The N7 Destroyer was, to be frank... a destroyer. Built like a tank and encased in a suit that was also built like a tank, he traded in the total and utter destruction of his foes. Never one to deal in halves, the guns he carried weighed an elephant each and were equally capable of packing as much of a punch, as many of his enemies had found out.
His enemies that today, happened to consist of hideously mutated Reaper forces. The mere sight of even the scrawny little husk way up to the gargantuan brute like... brute; was enough to fill his vision red with wrath. The Destroyer's temper was at a maintained high all throughout this damn war; if the constant peril he faced daily wasn't enough, then there was the thought of his home planet, Earth and the sight of all those Reapers mutilating virtually everything he held dear in his childhood. It was the least he could do then, to inflict as much suffering upon the grotesque horde as much as it had done upon him.
Encasing his hand fully around the shrunken blue head of a husk, the Destroyer took some pleasure in squeezing tightly and watching the tiny thing shrivel and crack under the pressure, sending the now headless humanoid to the ground. Finding himself with a rare moment of silence, the Destroyer took some time to bask in his accomplishment, small and trivial as it was, observing the blood blue spilling from the decapitated husk of a... husk.
He may have gotten a little carried away, breathing heavily, for the giant of a man failed to notice the blunt side of a rifle strike the base of his armored neck, knocking the wind out of him and sending him to the ground. Turning on his side, he noticed the Marauder, readying its scavenged rifle, aiming at the vulnerable Destroyer.
Well this was quite the sticky situation, he found himself in. This was certainly set him back a fair bit, for the Marauder was probably the smartest unit in the Reaper ground forces, and at least understood how to mock the militaristic nature of the Turian. The Destroyer could have easily reclaimed his gun and return fire, or activate his Omni-Tool and give the Marauder a furious face full of fragmentation. But it would be too little, too late as the Marauder would get him first, so he simply braced himself for the modestly painful volley.
But he did not feel it, as just before the Reaper soldier could unleash its load, it felt an unpleasant sensation shot straight through its chest as a sword... shot straight through its chest.
The Destroyer felt the faint blood of the Marauder splash his thick armor. The Marauder felt something a little heavier than that, and before it's hollow mind could comprehend the strange familiar feeling, it slid of the blade to the ground, it's cybernetic form completely unresponsive.
Standing stoic and proud over their kill was a figure like and unlike the Destroyer; far smaller in statue and clad in a tight suit. The N7 Shadow returned their sword to its holster strung across their back, observing the giant Destroyer on the ground.
"Thanks mate," the Destroyer said in his American drawl, the drone muffled behind his heavy helmet.
"What do you mean mate?" the Shadow said with suspicion. Muffled beneath their helm came a soft but snappy, voice, with a hint of a German accent, but was more importantly, female.
"Oh are we no longer mates?" he said, taking to his feet.
He didn't need to hear voice to understand the gender of the Shadow. If her annoyingly distracting acrobatic flips all over the battlefield weren't enough, those equally noticeable bumps on her chest were enough to remind him.
The Destroyer found her style of fighting to be more then bewildering. The places they fought were often nightmares drawn straight from hell itself, if the Reapers would have their way, they would see the entire galaxy like this. Yet the Shadow found time to dart to and fro between Marauders, Husks and Ravagers like a ballerina, her sword like a conductor's baton as it cleaved flesh and metal in equal folds; nothing at all like the cumbersome grenades and missiles of the Destroyer.
The Destroyer reloaded his gun, all with the dexterity of a brute, whilst the Shadow, rarely dependent on such weapons herself, simply flipped her form in another direction, her tactical cloak activating, and she shimmered out of sight.
The Shadow maneuvered around the battlefield at a far swifter pace then what the Destroyer was capable of. It only served for her to be much less of a target then he was. Where the Destroyer would brutishly roam at cumbersome pace, relying on his heavy suit and immense arsenal to deal with threats, the Shadow applied finesse wherever she could. True, she could not take it nearly half as much as he could, but in the best turn of events, one strike of her sword from the shadows cut with double the strength of all his weaponry.
Disposing of a few husks with relative ease, the Shadow had precious little time to feel good about her deeds before she felt energy pellets graze into her side, curtesy of a few hideous cannibals, heeding her to activate her cloak. But even still, the Reapers weren't nearly as dense as she gave them credit for, as the cannibals continued their assault, firing at midair with their weapons.
Now for the hard part, the Shadow thought to herself as she analyzed the scene; getting up close and engaging the cannibals. Since she lacked any range weapon worthy for this little skirmish, she carefully worked her way to the mutilated Batarians. Her sword was unsheathed in silence, and when she was within reach, her cloak was broken and the blade came down across the back of the closest one.
The fleshy metal hide of the deformity came loose, spilling blood and guts from the wound and the cannibal fell dead. A clean kill, or at least clean as she could make it; the Shadow tried to make a rapid withdrawal, but the force of the Reapers must have been on excellent form today, as the cannibal closest to its fallen brethren took a wide swing and brought a maw of a mouth to bite at the Shadow. The light armor protected the human from the attack but knocked her off balance.
The Shadow fell to the ground in a noisy tumble, the wind knocked out of her. This she was used to, having delved into thickets of enemies on a daily basis, but unlike the Destroyer, she did not possess the endurance to take beatings line this at such close range. It certainly presented the challenge for her to get out safely, until...
The remaining cannibals were preparing to descend upon their fallen human foe, roaring with lust and delight at the potential meal, until a shape rapidly manifested in the middle of them. Two of the standing three were blown a good ten meters across the field as a purple figure charged at them, whilst the last one standing prepared its firearm to counterattack, but another sword slashed horizontally at it, and it too was soon dead.
The N7 Slayer stood firm over the devastation he had caused the enemy. Cannibal blood stained the ground, and if he could smell it through his helm, the stench was almost unbearable. It was only as he turned around that he noticed the Shadow, who had jumped back to her feet in a flash.
"Oh sorry there, Shadow." he exclaimed cheerily, "didn't see you there."
The Shadow was not at all happy to be rescued by the Slayer of all her teammates, especially if he did it unintentionally. The two of them had something of a rivalry over the use of swords, and every time she saw him stab or slice a foe, her pride and her sureness in her skill.
"Thanks, I guess," she said half heartily, before activating her cloak and slipping away.
"'Till next time I save you," he went in a playful voice that contrasted hers, and took off.
Taking a moment to catch his breath, the Slayer was drawn suddenly by the few cannibals that he had sent flying, for they were beginning to stir. Quite irritated at not doing the job proper, the Slayer took a deep breath, puffed out his chest, concentrated deeply again and flung himself in a deep purple haze of biotics, slamming into the group once again. As he came out of the charge and into reality again, he noticed he had hit much harder then he needed to, as the cannibals were now lying disembodied across his feet.
Satisfied with his work, the Slayer took to the field once more. While he may not have been as capable of matching the Shadow in speed, what he lacked for in acrobatic flips, he made up for by being able to compress himself into a solid biotic form and crash into enemies with almost unmatched force. Mastering the use of biotics, the way he had in his brutal training as a N7 candidate had proven hard indeed. The human body had proven more than resilient to the use of biotics, but hearing the more cautionary tales of biotic charges gone wrong was enough to unsettle even the strongest of stomachs, like the Slayer's.
Darting around the battlefield, contending with the cannibals and marauders with relative ease, the Slayer soon found himself in the path of one angry brute. Now he wasn't too keen on krogans himself, having once gotten into verbal fight, which was not a particularly safe thing to do as the scars would prove. But to see what they would become when under the brutal jaws of the Reapers, the Slayer couldn't help but feel slightly sorry for what was once a proud race, all too familiar with its long and bloody history.
While he could do a mean biotic charge, it was something that paled in comparison to the charge of a brute. And he for one was not looking to be on the receiving end of one, so when the hideous gargantuan beast leapt at the Slayer, it was by a lucky biotic dash that he narrowly avoided a likely painful bash.
But he was by no means going to retreat from the beast, even if he wasn't equipped to be dealing with such a foe. The Slayer felt however, that the shotgun clench firmly in his hands would do the trick, so when the brute snapped around to lunge at him again, he let off one slug before dashing sideways in a purple blur yet again.
The Slayer may have been a little cautious, but he couldn't help but feel that the Reaper beast was growing weary with his constant dashing to avoid its jaws. When it turned to face him again, instead of preforming another charge, it started to pace slowly towards the human, soaking up the shotgun shells he fired at it.
The Slayer paced back to keep a respectable distance between them. But in his focus on firing at the beast, he had neglected everything else, and soon felt something sticky and sickly jump at him, bursting on impact. Forced to turn about, he noticed a group of the little swarmers crawling their way towards him. And if there were swarmers, then there would be...
The Slayer performed a mad biotic dash to avoid the incoming projectiles of the Ravager, dodging them with some ease. But soon found the brute preparing to make another leap at him. Concentrating in a flash, he dashed again to the side, but this constant use of biotics without respite was starting to wear him down, and he suddenly felt the giant claws of the brute swipe at him as he began a clumsy dash.
Coming out of it, the Slayer found his protective barriers to have been completely expended from using his biotics and the attack. The Reaper beast on the other hand, showed no signs of weariness and only seemed to grow more determined to see the human dead. He retreated from the beast to buy time for his barriers to renew, but the predator was hot on his heels.
A gratifying feeling swept over the Slayer, as the implants in his body stirred and his barriers sprang to life once more, giving him much needed time to finally deal with the brute, which was preparing for yet another charge. A strange vigor stirred in the Slayer; a crazy idea to finish his foe brewed in his mind. The brute started to lunge at the human for what would be the last time, as the Slayer concentrated yet again and charged straight at the already charging brute.
The timing could not have been more perfect. The Slayer phased right through the beast, emerging unscathed where it had begun its charge, while the brute swept at thin air, now with a painful sensation in its chest, yet still alive. The Slayer was now immensely weary simply from the sight of the beast, which was once again sluggishly turning to face him.
Now he had to finish this. The brute looked weak, parts of its metal casing hung loosely to the flesh, as the creature limped towards the Slayer. One more shell ought to do it, he thought, before he reloaded and aimed to finish off the predator once and for all. But before he could do so, a figure manifested directly in front of him out of a dark blue biotic splash, aimed one heavy biotic kick at the incoming brute and knocked it flat on its back, dead.
"Fury!" he yelled, irritated, "that's a steal if ever there was one."
The N7 Fury spun to face the other biotic on the team.
"Oh sorry, didn't see you there," she perked up, before giving a quick wave and dashing off in a blue blur.
"Got that from Shadow, did you," The Slayer remarked quietly to himself, before he too spun off.
The Fury was the appropriately named genius of a biotic on the team. If the Slayer already felt like the Shadow was giving him a run for his money in terms of swordplay, the Fury's prowess with biotics was another issue of concern. But in a war as devastating as this one, they needed all the best that humanity had to offer, competitive natures be damned, for this was a fight for the survival of the entire galaxy.
Not that the Fury was one to focus on problems as big as a galactic war might offer. True, it was hard for the Italian to leave Earth in the hands of the Reapers, especially with fellow soldiers still stranded there, and true when all seemed dark it was hard to imagine that things seemed only capable of getting worse. But when you are infused with so much biotics that you can't help but literally glow with pride constantly, you tend to forget that there's something other than killing Reapers, and that one day, all this may soon be over, whether you'd like that or not.
So, the Fury would simply turn into a blue biotic cloud, as if all those concerns and doubts would dissolve in the wind every time she did so. Nothing at all like the Destroyer, all holed up in that tin suit, moving at a snail's pace, as if all his emotions were bottled up beneath the metal, and when the Fury saw him stomp his big stomp, it was as if he was releasing himself of a swirl of bad thoughts.
Dashing this way and that, remaining in one spot for no more than a second at most, the Fury knew nothing outside of inflicting as much pain upon the Reaper forces as possible. And for that, she could not help but feel that she was doing good, or perhaps the best she had done all week. Maybe it was her biotics, her speed, or her ability to focus on the task at hand.
Disposing of a marauder with ease, the Fury wasted on time in getting a move on, hardly going to find the sight of one dead Reaper anything to cause concern about. Closing the gap with a wretched bloated ravager, it too was disposed of with ease, its swarmers that spilled out proved no match for the heavy biotic field that shrouded the Fury. The cannibals creeping up on her were another matter, having closed the gap and now within a good range to deal some proper damage. The Fury turned to face them but before either party do anything, the cannibals suddenly froze into ice statues, before a heavy Omni-Tool shield descended upon them in a heavy blow and shattered them to pieces.
"I could have handled that," she pointed out to her teammate.
The N7 Paladin paid her no heed, simply deactivating his cumbersome shield of pure energy and simply stomping on one last shard of frozen cannibal.
"Understood," he proclaimed in a deep voice.
"Yeah well, see you," the Fury said before she took to the field again in a blue dash that was needlessly showing off.
The Paladin was not nearly the type of soldier that indulged in the flashy fancy stuff that biotics could offer. Maybe it had something to do with him capable of freezing enemies into until they snapped but something or other about him made him a little... cold. It certainly could have had something to do the heavy shield he could wield with such precision, knocking heads from their pedestals.
It was as he was going about this joyless activity that he heard an awful screech. Awful in every sense of the word, even for the Paladin buried beneath his heavy armor it was enough to stir a feeling of fear, coupled with exhaustion. It was the blood curdling battle cry that belonged to the toughest of the Reaper forces.
The banshee, though the Paladin suspected the Reapers didn't name their forces as such. Even so, it was hardly a comforting thought what name they went by diminished their fearsome reputation. Deciding to pick up the pace and find a sturdier teammate, preferable the staunch Destroyer, he took off, but crossed one corner and found a big purple blur dart in front of him, before the tall, fearsome mutated Asari manifested before his very eyes.
He could at least be grateful that the banshee was slow in her movements, and managed to dart behind another corner, avoiding the biotic projectile the Reaper monster threw his way. Turning back, he utilized the brief period of inaction on the banshee's part to open fire, realizing how little it would affect the beast but it was all he could do at this range. He knew full well how foolish it would be of him to try and get in close and engage the monster the old-fashioned way, unless he wanted to be on the receiving end of one of its piercing talons.
Perhaps he took the banshee's slow notions a little too generously, for it soon shot out another blur of blue biotic badness in his direction, catching him before he managed s chance to retreat to cover. His shields were completely blown away in one worrying spark and now the biotic plague was threatening to send him into an uncertain doom. He could hope that it would wear off before such a thing happened as he scrambled to put as much distance between himself and the banshee, which began another one of those irritating teleporting warps in his direction. Now he was in quite a perilous position as he darted as best as his weary feet would take him. Up and over a hurdle of cover, the Paladin imagined this would be the end of him, but one immensely satisfying sound brought him back.
It wasn't the regenerative sound of his shields snapping back to life, but rather a downplayed attempt to resuscitate them, the small respite enough to pull him to life. Observing his savior, the Paladin found a small pylon emitting the electric sparks that were sustaining his shields. And attending to the pylon was...
"Thank you, Demolisher," the Paladin made his appreciation known, but was suddenly bitter that he did not known his teammate on a first name basis.
"Don't mention it," the N7 Demolisher responded quickly, still attending to the pylon to provide her with grenades, her prime damage dealer.
The Demolisher was used to receiving thanks from her teammates on an hourly basis. It might have awarded her with some satisfaction, but the novelty had soon worn off within the first few skirmishes of the war. It was not truly her they were thanking, rather it was those handy dandy supply pylons she was so adept at setting up and providing them with shields and ammo.
The Demolisher and the Paladin engaged the oncoming banshee, that was now upon them. The Paladin fired his rifle, while the Demolisher threw grenades without thought for accuracy. While they were doing significant damage as a pair, the monster refused to relent, and forced the Paladin to retreat, while the Demolisher was a little slow on the uptake, being so dependent on tanking down with her pylon for support. She may have been a little slower, or maybe the banshee was good, but it was upon her in a flash, and what it did next the Paladin was all too familiar with.
The immense clawed hand came down to grasp the armored neck of the Demolisher, and lifted her right of the ground with little ease. Now the Paladin was overcome with a very different feeling then that of coldness. It was one of determination and responsibility, to get the Demolisher out of that beast's claws before it drove a talon through her chest and out her back. It was he that brought the banshee here, and he would be damned if it was he that brought that fate upon her.
He closed the gap between them, and without any regard for himself started to pound on the banshee that held the struggling Demolisher in its deathly grasp, activating his shield and hoping in vain it would drop before it stabbed.
The Reaper beast was momentarily distracted by the Paladin attacking it, but it did not drop its captive Demolisher. Instead it's other giant hand, primed for impalement, came down upon the armored human, knocking him off balanced. The hand then returned to the Demolisher, prepped to shoot through her chest, but the banshee was distracted from its kill once again, when it noticed the Demolisher inches from its face held one last grenade in her palm and activated it.
That was enough to make it drop its prey, who landed at its feet, armor badly burnt from the blast and neck almost crushed to a pulp. The banshee persisted, letting out another shrill shriek, and was preparing to unleash another biotic pulse. But at that moment, it felt the painful sting of a missile hit its side, before a volley of pellets followed suit, and the banshee crashed to the ground, disintegrating into blue mess.
The N7 Destroyer stood proud over his kill, taking a moment to reload his rifle, before attending to his dazed brethren.
"You're a damn lifesaver," said the Demolisher, weakly owning to her wounded neck.
"Third time today," he responded.
The Paladin was in a much better state of wellbeing than the Demolisher, whose armor was, for lack of a better word...demolished. Still; preferable to having a hole right in the middle of it.
The Destroyer analyzed the scene, noticing a few scraps of the Reapers remained. A group of husks were making their way towards the trio, but the purple blur of the Slayer rapidly formed amid them and they went flying. Another group consisting of cannibals and marauders were descending from the left, but the two figures of the Shadow and Fury manifested technologically and biotically respectively. Swords swung and biotics burned and the group was swiftly dismantled.
"Demo!" the Shadow exclaimed in an earnest tone, seeing the damaged armor of her comrade, "you look terrible! Are you hurt?! Do you need…"
"Just another brush with death, Shadow," the Demolisher said reassuringly, "not need to fret."
Beneath her helm, the Shadow was smiling in relief, but her attention was soon drawn back to the battle. Only a few scarce Reapers now remained, consisting of a ravager and two brutes alongside a final scattering of cannibals and marauders, but against the combined might of the battle hardened N7 specialists, they fell in no time.
And thus, the day was won. As the shuttle arrived to evacuate the team, the six souls were far too preoccupied with resting to bother discussing the events of the day, each knowing full well how they had performed. They had done good, very good, but they could hardly start handing out the medals yet. For one thing, coming across a Systems Alliance medal with the entire Sol System under enemy control was something difficult, but more importantly, this had been but one minor skirmish the early days of a long and bloody war.
Still, with their lives full of war, it was something special that they could still feel like they had done good work, even if it was a fleeting feeling. They had done well on their own, but they had come to this battle as a team, and leaving it, they felt assured that no matter what came, as long as they remained together, it would seem manageable.
To split them up would be a foolish idea.