narrowed the Chief's location down to a few key locations. You should head that way next," Cortana said, eager to keep her moving in the right direction.

Draco moved fast, advancing past the gore-covered monument and followed Cortana's navigation point. She ended up in a hallway filled with geth and quickly blasted them with her pistol. The hallway was narrow and dark, and she swiftly closed in on the enemy squad. By the time they broke through her shields, there were only two left. She grabbed the first one and slammed its head against the wall a couple of times, until its head was nothing more than a fistful of white gore.

The second slammed the butt of its gun against her head. The solid metal slammed against her skull with enough force to snap it sideways. Pissed off now, she lashed out with her tail and nearly snapped the geth in half with the force.

She crushed its head underneath her boot just to be sure, then hurried down the hallway. She ran through the open hatch at the other side and ended up in a truly gigantic chamber. It was easily fifteen meters high. The walls were lined with consoles, terminals and other computer things Draco thought might serve as good bludgeoning tools. A series of tables had been erected in the centre of the room, but she couldn't see what was on them. The roof was open, and a large ship hovered above the room.

To her, it looked like a mixture of a ship's bridge and a command-and-control centre. It was also filled to the brim with geth, which made things more complicated.

Draco immediately ducked back into the corridor she came when a dozen rifles opened fire in her general direction.

"I think I found him," she snarled into the radio.

"Stay put, I'm sending the rest your way!"

She wasn't sure about that. That ship looked like it was about to load a precious cargo. If she waited now, the geth would take the Chief.

A short drop. You can take it.

Dracosa Victorias was not about to let anyone ever take something from her again.

She plucked her last remaining flashbang from her satchel, then plucked out two frag grenades. She had two magazines for her magnum left. That had to do.

The Dragon Girl took a deep breath, then whirled around the corner. She flung the primed explosives in the midst of the geth formation. The counter-fire was immediate, but her shields held long enough. The explosives – along with the flashbang – detonated with thunderous roars. The resulting explosion obliterated three geth and maimed five others.

Ten left.

The enemy fire lessened.

By then. Draco was already upon them. She put two bullets in the first geth's head, blowing apart that lamp-like eye. She turned to another and put two in its chest, one in its head.

Enemy fire splashed across her chest. Her shields broke, but her armour took the brunt of it. She swiftly side-stepped a charging geth and kicked it away, before putting three bullets into the chest of a rocket trooper.

A towering Juggernaut stomped towards her. She met its unspoken challenge with a growl and took off running towards it. When she was close enough she leapt in the air, wrapped her thighs around the thing's head and jammed her pistol into its eye, shattering its flashlight.

She pulled the trigger until her weapon ran out, then dragged the Juggernaut to the ground and finished it off with a good stomp to its riddled face.

Mass accelerator fire struck her stomach .She felt a stab of pain, and knew that some penetrated.

She seized one of the troopers by its wrist, placed her palm against its chest and pulled. The limb came free with a sickening crunch, and she gave it a good whack with the limb to put it down. She used its gun to put down two more –

Something graced her cheek. She felt warm blood trickle down her face and gunned down the offending robot, before more fire struck her spine. The rounds flattened themselves against her scales, but it nonetheless felt like someone had pounded her with a sledgehammer.

Her frustration rising, Draco tail-whipped a geth into one of the consoles. She swiftly reloaded, then leapt aside when another rocket trooper fired in her direction. She closed the distance in a heartbeat and savagely beat its head in with the barrel of her pistol.

By the time she was satisfied that the rocket jockey was dead, she pulled its body against her and fired at a geth that peeked from its cover. But her gun didn't work anymore, forcing her to drop her metal shield and engage it in close quarters.

Her armoured boot connected with its head as she kicked it out of its cover and into the open. The last geth managed to get off one last burst of fire before she flung her combat knife at its head, impaling it through its flashlight.

Pain ripped through her torso. She clutched her sides and her fingers came away wet. She coughed a few times, but didn't feel the copper taste of blood, so she was good to go.

There, on one of the tables, lay the Chief. If he was sleeping, the firefight had not woken him up.

"Chief!" Cortana yelled. "Quickly, get him on his feet!"

Wearily eyeing the geth ship that still hovered overhead, Dracosa advanced on the table. She noticed that the Spartan wasn't even chained down. She half expected the geth to have neutralized him with some sort of neural inhibitor, but his armour was devoid of any alien devices.

Strange.

That was when Draco noticed that his armour looked bad. It was severely damaged, with some sections entirely scraped away.

It puzzled her; what could possibly damage the mighty battlesuit to such degree?

She was vaguely aware that Cortana urged her to put her back "where she belonged". The only place Draco could think of was with the Chief, so she took the armoured matrix, checked it for damage and – with deliberate slowness – opened it. Her fingers were slick with blood and trembling, so it took her a couple of times. She reached in and carefully took the crystal chip that contained Cortana's mind.

That such a brilliant mind could live in such a small thing…she never understood how that worked, no matter how many times David explained it to her.

Then again, there was a lot she didn't understand, so she guessed it didn't matter.

She searched the back of the Chief's mind for that spot where he always put Cortana's chip.

Her probing fingers found the slot.

There, she thought as she put the chip in. Where you belong.

No doubt Cortana would immediately assess the Chief's vital signs. The rest would come, Miia would take care of the medical business and someone would declare the mission a success.

Bleeding from various wounds, the Dragon Girl sat down against the table. She heard the geth ship take off, and smiled wearily.

Not this time, she thought with grim satisfaction.

~0~

Unofficial Liminal Codex "Monster Girl's Encyclopaedia" Entry: Species: Humans:

Opening from "Soul Sickness: understanding Humanity"

Continuation

It is said that Liminal species outperform humans on every front. Humans are neither the strongest, nor the fastest, nor the wisest. They have no claws nor fangs nor magic. Prior to the Human-Covenant war, humans were noted only for their exceptional stubbornness and capacity for sacrifice, enforced or not.

This changed with the Human-Covenant war. The outcome of the Human-Covenant war is known throughout the galaxy, as are its disastrous consequences, to all of the alien species. A turian looks upon a human with pride. A krogan looks upon a human with eager apprehension. An asari looks upon a human with uncertainty. But a Liminal will look upon a human with pity…pity and fear. For only Liminals understand how the Covenant changed humanity.

Evil bled into the collective human soul, like no other sentient being can understand or control. A sickness of the soul, that can never be healed again. This sickness is simply fuelled by memories. Memories of groaning cries of the wounded and dying. Memories of loved ones burned to ashes and glass. Memories of shredded limbs and blood-filled trenches and amputated souls.

When they finally managed to limp away from it all, crippled and traumatized, this sickness remained. This evil remained.

A Dragon might be stronger. An Arachne might be faster. An Elder Devil might be wiser. But a human soldier with this soul sickness is, and shall always be, the most dangerous.

AN: Back with another chapter, just like I promised!

Thus ends the Feros plot, and Arc 2 with it. Seems like the crew of the Reach will need some R&R after this mission.