Bioware owns Mass Effect. The OC's are mine.
Chapter 21 - Does This Chaingun Make Me Look Pretty?, Day 4 Early Evening
Third floor of the Command and Control Tower, and the four members of the Chaos Legion heard a noise that echoed through the halls of an otherwise dead building.
"Shit." Lieutenant Royce Mason muttered when he heard an angry cry from deeper in the Turian military building that they were clearing, the deep tone of hatred reverberating off the metal walls of the Tower. Royce found himself looking at the Vanguard Asha T'vara, Commander Garm Jor'radah, and the Jorgal Krogan merc, all four of them exchanging looks as they turned their heads in the direction that the cry came from. Without a word being spoken, all four of them pulled out the heaviest weapon that they owned, preparing to fight against an unknown adversary. Garm had borrowed a T24 Phaeston from a dead Turian, while Asha shouldered her M15 Vindicator, readying her left hand with Biotics. The Krogan had his M76 Revenant in one hand, with his Phaeston in the other, while Royce simply pulled out his M320 Vulcan, Old Painless extending to combat configuration. None of them knew what they might be facing, but they were aiming to give it hell.
"Elias, Eloa, Stacy," the N6 Marine called out on the comm unit, putting him in contact with the rest of the team on the ground floor, "whatever killed all the Turians here seems to be on the third floor." Another cry came from down the hallway, just as loud as the first, though by no means anywhere closer. "And it sounds pissed as fuck."
"Copy, Royce." Tech Specialist Elias Korvan replied in the Australian's earpiece. "You want us to stay put, or can we have fun, too?"
"Stay put. We have no idea what it is, save that it's chopped its way through a company-sized element of Turians." The Human Marine answered. "I'm not sure that more guns will be the answer to this one. And we need Chorban alive more than we need you dead."
"Love it when a Human talks dirty to me." The Turian joked, earning a guffaw from the Batarian SIU Agent and a shaking head from the Asari Vanguard, obviously hearing the Tech Specialists' response over the comms. "Chief Valentino kindly reminds you that Chorban does have a bullet in his gut, and will need proper medical attention, sooner rather than later. She also said something about not having a 'tampons'. I don't get the reference, so it must be a Human thing."
"I got what she means." The N6 replied, chuckling, knowing exactly what Chief Stacy Valentino was referencing to; an impromptu battlefield dressing of a gunshot wound learns many wars ago was to stuff a tampon in the wound to stem the bleeding and seal the void left by the bullets' passage. All the medical technology and advancements of the 22th century, and band-aids were still the most commonly used item for military personnel, as the most common injury was usually just cuts and scrapes. "Tell her to keep doing what she can, and we'll keep doing what we can, and hopefully we can get to the Control Room and activate this signal so we can call us a rescue squad. Until then, we're stuck."
"Understood, Lieutenant." The Turian replied, and Royce heard the other end of the comm unit close off, signaling the end of the conversation.
"I like me a good hunt." The Krogan said to the group, giving everyone a healthy smile. "Reminds me of me Passage. A few Klixiks, some Varren packs, and a small Thresher Maw. Good times." The merc seemed to remember the event fondly while Asha made a gagging face. "And what did you do for your Rite, Asari? Spin around a stripper pole a few times in front of some leering Batarians before being taken back to their hotel room?"
"Not at all." The Vanguard smiled sweetly as she began to glow Biotically. "I tore off a Krogan's head plate with a knife after he mistaken my Commando uniform for a stripper's getup." That had the Krogan merc quiet, and dangerously so.
"I have a feelin' I don't want to know the rest of that story." Royce said, the Batarian nodding in agreement. The Human Marine had heard it from one of the Turian Blackwatch members that the most surefire way to piss off or scare a Krogan was to threaten to rip off their head plate. Royce didn't understand the significance of it, other than it was a carapace that grew to cover the more tender spots of a Krogan's physiology. Perhaps, to a Krogan, it was a manhood thing, like a codpiece. "Let's focus on the gigantic species of killer robots that are tryin' to exterminate every one of us as oppose to buttin' heads with one another. Reapers ain't goin' to care about your cowtippin' stories back when you were knee-high to a kangaroo." That had all three of them looking at the Australian-born man quizzically; obviously nobody's translators worked with that little idiom. "Get in, kill the big bad, and turn the Reaper Tower into a suicide note. Anyone got any issues with that?" Royce looked at the three members of the Chaos Legion with him, the N6 holding his Vulcan cannon suggestively, implying that he would use it if necessary. Thankfully, it looked like tempers were, for the most part, cooled off enough that everyone was more focused on the real threat. "Clan Jorgal, take the lead, and head us towards that thin'. Asha, be ready to Throw or Pull or somethin' fancy in case it gets the jump on us. Takin' a stand against this thin' might get us killed, so be fluid if we encounter whatever the hell it is. Questions?" Royce's tone implied that there had better not have been any, and to his relief, no question were asked. "Let's go kill us a badass Reaper, Jorgal."
"It's Thrak." The Krogan finally said after was appeared to be a moments' consideration. That had Asha and Royce look at one another in silence. They had known the Krogan for a couple days now, and this was the first time he had ever mentioned his name. "If this is a hunt, then we are a krantt. If we are a krantt, then you've earned the right to know my name."
"Ok… Jorgal Thrak." The N6 acknowledged, nodding to the Krogan. "Can we go kill the Reapers now? I ain't carryin' this big-ass chaingun because it makes me look pretty."
The four members of the Chaos Legion began to clear the third floor, finding it mostly deprived of everything; there were only a few corpses to see, and the intensity of the fight seemed to be that Turians had only been left with support troops on the upper levels, having expended all their soldiers on the lower levels. Royce looked upon one stone-faced Turian with red face paint, having only been dressed in Agent Light Armor and armed with what appeared to be a M81 Raikou pistol. His partner, brown-faced with white markings, was in old Predator Light Armor, and holding an equally old M3 Predator. The N6 was a little shocked to see that the Predator was old-gen; it still ran off of heat sinks. The Human Marine bent down and picked up the pistol, placing it on a spare hard point on his left bicep. A gun was a gun, after all.
The four of them had cleared a good portion of the third floor when they heard the angry cry again, this time louder and closer, echoing off the metal walls. None of them said a word as the cry howled throughout the corridor that they were in, each of them stepping towards the walls and closer to a door in case they had to dive into a room to avoid being run over by whatever occupied the same floor as them. Royce was almost certain that they were on the same floor, though he couldn't say that the Control Room was as well.
"Let's take this fucker." Royce decided, making his opinion known. "At the least, we have the element of surprise, and we can hit it at its' back."
"Agreed." The Krogan replied, and the Australian-born man watched as both Batarian and Asari nodded in consent. Thrak moved down the hallway at a fast pace, now armed with a purpose, with the N6, SIU Agent, and Vanguard following right behind the merc. The howl came again as they moved down the corridor, reaching a T-section when the Krogan held up a closed fist, signaling for them to stop. The howl went on for a good five seconds, though there was nothing else to identify what the source was, or what was causing it. Royce had no doubt in his mind that the howler was the same thing that killed all the Turians that had occupied the building, responsible for something like a hundred a seventy-five deaths. Due to the volume of the cry, the Marine assumed that it would be at least as large as a Krogan, and probably as fierce. It made him think of the Brutes that they had encountered before, especially in the gully. He could see one of those tearing up a good number of men in a hallway, though he was shocked to see that it hadn't fallen in battle. If it really were a Brute, the N6 knew that he could hold it off with his M320 Vulcan with little worries; as long as it wasn't right in his face at the get-go, it was a battle he was sure he could win single-handedly. What truly concerned him was that it was something different, something worse than a Krogan or a Reaper-mutated Krogan known as a Brute. The hallway was more than big enough for a Brute; it could fit something larger and nastier.
"The smell's getting stronger." Thrak said quietly, indicating to his right; the direction of the howler. The Krogan looked back slightly, his right eye looking back at the Human Marine who led them, the silent question coming up; do we go that way or not? Royce nodded his head once. He wasn't looking forward to facing the unknown foe, but he had to know what it was in order to figure out how to beat it, or at least stall it to where Elias Korvan, Eloa'Varis, and Stacy Valentino could get Chorban to the Control Room in relative safety if they absolutely had to hold of the Reaper beast in order to make the signal work. Royce had no idea how much longer the Salarian researcher had with a round buried in his belly, so they were going to have to do it soon if they wanted any chance of making it work. The Krogan moved to the right of the T-corridor, Royce, Asha, and Garm following the Krogan merc as he walked down the short hallway, both his Revenant and Phaeston out and ready to fire. Another cry came out again, the time accompanied by a strange thumping noise; almost like a fist on a door. That had Royce pause for a second as his mind whirred with realization.
The Reaper-thing was trying to knock down a barricade.
"Whatever's up there," the Marine said to the others quickly and quietly, "sounds like some Turians barricaded themselves in, and it's tryin' to break inside to get to them. Good money bets that they are barricaded in the Control Room itself; Turians would make it a tough nut to crack." Royce looked to the other three, who nodded in both understanding and agreement. "That means that it's probably around this corner, and its' back is to us. Thrak? You and I are goin' to jump out and blast the fuck out of whatever the hell that thin' is. It charges us, we book out of here. Asha, back down the hall, is going to hit it with a Singularity while Garm hits it with an incendiary grenade. Then we paste whatever is left of it full-auto, full-volume, until it is a Goddamn bloody smear all over a wall. Any questions?"
"Can I bring back it's head as a trophy?" The SIU Commander asked, and Royce wasn't sure if the Batarian was joking or not.
Garm and the Asari commando moved to the previous T-junction, indicating over the comm unit that they were ready after a moment of setting up. The Human Marine and the Krogan mercenary got themselves ready, too; the Krogan checked both of his heavy assault rifles, while Royce merely flexed his hands alternatively on the grips of his chaingun. They got to the corner of the junction in which the noises and howling were coming from, and the Krogan mercenary stuck his head out enough so that his predatory eye could give him a glance at what they were about to face. Quicker than Royce expected, the Krogan jerked his head back, and swore in what was undoubtedly harsh Krogan language. Royce moved around the merc, and did the same thing, and his eyes went wide at what he saw. He, too, jerked his head back, and looked to the Krogan.
"What… the fuck… is that?" The N6 asked, not sure if he was scared or not. The Krogan seemed intimidated, though the Human Marine was more than wise enough not to mention it. "I've never seen anythin' like before."
"I have." Thrak replied, his voice distant, obviously reliving whatever memory. "I seen only one before, back on a job that I had with an agent of the Shadow Broker several decades back. Kechlu was his name. It looks like a Reaperfied version of Operative Kechlu."
"So what the fuck is it?" Royce asked, curious. That had the Krogan looking at him quietly with both eyes.
"It's a Yahg." Thrak said, his voice quiet for a Krogan. "It's a Reaperfied Yahg."
A/N: What could more badass than a Brute? Yes, I went there; a Reaper Yahg.