Hellas Basin, Mars
Sol System
One of the first lessons that the Atlesian Military drilled into the new recruits' heads was that when faced with an unknown enemy, the best course of action was reconnaissance and intelligence gathering. While the Ace-Op had plenty of knowledge of the Hive thanks to the Guardians extensive Grimoire System and the newly implemented Lore System as well, they had very little knowledge of Nokris and his Hive Sect. The tablet that Ana Bray got from a Hive Acolyte helped, but only a little bit due to the lettering on the tablet differentiated from the norm. They hope that by getting more of these tablets, they'll be able to learn more about the Sect. This proved to be a problem due to having no idea where and when the Hive will appear. A problem thankfully solved by the Warmind Rasputin.
Rasputin created something called Escalation Protocol: a program designed that was a combination of residual energy that was the Traveler's Light and his own systems. Placed in a few of his laser towers, they send out a signal in a small region which sends the local Hive within into a ravenous frenzy with the intent of destroying anything in the vicinity. His hope was to use this as not only clearing out the Hive population, but to also gather intel.
The group decided to split into groups. Prometheus-23 would go with Vine Zeki, Clover Ebi and Elm Ederne. Ana Bray would stay behind with both Penny Polendina Marrow Amin and Harriet Brie to guard the Futurescape.
The four have made it into one of the regions of the Hellas Basin an old train depot that was backed up against a C-shaped canyon.
This was good thanks to another lesson the Atlesian Military drilled into their heads: When going up against an enemy, establish a proper kill zone. Discovering one of Rasputin's inactive laser towers here, good cover on top of the train depot, and a dead end, this would be a perfect kill zone.
"Got plenty of ammo for myself. What of the rest of you?" Prometheus-23 asked them. Elm reached into one of the satchels of ammo they brought along, bringing out a couple of rockets to load into her weapon, Timber. "Got rockets for days here." Vine readied his throwing star weapon, Thorn. And Clover readied his Kingfisher weapon. "Here goes nothing." Using its fishing hook as a makeshift grappling gun, he descended below towards the inactive tower. Bringing his Scroll near the tower, he placed it against the cool dusty metal. His scroll beeped when the program given to him by Rasputin activated. A thoom erupted from the tower as it began to glow orange signalling it being turned on. He then quickly ascended back up with the others to await.
At first nothing happened, but then the ground underneath began acting up and several thralls dug themselves out of the dirt. Scrambling all over themselves, they got out of the dirt and swarmed towards the tower. Flashes of emerald flames signified the arrival of Acolytes and Knights, some of which had Grimm physiques.
"This Noris is sure twisted." Clover said as he observed several Thralls that had the segmented bodies of Centinels attached below the waist, or those with small Boarbatust tusks jetting from their jaws. And of course, some of the Knights had the feathered wings of Nevermores. Once enough had reached near them, the group of four opened fire.
Vine threw his throwing star which flew down and decapitated several Thralls before coming back to him. He caught it and repeated the process. Prometheus-23 and Elm used their respective rocket launchers and blew up several dozen of them. And Clover used his semblance to manipulate the probability of large chunks of rocks from the walls to crush those below.
And yet, more Hive came out of the ground or teleported.
These newest arrivals, feeling the Light in the area saw what was happening and tried to fire on the four. But thanks to the cover provided, the shots fell short or missed them. And the four rained fire upon them from above as retaliation.
In a rare lull in the slaughter, spotting several tablets down below, Clover scaled down and collected as many of them as he could. He then went back to his weapon and proceed to scale back up.
And that was when his Semblance failed him.
He felt a clawed hand grip his ankle. He looked down and was face to face with a Hive Thrall which screamed into his face!
He tried to kick it off his leg with the other leg, but it just took the punches as it clawed itself further out of the ground. In his panic, he clicked his weapon and it retracted upwards, the Thrall tailing behind. Turned out this particular Thrall had the segmented body of a Centinel, coiling and squirming as it left the ground.
Vine, seeing his fellow Ace-Operative and leader having difficulties activated his Aura Vines Semblance and punched the Thrall/Grimm hybrid in the face. Several time he did this before the thing let go of Clover's leg. As it fell, Prometheus-23 used another rocket and blew it up. Vine then dragged Clover back up.
A sudden vibration beneath their feet signified something big was about to breach the ground. They readied their heaviest of ammo and the Titan prepared to unleash his Super.
At the mouth of the dead-end, the ground erupted and a gigantic Hive Ogre clawed its way out of the earth followed by a swarm of Thralls clawing and shrieking. However, this Ogre was much different from the others the Titan fought before. For starters, it had six horns jutting from its back. Another was that it didn't have the usual mass where its Void Shots would normally shoot out of. Instead, it had a Y-incision stitches. And finally, it had no mouth.
Pan managed to identify the Ogre as Naksud, the Famine.
Before the Titan could do anything, the Ogre looked up at where they were and the Y-incision opened up. Turned out that was its mouth, opening like a flower, lined with rows of teeth and, unlike most Ogre's the titan had fought, a tongue that ended with the head of a Grimm king Taijitsu. As the Ogre roared at them, the Grimm hissed as well.
Elm's face got a bit green at the sight. "That is the most disgusting thing I've ever seen."
"Blow it up?" Prometheus-23 said.
"Blow it up!" Elm replied.
Together, the two unloaded rocket after rocket at the thing, the Ogre crying out as the impacts racked its body. As the smoke cleared, they saw deep wounds in its body along with small bits of its skin peeling off. Naksud roared and the Thralls responded and charged at the Ogre. As the Thralls approached the Ogre, the group up above watched in both fascination and horror at what they witnessed.
When the Thrall touched the Ogre, their body melted on the Ogre's skin. Said liquefied Thrall traveled up the Ogres body towards one of the wounds and filled it in. The liquefied flesh soon solidified and merged with the flesh around it. Soon hardening and becoming a match with the surrounding skin.
Prometheus-23 cursed under his breath. "It can regenerate!"
"Looks like the Thralls are responsible for said regeneration." Vine said observing the phenomenon. Prometheus-23 exchanged his rocket launcher for his newly acquired exotic Assault Rifle, Sweet Business. "I'll take care of the Ogre; you guys handle the Thralls. Don't let any of them near it!" He said as he jumped off the building, rolled and opened fire.
The barrels of Sweet Business spinned as it unleashed bullet after bullet into the Ogre's body. It screamed as if felt its flesh ripped and torn. The screams summoned more Thralls as they made their way to the gigantic Hive. Up above, the three Ace-Ops used every trick in the book to prevent the Thrall from reaching the Ogre.
Vine used his Aura Vines to grab and throw the Thralls far away or crush them flat. He was a bit unfortunate when he grabbed or crush a few Cursed Thralls which blew up in his hands. Luckily, his Aura managed to take most of the hits, but he was careful. Elm used her rocket launcher and blew up large groups of them. And as for Clover, he was literally fishing for them. In one instance, his fishing line grabbed the nasal passage of a Cursed Thrall. Before it blew up, he managed to swing it near a bunch of other Thralls and blew them up. His Semblance Good Fortune helping him out.
Prometheus-23 ran and shot around the Ogre, avoiding the arms that it used to slam the ground. Seeing the Titan avoiding the arms, it decided to change tactics. It opened its mouth and the King Taijitsu that served as its tongue snaked out and striked at the Titan. Prometheus-23 barely avoided the strike as the Grimm's fangs pierced the ground. The Grimm retracted its fangs from the ground and coiled back to deliver another strike. Prometheus aimed at the tongue, but it maneuvered itself around the shots and reared up to strike again. As it struck, the Titan jumped back to avoid it. Getting irritated by the Titan, the Grimm appendage did something unexpected. With a sickening schloop, it detached itself from the Ogres mouth.
"That's just wrong!" Elm shouted as she unleashed another salvo from her rocket Launcher, killing more Thralls. She reached behind her for another, but one of the Thralls had managed to climb all the way up and tackled her. She quickly shifted her weapon into its hammer form and managed to hold the Thrall back as it tried to bite her. It was so busy in its task that it didn't notice Clover stab it in the head, dissolving the body, bathing Elm in it chitinous ashes.
"I had it under control." She said as she got back up to her feet and back into the fight. "Sure, whatever." Clover replied.
Back down below, Prometheus was battling both the Ogre and its King Taijitsu tongue at the same time. Both were cornering him towards the far end of the area. His back now against the literal wall, he activated his Super in the form of Hammer of Sol. His body was soon bathed in Solar Flames and a hammer appeared in his hand. He then threw the hammer at the King Taijitsu, impacting one of its eyes and making said eye burst. It screamed and retreated a far distance leaving the Ogre at the Titans mercy. Combined with the Titans hammer swings and the three Ace-Ops depriving it of Thrall, it quickly took a lot of damage. Large quantities of its skin started to blister, burn or melt off its body. With a final swing of his hammer, it impacted its head, killing it.
The King Taijitsu, seeing the Ogre dead, turn to flee, but felt something grab it. Turning to see that it was the Titan himself, it was powerless when the Titan used his strength to grip onto it tightly and swung it upwards. Swinging it back, it impacted the ground that was now littered with the quickly decomposing bodies of Hive, breaking them even more. The Titan then swung again and slammed it back onto the ground. It did this several times before swinging it one final time, then letting it go so it flew right into the wall, killing it.
Prometheus-23 took several breaths as he called down the three Ace-Ops high above. Together, they looked around to see if any Hive were still present. "Looks like we got the last of them here." Clover said holstering his weapon. A resounding VRRRRRRRRRMMMM sounded behind them. They turned and saw the tower retract back beneath the ground. As it went back down, a bright flash appeared signaling a Transmat activating. As the light faded, they saw that it wasn't a person, but a large chest in the same style as Rasputins tech. cautiously approaching, Prometheus-23 touched the chest and it opened, the four crowding to see the contents. Inside of the chest were three knives and a shotgun. Both in the style of Rasputins tech. Prometheus-23 grabbed the shotgun and thanks to Pan, identified it as an IKELOS Shotgun. The three Ace-Ops took the knives and inspected them. "We fought Hive and all we got were these knives." Elm said jokingly as she inspected the sharpness, electing an OW, as it pricked her finger. She saw blood well up from the small wound, surprising her since she had her Aura up. "Blades that bypass Aura. Might come in handy." Vine said as he and Clover placed the knives on their belts. Elm simply acknowledging and following suit.
Prometheus was testing out the recoil when he got a radio broadcast back from the Futurescape.
It was Ana Bray. "Hey Prometheus, you and the three busy?"
"We just used Rasputins Escalation Protocol and killed a bunch of Hive along with another Grimm-Hive hybrid. Why?"
"Harriet and Penny dealt with a small team of Psions that tried to get to Rasputin's Core and we got some disturbing intel." She spoke. In the background, he could hear Harriet Brie curse up a storm. "Fuckers tried to get into my head and screw with me!" "Sufficient to say, Harriet hates them now. Anyway, the intel we got is that they are part of a splinter group of the Red Legion trying to make a name for themselves."
Prometheus-23 nodded. Ever since Dominus Ghaul got vaporized by an Awakened Traveler, the Red Legion along with the other Cabal legions in Sol and on Remnant started to splinter forming their own armies. This resulted in Guardians and Huntsmen hunting down and killing any cabal with leadership skills.
"Any idea where this splinter is holed up in?"
"Not too far from where you are. It's a Braytech Weapon manufacturing company."
"Figures."
00000
After giving the three a brief synopsis of their next assignment, the four produced Sparrows from their Scrolls and in the Titan's case, his Ghost and soon arrived at their destination. The manufacturing company was located a long way from the rest of the Futurescape. It was a large building with a fenced in field that stretched far to the horizon, littered with old rusted tanks, cars, barrels and target dummies buried beneath sand. Made sense in Prometheus-23's opinion. For a weapon manufacturing company needed a large field to test out their weapons and ammo before distribution. Hopping off the Sparrows, which soon vanished, they made their way to the front of the building. Sand, weather and time had eroded most of the buildings colors making identification useless. They saw a few footprints belonging to Cabal, Psions and a few War beasts leading to the front door, so they were on the right track. Elm managed to find a sign that had fallen over and brushing off the sand managed to read it. "Aries Munitions: Building Future Weapons for the Future Conflict. Charming."
As they walked towards the doorway, Prometheus-23 gripped his head in pain. "AHHHHH!" He shouted as he fell to his knees.
"Prometheus!" Elm said as she kneeled down towards the Titan and helped him up. "Are you alright?" Clover asked.
"Yeah, I'm-ahhhhh!" Prometheus-23 said as he tried to get up, but another wave of pain surged through him. His audio receptors filtered from the concerned voices of the Ace-Ops along with others, voices that had no source. The pain soon ceased and he managed to get up.
"Are you alright?" Clover asked again.
"I-I think so. Summer wasn't kidding about the headaches." He said as he stood up.
"Summer? As in Guardian Summer Rose?!" Elm asked.
"Yes. She experienced something similar when she first met her daughter. A flash of memory." He said as he looked up at the building before them.
"Before I was resurrected as a Guardian…I was here."
A/N: Hope you all enjoyed the change to the Escalation Protocol boss I made. That particular Ogre was horrific, so I added a bit more horror to it.
See ya next time!