New Contestants

“What the hell is that?”
I looked up, startled by my friend’s exclamation. Looking to him, I saw him standing up upon the parapet, eyes pointed perfectly upon the parapet of our shared dugout. His hands were resting upon the sandbags, his weapon resting on the wall of the firing pit.
“Whatever do you mean?” I asked cautiously. It was clear something was wrong. I had never seen him like this, as there were very few things upon this world that started him. 
He grunted, and leapt down from the steps into the trench. Grabbing his slugger, he racked the bolt backwards, patiently waiting for the satisfying clack of the charger to throw itself forward.
“New enemies. Different to the usual ones,” he said. “They’re not Sulla’s soldiers, that’s for damn sure.”
I stood up from the box I had been resting upon, and grabbed my own weapon. Following my comrade’s lead, I ensured it was ready to be used, although I must confess I fiddled with the attached bayonet with some amount of nervousness. Marcus was the best of our mercenary group – if he was rattled, I should be too.
I slowly edged up onto the firing platform, finding my footing as I hurdled up onto the step. Crouching just under the parapet, I looked to Marcus, who gestured to look over and see for myself. I took a deep breath, before grabbing the edge of the dugout and hauling myself up to the ridge of the shelter, to look upon the desolate, dead plains.
It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. In front of my eyes some hundreds of cubits away was a floating machine, covered in a metallic blue metal that made it look like a giant Teash beetle. How it hovered I did not know, only that it was something far beyond our own capability.
Surrounding the machine on the ground were figures in shiny blue and gold armour, seemingly encircled by dozens of smaller beings, with odd-shaped packs upon their backs. The taller aliens seemed to lead the more squat beings, as wherever they pointed those squats scrambled and fell over themselves to get there first. I was enthralled by these movements, as they moved nothing like myself or Marcus, or even Sulla’s men.
There was no way either were of our kind. The commanders were far too slim, too orderly, too regal in their actions and movement. The squats… well, they could pass for younglings thanks to their childish inhibitions, but were far too small for that. 
I ducked down once more, to see Marcus looking at me with a disgruntled stare. He gestured with his shoulders, as if to ask what I thought.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” I admitted. “They are certainly not Sulla’s.”
Marcus nodded in agreement. “Could they be allies?” he wondered aloud. “New mercenaries Lucius hired?”
I shook my head vigorously in disagreement. “No chance,” I said. “They don’t look like any chain gang I’ve seen before, and we both know how Lucius is when it comes to pack purity.”
Marcus shrugged. “Just a thought, Max. No need to get brutish.”
I was about to respond, when we heard shouting from over the foxhole’s lip. Slowly climbing back up to the ridge, we stared, as it seemed the new arrivals had made acquaintances with Sulla’s men. I stifled a snort.
“Sulla’s men will rip those twigs limb from limb,” I said with a smile. Marcus grunted in return. “Depends on how good those weapons they’re carrying are.”
I watched, as a dozen Jiralhanae barreled towards the beetle ship and its occupants, who swiveled to meet the new threat. I watched, and waited, and anticipated the bloodcurdling howls of Sulla’s victims as they ripped them limb from limb, and stared with horror as the slim aliens raised the bulky, bulbous weapons they carried, and opened fire. Blue balls of magic erupted from the snouts of the beasts, and hurtled towards their attackers. Slamming into my Jiralhanae brethren with a roar, the ball erupted and washed over their body, immediately causing those hit to stop and collapse. The magic projectiles burned them, melting through tufts of hair and their thick skin, as they twitched and shrieked and thrashed as the pain echoed within.
It hurt to watch, although it could not have harmed me as much as those demonic weapons. I turned to Marcus, with horror in my eyes. We had seen many things fighting for Lucius, but none so bloody and terrible as what had just been witnessed.
I looked back, to see that the bloodshed was already over. It had been less than six tusks, and already the lance of Sulla’s pack that had decided to brutalise the newcomers had instead been brutalised, their corpses settling on the ground with a faint hiss from the burns and mystic bullets.
Who were these demons?
"By Teash," I muttered, disheartened by what I had witnessed. “We need to get back to Lucius." I declared. Marcus viciously nodded his head in agreement, and we scrambled down from the firing pit and into the dugout. Clutching our sluggers so tight I could feel my bones against the drab metal, we forced open the small hatch leading to the tunnel we had dug many months ago.
A sharp bark was heard from behind us. I swiveled on the spot, to see one of the small creatures staring down at us, eyes wide open. His face was covered by a metallic mask, hissing and creaking as the creature breathed through the contraption. The straps and harnesses connecting him to his triangular shell were taut, whilst the two tubes wrapped around its head joined the inside of the shell to the mask. Some sort of breathing device, perhaps?
In its hands was a small weapon, pint-sized for myself but suitably scaled for the creature. Its purple furniture was encircled around the hand of the alien, with the two nozzles at the end of the circular weapon glowing a soft green. Its low hum echoed into the tunnel behind me. The creature raised the launcher at me, and I realized that the strange gadget was bound to be similar to those strange blue ball launchers that had decimated Sulla’s men. As the green hue grew brighter and brighter, I brought my slugger up to my shoulder and fired at the invader.
Ripping through the shell’s metal sheet with ease, a gas immediately began to leak through the rip created by the spike, the strange green tone dissipating into the air around. The creature immediately began to squeal, placing its hands over the hole in a vain attempt to prevent the leakage. Its screams were bound to attract the attention of our unwanted guests, as it turned around and began sprinting away from the edge of our dugout. I watched, and listened, as the cries of danger brought forth the rushing of footsteps, the shouts of lower, gruff tones, and the low wine of their weapons charging.
I turned back to the open hatch, where Marcus was watching expectantly. “Time to go,” I said.
“It was time to go twenty units ago,” muttered Marcus. Nevertheless we began to run down the dim, dark tunnel. Someone had to let Lucius know that there were new contestants to his tenuous rule.