"We're losing our connection with Porter for the next little while," Ardwen explained to the rest of the team. They were all engaged with the Bahari in some capacity, with him staying in the backline with Riya and Nami so he could direct the flow of battle. They had already partnered up with Carion and his team, supposedly keeping them safe from anyone who might recognize them. Carion was staying slightly off to the side of the main forces, and the increasing waves of Bahari were slowly separating them from everyone else. It hadn't taken long before they were almost completely surrounded by the monsters, cut off along with a few Artisan fighters, and one Goliath from the Eastern United States, its body a living mass of rock.

"So he really went into the hole?" Raul pondered aloud over the network. He had joined the frontline for this fight, something he was never normally used for, but with Porter gone, they were down a person to consistently defend Nami and Riya, and nobody trusted Rex alone to maintain that job. Even if he didn't end up running off on his own, he was enough of an idiot that it was tough to leave him entirely alone with a command.

"Then we just have to catch up with him," Nami grunted, squeezing the trigger on her weapon, a bullet piercing through the skull of an approaching Bahari, one that looked a bit larger and nastier than its compatriots.

Ardwen smiled. "You heard the lady, it's time to chase after him." Ardwen surveyed the battlefield unfolding in front of him. The massive armies of the Enians and Artisans were intertwined now, and the armies of the Eastern United States on the other side of the Breach were wrapping around and starting to merge with the edges as well. It had originally formed a giant circle to contain the Breach and push back the Jahari. But it was fracturing. Groups were being split apart, and most of it was due to overzealous pushes at the beginning of the day. It seemed there had been some major breakthroughs here and there, and groups had pushed forwards, thinking there were shoving the Jahari back. Instead, they realized they had only pushed the Jahari in front of them, while the ones beside them had kept going past, creating an isolated pocket that could be collapsed on and consumed.

For a group of seemingly wild monsters, the Jahari were well organized. They had tactics, and even though they all relied on a swarm mentality, they were real tactics. But this was to be expected from any of the research that had been pulled on the Jahari. While most of the top scholars surmised that there was some sort of hive network or universal controller, especially after what Christian did to control a group, it was also made clear that each Jahari was similar to a normal human, as they had been people at one point, and could function alone as one. Major Orellian had shown that; he had achieved the level of Goliath pilot undercover.

More important than if there was a hive mind was where it would be sourced, and if it could move. Most researchers concluded it was an immobile being that controlled everything, as indicated by the few Jahari attacks occurring across Dalarcya. The invasions there had been sparse and disorganized. Jahari would burst forth from the ground but not in the organized waves that the Enians and Artisans saw, instead surging outwards and spreading out into chaos. They scrambled and fought with everything that moved, in entirely random patterns. For some, this was much better, as their lack of coordination made it easier to fight them with the military. But for others it was even worse against population centres, as lone Jahari roamed everywhere and were impossible to eradicate in one sweep. They scattered like cockroaches and were just as difficult to exterminate, feasting on death and destruction.

It was theorized that Dalarcya, being on the opposite side of the Earth, was further away from the Jahari control node, and caused those who appeared in Dalarcya to be as chaotic as they were. Meanwhile the Jahari attacks on the Federation and Confederate were precisely controlled, and the monsters would use shock tactics, flying out in a flurry before retreating back underground, before they could suffer further losses.

Ardwen had done everything possible to study every aspect of the Jahari in preparation for the coming wars. He had tasked Sigma with pulling every possible piece of information from every archive imaginable, and always feeding him every report of each attack around the world. He needed to be on top of these creatures, but it was nearly impossible to understand their history to a certain point. Facts gave way to wives' tales and legends and fables. It quickly became a realm of fiction and myth, where facts melted away into bizarre rumours. With so little to work with, Ardwen had very few strategies he could execute. He could only do his best to support Porter's apparent plan to remove the central controller. Assuming a central controller even existed.

"Ardwen, we need to ensure we don't get caught up in the swarming." Raul cut into Ardwen's thoughts with his practical observations. Rex had already followed Ardwen's words, charging forward with his massive blade, slicing through anything that came close to him. Nami and Riya hadn't moved much, both of them carrying more than enough long-range firepower to stand their ground. Their concerns would always be in the Jahari coming too close for them to be effective, particularly for Nami and her rifle. Raul's advice covered a different possibility though; more and more of the army was getting swept up and cut off by the tides of creature pouring out of the Breach.

"Roger, fall back to cover Nami and Riya. Stay with the remaining units." Ardwen glanced to his side as his own machine leaped backwards, searching for Carion and his troops. There was nobody there though, a line of other battlesuits retreating the closest thing to the support they once had. And another surge of Jahari, as the monsters continued to press onwards, eternally clawing their way forward. "We need to keep with the rest of the forces."

A ship passed by overhead, coming in low and firing off its guns, tearing a line through the Bahari to the side. It quickly shot back up into the air, but its strike had given the group a momentary exit path. The Jahari's numbers were becoming suddenly overwhelming, as though each one had managed to clone itself, the amount of them seeming to double in an instant. Ardwen could see now how the many pockets had been formed. Charging into this enemy yielded nothing, because they did not yield to you. They simply passed by until you no longer had protection in your own numbers. It was a rather clever tactic.

"We're going through the hole here, Rex come along with us, Riya and Nami go first. Riya, I want suppressing fire across the incoming Bahari." Ardwen barked out his orders as quickly as he could think of them, grabbing hold of his controls and steering Mother Gaia towards the opening. He could see some of the allied forces on the other side. Riya and Nami were close behind him, and Raul was grabbing ahold of Rex, pulling him back from his sparring in order to get him to a safer location. "Riya, can you give me full firepower in the area behind Rex?"

"Of course." Riya nodded on screen, though Ardwen only half-caught the act in his peripheral vision, already thinking about the next move to make, his eyes sweeping across his monitors. Riya unloaded a barrage of missiles from her warmachine, the explosives flying around Rex's battlesuit and detonating against the approaching line of Jahari, forcing him to separate from combat with them, and giving Raul and Rex enough time to evacuate without getting pulled down from behind.

"Ardwen, where are you?" Carion's face sprung to life on one of the viewscreens, clear worry drawn across it. "We're falling back with the Artisans and looking to make another push. Can you update your location?"

Ardwen pounded his fist against the side of his seat. There were downsides to being part of a network solely controlled by Sigma, especially when it came to being able to feed location information to others. But there had been no plan drawn up for how to play nice with the Enian forces because it had always been assumed that would be impossible. Now that he was visually cut off, Carion had no way of knowing where Ardwen and the rest were, and while that had originally been the point of being on a private network, when you needed an escort, it didn't help much.

"We're in deep," Ardwen replied, dodging the slash of a nearby Bahari. Riya gunned it down before it could continue its assault. "I'm trying to move east right now with my team, there was a bombing run here a moment ago, so we're going through the hole to avoid getting surrounded."

"Bombing run. Bombing run?" Carion paused the conversation as he appeared to grapple with Ardwen's words.

Maybe he can't remember where it happened? Ardwen thought.

"Oh, the ship that came in." There was another lengthy pause, as Ardwen expected more words to follow from Carion about his own relative location. "Wait, no, that ship missed the target. You said you're going east?"

"Correct."

"No, don't go east, not east."

"Well it's a little late for that," Ardwen stated, shaking his head. His team had already moved through the gap now and were regrouping. A rush of Bahari had already gone by, sealing up the path back from where they came from. "Besides, the ship didn't miss, it tore through the Bahari."

"It wasn't aiming for the Bahari," Carion said, but any further conversation was cut off by a massive roar that shook Ardwen in his cockpit. He turned his gaze in the direction of the Breach. Two enormous Mahari were rapidly approaching, their bulky forms dwarfing the nearby Bahari they walked amongst. Both of them had been given space to avoid crushing any smaller creatures underfoot.

"Holy Ishiyama," Ardwen mumbled, already trying to find the next escape plan. Things weren't looking good though, as more Bahari were closing off pathways to either side. Behind them were a cluster of soldiers, Goliaths that had already begun firing down towards the Mahari in a fruitless attempt to halt the monsters. Things weren't getting better behind those Goliaths though, as the Bahari were already encircling them and passing by, leaving them trapped in a ring to be devoured by the Mahari.

The fearsome creatures roared once more, and one began to sped up, excited at the prospect of getting to smash and destroy and kill. Just because it was bigger didn't mean it didn't love to maim as much as its smaller counterparts.

The faster Mahari was also weaponless, and so it could afford to speed up. It lacked the cannon on its back that its partner possessed, instead wielding cruel claws, each the size of a large truck. Its metal-infused skin was hardened, acting similar to solid steel, deflecting oncoming projectiles with ease at it dashed ahead. It had to move on all fours in order to be as quick as it was for its size, pouncing forwards, tearing up huge chunks of earth with each leap.

Ardwen spun around, trying to grasp the full weight of the situation and begin to pull together a plan. It didn't look like escape was much of an option, leading him to believe they were going to have to do their best to fight the creatures. While Ardwen certainly held some confidence that they could take on the monsters, he did have a clear recollection of Porter struggling to take on just one Mahari in the past. There was always the assumption that they had trained enough, but two Mahari at once was certainly going to be a handful.

"Can I get a barrage on that first Mahari," Ardwen ordered, directing the question towards Riya. She didn't hesitate to open fire, a cluster of missiles crashing into the approaching creature's face. A flurry of machine gun fire followed, pinging off the armoured shell of the beast. It slowed slightly, but didn't falter.

"I doubt I could do much more than that to it," Nami commented, tossing her enormous sniper rifle up and down slightly in her hands. "A slightly bigger bullet isn't going through that."

"Could we hit anywhere specific and maybe pierce the heart?" Ardwen was running different scans of its composition, a timer counting down to the estimated arrival of the creature. He was trying to find any possible angle of attack, but nothing was lining up. He had already identified a few different possibilities, but the bullet's point of entry would never pass through the core deep within the Mahari's body.

"Not by any traditional means," Nami replied. "But I'm not a very traditional sniper in that regard." She winked on the viewscreen before leaping backwards to give herself time to set up her shot.

"You really think you can curve a shot once it's in a body?" Ardwen tapped at his chin, watching the timer begin to blink as seconds were all that remained.

"If someone could stop it for a second or two I can at least try." Nami levelled her rifle as Riya unloaded another round of ballistics, but the Mahari shrugged them off. There were twin flashes of blue as Raul and Rex cut across the creature's path, each of them slashing across its chest. The monster bellowed, swiping at the two Goliaths as they both darted away. "That certainly helps."

Rex twisted back from his initial attack as Raul continued onwards to the Mahari in the backline, standing directly in the rampaging path of the massive creature. The circuitry of his broadsword glittered in the light. The monster in front of him roared once again, its forward charge finally stopped by Rex's presence. "I don't like these tactics," Rex mumbled over the comm network, his breathing heavy in between his words. "They don't feel fair."

Ardwen perked up as he heard those words. They rang off memories in his mind, striking him as being particularly dangerous. He had reviewed the logs of Rex's previous mission out with them so he could be prepared for anything that could happen, but that particular phrase was sticking out to him as having some sort of great significance. Then he remembered, flashes of Rex's insanity coming to mind as the boy had barrelled through every enemy in sight. And he had repeated something very similar to what he had just mentioned.

"Oh, this isn't good at all," Ardwen muttered, shaking his head as he tossed aside any plans he had previously made. A show was about to start, an unwanted one, but a show nonetheless.