They just kept coming. Ships of varying classes, both Alliance and Blackwatch, jumped into the Shanxi Battlespace, high and low and all around, sending slugs and glowing shells toward the Turian vessels. Glowing shells impacted, drilling into the ships, and then exploding in a vicious ball of plasma flooding the Turian halls with the material. Ships impacted by the shells, delivered by Blackwatch vessels, slowly melted apart as the crew desperately tried to find lifepods.
Great gouts of plasma exploded from the railguns of the Alliance and Blackwatch vessels, an intimidating sight for the Turians in their ships while on the ground the tide began to turn as dropships rocketed toward the surface covered by a screen of railgun slugs impacting Turian bases all over the surface.
Fighters screamed through the void bombing Turian ships with plasma projectiles, polybolos pods drilled into ships ruthlessly and those that didn't surrender were shown as much mercy as the Terran citizens were on the surface.
They also learned the power of Blackwatch Battlemages, a new enemy to them.
Nikulas didn't know what ship he was on, he didn't really care. He came from his pod firing, blowing apart Turian soldiers and when they bunched up he put away his weapon and resorted to using his magics.
His armor, blackened ceramic decorated with runes, sparked with his hands as the bullets sent his way were absorbed by a shield that sparked to life before him. The Turians started when his hands glowed with power causing one of them to shout "Biotic?" before a bolt of lightning was sent his way blasting a hole through his chest and leaving the smell of ozone and burnt flesh to permeate in the air.
He repeated the motions, focusing his mind on the magic in his hands to keep the bolts powerful. Eyes narrowed and focused, he attacked the terrified Turians like a man posessed. Security footage being streamed to other ships showed the terrifying display, causing many to wonder: Just who had they invaded?
His hands joined then slowly spread apart, struggling as if being held together, before he smacked them on the floor with his fingers aiming at the Turians in the distance.
The bolts travelled through the floor, melting a path to them before it caught them and charred their screaming forms unrecognizably.
Continuing through the ship, ozone and charred flesh behind him, he deflected shots with his magic. The ability, though seeming like second nature to the horrified Turians, took alot of concentration. Nikulas' own abilities while great, outshined by other more dedicated Battlemages. His skills was in the Martial more than Arcane. Concentration, mental stamina, discipline, these were essential to anyone wanting to commit to magic. Nikulas had to compromise.
By the time Nikulas was done with the ship, his mind was tired and he had to rest when back on a Blackwatch vessel. His mind thoroughly worn out from the exertion.
When the Blackwatch and Alliance dropships and pods came to Shanxi atlast, they were met with incredible fanfare from Soldier and Civilian, Human, Mechanoid and Turian (defectee) alike. They hit the ground hard and immediately ran/rolled/strode out from the pods and dropships. Power armor, exosuits, mechs, tanks, all of it came to support the besieged. Legions of men and women overwhelmed the Turians and put them to the sword or gun or bare hand as the tides, already, were being quickly turned.
The Blackwatch operatives, told apart by their matte black armor and differently designed vehicles, knew that the attacks would agitate The Others, The Vampires. But that's what they are there for.
In their pods, on their ships, in dropships, men, women and mechanoid prepared liquids in glass vials or prepared totems, fetishes and other items for their operation. Enchanted silver bullets were loaded into magazines, a weapon classic amongst all that hunt the monsters and for good reason.
An iconic weapon as well to use against vampires: Garlic. Instead of the garlic strands worn over the neck or put on hooks the garlic was minced and liquified, put into pressurized cans to act like a pepper spray. Against Vampires, whose sense of smell vastly beat a human's, it was the equivalent of unconsciousness.
Salt, to prevent The Others from crossing.
Pentacles, to dispel portals.
Various religious items, to pass out to Blackwatch operatives of their faith.
And, finally: A whole hell of alot of bullets.
The gore was like that of a book, a story. Deaths on both sides were present but on the Turian side of things they were climbing and only getting worse.
Automatic shotguns tore into the close Turian lines, sending shot and ball tearing through the alien lines with showers of gore, dismembered limbs, and the wretching of Turians choking on their own blood or kneeling in the high mud and blood and slowly expiring.
The Alliance mechs stomped the dead, creating craters with waterfalls of blood and smushed bone and flesh as their cannons tore into Turian battlements and vehicles. Inside the mechs, pilots controlled the great vehicles with their minds via neurohelmets, making the pilots see the Mech's own body as an extension of their own. Men controlling their own guns, machine guns or disconnected cannons, mowed down and blown away Turians that were unfortunate enough to find themselves in the way.
The Power Armor deployed seemed to have changed since the beginning of the Invasion. Either that, or it was simply a different model, but instead of the heavy and 'full torso' looking version of before, the models deployed had a more humanoid shape in that it had a torso and head.
The body was still thick, just slimmed down from the other model to a more human shape as opposed to the barrel chested, tree-trunk size and look of it. Finally, the armor had a helmet. Styled to look like an infantry helmet ontop of a human head, the armor itself was olive drab and white colored with one great white star painted on the chest. The helmet was slightly hidden by extended chest armor, which covered the lower half of the face.
The back, as well, seemed to have a built in shroud. The back armor extended up and over the back of the head, extending slightly into the shoulders but curving so as to not cut down on peripheral vision.
The arms had a five fingered hand on each, with a sword strapped to the left hip of the user with a serrated spine and sharp blade, the hilt guarded by a knuckle duster. While completely un-needed for power armor of all things, the knuckle duster acted as another weapon. The Blackwatch wielded a similar style of armor, painted flat black.
As the Alliance had shown; more weapons is better.
The armor, with the taking of Shanxi in play, was deployed en masse. Just like their bigger cousins, the Mechs. Bipedal, quadrapedal, hexapods and others were deployed aside their power armored cousins.
The Blackwatch, wielding what could only be described as plasma throwers, used their weapons to punish Other and Turian loyalist alike burning them into nothing as the sickly green, lava-like substance sprayed over them held aloft by magnetic fields before it dropped off allowing the plasma to hit its target.
The weapon's deployment, as well as the various hordes of metal and ceramic monsters coming their way had Turians surrender in droves. Surrendering Turians were taken into custody. Any that fought suffered the consequences by mechanized foot or plasma thrower.
The Turian Navy above was suffering by the assault. The Human navy came en masse and quickly overwhelmed them.
By the end of the week, the Turian Occupation of Shanxi had been broken and elsewhere in space, the Citadel Council was already churning up excuses, ambassadorial missions, and declarations of peace (much to the chagrin of the Hierarchy) but, for the Alliance and the Turian defectees, that was neither here nor there.
After all, The Others still infested the world and The Vampires would need to be cleansed.
When the subject came up, all eyes turned on the Blackwatch whom hefted their plasma throwers and chainguns and cuffed their fists against their chests.
"They're ours."