A/N: A fair warning, to those who have expressed their sensitivity in the past. This chapter … it's messy. And I'm not going to have an author's note at the bottom, because I feel it would detract from the impact of the situation.

With that said, enjoy the chapter.

The two medics on standby in the temporary infirmary they'd rigged up were having quite the field day.

With these pods raining down now, ground forces were finding it difficult to keep them back. The damn things just kept coming, an onslaught of wave after wave of horrifying creatures. Morbidly, they'd realized fairly quickly that they didn't have much of a job; anyone who found themselves on the wrong end of those things was probably not going to make it to an infirmary. Most of them ended up being converted, or mutilated beyond recognition.

In fact, the only wounds that had come in so far had been from firearms; apparently, the damn things knew how to handle weapons despite the fact that their entire body could be used as one. They'd seen more than a few riflemen and Pilots alike come into the med-wing with bullets in the arm or leg. What these 'Amalgamates' lacked in accuracy, they made up for with sheer numbers and force. None of them needed to be accurate when there were ten of them firing simultaneously in the same direction. While these soldiers may not die, they definitely weren't going to be back in the fight until all of this was over … one way or another.

Not to mention that they had the rather … unusual patient in a bed at the end of the room. From what they'd been told, it was some kind of alien, a female that was helping humanity to stop whatever was happening with the invasion. Not knowing its proper anatomy, they'd settled for stopping the bleeding and letting it rest. Hopefully there'd be some proper answers soon.

An explosion could be heard outside, and both medics turned towards the source as the lights flickered and the walls shook. One of them turned to the other. "Damn, that was close."

She shook her head. "Too close. Those things must be getting closer."

The former shrugged his shoulders. "Nothing we can do about it. Just gotta wait it out-"

From seemingly nowhere, a staticky screech pierced their minds. They didn't so much hear the cry as they felt it. Looking towards the end of the room, they saw the alien kicking wildly as it woke up. Quickly, they rushed to its aid.

"Calm down!" the male medic ordered, "You're safe! It's alright!"

There was a momentary pause as the creature looked at them (at least it seemed to, it didn't have eyes), and assessed the situation. After another few seconds, they felt a voice speak to them mentally; Where is the Inferno?

They looked at each other in confusion. "Uh, we don't-"

Tobias! it clarified frustratedly, Lieutenant Four, the one who brought me here! He needs to know what awaits him!

The female medic understood. "We don't know, Captain Gates would have a better answer. I can grab her if you like-"

Before she'd finished speaking, the alien had fallen back onto its cot in apparent regret. I have to warn him. He doesn't know. Forgive me.

…

With heavy footfalls trailing their every step, three Titans ran through the streets of chorus. KT lead the trio while Skids and Cee followed closely behind.

Tobias guided them towards their destination. From the map they'd looked over, it seemed that every street converged into a backroad that led out of the city and towards the Floating Gardens. That convergence point was north of their position, roughly three miles away. Just under two by now, if they'd covered enough ground.

The bad news is that more pods were falling every minute. The calm of the city had quickly turned to a war zone, and then back to a more sinister calm. They'd come across groups of other soldiers and Titans fighting for survival against the onslaught. If they infantry didn't fall to the weaponized Amalgamates, then they quickly fell prey to the creatures physical advantages instead.

Horrifically, he'd seen several of them group up to tackle a Titan and wrench its Pilot out of the cockpit. Evidently, being in a Titan did not guarantee your safety.

Peering out of an alleyway, Tobias used KT's camera systems to scan the surrounding area. They'd come across a roundabout of sorts, and he could spy a small group of Amalgamates thirty yards away. Waving KT's arm to beckon Vale and Tyra forward, the three of them piloted their Titans into the open and opened fire on the walking corpses. They went down rather easily, and he beckoned towards one section of the roundabout. "This way!"

He wished that they could stay and help the citizens fight off their attackers, but it would truthfully be more beneficial to get to the array as quickly as possible and activate it. On top of the Amalgamates invading every nook of the city they could squeeze their bodies into, the Seed was beginning to reign hell on the orbital defense that the Wings of Harmony were pitting against it. Looking up at the sky, hardly a minute went by without seeing an orange blossom of fire appear in high orbit.

Whatever its plan was, the Seed was moving in on Harmony. Fast.

Racing through downtown, Tobias checked the map on the HUD shared between him and KT; only half a mile to go, and then they were out of the city. After that, it was less than a total of four miles to the center of the Gardens-

"Contact!" came Tyra's voice from behind. Following the direction of Cee's outstretched arm, he saw what she was pointing at; a large horde of Amalgamates directly in their path of where they needed to go.

"Dammit," he muttered, "we're gonna have to push through them. Move!"

The three of them charged as a unit, opening fire with their respective weapons. As the only Vanguard, KT's chain gun was pretty decent for crowd control. Vale seemed to prefer using Skids' sword to slice them apart, and Cee's incendiary traps were most efficient in territory control. Together, they forced their way through the crowd of monsters at their feet.

Unfortunately, it didn't remain that way. A group of mutilated humans took notice and began to fight back. Using weapons they'd been holding when they'd been converted, they began to unload on the Titans. Most of their automatics didn't do much, but two of them had MGL's; heavy artillery against a Titan. Vale, being in the faster chassis, was able to dodge their attacks a bit more easily, and quickly moved ahead to where their projectiles couldn't hit her.

Unfortunately, Tyra and Cee began to take some heavy punishment. "Shields are failing, I need support!"

Tobias obliged, and quickly put him and KT into the line of fire instead. Selecting the two as targets, he mowed them down efficiently and turned back towards Tyra. "Advance-"

His words caught in his throat as he saw what was behind Tyra. He knew that there had been a lot of them in front, but there seemed to be just as many Amalgamates behind them. And they were doing something that he would have rather not seen …

Clumping their bodies together, many of them began to mesh into one another. Flesh melted into other flesh, and any holes were quickly sealed by the sickly orange glop that gave them life.

"What the hell are they doing?" whispered Tyra over the comms, horror creeping into her voice. He had no real clue until he saw them form some kind of appendage from the charred and blackened meat.

"I think they're making something worse," he replied, that same sense of foreboding now entering his own voice.

After another second or so, they had finished. Now, amidst the herd of other 'normal' Amalgamates, there stood a massive one made of many others that had come together. It walked on four disgusting tendril-like legs, and those same teeth formations that he'd encountered before began to spring up all over its 'body.' They grew sharp, and wicked to the touch.

Unexpectedly, it gave a scream of fury and charged them.

Tyra had no time to react with Cee's slow mobility before the melded-Amalgamate reached her and pounced. The teeth began to grind away at the metal of the Scorch, tearing off pieces wherever they caught resistance. She tried to hold it off with a thermal shield, but that only enraged it further; splitting apart a hole where its 'head' would be, it clamped down on Cee's right arm and shook violently. After several tugs between it and the Titan, the arm ripped away of its socket.

Tobias ran towards her, trying to help. He was stopped by a new wave of other Amalgamates, however. Surging forward in the wake of their new advantage, they threatened to overwhelm him if he proceeded. He was forced to move his aim to them instead, and clear out the filth before he could do anything to help Tyra.

Meanwhile, Vale looked to them as she dealt with her own, albeit smaller, onslaught of creatures. "Tyra! Four!"

Tobias waved her away. "Go! We'll meet you at the city's exit!"

He saw the Ronin hesitate for only a moment longer, then turn and run.

Shifting his attention back to Tyra, he moved in. He tried to pump lead into the massive Amalgamate, but it wasn't going down without a fight. Using one of its 'legs' to pin Tyra and Cee to the side of a short building, it snapped menacingly at his Titan. Having seen what had happened with Cee's arm when Tyra moved too close, he didn't want to risk that happening to KT. He opted to remain further back and continue to fill it with bullets.

Finally, it seemed to be taking effect. Chunks of it were ripping away, allowing orange goop to seep into the street. With a high pitched howl of anger, it gave its final stand.

Using its front two legs, it grabbed the heavily damaged Scorch, and threw it over the roof of the building and into the accommodating street. He watched it sail over with Tyra still inside, and winced at the metallic crash of destruction that he heard on the other side of the row of buildings.

Focusing its full attention on him and KT, it charged again. Thinking quickly, he knelt down as it leapt forward, and caught it underneath. Transitioning its momentum into force and using it against it, he slammed it down into its back with its head, and presumably its main nervous system, directly in front of him. Not skipping a beat, he unloaded the full clip of KT's chain gun into it, splitting apart muscle and bone and sending flayed flesh soaring overhead.

With a final heave, the melded-Amalgamate moved no more.

He turned to look over the top of the rooftop where Tyra had been thrown, but saw that even more waves of Amalgamates were coming. KT noticed too.

"Tobias-"

"Go!" he ordered. "Meet up with Vale and Skids, I'll see you there!"

Without waiting for her to protest, he popped her hatch and leapt towards the rooftop. Grappling the ledge, he swung himself over and landed on his feet. He only turned back for a moment to ensure that KT was indeed following his command. Watching her move out of sight towards the city exit, he focused back on the task at hand and sprinted across the rooftop.

Reaching the other side, he looked over to see a painful sight. The Scorch had flown right over the rooftop and crashed into the side of the buildings opposite of Tobias. In turn, the foundation had crumbled, and most of the building's structure had come crashing down on top of the already heavily damaged Titan. Cee was lying on his side, with the cockpit of the chassis almost completely buried under rubble. He could just barely make out Cee's optics and-

"Tyra!" he cried out. He saw that her upper torso was poking out underneath the bottom of the pile of rubble, near Cee's hull but not next to it. It looked like she'd tried to pop the hatch, but had been overcome by the debris when doing so. It reminded him of when he'd tried to force KT's hatch open when they'd been buried under the snow on Erebus.

She was currently trying to stave off the other Amalgamates meandering about. They were faster than they appeared, and more than one came too close before she was able to blast it with her Mozambique. He hopped down from the roof, pulled his Wingman from his side, and helped her with keeping them at bay.

Once he was sure they were relatively safe for a minute or so, he looked at the part of Cee's data core that he could see.

There was no light that illuminated it. The core was completely busted, and Cee was dead for all intents and purposes. He felt a pang of regret towards the Titan's destruction, but he had another matter to attend to.

He knelt down to where Tyra's torso poked out on the ground, underneath the tons of rubble that had come from the building they'd crushed. "C'mon, let's get you out of-"

"I can't-" she groaned in pain, "my legs … I can't feel them. And- and my back is pinned …."

He looked over what she was indicating, and his spirits fell. There was a rather large chunk of debris that had landed right on top of her, and now kept her pinned. The only reason it hadn't completely crushed her was because of the complementary chunks of concrete and drywall on her sides holding it up. But they also kept her legs from moving forward, and they were probably pinned as well by something else.

The most likely scenario was that the support that had fallen on her had broken her lower spine, and she was probably paralyzed.

He refused to accept what was in front of him. "No, there's got to be another-"

He jumped as Tyra shot at something behind him with her sidearm. One of the Amalgamates had gotten too close for comfort. He looked around to see that they were beginning to group up in larger numbers now. It wouldn't be long before they were on top of them.

He looked at the pile of rocks and concrete keeping Tyra from moving. It was far too large for him to move by himself, he'd need a Titan. But KT and Skids were too far away to do anything by this point, and Cee was completely inactive.

It was just him.

Futilely, he tried to move bits of it anyway.

"Four …" coughed Tyra from beneath him.

"I can do this," he cut her off, "I can do this. You're gonna get out of this, you're gonna-"

"Tobias!" she practically yelled with what volume she had left.

He stopped moving, and knelt down to where she beckoned him.

Moving her free hand, she pulled off her helmet and tossed it aside. She had cropped blonde hair, typical military length. Her eyes were a pale grey, and her face was littered with scars from previous battles.

Coughing again, she spat blood onto the ground, and looked at him. "You've … you've got to get out of here. Activate the arrays, and- and end this."

"Tyra …" he whispered, unable to offer any other words of comfort to his dying friend.

"Hey," she said a bit more warmly, "we … we h-had a good run, huh? Some g-good memories, hopefully?"

He just sat there, unsure of what to say or how to react. Slowly, he nodded his head. "Yeah, we … w-we did."

She reached over to him, and pulled something from his belt. Looking at her hand, he saw that she'd grabbed a frag grenade.

"No way in hell I'm letting those things take me," she spat. "I'll make sure of that." She looked towards south of the street, where the horde was beginning to move in earnest. "You … you better hurry, they're closing in."

She raised her Mozambique, and gave a mirthless smirk. "D-Don't worry, I've g-got this. I'll hold 'em off while you r-run."

"Please, Tyra-" he tried one last time, but she shook her head.

"Go! N-Now!" she ordered. "And d-don't look back. Just … tell Amelia it was a g-good death." She laughed, a few tears falling down her cheeks. "She expects n-no less of me … she's g-got too h-high of standards."

He looked down at the ground, trying to keep the situation from overwhelming him. Locking gazes with her, he gave her a final nod before turning and sprinting down the street.

As he ran, he heard her call out to the Amalgamates behind him. "Well … well then?! C-Come on! Come at m-me, you ugly bastards! I'll die with my fist down your throat before you take me!"

He followed her command, and didn't look back. He only ran, and listened.

BAM!

BAM!

He heard the screeches of the Amalgamates closing in as he grappled a rooftop and hurtled himself onto it, avoiding the creature-ridden streets below.

BAM!

BAM!

BAM!

He shook as he heard her swear, and then start to scream in pain. There were no more gunshots, only-

FWOOM!

He heard the explosion, and finally turned to see smoke and flame erupting from the blast point. Everything in a fifteen foot radius of the blast had been obliterated. Mercifully, the rising smoke obstructed most of the origin of the grisly scene.

Swallowing hard, he felt numb. Failing to notice the tears streaking down his own cheeks inside of his helmet, he turned and continued his progress towards the city exit, and eventually the array.