The story takes place during events directly after the defeat of the Reapers.
Once again, Shepard is called upon to fight an evil enemy bent on conquering the galaxy- with Earth being their first target.
How ol' Abbadon the Despoiler got to the ME universe, among other things, will be explained in the following chapters. (considering readers approve of this story, that is)
Prologue
Lucky for Shepard, Tali was light enough to carry without him slowing to a crawl. Lucky for Tali, it was only a glancing shot.
His adrenaline levels felt like they were up past his eyeballs and he had a floaty feeling that seemed as if his feet weren't touching the rubble-strewn ground as he ran. He thought he could hear the bolts of their guns pull back as they chambered another explosive-tipped round, and despite his brain screaming at him not to, he turned his head to look over his shoulder for a second to check their progress. The giant men with the horned helmets definitely were getting ready to obliterate him with another volley from their unreasonably large weapons.
Shepard knew he was still too close to them to dodge the shots, and there was no cover nearby that he could leap behind quick enough. Not that cover would make a difference with those guns anyhow, but still...
Time slowed for him while he watched those giants bring their guns up to their shoulders and could actually make out their fingers pushing down on the triggers. But right before they could be depressed enough to fire, Shepard thought he saw a small round shape gently fall from the air in front of them. They must have noticed it too, because all three of them directed their attention to the metal ball as it landed and kept rolling for a few inches. Then a little red light on it blinked maniacally and the thing started ticking.
And then it blew up.
The force of the grenade's explosion threw Shepard off his feet, landing face first in the dirt as he flung Tali out of his arms so as not the crush her beneath him. A thick cloud of grey masonic dust was kicked up and for a moment everything disappeared in it until it was too difficult just to see a couple of meters ahead. He groggily rolled over on his back, supporting himself on his elbows. Shaking off his disorientation, he was able to make out a silhouette through the cloud, which was quickly joined by two others.
He pulled out his sidearm and pointed it at the figures who were now approaching him. He wasn't kidding himself; he knew if even a blast that would have easily brought down a Krogan couldn't kill these black-armored war machines, his pistol wasn't going to do any better. It looked to Shepard that, despite some unknown friend's efforts to save him, this was the end, but damned if they were going to take him without a fight.
"Skipper!" He heard a familiar voice call out. His addled brain tried to remember whose it was. Who used to always call him by that nickname?
"Ash?" he croaked out through a dust-lined throat. As the first silhouette got closer, its shape became more curved at the hips. Armored, but not like one of the walking tanks who were so close to destroying him a moment ago. The dust cloud finally dissipated, and Shepard saw his saviors clearly.
"Skipper, thank God. We thought you two were dead." Lieutenant Commander Ashley Williams was at the head of the trio, her face matted with dirt and blood, and shoulder length hair bedraggled and just as dirty. A large dark figure emerged at her side, and Shepard was afraid for a split second that the giants were coming up from behind her, until he noticed the row of tattoos on a thick neck and the unmistakable grinning cast-iron jaw of Arms Master James Vega.
The third was the shortest of the three, and moved with a grace that seemed inappropriate for the heavy combat armor she wore. Shepard's heart fluttered for a moment when he saw Liara T'Soni's round blue features come up beside Ashley's, with a bit more concern in her eyes than the others' had. He didn't need to hear her ask if he was alright; he practically read it off of her face like a letter.
"They nearly had you there, Commander." Ashley extended an arm and helped pull Shepard back on his feet.
Shepard coughed out some of the dirt in his lungs. "Yeah, nearly. Thanks."
"Hey, Loco," said Vega, using the title he had affectionately bestowed on Shepard upon their meeting, "Are you still alive? If you are, that was all me, and if not, it was the LT's fault, here."
Shepard smiled. "I'm not sure, James," he said sarcastically, "Maybe you should throw another grenade at me and find out for sure."
Shepard glanced past Ashley to see the three giants lying on the ground like so much rubble, the fragmentation grenade having cracked open their thick black armor. That definitely was close, he thought. If Ash didn't show up when she did, he and Tali would've been red pulp and gristle.
"Tali!" he remembered. Shepard spun around to find the wounded Quarian girl where he tossed her when they fell. A fine layer of grey dust covered her envirosuit, making her look like she was part of the environment. He gingerly scooped her groaning body back into his arms and supported her masked head with his shoulder. "We have to get her to the med-station, quick." Her intricate skin-tight suit was breached, and the dust wasn't helping to keep her wound from getting infected.
Again, he thought, she was very lucky: the rounds the giants' guns were loaded with appeared to be explosive to a degree, so if one of those giants got her with a straight shot, she would have been blown literally in half. As it was, she was hit by the shrapnel it produced when it detonated on the wall next to her, and that alone was enough to incapacitate her.
Liara's face switched from concern to seriousness and a tinge of pain, "We better hurry in any case. There are more of them coming." Sure enough, amid the ambience of rapid-firing guns and explosions in the distance, the squad could hear the rising chant they had grown to fear in the past couple of weeks.
Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!
Gunshots barked from the direction of the chanting further down the street, the bright muzzle flashes throwing back the shadows of a large group of giant horned warriors against the walls of the surrounding buildings. Shepard found their levity disturbing, like they were having the time of their lives casually strolling towards them and popping shots in the air while they shouted praises to their gods. It was like a bar crawl and a fanatical mob put together, just replacing the drunken teens and beer bottles with walking tanks and grenade launchers.
"Let's go. Maybe they haven't noticed us yet." It was possible they were merely attracted by the noise of battle close by, but Shepard didn't exactly want to find if that was the case or not..
Shepard and his team cut through a nearby alleyway going north. They weren't too far from their own lines, that is to say less than half a kilometer, but in the recent days it was a feat of valor just to cross the street on foot without getting shot. The five of them had gotten this far only because their extensive time in the field in the past wars taught them that small group of well-trained and experienced fighters could sneak into almost anywhere. Even Harbinger and its Reapers, with all their self-proclaimed omnipotence, couldn't keep their mechanical eyes on them all the time.
Of course, shit happens, and it's always unwise to forget to factor chance in any plan, no matter how foolproof it seems. And so that's how Shepard and his team ended up getting caught, separated, and chased by these giant maniacs. Chance, and plain old bad luck. Same deal with Tali getting shot, though as was said before, she must have still carried a good bit of luck on her somewhere to still be alive.
Their experience was showing as they wound through the narrow back alleys with speed and efficiency, covering corners and pie-ing suspicious turns in the darkness. The sounds of the enemy behind them may be shrinking with distance, but that didn't give them an excuse for being too complacent. It was better to be careful and have nothing happen than it was to be careless and get ambushed. Even Shepard was covering his sector with his sidearm in one hand while carrying Tali with the other.
They all saw the end of the alley up ahead and silently dreaded the sight of the street that awaited them. They would have to move across open ground, exposed to everything in the world plus the enemy's guns.
Shepard ordered the team to halt inside the alley. "Okay, James," he gently handed the large man his unconscious load, "Hold on to her. You and Liara will go first at the same time while Ash-"
"Shepard..." Liara interrupted, but he kept going.
"-stays here to cover you until you get to the other side-"
"Shepard, what are you going to do?"
Shepard gave her a stern look. "I'll be going last, Liara."
Contrary to popular belief, running past an enemy's field of fire first isn't the most lethal opportunity to do so. If the enemy down the street doesn't expect someone to run right past them, it may take a moment for them to react, by which time the runner will have already reached the safety of the other side. However, should another group have to run after them, they will be doing so with the enemy ready to shoot them once out of cover. This was especially dangerous now, with an enemy whose standard troopers carried rapid-fire grenade launchers in place of conventional weapons.
Liara knew this; if there were any armored giants sitting somewhere around the chokepoint of the street - and odds are there were - Shepard would be the one taking all the hits.
"Shepard, maybe I should go last. I could create a biotic barrier between us and whoever is out there."
"We both know you'd have to be exposed to concentrate on making a barrier that big. You'd be shot the moment you bring it down to make a run for it. I need you and James to cover Ash when it's her turn to go, and I'd be able to cover her, too, giving us two bases of fire on the bad guys."
It was no use arguing with him, Liara understood, and this was no time for feelings or what not. This was something that had to be done.
Vega stood to Liara's left, with Tali slung over a slab-like shoulder, and his rifle tucked under his arm. He had the tensed look of a tiger about to pounce on his prey in contrast with Liara's almost relaxed loose stance.
Shepard nodded at them. "Go." They sped off as fast as they could, Vega's strong legs pushing him forward, and Liara moving with the grace of a dancer.
He couldn't see it, but Shepard could hear the surprised shouts from which certainly had to be coming from the throats of black armored giants, and the unmistakable clacking of bolts being primed. They were too distracted by the obvious running targets to see Ashley peeking around the corner on the right side of the alleyway.
She fired a long burst from her machine gun and by the time she released the trigger, it was already her turn to go. Shepard took her place and got a good look of what he was about to jump in front of.
Just as he suspected, there were three more giants about fifty meters down the street holed up inside a circle of burning and bullet-riddled ground cars and other objects suitable for a makeshift bunker. They were in the process of shouldering their weapons to gun down Ash when Shepard popped as many shots from his pistol at them as he could.
His smaller handgun was not the equal of Ashley's bullet-spraying machine gun, and it was more the report and muzzle flash of it that got the bad guys' attention than the power of the pistol itself did. None of them so much as flinched as Shepard's shots pinged off of their thick armor, and he wondered if they could even feel the impacts they made.
Two of them turned their guns in his direction, and Shepard ducked back in cover as at once all three of them opened fire. The corner he was shooting from a second ago exploded into chunks of concrete and steel, and Shepard had to shield his eyes from bits of masonry. No doubt the third giant was trying to hit Ash, but a quick glance across the street showed that she had met up with the others unharmed, and they were now pouring return fire at the burning barricade to try to keep the enemy's heads down, but they may as well have all been carrying pistols as well for what effect they were having on them.
The enemy fire team wasn't being suppressed, but Shepard couldn't stay where he was any longer. Soon the group of giants they found a street over will follow the sounds of the firefight and come up behind and overwhelm them.
A blue flash of light appeared ahead, and Shepard it surround Liara's form. The light arced towards the barricade and burst upon the heads of the giants, who were engulfed in blue as well. Like helium balloons at a child's birthday party, the three horned warriors gently lifted off the ground and floated up in the air, immobile except for their heads which turned to each other in confusion.
As Liara was using her biotic powers on the giants, Shepard used the opportunity to dash towards her and the rest of the team. Vega took careful aim at the warriors.
"Hold 'em steady, Liara," he said as Ashley joined him in concentrating a withering volley of fire at each giant, one at a time, while they were suspended helplessly above their barricade.
Like all the other times they fought these things in the past two weeks, Shepard's people found that they were unspeakably tough, but not so much that hundreds of bullets won't tear them apart like any other living thing. Before long, they were all dead, and Liara released her biotic hold on them with a pant of breath.
The entire fight began and ended in less than three minutes.
"You three saved my life for the second time in the same night," Shepard said when he finally reached them, "I owe you all a big one."
Liara gave him the same concerned look as before. He smiled at her in return. "Thanks Liara."
She smiled back at him. "You've done more for us over the years. If anything, we owe you-" Her smile disappeared and was replaced with a look of pain again. She closed her eyes. "They're getting closer. We can't stay here any longer."
She was right. The chanting from the large group of warriors could be heard again. They weren't far.
Shepard turned to his crew. With the exception of Tali, who was still unconscious on Vega's shoulder, they're eyes were bruised with exhaustion and resigned duty. Shepard wanted to bet he looked just as bad, if not worse.
At least we're not fighting Reapers, he silently told himself. At least we're not fighting Reapers.
He nodded to his team. "Let's go, people. They probably miss us at headquarters." They nodded back. Weary of war as they were, there was still one going on, and still a planet to keep safe. Earth, and the entire galaxy, may have already suffered in the Reaper invasion, but Shepard dared to hope that this would be the last big battle fought for a long while, preferably with the good guys as the victors.
And they moved northward once more.