A/N: Hey guys, Bonker here with another chapter of this story. I noticed you really like this one and I actually was excited writting this chapter myself. I'm planning this story fast and even started reaching to the sequel (based on ME3 after I finish this one). And I also planned to finish this chapter sooner, in 15th of march. This date isn't just a date. Not long ago a weirdo, that then became a Fanfic writter you know, was born that day. Buuuut first...
REVIEWS:
Dodles: Aww thanks. You always keep me in good mood and encourage to writting further. And I understand the feeling. If something like this would happen to me, I'd probably react the same (or similar).
kotaro1: Hehe, I know right? I am proud from the last part. Aaand you can expect more arguments between the Carvins and the Citadel.
swordworks: Before you post a review like this, read other chapters. I'm trying my best writting this, but I can make mistakes like all of us. I'm only human after all.
!ANNOUNCMENT!: From now if you want your reviews to be considered, post them at the last uploaded chapter, otherwise I'll not reply on them. I warned you.
And with that being said,
Enjoy!
Normandy, Virox's POV
I was quiet for the longest time in my life, excluding my long cryosleep. My body was giving me signals that something was wrong with me, but I couldn't define it. Maybe it was because of that encounter between Liara and Shepard. The phenomenon I couldn't comprehend. Especially Liara.
Asari live for over a thousand years, so two years should be nothing for her. And yet she treated Shepard worse than I could imagine. Commander himself wasn't very different. He was aggressive and I could see many emotions in his behaviour - anger, saddness, pain... even fear? But fear of what?
"Why are we so different than the other races?" I sighed and hid my 'face' in hands. It wasn't even a year from the first contact with the Citadel and I was now thinking that... our species do not belong here. Our way of thinking is different, technology we're based on is different, even the physiology is completely different.
To get away from this, I started browsing the Carvin Info Network. Extranet was filled with crap now and I was the only one in the ship to have access to the news from my species. The interesting news were that Carvins were devoting almost a half of their production capability to built the fifth Ark for the Andromeda Initiative. Zayan Te'Kraan, our ambassador on the Citadel said that preserving the existence and the history of our species should be a priority and encouraged other Carvins to support the project with donations. From what the data was showing, Ark Xintus, the Carvin ark was complete in 5%.
"Hey, are you ok?" Garrus suddenly appeared above me. I found this rather disturbing as my sense of hearing was letting me notice him long before he approached me.
"Oh, nothing. It's just that... I still find it difficult to understand some of your behaviours." I said. Not a lie, but not a full truth.
"There is something more to it." he was clever and couldn't be fooled by my attempts to hide it.
"Listen, I just need a bit of time to think about certain things." I tried to end this topic. "By the way, shouldn't be calibrating?"
"It's done." turian smirked with pride. "Now you can tell me what's been up with you since you returned from Illium."
"Fine." I sighed in defeat. He was as relentless as Seviros's flagship (BAD JOKE). "You know that Shepard and Liara were together?" he nodded and I continued. "Well I could see it immediately too. But after retriving the data disk from Broker's agents, it seemed odd as they immediately began to act hostile against eachother."
"That's how the love works." Garrus explained, but I shook my head.
"For you. For me it's completely different. Like... it's not right. It just seems like a very deep friendship, not love. But their pheromones were positive towards eachother, which then contradicts this theory. And then they were arguing as if they were never a couple."
"Oh." he seemed to understand now. Although that didn't make him confused. "Your species are unique, Virox. But that doesn't mean you do not belong here. Dare I'd say you might just save us from the Reapers."
"Well, if you put it that way, I'm ready to kick some serious ass." I laughed, although felt nice in the inside. It would seem that Garrus wasn't only skilled in putting bullets in the heads of his enemies. "Shame you can't come with us."
"Damn I wish I could go with you." he sighed in disappointment. "If you'll have an opportunity, punch the Shadow Broker in the face from me, would you?"
"Copy that." I smiled and picked up my rifle before walking out. Then I caught myself on deeply inspecting the weapon. That wasn't common for me, rather for Garrus.
CAR-26 was a simple, but highly adaptable weapon. In shape it looked kind of like Incistor sniper rifle, but smaller and without the large scope (A/N: Incistor only appears in ME3, but I put it here to describe CAR-26 better). The stock could be adjusted to the user's optimal length. Also instead of two barrels like the Incistor, it had three long energy rails, that were together creating a space in the shape of an upside down triangle. On the side it had small, blue, glowing disk that was a part of the cooling system. The disk was usually popping out when the weapon was overheating.
'Garrus just infected me with his incredible care for the guns.' I thought and went towards the elevator. Fortunately Shepard was already inside. He looked different though. A bit... tense. But he was a specialist if it came to hiding it. I barely noticed that tension hidden behind a mask of professionalism.
The elevator stopped in the hangar. Liara was already waiting in the shuttle, but her body was showing the same kind of tension like Shepard's. We stepped in and the shuttle slowy left the hangar.
I couldn't see the Broker's base or anything like that anywhere nearby, only the planet surrounded in clouds and lightnings. It wasn't showing any signs of landing zone which made me think about 'where' exactly is the Broker's base. Fortunately I didn't need to think for long.
"Hagalaz. The oceans boil during the day, then snap freeze ten minutes after sundown." Liara explained and I finally noticed a grey, metallic thing next to us. It was a ship.
"The Shadow Broker lives in this?" Shepard asked and I was curious about it too. Living the whole life on a ship might get boring... but not when you are the most influential being in the galaxy.
"His ship follows the sunset." Liara continued. "Completely undetectable in the storm, unless you know where to look."
"Okay, I know this looks pretty awesome and stuff, but how do we get inside?" I pointed out, because the carvin commandos were going to 'make' their way in. They decided to come with us and help take down the Broker. "We don't have laser drills and proton cutters that can penetrate kinetic barriers."
"The shuttle bay is locked down. We'll need to land on the ship and hunt for a hatch." she replied. "Though we can't stay outside for long. There's a constant lightning storm where the hot and cold air collide."
I nodded my head and slowly walked towards the hatch. The moment I positioned myself on the left from it, my commlink echoed with the voice of my fellow species.
"Virox, we're in position for breaching, but the Broker has expected company. You'll need to distract them first, before we can breach." Phantom Leader informed me. "Once we're onboard, we'll try to redeem ourselves by creating as much mess and noise as possible. They'll possibly focus on us than you."
"Copy that. Good luck." I said and turned towards the Commander. "Shepard, Shadow Team cannot engage. Broker was expecting a visit and now there is a LOT of his operatives in the area. We'll need to distract them for a while."
"OK, let's roll." he replied quickly and then the hatch opened. We jumped outside and landed on the giant ship of the Shadow Broker.
"There's nothing but equipement here!" Liara shouted. Even through her mask, could be heard sounds of the storm. "We need to find an entrance near the back shielding."
"And probably fight a crap ton of Broker's operatives!" I shouted back. "I'm in!"
All three of us walked to the left edge of the ship, still being cautious not to fall. A possibility of falling was zero, because of our mag boots, but Shepard taught me one human saying that I remember all the time - better safe than sorry.
Suddenly a few red drones popped out of the hatch on our left. They turned towards us and started zapping us with electricity. I haven't waited long and sent a barrage of energy bolts at them.
"Maintenance drones. But why are they attacking?" Commander asked as our synthetic enemies were dead.
"Must think that we're debris from the storm." Liara thought out loud.
"I'll turn THEM into a holographic debris if they'll pop out like that one more time!" I threatened.
We moved forward and eliminated another bunch of drones as they appeared out of nowhere. Well... I did most of the job. As we walked up again and seemed to walk on the diameter of the ship, a few Shadow Broker agents appeared next to two big ass electrical capacitors.
"Be careful, Shepard! Those capacitors will discharge the lightning if you shoot them!" Liara warned.
"Well, if we have a bunch of enemies standing right in front of us, I don't see anything but benefits." I simply said and after a second, Broker's soldiers were dead on the hull of the ship, electrified to death. We went down to the left. Again. And it turned out to be interesting as a few LOKI mechs were waiting for us. I quickly dashed to cover and started laying down cover fire. With such help, Shepard and Liara were slowly moving forward and taking out enemies, Shepard with his rifle and combat powers, while Liara with her biotics.
"Virox, this is Phantom Leader." my commlink sounded in my head. "We detect increased movement on the whole ship. You must've caught their attention. Keep going. We'll try to start some minor cuts."
"Copy that, Phantom Leader. Don't get caught." I replied. After a moment we reached another lightning capacitor and another bunch of soldiers dumb enough to stand near it. I couldn't force myself to shoot again so I turned towards Shepard. "You do the honors this time."
"Thanks. So nice of you." he smirked under his helmet and sent one burst of bullets from his Vindicator rifle. Immediately almost all of the Broker's operatives shared the fate of their friends. Only two Engineers were protected by their shields good enough to survive this amount of energy. Nothing that a bullet in the head couldn't fix though.
One of the ship's energy rods was blocking our way, but Liara quickly found a console that eliminated the problem right this instant. Behind this there was another lightning capacitor and another group of agents.
"What the heck? Do these guys EVER learn?" I was utterly shocked by how dumb the Broker's forces were. "Liara? Maybe you this-"
But I couldn't even finish my sentence as she already discharged the lightning at the poor bastards. No one survived.
After a moment we went down again, but this time on the right. Nothing better than a little change. But it was REALLY close to the edge of the ship. I didn't have a fear of heights. It was the wind and what could lie on the surface of thsi planet that were worrying me.
"Okay, looking down was clearly a mistake." Liara managed to say through her tightly gritted teeth.
"Don't worry, Shepard would catch you even if Sovereign suddenly appeared out of nowhere." I joked, but it was a small step to bring these two together. Time was going to show if that worked out well.
Soon we reached a door that was leading... somewhere inside. I thought that it was going to be nice and warm inside. How badly wrong I was.
Inside there were multiple generators and lightning capacitors heading to the main part of the ship. This just looked like a shelter for any personel that would want to come out here.
"This ship is incredible!" Liara gasped in amazement. "It must've taken decades to build it in secret."
"I wonder what happened to the contractors?" Shepard asked innocently, though all of us could easily think of many ways that they went through to reach the grave.
We quickly left the strange room and started to head up again. I noticed the familiar shape of lightning capacitors and already felt bad for the soldiers that were obviously standing near it. My predictions were 100% accurate. There was a bunch of normal foot soldiers, a biotic, two engineers and a few rocket launcher wielders. All of them went down as the electricity stored inside of the capacitors was unleashed upon them.
"That's just getting sad." I stated looking at the corpses, some of them still moving due to the electroshock. But then I noticed something else. Two soldiers waiting for us... right at the edge of the ship. "Oh, this is just stronger than me! I have to do it!"
They seemed to notice me and despite Shepard's shouts I used my grappling hook to connect myself with something solid and ran towards two poor guys.
BAM!
It took one punch to throw the first one off the ship. The second one got so scared, he started escaping, but tripped over some wires and joined his friend on a journey towards the surface of the planet.
"What the hell were you thinking?" Shepard suddenly appeared behind me. "This is a stealth operation! We could have taken them out fast and silently!"
"They won't call for help anyway and I DID get rid of them really fast." I pointed out. "But ok, no more sick stuff."
We were slowly heading towards the back of the ship, killing random guys that were putting up a fight. After a while we reached another lightning rod and Shepard quickly deactivated it, making a way for us. Our 'way' looked like a corridor with no roof. A perfect spot for an ambush. Fortunately there were no hostiles nearby. The corridor turned into a (not) very safe bridge with electricity sparking on the both sides of the devices next to it.
"Not even a guardrail." Shepard commented. "I bet Broker's agents just 'love' patroling the hull."
"At least the view is nice." Liara quietly said.
"You won't be admiring it if you're dead." I decided to add my opinion as well. "But what do I know?"
After we walked over the bridge, a catwalk took us up again, revealing some kind of entrance.
"There! That hatch can lead us directly to the communication signals!" Liara pointed at the door.
We slowly approached it and I noticed a medical station next to the entrance. As if anybody would survive a fall from the ship or a shock from one of these lightning capacitors.
"It's locked." Liara inspected the door. "Hang on! I've got a bypass shunt program that can crack it."
She activated her omni-tool, clicked a few buttons and another hologram appeared on the door, surrounded by red triangles of warning.
"How long will it take?" Shepard asked while looking for enemies that could be sneaking around.
"I don't know, Shepard. I've never broken into a Shadow Broker's base." she anwsered. "Well not this one anyway."
"Oh, so you've got some experience in breaking into the bases." I grinned. "Well I hope that you also have experience in holding ground. I can smell multiple enemies, even through this storm. They stink a lot."
And here they came - soldiers, biotics, engineers, rocket launcher troopers - all of them trying to keep us away from their leader. I smirked and inspected my gun again, which I caught myself on. I needed to give it a name. But now there were more urgent things than sentiments for a gun. I switched to my incendinary ammo and noticed the first wave of enemies.
It was going to be a bloodbath.
Meanwhile with the Shadow Team, No-one's POV
The distraction was working pretty well. Their elite gunship's scanners were detecting an increased movement at the middle of the ship. No one was passing by near the breaching spot for the Shadow Team.
Phantom Leader was waiting impatiently for the technicians to finish their work. They have already cut through the first layer of armor and wires. Now the only thing that was blocking them from the access to the ship were multiple metal cables that were under high voltage. They transported the energy from the capacitors to all main parts of the ship. One bad cut and they'd all be zapped.
"ETA on the time we're done?" Phantom Leader finally got himselft to ask that.
"2 minutes." Smoke 3 replied while not stopping his work. He along with Phantom 8 were the only technicians in the Shadow Team, but formidable ones. There was no too strong system for them and no door impossible to open. Or create.
Finally the process of creating an entrance was coming to an end. It was a small tunnel for only two Carvins at once. The Wraith took position as the first one to jump out, because of his obvious durability that would shield the others from any unexpected ambush.
"Charges are set, waiting for a green light to breach." Phantom 8 reported.
"Wait for it..." Phantom Leader held them back and started listening. There were some noises on the outside, but scanners weren't showing any sign of activity nearby. "Be ready for anything." and then gave the green light for breach.
Charges went off and the metal part that was blown away, seemed to hit something... soft on the other side. Immediately Carvin commandos were trapped under fire from the Broker's agents.
"Charge!" Phantom Leader shouted as their shields were on critical level. Wraith jumped out without a second thought and with his knuckle blades activated. There were Broker's agents on the other side, but only biotics and normal grunts. Carvin Brute didn't waste time and started slicing every single hostile in sight, charging or blinking from one to another. Charge was often resulting in death as instead of hitting the enemy with his body, he did it with his knuckle blades. Often the victims of such attacks had holes through their stomach.
But other commandos quickly jumped out to support their toughest member. Phantom Squad was the first to come out and using their mid-ranged assault rifles shredded through the hostiles.
When there was no enemies left, other commandos joined the group. They didn't seem very happy.
"Our scanners weren't picking anything." Sniper Leader said in worry. "Broker just slipped his forces right under our noses and we haven't noticed."
"We'll get some payback after we get him." Phantom Leader replied, though he was also worried. "Shepard's team are here just to get that drell out. Hopefully they won't interrupt. Now move out! We need to make some noise to drag attention on us."
"Yes sir!" a chorus of salutes anwsered him and the whole Shadow Team moved towards the possible location of Shadow Broker's office.
During the way they were encountering small groups of soldiers that were trying to put up a fight, but the resistance was being quickly crushed in the loudest possible way: grenades, concussibe shots, biotic explosions, everything that could draw much attention. With every group encountered, the resistance was growing stronger and stronger.
'Plan is working.' Phantom Leader thought with satisfaction as their lousy way of moving forward was probably keeping Shepard's team as safe as it could be now. 'Now we just need to reach Broker's office.'
With the Wraith fighting on the front line it wasn't that hard to move forward. Carvin biotic Brute was literally smashing through any resistance on his way. As one group emerged from the corner, he threw a Singularity at them and the mini black hole quickly trapped them in its gravity field. With his prime for biotic combo set, Wraith unleashed a Shockwave that not only caused explosion of the Singularity, but also knocked few other enemies away.
Wraith didn't even need shields to fight. Quite opposite. His armor was providing him enough protection and regeneration to keep him alive and enough exposure for wounds to sustain his rage. Of course such fights were still exhausting, but the Brutes were taught to manage their rage in the way that wouldn't kill them after a long fight. And Wraith was the first 'Executioner' bred by the Carvin Military.
Other commandos were staying near the walls and covers to minimize their exposure to enemy fire. Of course they could get enraged as well, but another melee fighter could make the fight difficult for the other commandos. That's why every team had maximum of two Brutes.
"Push forward!" Phantom Leader ordered as they were closing in to a big room. There was a strong light coming from there and Broker's forces were seemingly retreating towards that room. The Shadow Team rushed inside and what they saw caused them freeze.
They entered a hangar bay that was heavily fortified and prepared for their arrival. Aside from normal grunts, rocket launcher soldiers, engineers and biotics, there were krogan mercenaries here and there along with hungry varrens.
"Well crap." one of the Smokes said bluntly, but it was indeed a good comment to this whole situation. Now they could just hope that Shepard's team will do their job.
Back with Shepard, Shepard's POV
We breached inside as Liara's hacking program finally managed to open the door. I was glad, because even she didn't know if it will work. Fortunately no one was severely wounded. I had a few scratches, nothing too bad. Liara didn't look like if she got shot once. Virox on the other hand was completely covered in blood. Shadow Broker soldiers' blood. If I didn't know that his species have blue blood, I would think that something bad and unholy unleashed its wrath upon him.
We recieved a message from the Shadow Team that they are in a tight spot, but maybe that will draw the Broker's forces towards them and away from us. I didn't like leaving them under fire though.
Fortunately there were a lot less soldiers in the inside than on the outside. Seemed that we killed a lot of them out there and that the distraction provided by the Shadow Team was working pretty well. Didn't mean that there was no resistance though.
We were staying near the walls on either left or right to get some cover and shred the Broker's forces from a safe distance. After defeating a third group of Broker's soldiers, we started to run up the stairs to get on the higher level.
"I've downloaded the ship's layout." Liara suddenly said and this information was happy to be heard as I started to think that we're getting lost. "We're headed towards the prison block... and Feron."
I immediately felt fire burning my heart because of that drell. Virox seemed to notice this, though I still don't know how, and a message appeared on my HUD. It was 'don't worry. I'll help as much as I can. Nearby airlock should do the trick just fine :)'.
We ran into another room which had an armored glass and a locked door separating vit from another one. There was someone inside, but I couldn't see who it was, because the Broker's soldiers just rushed in.
I quickly moved to cover, but a salarian engineer already managed to damage my shields badly with his tech powers. I launched a concussive shot at him which immediately stripped his shields and Liara finished him off with a warp. Virox in the meantime was using his increased mobility and a grappling hook to his advantage. He was either pulling his enemies towards him with that very reliable tool, or used it to quickly get towards the groups of enemies and kill them with either: his shotgun-mode revolver, knuckle blades, or his spiky cybernetic tail.
Finally all of the enemies in the room were dead and we could proceed to the locked door. Fortunately I could hack it easily. Shame that the omni-gel wouldn't work on it though.
When I finally opened the door, it revealed a drell tied to an electric chair. I didn't need to guess who it is, as from my encounters with Liara I knew who we were going to rescue. He was behind another armored glass though, so freeing him was going to be difficult.
"Feron!" she shouted and quickly rushed to the terminal.
"Liara?" drell whispered weakly.
"Hold on! We're getting you out of here!" Liara stopped him and started to click something on a terminal.
"No!" he tried to stop her, but it was too late. When Liara tried to liberate him, he was electroduced by the restrains of his electric chair.
"I thought it looked a bit too easy." I said, trying to hide my satisfaction. My paragon side of my mind immediately started to shout at me for such thoughts.
"This chair is plugged into the Broker's info network." Feron explained. "You have to shut off the power. Pull me out now and my brain cooks."
"Eww, that's not a nice way to go." Virox said with disgust.
"Wha-what are you?" drell asked curiously.
"No time for that. I'll tell you after we get you outta here." carvin cut the chatter.
"Do you know where we can cut the power?" Liara asked, while trying to do something on her omni-tool.
"It won't be easy. You'll have to go to central operations." he anwsered weakly, while staying calm enough not to get zapped.
"Easy or not, we'll all get out of here." this time my paragon instincts kicked in.
"Good. Central operations are down the hall." Feron let out a weak sigh of relief, still being cautious to his electrical restrains. "You know that the Shadow Broker's waiting for you, right?"
"Of course we do." Virox anwsered bluntly. "That SOB is going to pay for being such a greedy asshole."
"We'll be back for you, Feron." Liara reassured him.
"I'll try not to go anywhere." he joked bluntly.
"Ha, I might even like you." Virox chuckled and we left down the hall where the most influential being in the Milky Way was waiting for us.
Unfortunately the Shadow Broker sent the last bunch of his troops in the area to stop us from reaching him. These troopers were different though. Even normal grunts were smarter, more accurate and their armor was heavier.
"Shepard, Broker's forces are rapidly breaking off the attack! Report!" Phantom Leader from the Shadow Team suddenly connected to me.
"We found Feron, but we'll need to get to the central operations where the Shadow Broker himself is waiting for us!" I anwsered him while hiding behind cover to avoid enemy fire. "If you can, try to slow his troops down so we can deal with their leader quickly."
"Fine! We wanted to do that, but I guess the honors are yours." he said with irritation. "Just don't screw this up. I don't want to explain your deaths to the Council."
"Copy." I ended the call and started to kill the mercs that were still standing on our way to the end of this madness. Fortunately they took a one-way trip to the Afterlife very fast. Not the club on Omega.
Finally there were two doors left to our objective and there was only one poor guy left to defend his master. Virox seemed to feel pity for him as he gave him a quick and not that painful death. Now it was time for the final encounter as I opened the door.
All three of us walked into the room and immediately saw a desk in front of us with something... big and weird sitting behind it. We pointed our pistols at the 'possible' Shadow Broker and waited for his reaction.
He was silent...
Still silent.
I started to get irritated by this, but fortunately he finally tried to establish some kind of communication.
"Here for the drell?" he asked with a low, yet calm voice. "Reckless, even for you, Commander."
Now that just triggered me. He blew up a building filled with innocent people, convinced a Spectre to work for him and didn't hesitate to sacrifice his troops for his own safety.
"That bombing on Illium wasn't exactly subtle." I replied him as calm as I could.
"Extreme, but necessary." Broker anwsered still calm as hell and it started to seriously annoy me.
"No it wasn't!" Liara shouted in anger. "Neither was caging Feron for two years!"
"Dr. T'Soni, your interference caused all this." he looked at her from the shadow. "Feron betrayed me when he handed you Shepard's body. The drell is simply paying a price."
"Someone was bound to come after you for working with the Collectors." I told him while keeping a cold expression.
"It was a mutually beneficial partnership." now the Broker seemed to play with us. "Enough talk. My operations are too crucial to be compromised by a traitor."
"You're quite confident for someone with nowhere left to hide." this time Liara went to teasing.
"You travel with fascinating companions, doctor." he said and looked at Virox. "I appreciate bringing me alive Carvin soldier. Not only we can preform autopsy, but also study the encryption they are using for the data."
At that moment Virox made a few growls with his insect-like mouth and tightened his grip on the rifle.
"You're not putting a hand on anyone!" Liara threatened and stepped a little closer to the Shadow Broker.
"It's pointless to challenge me asari. " he was still annoyingly calm. "I know your every secret, while you fumble in the dark."
"Oh just stop it!" I saw a quick flash in Virox's eye. It usually meant that he was going full teasing or full edgelord. I just never knew which one. "I saw one of your kind on Sur'Kesh, mister yahg. I guess your species aren't good for anything except autopsy or being a pet." a clear grin, accompanied by the eyes in evil expression, appeared on his face. "From the data on extranet I know that sixty years ago your homeworld was discovered. The Shadow Broker is known for his activity in the galaxy FAR before you could even leave your native planet, you primitive, insufferable piece of crap. So not a very good mind is needed to conclude that you must've killed the original Shadow Broker." at this moment yahg flinched a bit, but it was rather from irritation than fear. It seemed that this was the reaction Virox wanted as the grin on his face was getting bigger and bigger. "Don't feel bad. When you're gonna share the fate of Vasir, you won't need to bother with your job anymore. Just like her."
At that moment Broker stood up, showing us his true size. He was about a meter higher than Wrex, the biggest krogan I ever saw. I backed off a little as his intentions weren't obviously very friendly. And that move was good.
Shadow Broker suddenly slammed his fist at his desk, breaking it in half as a result. Then he grabbed one part and threw it at us. I predicted it just in time and pushed Liara out of the way, but the broken desk managed to hit Virox directly in the head.
I looked at him and he was now pinned to the wall by a big metal piece of the desk, but wasn't moving. There was no time for that though. Broker won't die by himself.
Virox's POV
'Ahh shit.' was my first thought after my brain started working again. 'That SOB is frickin' strong. '
But then, after most functions of my head were restored, the pain came. I realized how badly that desk hit me and that one of its metal parts was literally piercing my side and pinning me down to the wall.
Pain was unbearable. Seemingly through a fog, I could see Shepard and Liara shooting the Broker who was wielding some kind of machine gin.
I tried my best to liberate myself from that piece of metal, but the harder I tried to pull it out, the more pain I felt. At one point I felt like I was dying. Like I wanted to die. I begged for this to end.
But then my instincts of survival kicked in. I could literally hear Seviros' voice, years ago on the training saying: if you're going to die, make sure to take as much of these bastards with you.
That was it. My vision went red. Every second of pain was making me ten times more angry than normally. I didn't care if I'll bleed out here, as long as the Broker will go down with me.
I started pulling the metal harder, not paying attention to the pain. It was slowly coming out and when it finally did, I fell on the ground free and burning for revenge.
The Broker was hit hard by Shepard and Liara and I noticed a white, sparky bubble forming around him. Liara tried to shoot it, but it didn't work. I slowly decided to sneak on the Broker from behind.
"Shield...-netically sensitive!" through the rage I could hear the asari shouting, but it was not clear. "-ergy and... are bouncing off."
"Then we do this the hard way!" this time I heard Shepard very clear.
Even when enraged, I haven't lost all of my awareness. Like a wild predator, I finally took position behind the Shadow Broker and when he was paying attention on Shepard and Liara, I activated my knuckle blades, leaped into the air and landed on the Broker's back, stabbing him in result.
He screamed in pain and grabbed me by my cybernetic hand. I tried to escape, but he already threw me on the ground. I quickly stood up and took the pose of the enraged Carvin - I kept my profile low with hands widely on the right and left. My tail was above my head, ready to unleash a barrage of poison darts, or just to smash it at something.
Broker and I were circling around eachother and for some reason Liara and Shepard weren't interfering. Not that it was much of a problem though.
I finally decided to initiate the fight and quickly ran towards my enemy. Broker also did that, but I noticed something forming from his omni-tool. It was big and wide.
It turned out to be an omni-shield. I quickly dodged the swing and used my knuckle blades to stab the Broker in his leg. He cried from pain while I used my tail to smash all of its spikes at the yahg. He backed off a little, but I wasn't planning to let him have any sort of rest. When he reloaded his gun, I leaped into the air and launched my grappling hook at his head. Unfortunately the Broker managed to dodge that deadly strike and the hook hit his arm instead. I quickly pulled myself towards him and using my speed, I rammed into him, staggering him in the result.
But the Shadow Broker was smart and I knew it. When I was about to attack him again, he slammed his omni-shield at me and used it to pin me to the wall again. His strength wasn't letting me liberate myself this time, but fortunately Shepard and Liara came to rescue.
A good barrage of bullets and combat/biotic powers caught the Broker's attention, which resulted in releasing me. He turned around to face the Commander and that was his biggest mistake. I quickly stabbed him in the back with my knuckle blades.
Shadow Broker screamed in pain and backed off, knocking off Shepard and Liara by the way. He turned around and put up his omni-shield which was now making things a lot more complicated.
But there was nothing impossible for the Commander. He pulled out the Widow sniper rifle and aimed for the Broker's arm that was holding his machine gun. The projectile should've torn the target's hand off, but the yahg just dropped his weapon, while his hand was still in one piece.
'Ain't this just a son-of-a-bitch.' I thought and rushed towards the Broker again. But I calculated the danger badly as he did the exactly same thing. I couldn't match him with strength and after a second his omni-shield sent me flying across the room.
Fortunately that move made him exposed for the weapon fire. Shepard took out his Eviscerator shotgun and literally shot the yahg in the head. His shields absorbed the whole damage, but there was only his armor left. Commander dodged the shield attack and this time aimed for the back of the Broker. In the meantime Liara was attacking from the front and soon the freshly restored armor was quickly destroyed.
Shadow Broker put up his barrier again, which was the exact thing I was waiting for. When the protection bubble was up, I launched my grappling hook at the ceiling above the Broker. When I had enough speed, I deactivated the hook and flew straight at my future victim. The moment my knuckle blades connected with his body, another roar was heard.
'Can you just die?' I thought through the rage-filled mind.
Although he didn't plan on dying very soon. He grabbed me by my tail this time and threw at Shepard. We both hit the wall and the Broker picked up his machine gun. The firepower of this dangerous weapon forced Liara to find cover, as she was the only one of us standing. I noticed a thoughtful expression on her face, which gave me hope that this unholy monstrosity will finally die.
"If you can make him to bring up that shield again, I've got an idea!" she shouted to us and surprisingly I managed to hear this with no problem.
Shepard seemed to hear it as well and decided to end this fight quickly by pulling out the one and only... Collector Particle Beam.
If Commander was ever pulling out this gun, it meant that we were either in a bad spot or he was going to leave carnage behind him, all of our enemies being a part of it. Although the first option wasn't excluding the other.
And the beam was unleashed. My short-ranged scanners were detecting an instant evaporation of the Broker's shields and soon it was going for armor as well. I jumped on his back and kept stabbing him, until I could feel the flesh agfter every stab and smell the yahg blood. Shadow Broker backed off a bit and activated his shield again. That's what we were waiting for.
"Now Liara!" Shepard shouted.
She unleashed her biotic powers at the glass above us. It was blocking some kind of... 'water under voltage' from us.
'Wait! Water under voltage?' I suddenly realized and tried to jump away, but it was too late. The sparky liquid caught both me and the Broker, though I was far enough to only be badly electrified rather than blown up like him.
But it was still bad. That strange liquid caught my whole left arm and part of my organic torso near it. The high voltage immediately took out my already weakened shields so there was nothing to protect my exposed body. I lost feeling in my left hand and arm. Now my cybernetic implant was lifelessly hanging down. I felt dizzy from the electricity and sat down for a moment.
The moment has passed and suddenly I heard multiple voices speaking together. I looked towards the source and noticed the Broker's terminal. These were his contacts requesting update on what happened. It was clear than when Liara broke that glass, there was a short power circut. As I tried to stand up, Liara approached the communicator and started talking. I was hearing every word clearly.
"This is the Shadow Broker. The situation is under control. We've experienced power fluctuation while upgrading hardware. It disrupted communications momentarily" she said and I started thinking if she was prepared for this as well. "However we're now back online. Resume standard procedures. I want a status report on all operations within the next solar day." then she paused for a while. "Shadow Broker out."
I suddenly noticed Feron in the room. He probably broke free while the power went out for a moment. I was about to greet him, but then the door to the room opened and the whole Shadow Team ran inside and surrounded us. They were aiming their weapons at Liara, but ONLY her surprisingly. Everyone in the room looked at them in shock.
"Well, well, well." Phantom Leader chuckled quietly. "So you've decided to take the Broker's network for yourself?"
"Liara isn't a threat to any of us. Stand down!" Shepard stated, but they didn't react.
Trying to do something, I approached the Phantom Leader itself and punched his weapon off his hands with my functional right hand. Immediately everyone started to aim at me, but I suddenly felt a high load of energy going through my body.
"She... can... help us." I let out before falling on the floor unconcious. The last thing I saw were some members of the Shadow Team gathering around me along with Shepard. My vision was blurry and I realized that maybe this fight was too much for one day. Although there was nothing that could change the past. Now the best thing to do was to wait...
1 hour later, Normandy, Garrus' POV
Of all things that would happen on the Broker's ship, I wasn't expecting Virox to be out of fight, just because of a long fight. It was just not right. He was always ready for anything and never showed any sign of exhaustion during the fight. Now he had one limb out of action and was unconcious. He was brought onboard the Normandy by the Carvin commando unit on the levitating mini-bed, along with a metal hand. They immediately placed him in the med bay and had some talks with Dr. Chakwas. After that they left, but before they did, one of them used his wrist computer to literally overload every single bug, placed by Cerberus, on the deck 3.
After about half an hour from their departure from the Normandy, I went to the med bay to check on Virox. Dr. Chakwas had just woken him up.
"Wyat's up, Virox?" I said after entering the room. "Seems that the Broker punched you harder than you've expected."
"Ahh, shut up." he moaned and adjusted the position on the bed. Due to his tail, he needed to lie on either left or right side of his body. "It was Liara's fault. BUT I have managed to ride on the Broker's back."
I chuckled on that. If he was riding a Praetorian, the Shadow Broker himself, then there was nothing that could stop him. I suddenly noticed a datapad next to his bed and picked it up.
"What's that?" I asked curiously because it was written in a very strange language.
"An offer." he replied, though quieter this time.
"Of what?" I kept going.
Virox was silent for a moment, but then seemed to come back to reality, "These commandos you've seen... They wanted me to join them."
I froze. Of course Virox was a new teammate. Not everyone liked him either, but a thought of him leaving was filling me with fear and saddness.
"And what did you say?" I asked with hesitation.
He gave me a strange look like if I just fell off the sky. "Are you kidding!? Of course I declined the offer! I won't be leaving you any time soon."
I laughed on that, but decided to change the topic. "What's up with your hand?"
"Oh it was just damaged, but the wprost part is that the part of my nervous system, has been damaged exactly near the left arm." he explained. "Let's just say I'll be 'unarmed' during the process of healing." then he stopped and stood up. "Hey, why don't we get out of this room?"
We both left the med bay in silence and then Virox started to make sounds that were probably equivalents of sneezing for his species.
"Is Shepard in his cabin with Liara?" he asked between the two sneezes.
"Yeah, why do you ask?" I looked at him with surprise. "Should I ask EDI to get them here?"
"Haha, no." Virox chuckled. "I smell that they are in the middle of something important and shouldn't be interrupted.
I started at his weirdly, but after a moment I understood and smirked as well. They were during something important indeed and we should leave them be. For now.
A/N: Sorry it took me so long. Basically I couldn't find focus during this month because of very distracting events. Also Mass Effect Andromeda will be released in an hour from the moment I upload this chapter. Carry on everyone!
Bonker out!