Chapter 2: Close Calls
Authors Note: Well enough sneaking around and talking. It's time to kick ass and chew some bubblegum. This is the second part of the Kasumi mission with all the fights and eventual confrontation of Hock. I've warped the ending a little to suit my plans *evil laugh*. Let me know what you guys think. Oh and enjoy.
"When you ask a person if they've lost something or someone, feel sorry for the people that say a few things. And for the ones that name off a list. But be in awe of the one who looks into the distance and says nothing, for they have lost everything, but themselves."
"Is this part of your master plan Kasumi?" Shepard yelled over the cacophony of incoming fire.
Kasumi shrugged at the Commander from her cover a few feet away.
"Did you think this would be easy?" Kasumi yelled back.
The hues of the different incoming ammo types would have been beautiful to Shepard, if it wasn't coming her way.
But it soon seemed to dim a little. Shepard took advantage of it. She popped out of cover and focused her biotics. A small sphere of dark purple formed in her left hand. She threw it at an unfortunate Eclipse merc that was in the process of moving to better cover. He reacted like he'd just been hit by a baseball, before flying through the air, and right into the fist that Shepard struck him with. His body went limp and she could feel his jaw break from her punch. He slid several feet behind Shepard as she dropped back into cover.
"I was kind of hoping," she finally answered Kasumi's question. "Just once would be nice."
Kasumi smirked. Shepard did the same, but at the same time finding it odd that they were cracking jokes when several thoroughly pissed Eclipse mercs were trying to gun them down. Shepard stood and fired off several rounds before being forced back into cover.
"Ideas?" Kasumi chimed.
Shepard glanced around. The enemy had good lines of fire on both of them, keeping them pinned. 'They don't need to kill us. She thought to herself. 'Just keep us pinned till more of them show up.'
Her eyes searched the area feverishly for any kind of salvation, until they fell upon a blast from the past. A smile crept upon her face.
"Yeah I've got one," she yelled to Kasumi. "Here it is; you throw flash bangs, and I'm going to run over there and use that gun."
Kasumi paused to think it over, before nodding. "Sounds like a plan Shep," she said as she unclipped two flash bang grenades from her belt.
Shepard counted down with her left hand from three. On one she balled her hand into a fist, the go signal.
Kasumi lobbed both grenades at the enemy. They landed right in the middle of the five Eclipse. Only one noticed and dove to the side. The others were blinded when they went off, causing them to shield their eyes and fire wildly. Shepard seized the moment and took off for the parked MAKO and its main cannon. She reached it just as the eclipse began to recover. She smiled.
'Eat this.' She thought as she pressed down the trigger. The massive blast obliterated the bodies of the four Eclipse, and the wall behind them. Only the one that dove away from the grenades survived, albeit with shrapnel covering most of his body. Shepard casually walked over to his prone body, pistol in hand. He looked up.
"Please do..." he began. Shepard cut him off, with a single bullet to the head. He went slack immeadiately.
Kasumi walked up next to Shepard, who had relieved the dead merc of his radio and began hacking it.
"Kind of harsh Shep," she said. "We could have gotten something out of him, or just left him."
Shepard shook her head. "He chose the wrong side. And they don't show mercy, so why should I."
She walked off before Kasumi could reply, leaving the thief alone with the destruction they had just caused. She stood there alone for a few seconds, lost deep in thought.
Kasumi left the body where it was and jogged after Shepard, who had disappeared into the hole left by the MAKO. She slowed to walk beside Shepard, Locust in hand in case anything jumped out from behind a box. Shepard continued to tinker with the radio, attempting to hack it. Kasumi watched silently as Shepard grew frustrated with it, muttering a few curses under her breath. Finally she thrust it out in front of Kasumi.
"Hack this," she said angrily.
Kasumi chuckled a little. "The great Commander Shepard," she joked. "Defeated by a little radio and not the hundreds of mercenaries to kill her."
"Shut it," Shepard muttered. This only caused Kasumi's grin to grow as she waved her Omni-tool over the radio; its hacking protocols making easy work of the radio.
An all too familiar voice filled their ears.
"Keep them busy," Hock said confidently. "I'll take care of them myself."
Shepard grinned in wry amusement. "He seems cocky."
Kasumi only nodded as she tossed the radio away. "Going to be fun to prove him wrong."
Shepard opened her mouth to say something as they rounded a corner. She quickly dove to the side.
A missile flew right where she had been, it impacted the wall. She regained her composure instantly, equipping her Mattock heavy rifle and looking for targets. Kasumi ducked right beside her, drawing her Locust. The room seemed to be a loading bay, full of trucks and crates. And two dozen pissed Eclipse guards.
"Let's get to work," Shepard muttered aloud as she rose and fired several shots. The unlucky shotgun wielding asari on the receiving ends shields faltered under the heavy rounds, before falling completely. Her body danced as Shepard put several rounds into her. Satisfied that she was dead, Shepard moved onto the next, and then the next. Before long her clip was empty and she ducked down to reload.
Only then did she notice that Kasumi had disappeared. She looked around, wondering where the other woman had gone.
"Kasumi where the hell are you?" she asked.
The thief's answer came in a whisper. "I'm being a ninja. And you're kind of ruining the surprise."
Shepard smirked. "Hit them hard Kasumi."
Shepard obviously couldn't see Kasumi, but knew she was smiling. "I always do."
Slowly Shepard peeked over her cover. Two eclipse guards were off to the side of the others.
'I'd attack them if I were in Kasumi's shoes.'
As if on cue Kasumi materialized behind the two unsuspecting victims. Shepard just caught the glimmer of a knife in Kasumi's hand. She slipped it into the neck of one guard, an instant kill as he went slack. The other had just begun to turn, when Kasumi ripped the blade from the others neck and brought it across the second's neck. Shepard imagined shock filling the guards mind as he took a full second to react to the opening on his neck.
Kasumi disappeared before he hit the ground, reappearing beside Shepard seconds later.
"Bravo Miss Goto," Shepard said. "Well done."
Kasumi bowed her head. "Not bad shooting on your part Shepard. Now let's take out these last few guards, and then go find Hock."
Shepard nodded. She peeked out of cover. There were only three guards left. Two were firing potshots at her, while the other was working to open a large box.
'What the hell is he doing?' she asked herself. Before she could train her rifle on him, the other two decided to put their rifles to use and sprayed her position.
"Damn," she barked as she pulled back into cover. "Kasumi can you see what is in the box that the merc is trying to open?"
"Sure thing Shep," Kasumi said before peeking around her side of the cover. She only looked for a few seconds, before gasping. "That's not good."
"What is it?" Shepard asked. A small earthquake shook the ground beneath her feet.
Kasumi turned to her. "Only a heavy mech."
Shepard cursed before forming a small plan. "Ok we deal with the mercs that are left, then the heavy."
Kasumi nodded before activating her cloak. "I'll take out the one near the box. You can have the other two."
And then Shepard was alone, with her rifle. 'Should be easy.'
She jumped out of cover, taking aim. One guard was standing up, reloading his rifle. Four shots later he was down. The other cowered behind the barricade for cover. Shepard wore a grin of malice. She summoned biotic power in both hands, before throwing it towards him in a violent and powerful shockwave. It struck him and sent him flying.
'Just like target shooting,' she thought as she put five rounds in before he hit the ground. He didn't get back up. Shepard stood triumphantly.
'Now where is that heavy?'
A thud echoed behind her, followed by machinery working.
'Crap.' She dove forward. The mech began powering up its machine gun. Shepard rolled at the end of her dive, quickly bringing her weapon to bear. She fired the same time the heavy did. Its shields barely fell halfway when hers collapsed. Realizing the current situation was suicidal, she rolled behind a box that was to her right.
"Kasumi I could use a hand," she yelled into her com unit. When nothing answered she got angry. "Where are you? Answer me!"
A beeping on the other side of the box told Shepard to move. She stood to run, but was blown off her feet by the missile that the mech had fired. She crawled backwards as the mech drew closer. Her rifle lost, she grabbed her pistol off the magnetic strip on her thigh. She emptied the weapons clip as fast as she could, but the heavy just kept coming closer and closer. The pistol clicked empty as the heavy stopped in front of her. Shepard was close enough to read the serial number on its chest. It picked one of its massive feet up, intent on crushing her. Shepard prepared her biotics, about to charge away, when a miracle happened. The heavy put its foot back on the ground and began flailing its arms around. Shepard stared in bewilderment as it struggled against. Something. That's when she noticed something on the mechs back. A hooded figure, hand deep in its neck.
'Kasumi,' she smiled.
The mech began to spark as Kasumi unloaded several overloads into its internal circuits. After the fourth one it finally collapsed to its knees and began beeping.
"It's gonna blow!" Shepard yelled as she scrambled away. Kasumi jumped off its back and into the bed of a truck. The heavy exploded in a glorious fireball.
"Well that was fun and all," Kasumi said as she slowly sat up. "But let's not do that again."
She slid out of the bed of the truck rejoined Shepard near the door that would lead them outside, to salvation and Hock.
Shepard dusted herself off, noting all the new scrapes this mission had put in her armor.
"Agreed," she said with a smile. She shouldered the Avenger assault rifle she had stolen from a merc. "Now let's go kill this bastard and get the hell out of here."
"This bastard refuses to go down," Shepard muttered.
She and Kasumi had made it to the landing pad, when Hock had finally shown himself; in a modified gunship. Now several dozen dead guards and a lot of thermal clips later, he was still gunning for them.
'Wish I had a missile launcher.'
She popped out of cover and fired a few more shots into Hock's ship. Only one round hit the actual ship. "Great his shields are down," she began. Hock retreated down below the pad. "Fuck there he goes again."
"Shepard next time he comes back clear me a path to those pipes," Kasumi yelled. She pointed to a bunch of red pipes on the side of the main area. "Then I'll hit Hock hard."
Shepard nodded. "Consider it cleared."
As if someone realized their plan, the elevator next to the pipes began flashing red. Soon it arrived, carrying six eclipse guards. Shepard managed to take down three, while Kasumi took down two more. The all too familiar sound of Hock's returning gunship drowned out the sounds of battle. It came up directly in front of the pipes.
"Now or never Shep," Kasumi reminded her.
"I know Kasumi," Shepard chided her. She drew on her biotic power, focusing on a point ahead of her. The last guard, that happened to be holding a missile launcher. Right before it felt like her head was going to explode she released the energy and began to run. Charging like lightning she was upon the guard in a second. The woman gasped as Shepard hand came up, in it a Balisong knife. It sliced through the guard's neck with ease as Shepard followed the move with a low spinning kick, knocking the dying guard to the ground.
"Let's go Kasumi!" Shepard yelled. She held both hand together in front of her. Kasumi understood the gesture and ran at Shepard.
She jumped onto the Commanders joined hands, and then soared through the air as Shepard launched her towards the pipes. Kasumi grabbed onto one of the larger pipes, and using her momentum swung onto the top of it. Hock seemed to pause, probably to wonder what the hell she was doing. She didn't give him a chance to think about it. She sprinted along the pipe, and then leaped into the air. She landed on the gunship, just above the cockpit. The overload she used next put its shields out of commission and caused her to nearly fall off as the crafts engines fought to regain control.
Shepard's heart dropped as Kasumi dangled from the side of the ship one hand clinging on; until the master thief somehow propelled herself onto the cockpit window. She gave Hock a wave, before somersaulting off and landed right next to Shepard.
"Let's tear that thing apart," she said.
"Already on it," Shepard said. She fired the missile launcher she had borrowed from the dead guard. One after another they left the launcher and struck the damaged craft; until finally, one of the engines caught on fire and the body began sparking. The gunship banked left and right, as if unsure which direction to crash.
Kasumi stood up and began walking towards the landing pad, thinking the battle was over. Hock seemed to have other plans. The ship dove at her. It crashed and began sliding towards her.
"Kasumi!" Shepard yelled.
The thief turned just in time to see the front of the ship bearing down on her.
Shepard charged her biotics and launched herself at Kasumi, tackling her and sliding to a stop several feet away. Almost off the edge of the building. Shepard was now on top of Kasumi, on hands and knees.
"That was close," Shepard joked. "Be careful next time."
Kasumi grinned. "You don't have to tell me twice Shep," she said coyly. "But this technically makes us even from before."
Shepard cocked her head a little. "Oh really?"
Kasumi was about to give her smart reply, when a sniper round flew between their faces.
Shepard rolled off of Kasumi, quickly readying her rifle. She fired, and the sniper dropped. More eclipse took his place.
"Don't they ever give up," Kasumi quipped as she blind fired over her cover.
Shepard shrugged. "The man signing your paychecks is dead assholes!" she yelled. "Just go home already!"
The deafening sound of a shuttle filled the air. The Normandy's shuttle had arrived.
"Right on time," said Shepard. "Let's get out of here. Fall back to the shuttle."
The duo slowly collapsed back to the shuttle. They jumped in, leaving the wreckage of the gunship and all the guards behind.
Shepard breathed a sigh of relief. "Now let's see what's in that grey box."
Authors Note: Just a heads up. I plan on making all future chapters around 2500 ish words. Oh and I forgot to mention this earlier, but the DLC's that I'll be using are Kasumi's (obviously), Firewalker, LotSB, Arrival, and all the weapon packs. Shepard isn't doing Overlord. That particular one goes to…. Someone else. *Insert OC*
As always leave a review, some criticism. Let me know what I fucked up on, or if the chapter just sucked. Thanks.