Disclaimer: I do not own Halo, Warhammer 40k, Stellaris, Kaiserreich, HoI4, Clannad, Star Wars, or Mass Effect. This is a fanfiction, and I don't have ANY monetary reward for making it. This is purely for fun.

Author's Notes: This chapter is more in line with what I'll be posting. The next chapter should be interesting, it'll be my first time writing action scenes. You may have notices I added "Star Wars" to the disclaimer section. Don't worry, I'm not actually adding anything from the Universe. Just some designs I based on certain things in star wars. I also named it after one of my favorite Sci-Fi books.

This chapter has a large time jump in it. There may be more until the events of Mass Effect 2 happen. I don't plan to change the events of Mass Effect 2 very much. There will be a valid reason Erwin doesn't just role over the Collectors. This story is going to end up deserving the "M" rating. Some of the action scenes are meant to be VERY graphic. If they end up being a little bit too much for a lot of people, I'll add gore warnings. I don't plan to censor the story. I want some things to hit hard, but not all the time. I'm trying to balance out the grandiose nature of the Empire with a balanced Mass Effect.

Thank you for the reviews, favorites, and follows. I appreciate the support and input.


Chapter V

Foundation of Empire

"Ancestors preserve me."

"God forgive me for I have sinned."

"Give me the wisdom to walk the right path."

"Give me strength to command the cosmos."

"Forefathers fuel my flames."

"Foremothers guard my soul."

"Mother, Sister, it's been a while. I'm sorry. I find myself fighting another war. I don't know if it's winnable. I'm sorry I wasn't able to join you, I never expected this situation. I know y'all are probably disappointed in some of my actions. However, I'm sure yall be happy to know I found an interesting girl. She reminds me of y'all."

"I know y'all are doing your best to guard my soul, along with my other Foremothers. I'm sorry it's such a hopeless fight. I hope y'all are happy. Also, try not to nag the God of War too much. I willingly let him in. I'll try and talk to you again soon."

"Father, I apologize for not praying. I know you've been generously giving me strength. I may have never talked to you in person before, but you've been a good father. I ask for just a little more strength. Tell the God of War he'll have his tributes soon. I hope I've done you and my Forefathers proud."

Erwin opened his eyes, it's been a while since he preyed. He's not a very good Anglian, but he tries.

He was on his knees. Hands resting on his lap, palms up. The Anglian religion was an odd mixture of ancestor worship, polytheism, and Christianity. Erwin stood up and stretched. His Armor felt like a second skin, and it helped him walk around a hellish planet as if it was spring.

Erwin looked up at the dim ball of light. The vaguely blue sphere provided the far-off world with a miniscule amount of heat. A blue gas giant hung in the sky, its large form dwarfing the sun. Thick droplets of methane floated down like snow. The dark ground was covered by dunes and ice. The thick bronze sky gave the moon a beautiful alternative to the paradise of an Earth-like planet.

The moon was remarkably similar to Titan in the Sol system. It was thirty percent larger than Titan and had a much thicker atmosphere. The Methane rain fell almost like snow, the moon had no hope of liquid water gracing its surface.

Erwin turned around and gazed upon the base with pride and excitement. A massive black slab embedded in the ground seemed to stretch on forever. Many squared towers and buildings surrounded the flat monolith, little blue lights of sentinels could be seen buzzing about the facility. Eleven large cylindrical towers reached far above the rest of the facility. Each capped with a dome, and what looked like a telescope. Unlike the old observatories of Earth, they weren't telescopes.

Each tower held a heavy plasma lance. The long, smooth barrels stood with pride. Looking into the bronze sky, the lances condemned anything foolish enough to attack the base.

"We're making good progress."

"For three months' worth of work, it's okay." Erwin said.

"Oh, come on… you're a harsh critic." Ares complained.

Above Erwin, we're multiple flickering lights, like shinning daytime stars.

"Progress on the orbital dockyards and Ezo plants?" Erwin asked.

"Yes, yes… always business with you. The other moons are being cracked for resources. We have five heavy dockyards online. I'm still surprised you gave me a template for the new Ezo plants." Ares reported.

"It's a relatively primitive Dark technology."

"Either way, I'm surprised. Normally you're more protective of anything Dark tech-related. We have five orbiting Asylum."

"Good."

When they found the system, it was like paradise, at least for Erwin and Ares. A young and volatile Class A star, with multiple planets, and a rich asteroid belt. The jewel was a massive gas giant orbiting far away from its parent star. The dark blue gas giant was about fifty percent bigger than Jupiter and had many large moons.

The gas giant was named Asylum, and the star was named Vindication. One moon, in particular, caught Erwins attention. It was much larger than Titan, yet was remarkably similar. The beautiful bronze gem called out to Erwin, its atmosphere provided a level of privacy. He chose the moon to be the central hub of the vast armament project. The moon he was standing on, was named Resonance.

The main base was the only location he'd allow high Imperial technology to be produced. Erwin himself was the overseer of the main Resonance base, Ares handled the rest of the automated construction and production on the moon and system.

The base was referred to as Resonance Prime or R Prime for short. R Prime was in the shape of a circle, with a diameter of one hundred kilometers. The massive base went a little under twelve kilometers deep.

The R Prime was powered by a massive DMD reactor. Its power output dwarfed Vindication's energy output. However, most of its power was used to power the large base. The facility used Imperial technology, so its power requirements were astronomical.

Construction of the base could be considered treason. Erwin hoped circumstances would exonerate him. He was the highest Imperial authority within the Universe, so perhaps that gave him some leeway.

However, it wasn't necessarily treason for sure. No, it'd be treason if Xeno's got their hands on this technology.

So, Erwin had a fallback plan. The DMD reactor had a self-destruct command, the explosion similar to a small supernova. The inside of the base was designed with thin walls to ensure everything would be vaporized.

To be sure, he also placed a few anti-matter bombs near the different pieces of sophisticated Imperial technology. Just in case the DMD reactor wasn't able to go off. If all else failed, he could just ram a couple of warships weighing a few billion tons into the planet.

Ares could use a multitude of different power sources to fuel his ever-growing industrial base. He mainly used Imperial fusion technology, the gas giant providing plenty of Hydrogen. The innermost planet had a factory for solar panels, and a mass accelerator to launch them into orbit. The solar panels were little more than a droid with thrusters, only meant to transmit power and stay in position. Ares seemed to like the idea of a Dyson sphere.

It mattered little how he got the power, as long as it was cheap and simple. Unlike the matter fabricators the Empire uses, matter transformers only changed the form of matter. The matter had to be collected, and a large amount of energy was needed to transform the matter into a useful form. Entire planets would be consumed to feed the ever-hungry factories. Those factories would darken the skies with droid starships. Numbers would make up for technological inferiority.

At least… that's what Erwin hoped. There was a chance the Reapers were holding back their true strength. A trillion Reapers huddling around black holes like campfires, leeching power out of the voids. It was also hard to believe they only used the three-kilometer-long "capital" ship.

Even at the beginning of the Human-Covenant War, frigates were a kilometer long. The Covenant could build a mobile capital the size of Jupiter, and the Reapers seem more advanced than the Covenant during the early days of the War.

If the Imperial Navy wanted to, they could declare destroyers should be fifty kilometers. It was possible to have fifty-kilometer monsters in the thousands, but size wasn't everything. The Empire had very precise and valid reasons to keep the base ship size around four kilometers.

But, three kilometers for a capital ship? It almost seemed like they were dealing with the house cat, not the master. It was reasonable not to deploy your entire force to deal with primitives.

After all, you don't need a lot to decimate a few primitives. Not when they think a dreadnought's main cannon should only shoot an ancient bomb's worth of kinetic energy.

If the Empire wanted to wipe out all the Council races, you'd only see starfighters and destroyers. If an Imperial Admiral deployed a cruiser for such a task, his competency would be called into question.

A Galaxy is vast, even for the Empire. Deployment of an entire fleet could leave hundreds of worlds defenseless.

It was the reason Erwin seriously thought about not showing all his hands. If the Master race saw signs their petri dish was contaminated…

That's assuming there even is a higher cast. The Reapers could just simply focus on numbers, that was a valid strategy.

When his masterpiece was complete, then he could flex more of the Imperium's might. Once that slumbering beast was complete, the cosmos would tremble.

He'd never allow anyone but himself to wield high Imperial technology. Ares was close, but even shipborne Ancilla was only able to dive and shoot. They couldn't truly wield the warship, its spirit intrinsically knew the Ancilla was a representative of its Core will. Not its Core.

Imperial warships were advanced and somewhat intelligent. Imperial warships had a lot of sections formed from Anglian DNA, specifically the Emperor's DNA. They weren't keyed with one person, but no Xeno could control the machines of war.

It was also wrong to rely on droids for war. Sure they could help, but to completely take over for Organics?

Not for Humanity.

We were the masters, not basic droids.

It didn't take a very intelligent species to guess the practical issues in Von Neumann machines making droid warships. The possibility of those machines going rampant, or being hacked was a frightening one.

One of the main reasons Erwin was given a Contender class AI was for the ability to quickly raise a personal military anywhere. The ability for Spartans to raise a throwaway military, behind enemy lines was too great to pass up. Still, precautions needed to be in place.

The Von Neumann machines were all connected to Ares and by extension Erwin. Their droid brains are capable of fulfilling their task and little more. The droids had to be smart enough to resist hacking, but overall cybersecurity was handled by Ares, along with strategy.

The droid starships would be armed with Reaper plasma lances. Normally such advanced technology would be near treasonous to place on droid warships. Ironically it was the Reapers that justified Erwin to place such a weapon on the droids. The new form of Ezo would allow for the use of advanced technology, without it being in danger of reverse engineering.

It was clear how effective the system was when the Primitives tried to reverse engineer Reaper plasma lances. The reason the Empire never used a similar system was simple, it fell apart when in contact with anyone capable of math. If the Primitives knew how to artificially create gravity, or negate mass, without Ezo; they'd be running around lancing each other.

That was a frightening thought.

Erwin was on edge about giving the Primitives the new form of Ezo. Their technology would become much more powerful overnight. He'd be the one just giving them those lances. Proper Ezo was all they're missing. He wasn't necessarily ecstatic about giving the Primitives new technology. It could be seen as just unlocking their potential. It'd probably still be considered treason, but exceptional circumstances might save Erwin's head.

"When the hell have I been so prone to walking the line of treason?" Erwin thought.

The droid starships would be using simple plasma shielding, not the advanced hard plasma shielding of the Covenant, but still strong. Deflectors were good at deflecting solid projectiles, but inferior to physical shielding against energy.

Imperial dark matter deflectors were exceptional at stopping energy, compared to other deflectors. Erwin didn't know if that was the case for the Reapers' defectors.

Nanolaminate armor would provide adequate protection. The old Covenant armor was only made obsolete by Imperial weaponry. The droid starship's pitch fusion reactors would generate plenty of power and plasma for the impulse engines.

The Reaper plasma lances were very slow; they used a liquid metal mixture of iron, tungsten, and uranium. They didn't act how Erwin normally expected plasma weaponry to behave. The "magnetohydrodynamic" weaponry was more akin to a rail gun in practice. They didn't have the penetrating power of solid kinetics, but they did have more range.

Along with the Reaper plasma lances, the starships would be outfitted with a few other weapons. Missiles would provide the primary long-range option. Heavy lasers would provide a long-range option. Light lasers gave the starships point defense capabilities. The lasers were simple gamma lasers but were still able to turn certain armors onto melted slag.

Erwin wasn't stupid, he wasn't going to put Hell Lances on droid starships. The Imperial photon weaponry was exponentially more destructive than gamma lasers. Just because hard plasma weaponry replaced them for heavy long-range use, didn't mean they were necessarily obsolete. The Hell Lances were arguably superior to Forerunner hard light projectors.

The Reapers would still have a technological edge over the droid warships, but they'd be fools to underestimate the automated starships.

"What's the status of the fleet?" Erwin asked.

"I have ten battlegroups ready. Two more should be ready in the next few days."

The droid starships were divided into battlegroups; able to maneuver and coordinate within a large fleet, or subjugate an entire system independently. A battlegroup consisted of four heavies at six kilometers long, sixteen mediums at two and a half kilometers long, and thirty-two lights at eight hundred meters long.

The boxy droid starships were simple in design, meant to decrease production times. Curved armor was relatively simple to make, but it took more time than the flat plates of armor. The ships were dark silver, the natural color of nanolaminate armor. The only paint was minor crimson patterns and a golden eagle on the bow.

"It won't be long, then." Erwin concluded.

"Geth first, then the Terminus Systems."

"Yes, that little vendetta you have against the Geth."

"Who doesn't love exterminating a few abominations?" Ares cheerfully asked.

"We're not going to just slaughter them, they can be turned to our side."

"But, why not?" Ares whined.

"Look, I want to at least talk to them first."

"Fine."

Erwin entered one of the base's many entrances. Hissing noises signified the replacement of Resonance's atmosphere with the facility's nitrogen-oxygen-based air. A flash of blue decontaminated the room.

He used the facility's internal tram system, to head for his next destination. Even with his Armor's speed, a hundred-kilometer circular facility is too big to comfortably travel. The trams ran at a brisk three thousand kilometers per hour and used inertial compensators to protect the occupants. Not that Erwin needed it, but others definitely would.

A few twists, turns, and a large door later; he was at his first destination. It was a relatively small hangar, with only one starfighter.

Erwin stood in front of a black fighter, it had the same crimson pattern that all Imperial ships had.

It was a sleek, smooth, and aggressive-looking starfighter that resembled the ancient F-23 of the American Military.

The starfighter was only a fighter by Imperial standards, at a length of one hundred and sixty meters. By this Universe's standards, it was a frigate.

The idea of fighters was a recently revived concept in the Empire. It was a common misconception that fighters were more maneuverable due to their size. What determines maneuverability and acceleration, is the ship's mass to thrust ratio. It was easier to make fighters more maneuverable. However, maneuverability was not the name of the game. It's acceleration.

Maneuverability had its uses, but the ability to gain velocity quickly was far more important.

The more mass a ship has, the more it takes to move it. A basic principle of physics known by even the most primitive of space-faring species.

What made fighters prevalent again was their ease of production, acceleration, maneuverability, stealth, and destructive ship-killing torpedos. The small starfighters could pull maneuvers that would snap even Imperial starships in half and could stay hidden until they were in the middle of an enemy fleet.

The acceleration was the impressive part. The ship could reach a significant portion of the speed of light. Normally, a starship couldn't accurately hit anything at those speeds. Only due to the starfighter's sophisticated sensors, did it keep a high degree of accuracy.

That's what stood in front of Erwin. An Imperial starfighter, or at least one made with Imperial technology. He didn't have a personal quarter on R Prime, but rather just lived in the starfighter. It had a small living quarter behind the cockpit.

The ship was hovering ten feet in the air. The power needed to run the repulsor was minute compared to the starfighter's power output. The starfighter, like all Imperial starships, never really powered down. There was no need to, it was easier to just put the starfighter in a low power mode. It's power consumption and production, only a tiny fraction of its full power.

Erwin walked under the bow of the starfighter. A circular piece of the black armor floated down, leaving a hole in the underside of the ship. The black piece of armor quickly moved forward, clearing the hole of any obstacles. There was no sign of there being an entrance before.

Erwin stood directly under the hole, and the gravity lift sucked him up. Once he cleared the hole, it gently nudged him away.

Erwin sat on the pilot set. It was a large, comfortable chair with large arms. Erwin looked out of the cockpit into the hangar for a moment.

The hangar was open, feeding into a much larger main hangar. Because of the size, he could see the top of the larger hangar. There was a translucent blue hard light barrier keeping out Resonance's thick atmosphere. The inside of the main hangar had many ships under construction. He could see a few flashes of light indicating the flash forging of nanolaminate armor.

He pulled up a large hard light screen, covering his view. Unlike other holograms, you couldn't see through it. As if an actual screen magically appeared in front of Erwin.

"Might as well get this over with…" Erwin thought.

He called Oriana.

"Where have you been?" She picked up almost immediately and didn't look happy.

"Something came up."

"What?" She wasn't going to let it go.

"Look, I'm sorry."

"I wanted you to meet my sister, Erwin. She was here for two days. Do you have any idea how rare that is? You said-"

"Oriana." Erwin snapped.

There was a tense silence.

Oriana was sitting on her bed. She pulled her legs up to her chest and held onto them.

"You've been away for four weeks this time." She said in a low, hurt voice.

Erwin made a few trips back to Illicium after his starfighter was completed. He gave Akio a one-day notice, then would show up on the porch in the middle of the night. The rest of the family was always pleasantly surprised, Oriana in particular.

Oriana was always a bit persnickety when he was gone a long time. He missed her too but had different ways of showing it.

"Do I show it?" Erwin wondered.

Erwin brushed it off, he'd ask Ares later.

"Ori, I'm sorry." He said with a tender undertone.

"You say that a lot." She despondently replied.

"I know."

"How much longer?" Oriana asked with some level of desperation.

That was a good question. Erwin had a few things that should be done. He wanted to pick up production on the Dyson sphere, get a few more shipyards operational, and maybe build an ark.

Knowing Oriana she'd want to save members of every race. It'd allow him to save more humans, but most of the reseeded humans would be born from artificial wombs. Erwin couldn't just clone them, so he gathered genetically desirable sperm and eggs. Why save a billion people, when you could store them in a bus-size pod?

Then one of his big projects was going to be completed soon. He'd have a few more options for force projection.

Erwin could safely chip away at their first two targets.

First, the Batarians need a little pruning. Their enslavement of Humans infuriated Erwin. Then dared to take the high ground, calling it a "cultural right." Erwin was tempted to take a battlegroup to Harsa System, and glass Khar'shan into a barren planet.

Then the Geth question had to be answered. Ares has a borderline fetish for killing Geth, but it's not like Erwin is much better.

"Three more weeks."

Oriana's eyes widened. She looked heartbroken.

"My birthday's in two." She soberly informed him.

Shit… he didn't forget that. It just wasn't on the front of his mind. He never celebrated his birthday, it was just another day. Same for other Anglian Warriors. That preconception was subconsciously applied to others.

Plus the whole, 'how do I mobilize against a horde of Xenos?'

He looked at Oriana's visibly hurt eyes. He could see the pain, even with that primitive camera she used.

"I'll be there…"

Her mood improved quickly after that declaration. Then kept improving as Erwin intentionally guided the conversation down a lighter path. She was still persnickety, almost annoyingly so. However, her smiles were worth it.

Eventually, she convinced him to play that little strategy game she likes. The game was a real-time strategy game. It was set in a Japanese fantasy world. Samurai and monsters, that sort of thing. Erwin had to admit, it was a pretty good game. The mechanics were solid, and the atmosphere was enjoyable.

Erwin found out real quick she was very competitive. Oriana used a real picture of herself for her profile. She wanted people to know it was a pretty girl who beat them.

Erwin can safely say, he's never met a girl with more to prove. But, she didn't have anything to prove. Oriana simply wanted to be more than a pretty girl. No one saw her like that, but it was incessant.

Maybe it was the two fifty IQ? Smart baseline humans tend to have quarks, and Oriana was off the charts.

Erwin forces the girl off, after their fourth game. It wouldn't be a problem if each round wasn't an hour-plus long. When they said their final goodbyes, Erwin leaned back in his chair for a nap.

He slept for two hours, but the excitement wouldn't allow a peaceful rest. Erwin sprung from the chair and jumped down the hole. He quickly made his way to the tram, bumping the speed to six thousand kilometers per hour.

Erwin reached his drop-off point, quickly. A few more halls and doors later he was at his final destination. More specifically, he was standing in the middle of the base's cloning chambers. He wasn't actually in the cloning chamber, but rather a glass tube that ran straight through the chamber.

The cloning chamber was a two-by-two kilometer room that reached a height of ten kilometers. The entire room was filled with amniotic fluid. A forest of thick reddish-pink vines occupied most of the room's space, each one spanning the ten-kilometer height of the room. The vines looked like a cross between seaweed and blood vessels.

Just like seaweed, the vines had thousands of pods running along their length. The pods slightly sagged, and each one was connected by a smaller vine branching off from its larger parent. The pods were amniotic sacs. Erwin could vaguely see human males curled in a fetal position, inside the sacs.

The glass tube had floodlights, slightly illuminating the otherwise dark room. The clear, viscous, slightly yellow liquid provided his Clone Troopers adequate warmth and protection while they grew. Yet the liquid seemed to swallow the light, as the forest of reddish-pink vines and amniotic sacs faded into darkness.

A squid-like creature swam past the glass tube. It was slightly grey with multiple tentacles. They were synthetic-organic droids designed to be caretakers of the Clones and vine forest. They'd also be the ones to pick the amniotic sac from the vine and carry them to a birthing chamber.

"Magnificent." Erwin praised.

"Each one is a loyal Trooper, only answering to us. They'll make the Empire proud." Ares agreed

"They're brutal too."

"I almost feel pity for the Batarians. Those Clone Troopers would eat their own guts raw, then ask for more." Ares said in mock sympathy.

"Yeah, they did develop an extreme culture."

"The sixth child is undoubtedly the most zealous." Ares said.

Anglians had created a few new forms of life and even took a primitive Xeno species under their wing. Each created form of life was allowed to develop their own culture, yet Anglians wanted a close relationship with their creations. To the point of them being referred to as "children."

Every "child" was under Anglian authority, one way or another.

The first "child" was Ancilla, a highly advanced AI race that attained consciousness and we're fully self-aware. They were modeled after humans and fully trusted Anglia to lead their evolution. They were closest to Anglians in how they acted.

The middle four "children" were Dolphins, Chimpanzees, Gorillas, and Octopuses in that order. All uplifted Terran races, each one gifted a world to develop on.

Erwin thought the Gorillas, then Chimpanzees were most useful of the middle "children."

The last "child" were clones. They were modeled off of humans, but they had characteristics of a hive mind. Created during the war, they were meant to be a warrior cast of sorts. Anglian Warriors led the development, but they weren't supposed to replace natural-born soldiers. Psionics was a bitch like that. These clones would have a dull presence.

They were developed to be a skillful yet disposable fighting force. To be led specifically by Spartans. Each army was based on a parent template. The template only imbued the basics of the parent culture; language, what they are, who created them, what their purpose is, that kinda thing.

Erwin's army had moderate use. Their culture was extreme even by Sixth Child standards. Each army had its unique name, the clones are the ones to come up with the Army's name. In a way, each army was its own unique culture.

Erwin liked what his men came up with.

Army of the Ghost.

His men were known for hyping Erwin's nickname.

The Base had four of these chambers, each one holding twenty million growing Clone Troopers. It took a week for a batch to be fully grown. The batch Erwin was looking at was about to be birthed, they were the first.

Eighty million a week isn't anything to scoff at, but it was barely acceptable in the face of a Galactic war. Less so when the enemy had millions of years to build up their strength. For all Erwin knew, the Reaper's had multiple Galaxies to pull from.

However, these were Imperial Clone Troopers. They were glorious demigods of war. Never showing cowardice, elegantly seeking the death of the Xeno, and always faithful.

Erwin could equipt his Clones with little more than sticks, and they'd find a way to tear apart Reapers. Technological inferiority was laughable to the Clones.

Their bodies and minds were their weapons. However, Erwin was going to make sure they had swords and shields worthy of his Legacy.

The Clones could be used as shock troops, spacemen, covert agents, or whatever it was… they could do it.

Their reaction times were better than any droid, and droids were damn fast.

Their intelligent yet ruthless minds created art on the battlefield. Working together like an orchestra, they could pick apart bigger prey like ants.

Individually, they were terrifying. Together, they were unstoppable.

Some of Clone's minds were digitally stored inside Erwin's suit. He'd have a veteran fighting force, and each hardened veteran shared his knowledge. Every new consciousness would be just as knowledgeable as their older brothers.

They were as close as Erwin could get to perfection in this Universe. Now, they were going to once again enforce their Commander's will.

These were Erwin's men. They really would eat their own guts, but mouth off while doing it.

They lived up to being his second legacy.

Ares was the first, and he was personally closer. However, these beautiful men of war made him feel powerful and filled with pride.

"They're just excitable." Erwin defended.

"Psh… whatever. You're just saying that because it's your Army." Ares childishly rebuked.

It honestly warmed his heart when Ares got jealous.

"Maybe." He answered, trying to hide his excitement.

It was uncharacteristic for him to get so worked up.

Erwin was practically giddy.

He commenced the birthing process.

Organic lights along the vines banished the darkness, and swarms of the squid-like creatures filled the cloning chamber.

Each creature grabs twelve amniotic sacs at a time. Swimming them away into a birthing chamber.

In a day, they'll all be ready for combat. Ready to take on the enemies of the Empire… Erwin's enemies.

Erwin began walking out of the cloning chamber, hundreds of squids swarmed around the tube A predatory grin formed, as his clone army began to breathe life.

"Now the Primitives and Reapers will learn the true power of Mankind." Erwin viciously sneered.

"I agree brother, this Galaxy has been used by Abominations for far too long." Ares said in a dark, foreboding tone.

Erwin enjoyed it when Ares embraced his inner warrior. They were similar sometimes, but Ares was the more level-headed. He even convinced Erwin to take prisoners once.

However, this sick trap has stoked something in Erwin's brother. Ares was probably less distracted after the bonding with Oriana began. Ares most likely saw it as Erwin gaining a level of stability.

Oh, but how could Erwin be anything but stable? He knows he's going into one of his psychotic episodes, but Erwin loves it.

He could practically taste the Xeno blood soaking his searing blade. See the rivers of Xeno blood, his second Legacy dutifully carved into the soil.

The God of War would be pleased with his future offerings.

"Now… how much Batarian blood do you think your brothers will thirst for?" Erwin asked.

"After they learn of Xenos slaving and raping Humans? All of it." Ares answered.

"Can you feel it, Brother?" Erwin asked, almost euphoric.

"The birthing chambers, or the heavy forges?" Ares asked pridefully.

"All of it. It's the Empire rising. We are the Empire in this primitive petri dish." Blood lust filling Erwin's eyes.

"Hell yeah, we are! The filth of the Abomination has blighted this Galaxy far too long." Ares' excitement was only fueling Erwin's own.

"Batarian blood will flow tomorrow. When the Reapers waltz into their garden, we'll emerge from this System with a million starships. Then, Reaper blood will flow."

"A million starships?"

"You can't do it?"

"I was going to ask why so few."

"Cocky little shit, aren't ya?"

For the next thirteen hours, the eighty million clone troopers prepared for duty. Each one required a meal, liquids, armor, and a weapon.

The Clones stood at six foot four in their armor. The helmet had a black visor shaped like a "T" that branched off into two parts near the mouth section. It wasn't a true visor, but rather a covering for the cameras and sensors. They had a black form-fitting under armor. The skin-tight suit increased the clone's strength and speed, along with protecting the Clone from an extra-terrestrial environment. Over the under armor were pieces of nanolaminate armor. The Clones looked intimidating with the slim form-fitting plates of armor, and the helmet that vaguely resembled a skull.

Inside the helmet had a high definition screen for the cameras and sensor readouts, but the Clones didn't need such a medium. Each Clone has a black carapace under their skin that directly integrates their nervous system into their armor. Along with many neural implants, and full neural lace. Their suits' sensor data was directly deposited into their brains.

Traditionally droids had much better reaction times than organic soldiers, but that wasn't the case for clones. The multitude of enhancements made the Clones only look human. Each organ, muscle, neuron, and bone is replaced with superior genetically engineered counterparts. Their organic-synthetic implants grew into them during development in the amniotic sacs.

The Clones were born combat-ready.

Every clone army had a piece of their Spartan's DNA integrated into them. A tiny piece of Erwin's DNA was used as the building block for the Clones. It allowed Erwin to easily protect the clones psionically and ensured loyalty to Erwin.

It was only a fraction of his DNA, they still looked like the race-neutral template.

The clone armor itself could be considered light by Imperial standards, but it provided superior mobility. Erwin could have made a plethora of different armor types, but that would only slow production times. Instead, they had a few different weapon types that could deal with any threat. No matter how heavily armored that threat was.

The primary clone weapon was a unique invention of Erwin's design. The blaster. He got the name from a Sci-Fi movie Oriana likes, Star something…

This blaster was a carbine small enough to be used one-handed if needed. It was a miniaturized Reaper plasma lance. The blaster fired a scarlet bolt of iron, tungsten, and uranium. It fires single large bolts or rapid firing smaller bolts. The new weapons only required solid slabs of iron, tungsten, and uranium for ammunition. The new Ezo powered the weapons and only required a small power cell to start up the small Ezo core.

The Army of the Ghost had a unique paint scheme. Light navy blue armor plates, with a few dull yellow patterns.

Erwin found himself looking down into the large hanger. Eight heavy droid ships were docked within the hangar. Each six-kilometer starship had large metal platforms feeding into them. The heavy droid starships were now manned by a clone crew. Now they were each taking in a division of Clone Troopers.

They marched in perfectly formed squares of platoons, led by their lieutenants. Marching with perfect form into the waiting starships. These eight heavy starships now had more hard power than the entire Galaxy. Combined with the two battlegroups' automated medium and light starships, they could conquer the Citadel tomorrow.

The heavy sounds of marching clones filled the hangar with an aura of Imperial pride.

The "Army of the Ghost" marched into the Galaxy at large.