"I respect spirits and demons man.

You white people don't understand. They do exist."

"I believe you Li. I honestly do."

Ssgt. Heinz to Sgt. Li about psy operatives


"Hunter one this is Orion confirm insertion" a single red light lit up on the mission panel. "clearance for engagement" the red light turned off leaving mission control in the dark. For Heinz it was a different matter. He was looking for a new psychic terrorist. A man claiming to be the way to humanities survival was to be killed. It was like most of them a believer in the Abrahamic religions. He wasn't like the run of the mill cult leaders emerging though.

He wasn't trying to make money. He wasn't preaching alien dominance. He instead spoke of finding within themselves the power to over come the xenos. That wasn't new the problem lay in people manifesting abilities like pyromancy and whatever lord of the rings magical bullshit you read in fantasy novels. A man in this new cult could even bring people back to life. They used unique hymns calling for the purification of man. It was a snake that XCOM could use and Demon platoon now re-purposed to hunter squad due to the casualties taken in Tokyo and most experience with unsanctioned psyonic 'warrior' were heading to this 'sage'.

The squad stacked up on the door and kicked it in. It was like some shit in a horror movie. A congregation sat listening to a hooded figure. They looked like ordinary people. Flannels, jeans, graphic tees and a dress or two. Hunter squad was 8 people strong all pointing military grade equipment at these people. The man didn't even pause. "-Purge the xeno is the way of man." People quietly said amens or some form of agreement. He then looked up at the squad. He stood roughly six foot and wore a grey plain robe and held a walking stick that's only unique attribute was it was incredibly straight. I mean shit you don't find that shit in the forest that had to be store bought.

"My children why are you here?" Hunter one pointed his rifle at the man and set himself apart as he moved down the aisle and directly in front of the robed man. Hunter one took a line out of his DS' book "Take off the hood gandolf. The figure chuckled and without a question took it off. Hunter one was set a little at ease with this reaction. He was worried now about why this man was so willing to show his face.

He wasn't what hunter one was expecting. The man was young no older than thirty. He hard long black hair that reached his shoulders in a kingly fashion. He had olive skin and dark brown eyes. He looked like a king straight from the history books.

He started to descend the few short steps to the aisle to meet hunter one. Hunter one was memorized. He couldn't move or shy away from this man. It was if his presnce alone surrounded hunter one so any attempt to move was blocked by this man's mere aura. The man drew closer and simply touched Sgt. Li's forehead. "step away fucker!" a burst of bullets were shot at the ceiling driving the congregation to the floor and the rest of hunter squad to fan out and surround everyone to create a kill box. "Stand down Heinz! He isn't what we're looking for."

Sgt. Li just took two steps back from the emperor. He turned to Sgt. Heinz and said. "lets go the mission is scrubbed we need to go to Norfolk." Sgt. Li just walked away. Sgt. Heinz never got a debriefing on what happened only that he found 'nid in a small whaling town where Sgt. Li said there would be. They barely got there in time before it became a major problem. There was only one thing he noticed. Sgt. Li could never look at him in the eyes and always seemed to give him better treatment than everyone else. He also changed his call sign to wanderer. In hindsight Marcus realized Sgt. Li always knew what was to befall him. They always say hind sight is always 20/20.


"Left side" Jane moved her tempest up and pulled the trigger before her mind was able to catch up. Her burst of rounds hit a prisoner full in the chest dropping him. He loosely held a shotgun that would've torn through the rest of Jane's precious shields. There was no cover anywhere. The past hour or so Jane and Marcus was chasing after the wreckage of Jack in a hope to catch up to her. Fortunately, every YMIR mech or at least three out of four were disabled by her and the odd one out was always easily bypassed being assaulted by blue sun mercs and escaped convicts.

EDI was able to hack into the prison ship's network and cause to kill everyone on sight including other mechs. She was also able to prevent the venting of cell blocks after Jane and Marcus barely escaped a venting. The situation was hell. Mechs, prisoners and guards were killing one another without any reason besides to survive. Any semi balance of order the guards created. Jack destroyed at least from Jane and Marcus' perspective. The security team now buffed up with Miranda and any spare crew member were barely holding the air lock. Joker was forced to give Jane and Marcus a one hour deadline to make it or break it.

Marcus stepped directly in front of Jane and started to walk. Jane immediately took cover behind him and shot at anyone or anything in sight from over Marcus' shoulder while her shields could recharge. Marcus was whipping around at an incredible speed dropping one prisoner after another with a burst to the chest or abdomen. Marcus originally shot at their abdomen hoping that other prisoners or guards would go and grab their friend. What he noticed very quickly was no one cared so he switch to shooting at the kill box only.

Jane slapped a fresh heat sink into her tempest "last mag!" Marcus shot another prisoner coming at them with a lead pipe in the throat sending a spray of blood onto the ground. The commons area around them was an empty arena with prisoners and guards in a desperate melee. "Take my reserve mags!" Jane didn't need to look or ask instead reaching on for the pouch over the left butt check on Marcus' armor grabbing three thermal clips from it. Previous training had all N7 marines placing three mags exactly where Marcus placed his own.

All around them prisoners would fight like Russian conscripts against the blue sun guards and each other. Marcus and Jane cut a bloody swathe through the bodies directly towards the ball of furious purple charged warrior. Jane and Marcus were now at least 30 meters away from Jack but at this distance that was forty minutes away. Forty minutes of punching, grappling and reaction shots. Forty minutes of hails of bullets, shrapnel parties and blunt objects being thrown at them at deadly speeds. It was a walk through a car wash without a car. There was no way in hell you were going to come out dry.

Finally Jack stopped her rampage through the tide of blue. pointing at a blue figure on top of a elevated podium with a squad worth of guards around him. "I told you I was going to kill you warden!" The warden's laughter was heard above the sounds of explosions and fire arms challenging back. "You can try Jack like every other time you'll fail." His voice oozed confidence and reassurance to his men who continued to kill the dozens of prisoners surrounding them.

Jacks boitics flared and she roared in anger. She simply walked to the warden killing anyone or anything in her way. She tore a human's arm off who was hiding behind cover by reducing the mass of his arm to make it have little resistance to her arm. She then increased the mass to beat the man to death as she yelled out. "This is what I'm going to do to you warden!" Jane felt a little queasy from an obscene use of violence. Marcus couldn't help but feel reaffirmed in his position of not wanting this convict to join them.

Thirty meters away Marcus voiced out his thoughts of the pointless display of violence and gore. "You want that on our team!?" Jane stepped out from Marcus' protection to toss her last grenade at the feet of three prisoners who could only look at the grenade before their legs were blown off. Marcus shot a burst as a half assed attempt to end any survivors suffering.

"Look she's not my first choice! The illusive man said and I quote currently in captivity-" Jane swung around Marcus to his left to face a Krogan running at the pair. Without pause, Jane fired one handedly her tempest into the Krogans face while drawing a grenade from Marcus' chest webbing and chucking it at his face. A moment later Marcus threw himself to the ground and Jane on top of him.

The grenade immediately went off sprinkling Jane's shield with shrapnel and debris. "Not she's a psychotic killer!" Jane rolled off Marcus still spraying the krogan while Marcus unsheathed his knife on his right boot and walking 8 meters to the krogan and stabbing it repetitively in the face.

"This illusive man sounds like a bigger dick than my last Intel gatherer" Marcus remembered central. He always stated information they already knew and nothing else. Previous examination of the records showed central knew down to how many xenos there would be. That always created conflict between the two.

"Tell me about it" Jane was on her hands and knees grabbing anything that remotely resembled a cooled down thermal mag. Marcus then made his way back to Jane catching a small pile of thermal clips tossed to him and placing them in his combat webbing. Marcus wasn't to sure on the reliability of this ammunition but put them away all the same.

"He say anything about getting her to join us?"

"I figured we'd appeal to her survival instincts..."

Marcus shrugged "hopefully she doesn't try to take the ship herself." Jane inwardly agreed with Marcus. At this rate, Jack could easily over power the pair and create massive problems for the Normandy.

Jane didn't reply instead she slapped a new thermal mag in before moving. Jane took point with Marcus using her as a body shield to give his shields and armor a rest from the earlier bombardment. "Move it!"

Marcus didn't even need clarification. He jumped and rolled on the floor as Jane threw herself to the ground. A rocket flew right through the place they stood earlier. "dropped" Marcus lined up the specialist and fired a burst into him cutting clear through whatever shield the shooter had and destroying his innards. Jane was only able to catch the heavy weapons specialist drop from two floors up down to the ground and land with a sickening crack and slap. Marcus hated how little stopping power these new weapons had. It was like shooting a .22 nothing like the 7.62mm a AK-47 packed or even a 5.56mm from a M16 alpha 2 felt stronger.

Seeing a depression made from an earlier explosion Marcus pointed to it and ran to it with Jane hot on his heels. Firing and sliding into cover, he felt Jane slid in after him and slam into his back. She threw off his aim hitting glancing blows on a sniper across 40 meters away who was standing with the warden. Other than that nothing happened besides Jane using Marcus as a back rest to nail two prisoners running at Jack with shivs. To help her or wound her it wasn't Jane's problem, it was two hostiles down and a whole lot safer to just drop them.

"No one else is coming in!?"

Jane jerked her left elbow back twice while firing her tempest to keep a few curious onlookers head's down. "EDI venting?" Jane let out a grunt as she held onto her tempest onto dear life firing long past the thermal clips original safety heat gauge. "Fuck that gives us what 20 minutes!?" Marcus was already calculating his odds here. The procedure was EDI would vent everything around them besides the rooms they would need to go through to reach Jack and the Normandy. This was the last room and just past the warden was the airlock for the ships. Earlier prisoner's and guards came rushing in dying in droves from one another. The guards waiting for the warden coming from the secondary HQ. The prisoners the only chance of survival.

A bright flash of purple caught Marcus' eye and not for the right reasons. Jack was a purple flash bobbing in and out of the blue sun swarm of guards desperately trying to open the locked airlock door. He also barely made out the crazed maniacs face. It was a human female with tats covering her body and god help him she was basically naked. This is why the army doesn't want prisoners as soldiers. They like to get naked on the battle field.

Jack was enjoying herself. She was racing across, around and over the warden and his elite guard. She was... unstoppable. She would run among them and punch, kick and break bones. She was everywhere at once and at the same time across the room away from them. She couldn't help but laugh at their stupidity. Under stasis, they had to keep her drugged to prevent her most vital functions from dying. The side affect was without a two hour detox period that drug acted as a boosted to the human body. In fact, it was considered a battle stim that accelerated the body or while under stasis allowed the functions to move just fast enough to suspend someone between life and death. Purgatory if you would.

Right now, her biotics were even more unstable or to the outward eye more powerful. She threw two pulls on either side of a guard and watched the gravity wells literally pull him apart spraying his friends with his blood. At least the blood not caught in the gravity wells which wasn't a lot. Jack couldn't help but grin in glee from the sight of one of her jailers die. In the back of her mind a small voice told her not to push it. What biotics she used was that many carbs she lost. Seeing how she hadn't eaten in months she was definitely taxing her body way too much. The stims were... only aggravating the problem.

She body slammed another guard increasing her mass. He was like a stick snapping clean in two at the center of his spinal cord. He was a human and was most likely dead at first inspection. Jack dashed away leaving the guard paralyzed with two of his friends pulling him away.

By now the only people left was that pack of blue sun guards. Everyone else was either dead or nursing their wounds before they expired. Jane and Marcus made sure of that. Marcus now held his knife while Jane resorted to a sharpened pipe every thermal mag rendered useless from over use or exploding from over use.

People thought all weapons made the switch to heat sinks. What they didn't realize was when your rifle steamed up you could keep firing but you were already in the red zone. You push it your weapon could melt or be permanently damaged. After a set amount of time the thermal clip could be used again but they became a lot less reliable. Two uses of one clip was a 45% of working with every additional use a 73% decrease of working again. Jane used a clip the third time for the inner core of her weapon to melt and fuse together.

Jane and Marcus were none too pleased to fine Jack fist deep in the warden's face and everyone dead with twenty minutes to go before they got vented out. Marcus ached everywhere but was too proud to use Jane as support. Jane was too weak to use Marcus as support so the hobbled over to Jack who was clearly just as tired.

She turned towards them and said. "You got a ship?" Well Fuck me Marcus thought this was going to be as easy as a dialogue tree in fallout 3 with 100 speech. "Yeah we do!-"

"Great I'm taking it from you" Jack them smiled. Marcus was ready to blow his brains out as he settled into a fighting stance. Jane on the other hand had different thoughts. "We changed the security of the door no one can get in or-" Jane watched the door open and in walked the Cerberus security team. Compared to Jane and Marcus they looked like they ran a few laps around a track before calling it a day. They also basically fucked any attempt to negotiate... Fucking desk security forces.

"-out? Ha bullshit Fucking liar." Jack turned around to see the security team all in orange and black. Jack turned back to Jane and jabbed a finger at her. "You're with them! Ha like I'm going to let you leave much less live!" Marcus checked the time and saw it going down from 15 minutes.

He looked up and saw Jack charging up. There was no way in hell he was going to freeze/suffocate/get radiation poisoning in space. Flipping the knife so the blade was facing the ground in a reverse grip, Marcus started to jog towards Jack. He wasn't going to die like a bitch and he killed psy warriors in his past and on board this ship. This biotic was no different. Only less disciplined and half naked he had to admit that was new. Unless he counted that fight in the showers when he was a private.

Two purple balls appearing around Marcus snapped him out of his thoughts. One was on his left the other on his right. Time held no value for a second. Marcus saw the orbs start to form from a marble size and slowly increase. He dropped down to his right knee while he used his planted left foot to roll. Time returned and as he rolled it felt like someone was trying to slow him down. Jane was caught a little bit in the right orb's gravity well but not by much.

The orb ripped the pipe from out of her hands but Jane managed to get away from its grasp. Jack on the other hand was across from them and pried the warden's shotgun from his hands. She managed to get it up and pointed at one of the security members before the shotgun was ripped to the ground forcing her to lean down to compensate for the sudden change in balance. Marcus escaped the gravity wells and managed to get in Jack in time.

To his surprise, Jack head butted him in the face knocking him to the side. Marcus clutched his face feeling a river of blood pouring from his nose. Jack pressed her advantage to bring her shotgun back up only for Marcus to hit in the face with a hard right hook in the face. Jack staggered back for Marcus to unleash a flurry of punches. Jack couldn't block them and if she did it hardly did anything to stop him.

She dodged a few and landed a few enhanced punches to his stomach to be rewarded with him grunting. Marcus landed two hard blows to her face causing Jack's mouth to bleed and filling her mouth with the taste of iron. Jack managed to get back and toss a few warps at Marcus but missed each time. Marcus threw a few jabs but couldn't get close enough. The ground was slowly getting slick with blood and sweat from their fist fight. It was just a matter of time before one of them made a they circled one another Jack stumbled.

Marcus smiled and closed the distance and quickly grabbed her throat. Jack clutched at the hand that was blocking her air supply for him to grab the inside of her right thigh and fling her head first into the ground and advance on her. Jack hurt all over and did the only thing she could do. She flared her biotics and Marcus sailed over head five meters away. Jack got up and biotically enhanced her legs to close the distance and jump on top of him. Straddling his chest she threw punches all up and down his face and chest.

Marcus blocked every hit barely in time. Jack threw hit after hit after him growing increasingly frustrated she yelled and reached for his eyes. Both of her hands were caught and Marcus somehow managed to roll over so he was on top of Jack with her legs wrapped around his abdomen. Prying her arms away from her body he forced her arms away and on the metal floor on either side of her. Jack could only sneer and spit at Marcus unable to do anything but squeeze her legs in an attempt to cause Marcus some form of pain. Marcus just smiled as Jack thought he would stop fighting her instead a head butt to her face stopped any though about that.

Jack let her biotics flare one more time feeling like her very essence was drained. Marcus was torn from her sliding a few meters away. Jack looked up to see Jane and the three security forces smugly standing there. Jane motioned for the security forces to walk away and Marcus also left at her motion.

"You really think you can beat me alone? Your boyfriend barely managed to keep up with me" Jane snorted and said "what will it take for you to join us?"

"fuck off bitch!"

Jane pinched her nose before saying loudly into her hand. "The alliance is coming in two hours -"

"Then I'll kill every marine who makes their way in" Jack noticed Jane's N7 emblem.

"Then what they'll eventually win or kill you... If you come with me and if we survive our mission you'll be free and on good terms with the alliance."

Jack snorted "Why do I care"

"humans are being abducted. Men women and children for what we are assuming are for experiments. I don't need a paragon I just need your abilities" Jack was quiet for a brief second before saying.

"I want security clearance to Cerberus records."

"Done" Jack slowly relaxed and made her way past Jane. Jane didn't notice Jack's silence for pity to kids that were abducted like she was.

Meanwhile, Jane made her way after Jack to see Marcus standing against the door way. His face was still covered in blood. His blond hair high lighted with his own blood completely contrasting with his ice blue eyes. He followed after Jane only saying "You made a mistake letting that psycho on board" before Jane could respond the crew was around them checking for injuries and providing protection.

Jane noticed every crew member seemed to treat Marcus a little better than before. Hell Kelly and Dr. Chawkas actually talked to him. Jane hoped he would stay loyal to her or she would probably have a mutiny as she watched the security forces gravitate to Marcus. He wasn't that bad but he was a little too xenophobic to make this mixed crew work. Rubbing her eyes Jane made her way to the infirmary at Dr. Chawkas' suggestion. They were off for the krogan warlord next. They had a day before that op probably less than that. Jane wondered if the good doctor still held onto a bottle of whiskey for every visit Jane paid. Time to find out.


A/N

Thunder fucked up the last 1.3k words I wrote and I lost it all so I had to rewrite it and made it shorter. I didn't think about Jack fighting Marcus but figure why not after reading eye of sparta's review. I apologize for that last bit but I got demoralized from that much work deleted. I had a scene where Marcus and Jane talked but figured I will put in next chapter since it got deleted.

Thank you for reading and reviewing. Any thoughts about what you want to see more or less of. Until next time

-SITH