I blinked. Leet blinked. Uber blinked. Everyone stood still, waiting.
Nothing happened.
"That," Renegade said wryly as he tilted his helmet gesturing to the camera drones, "would have been a lot more dramatic, had it actually worked."
Leet snorted. "And what was supposed to happen?"
"Well, the first idea was a homemade flash grenade. Ground aluminum, a few things from a local pharmacy. Pretty surprising really what you can do with a few odds and ends."
The omni-tool sprang to life on Leets arm. Everyone looked to him in surprise.
I could hear the smile in Renegade's voice as he continued. "But this idea was more fun. Tali always got a kick out of doing it to Garrus."
A few of henchmen jumped at the computerized feminine voice that started speaking. It's accent was strange. Had a weird perky, slightly echoing, rolling quality to it. I never heard anything like it. "Program: Chatika vas Paus; Upload complete. Deploying Combat Drone."
Suddenly some kind of hollow sphere thing appeared. Lines of blue and orange sort of defined itexcept for what I took to be the front. It looked like some kind of lens made up of the bluish colored lines.
It spun around so it 'faced' Uber spitting out what looked like a small bolt of lightning. I was stunned by the speed and accuracy as the arc impacted directly into the uncovered part of Uber's helmet.
And just like that, it was chaos.
Uber screamed in pain. I dove to my right as Leet pulled the trigger. It gave off some kind of loud noise like battleship guns do in space movies where sound isn't supposed to travel. I rolled with my dive commanding my bugs to fall in an insect torrent everywhere. Minions cursed, screamed, and panicked while Renegade laughed.
I heard whatever Leet shot at me sizzle overhead as I rolled away. As I got back to my feet I awkwardly extended the baton to its full length. I didn't spare the time to see if it did what they said it would do. However, Renegade's actions stopped me from doing what I planned to Leet.
"Go for the optics, Chatika!" Renegade commanded still laughing madly. "Go for the optics!" A short rush that ended in a flying tackle carried both him and Leet away from my peripheral vision.
I swallowed thickly fighting the urge to help him. We talked about this being a possibility and I had to trust he could handle his part. Just like he trusted me to handle my end. Besides, before I could have taken a step in that direction I had deal with my own current issue. I watched one of the bigger of Uber's henchmen rush me. He was covered in my bugs doing the best he could to ignore what they were doing to him. As he pulled back his huge arm to swing at me, I acted.
He was half blinded, hurting, and panicked which put all the advantages in my court as I was calm and waiting. My own swing was faster, far more accurate and very effective. I sidestepped putting everything I had into it. I didn't even feel bad as my strike hit him in the chest getting a sickening crunch from the impact. I mean, this guy was huge! Beside, these assholes were going to lock us in a fucking box with nothing but Pac-Man to keep busy for fucks sake. They deserved this, and a whole lot more. I watched as he dropped like a brick letting out a weak wheeze. I turned my attention to the rest of the fight. He wasn't going anywhere.
Keep them on the defensive, Renegade told me yesterday. Keep them guessing, keep them too occupied to think straight until they submit. Renegade's drone, twittering little electric beeps that kinda sounded like a midi file, was still going strong. Floating around the room and randomly blasting anyone brave enough stand. Or try to. Screams trailed in its wake, and those unlucky ones that it missed had the pleasure of dealing with me.
My bugs kept the pressure on them biting and trying to crawl into the costumes of anyone who moved. Anything to keep them on the defense and not rushing Renegade or me. Using the abundant distractions I ran from one target to the next taking swings at anyone standing. For the first few moments of the fight the two of us kept everyone on the ground.
Renegade's fight with Leet was less a fight than a one sided beating. As I wove through the chaos my bugs and the drone created I saw Renegade take the gun from Leet. He spun the weapon expertly in his hand reversing his grip before using it to strike Leet across the head. A casual toss sent it flying far away from the fight. With Leet stunned Renegade didn't have any trouble removing the omni-tool from Leet's arm before equipping it to his own arm.
I turned away noticing Uber climbing to his knees from the last drone attack. He was still holding that ray gun of his so I swung downward with the baton. He screamed as it connected. I watched dispassionately as he rolled onto his back cradling his arm. He deserved so much more for his stupid box idea but I backed off. "We happy Renegade?"
His return chuckle answered me. "Very Matriarch. I think we've overstayed our welcome though."
"Then, I think we should go." I suggested backing toward the exit.
I made it to the door first with Renegade only a few steps behind me. The henchmen were swarmed but unmoving which was what I intended. Most had figured out that if they stayed still the bugs wouldn't bite. I'm sure everyone had the sensation of having a lot of bugs crawling on them at one point or another, but these bugs moved with a human intelligence. They worked together, moving with a purpose instead of mindlessly where instinct directed them. I could only imagine what the experience was like for anyone but me.
I left the building at a run. I doubted we would have much time to make our getaway and I wanted to be long gone before those idiots figured out all the bugs were non-poisonous. I was only half way to the bike when I felt a tug of serious disorientation that confused the hell out of me. For a moment the world seemed to spin. I stumbled almost falling on my face as I couldn't seem to grasp what was up or down. Everything tilted, skewed weirdly. I probably would have fallen if Renegade didn't catch me as I pitched forward.
"Easy now. What's wrong?" He asked concerned.
"Dizzy. Everything's spinning…"
He was quiet a moment as I reeled. "Can you sense what your bugs do?"
"What? Yeah, I can. Not everything, it's too much. Some though…"
"Shit, sorry." Renegade apologized. "Should have warned you but you didn't tell me you could sense things through your bugs. You only mentioned control. Can you let go? If you can that should put you right." He assured me.
I couldn't really, but I could filter those specific bugs out of my I did I immediately everything settled back to right. It helped that I still had some bugs out here in the open to center me. I shook my head. "What the hell did you do?"
"I threw a singularity in the room as I left." I looked to the warehouse. I could see green, red and blue lights crazily spinning about through one of the broken windows like some kind of creepy silent disco. "Basically a gravity well of sorts. Grabs anything not anchored down or too heavy. Flings it about for a while."
"You can create black holes?" I asked stunned.
"Singularities." He corrected. He gave me one more look making sure I was steady before he let go of me. "Pretty common use for dark energy by Asari Commandos and humans who undergo Adept Training. Great crowd control technique if you're looking for battlefield dominance, or just looking to buy time." he explained as he climbed onto the bike before kicking it to life.
"I thought we agreed to no life threatening attacks unless necessary?" I half accused as I glared at him.
"What? It's not lethal. Unstable yeah, but not lethal. They'll survive..."
Suddenly the warehouse shook from some kind of explosion. A body shattered the boards over the broken window facing us. It rolled a few times before coming to a stop in the parking area not far from us. It was Mr. Gerry. He didn't move.
I spun to look back at Renegade.
"...probably."
I opened my mouth to say something but the voices in the building grabbed my attention. Renegade revved the bike a couple of times looking at me silently. Waiting.
I climbed on. As we peeled out I turned to look back at Mr. Gerry. Despite the fact we were on opposite sides tonight, I really hoped he was alright.
"We really need to work on our communication skills." I said as we raced into the night. "When I said no killing, that also included not almost killing people too!"
"They'll be fine." Renegade assured me. Or, it would have been assuring if he wasn't chuckling to himself. "I know an asari bartender who used them on rowdy customers all the time. No fatalities unless you count that guy she beat to death with his own spine. Though in all fairness, that wasn't the singularity itself."
"His...own spine?"
"Only happened a few times." Renegade defended. "Made the customers nervous. She's half krogan. Has her father's temper, though from what I heard her mother wasn't exactly the 'little miss homemaker' type."
I rode quietly behind him, just staring at the back of his helmet. After an uncomfortable moment he cleared his throat before he continued. "That was one of those things that's supposed to be wrong, isn't it?"
"Entirely." I answered dryly as I looked back to make sure they weren't following us.
"Sorry." He muttered half halfheartedly.
I sighed. Now I felt bad. I changed topics tabling this for the moment. We'd deal with this later. "You knew it was a trap, didn't you?"
"Pretty sure it would turn out that way." He confirmed.
"Then why go through all that shit? Why didn't we just take them out from the start?"
"Wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. The camera drones would have worked just like I explained had they did keep up their end of things." Renegade explained as we turned the corner taking one of the main roads out of the docks. It was still going to take a while before we were 'in the clear' but at least we were well on our way.
"And the drone? How the hell did you do that?"
My question made him laugh. "I had the upload buried in the camera drone's operational codex. Like Tali, I set it to act like an extranet buoy so it would bypass the omni-tool's firewalls. I figured if Garrus couldn't figure out that exploit, Leet wouldn't. Tali did that to Garrus whenever he pissed her off. Which, seemed to be fairly often. She'd download porn mostly into his omni-tool, though she messed with his load outs a few times too."
"Porn?" I couldn't help but ask. I felt my cheeks heating up, but I had to admit that did sound funny.
"Oh yeah, by the terabytes. Some of the things I heard him complaining about during our shuttle drops, scary stuff." He finished with a disturbing chuckle as he turned slightly to me.
I turned forward giving a half chuckle before I gasped. It was stupid but I pointed forward and screamed, "Look out!"
Were it was clear a moment ago, it wasn't now. Renegade snapped his head forward just in time to see what I did.
"Whoa!"
My arm grasped his side in a white knuckle death grip. The bike jerked slightly in his surprise but he didn't lose control. Instead, Renegade jerked his left arm to the side sending the figure that was practically on top of us flying into the building we were passing. It happened so quick I didn't even see what happened to them but I heard the sounds of breaking glass. It wasn't hard to figure it out.
"Was that a fucking clown with a sledgehammer?" He asked me a moment later as we barreled down the road.
"...yeah." My heart was still beating ridiculously fast from the near miss. I looked back as we turned another corner. The only evidence that it wasn't some kind of hallucination was the broken window I saw illuminated by the sole working street light. That and the sledgehammer that bounced along the road.
"What the fuck is wrong with this planet that it's perfectly reasonable for there to be a clown, with a sledgehammer, walking about in the pitch dark of the night taking swings at people?"
I was still looking backward as I answered. "You get used to it. Circus isn't even the weirdest cape in the city."
"Seriously? What the fuck is next? A Goddamn mime?"
"What's wrong with mimes?" I asked.
Thanks to the ear pieces we were using I heard Renegade grumbling under his breath about creepy clowns and mimes. Something about how fighting Reapers was more civilized.
"What? I like mimes…" I muttered.
Circus wasn't that hard to identify as far as capes go. She was the only one in the city who used the clown theme. I didn't know much about her. Just some stuff from the Wiki. I knew she was a solo villain. Her powers had something to do with storing things and being able to pull them out of the air. Things like a sledgehammer. She was actually pretty well known for it as she used it to beat the crap out of a lot of capes in the last few months she'd been active.
As I was thinking I turned back again. This time I noticed pursuit. Looks like Uber and Leet decided this wasn't over yet. "Company!"
Renegade turned briefly to look at little mirror on the handlebars. "Huh. Didn't think they had it in them."
Renegade turned to the right taking one of the side alleys between two warehouses. I held on tightly chancing a look behind us. There was no mistaking the half dozen bikes for what they were. They illuminated everything around them as they sped closer. "What the fuck? Tron bikes? Really? Can this get any worse?"
My comment made Renegade laugh again. "You've obviously never been on a Normandy Ground Team Op."
I frowned as I looked at the back of his helmet. We really needed to work on his idea of humor. Deciding not to comment on it for now, I glanced back. "They're gaining!" I warned.
"Are you going to let me kill them now?"
"No!" He sounded way too hopeful about escalating this. That or he was yanking my chain. Both were possible but we had other issues at the moment. "I don't suppose you put anything on the bike that can help us here? Something that would slow them down? Make us go faster?"
"Not even a fare meter!" He laughed.
"A what?"
Renegade was still laughing as he cut down a different alley. I had no idea what he was doing it, but we were cutting these corners far faster than I think we should be getting away with. "Sorry, just remembering something from a while back."
As I looked around I noticed we were just about out of the docks. Renegades moves didn't seem to faze our pursuers. "Can we lose them?"
"Doubtful unless you want me to turn around? Didn't you say the docks were full of villains? We can piss off a bunch in the hopes they'll help us with our problem. Someone is bound to get upset about the noise. Maybe the clown found a mime with a bullshit power that'll be willing to lend a hand."
I ignored his barbed comment. There was nothing wrong with mimes. Circus, I was sure, wouldn't target them as much as she would us if we went back. She was known for having a temper when messed with. "Yeah… that's a bad idea. Villains are not known for being the 'Good Samaritan' types."
"Well, then maybe we should change the venue. If the villains won't help us, maybe the heroes will."
"What exactly do you have in mind?" I asked worriedly.
"How about we take this party downtown?" Renegade replied.