"Holy shit," Cason muttered, awe giving way to dread. "That's not the action I had in mind."
It rolled across the desert like a living wave, devouring everything in its path. Faster than natural winds should allow, surging with unnatural fury. The center of the storm was shaped like a massive skull—hollow eyes, gaping mouth, screaming silently as it tore through the sand.
Cason's eyes flicked back to his HUD, narrowing on a brief flicker in the atmospheric sensor feed.
He didn't smile this time.
"Storm's coming," he muttered under his breath. "Let's hope the island doesn't bite harder than it bakes."
The scout who had first spoken broke the silence again, his voice tight with dread. "Captain… I ran another scan. It's not weather."
Cason's head snapped toward him. "What?"
"It's not a storm. It's a swarm. A swarm of red insects."
He turned sharply. "Trevor, repeat that."
The S-rank awakener swallowed, visibly bracing himself. "Red bugs. Thousands—no, millions. Roughly the size of an arm. Fast. Hive-linked."
Cason's stomach dropped. A cold spike knifed through his chest.
"Bugs?" His voice dipped into something darker. "Fucking hell. I hate bugs."
His HUD flickered to life with a quick gesture, tactical overlays sweeping into view. The swarm's speed was undeniable. Faster than retreat margin. No other option but to hold ground and fight.
"Squad, ready up! Shields at full. Alternate formation—start with Mika. Recon combat spread," he barked, voice slicing through the rising static. "This isn't a drill. It's survival. Anything that moves, crush it."
Then to Trevor, his tone hardening, "I want intel on those bugs—structure, swarm pattern, behavior. Feed me something I can use."
Trevor's fingers danced across his visor interface, configuring high-speed diagnostics. "Running a deep scan now, Captain."
Cason turned to Mimi, calm as stone even under the pressure.
"Mimi, deploy plasma bot mines. Spread a wide grid. I want to light up the zone before they're in our face."
"On it." Her voice was cool, fingers working fast. Across the landscape, mines arced into the air, hissing through the heat before burrowing into sand like predatory seeds.
"The rest of you, conserve your energy. We hit back when we know how to kill them."
There was a pause before Mimi spoke again. "Captain… you think Noah's holding up? He's on solo run."
Cason didn't respond right away. The hum of his suit's core filled the silence. Then came the half-smile. Half-scoff.
"Noah?" he muttered. "Honestly? I'd be more worried for whatever's stuck in there with him."
He gave a dry chuckle, visor still trained forward. "That rookie?" His tone was almost amused. "I'd bet my ass he survives. My instincts tell me he's the type who turns a mission into a training playground—adaptable, unpredictable, and somehow always two steps ahead."
The swarm was close now—screeching wings like a billion knives shredding air.
Cason muttered, almost to himself. "Goddammit… Can't believe I'm saying this, but I actually wish Noah were here."
Trevor's voice cracked in over comms. "Captain, I've got something. The swarm's official classification is the Crimson Vorax. Designation behavior: Skull Swarm."
Cason blinked. "Skull Swarm?"
"Yeah. They move with hive-mind precision. When they swarm, they form a massive, coordinated structure—a screaming human skull. Three-dimensional. Hundreds of meters wide. Not a metaphor. The damn thing becomes the skull."
Cason exhaled, his lips tightening. "And the jaw?"
Trevor nodded grimly. "It opens wide. Forms a vortex. Everything it pulls in—sand, tech, people, vehicles—gets shredded. Their interior layers are just claws, thorns, and teeth. Reinforced alloy won't last."
Cason let out a short, bitter laugh. "So we're meat in a blender."
"Technically?" Trevor hesitated. "Yes. But it's worse. They've earned another name."
Cason turned toward him. "Oh? Another name?"
"Yes. They call it the Crimson Reaper."
That made Cason pause. Then, slowly, a grin spread across his face—feral, battle-born. He activated his signature weapon: the Black Scythe, a plasma-forged weapon that roared to life with dark energy.
"Crimson Reaper, huh? Cute. Guess it's time the real reapers introduced themselves."
He raised his weapon overhead and bellowed, "G.O.D Squad—lock in. Let's show these reaper wannabes what true death looks like!"
Their response was instant. Raw, unfiltered war cries shattered the thick tension. These weren't rookies. They were S-rank, forged in flame and fury—and they were about to make the desert remember.
The sand rumbled as the 'storm' drew closer.
The hum became a vibration in the chest. Not thunder. Not quake. Something worse.
Light dimmed. Not from cloud cover, but a massive crimson haze choking out the sky. The sun vanished into red shadow.
At the horizon, the storm resolved—an unholy swirl of chitinous bodies, each bug armored in obsidian plates and glowing with bloodlight. Wings that looked like jagged razors screamed through the air. A shape began to emerge at the center—
Not just a storm. A skull.
A living skull of insects. Empty eyes. Screaming mouth. Endless death.
One broke rank and dove low. It landed with a crunch ten meters away.
It was the size of a dog. A nightmarish fusion of locust and wasp. Limbs barbed and twitching. Its mouth wasn't a mouth—it was layers of obsidian shears and needle fangs. A single drop of venom hit the sand.
The ground sizzled.
It burned a crater into the ground.
Mimi, calm and composed, flicked her wrist. Plasma mines launched outward in arcs, embedding into the sand. Seconds later—
BOOM.
A ripple of detonations tore into the front edge of the swarm. Screeches followed. But more came. Skull remained intact.
Many more.
The sand itself seemed to flee as the storm advanced.
Cason stepped forward, the Black Scythe igniting with pure plasma fury. The heat warped the air around him.
He stared up at the towering skull.
"I. Hate. Bugs."
With a roar, he lunged.
The scythe's arc tore through the first wave like lightning given form. A searing flash of black-violet plasma exploded outward. Vorax shattered mid-flight, flayed into clouds of chitin and green vapor.
The "jaw" itself split under the force, collapsing in on one side like a broken gate.
"Hah!" Cason shouted over the comms, riding the adrenaline. "Some 'Reaper' you turned out to be. Couldn't even handle a single plasma wave!"
Realizing the Crimson Vorax wasn't truly indestructible, the squad surged in behind Cason without a moment's hesitation—precision and fury igniting their charge.
Mimi unleashed volleys of concentrated plasma, each blast a spear of heat that carved glowing holes through the swarm.
Mika threw up radiant barricades—panels of hard light that funneled the insects into kill zones.
Conrad summoned volleys of plasma-tipped javelins, launching them like spectral bolts that impaled anything breaching their lines.
The rest of the squad moved as one, a well-oiled killing machine. Every step, every strike, choreographed through years of brutal training.
Precision. Rhythm. No wasted movement. No hesitation.
Only destruction.
The desert became a battlefield of hellfire and death.
And Cason?
He laughed into the storm.
Because this wasn't just survival anymore.
This was fun.