Summary: "Fedorian is dead," Garrus had told him. "You're the new Primarch."
But Adrien had lived a whole life before those fateful words were said to him.

Excerpt: The Captain unfurled his posture from the table, rising to his full height. Behind his amber eyes, a hundred scenarios played out in his skull, the best components from each of them reconstructing themselves like puzzle pieces to ultimately create a strategy that imbued his second vocals with conviction as he met the officers' gazes and told them plainly: "Then open the gates."

Disclaimers:
1) If you're waiting for (the true) Part 4 to this series, it's coming! When I upload it, it will take up the spot for this fic, bumping it ahead in the order until it's last, after all the parts have been written.
2) Mass Effect is the property of Bioware.
3) A HUGE thank you to two wonderful friends and beta readers. shretl (Girlundone) and Marie_Fanwriter over on AO3.
4) Warning: This chapter contains canon-typical violence and some language.
5) Cover art is done by the amazing Palavenmoons on Tumblr.

So I learned that Adrien Victus week is a thing and I really wanted to contribute. So I meshed together a collection of real-world battles and 'cut content' from Adrien's military days that didn't make it into The Primarch's Order and came up with this. You don't have to have read Order to read this story, but I definitely pepper in references here and there. Regardless, if you're a returning reader or just here to celebrate our favorite Primarch, I hope you enjoy!

2170
Pons, Solregit

Enemy fire pinged off the shuttle's hull, fortunately too weak to break through its heavy shields. They flashed against the gunshots like a beast shaking stinging insects loose from its withers. Still airborne, but safely behind the high walls that surrounded the city of Pons, Captain Adrien Victus opened the hatch to stand in the doorway and watch the groundrush as they came onto approach. Plumes of russet dust erupted as the shuttle slowed, cloaking three armored individuals -the landing party, he presumed- as they stood abreast with their mandibles pointing upward, watching their descent.

Adrien's armored fingers wrapped securely around the handhold above the door, bracing himself against every jolt and shudder the aircraft gave, while his eyes peered through his helmet's tinted visor to take in the surroundings that rose up around him.

Tall buildings clawed at the sky, though none stood taller than the concrete barrier that caged them all in -a common feature on such a war-torn colonial world. Pons was located along Solregit's equator, backed up against a barren desert that served as a natural border between the Loyalist South and Separatist North. A no man's land. While technically considered 'South,' the Vice Primarch and Colonial Governor of the territories of Northern Solregit, Rana Rosepterus, shouldered the burden of dealing with the Separatists. When the Separatists decide to encroach on Loyalist cities, it was her responsibility to step in to handle the situation, bargaining for any and all help the Hierarchy would send.

Adrien turned his attention back to those soldiers under his charge, his helmeted gaze travelling over their faces as he watched them sway with the movement of the shuttle. This time, when the Vice Primarch called, it was his platoon the Hierarchy had sent. He still wasn't sure whether to feel honored or insulted. Admittedly, it wasn't as though it was the first time he'd been called into a situation such as this. And, somehow, he doubted it would be the last… if they survived.

The pilot, an unflappable young female with better flying skills than most frigate pilots he'd met, brought the shuttle down before the landing party. Victus knew he was to meet with three officials. As the dust settled, he recognized them instantly from the profiles he'd studied. From left to right: Avili Horados, a woman with green eyes, tan plates, and gray skin that tended to favor her left leg due to an old injury she sustained twelve years ago in the field. Seus Decril, a dark plated man with a coal-colored hide, blue eyes, and deceptively weak equanimity -though that wasn't in his profile. Victus could tell by his forced, unnaturally straight posture. Lastly, was Actoria Heltis, a decorated lieutenant and survivor of several skirmishes with the Separatists. Gray eyes peered out from within copper plates, confidence radiating off a relaxed yet professional stance.

The sound of the engines beginning to wind down signaled it was go time. Victus stepped out onto the dust covered landing pad followed by the beat of nineteen sets of boots behind him. Though, he knew the twentieth set would have hit the ground without so much as a whisper. The sunrays gleamed off his team's armored figures, pristine rifles in hand. He reached up and removed his own helmet, face expressionless as he took them in without his visor tinting. The twin suns burned in the sky above them, dry heat seeping into his plates as he willed himself to refrain from blinking at the brightness.

"Captain Victus, I presume?" Heltis greeted him with a curt nod. Ah, by the scent on her breath she had a tabachi habit.

"Yes." Victus acknowledged with a slight incline of his crest.

"This is it?" Decril sneered without bothering to smother the disdain in his subharmonics. "Is this a joke? We were promised reinforcements -a company at least!"

The dark turian glared at the soldiers that trooped around their Captain, his eyes lingering on one in particular for a beat too long. Victus knew, without following the stare, that the scowl was directed at Attilia, her bare face on display with her helmet cradled under an arm. After a moment Decril rounded on his partners, gray eyes searching for validation.

Victus shifted the weight of his Phaeston to his other arm, stifling a sigh. It wasn't as though he was interested in being there himself, outmanned and outgunned if the reports were to be believed. "I'm afraid a platoon is what you have," he replied, careful to keep his irritation from coloring his tone -well, too much, anyway. "Shall we convene somewhere more private?"

Decril looked tempted to argue further but Horados cut his impending tirade off before it began. "Of course, Captain. This way." She gave a vague gesture in the direction of a set of buildings and turned away from the group, fully expecting everyone to follow her.

Instead of moving immediately, Victus took a moment to check the time on his omni-tool -1035- and he turned to address his soldiers. "Rest up. Meet back here at 1135." Not waiting for the salutes he knew they'd snap off, he took his leave. Despite the less-than-warm welcome they received, there was no doubt in his mind that each and every one of his soldiers would be waiting for his orders ten minutes early.

"You say 'resources' like the Hierarchy has provided us with any!" With every word that spewed from Decril's mouth, Victus could feel his patience –already in short supply– wane.

They stood around a large holographic map of the area, showcasing Pons and the desert wasteland surrounding it. While Heltis and Decril stood with him next to the console, Horados kept her distance. She almost seemed to be surveying the rest of them, keeping silent despite Decril's harsh tone.

Ignoring the older male for now, Adrien swiped a finger over the landscape, bringing up charts of data consisting of distances, their elevation, wind speeds, and outside temperatures. He took in the charts, of course having already seen them in the profile he'd been given, but these were the most up to date. From his research, he knew a frontal assault into the desert would be foolhardy, as the Separatists would have surely prepared for that by laying explosives and pitfalls in the sand. Any soldier to venture out into the desert would be akin to a pyjack seeking the slaughter.

With a snarl, no doubt irritated at Adrien's indifference, Decril continued: "If that swell-headed coreworlder Primarch of yours hadn't waited so damn long, they could have dropped an airstrike and we'd have been done with this."

Holding back a sigh, Victus chose to roll out his neck instead. It was true. An airstrike would have been the most straightforward approach to this sort of problem, but as it was the Separatists had moved too close to not only the city, but also her desert wells. Dropping a bomb on them would do no favors for either side.

Victus' taloned hands were colored blue in the holographic light, the image of hilltops pebbling the backs of his hands as he leaned forward to brace his weight on the platform and scan the city. For all Decril's claims of 'no resources' Victus saw an abundance. For one thing, Pons was backed up against a landscape of rolling hills that dipped and rose for several kilometers, thick with dried brush and dense brambles. Atop the terrain stood watch towers armed with anti-aircraft artillery. Undoubtedly, they had been what kept the onslaught of Separatists mercifully on foot thus far.

Following Victus' gaze to the artillery, Heltis offered, "We have soldiers stationed out there on rotation, but it's getting more dangerous to bring them in. We haven't taken too many losses as of yet, but they suffer a barrage or two on a daily basis."

"We can't keep them from the guns forever," Decril stated the obvious. Victus could feel the male's eyes burning a hole through his crest while his head was bowed.

"It's not only the guns they want," Victus asserted as he swept a talon slowly over the dried brush, his finger phasing seamlessly through the hologram. "These hills are tinder waiting to burn."

"If you're the best the Hierarchy could send, I'm not impressed," Decril growled. "So far all you've brought to our effort is your shuttle. In case you haven't noticed, brush control hasn't exactly been our top priority."

Victus' gaze rose from the map to meet the cantankerous officer. He just managed to keep himself from voicing, 'The best part of you ran down your old man's leg,' and instead simply said, "Good." A beat, then: "They'll want these hills. Taking them will grant them fortifications, a vantage point, the guns and, if it comes to it, they can burn it all down."

The officers exchanged a worrying glance from across the simulation of all they stood to lose. "With all due respect, Captain," Horados chimed in before Decril could, though his mouth hung agape, desperate to voice his dwindling opinion of the younger turian. "We're aware of all that. That's why we've kept them from the hills."

"They take those hills," Heltis pierced Victus with a glare. "They'll take our city."

"Which is their ultimate goal," Victus affirmed with a nod.

"Yes!" Frustrated, Decril's mandibles flared into an obnoxious snarl.

The Captain unfurled his posture from the table, rising to his full height. Behind his amber eyes, a hundred scenarios played out in his skull, the best components from each of them reconstructing themselves like puzzle pieces to ultimately create a strategy that imbued his second vocals with conviction as he met the officers' gazes and told them plainly: "Then open the gates."

At first, he was met with a silence so thick that the outside noise became almost deafening. Then Decril erupted. "WHAT?!"

It took a little convincing and a whole lot of pacing on his opponents' part before Victus got his way. It was easy to dislike the officers, Decril most of all, but their first concern was for their people behind the ramparts. Opening the gates was a risky maneuver, he knew, but it was a tactical bet he was willing to take. It wasn't as though they had many alternatives. Either Victus took his men and left the city to their fate or he stayed to go through with his plan. They would succeed or he would burn with them.

Adrien suspected that a part of Decril only agreed so he might see the irksome young turian go up in flames, but he couldn't fault the man. It wasn't as though he was the only one to ever feel that way about him. Victus knew he had that that effect on people. Officers, mostly.

Now, sitting on a parapet atop the wide walkway of the wall, Victus waited. He could feel the buzz of the mass effect field generators hum within sections of the great durasteel barricade. It had served Pons well to protect it thus far and, if everything went his way today, it would continue to do so.

Knowing he wouldn't have much longer to wait, he took a moment to wrap a lump of sticky tabachi into a joint before lighting it and bringing it to his maw.

He remembered the look on Heltis' plates when he had asked her for some. She'd given him a quizzical look before acquiescing with an approving hum of her sub-vocals. "You smoke, do you, Captain?" She asked while she dug through her pocket for her stash. "Prefer to chew it, myself." When she found the glass vial, its contents like round globules of green phlegm, she emptied some out into his open palm.

"No," he replied, accepting the mucus-like substance into his palm. "Can't say I've ever cared for it." Flicking his mandibles into a grateful smile, he departed with globule in hand and a puzzled stare upon his back.

Smoke billowed out from the gaps of his mouth as he stared off at the horizon. It might have been beautiful once, the desert wasteland under suns that were just starting to lower. Instead, the land was war-scarred and ugly. A shame.

Every now and again he snuck a glance toward the hills, his amber gaze quickly scanning the thick brambles for any signs of movement. Seeing nothing, he took another pull from his joint and smiled around the plumes he blew into the still air.

'Good.'

As he predicted, his lure was too much to resist and he soon heard the rumbling sound of approaching vehicles. Victus reclined further on his stoney perch, comfortably crossing one ankle over the other and making a point to take another, much longer, drag. He could almost feel the effects of it tickling his mind as the smoke permeated the air above his tilted face, but he was careful to keep his wits. Though, it was definitely playing a part in his inability to feel the sunrays beating down on his plates, a small consolation for the bitter smoke in his maw. His nearing victory would taste even sweeter.

As the reverberating grew, monstrous VT7s crept over the horizon, flanked on all sides by -he quickly estimated- three-hundred or so rebel soldiers dressed in armor as mismatched and obsolete as the hull on their durasteel 'war' vehicles. The sight of them almost made Victus want to laugh... or maybe that was just the tabachi . They crept closer and closer to the city walls, all the while Victus sat unhurried and unafraid. Even if their best sniper took a shot at him he was protected by both the wall's shields and his own.

"You don't honestly think they'd be that stupid," Decril had chided earlier.

"They've been out in the desert a long time, they can't have much in the way of supplies. So, stupid -no. Desperate -yes. And desperate people make mistakes," was his answer.

Few were more desperate than Separatists.

An easy grin spread across Victus' face as he stood from his roost to gesture welcomingly to the open gates like easy, low-hanging fruit. He tried not to think of the lives behind the wall that depended on him as the enemy crept closer. Of the lives of his soldiers that trusted him as they kept coming. Of the officers that had little choice but to put their faith in him as their adversaries eyed the open gates like hungry varren, shyly sniffing at an offered hand. Of the look on Magrim's beautiful face, holding Tarquin in her arms, should he not come home.

As Victus predicted -and privately hoped- the feral varren shied away from the proffered treat. The encroaching mass of turians began to split down the middle to flank the city with Victus at its point -the keel that parted a torrential sea.

The Captain schooled his mandibles from displaying the triumph that roared inside. He was still being watched, after all. Staring at the ragtag army, his mandibles were slack against his face and his eyes were wide with careful apprehension as they slowly bypassed the all but highlighted trap that was Pon's gates and crept toward the hills. There, they would hope to fortify their defenses. They would seize the artillery and gain all the long-term advantages, allowing them to take the city at a later time and then some.

Victus rotated on the spot to take in both sides of the city, scanning the backs of the VT7s and Separatist soldiers until his eyes fell on one turian that trailed near the back, a shotgun cradled in his arms. At the sight of him, the Captain allowed his mandibles to fold back into their natural place, his joint smoldering to an end at the side of his mouth, forgotten. It was at the crest of the hill, when the large VT7s trundled down the other side and out of Victus' sight, that the turian of interest turned back to gaze at the city behind him. Though he was far away, there was no mistaking the stiff posture of a creature that just realized it had become prey. Furthermore, there was no mistaking the face.

Louki Fidele.

Suddenly, Victus hungered as he watched the dread sink into his prey. He could see it in the way his weight dropped lower to the ground as he prepared for the fight to come and how he brandished his weapon skyward. Victus took the joint between his fingers, pulling one last drag into his lungs before dropping it to the ground. Smoke billowed out around his mandibles like it would from a fire-breathing beast of legend.

Across the distance, their eyes met and the predator allowed himself to smile around the only order he needed to give, spoken into his comm to his soldiers that waited in the hills.

"Begin."

It quickly became difficult to hear the screams over the gunshots and explosions from the hills and battlecries from the hidden Pons soldiers in the streets. Victus languidly stamped out the ashes before calmly moving toward the staircase to disembark from his perch.

He still had work to do.

Scorching ground burned beneath his feet. He could feel it through the soles of his boots, but his armor protected him from harm. His shields would periodically flicker when a lick of flame got too close, but the black ceramic plates left the being inside virtually untouched. Red lights streaked against a background of black smoke, drawing vanishing lines in the air as he moved.

The bulk of the Separatist army had met their end almost as soon as the battle started. Most of their VT7s were rendered useless. Flipped over on their backs in the valley of the hills, having been sent tumbling down by the string explosives that upended them. And that was before they were flanked at the rear by Pon's forces that came roaring from the city.

With the bulk of their firepower lying futilely atop their own men, guns buried in shifting sand, the rebel forces broke as thoroughly as their shattered resolve. Some seized the opportunity to make an escape if it was present, pausing to drag injured comrades away if they could. Many, however, flashed their teeth and fought for their lives.

"Give them no quarter!" He ordered into his comms.

A part of him always wished to be an outsider, to witness his soldiers moving like one cohesive beast. Their movements were precise, predicting each other and acting accordingly.

"Bring the bastards to their knees!"

He could feel his squad move around him, taking out his enemies like extensions of his own talons. Omni-blades pierced through the joints of inferior armor and rifles found their marks again and again. Every now and then he would catch glimpses of his best infiltrator as Attilia flickered in and out of view, the only sign of her whereabouts were the dead and dying she left in her wake.

Bodies grew in increasing piles in all directions, forcing him to have to sidestep motionless forms with increasing frequency. Dual-toned screams and wails vibrated in the scorched air, but he was deaf to it all. His focus was on his work; on every detail around him. Nothing changed without his notice.

The Captain closed a fist around an unfortunate soul's shoulder, trapping him before his omni-blade sliced up into the back of their helmet. Allowing the body to drop to the ground, Victus turned to another advancing opponent.

In the span of less than a second, he registered the thick plate that protected his foe, the relatively short distance that separated them, and that his audacity to get so close was indicative of a sufficient shield generator. Automatically, Victus moved his hand for the required tool. As he rotated, his fingers closed around the weight of his shotgun stock, pulling it free from its maglock and pointed it at his enemy. The other turian hit the ground with half a skull before he was able to get a single shot off, palms loose around an unused rifle.

Later, when the screaming died down and the air was choked with the smell of burned plates, Victus walked across the battlefield, if it could even be called one anymore.

A three-fingered hand reached for his ankle, the body attached to it charred and blackened within pieced-together armor. A desperate keen rang from burned vocals only to be swiftly silenced by a quick shot from Victus' sidearm. That was the only mercy he showed.

The rest was a slaughter.

As he walked among the dead and dying, he reduced the tinting of his visor to better search the bodies for any that belonged to him. His hopes grew with each mismatched armor-plated body he passed until the sight of gray and red caught his eye. Hurrying over, he hoped it was just an ash-covered body and not his platoon's colors. Somehow, he knew better.

Sure enough, it was one of his own. He didn't even need to turn the body over to know who it was, though he did so anyway. Rela Mactus, twenty-eight, colony kid from Macedyn. She had been a part of his team for the last year and a half. Writing short stories on datapads to pass the time while traveling was one of her favorite hobbies. Hell of a shot too. Her visor was shattered, allowing sightless eyes to stare up at him from the depths of her helmet. Blue blood coated his gauntlets.

Steeling himself, Victus pulled her free from the bodies piled around and on top of her -no doubt her final opponents. Lifting her into his arms, and suppressing the keen he wanted to emote when her head fell back against the crook of his elbow, Victus held his silence. There would be time for mourning later.

He wanted to return her to camp now, to carry her body in his arms back to their contingent so that they could grieve the loss together. Instead, there was still work to be done. Victus laid her down carefully, crouching at her side as he silently asked for the Spirit of their platoon to watch over her until he could return.

There was no sound as Attilia sidled up beside him. Her helmeted crest was lowered in the direction of the fallen turian in front of him for several seconds before she lifted her head to meet his gaze.

Victus stood up, heedless of the blood on his armored plates.

"Casualty report," was all he said as she fell into step beside him.

"Two dead, sir," she stated. "Four injuries; Minor."

Staring ahead, taking in the hundreds of charred bodies around them, a swell of pride intermixed in the pool of grief inside him. His soldiers had fought damn well, as he knew they would. Outmanned and outgunned, they were superior in every way.

He might've told Attilia so if not for the words of one final Sundowner left alive.

"Is this the world you p-picture?" Pain made subharmonics slur and waver in and out of the voice as it slithered its way from the depths of burned lungs.

The agent and her Captain came to a halt, their eyes scanning for the speaker, eventually finding him with his left leg pinned beneath the crushing weight of an overturned VT7 -Louki Fidele.

Victus watched him with an expression devoid of emotion. The Sundowner's armor was charred and full of holes that leaked blue blood, darkening the dry sand around him. Sharp teeth, stained an inky cobalt, were bared in a threatening display to match the battle teeth tattooed around his maw. He watched Victus with vicious eyes holding nothing but contempt.

Against a blazing backdrop of fire, embers swirling around him, the Hierarchy Captain held the Sundowner's stare, never dropping it even after he gave a curt hum of dismissal to Attilia and approached his old adversary.

Attilia hung back as ordered, but stayed well within distance to kill the Separatist in a second's notice.

Crouching beside Fidele, Victus rested his forearms comfortably over his thighs, never once breaking eye-contact with the other male. To Fidele's credit, neither did he.

"T-tell me, Victus." Fidele's mandibles flared against the agony that racked his body. "Is this what you want for your son?" Finally looking away, Fidele emphasized his point by staring pointedly at the carnage that smoldered around them.

Victus kept, what could be seen of his visage, a stoic wall -a task made slightly more difficult at the bold invocation of his boy from his enemy's mouth. Yet, there was a part of him that was also slightly amused at apparently making enough of an impression, during their past encounters, that warranted an investigation into his personal life.

Fidele snarled at his lack of response, but his mandibles pulled into what Victus was sure was his best attempt at a smile. "He'll end up d-dead just like your girl over there." He tilted his head in the direction of Rela's corpse. "Sh-she fought well, you know." A ragged wheeze, then: "I watched her. You taught her well." Bitter venom drenched his words, soiling the compliment. "For all the g-good it did her." Inhaling a long breath in an attempt to steel himself against his pain and steady his next words, he said, "I'm sure you'll teach your son well, too."

Adrien was too late to stop the finger that twitched towards his pistol. A minute movement, but one not missed by the Sundowner as he laughed a cold, rattled sound. "One day, I'll show him the same mercy you showed my men today."

Rage simmered below the surface, but Victus suppressed it as he, finally, responded with a measured tone: "You did this to your men, Fidele. You led them here. Not me." He paused to lean into the Sundowners space. "But you know that. Tonight, I'll go back to Palaven, to my mate and our son. I'll sleep well with my conscience clear and my cock inside her." Victus looked up at the overturned VT7 that trapped his foe. "Assuming you get yourself free of this, you'll just lay awake with this failure on your mind. You'll ask yourself -and this is what I know you fear the most-" He canted his head, giving Fidele a quiet, pointed look as his next words whispered through his maw. "'Was it worth it?'"

A moment stretched between them, their eyes locked as naked rage burned like the sun tattooed on Fidele's face. When Victus rose to his feet and turned to rejoin Attilia, the Separatist stopped him with one more question. "That's it?" he seethed. "Aren't you going to kill me too, Victus? Like you butchered all the rest?" His voice grew, a trembling growl enveloping his words as he snarled: "Like animals!"

"And martyr you?" Victus looked over his shoulder and saw a man racked with pain, goading him to pull the trigger because he was too much of a coward to face the question posed to him. "No."

He didn't know Fidele well beyond which arm he favored to shoot with, but from what he did know he was normally a composed individual. Tonight, however, he screamed when Victus walked away from him, cursing him and all that he held dear. Victus wouldn't spare another moment on him, but Attilia glanced past his shoulder.

"Sir, wouldn't it be best if…" She trailed off, snapping her eyes off the desperate turian as she remembered herself.

"Is that pity I detect?" Victus tilted his head.

"No, sir." She snapped off quickly.

Victus thrummed an 'at ease ' with his subvocals and told her: "It's all right. I do."

"Sir?" The professionalism slid away, confusion thrumming in her second vocals.

"He'll either die the slow death he deserves, or he'll hobble back to those that follow him and explain to them why he survived when so many died."

Attilia's crimson gaze shifted back to the man in question. "That would shatter their morale." She looked at her Captain again, realization dawning in her eyes. "You're using him."

"I never throw away a useful tool."

A/N: The idea for this battle was inspired by the story of Zhuge Liang that took place in third century China. I plan to do that a few more times for this story. :)