The Wolves moved upward through the twisting tunnels of the hive, rifles raised, boots slick on the pulsing floor. Every corner was taken like a proper military op — sweep, clear, cover. The air was thick, wet, and humming with alien static.
Carla whispered over comms, voice tight.
"Slow and steady. No mistakes. We climb one corridor at a time."
The squad advanced, tension rising.
Then Reaper froze. His blue visor eyes flared.
"Watch out."
⸻
The Ambush
The walls came alive.
From every corner, ceiling, and fissure, tentacles burst outward. Dozens. Then hundreds. The hive screamed as biomechanical droids poured from the shadows, their writhing limbs glowing with alien heat.
The first wave grabbed two UNE soldiers instantly, tearing one apart mid-scream, flinging the other into the wall with a wet CRACK. Blood sprayed across the floor.
"CONTACT! CONTACT!!" Carla roared.
The corridor erupted in chaos.
⸻
The Fight
Bullets and plasma lit the dark. The Wolves fired in all directions, rifles shredding tentacles as they lashed out like serpents. Marines screamed as they were dragged into the shadows, rifles falling silent as their bodies were ripped apart.
Raul shouted, "¡Maldita sea! They're everywhere!" just before a tentacle lashed across his chest, hurling him against the wall. His armor screeched under the impact, cracking at the shoulder.
"RAUL!" Woo screamed.
But before the tendril could spear through him, Asura appeared in a blink, severing the limb with a clean burst of rifle fire. Raul slid down, gasping, clutching his bleeding shoulder — alive, but shaken.
"I-I'm good! I'm good!" he spat, forcing himself back up. "Don't stop shooting!"
⸻
The Wolves Rally
Carla unleashed a storm of rounds into a droid's orb-head, snarling. "Focus fire on their cores!"
Hunter vaulted upward, using Air Step to fire downward volleys, raining hell into the swarm. Hudson's precision shots pierced through glowing joints, dropping them one by one.
And Reaper — his cloak flickered as he blinked in and out of sight, slashing through tentacles with ruthless efficiency. His voice was distorted and low, chilling even in the chaos:
"Cut the arms. Break the heart."
Woo, Jerome, and Marco stuck close, covering Raul while firing in coordinated bursts. Their rifles roared, the hive walls lighting with muzzle flashes.
Asura moved like lightning, carving a path with each Blink Step, tearing through droids so quickly they fell before they even registered he was there.
⸻
The Aftermath
After minutes that felt like hours, the ambush ended. Smoke, sparks, and alien ichor coated the walls. Countless corpses twitched on the ground — Marines and droids alike.
Raul leaned against the wall, panting, clutching his shoulder. "Damn... thought that was it."
Woo clasped his arm tight. "You're not dying here. Not today."
Carla scanned the squad, her voice steady but edged with steel.
"This is what the hive does. It breaks squads, one ambush at a time. Stay sharp — or you'll end up like them."
The Wolves stood over the carnage, their breaths heavy, their rifles smoking.
The climb wasn't even halfway over.
And the hive was only getting started.
-
The smoke still hung heavy. Marines dragged bodies out of the ichor while Raul gritted his teeth, stim patch sealing his shoulder. The Wolves reloaded in silence, nerves raw from the ambush.
Then Reaper broke it. His voice came out low, distorted, his blue visor eyes burning in the dark.
"Our helmets didn't warn us."
The squad froze. Woo blinked, confused. "What do you mean?"
Reaper stepped forward, kneeling beside the corpse of one of the twisted tentacle droids. His hand traced the pulsing alien metal, then he looked up.
"AI couldn't detect a thing. No warnings. No red flags. Nothing."
Carla frowned, her visor glowing. "That's impossible. Our helmets pick up threats before they happen. They've saved us a thousand times."
Reaper's voice turned sharper.
"Exactly. Which means one of two things. Either the queen herself is interfering... or this tech is advanced enough to mask its presence from our AI entirely."
Hudson's tone was flat, but heavy. "...That's why it felt like they appeared out of nowhere."
Hunter spat, reloading. "So she's screwing with our toys. Great."
⸻
The Weight of It
Jerome muttered, his voice shaky. "So... we're blind?"
Marco gritted his teeth. "Like walking through hell with no map."
Raul laughed bitterly through his pain. "Guess she wants to play games."
Carla's voice cut in, steel-hard.
"Then we don't play. Eyes up. Every corner, every wall, every sound. No more trusting the AI alone. Trust yourselves."
Reaper rose, cloak shifting in the dim hive light. His voice was colder now, final.
"Remember this: if the queen can blind our helmets... then she already knows where we are."
The Wolves fell silent, the truth sinking in like a blade.
Woo tightened his grip on his rifle, heart pounding.
This wasn't just a hive.
This was a trap.
And the queen was already watching.
-
The Wolves pressed deeper into the hive. The tunnels narrowed, their walls twitching, glowing veins pulsing faster. Suddenly, the world around them shifted.
The light flickered. The tunnels bent.
One moment, they were together. The next—
Woo turned and saw no one.
Jerome screamed as the floor fell away into a void.
Raul saw his little sister, bloodied, reaching out for him.
Marco dropped his rifle, swearing he saw his farm in flames.
Carla cursed. "Illusions—! It's not real, keep your focus!"
But the hive pressed harder. The illusions weren't just visual — they pressed on the recruits' hearts, amplifying fear, despair, guilt.
⸻
Reaper's Awareness
Reaper froze mid-step, his visor eyes flaring bright blue. He felt it — not just illusion, but conceptual intrusion. The hive was forcing its "idea" of chaos onto their reality.
His voice rasped, distorted through the comms:
"This isn't physical. This is conceptual. They're weaponizing fear."
Hudson gritted his teeth. "Our helmets should detect this—"
Reaper cut him off.
"Not if the queen is cloaking it. She wants us lost in her maze."
The Wolves staggered, each trapped in their own nightmare. Woo shouted, "It's so real— I can't—!"
Reaper raised his hand.
"Enough."
⸻
Echo Tactic Activated
Reaper's voice deepened, his AI syncing as his cloak rippled with static.
"Conceptual Tactic: Echo."
His visor pulsed once — and suddenly, the hive's own illusions reflected back.
The walls shrieked, glowing veins spasming violently. The illusions turned on themselves.
• The void Jerome saw collapsed inward, swallowing itself.
• Raul's hallucination of his sister warped into a twisted echo — the hive feeling its own projection amplified a thousandfold.
• The tunnels convulsed as the hive itself panicked, caught in a feedback loop of its own fear.
All around them, the grotesque corridors trembled, ichor raining from the walls.
⸻
The Wolves Snap Free
Woo gasped as the nightmare dissolved, his rifle in his hands again. Jerome collapsed to his knees, panting. Raul shook his head, blinking away tears.
Carla steadied herself, visor glowing. "...You just turned its trick against itself."
Hunter chuckled low. "Now that's a Reaper move."
Hudson gave a small nod. "...Efficient."
Asura simply looked at Reaper, calm as ever. "...You can see through the void."
Reaper's distorted voice echoed, calm and final:
"Illusions mean nothing to the dead. And I am already there."
⸻
The Path Ahead
The hive groaned, its illusions shattered — at least for now. The Wolves reformed their line, weapons ready.
Woo glanced up at the trembling walls, heart still racing. "...If that was just the tunnel, what's waiting at the top?"
Carla's jaw tightened. "The queen. And she'll make this look like child's play."
The Wolves pressed onward, deeper into the hive — toward the heart of the nightmare.
-
The Wolves moved upward, higher and higher. Their armor thrummed with power, propelling them up jagged hive tunnels at Mach 5 speeds. Their rifles barked in unison, cutting down droids and beasts that spilled from the walls. Twenty-five minutes of non-stop fire and movement — their bodies a blur, their training automatic.
Woo's heart thundered in his chest. His HUD kept flickering red, target indicators popping up faster than he could track.
Jerome gasped, sweat dripping beneath his visor. "How many more of these things—"
Carla cut him off. "Doesn't matter. Keep climbing!"
The Wolves surged forward — and then Pandora's voice filled their helmets.
⸻
The Warning
It wasn't calm this time. It wasn't casual. Monarch's tone was steel, heavy with authority, echoing through every UNE soldier's helmet across the planet.
"Attention UNE Marines. This is Monarch."
The gunfire seemed to quiet. Even the Wolves' breath caught as her voice wrapped around them.
"Be warned. The hive queen is fully aware of your presence. Her consciousness operates on levels beyond mortal comprehension. She is nigh-omniscient. Every step you take, every thought you form, she already anticipates."
The Veterans knew it all along, except the rookies... well Asura, John and Min-Seo knew it too since they're pretty sharp.
Woo's stomach dropped. Jerome whispered, "She already knows we're coming..."
Monarch's voice hardened.
"Expect traps. Expect illusions. Expect realities that are not your own. This is not a battle of bullets alone. It is conceptual war. Only your tactics can cut through her gaze."
⸻
Conceptual Orders
The soldiers leapt another twenty meters upward, their rifles shredding a cluster of droids that lunged from the wall. Raul growled, "Conceptual war? What does that even mean?"
Reaper answered for Monarch, his distorted voice rasping.
"It means your enemy is thought itself. And thought can kill."
Monarch continued:
"Use your conceptual tactics. Echo. Contradiction Lock. Resonance Split. Invisible Attack. Your armor, your rifles, your training — they are not enough against her. Only by outmaneuvering her concepts can you survive."
Hunter let out a low whistle, reloading mid-run. "Well, rookies, looks like we're playing chess with a god."
Hudson's voice was flat. "Then don't play. Break the board."
⸻
The Hive's Response
As if on cue, the hive shook violently. Walls writhed, corridors split, and grotesque forms began crawling from unseen fissures. The queen's awareness was pressing down now — the tunnels themselves shifted to block, confuse, and consume the Wolves.
Woo's HUD went white for a second, his helmet screaming with static. He blinked and suddenly saw three different corridors at once. His pulse spiked.
"Wh-what's happening?!"
Carla barked, "She's twisting perception!"
Reaper stepped forward, cloak flickering, his blue visor eyes blazing.
"Then we cut her perception apart."
The Wolves braced themselves as the hive itself prepared to drown them in traps born from the mind of a queen who already knew they were coming.
And they climbed.
-
The Wolves climbed higher, rifles hot, armor dripping with ichor. The hive shifted around them like a living labyrinth.
Then the world... changed.
The air grew still. The walls stopped pulsing.
Woo blinked. Suddenly, Raul wasn't at his side anymore. Instead, Raul was aiming his rifle at him.
"Traitor," Raul hissed, visor glowing red. "You're slowing us down."
Woo stumbled back. "Raul—what the hell are you doing?!"
Jerome screamed. "Min-seo's gone!" He spun, searching the dark. But when he turned, Min-seo was pointing a pistol at him, her visor cracked, her voice trembling.
"You'll get us all killed, Jerome. Better you than us."
⸻
The Split
Across the tunnel, every Wolf now saw a different nightmare:
• Marco saw John stabbing Carla.
• Carla saw Reaper abandoning them, his cloak fading into shadow.
• Raul saw Asura walking away, calm, leaving them to die.
• Woo saw everyone's weapons turned against him.
The hive queen's illusions got stronger and had struck — attacking their very idea of togetherness.
Min-seo's real body cowered in the corner, trembling. "I-I don't... I don't know what's real—!"
The Wolves screamed, aiming weapons at each other, confusion splitting their unity apart.
⸻
Hunter's Move
Then Hunter roared. His voice cut through the chaos, hard and commanding.
"ENOUGH!"
He slammed his rifle into the wall, his visor blazing. His voice dropped into a focused growl.
"Conceptual Tactic: Resonance Split!"
The air vibrated. Hunter's armor surged, syncing with his AI helmet as he poured will into the concept itself.
If the queen tried to fracture unity...
He would shatter her fracture.
⸻
Breaking the Illusion
The illusions faltered. Raul's rifle flickered, vanishing. Jerome gasped as Min-seo's gun dissolved like smoke. Carla's vision of Reaper faded, his cloak whole again. Marco blinked — John was fine, standing tall, rifle at his side.
One by one, the false betrayals shattered, crumbling like broken glass. The Wolves stood blinking, breathless, weapons shaking.
The hive around them shrieked, its walls convulsing as the queen's tactic was reflected back — her own attempt to fracture unity turning against her, creating static across the hive's mental link. For a brief moment, the Typonian swarm turned on itself in confusion.
⸻
The Wolves' Reactions
Min-seo dropped to her knees, trembling. "I-I almost... I almost believed it."
Woo put a hand on her shoulder, steady but firm. "It wasn't you. It was her. Don't let her win."
Raul spat, reloading. "Bitch wants to make us kill each other. Not happening."
Carla glanced at Hunter, her visor glowing. "...You broke it."
Hunter smirked under his helmet, his voice rough but proud.
"Kid tricks don't work on wolves."
Reaper tilted his hooded helm slightly, visor glowing brighter. "...Good. Means you're learning."
Asura simply walked forward, calm as ever. "...The queen grows restless."
⸻
The Wolves steadied themselves, hearts still racing. They had survived the Resonance Split.
But Monarch's words rang true in Woo's mind — the queen knew everything.
And this was only the beginning.
———————————————
To be continued...