''It began, as it always does, with a lust for power''

That's how her message started, her grasp on our history was always distorted. Our lust for power was never what started the conflict with the Locust. It truly began, with a sudden and rapid onslaught, a genocidal campaign launched by her against us. Not that she would tell you that. Of course, there's more to her story too. Things about the Queen Myrrah that the Coalition wouldn't want me to tell you, but that I will anyway, because you deserve to know the truth.

My tale begins 5 years before Emergence Day, in a cavern in Mount Kadar, where Dr Adam Fenix was searching for his lost wife.

An admirable tale that led him to the discovery of something far more outlandish and yet equally as true. He stumbled upon the Locust Horde, their capital, Nexus. But readers, you may have looked at the date I have given and realised it was 5 years before the Emergence, why didn't Adam Fenix tell the Chairman? Why weren't the Gears mobilised? Why did we not attempt diplomacy with Horde? All good and very much valid questions!

The truth is, no one knows why none of those options were selected, likely because who would take him seriously? It's crazy to think that a race of Humanoids with Giant Worms capable of sinking cities and their Kryll bats capable of tearing a fully armoured gear apart in a matter of seconds lived below us, living their lives, building their civilisation, and there they were, existing anyway. From the records I have seen from both sides, and the documents pulled from Kadar, it's safe to say that Queen Myrrah and the Locust Horde were not some alien race, they weren't even technically a different species to us, they were once us! Humans! ''Rustlung''. We Veterans are all very familiar with the term, with the illness that spread through our ranks in the latter period of the Locust War. What if I told you, that Rustlung had existed before the Emergence of the Locust, before the pandemic in the winter of 15AE. Crazy right?

I'd have once thought that too. But the Coalition of Ordered Governments covered it up. They began a Top Secret experiment on the infected, at first it was innocent enough, but then, it became more and more insidious. What began as a search for a genuine cure for the illness - which was caused by a very very early form of lambency - caused by prolonged and intense inhalation of Imulsion fumes, soon became a deep dive into the genetic enhancement of the Homo Sapiens. Led by a Professor - Doctor Niles Sampson - a fringe offshoot was created by a rogue element within the Coalition, whose very logo became the symbol of the Locust Horde. The Horde, of course, did not grow overnight, and nor did they grow their numbers in such a short period of time. No. The Locust Hordes earliest form was a failure in the forcible evolution and modification of infected Human subjects.

Dubbed ''Sires'' by the scientists who created such abominations, were incredibly unstable, but physically more powerful. That's not to say they lacked intelligence, no, Sires were intelligent, are, intelligent, if there's any left. But they were not like the Horde we knew, nor were they anything like us. This was the first ''successful'' attempt by Dr Sampson and his team to create a ''better Humanity''. Eventually, experiments became more and more grotesque, soon sires were bred with Human Women, genetic failures and cruel fates were all that awaited them. But eventually, a child, infected with Rustlung and imbued with pure Imulsion and what did we get? We got the Locust Queen. I suppose the pragmatist in all of us would say we should have destroyed the lab, we should have eliminated the Sires and we certainly should have eliminated Myrrah regardless of the ethics, but how were we to know? It was hidden from all of us after all. Gradually the team improved upon the Sires, and the earliest of the Locust were born. The Methods were as brutal as ever, and I can confirm that reproduction through forcible insemination of Locust Females known to us now as ''Beserkers'' has been the primary method of reproduction since the inception of the Horde. I imagine many questions are arising now too, the Locust were contained, so were the Sires, how did they become what they became? Where is Myrrah fitting into this? and why is Adam Fenix so important to the tale?

I promise, the answers will come soon.

As the experiments continued, Myrrah became increasingly bitter. Her father, who was also a part of the project (which makes this even more abhorrent when you realise what he allowed happen to his daughter) was sent away. Myrrah was, however, informed of his death. Something that didn't actually happen until years later. Myrrah slowly grew resentful and bitter of her treatment, the constant pain, and somehow, with all the experimentation conducted on her, the now teenage Myrrah had developed a link to the Locust, the ability to communicate telepathically, or perhaps through pheromones, there's no way to confirm the truth now. The young Queen now began to bide her time. Slowly but surely, she developed and improved upon the link between her and the Horde, until one day, she led a breakout, the first true conflict between Humanity and the Locust Horde, and it was a total disaster, the security systems failed to contain the Locust and any attempt to kill Myrrah was met with brutal response by her now fully loyal Horde, who tore limb from limb any Gears in their way, and slaughtering their makers in retaliation for years of torture and experimentation. In Hindsight, it makes complete sense that the Locust capital was buried deep under Kadar, but how were we to know? Until Prescott ordered the investigation of the Kadar Cavern systems in 15AE, not even he had any idea of the truth, and that's a rarity from him.

Whilst we slaughtered ourselves in the Pendulum Wars, fighting and dying for a fuel that, we had no idea was slowly killing us, the Locust dug, and built, they created their own caste system under the Queen for whom each member of the Horde was loyal unto death, they created a religion, they began to understand the underworld of Sera, and so it was that the fringe order of the Coalition of Ordered Governments had sown the seeds of the largest and most destructive conflict our world had ever seen.

So we return to the fateful day Adam Fenix stumbled upon the Horde. In searching for his lost wife, Adam had found the truth, the Locust had killed her to keep themselves hidden from the surface world. Nothing is truly known of the discussions between Adam and Myrrah, but what is known, is that Professor Fenix promised Myrrah a cure to what was called the ''Lambent'' - diseased Locust, infected by Imulsion - who had turned on the Queen and rejected her control, instead fighting for the destruction of their former people. I don't know if the Locust ever felt familial bonds, or had friends, but either way it must have been a kick in the teeth to have your own kind turn against you thanks to the very thing that created you in the first place.

Ironic, we as a species have always been so good at destroying ourselves and here we are talking about a whole other species destroying itself as if it is the strangest possibility.

And so, as we hit the end of the Pendulum Wars, we entered an unprecedented era of peace, I for one recall the first day, across both sides we fired off our Lancer's ammunition, we sang, we drank, we celebrated the end, we longed for home after years in the mud and rain, fighting foxhole to foxhole, ruined home to ruined home, sometimes room to room and floor to floor, countless dead, maimed, the sites were horrendous, if I'd known then what I had known now. Perhaps I'd have ended it then.

Unbeknownst to the entirety of Sera, Professor Fenix had failed in his attempts to find a cure to Lambency, and in doing so, had sealed our fates. Six weeks after the end of the Pendulum Wars, the Locust emerged. Emergence day. So it came to that fateful day, I was one of the lucky ones, I was stood down, given leave to see family. I know many of my fellow Gears ended up transferred to the Gorasni front, having failed to surrender with the rest of the Union of Independent Republics, the Gorasni and their brutal warriors continued harassing and assaulting our positions. Perhaps I should have been there, been one of the ones to die to one of my fellow people and not face the horrors of the world to come. But as I awoke on Emergence Day, to the face of my beautiful wife's smile, all changed. A tremendous rumble from outside, the whole house shook as screams were followed by the all to familiar cackle of gunfire. I, like everyone else, had believed the Union had launched a renewed attack, but as I ran to grab clothes for me and my wife I passed by the window, and it was not a Soldier of the Union of Independent Republics (UIR), it was them, the Locust.

The first of the ''Grubs'' walking out of the Emergence Hole. Gun firing indiscriminately, not even aiming, just hoping to hit anything, dozens of dead civilians lay strewn across the street, cars littering the rush hour road, turning the whole thing into a disastrous route, the grubs then spread out, they went house to house, I barely got out... I barely got out. My wife was hit, following behind me, I told her to stay close, I really did, but she turned back to face the horror that followed us and in that split second slowed down just enough to be spotted. The Grub didn't even bother aiming, he just fired, spraying his rifle at her hoping any shot would hit, and two of them did, the head, and the chest, lucky hits, but deadly all the same... I'm so sorry Anna.

I managed to get to a checkpoint, hastily erected by my fellow Gears just a few streets away. They were desperately trying to hold back the Locust all the while civilians attempted to flee towards the safety they could provide. It was a bloodbath. I still see the faces, men, women, children. And that was just the beginning. I managed to get equipped and the rest is history, somehow I survived the entirety of the Locust War and the following Lambent pandemic.

But to get back to the story I am trying to tell. Adam Fenix failed in his attempt to cure Lambency, and it unleashed the Horde upon us, they were willing to fight a war on two fronts in an attempt to escape to the surface. And with the history Myrrah had with Humanity, I can see why she chose invasion over diplomacy. Not only had she been created and tortured by the COG, she had then entrusted one of our greatest scientists of the time to find how to win the war with the Lambent by creating a cure. The hitch however, as I found out, was that the Locust were already infected.

All of them were already falling to the Lambent in one way or another, doomed either to become a part of the Lambent host or as a casualty in their war. It was a near impossible situation, as we know, the Professor did create a cure, but it took nearly 17 years. A period of time that Myrrah did not find suitable nor acceptable to wait. Humanities one saving grace, was the granite plateau of Jacinto. Jacinto, our bastion of light in the Darkness. Had we known the importance of the cities on that site beforehand, who knows how well we would have handled the Horde. But to get to that story, and further understand the situation, we have to follow the trends that led to that conclusion. And it all begins six weeks after Emergence in the city of Halvo Bay, an unassuming city in the grand scheme of things, by that point our Navy was all but mothballed, destroyed or stuck in drydock due to a lack of crews to run the fleet at the Naval Yard, the Marines were deployed alongside the Gears trying to hold off the Locust invasion of the city proper.

The defence, led by one Colonel Ezra Loomis, of the Onyx Guard, was a valiant but ultimately doomed defensive operation. The city was besieged by a Locust General who was known as Kharn. Kharn was known to the Gorasni as a scourge, he did in three months what the COG couldn't achieve in 70 years, he destroyed all but a few thousand of the Gorasni people, eliminating the most powerful nation of the UIR and laying waste to their Island. the survivors flocked to Commander Trescu or signed up with us, their once most hated enemy, to gain revenge on the bigger threat. But even with the influx of reinforcements, the cities demise was imminent, for whilst the first siege of the city was a Coalition victory, and civilians were evacuated to ''safer'' locales.

The Locust returned, and six months later destroyed the city, and with it, the COG learnt the true determination of the Horde to destroy Mankind.

It was at that point, meetings took place within the office of the Chairman, at this time, the idea of using the Hammer of Dawn was still considered an abhorrent last resort, one to be used only in sheer desperation. The fact it was even discussed at all shows you the situation was incredibly dire even in those first six months. As time passed and village after village, town after town and then city after city fell to the Locust Horde, as our barracks were plundered for stockpiles of ammunition to be turned against us, the talks of a last resort became talks of a colossal retaliatory strikes, the first mentions of a counter-invasion of the Locust tunnels, to drive back the Horde and destroy their homes was spoken of, but as no one knew the location of the cities of the Locust except Professor Fenix, who was keeping a facade of ignorance, unknowing of the true history and the true location of our enemies, feigning that he wasn't working on a cure for the Lambent and a weapon to allow the Locust to return underground - as if we'd forgive them after all that devastation - and so because of that, we doomed ourselves to a worse fate.

The Hammer of Dawn, a satellite weapon developed by the UIR, stolen by the COG, improved upon by Professor Fenix, used to sink the entire UIR 3rd Fleet off their own coastline. It ended the Pendulum Wars and now we were going to turn it on ourselves. The Chairman, Prescott, intended to use it to scorch the world, the largest and most literal use of the Scorched Earth policy and asset denial. All across Sera, the evacuation notice was given. We'd hole up on the Jacinto Plateau and hold the line at the capital of Ephyra. I remember the day, there was a sense of unease, pride, and fear. Millions would make it to the safety of the Plateau in the three days they were given. But hundreds of millions would burn in the coming hellfire from the Hammer of Dawn satellites. Across the continent COG forces either hunkered down in hidden bunkers, bank vaults, the safe and secure cities of the Plateau. Awaiting their opportunity to come back to the surface and slaughter the remaining Locust Horde.

We all remember that day, the day the beams came from the sky, the bright light that followed, the unmistakeable taste of Ozone. I was one of many Gears sent out to Recon the burn-zone. People burned to ashes, or worse, petrified in place, their last actions permanently on display for all eternity. To this day I wouldn't doubt that there's millions of remains exactly like that, trapped for decades in their death throes. We hoped that the Locust would be near wiped out by our own self-destruction. We were wrong. Of course, how could we have believed a subterranean enemy would be wiped out by the destruction of the surface. All we did was grant hundreds of millions of people a swifter death at the hands of our own instead of the Locust. The ethics and morality of the strikes are for others to debate, but what cannot be argued is that it bought us time, we built up our industries, we conscripted millions of new Gears, we fortified Ephyra and the Jacinto Plateau.

Yet would all of this have been necessary had Professor Fenix revealed the Locust's existence to the COG Government? Would we have instead been sent to fight alongside the Locust? Could we have been friends with them? With the experiences I have witnessed, I would answer no. But if I were to go back in time, and knew what I know now, all I can think of is, perhaps. It makes you think the bloodshed was entirely needless. But perhaps that is just bitterness over the loss of my beloved Anna, and the countless friends I have lost in the war.

But there we were, just over one year after E-day, the sky was blackened, the temperatures plummeted and for days all that came through the clouds was ash and darkness. There was an eery silence before the Horde came back with a vengeance, and we fought once more in ruins of our own making. The skies may have cleared, but the situation remained the same for the next 14 years. And so it brings me to the aforementioned Rustlung pandemic. 14AE marked the return of Rustlung to the public eye. Imulsion workers were brought to Jacinto General Hospital, all displaying flu-like symptoms, coughing, sneezing, fatigue. It wasn't contagious, but it was still a concern, those who didn't die were permanently effected by it, I remember a Sergeant, I believe his name was Harper.

He deployed with us in Hollow Storm, guy couldn't stop coughing, I hope he died quick, it's no way to go, coughing up your lungs. The first deployment for Hollow Storm happened in the city of Landown, we'd lost it years earlier, one of the first cities of the Plateau to fall to the Locust Horde, not for lack of trying on our part, the battles were rough, bloody, brutal, even my time at Halvo Bay and Jannermont could prepare me for the sheer destructive power of our conflict, unmatched but by the Hammer of Dawn itself. But we believed it to be a perfect place to strike within the Inner Hollows and bring the war to the Locust for the first time.

It was a disaster.

The Gears who didn't drop were the lucky ones. Those who remained on the surface. Thousands were killed on the road to Landown, thousands more in the offensive to the centre of the city, and then thousands more died at the drop site, defending the Gears who deployed into the Hollows. I can't talk for the situation up top once I was deployed, though survivors told me of a bloodbath in the inevitable withdrawal. The drop however, was sheer chaos, those who hit the drop zones were scattered, lacked communications with the surface thanks to depth and Seeders and many faced rapid counter-attacks by large scale Locust forces. They were the lucky ones. Hundreds never made it to their targets, some continued to burrow, some dropped into the many subterranean lakes, drowning the occupants, and for all that, the assault achieved nothing, accept the awakening of a beast no one could have imagined existing.

The Riftworm, capable of burrowing great tunnels, and worse, capable of sinking entire cities. This is getting ahead of myself however. The purpose of Operation Hollow Storm, as I have said, was to counter-attack and destroy the Locust, killing or capturing their Queen in the process in an attempt to end the war. But, we dropped with no Intelligence on the size of the Locust force, the location of the Locust Capital, or what direction we even needed to go. Hell, we didn't even know if were deep enough into the Hollows. How much further down could they have gone? Were these actually the inner Hollows or were we just in some secondary or tertiary layer? Tens of thousands killed or wounded, and for what?

A leap of faith, A pure shot in the dark. If it weren't for the efforts of Delta Squad of the 26th Royal Tyran Infantry (26RTI) we'd have no chance at communicating with the surface, they eliminated the Seeder and discovered the existence of the Riftworm (they'd even go on to kill it, but whilst that was a heroic feat, it won't be a part of this story). The Operation continued for what felt like forever, but was likely only a couple of days, it's hard to tell when you're underground. We never found the capital, in fact we never found any significant Locust settlements at all, there were fortifications and blockades, but never a city, let alone a town or even a village, hell, I'd personally have settled for a hamlet. Perhaps it was for this reason that Hollow Storm was abandoned, we were withdrawn and brought back to the surface after near constant fighting, what was most horrifying though, was how we were withdrawn.

King Ravens came down into a sinkhole that was once the city of Illima. A city on the Jacinto Plateau, which was once thought near impenetrable for the Locust to tunnel through. Our fortress was now breached, and it was an incredibly rude awakening. It was then that those of us underground learned from scattered gossip, that Mount Kadar had held a hidden research facility, the same facility I made mention of at the beginning, hidden in a warehouse, and weirdly, heavily guarded by the Locust. Of course back then we had no idea why the Locust were so interested in defending it, especially because Delta Squad of 26RTI were the only COG Gears in the area, it wasn't worth the force spent on it.

With the facts I have now though, it makes it obvious. That facility was the birthplace of the Locust, it was the home of Queen Myrrah, it would hold information on the Horde that not even Professor Fenix knew of. This trail of information from Delta led to a mission deep into the caverns of the Mountain, and it was there that Delta infiltrated the Locust capital. Nexus. I'd only just finished up having wounds treated in Jacinto General before I was told I was to be dropped by grindlift yet again, except this time, it would be deep into the heart of the Locust city of Nexus. To say I wasn't apprehensive would be a lie, but, I also can't deny it was a very exciting prospect. 14 years of none stop defensive action on the frontline, holding on to the tiny ledge with just our fingertips. With Delta Squad leader Marcus Fenix (Son of Adam Fenix, the Professor) and his friend Corporal Dominic Santiago now sneaking and fighting their way deep into the heart of Nexus, we were hurriedly packed onto trains, mining Derricks, King Ravens, Centaur Tanks, APC's, whatever could hold a Gear was brought to Mount Kadar, Hollow Storm II as I called it, though unofficial, I don't even know if we came up with a name for the Operation, began, a beacon from Delta's Bot led us to where we needed to go.

In a way, the city was oddly beautiful, but it didn't matter, we were there for revenge, to end the war, or so we thought. The Locust fought desperately, ferociously, reminiscent of our own efforts early in the war, they threw everything they had at us. Yet in the end it mattered little. The COG had made two significant discoveries. The Lambent, who were breaking through as the Locust abandoned their defences to fight us off, and the discovery of a plan by the Locust, to sink Jacinto, flooding the hollows and drowning the Lambent to extinction. Or, so we hoped. The discovery of this plan led Chairman Prescott to launch his second most desperate plan since the Hammer of Dawn. He planned to have the Gears sink Jacinto before the Locust could make a run for the surface, and in doing so, drown the Locust and the Lambent together.

We fought once more to the surface as a desperate defence was begun on the surface, Jacinto, the surrounding cities of the Plateau, all was to be evacuated immediately. I'd barely made it to the surface before I was forced to fight for my life once again in the brutal urban combat that had erupted in Jacinto proper. The scenes I saw, civilians being torn apart by the Locust, Gears being cut down in the street. It felt like E-day all over again. The cackling of rifle fire, the familiar ozone smell lingering in the air as Low-power Hammer of Dawn strikes were called in to clear streets for civilian evacuations. I'd never been more grateful to be on a King Raven more than that day, my battalion, whatever was left of it, had achieved its objectives, our sector was clear, we were leaving. Good thing too. Perhaps just five minutes later, the spires of Jacinto City's skyline slumped, before finally crumbling to the ground, the bright beam of light burning through the atmosphere gave away what had happened.

The Hammer was crashing down again, this time to sink our final bastion. Records state we were supposed to utilise a Lightmass Bomb, similar to the one we sent crashing down into the Outer Hollow just a few months beforehand in yet another attempt to destroy the Locust Horde, or at least buy us breathing space. Yet another fantastic idea thought up by our great Chairman Prescott. Regardless, it turns out that the Lightmass Bomb, and the Raven carrying it were lost under the attack of a Lambent Brumak. The first recorded sighting of anything beyond a Lambent Grub (Drudge).

The Hammer detonated the Lambent, we presumed, as was confirmed later, that the explosive outcome was caused by the immense amount of Imulsion that was pumping through the Lambent Brumak. No matter, it did the job, and the destruction of Jacinto led to the collapse of the granite Plateau we'd long called home. The ocean poured in, I don't know the numbers of Locust or Lambent, but it's safe to say the majority must have perished, been wounded, or entirely routed. For the next few months, bar one significant skirmish, there was peace again, we, as always, did what we did best, and began to fight eachother again as pirates and stranded groups raided us for what little we had saved from Jacinto's fall. Needless to say though, the ''old days'' return didn't last long, soon enough, the Lambent appeared. This time in significant force, Krakens attacked multiple times, we barely stopped them. Eventually fissures formed, Lambent animals ran rampant, Drudges, Polyps, new forms of Lambent we had never seen before too, all came flooding out from the ground just like the Locust before them. Once more we found ourselves in search of a new home.

It was here that things became unclear for a while, communications were few and far between, maintained primarily by the few transports we could maintain and the few Naval Vessels that remained under Admiral Michaelson. Even then, when I left for Anvil Gate with Colonel Hoffman, I never truly expected to live long enough to discover what I know now, let alone live long enough after that to share it with everyone, regardless of what the First Minister Jinn might say. Anvil Gate was a shit-show to say the least. Oh sure, it started off fine as everything did in the Post-Evacuation days, fresh off the choppers from the Sovereign we managed to settle and re-fortify the fortress, scrounging what we could from the ruins of the old town.

You wouldn't have really thought there was a war on for the first few days, it had us all on edge, we'd been used to near twenty years of constant warfare, some of the older gears, they'd fought for nearly forty, Hoffman and Bernie kept us all sane, assigning us tasks, but the more we patrolled, the less we'd find, the more on edge we'd be, so unused to any form of peace, constantly checking any and all holes, firing rounds off into collapsed drainage systems just in case a Drone would pop it's ugly face out. They never did. Guy named ''Dizzy'' set up some trade routes with the local stranded communities, suppose it helped that he didn't really seem the COG type, but he was a good man, bit eccentric, but when it came down to it, he fought like a man on a mission, not that we had much fighting to do, the odd raids from hostile stranded, but it was as if the Locust and the Lambent had disappeared. Soon we were set to more menial tasks, the lucky ones, like Dizzy, got to leave and sometimes get into scraps, eventually I was put to work farming. News still occasionally came through the Sovereign, Admiral Michaelson and his Gears and Marine forces would often encounter the Lambent, but the Locust? It was as if they had gone underground again, no one knew what was going on with them, and to be honest, at ''The Gate'' no one cared, we had it easy, well, easier than most.

The only person more on edge than us was Colonel Hoffman himself, everyday he'd lock himself in his office and desperately try to crack open a data disc stolen from former Chairman Prescott's office back on the Island of Vectes. It could have been his personal porn stash for all we cared, things were settling down, and whilst we all settled into the quiet discomfort, always standing ourselves in the corners of rooms just in case a grub hole was to open up and swallow us all, or keeping our heads down from those bastard snipers even without the Locust around everyone acted like they were, all scarred from the years of constant warfare.

Eventually though, as with all of recent Seran history, all good came to an end. Stalks erupted from the ground, dropping dozens of polyps each, growing into swarms of hundreds of them, this happened once every week or so at first, then it become several times a week, then it became daily, how we kept it together I don't know, but Hoffman and Bernie did a hell of a job, without them I don't think we'd have made it through the first few hours, let alone these coming months. But day after day we survived, Until out of nowhere, the Locust reappeared, to make our lives even more miserable, and what become a survivable slog, became a three way battle to the death for what felt like nothing. Perhaps, if we were all smarter, the Lambent evolution that had happened so rapidly, would have been a unifying force, perhaps somehow Myrrah and Prescott could have negotiated, the COG and the Locust force the Lambent back down below, eliminate them, drive them to extinction, leave the Hollows to the Locust as we rebuilt the surface, but then again, who would have agreed to those terms after 17 years of warfare.

17 Years of brutal, extinction level violence, that wiped out near 90% of the Human Race, only to lead to more violence that wiped out at least another 9% (according to pre-war studies done by First Minister Anya Fenix (nee Stroud) who led the Post-War rebuilding of the Coalition of Ordered Governments) who would have possibly agreed? With the return of the locust however, came the shocking news of the loss of the Sovereign, the ship that had long harboured the remnants of the most elite of the COG, the remnants of our once proud Navy, the loss of nearly all remaining Marine Forces, but even more shockingly, the revelations of what was on Prescott's date drive. Marcus Fenix, Veteran of the Pendulum Wars, survivor of countless battles of the Locust War, one of the slayers of the great Locust Riftworm, the Sinker of Jacinto, and frankly, one of the heroes of Humanity no matter how little he thinks of himself, had returned. And with him news of the return and sudden death of the former Chairman. No one would necessarily say they missed the man, he was a hard bastard who made harder choices, regardless of your opinions of him, with the news of his death, despite the disbandment of the COG moons ago, the COG truly felt over, the last Government of Mankind was really over, there was no succession, logically it would have passed to Hoffman, not that he'd have taken it, but he was the highest ranking remaining officer of the Military, at least, that we knew of.

That however, is a story that will have us sidetracked, the key thing here, is the decryption of the data drive. Sergeant Fenix and the remnants of Delta Squad made for the Endeavour Naval Base, just on the outskirts of the city of Halvo Bay, the story of the fight for that city could be a story of its own, and perhaps it will be written one day, but today is not that day. Hoffman and Bernie called for volunteers, they would be allowed to leave Anvil Gate and make their way to the coast to link up with some of the few remaining King Ravens the remnants of our people had, and depart for an Island known as ''Azura''.

Azura, as it turns out, was a secret COG outpost, a Luxury Resort, giant testing facility, military hideaway and prison all in one, the Onyx Guard, the best of the best, were hurried away to the Island, for the most part, some remained behind on the mainland of Tyrus, doing what they could, likely to hide the fact that the Military still needed its Special Forces and if they were to suddenly have vanished there'd have been far larger questions.

Whatever the case, the Onyx Guard held the best and the brightest of Humanity, including one Adam Fenix, the supposedly dead father of Marcus Fenix and the man potentially responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions if not billions of Human lives. Again though, to study the morality of the man would be a story for another time. The man had gotten a message out, and he claimed to have a solution to the Lambent, one that would remove them from the picture altogether. Of course at the time we had no idea it would destroy the Locust too, we thought we were simply going to destroy the Lambent before returning our focus to those Locust who remained. Needless to say, hearing the fact that we had a chance to end the Lambent pandemic once and for all, I leapt at the chance, I joined the volunteers in a convoy to the coast, the journey was quiet, everyone was scared, everyone was apprehensive, but there was a buzz of excitement in the air, we all wanted to live long enough to see the Lambent destroyed, but we weren't sure if our luck would hold, if we'd be cut down before we ever saw the dawn of a new and more hopeful time for the war, a time to turn to the Locust and destroy them once and for all.

I will skip the story of the journey though, for it's long and unexciting, but regardless, we made it to the base our Ravens were holding up in, there with the rest of the survivors of the CMV Sovereign, the reunion was bittersweet, many of our friends were there, many more weren't. The flight felt like it took forever, we rendezvoused with the Gorasni, a people I didn't think we'd see again, but it would seem Trescu agreed to help in the last great push against the Lambent, I suppose we all had reason to believe that this was it. One final effort was all that remained, the Lambent would die today. Two fellow Gears, members of Delta Squad, Augustus Cole and Damon Baird, they'd manage to make contact with an old ally of theirs in Halvo Bay, gotten their hands on Imulsion and a ship, and picked up as many survivors as possible for this push. They informed us of Azura and its defences, a Maelstrom, artificially created (where was that when we needed it on the mainland?) we had to wait for Marcus and the rest of Delta to disable the tower creating it, turns out they'd made a rather daring incursion using an old Pendulum War era steal submarine, and turns out Dizzy knew just how to pilot it.

I should ask that man exactly how he did it.

Regardless, Delta got the job done, and we deployed quickly to the Island, I was deployed on a beach on the Western side of the Island, the resistance from the Locust was intense, even at Anvil Gate it felt like they could never muster the same firepower as they did before the flooding of the Hollows, yet now, with repurposed COG gear that looked fresh off the factory lines, they were able to put up a tremendous fight, dozens died before they even hit the beach, those that made it were pinned in place, small two or three man teams sometimes made it up the beach, clearing small paths that let us exploit the gaps in the Locust lines, yet as I made it up the beach and watched the dozen or so landing craft of the Gorasni and the King Ravens deploying their forces, I couldn't help but feel a tremendous amount of pity, we were so close, so close to wiping out one of our greatest enemies, and they died, right there on that beach. I have to be honest, the sight of the beach, the cloudless skies, the bright ocean, it would have been a beautiful place once, before the Locust and the Lambent forced us to turn it into a hellscape.

Speak of the devil however, as we pushed ever onwards, slowly destroying the beach defences allowing more and more soldiers onto the beach, the Lambent made their appearance, stalks ripped up through the ground and through them Drudges, Polpys, Lambent Wretches, all spewed forth, and every single time we managed to kill one of the stalks another two would rise to take its place, if you ever doubted the Lambent were sentient and aware of their situation before, then you most definitely would have abandoned that doubt now.

The enemy fought hard, and we fought harder, all sides expending their energy until suddenly, atop the Resort, a spire lit up, a wave of bright blue energy pulsated outwards, small at first, then growing ever bigger until it shot from the spire, followed by more and more bursts, the Lambent convulsed, Imulsion pouring from their bodies, they then began to collapse, the screams, if this were Humans in front of me, if this had been the Pendulum War, I would have been disturbed, traumatised even, but it was beautiful, one of our species greatest threats was dead, dying before our very eyes, but what happened next, brought happiness to us all, the Locust, they too began to convulse, their bodies collapsing before our very eyes, some going as far as turning to dust on both sides. We stood there, eyes wide, unsure of what to feel, how to feel, it was over, it was finally over.

Or so we thought. Adam Fenix had sacrificed himself in the end, he had forced the Imulsion to evolve within himself as we found out, he had tested it on himself so that no one else would have to suffer, and he discovered the cure - for lack of a better word - and so he was one of the last casualties of the war, the man who had tried so hard to use science for the bettering of mankind after years of frontline combat, who saved Humanity from extinction whether he knew it or not with the utilisation of his improved upon Hammer of Dawn technology, had died, a controversial Hero, perhaps, but his death, had finally, truly saved Mankind. And yet, the Locust were not truly dealt with.

Those who had survived the flooding of the Hollow, had survived by being underground at the time of the Lambent Countermeasure being activated, the 81st Brigade, known as the ''Brash Brigade'' was formed to hunt down and exterminate the remnants of the Locust, especially those ambushing the workers and soldiers of the newly reformed Coalition of Ordered Governments responsible for the burial of the quite literal, millions of Locust corpses, whose bodies had been enveloped in a hard crystalline shell after the firing of the Imulsion Countermeasure Weapon.

Though the Locust War officially ended in Bloom 17A.E, from what I can piece together from survivors scattered around other regions, the fighting may have lasted as many as 4 years later into 21A.E.

The fighting was hard, and often underground in makeshift Locust camps, or perhaps, what could have passed for Locust Villages if they ever developed that much. Though the fighting was tough, and often brutal, it gave many of the surviving veterans a purpose, most of us had only ever known war, we had no idea what to do with ourselves within this new peace, and as long as we had an enemy to fight, we had purpose. Although I never joined up with the Brash Brigade, I saw plenty of action dealing with pirates, putting down stranded bandits, and ensuring that people knew the Coalition was back, that order was going to be restored, that the restoration of our home was going to begin.

In a fitting act, First Minister Fenix (who officially went by First Minister Stroud, which is how I shall refer to her from now on), decreed that the vast majority of the cities destroyed in the war were to become living memorials, the bodies of the fallen, now petrified, were to remain an everlasting reminder of the price paid in the fight for our very survival. Although I, and many of my fellow veterans, believe it was simply because most people didn't wish to return to their former homes, that the memories and the sights would only add to the immense pain they already felt, and that the past should remain forever untouched.

The lives of the people of Sera had been changed immeasurably and forever. I sit from my office, here in the barracks of New Ephyra, the capital of the New Coalition of Ordered Governments, and I see the ruins of Old Ephyra just beyond the walls, the Gears of today will hopefully never feel the hardships we once did, they will hopefully never have to fight a war, let alone a war on the scale we saw, the DeeBees, robots created by former Gear, Damon Baird, patrol the streets, a police force that I hope proves unnecessary as we move forward, and yet, a part of me feels unsettled, I guess old habits really truly do die hard, always inspecting the centre of rooms, checking for cover wherever I go, it took me three years before I felt comfortable having a window that was so exposed, seeing a spider in my room had my reaching for my sidearm as if a baby Crawler had peeked its ugly head out to snatch me away, though it is a thought I find darkly amusing now, at the time, it had me wondering what my future held for me, every so often I still find myself hyper focusing on the remnants of the stalks as I train these new Gears in the art of war, every time a drill causes vibrations in a building I find myself sweating, worried that a Grub Hole will open, it's like E-Day all over again, like being back at Anvil Gate in the waning months of the Locust War.

I see the same reactions in my fellow survivors, I see the same looks in their eyes. I hope to whatever Gods could possibly exist, to the universe, to anything, that nothing like this happens ever again. And yet, I can't help but miss it, the purpose it gave, the brotherhood. I know I would hate it, the death, the screams, the sights, the feelings, I'd hate it all, and yet, I find it is where I belong, my hands are steady when a Lancer is in my hand, I feel at ease when on training exercises, no amount of therapy, done by people who have experienced the exact same things, who all crave the exact same things, will ever stop that. The war is over, finally, and yet what is there for those who remain? The young settle into roles that many of us had long since abandoned, 16-30 year olds, those born just before the end of the war, who were conscripted but never saw action, and those born afterwards, all fit into society, bakers, bankers, architects, artisans, tour guides explaining the battles of a war that must seem like it was imagined by some crazed author were it not for the destruction that lies just beyond the gates of our fair capital.

Doctors, engineers, mechanics, pilots, police officers (at least the few humans that serve as police), Gears, the newly reformed Onyx Guard, all filled by the vast pool of survivors who know only how to keep themselves occupied with the structure and routine their military lives gave them, our surgeons are veterans of the Medical Corps, our engineers and mechanics are, well, from our Engineer Battalions, our pilots, flying civilians too and from the few new cities built since the end of the war, are former King Raven pilots, the veterans who ferried us to our battlefields under immense fire, now ferry the young to their holiday destinations or their next business ventures.

Whilst many of the young are very willing to learn, most settle for peaceful lives, and I can't blame them, but that niggling feeling, that worry and darkness at the back of my mind. I don't wish to see a return to the days of conscripting 14 year olds, but what if violence once more returns to Sera? I don't know if there's enough of us left, despite the new initiatives to encourage growth (turns out sex is one of Sera's greatest celebratory past times, who knew, after almost two decades of forced breeding, people would still want to get it on, but we breed like rabbits after all), there's just too many young, and they don't deserve to suffer and fight in the ways we suffered, the ways we thought. This new era of peace, I hope only that it lasts long enough for our children, for our children's children, to be able to live in abundance, on a planet of peace, not war.

But I just can't hide those worries.