Chapter 2.4: Highway to Hell
Saren paced back and forth in front of the massive doors that barred entry to the club. Over a minute had passed since Tali had started and while that was not a long time, they could not afford to wait. He turned to focus on the human psion Alma, who was studying her own omnitool. She was an extremely dangerous human, according to his sources, and a useful tool.
"Alma, can you open this quickly?" he asked.
Alma frowned for several precious seconds and nodded before turning her glowing amber eyes on Saren. "Yes, but I will need more psionic energy in order to avoid burnout."
Saren himself frowned. "Where can you get more quickly?" He had heard about those rare few psions who developed the ability to drain the minds, or as the more superstitious claimed, souls, of others to increase their own strength, however they typically all required close proximity to their target and there wasn't anyone he was willing to sacrifice at the moment to fuel her.
"I can reach some of the people still down in the concourse," Alma replied.
Most of them were a close to civilian as it came in Omega, though at this point there was a full blown riot going on as people were driven into rages by Alma's still-present aura.
Of course, at this point her minder interrupted from within his REV8 powered armor. "Listen, maybe we shouldn't be killing people just to make things go faster. That kind of thing makes enemies. And it might be wrong. If that matters."
Alma turned to him. "If we make enemies, then we will kill them as well."
Saren agreed, "She's right, with my support any enemies you make today will be no threat. Additionally, there's no reason for anyone here to feel guilty about this, they're all scum. They waste their lives on drugs, they wouldn't hesitate if our positions were reversed, and they are the kinds of people who sold children to Armacham and would do so again without hesitation."
Saren heard the human Jack sigh over the comms. "How long will the door take?"
"It looks like they've destroyed the door mechanisms and manually disconnected the interior network from the outside," Tali replied shakily as she hurriedly looked for some solution. "We can still get in through the garage if we meet up with the other team…"
Zaeed grunted. "We've wasted too much time. We need to keep up the pressure."
Kasumi nodded. "Time is not on our side, it's on Aria's and her army's. Do it Alma."
Alma glanced at Jack again, and when he didn't say anything she turned to focus on the remains of the Omega crowd about a hundred meters away. Saren watched closely as the rage consumed crowd continued to fight itself, the spirits that manifested due to her power, and the slowly trickling in soldiers of Aria. Saren noted that some of the spirits were demons, and chided himself for not noticing that earlier. It was somewhat worrying that she would be able to unconsciously manifest beings of such innate anger and malevolence, but unsurprising given her history. Her anger was palpable even though her aura was mostly spread out in the concourse below. He was slightly surprised at the sheer number of demons that were currently in the concourse, and the fact that it was still slowly growing. A psionic aura capable of sustaining more than a handful of weak spirits was rare, though it made sense given her estimated kill count in the reports he'd seen. He supposed that he was lucky that she had such poor control over her power. Otherwise she might actually be able to direct or control the monsters, and maybe even manifest a greater demon like Hell Knight.
It took just over two seconds for Alma to start 'feeding' on the crowd. On by one their heads started exploding, which quickly drew notice, subtly though it was. Some decided to focus their fire towards Saren and his team, while the more intelligent chose to flee while they had the chance. Saren chose to stand there for the next minute while Alma methodically drained anyone who tried to attack them or was nearby.
When she was done the concourse was empty of life for slightly over a hundred feet around the group, though fighting continued at the far end and the various side entrances.
Alma turned to the door and focused as her eyes slowly shifted from burning crimson to glowing amber.
Saren could feel the power building around the human child without any psionic ability, and he could even see the air around her warp. The power coiled around her and the ceramic plating of the floor cracked as the distortions in the air grew.
And then she unleashed the built up power into the door.
~+~B:F/M~+~
Aria had not been the one to commission the blast doors for the Afterlife. That honor went to the Patriarch, who had built for himself a citadel within his stronghold that was the Omega station. The doors were thick enough to serve as ship-borne armor because it was supposed to serve as protection against enemy vessels back when Omega itself was only just starting to become a major trade hub. All in all, it was many thousands of kilograms several meters thick. While Aria had changed the Patriarch's Citadel significantly over the centuries after her acquisition of it and the city, the blast doors themselves had not been significantly altered. Beyond the doors was a set of large airlocks for added security, though Aria usually left them open. Beyond the airlocks was the rest of the entryway, once a kill zone for attacking invades, it was now an open hallway overlooked by balconies so that club-goers could hang out and watch newcomers from above.
Soldiers, Replicas and drones had taken up positions in the balconies while turrets had unfolded from the walls and ceiling. More Replicas and drones set up barriers and cover on the floor of the hallway itself to hold their opponents in place while their allies poured fire into them from above.
This strategy was subpar in handling the blast doors exploding through the airlocks and smashing first into the balconies on each side and then into the barriers and defenders on the floor.
Modern technology was not prone to catching fire, but in the circumstances they tried their best to.
While the soldiers and Replicas recovered from the massive psionic attack, the turrets in ceiling and the ones surviving on the walls of the entryway opened fire into the cloud of dust and debris which floated in the air over the remains of the entrance to the Afterlife.
Missiles streaked out of the clouds as a bone white figure with glowing blue line upon it burst out and biotically charged up onto one of the still-standing balconies. It then sent out a wave of biotic force to knock the nearby Replicas off their feet as it fired its two large weapons from each hand, each of the guns easily as big as the figure. It proceeded to gun down every Replica and drone nearby before proceeding into the corridor that the balcony was connected too.
On the entryway's floor, a squad of Replica moved forward behind cover. Their goal was to secure a position behind one of the fallen blast doors so that they could suppress further enemy advances. They were currently behind one of the wide deployable floor panels that had risen when the alarms had gone off. The Replica selected to go first checked the battlefield display in order to confirm that there were no hostiles ready to open fire and then bust from cover, running to the door ten meters away. It slid into place and crouched behind the mangled pieces of cover.
The three Replicas on overwatch identified three Turians and a human moving out of the cloud and into cover behind wreckage. The three Replicas provided suppressing fire while the others moved up. By the time the hostiles started returning fire the rest of the survivors in the entryway had taken positons and began to open up.
And then the Replicas that had moved up were killed in a high yield explosion which detonated just behind them.
The three overwatch Replicas began searching for whoever had deployed the explosive as an Ogre combat drone began to move up. Suddenly the Ogre turned and began opening fire on the Replicas as its IFF tag switched to the one the hostiles were using. The Replicas barely had time to react before phased SMG rounds tore through their armor from behind.
By the time the commander of the forces on the entryway's bottom floor could organize a response, most of the drones were under the control of Saren's force and there was a stealthed attacker setting explosives and ambushing heavy weapons units.
The situation deteriorated further when after the dust cloud had mostly settled a REV8 and a psion cleared the rubble of the airlocks and began to rain death on the defenders.
Aria cursed. "Pull back our people and set off the demolition charges!"
~+~B:F/M~+~
Jack wasn't happy. Alma seemed to be rather unconcerned with the fact she had fainted after destroying the doors of the Afterlife, while he was steadily becoming more certain that working with Seren was the wrong idea. He was all in favor of killing people who were a problem, but killing bystanders, even if they were rioting, didn't seem right. Maybe it had to do with the fact that of rest of the assembled group only Tali was seemingly concerned with such things.
At least he wasn't the moral compass of the group. That would have been worrying. Not that it seemed to matter who the moral compass was since no one paid it any mind.
He sighed and sent another laser blast into a group of Replicas.
"Are you bored, Jack?" Alma asked on their comms from where she stood next to his mech on top of the twisted and torn metal that was the remains of the front entrance's airlocks.
"No," Jack replied, "I'm just annoyed that they pressured you into killing those people."
"I did not mind."
Jack pinched the bridge of his nose, glad the psionic shielding of the mech kept Alma from sensing his annoyance. "I'm concerned with the fact that they view people so callously."
"Do not worry, they deserved to die. I know this because I am the one that consumed their psionic energy," Alma reassured him. "They were hostile to us and would not have hesitated to attack."
Jack sighed again. "Didn't we have something to do with that?"
"They wanted us dead then and that is what matters."
"I…guess?"
Alma, satisfied that Jack understood and would stop worrying over something irrelevant like that, returned her focus to draining the psionic energy of their nearby enemies so that she could gather up enough power to launch another major attack.
Then Tali cried out over the comms, "Aria's trying to set off explosives in the entryway! We need to go through now or we'll be caught outside by her people or in here when her people find a way past what I've done!"
"Right, anything else we should know about to make this more fun?" Jack asked sarcastically.
"I think I saw some Blue Suns outside the concourse with Aria's soldiers."
"A few additional mercs makes all the difference out there," Jack said.
Alma sent out a riptide blast which tore apart a balcony's supports and set it tumbling to the floor. "We shall clear the way forward quickly," she stated as she began to move forward, continuing to pick off individual Replicas or soldiers.
Jack followed, using his mech to both draw fire and take down heavily armored targets. It was tense, in what was only two minutes according to the clock in his REV8, they managed to make it to the sealed doors that led into the main floor of the club.
"They're fighting harder than ever, but I have this and the security systems won't take a moment," Tali told the group.
"I'm glad we brought you along," Kasumi told her after appearing out of thin air behind the girl. "Even I'm not that fast."
Tali nodded and after several tense seconds the doors opened, revealing a club transformed. Tables were overturned, trash littered the floor and Replicas were waiting behind anything that ever even looked like cover. And then dozens of turrets folded out of the floor, walls and ceiling followed by hovering combat drones flying out of hatches that opened in ceiling and walls.
The sound system was still blasting electronic music with bass beats before pausing and an Asari's voice carrying booming through the club. "This is your last dance, Saren"
"Then it's time to bust a move," Jack replied before firing a volley into the main floor as the turrets turned on the defenders and the club was filled with a storm of techno beats and gunfire.
~+~B:F/M~+~
Saren blasted through a club wall screaming and landed in the middle of the dance floor, releasing an explosive burst of biotics on impact and sending Replicas and soldiers flying.
He snarled and opened fire into the surrounding enemies, his handheld weapons and shoulder mounted missiles tearing through the meager cover of the dance floor even as more panels fold up out of the floor to protect the surprised defenders.
When he saw several were behind a continuous row of panels, he Charged through it, knocking them back so he could gun them down.
Behind his helmet he smirked as he continued his rampage. He had been continuously fighting for the past several minutes now and his state of the art power armor had yet to drop below ninety percent kinetic barrier integrity.
When the Replicas and soldiers quickly scattered in order to reduce the effectiveness of his charges, he shifted focus to using ranged biotic attacks like singularity. Even if they got through his first kinetic barrier, he had two backups, each just as powerful.
He wanted to draw fire away from his allies so that his own forces could maintain maximum cohesion as long as possible. He'd learned that was better than having to take down enemy bases alone. Not more fun mind, but easier.
Suddenly he was knocked off of his feet and sent crashing through a panel behind him. He rolled and came up shooting at the figure in power armor before him. His opponent's bulky power armor was patterned white and black and was a Batarian design, so Saren guessed that it was probably Aria's Batarian lieutenant, not that it mattered. The armor has thick, heavy, large, and equipped with large rocket jets on its back. In its hands was a large shotgun with a barrel the size of the human child's head.
Saren biotically charged, knocking the Batarian back slightly. Suddenly a warning flashed on his HUD as a large omniblade erupted from the Batarian's left gauntlet and cut into Saren's right hand gun.
Saren snarled and leapt back but the Batarian rocketed forward, leading with his firing shotgun. A bang and Saren's first barrier broke. Saren charged to the other side of the Batarian and whirled, firing his remaining gun and emptying his missile pods while creating his own omniblade for his right hand.
As the Batarian turned, Saren lunged onto his back and shoved his blade into the Batarian's head.
Saren leapt back, smirking as the battle raged on either side of the dance floor.
The Batarian staggered with the hole in his helmet, before spinning and firing the oversized and obviously Krogan shotgun into Saren, knocking down a good chunk of the his second barrier's integrity.
"Fake head, Turian," the Batarian sneered.
Saren snarled. This would take longer than hoped.
~+~B:F/M~+~
Jack found that even with his mech's durability, it was simply taking too much fire, even with the massive distraction what was Saren on the dance floor. With the mech's self-repair both relatively slow and low on material, he couldn't afford to risk letting it get destroyed after it took a hit from an anti-armor rocket.
So he opened the mech and dived out into the firefight. He wasn't psionically strong but he had been taught some neat tricks by the ominous evil voices that were apparently just one entity.
Reaching out with his mind he found a psionic grip on the bar ahead of himself. Then he pulled, launching himself forward as he fired wildly from his SMG. He hit the bar with a grunt and rolled over it, landing next to a Replica. It aimed at him, so he focused on another skill he'd learned and started tearing out its psionic essence. A second later its body fell to the floor headless and Jack experienced a rush of energy.
"Man, now I know why Alma does this so much," Jack said grinning as he psionically gripped his next victim.
After his third, he was laughing maniacally as red sparks danced in his eyes.
~+~B:F/M~+~
Zaeed glared at the dozens of Replicas and soldiers on the left side of the club. Before switching to his trusty assault rifle Anabelle. She had been with him through thick and thin for almost a decade and when he used her, it was practically another limb.
He snapped it up and fired a burst into the head of Replica, sending it down.
He saw Alma step forward. "Stay back, girl," he growled. "You're supposed to hang back!"
She glanced at him before gesturing towards their opponents and unleashing a psionic riptide followed by a blast of force which sent tables, people and bottles flying.
She looked back at him expectantly.
He grunted and kept shooting.
~+~B:F/M~+~
Saren gritted his teeth and he shoved his left-hand omniblade into the Batarian's right arm. He needed to break the Batarian's grip before he crushed Saren's helmeted head.
Before Saren could react, a massive knee plate was driven into is torso's armor, cracking it.
"You can't win," the Batarian taunted.
"You're right, I will," an annoyingly familiar human voice said from behind the Batarian.
As the brute started to turn, a directed explosion went off on his back, detonating his jetpack and sending Saren sprawling on the ground.
Saren shook his head clear and glared up as he tried to stand in his damaged armor. "I had him," he spat out.
Kasumi stood with one foot on the Batarian's smoking corpse with a hand on her cocked hip and he could feel her smirk through her concealing black helmet. "Then I guess I stole you kill, that I'm a kill thief if you will."
He ignored her comment and finished standing. The club was in ruins at this point as hacked turrets and drones helped Saren's team clean up any remaining resistance. The left side was a mess caused by the shredding of the riptide power combined with the force of Alma's regular blasts while the right side was in almost worse shape with most of the corpses headless and a blood-spattered and cackling Jack surrounded by corpses on the far end of the main floor.
Saren, satisfied with the situation, turned back to Kasumi, who was examining the halves of the Batarian lieutenant's shotgun. She glanced at him and explained, "Wrex would have liked this."
"Too bad," Saren replied. "Now we need to go down."
~+~B:F/M~+~
Having been given the green light to go all out, the director of the research and development division decided to release their combat oriented experiments in an attempt to sew further chaos. The beings were mostly either natural monsters from around the galaxy or necromorphs, all of which had been biologically and cybernetically enhanced.
Those creations with which it was feasible were then painted with the colors and decals of various factions with presences around Omega station, including but not limited to: the Citadel Council, Armacham, Hyperion, the UAC, the Salarian Union, the Illumniati (Reformed), the Catholic Church (Roman, Traditional and Edenic), the Batarian Hegemony, the Patriarchy, the Athemite Order, the Illium Conglomerate, and the Taiidan Empire.
The R and D director smirked. With this false flag operation, there was no way that Umbrella could be stopped in time. There was no way they could fail now!
~+~B:F/M~+~
In Omega, it was uncommon but not unusual for someone particularly unlucky or stupid to wind up dead at the side of a street. Klin, a poor Drell, was used to this and took the occasionally to take advantage of the opportunity to loot corpses and sell the gear to a fence.
So when he saw the corpse of a Turian, he quickly ran over to see what he could take. He saw the Turian's pistol and his experience with the occasionaly corpse informed him that this was likely a suicide. He'd noticed that there had been quite a few of those recently, and while it gave him a bad feeling, he still needed to go about his life.
He had seen a lot of strange things in Omega, but he completely taken off guard when the corpse started twitching after Klin had picked up the Turian's left hand to look at his omnitool.
It would however be one of the last things he saw on Omega.
~+~B:F/M~+~
A/N: Sorry if the action scenes seem a bit short. I had trouble writing them. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it. Next chapter is Aria versus the Team.
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