Chapter 3

AN: I didn't like the last chapter that much; it felt too serious. Traditional storytelling with plot? Bah, who needs that? Where's the lols? I had to rectify this, and hence this chapter appears.

I will bring `them' again from the depths of the sea; That thou mayest crush `them', `dipping' thy foot in blood, That the tongue of thy dogs may have its portion from `thine' enemies.
Psalms, 68:22-23, American Standard version, Christian Bible

1st day of the Reaper invasion of Earth, Montreal

Fiala Karalosi could no longer muster the energy to be surprised.

When the alarms first went off, she was excited. Something interesting was happening, and she was about to perform the sacred responsibility of sharing the news with the galaxy. She would uphold the image of the Asari as the calm, competent, sexy face of the citadel races.

Her excitement turned to surprise and fear when she saw the giant black ship come down onto the city, spreading tentacles reaching open as if to grasp and seize.

Another shock was thrust on her when she was forced to flee for her life from rampaging techno-zombies.

When the techno zombies cornered her, her resolve broke and she curled up gibbering and crying in a corner of an alley.

Getting saved at the last minute by animal-people wielding archaic melee weapons, who jumped down from the roof was the last straw; she had nothing left. By the time she was being gently handed over unharmed to a group of strangely dressed humans drawing designs in the middle of the road, she was no longer fazed by the craziness of what was happening around her.

One of the humans saw them approach, and trotted over to the hulking predator animal-thing gently holding her.

"Greetings Garou. I am James bani Hermes. How may I be of service?" he politely asked.

She wasn't surprised when the murder-beast talked back. At all. Nothing could penetrate her floating sense of non-reality. "Found the azure girl about to be eaten by husks. She's a reporter."

James smiled. "Great, maybe a little video will help the rest of the world keep sticking it to the Reapers."

He grabbed her arm and turned. Waving behind at the Garou with his other hand, he pulled her back to the other figures tracing strange patterns on the asphalt.

"Ok, check it out; we sent out a tweet and got a baker's dozen Forces disciples and adepts who were available." This sentence made absolutely no sense to Fiala. Not noticing her utter confusion, the human kept talking. "We're scribing a combination of Solomon's seal enhanced with Nordic runes, and we were even able to shoehorn in an Aztec Quetzalcoatl reference! This is going to be epic!" He gestured grandly at the inscriptions.

Fiala stared at him. He looked back at her, and his grin faltered.

"You didn't understand anything I just said, did you?"

She slowly shook her head. His words made no sense.

He stroked his chin for a moment. "Hmm. Alright. How about this: we're setting up a magic ritual to summon all the lightnings and flash fry the Reapers."

She shook her head again.

He ran his hand thought his hair. "Huh. Even simpler, eh? Basically, we're going to cast a magic spell."

She cocked her head and looked at him for a moment. As he was about to smile she shook her head once more.

He sighed. "Ok, let me try this again, slowly. We're drawing a giant symbol on the ground." He looked at her encouragingly.

She nodded.

"Then we're going to wave our hands in the air, and speak many words."

She slowly nodded.

"Lightning will drop from the sky and kill all the bad guys."

She shook her head.

He threw his hands in the air. "Seriously? Not even...? Fine. Just stand and watch. Maybe that will make more sense."

Ten minutes later, when the air willed with electricity and the sky turned into lightning and the husks vaporized into dust, things made even less sense to Fiala.

How was she going to report this?


6th day of the Reaper invasion of Earth, Chicago

Fiala Karalosi dove behind a pile of rubble just as some kind of death beam raked across her position.

She was covered in six days-worth of grime, and exhaustion stretched across her face, but her eyes gleamed with excitement.

She turned and smiled at a small camera drone floating behind her.

"That was close! Reaper forces are getting trigger happy as their advance has ground to a halt here in the human city of Chicago. Despite two Reapers attacking from the east and south of the city, the human forces have managed to slow their progress to a crawl, and the Reapers haven't been able to advance at all in the last four hours!"

She ducked suddenly, and several thundering explosions echoed as the camera shook.

"That may be the signal for the counter attack! Let's see if we can get a word in with some of the valiant defenders."

She slithered through the rubble, but paused as she saw a looming figure through the smoke.

It stepped into visibility. It was a monster. It stood eight feet tall with slavering jaws and cruel jagged claws. Gleaming red eyes peered across the battlefield. Blood covered its maw and chest. Its arms were covered in gore up its shoulders.

She gasped as she saw it.

"Hey, Graves! Graves!"

Fiala dashed over to the monster and tugged at its bloody arm, ignoring the sticky mess. It let her pull it down next to her behind the broken concrete. "Dances-on-Graves, do you have a few moments? It sounds like the counter push is about to start, and the public wants to know your thoughts! What's important to the Crinos on the scene? "

She looked expectantly at the Garou. Behind them her camera drone shifted to a better angle.

An embarrassed rumble came from the giant wolf-man. "Ahhrm, Fiala. Shouldn't you be further back with the civilians? What are you even doing in Chicago?"

She smiled brightly. "Nope! The Earth News Network goes where the story is! Our viewers across the galaxy really want to know what's happening here on earth!"

He opened his jaw, revealing rows of deadly teeth. He started to speak, but paused, listening. He shook his head. "I have to go; the push is going to happen soon, and the mages need some meatshields to keep them from being squished. James is around somewhere, so you know there's going to be lots of collateral damage." He leveled a gore covered finger at her. "Keep your blue tail here at least until all the lightning passes; you don't want to get fried to a crisp, and I'm going to be too busy to save you this time from any stray husks."

With that, he bounded forward, easily clearing the rubble and dashing into the smoke.

Fiala turned to the vid drone. "There you have it folks! Even in the middle of the deathly struggle against the Reapers the human defenders think about protecting all the members of the galaxy! This is Fiala Karalosi of ENN signing off for now."

A peculiar whistling wail built in strength from all around. Static electricity started to spark across the concrete. Fiala snatched her vid drone, tucked it to her stomach and curled into a ball. Covering her head with her left arm, she absentmindedly wiped the gore off her right hand onto her pants. There was a great tearing noise as the entire city forcibly ionized. She closed her eyes and smiled to herself as thousands of lightning bolts repeatedly struck down from the sky, shorting out shields and sizzling husks across Chicago. When this was all over she was going to track Dances-on-Graves down and embrace eternity with him until neither one of them could walk straight for a week.


"Send in the next attack wave! HIT mark V's to the van, artillery on the left flank."

Thousands of man-shaped robots steadily walked forward, ignoring damage from incoming fire as they relentlessly pushed into the center of the Reaper line

"Why are there so many of these things?"

The wizard shrugged. "Surplus. We got really good at spotting them so the technocracy mothballed the mark V's. The primary storage facility in Kansas alone has almost a ten thousand of them."

Shepard nodded and then paused. "Why do they all look like Arnold Schwarzenegger?"

The wizard smirked. "Everyone believes terminators look like Arnold. Even to this day."

They stood, watching the mark V's grind themselves against the Reaper defenses. After a few minutes one of the generals leaned forward, peering intently at the battle display.

"We have them pinned on the defensive. Roll out the 13s!"

Shepard turned to the mage next to her. "13s?"

He grinned. "Hyper Intelligence Technologies, mark 13. Pure heavy assault class. No good for infiltration, only straight on assault."

Shepard could hear them coming before she could see them. Their shapes appeared out of the dust; bulbous cylinders bristling with weapons.

"EXTERMINATE!"

They crushed through the Reaper lines, unstoppable.

"EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"

Bolts of energy poured from them. Reaper counterfire vaporized against shimmering shields and impassible armor.

"EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"

Shepard looked on in horror. "My God, those things are unstoppable! If the technocracy has troops like that, why didn't they ever use them against you guys?"

The mage smirked. "Who knows. They're hilariously ineffective against humans for some reason."