Chapter 9

Kasumi, Samara and Legion walked through the alley ways of Nos Astra trying to weave and duck through tight gaps, conscious of a lone follower somewhere whose gaze was upon them. They went pass the alleys and into the large crowds of shopping plazas but the stalker was always close behind no matter where they went. When the team was in the very centre of the large crowd a gunshot was fired and everyone in the area cowered down with their heads in their arms panicking. The Normandy trio ducked down as well but they were able to stay calm. Kasumi stared the shooter in the eye, the same creepy stalker who had been following her and her squad who was now holding a carnifex up in the air with his left hand. He snapped his fingers with his free hand and several men clad in the same Cerberus arms and armour used by the operatives Shepard, Tali and Reegar had fought on Elohi. The men and women swarmed in, avengers at the ready shooting any asari that poked their head up but leaving the humans alive, typical of the pro human organization. Two of the Cerberus ops stood above the trio while the stalker in the lawsuit came up behind the two of them holding a data pad and scanning through the files he possessed.

"Are these the two?" The operative on his right asked. He continued to scan through his data pad for five seconds before he put it away and nodded his head.

"Kasumi Goto, master thief, and Justicar Samara. It's them." The stalker replied approvingly.

"What about the synthetic?" The operative to his left asked. The stalker eyed Legion curiously, who then tilted his head at the organic in response before the stalker was able to recapture his line of thought.

"That's the geth platform Shepard found. Pity he didn't hand it over," the stalker replied maliciously. Capture them, the Illusive Man wants to deal with them himself.

"Hoorah!" another op called out as he and some other ops came with him holding electric cuffs in their hands ready to restrain the trio, "another victory for Styx Company!"

"I knew it," Kasumi stated snidely, earning a hard pistol whip to her upper back from a Styx Mercenary behind her. Samara sprung up trying to hit her captors with a reave field but she was kicked back by a mercenary and then zapped by a strange orange glow from her omni-tool.

"Damping tech," the female merc called out arrogantly, "that's your biotics gone for a while."

"You will not go unpunished for what you've done," Samara threatened quietly, keeping her calm composure.

"We'll see about that, alien bitch," the stalker replied uninterested, "take them away." The mercenaries forced the squad to their feet and began hauling them away from the plaza to wherever Styx Company had in mind for the team. Only minutes passed, but minutes was all Kasumi needed to formulate a plan of escape, both for her and her squad mates. Discreetly, she began to tweak the cuffs binding her wrists, sometimes getting shocked by the electricity but she was tough enough to not let anyone see the irritation in her face. When she looked up she saw the ship she and her squad were being hauled into and it was only a few seconds away, meaning it was only going to be a few seconds before all was lost. Kasumi, however, was able to undo her shackles a few paces away from the port, and when she did she spread her wrists apart to fling them into the faces of the jailors next to her, turned around at light speed to roundhouse kick another Styx mercenary in the right cheek, and chucked a flashbang into the air, blinding everyone around her except for herself as she covered her eyes, and quickly got her squad away from the heart of the blinded enemy formation and behind a wall up a few steps away a good distance away from them. By the time the mercs were able to focus on their surroundings again Kasumi had taken two of them out with her beloved locust. The remaining mercs all got behind walls, columns, public furniture, and whatever else they could hide behind to avoid her locust fire while reinforcements rushed out of the Styx Company ship before it flew off somewhere into the distance. The mercenaries fired at Kasumi's position as she lowered her head behind cover pinned down by the heavy suppressing fire of the mercs, which disorientated her mind, wrecking it with instability, and she was unable to make any clear decisions and instead just hesitated behind her thick chest high wall. Luckily, Samara regained her concentration just in time from Kasumi's flashbang and skidded into cover right next to her thief companion to pull three of the mercs into the air with her biotics, letting them drift up into the air helplessly before she flared her biotics up once again to throw them off over the high edge and down to the city below Nos Astra with unrelenting force. Legion had also recovered and had sniped his fair share of humans through walls and cover with his powerful widow, sometimes even taking out two or three adversaries with only one bullet. As legion lined up his next shot a hostile bullet impacted on where his right shoulder was, which would've blown his arm off had it not been for his shields, but the impact of the shot was enough to knock him down onto his back.

"Legion," Samara called out, concerned but calm."

"This platform has sustained no damage," Legion replied blankly as he got back up and pressed himself up against the chest high wall. Kasumi peeped out of cover to see that there were only about eight men left on the ground and none of them had been using anything more powerful than an avenger, but on a five storey building parallel to the enemy, a fair distance away, there was a sniper team on the very top with a massive precision rifle mounted on the edge on some sort of heavy utility set-up manned by three men.

"Guys, there are snipers on top of this building here," Kasumi relayed to her team beside her as she pointed to a building on her map on her omni-tool HUD.

"There is a high statistical probability of death should we try and engage them in a frontal approach," Legion informed.

"Kasumi, try a flanking approach, we'll cover you," Samara ordered. Kasumi did as she was told, sticking to the shadows to remain unseen from the snipers. Samara rose up slightly to use reave on the ground team in front of her but only caught one merc as the rest had retreated further back away from the plaza and into the main city to avoid taking too much fire now that their numbers had been halved. Samara could feel when the next shot was about to be fired, and she threw up a defensive field just in time to deflect a shot which would've gone right through her barriers and her rib cage otherwise. Legion tried sending a combat drone to harass the snipers to keep them off Samara while she engaged the grunts on the ground but the snipers were prepared for the drone and one of them overloaded the drone to malfunction before it was able to shock anyone. The shooter of the team was lining up his next shot with his mounted widow, who planned to take out Samara and damage Legion in one bullet, but when he pulled the trigger the gun wouldn't fire. He made sure he had ejected a thermal clip, but still the gun wouldn't fire. By the time he realized that the magazine in the gun was removed a mysterious gloved hand had pulled him over the edge and he fell down screaming as he hit the ground with a loud sickly crack. Before his team was able to react Kasumi somersaulted up from the ledge she hung onto and landed on the roof, right beside the enemy with perfect balance, surprising any logical sense out of her foes. One of the snipers tried to strike her across the face but she raised her forearm up to parry the blow, and then swiftly ducked and danced around behind him, striking him once behind his knee with her elbow and again in the mid back with her fist. As he was stunned she grabbed him around his neck using him as a meat shield as the other sniper unloaded 12 shots into his own comrade with his predator. As he tried to eject a thermal clip Kasumi took out her own locust and unloaded bullet after bullet at him, ejecting a thermal clip of her own only after her foe lay dead. Kasumi took long breath, having never realized how skilled she was in a fight, but her moment of triumph had to be cut short as there was still a fight raging back on the ground. She gazed into the distance to see Styx Company's number of men were dwindling and being pushed back further but still led by their commander as Samara and Legion pushed forward using biotics and tech attacks alike to get an advantage. Kasumi knew that her friends might need her help once again so she jumped and climbed from building to building, making sure she remained unseen by Styx Company.

As she ran across on a building a bullet from nowhere hit her shields, and surprised, she quickly skidded behind a durable looking fan for cover. As she took a glimpse around the corner a shuttle was flying above her, rolling with blood pack colours. Kasumi grunted in frustration, and thought that Styx Company must've kept Blood Pack on the payroll just in case something like this happened. The shuttle door opened and two krogan jumped down armed with scimitar shotguns and they started blasting away at Kasumi but the fan in her way left her unharmed. Pressured by the approaching krogan, Kasumi darted away and jumped to another building directly next to her and ran up further than the krogan could cover quickly. She jumped behind a steel crate which happened to be lying around and pulled out her predator as the krogan came charging. As they jumped down to the roof she was now occupying, Kasumi grinned to herself maliciously as one krogan, who was just about to charge turned sharply to his left as a rotating disc popped up from the ground and blew up in a bright orange explosion in his face which set his armour on fire. Shocked, he ran around panicking until he bumped his foot on a ledge, which caused him to fall forward off the roof, out of sight and out of the game. The other krogan went charging in as he kept his calm, so to speak, but when he darted around Kasumi's cover she was no longer there. As he turned around Kasumi materialized into the real world right in front of him and stabbed a knife right into the gap of his helmet, pushing him into the wall as she did, and, using all her might, she pried his helmet right off his head and pointed her locust right in his unprotected face. The krogan was trembling in fear, his hands in the way of his face as he cowered, his eyes closed and turning his head way from the thief.

"Please… don't!" the krogan begged, not knowing what else to say. Kasumi was not unmerciful, but Shepard was never hesitant to finish off slavers and mercenaries when he had the chance, because he believed they deserved it. Kasumi, not seeing any reason to spare her captive, followed Shepard's example of dealing with criminals and let a bullet fly into his eye and he dropped down dead with a huge thud. She wiped the sweat off her forehead in relief but once again her sense of victory was cut off as her omni-tool started beeping with a message from Samara and Legion.

"Kasumi," Samara greeted under dire circumstances, "Styx Company has the Blood Pack on their side, we need you here immediately."

"Priority target heavily protected," Legion informed, "we require assistance to apprehend him."

"Just hang on I'm coming," Kasumi declared as she sped from roof to roof, leapt from building to building till she caught up with her team back on the ground, though she remained on the roof tops to flank the enemy, raining fire down with her locust, whose bullets either bounced off the krogan or were out regenerated by vorcha, but killed all the remaining Styx Company ops. The Styx Company Commander fired two shots at Kasumi as he fled but she was able to dodge the incoming bullets. Samara reaved apart the heavy armour of the krogan who were clad together tightly, Legion sniped most with his widow, and Kasumi finished off the rest. The remaining vorcha did their best to put up a fight to their deaths but Kasumi, noticing a Pyro amongst them, overloaded his tanks with her omni-tool and it exploded, incinerating all but two of the vorcha, one who was sniped by Legion and the other was biotically flung into a wall by Samara and his neck was snapped on impact. Kasumi jumped down and pointed in the direction the target had run for her team to see.

"This way, hurry!" she shouted as she sprinted after him, with Samara and Legion not very far behind. The Commander sprinted away from the Normandy team as fast as he could, looking back to see Samara and Legion chasing him relentlessly but Kasumi had disappeared. Whatever the thief had planned he believed he would be ready for it, despite his operatives and hired muscle being dead. He sped round a corner, hoping to lose his pursuers amongst the crowd that had suddenly appeared but as he turned Kasumi had materialized right in front of him and attempted to clothesline him but he rolled forward avoiding the blow. Kasumi retaliated by karate chopping him in the back of the head as he tried to run which disorientated him long enough for her to step in front of him to block off his path. He turned around to escape only to see Samara flaring up blocking his new intended path. To his right was a building, so he turned to his left only to see Legion facing him, supposedly idle, but that only seemed so because he was an AI. Desperate, he took a swing at Kasumi but she ducked and flipped him on his arse, who then, along with her team, all pointed their heavy pistols directly at him.

"Shit, what do you want?' the Commander asked sarcastically.

"Information," Legion replied.

"Specifics?" the Commander criticized as if Legion had just asked a stupid question.

"It's somewhat strange that Cerberus would try and steal eezo from the Migrant Fleet isn't it?" Kasumi asked playfully, "what do you want this time?"

"I not telling you squat, traitor," the Commander protested as he swallowed. Samara biotically threw the team's captive into a wall then clutched at his collar, holding him up as his limbs dangled helplessly in the air.

"Styx's Company's plans, your life hangs on the answer," Samara threatened. However the man was unable to respond, no matter how many times Samara struck him, he made no noise, and his limbs and head would just flop around. Legion took a medical scan with his omni-tool to see what was wrong.

"Target is eliminated. There are traces of cyanide in his body," Legion informed. Samara dropped the human's dead body. There were many bystanders watching the trio in shock because it looked like the team had killed him, but the police who were watching, all Asari, recognized Samara as a Justicar and turned a blind eye.

"Didn't Mordin say something about this?" Kasumi asked, already knowing the answer.

"We'll warn Garrus and his team," Samara suggested, "to make they find a work around." Kasumi was trying to hack the dead Commander's omni-tool but seconds within the process it malfunctioned and shattered into bits on the ground, and Kasumi was no longer able to retrieve any information from its memory banks; it was destroyed.

"Good idea," Kasumi replied.

-And that is the next chapter finally out. Sorry for the wait guys, especially sense I'm still having trouble getting into the minds of some characters during certain situations. More to come, so review, favourite and follow for more. Cheers!

-Frostbrandt