"Wait, it gets worse!"

By Kpmh2001

Menagerie

The sun was finally setting over the outback, casting a red glow over shrub and Marine alike. Spent shell casings and patches of burning grass decorated the sandy grass, occasionally punctuated by a combat boot disrupting the dirt. Before the small party of soldiers, multitude of dissipating Grimm corpses turned into wispy nothingness.

A quick thermal scan confirmed what Ben's eyes had already determined. "We're clear!"

At his command, Nathan, Peggy, Kerry, Kowalski, and Mags all stood down. The rest of the team gave a quick visual sweep, just to confirm that the Grimm were all dead.

"Are ya certain?" Mags asked, seemingly doubting the ease of their victory.

"Positive." Ben confirmed. "Unless you see something I don't, we got them all."

"Huh... guess so." Mags replied, lowering Tasman and returning the weapon to its position slung under her shoulder. The sheer effort she'd put into making her weapon usable was very impressive, even if the results did look more than a little unwieldy. Nevertheless, she had proven her capability with the shoulder-mounted naval cannon, and that was enough to banish Ben's doubts.

"Should we call it in?" Kowalski asked.

Kerry reached for his backpack-mounted radio as he answered. Although their helmet radios had an impressive range, they couldn't reach the Dominion all the way up in Atlas like the larger field telephones could. "Yeah, I'll relay it in to the Dominion too, cover me."

Ben returned his gaze to the ridgelines and hill around them, just in case more Grimm decided to show up.

Nathan reloaded his sniper rifle as he performed his own sweep of the perimeter. "Why would the Grimm come here of all places? Arroyo's only a couple klicks down the road, if they're after the village, they could've taken it."

"Hell if I know." Mags answered. "But if the Grimm wanna make mistakes, I'm all for it."

"Either that, or all the smart ones have all gone for greener pastures." Nathan said, kicking over some of the desolate sand to punctuate his point. "But wait, those were Creeps. Didn't the briefing say that we're supposed to be fighting-"

He was interrupted by an ear-splitting screech in the air. Even through his helmet, Ben could sense how the sound reverberated throughout the small hills that surrounded them. Disturbingly, it sounded almost like the scream of a human, the kind that someone made on death's door. Were it not for the nature of their objective, Ben would've actually assumed that it was a human.

But I guess everything on this planet's gotta be messed-up somehow... Ben thought.

"...Thralls?" Nathan nervously finished, returning his rifle to a ready stance. "We've got company!"

Ben double-checked his Assault Rifle, confirming that it was ready for action. "Be careful what you wish for Nathan."

"Yeah, keep your porthole shut, ya daft bastard!" Mags added, placing Tasman back to its position on her shoulder as she moved her gaze to where they had heard the cry from. Nathan gave a snarky retort, but it was drowned out by the sounds of another screech, followed immediately by the first Thrall cresting the hill before them.

It was tall, vaguely humanoid, with lanky arms seemingly covered by tattered and decomposing rags, although what they once were was no longer apparent. Instead of legs, it possessed a snakelike tail, although he knew from the briefing earlier that they typically had a wide variety of appendages and limbs. Things like Spider legs, scorpion bodies, and even tentacles weren't unheard of, even if most of them still had their humanoid legs.

But the most troubling features were the hints of some sort of vague humanity in the creature. A face with two bloodshot, unblinking eyes stared him down with an expression of pain and fear, as if begging to be killed. Across it's malformed, seemingly malnourished chest, the remnants of an ammunition bandolier were visible, and on its head was an ancient steel helmet, with it's strap affixed to the Grimm's chin.

A helmet? And it's not made out of bones, like the masks... Ben thought.

Arrows and seemingly the remnants of a javelin stuck out from the creature's flesh, hinting at former battles where it had emerged victorious. More Thralls followed the first, culminating into a squad-sized unit that even stood in formation as they stood down the Marines. The Thrall that Ben now recognized as the leader gave a gut-churning scream that commanded the Grimm forward. But with a hundred meters between them and the humans, they would need some time to get close.

"Aw shite... they're old ones..." Mags said, her voice containing a hint of worry. "Watch out, they can get a wee bit... difficult."

"We'll be fine." Ben replied confidently, they had taken on Grimm before. "Weapons free!"

The squad unleashed a barrage of gunfire into the Grimm, spent casings littered the ground as they worked together to suppress the enemies advance. A deafening thunderclap sounded as Nathan separated one of the Grimm from it's lower half, bisecting it completely with a hit to its spine. The Grimm were immediately slowed considerably, and forced to disperse their formation and begin evasive maneuvers. The Thralls proved to be surprisingly difficult targets, as they rapidly maneuvered their lanky thin bodies to avoid harm.

Mags was something different entirely, like a squad unto herself. Ben still didn't know exactly how her seemingly steel cannonballs carried any explosive power, but they hit like shells from an autocannon, and scattered the Grimm away from their strangely organized formation even more. She rapidly reloaded Tasman's internal magazine, and used a cannonball loaded with Gravity Dust to launch one of the Thralls into the air. It must've flown dozens of meters, and Ben lost sight of it when it landed on the far side of a hill.

Damn, I need to get some of those. Ben thought, lamenting the slow development of the UNSC's own gravitational weaponry. Still, his own rifle proved perfectly functional as he put it to use keeping the Thralls back.

It seemed difficult to actually kill the Grimm, but wounding them was easy enough, as the open terrain offered them little protection. The second Thrall died from combined gunfire from Mags and Ben, prompting an unexpected reaction from the Grimm. With frighteningly sharp coordination, they dove into cover, and immediately left the humans with an unexpected predicament. All of the Grimm that Ben had seen before seemingly had little interest in protecting themselves from bullets, preferring to close the distance and engage in melee combat with their targets rather than take shelter. This was very different, and immediately made him somewhat worried.

Although hard obstructions were chronically rare in the Menagerie bush, the Thralls managed to find rocks, small bits of defilade, and bits of long-dead wood to hide behind. From behind a large boulder, their leader did something that Ben did not expect, and haphazardly tossed something at him in an overarching throw. The other Grimm dug into their cover to take shelter from the UNSC gunfire and the wrath of Mags's cannonballs.

At first, Ben assumed that the Thrall had thrown a stick, or perhaps even it's own severed arm at him. But as the short, thin object landed at his feet, he saw it was actually some sort of aged wooden stick. There was some kind of ancient, long deformed writing down it's length, and at the end of the handle was a single metal bulb, with a cord trailing out of the other end of the handle.

Ben's well-trained instincts kicked in as he used his foot to punt the object away from his squad as far as he could, and not a moment too soon, as it exploded mid-air almost immediately after. Bits of shrapnel from the blast of the grenade and a concussive wave took their toll on his shields, but his squadmates remained unharmed.

A stick grenade?! Ben thought, suddenly realizing just how much of a threat these creatures truly faced. If these Grimm could use weapons, especially something as devastating as a Grenade, that demanded additional caution.

He quickly called out a set of instructions to his squad to adapt to the new threat. "Scatter formation, grab some cover! These things are armed!"

The ODSTs widened the gaps between each man, while Mags abandoned all sense of attempting to stick with the slower Marines, and launched toward one of the flanking Thralls at speeds an ordinary human simply couldn't hope to match. She launched a barrage of projectiles at the creature, blowing it apart at various points and sending it scattering into the wind.

Ben refocused his efforts on suppressing the leader of the group, but the boulder that the Thrall was sheltered behind protected it from harm. The ODSTs had managed to erode some of the Grimm, and used grenades and flanking tactics to flush those that were hiding into the open. Nathan used his sniper rifle to excellent effect, and managed to eliminate a number of the more isolated Grimm by himself.

That leader has got to go. Ben realized, hearing it hiss and scream at its subordinates, seemingly issuing commands in some otherworldly language. Seeing such organization amongst the Grimm was deeply troubling to him, but he kept those thoughts in the back of his mind, where they wouldn't interfere with the battle.

"Nathan, can you get a shot on that thing?" Ben asked, placing a navpoint on the boulder that the Grimm was hiding behind to display what he needed killed. Not once did Ben relent his suppressive gunfire, if Grimm had any more grenades to throw, Ben needed to keep it pinned.

"Negative!" Nathan replied for unknown reasons, leaving Ben with only a handful of other options. He quickly decided on the simplest option, and withdrew a grenade to flush the Grimm out.

"Grenade!" Ben shouted as he cooked the fuse down slightly, before tossing it in a broad arc so that it would land on the other side of the Thrall's cover. Without Curie to help guide it, he was left to his training to aim it properly, but he managed to place the grenade where he wanted it with little difficulty.

It exploded, sending shrapnel in every direction, including into the flesh and scales of the cowering Thrall, which gave a cry of pain that sounded far too much like a human's for Ben's liking. The Grimm left it's cover and launched itself towards Ben, slithering it's tail across the ground worryingly quickly. Ben leveled his rifle and targeted it's tail, attempting to maim it's ability to move, and rapidly depleted what was left of his magazine in the process.

The scales of the Grimm acted like a sort of armor, but proved insufficient to completely negate the effects of the high-velocity armor-piercing ammunition. The bullets overpenetrated the Thrall's lower half, emerging out of the Grimm's backside barely slowed. Although the Grimm was slowed and wounded, it was not stopped nor deterred.

Recognizing the surprisingly low density of the enemy's body, and that he would not have time to reload before it was upon him, Ben reached for his M6/SOCOM magnum pistol and expertly placed a trio of shots into the Thrall's center of mass. At once, the high-explosive rounds proved far more effective at rending the Grimm's flesh. Ben inadvertently managed to use some of the discarded weaponry embedded in the Thrall's body as a sort of shrapnel, sending fragments of metal and wood across the Grimm's body and wounding it even more.

Although most of the abomination's fleshy black chest was now exposed to the elements, and it's mobility was hampered, the Grimm still managed to lunge towards Ben with one final burst of energy. As the Thrall barreled towards him, Ben deftly sidestepped, grabbed the creature by the neck, and slammed it face-first into the Menagerie dirt. The Grimm hit the ground so hard that it's helmet was dented by a rock on the ground.

Gotcha! Ben thought, as he placed another three shots into the Grimm's lower spine, preventing it from escaping using what was left of its lower half. The howls of pain from the Grimm chilled him, but his training kept him from hesitating, or even thinking twice about what he was doing.

A quick glance around the battlefield confirmed that the ODSTs and Mags had made short work of the remaining Thralls. Deciding to try to gain some valuable insight into what had proven to be an unknown foe, Ben relented from killing the Grimm immediately, and instead disabled it's arms by crushing them in his gauntlets.

Once the Thrall was sufficiently pacificed, Ben used his foot to carefully flip it over, revealing the true extent of the damage that his bullets had done. Whatever the Grimm had instead of organs, they certainly weren't any more durable than any kind of regular animal's body parts. Shrapnel and high-velocity ammo had torn the Grimm's body apart to such an extent that Ben was amazed it was still alive, let alone able to move and fight as well as it had.

What are you, really? Ben thought, reaching down to remove the Grimm's steel helmet. The flesh of the Grimm's chin was fused into the strap of the helmet, holding it to the Thrall's head. A slight tug liberated the helmet from it's trap.

Nathan approached him from behind as Ben inspected the helmet. "Hey Ben, we got them all... uh, Ben?"

"Yes Nathan?" he replied, turning to face the ODST, whose body language suggested he was very disturbed by what he was seeing.

"Are you uh... gonna kill that thing?" Nathan awkwardly asked, before spotting the decaying helmet in Ben's hands. "Wait, is that a helmet?"

Ben folded the object over in his hands, designwise, it dated back centuries by Earth's standards. The helmet wouldn't have been out of place in the first two world wars, much like the grenade that the Thrall had thrown earlier. But Remnant's abnormal technological standards meant that the garment could've been thousands of years old, or perhaps only a few dozen. "Yes, and this thing was wearing it."

Nathan depolarized his visor and looked at the Grimm with a disturbed expression. "That's... creepy. So, these things use our own stuff against us?"

Ben looked down at the Thrall's face, and looked directly into the bloodshot, dehydrated organs that permitted the creature to see. Even as disheveled as the creature was, Ben could see the fear on its face, clear as day. He briefly pondered what animalistic thoughts lay behind those eyes, before crushing the Grimm's head beneath his heavily armored boot, killing it instantly.

"Yes, they do. These ones must be smart enough to use captured equipment." Ben replied, although deep down, he wasn't so sure if he was correct. Still, it was better than inspiring any further worry within the ranks of the Marines. "We'll need to change our tactics accordingly, and bear in mind that these things can use our weapons."

Curiously, the helmet that the Grimm wore didn't melt away with its owner, nor it's tattered outfit. Ben affixed it to his belt, perhaps it would have some value to Curie's ongoing efforts to explore Remnant's history. Nathan looked at the vanishing Grimm corpse with an expression of disturbed curiosity, but thankfully didn't voice any more questions. "Yeah... I guess so."

As the squad returned to their two warthogs, Ben took a position at the rear of the formation with Mags, hoping to speak with her privately about their foes. Her face seemed somewhat slumped, and it was obvious that she was in deep thought.

"Mags, what were those things?" Ben asked. "Why were they wearing armor, or using weapons?"

Mags took a deep, seemingly labored breath. "I don't know Ben, but there's some... rumors, about the Thralls."

"What kind of rumors?" Ben asked, his curiosity unfettered. Although rumors were rarely useful, rarely did not mean never.

She looked to him with an expression of doubt. "Well some people think that the Thralls... well, that they used to be old soldiers. The Grimm take the corpses and then they... change them, I guess. Nobody can prove it but... they seem a little bit smarter than the other Grimm."

Ben was deeply disturbed by her answer, not only because of what he had seen, but because of the odd sort of logic behind it. Remnant had no shortage of dead heroes, and many of their bodies remained unrecovered, left to fester and rot in the mud, deep within the Grimm-occupied territory. How the Grimm knew how to do such a thing, or why they did it, remained a mystery, but that didn't make it any less disturbing. Weeks ago, Ben would've claimed it was impossible, but Remnant had proven that the impossible didn't exist.

"...I see." Ben replied with a rare hint of hesitation. "Thank you."

"Don't think about it too much there, Spartan." Mags advised. "I spent a good few years in a bottle, and eventually I learned to ignore those thoughts."

"It's not relevant." Ben bluntly responded. "Whether or not they were human, they're not anymore, they're the enemy now."

"Damn straight." Mags said with a firm nod. Her eyes hinted at a deeper curiosity, but she didn't raise her voice again.

Even as the Fireteam returned to Arroyo, and divided the reward money for the mission between the UNSC's growing pool and Mags, Ben couldn't stop thinking about the expression on that Grimm's face... and whether or not he would have to face them again.

Authors Note: Although the Flood may not have a place in my story, that does not mean that the elements behind what makes them so scary don't. The idea for the Thralls came from my recent return to Battlefield 1, and the muddy corpse-filled trenches, combined with some of the creepier elements of the flood, birthed what I like to think of as a creepy addition to the forces of Grimm. After all, before Remnant had Huntsmen and Huntresses... it only had soldiers to stand against the Grimm.

Next omake should be a bit less spooky and serious, I just thought I'd try something a little different. I like experimenting with new ideas here, especially since it's canonicity is questionable, at least, in some instances.

Editor's Note: PHILOSOPHY IS CANON

Author's Note: No! How many times do we have to talk about this!