I don't own Mass Effect or its characters. My soul is owned by the ME3 multiplayer.
Author's Note: Hi! I'm alive! Again! Sorry about the slow pace on this.
Ummmm... not much to say here….
Oh yeah! There are a few things in this story that I'm looking for some reader input on. For example, what is Shepard's backstory, e.g. is he Earthborn or Colony Kid? What do Jack's tattoos look like in this iteration of her? I'll make a forum thread to talk about this fic, so please stop by and chat about what your ideal Shepard looks like and acts like.
Anyway, enjoy! Read and review! Let me know what you think! And remember, the more detail in a review, the more helpful it is to me!
Edit - 7/25/2016: Spelling and Grammar fixes. Changed breakpoints.
Chapter 2: Recruitment
5 years later [2183 CE]
This situation was getting a little out of hand. After a little fiasco in Omega a few months ago, where Jack had killed a couple dozen Blue Suns mercs, and Aria had given her that stupid moniker of "Sun Crusher", the stupid merc band seemed to have it out for her. At first it had only been a squad at a time, sent to assassinate her during her downtime, or if they knew where she might take a job. When she killed those squads, it became ambushes, complete with false information, fake job requests, and multiple squads at a time. When those groups failed and, often simultaneously, kicked the bucket, they had really started to invest in bringing her down.
Three days ago, Jack had been on her way to the Citadel to meet with one of her closest friends, who also happened to be an invaluable source of information and work. During the trip, she had been ambushed by several Blue Suns frigates, which had been lying in wait near one of the Mass Relays she had made use of.
At an extreme disadvantage in her personal craft, she had been chased down, and eventually driven down to the surface of a nearby garden planet.
After landing her ship in the forests outside of the ruins of some abandoned colony, she had concealed her ship and fled into the ruins. A short while later she had spotted one of the frigates from before begin their atmospheric entry.
At this point, she had been struck by sudden, terrible inspiration. Building up power for a few minutes, Jack had unleashed the strongest and most focused Warp she had ever used, right at the descending frigate.
Normally, Warp created a field around the target, disrupting shields, tearing armor, and destabilizing organic functions if you were lacking in shields or armor. It wasn't very often that a focused Warp was useful. It would create a tiny hole in shields, which would be fixed almost immediately. It would still destroy armor, but only at the point of impact, instead of all over the target. A focused Warp did almost nothing to a person's health, unless the user was incredibly accurate in their aim, and even then the effects were limited.
Here though, the focused Warp punched a hole through the descending ship's shields and continued on into its armor, deforming its structure until the that point on the bulkhead was as brittle as glass. Normally, the ship's shield would have recovered to cover this gap in defenses. However, before the shield could recover, it had to deal with the sudden rush of burning hot air, caused by the ship's own atmospheric entry, that rushed into the path opened by Jack's overpowered Warp. The spot on the bulkhead where the armor had been Warped away quickly took on an orange glow from the heat, before melting open. After that, the ship had tilted wildly, crashed dramatically, and then exploded spectacularly.
Jack had whooped and smiled at the destruction before passing out and waking up 6 hours later to find that she had been bleeding from her nose and ears after that excessive use of biotics.
There was no way that Jack was going to be able to Warp down another vehicle attempting atmospheric entry, but the Blue Suns didn't know that, so they kept the majority of their forces in orbit, while drop ships made periodic runs to slowly increase their presence on the planet.
That had been three days ago.
At the moment, from what her stolen radio was telling her, they had several frigates and a freaking cruiser stationed in orbit over the planet. To be fair, it was still kind of a standoff. None of those ships could come into the atmosphere after her little Warping trick.
The three day standoff meant that their presence was rather significant, and that Jack was running low on food and water. The Blue Suns were apparently okay with spending their entire mech budget on killing Jack, because the planet was lousy with LOKI and YMIR mechs. Which meant that Jack had limited means for getting new food and water. She wasn't going to get any fresh survival supplies by trashing a unit of mechs.
Leaning against a nearby wall, Jack sighed and slid down the wall until she was sitting against it and began to bang her head against the wall behind her and cursing softly. Her thick hair, put up into a loose ponytail blunted most of the sound from her actions, and each strike only released a soft thud.
This was a bad situation. She could deal with YMIR mechs and scores of Blue Suns soldiers, but she was only human, and eventually they would overwhelm her. In a situation like this, the best course of action was to run away; something she never would have considered only a few years ago, but hard lessons had taught her that simply leaving sometimes solved a lot of problems. Unfortunately, any options she had for escape were completely cut off. The only way out of this situation was by getting off the planet, and the Blue Suns had a rather nasty blockade sitting in orbit, probably just waiting for her ship to activate so they could bombard the hell out of it.
Jack tapped her head against the wall behind her a few more times, trying to shake loose some solution to the problem at hand. Facing them head on seemed like a poor choice because she would either get overwhelmed, or, in the off chance that she killed every poor bastard and mech in the army arrayed against her, the ships in orbit would probably just bombard the hell out of the city in the hopes that it would kill her.
For a moment, Jack considered that situation. She had never actually tried to survive being in a city that was shelled from space, so she couldn't be sure that she wouldn't survive it.
Unable to completely disregard the idea, Jack filed it away in her mind under "Last Resorts" for the case where she really couldn't think of any other course of action.
Disguising herself as a Blue Suns member and then escaping on one of their own ships… probably wouldn't work again. She had used that tactic to get away from them before, and they would probably be on the lookout for her using it again.
In retrospect, that situation had been much less serious, and she probably should have saved that strategy for an important moment where her life was in serious danger. A moment like the one she was presently in.
A sudden increase in radio chatter brought Jack out of her musings. Listening in on the details of the communications, it seemed that a strange group was cutting their way through Blue Suns patrol groups like a monomolecular sword through grass.
Pulling up a map of the area, Jack began to triangulate the position of the new group by listening to the reports from patrols that usually only got out a word or two before dying. She figured that the Blue Suns were probably doing the same thing, and would be deploying a bunch of units to deal with this new threat. If she could estimate how the Suns were going to move, she could go in the opposite direction and cut through them where they were weak. After that, she could hopefully lose them in the forests of this world until they decided that it wasn't worth the cost they were losing on one girl. She didn't have much hope on them giving up soon, but it was the best option she had at the moment.
As she was trying to guess how the Blue Suns would deploy to attack the newcomers, her omni-tool notified her of a new message.
She blinked in surprise. She had of course sent out messages before, but none of them had gone through. The Suns had been jamming communications for days. She wondered how anyone had managed to get a message through to her.
The answer was obvious when she checked the name of the sender. Opening the message, lines of Japanese text snapped into focus on her omni-tool. After checking the contents of the message, Jack looked again at the map of the city which held her estimates for the position of the new group and the possible deployments of the Blue Suns mercenaries. Evaluating her options, Jack eventually stood up, picked up her sword from where it was leaning against the wall next to her, and clipped it to her belt.
After double checking her gear, Jack left her hideout and made her way towards what was possibly her best hope of getting off the planet, or a terribly elaborate trap. Surveying the hallways as she left, Jack made her way on an intercept course with the strange new group that was wiping the floor with whatever the Blue Suns were throwing at them. "The enemy of my enemy," and all that.
:break:
The message she had received earlier had mentioned a place and a time. The location was an old, squat building a little ways off from the route that the strange group had been making. Jack had managed to arrive at the noted location early enough to secure a hiding spot with enough escape routes to satisfy her current state of paranoia, i.e., more than twelve. Satisfied with her location, Jack had waited for this, as the message had reported, 'motley crew' of death dealers to arrive.
She didn't have to wait long, and she certainly wasn't disappointed. After a few minutes of waiting, a strange krogan walked in accompanied by a man with strange glowing scars on his face and wearing N7 armor. Jack was stunned by the armor alone. N7 armor was an indicator of the most elite of the elite Alliance soldiers. It was said that authentic N7 armor was never worn by people that hadn't earned the distinction, since the only way to get it would be to kill an N7 soldier, and the only way to do that was to destroy them completely, preferably from orbit, because if even one of their fingers remained, it would kill you with half a chance.
The krogan was an oddity. He was relatively small for a krogan, standing only a little taller than the man next to him, including the hump that rose from his back. He wore close fitting, high-tech black and chrome armor that didn't bear any clan, mercenary, or battle markings of any kind. It was the first time Jack had seen such an unadorned krogan before. He also calmly surveyed his surroundings as he entered the building, checking his blind spots and making sure to keep an eye behind the N7 for any potential threats. Usually krogans just walked into buildings, regardless of trap potential, they would rely on their redundant organs to keep them alive through the trap springing, and their bloodrage to make sure the trappers wouldn't have a second try at them. Covering allies was also rather new. All the krogan that Jack had worked with or against in the past had been happy to see their allies die just as well as their enemies. After all, less survivors usually meant more of a split on the reward at the end.
Stunned as she was at the two unusual strangers that walked in, Jack wasn't so stunned that she missed the pitter patter of footsteps the belonged to neither the man nor the krogan, indicating the presence of someone wearing a Tactical Cloak.
After taking defensive positions, the man spoke into a communicator for a moment and then called out to the room in general.
"Kasumi." He said in a companionable voice. "We're secure for the moment. How long do you expect before your friend is here?"
"Soon." Replied a voice from the air. "If she isn't here already."
Near the middle of the room, the light suddenly warped, distorting the image of whatever was behind it. As it further warped, Jack could make out that the shape of the distortion matched that of a Human woman. Blue traceries of light faded in and out over the distortion, and a woman quickly faded into view.
The woman was very petite. She wore a skin tight, mostly black environment suit with white paneling on the front and light grey designs and trimmings to break up the monotony. Her suit had an added hood, which covered her head and hid the top half of her face in shadow. The unshadowed part of her face showed that she was smirking slightly.
To Jack, the outfit looked like drab Quarian clothes, and had always wondered if perhaps it had been stolen from some poor Quarian.
Jack allowed herself a small sigh. She had been worried about the message she had received being fake, but the woman before her was undeniably Kasumi Goto. Not only did the looks and abilities match up, but the flair for the dramatic was there as well.
Steeling herself, Jack moved out of her hiding place and into the view of one of her most trusted friends. Well, as much as you can trust someone that you couldn't leave unsupervised in your house due to her rampant kleptomania. She made up for it by being a good friend. Often, when going to steal Cerberus technology, Kasumi had invited Jack along. There wasn't a much better way to get into Jack's good graces than giving her Cerberus goons to beat down and bases to blow up.
As soon as she was in sight, the human man and the krogan leveled their guns at her.
"Whoa, boys!" Kasumi called out to them. She took a step forward and reached her hand out into the man's line of sight. "Easy now, Shepard. This is the woman we're meeting with."
The man, Shepard, slowly lowered his gun while sizing Jack up. When his gun was finally lowered, he addressed the krogan, who still had his gun leveled at Jack.
"Grunt, at ease. We're not here to fight her."
Grunt let out a disappointed sigh and lowered his gun.
"You sure this is the one we're looking for?" He asked. "She's tiny."
Jack snorted and replied. "That says a lot, coming from the smallest krogan I've ever seen."
The krogan growled at her in response, but then smiled, in the weird, creepy, reptilian way that only a krogan could.
"Small… but feisty. I'd like to see if she's as strong as everyone has been saying she is."
Jack opened her mouth to retort, but she instead quickly turned her head to the side to gape at the man that Kasumi had addressed as "Shepard". She stared at him for several seconds before addressing him.
"Are you John Shepard, the First Human Spectre?"
Shepard raised an eyebrow at the seeming suddenness of the question, but nodded at her question.
"You've heard about me?"
"It's hard to ignore the first human to be given Spectre status, but you were also the person who brought back Admiral Kahoku's remains after Cerberus carted him off." Jack paused, trying to think of a diplomatic way to address a rising concern she was feeling. When she couldn't think of a clever way to broach the subject, she just said it. "I've also heard from several reliable sources that you're supposed to be dead."
Unsurprised at the accusation, Shepard just shrugged and replied: "It's a complicated story, but for now we can just say that I got better."
Sensing that they were getting off track, Kasumi stepped between the two of them and waved to get their attention.
"In case the two of you have forgotten," she said, "we are currently in a ruined city, which is almost exclusively populated by enemy mercenaries who want to kill us.
"Jack, allow me to introduce Commander John Shepard. He's the real deal, I can confirm it.
"Shepard, allow me to introduce Jack Mitsui, the strongest human Biotic.
"Further introductions can wait," she said, gesturing to Grunt, who didn't seem to care about the conversation now that the prospect of violence was gone and the talking was about to begin. "We should get down to business."
Shepard nodded, and stepped forward to offer his hand, which Jack shook.
Stepping back, he nodded to Kasumi.
"You said to leave the opening for this negotiation to you, so I'll trust you to handle it."
Kasumi grinned, and Jack shuddered. She had seen that grin before. Kasumi usually wore it before a big heist, or right before she swindled some buffoon out of a fortune. Usually, it was a good sign, since it meant that the plan was going well. Unfortunately, Jack didn't know what the plan this time was, and she had no idea how she might factor into whatever web Kasumi was spinning.
What she did know was that Kasumi was a professional, with considerable perception and guile. Jack wouldn't put it past Kasumi to be able to swindle the blue off an Asari. Whatever angle Kasumi was working here, Jack would have to be ready for anything.
"I have a high paying job for you, Jack." Kasumi said, opening with a standard line they used when talking business.
"Who is footing the bill, and what do they want?" Jack replied, as she always did in this type of conversation.
"Now that's where things get interesting." Kasumi replied, her grin expanding. "The one footing the bill is Cerberus."
Jack's brain immediately kicked into overdrive. Suddenly, everything about this situation seemed a lot worse than it had before. She was already outnumbered. The man who looked like Commander Shepard had been talking to someone over his radio, so they probably had backup nearby. Cerberus had somehow convinced Kasumi to assist them, which meant that even if Jack could get away from this meeting, defeat the Blue Suns, and get off planet, more than two thirds of her safe houses and bases were compromised. First things first though, she would have to get away from this meeting, stealth be damned. She would rather be killed by some Blue Suns grunt than be dragged off to some Cerberus operating table somewhere.
Before anyone else in the room could move, Jack had her sword unsheathed, and the blade resting against the side of Kasumi's throat. Had it been any other person, they would be a head shorter for saying something like that in front of Jack.
The two others in the room, who had missed Jack's motion, began to raise their guns, but stopped at a hand motion from Kasumi, who continued talking as if she didn't have an incredibly sharp blade resting against her carotid artery.
"Of course, we won't actually be working for Cerberus. They will be paying us to accompany Commander Shepard here on a very dangerous mission of galactic importance.
"You've heard of the Collectors?" Kasumi paused long enough to see Jack nod. "They've taken an unhealthy interest in 'collecting' human colonists. Several colonies have already gone completely dark. Investigation squads sent to the planets find entire colonies bereft of any inhabitants, with no sign of struggle.
"Commander Shepard is interested in stopping that from happening. Unfortunately, the Council refuses to step in on this, and the Alliance wants to think that it's the Batarians, instead of some race of space boogeymen.
"Hence the reason for our sponsor on this trip being none other than Cerberus. They take it rather personally when they feel that human expansion in the galaxy is being checked.
"This is the short version, but Shepard is recruiting the best of the best for a mission to the other side of the Omega 4 Relay. Needless to say, this is pretty much classified as a suicide mission. But it also isn't just a way for Cerberus to try and kill you. Or if it is, they are putting way too many unrelated resources into it, so we can be a little less paranoid on that front."
Kasumi stopped speaking, giving Jack a moment to digest the information that had just been dumped onto her. She had heard of several colonies going dark in the last few months, but had assumed it had been Batarian slavers or any number of other dangers present in space colonization. To hear that it was the Collectors, a race of aliens so rare that they were practically mythical, and were actually classified as 'Folklore of the Attican Traverse' by the Citadel, was surprising to say the least.
Beyond all of that was the shock of the first line Kasumi had said. They were all working for Cerberus. Maybe their primary objective was to recruit Jack, and not to kill her. However, Cerberus operations rarely were as simple as they sometimes appeared. Kasumi's plans were also notorious in their complexity though, and she was clearly aiming for something here. It was up to Jack to choose at this point: whether to bail on this whole situation and go back to trying to get off this planet on her own, or to play along with Kasumi and see what came out of it.
After a moment of consideration, Jack decided to trust Kasumi, at least for the moment. If things got shady with this Cerberus deal, at least she wouldn't be dealing with a whole army of mercenaries.
Slowly, Jack withdrew her sword from its place next to Kasumi's neck and sheathed it at her waist.
Nodding to Kasumi, Jack continued the conversation as if the money funding the mission didn't belong to the villainous organization she had hunted and been hunted by for her entire life.
"If it's that dangerous, the pay must be pretty good."
The small smirk that played across Kasumi's face indicated to Jack that she was playing her part correctly.
"That's right. The baseline pay is outrageous. But the real perks come from working for a client with the reach of Cerberus. If you negotiate right, you might be able to get information on any person or group in the galaxy."
It took a moment for what Kasumi was implying to sink in, but when she realized what that statement suggested, she couldn't help but gasp. Jack had spent years wandering the galaxy trying to piece together any tiny bit of information she could get on Cerberus operations. Sometimes, months of work would pan out into crashing a single Cerberus base. More often than not, the leads would fall flat, or she would arrive to find a base that had been hastily cleared out.
What Kasumi was suggesting was to cut out any need to find leads on Cerberus. If Jack could pull of this negotiation correctly, she could get information about Cerberus right from the source.
"Of course," Kasumi continued, "the final negotiations will be between you and Shepard." Turning to the Commander, who was still standing nearby, she addressed him. "I've gotten her amicable to the idea of this suicide plan of yours. The rest is up to you."
After nodding to Kasumi, Commander Shepard turned to face Jack squarely.
Jack felt her stomach get queasy at just how important this conversation was going to be. She had done high stakes negotiations before, but it had never been as personal as this meeting was becoming. She had no room for mistakes now.
:break:
Jack walked in a daze. Every few moments she would glance over at Kasumi to check that what had just occurred had really happened. Her suspicions were confirmed when she saw that Kasumi was still wearing that smug look she had worn after robbing the Louvre two times in the same week.
That had been the easiest negotiation in Jack's life. She had opened with a demand for full access to Cerberus databases while on the mission, with the right to copy anything from it she desired. She didn't know what she expected Shepard's response to be, she had expected some sort of rebuttal or haggling. She definitely wasn't prepared for him to simply agree to the demand.
After that, Commander Shepard had quickly run through what would be expected of her, connected her Omni-tool to their private network, and given her an abbreviated introduction to the members of the team. There had been promises of more details and a full introduction to everyone later, which was good, because it had all been a blur to Jack.
They were on their way to a pickup location to take a shuttle to the Normandy, Commander Shepard's ship. But Jack couldn't be bothered to pay attention to the track they were taking. She honestly felt like she was dreaming. The key to destroying Cerberus had been all but handed to her, and all she had to do to use it was smash up some aliens, who seemed like they needed a good ass-kicking anyway. Jack suppressed the urge to giggle at the absurdity of the situation.
Eventually, she was drawn away from her day dreaming by a semi-synthetic voice speaking over her communicator. If she remembered correctly, the voice belonged to EDI, the full blown Artificial Intelligence who worked as the Normandy's onboard computer as well as the mission and personnel coordinator.
"Shepard, I'm detecting small aircraft converging on your location. They appear to be transport ships carrying YMIR mechs."
At a signal from Shepard, the group moved to cover along the street. When they were all behind something and out of direct view from the street, he turned towards Jack and raised an eyebrow at her. "Friends of yours?" he asked in a joking manner.
Shrugging, Jack addressed the communicator in her Omni-tool. "How many mechs are on their way?"
After a brief pause, EDI replied over the comm. "Based on the size of the carriers, I would estimate that approximately 10 YMIR mechs will be landing in your path shortly."
Immediately after EDI's report, Jack heard some cursing over the comm, probably from Garrus, the Turrian sniper who was moving independently to provide cover for Shepard's team.
Looking back to the Commander, Jack shook her head and said: "This group isn't for me. Sending 10 YMIR mechs after me is just an expensive way to invest in a future as a junk salesman."
Behind her, Kasumi snorted and then giggled a few times while the rest of the group stared at her blankly. Eventually, Shepard asked the question that everyone was wondering.
"What do you mean by that?"
As Jack considered how to respond, they heard the sound of ships approaching before they flew over their heads, followed by several thuds as they dropped YMIR mechs into the street ahead of them.
Smiling, Jack drew her monomolecular katana from the sheath at her waist.
"Why don't I just show you what I mean? After all, this should give you a good idea of what you're paying for."
With that, she hopped over her selected cover and began to approach the inert mechs.
Behind her, Shepard began to call out to her, but was stopped by Kasumi. As she passed the krogan of the group, he chuckled a few times and began to sight down his assault rifle onto the enemies down the street.
"Let her go, Shepard." Grunt shouted. "She talks like she's strong, but I want to watch and see how long she lasts." Turning to face her from behind an outcropping in the street, he spoke directly to her as she went by. "When you're a pile of bloody pulp on the ground, I'll be sure to step on you on my way through those mechs."
"Big words coming from the smallest krogan I've ever seen. Sit back and watch, Runt."
Grunt growled at her, but she wasn't going to butt heads with him right now. She had a ride to catch and a bunch of mechs to destroy. Leaving him behind, she made her way past the last section of cover between her and the now fully deployed mechs.
As she stepped past the last obstacle, 10 hulking humanoid figures turned to face her.
YMIR mechs were obviously designed to be intimidating. When unfolded, they stood over 12 feet tall, and had the build of an adult gorilla. The standard model had thick armor plating, and a heavy shield generator. They also didn't have hands, their arms instead ended in guns. The right held twin automatic mass accelerator cannons, and the left arm had a rocket propelled grenade launcher. This was a mech with a purpose, and that purpose was killing anything the mech's owner didn't like.
Just as EDI had estimated, there were 10 mechs spread out in one direction down the street. As they began to lift their arms to open fire, Jack couldn't help but smile. Somewhere on this planet, there was an engineer watching the video feed from these mechs, and he was probably now crying at the amount of expensive tech that she was going to reduce to shrapnel.
Holding her sword low in front of her, Jack exhaled slowly and focused on the nearest mech.
As the mechs opened fire, a blue glow exploded around Jack, and her form collapsed into a small blue orb and shot towards the nearest mech. Just before impact, the orb exploded, dispersing the mech's shields and rocking it back. Just where the orb had been, Jack stood in the same stance she had taken before attacking with Biotic Charge.
Before the mech could recover, Jack's blade traced an arc diagonally up through it's upper abdominal section. YMIR mechs had a strange feature which caused them to explode forcefully when their heads were removed. Unfortunately for Jack, a YMIR mech's head started at about 10 feet off the ground, and with Jack clocking in at 5'4", decapitating one with a sword tended to be more of an exercise in acrobatics than it was in swordplay. Luckily for her, enough YMIR mechs had attacked her over the past few years that she had worked out how to get the mech to explode without having to go for the neck.
Taking her left hand from the hilt of her sword, Jack pressed it against the mech in front of her and activated her Biotics. There weren't a lot of people, human or alien, that could use Biotic Throw against a YMIR mech. Most of the time, it barely managed to unsteady it. When Jack used Biotic Throw against the sliced up mech in front of her, it hurtled 10 feet backwards to impact another mech behind it, carry both of them into the wall of a nearby building.
The second mech had actually survived the impact, and was trying to pull itself out of the pile of rubble it was trapped under. However, Jack could hear the slashed mech making a high pitched beeping noise and see a bright light emitting from the scar on its chest. She paused a second to watch the bottom mech trying to claw its way out from under the damaged mech before the slashed mech exploded, taking both of them out of the picture. Smiling to herself, she turned to face the rest of the attackers.
Pumping energy out along her skin, Jack's Barrier became visible as a bright blue glow surrounding her body. Just as she finished boosting the Barrier, the other YMIR mechs finished lining up on her new position and opened fire. Mass accelerated canon rounds slammed into her, and disappeared against her barrier with no effect outside of a slight flare of blue energy where they struck. All around her, the road, walls, and buildings were destroyed as the mass accelerated rounds tore through anything they came in contact with. Jack stood, untouched, in a rain of destruction. And then she charged into it.
The closest mech barely had time to adjust its aim before she was on it. Her sword swung straight across, drawing a line through its hips, the narrowest part of it's body. Ducking close to the legs for cover, Jack used her Biotics to Lift the upper body of the mech, which was now twitching weirdly as it tried to line up a shot on her despite the irregularities of its situation.
Crouching behind the detached mech legs, Jack used the cover as a chance to lower the power output to her Barrier, allowing her to use some fancier biotics more freely. Peeking around one of the legs, Jack selected one of the closer mechs as her target, and maneuvered the still struggling mech torso so that it hovered a dozen feet over hew new target. With an effort of will, she reversed the Lift on the floating mech, causing it to be driven down towards the ground at an incredible speed.
The mech torso slammed straight down into the mech Jack had been targeting. It seemed that Jack's aim had been a little off, because the mech that had been standing had been pushed out of place by the force of the impact, instead of just crushed outright. That isn't to say that it was going to get back up again. The formerly intact mech was on its side on the ground, with its head smashed visibly down into its own chest, and its shoulder pauldrons warped and torn. One of its legs must have been directly under the projectile mech, because it was still standing, and had been pushed several millimeters straight into the ground. The rest of the body had broken off at the now mangled hip joint, and been flung to the ground behind where it used to be standing.
The unfortunate mech torso, which had been used as the ammunition in this attack had its own crater right next to the still standing, mangled mech leg. Both mechs sat unmoving as the dust settled around them, and then simultaneously exploded.
The remaining six mechs, unfazed by the destruction of their fellows, and unawed by the destructive power their enemy was bringing to bear against them, had formed a semicircle, and were slowly making their way up the street. The tactic they were using was clear, and was a standard tactic used by YMIR mechs, even when they were alone. They were simply trying to overwhelm her.
Jack's smile got bigger. That tactic may have worked in other situations, but if they wanted to make a show of force to intimidate her, they would need to go get much bigger guns.
Sheathing her sword, and engaging her biotics again, Jack Lifted up the mech legs she was using for cover, just a few inches, and brought them closer together, creating an even tighter shield. Maintaining the Lift, she then covered her makeshift shield in a Biotic Barrier, since she doubted that even the sturdy armor that comprised these mechs could withstand the shelling it was taking for much longer.
Her preparations made, Jack rushed forward, using her Biotics to push her makeshift shield in front of her. The air sang with the low sounds of automatic gunfire and the high pitched noise of bullet impacts against her Barrier. Jack carried on, letting the Barrier fall so that she could build up energy for what she was going to do next.
The shield shook and rattled under the assault against it. Pieces of it began to break off and float away, still under the effect of her Lift. Still Jack continued forward, gathering energy in her body as she did.
When she felt that she was close enough, Jack unleashed all of the energy she had been building into the world in front of her. The mechs' shields flickered once and went out before every surface in a semicircle in front of Jack turned a solid shade of blue, and everything that wasn't strongly attached to the ground jerked 16 feet into the air, and stayed there.
The six mechs that had been bearing down on her seconds before now twitched helplessly in the air amongst the rubble that had been lifted, as well as any rocks or dirt that had been on the ground; the wall of an adjacent building, which had been caught in the radius of Jack's attack; several unknown fixtures, which had been attached to the ground, but not so firmly attached as to resist the powerful Lift that Jack had applied to the area.
With an expression of concentration on her face, Jack lifted her hands into the air and began to manipulate her Biotics. Slowly at first, but with gathering speed, the solid blue color began to drain away from all of the floating objects, leaving them with the normal phosphorescent blue glow of a more normal biotic lift. The blue energy darted away from the surface it had been clinging to, and gathered together into a dark blue ball near the middle of all the floating objects.
When the transfer of energy appeared to have stopped, several seconds had passed, and the ball of energy in the middle of the floating debris and twitching mechs had turned such a dark shade of blue that it was almost black.
With a final effort of will, Jack activated her new Biotic construct, a Pull based Biotic Singularity. The orb pulsed bright blue once, and all of the floating objects careened towards the orb at high speeds, slamming into each other on their journey until crashing together into a jumble of rubble and mech parts.
Soon after the final crash, the air was filled with the sound of cracking stone and the tortured shriek of twisting metal. The floating clump of debris and mech was visibly crumbling, warping, and melting as every atom in the structure attempted to get as close to the center of the Singularity as physics would allow.
Jack let the reshaping continue for a few seconds before cancelling the Singularity and letting the, now more spherical, clump of enemy and battlefield drop to the ground. When it landed, Jack was bounced a few inches into the air.
Taking stock of the battlefield, Jack couldn't find anymore enemies. Looking back towards her new employer and new team, Shepard and Kasumi were coming out from behind cover. Shepard was wearing a look of surprise, and Kasumi was wearing her default smirk. Grunt, the resident krogan was already out of cover and trudging towards her, his gun drawn at his side, looking despondent.
Patting herself down, Jack made sure that she didn't take any injuries during the one-sided fight. Finding nothing, she finally settled her hand on her chest, and turned her attention inward, to evaluate her emotional state. She felt good, but not "too" good. She had an adrenaline high from the fight, and she had enjoyed crushing the mechs, and possibly the spirit of whoever had been responsible for sending them. But the high only went that far. And the ill intent was mean spirited, but not bloodthirsty. It bore no resemblance to the thoughts and emotions that went through her head when she relapsed into the animalistic fighter that Cerberus had been trying to make her into.
She hadn't relapsed in over two years, but she refused to decrease her vigilance against the conditioning that she had endured as a child. She never wanted to feel that murderous heat pulsing through her body ever again.
Her evaluation over, she turned to look at Grunt, who was much closer at this point. He still looked like Jack had just stolen his lollipop, or whatever treat krogan parents give their children. Candy skulls, probably… or candied skulls.
"You couldn't have left some for the rest of us?" Grunt said, gesturing around the battlefield with his enormous shotgun. "We haven't had an exciting opponent since we got here."
Jack was a little thrown off by the complaint, but she had worked with krogan before, and this particular grievance wasn't too far from the norm that she couldn't come up with a good response.
"Would you have left any for the rest of us if you could have taken them yourself?" She said.
Grunt looked thoughtful for a moment, then a little uncomfortable. "No." He said. "I guess it's only fair then that you got them all to yourself." Then he smiled. "You're strong Jack, despite how small you are. I would be honored to someday fight you to the death."
That had been outside of anything Jack had been expecting, and all she could do in response to that line was blink.
"You had this group." Grunt said, leaning in. "The next group of enemies is mine."
Still a little weirded out by the "fight you to the death" comment, Jack couldn't come up with any arguments and thus agreed to his demand.
Smiling, Grunt turned away and began to speak into his communicator. "Everyone, listen up! The next group of enemies is mine! No one interfere!"
Making his way towards them, Commander Shepard shook his head and sighed.
:break:
True to his word, the next group they encountered, a squad of LOKI mechs and a few Blue Suns engineers, was taken on by Grunt alone. He defeated them handily, but seemed dissatisfied when he was done.
Thanks to EDI monitoring the Blue Suns' communications, she was able to direct the group away from or around any major conglomerations of Blue Suns troopers. Despite her guidance, they would occasionally encounter small scouting groups, which were quickly dispatched by Grunt.
After the third such encounter, Grunt spat onto the ground and turned to Shepard.
"These pathetic pests aren't worthy enemies. I joined to fight strong opponents, not waste my time with sludge that can barely fight back."
Remembering Grunt's, earlier taunts against her, and finding that picking on this particular krogan was quickly becoming her new favorite pastime, Jack was quick to jump on a chance to mock her krogan teammate.
"What's the matter, Grunt? Getting tired already? Is taking out the canon fodder wearing you out?"
Grunt spun to face her, his expression dark.
"These vermin aren't worth the clips it takes to kill them. The only reason I would grow tired while fighting these fools is from boredom."
Jack was having some trouble holding back her laughter at how easily Grunt was allowing himself to be provoked. It was as if every thought in his head arose from a puddle of distilled krogan pride.
Taking a look at the devastation he had delivered to the enemies they had encountered, and factoring in the time it had taken for him to kill them, Jack decided to make another push on his pride and teach him a lesson about picking on people smaller than him, especially when said person was her.
"I doubt you could even keep up with me. I've been letting you have most of the fun since I got to take out the YMIR mechs, but you take so much time trashing these weaklings. If I started fighting seriously, there wouldn't even be any enemies left for you to mop up."
Grunt chuckled darkly for a moment, before shaking himself and bellowing.
"The challenge is made. By the time we leave this planet's atmosphere, I will have defeated more foes that you. At that time, you will admit your awe of my strength, tiny human."
Jack smirked at the response. She hadn't expected him to go for it quite so quickly, but it just went to show that even if he seemed smart for a krogan, he was still a krogan.
"If you can kill more of these losers than me," she said, "I will happily admit to your strength, and you can have all the bragging rights you want. But I'm getting kind of sick of you calling me small, so if I win, from now on you have to address me as… hmmm…"
Jack paused, trying to think of a suitable title to force the krogan to use for her. Discarding "queen" for the awkward implications that came with it, and throwing away a few ideas that started with "big" or "large" due to their implications about her weight, Jack finally figured on something that she liked, and considering how much she was growing to enjoy teasing Grunt, it would be perfect.
"If I win, you have to call me 'Big Sis' from now on, and treat me with the respect you would hold for an older sibling." Jack had no idea how krogan brother-sister relationships worked, but she assumed that older siblings in general would probably hold some position of respect in the eyes of their younger brothers and sisters.
Grunt snorted. "Krogan siblings don't deserve any respect unless they are strong. Being older means you have survived more days than others, which is worthy of note, but not necessarily respect."
Any illusions about familial structures in krogan culture were thrown out with that little speech.
"However," he continued, "you have already proven your strength today, you have my respect, for that at least. And should you be victorious against me today, I will grant your request. But you will have to win, and I will make sure you will not."
Squaring off against her, Grunt leaned forward threateningly and growled a few more words at her.
"I am pure krogan, you should be in awe, and by the end of the day, you will be."
:break:
The challenge was on. EDI volunteered to do the official count for each of their, using telemetry from their equipment to keep track of their individual contributions. Shepard made her promise to hold the results until they were back on their ship. He didn't give a reason for this, but Jack assumed it was to keep Grunt from staying behind on the planet in the case he fell behind on his kill count.
Whenever they would encounter a new group of enemies, Grunt would charge forward with his assault rifle blazing. He would manage to take out a few enemies before Jack would sweep in with a Biotic Charge and clear the group, leaving Grunt to mop up the stragglers.
Needless to say, besides the occasional incredible shot from Shepard, no one else managed to get to the enemy fast enough to do any damage. Jack was pretty sure she was in the lead for kills, but with how Grunt was hollering and cheering after every enemy he killed, she figured that he probably also thought he had a significant lead.
This pattern continued for another hour as they trecked through the abandoned city. Eventually, EDI notified everyone that they were approaching the extraction site. After that, Jack and Grunt went into overdrive, trying to keep whatever lead they might have.
Shortly after that, Jack was grinning as she sheathed her sword. Behind her, several LOKI mechs, which had been standing still in strange postures, all exploded simultaneously.
Her grin faded as she stepped around a corner and into a open crossroads. In the middle of the area was a shuttle, painted in Cerberus colors, and bearing a Cerberus emblem.
The door of the shuttle was open, and a tall black man was standing on the shuttle's ramp. He was well muscled, and wore a set of body hugging black body armor, which was also adorned with the Cerberus emblem. Behind him, Jack could see a few other people already on the shuttle, probably Garrus and anyone that had been in his group.
He turned his head to look in Jack's direction as the rest of her group stepped around the corner and started to make their way toward the shuttle.
He began to beckon for everyone to get on as he leaned back into the shuttle, and said something to the pilot.
In response, the rest of the group began to pick up the pace, jogging across the open space between them and the shuttle, leaving Jack standing at the corner.
Jack heard the electronic noise of a Tactical Cloak being deactivated before she saw Kasumi become visible next to her. They had exchanged the occasional word during the trip from the meeting point, but Kasumi always prefered to leave chatting for the time between missions, or whenever they had to ride an elevator, and despite the time they had been apart, this extraction seemed no different.
"Are you alright?" She said, in a kind, caring way that always surprised Jack with its sincerity. For all her wiles, cunning, and seeming ruthlessness, Kasumi was a very caring person. She just tended to have very weird ways of showing it.
Blinking her eyes to clear away dust, Jack looked again at the Cerberus shuttle in front of her. Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself for what she was about to do.
"I have nightmares that start like this." She said, before stepping forward towards the shuttle.