Bioware owns my magnetic nail polish and these characters.
3 Thank you so much for the continuing feedback guys! Sorry for the delay with this chapter, I was so beat last night and really wanted a clear head to write this one because it was important to me.
Keep reading and reviewing, love you guys! :)
Enjoy~
Muerte
Thessia falls in a scattered collage of images.
It happens so fast that James cant assign continuity to any of the events. His head is a map of stars with no constellations, no directionality, no order. The brutal collection of images and sensations assault him, each one is sharp. Hits him like a wall. Makes him flinch.
The dark sky. A seam of fire splitting the barriers as they land behind a poorly protected squad. Shepard climibing onto the turret with her armor gleaming too white admist the destruction. Each fire of the gun jolts her. Breaking through the barrier. Watching it close behind them –stepping into Hell.
Liara's voice frequents his jumbled processing.
"To see the city like this…"
Shepard's heavy voice, an anchor for them to hold onto.
"It can be rebuilt. Just worry about the next twenty meters."
He knows a blaze of gunfire and the harsh shrieks of monsters that were once Asari. The dark sky opens up like a wound splitting. There's a sudden image of Shepard pausing behind cover to rip a piece of shrapnel out of her arm. A ship goes down. His boots over the cracked marble. Shepard's light feet. Liara's panicked breath.
The temple. Santucary. Cool walls. A statue looming over them. His breath is hot and fast in his lungs. He's bleeding from a gash in his cheek. And is only vaguely aware of the two bodies on the floor. Slit throats. Dark blood splashed along the stairs. A sick twist in his stomach. Something is wrong.
Shepard reaches a hand out toward the statue. Liara babbles –it fades away. There's a moment of clarity for him while he watches Shepard's face draw down in concentration. Her lips press tight together, her eyelids flicker as if she's looking for answers in her own darkness. Then, the moment is passed. His stacatto awareness returns.
"There's a Prothean beacon here."
Long strings of light. Shepard's touch awakens it. The statue starts to crack along the Goddess's collar and abdomen. Light glistens through. A flash of pearly armor –Shepard darts about the room faster than he can keep track of her.
The Goddess falls. Loud crumbling stone. A chunk chips his armor. Green light. A new voice.
"Is that a Prothean?"
The fuck?
It talks, it moves. It says it's just a memory. It seems to stare straight through him. He swallows. Everything tastes like dirt and blood.
"Your remaining time is also at an end," the projection murmurs.
James fades out. Hears far away gunfire. Watches Shepard, her cheeks smudged with dirt and blood. Her hair full of Thessia dust. He sees a vein beating below her smoky jaw.
"Tell us where the catalyst is…"
It's like they're grasping for string. It slips between their fingers. There's a distinct hum of a gunship. He turns.
"Indoctrinated presence detected."
The Protean memory retreats. Sihouetted by lights, a figure comes forward. Through his piece by piece memory, he recognizes the sword.
"You," Shepard hisses.
This is the guy that killed Thane. He says he has a message. Illusive Man appears, talks some bullshit. Nothing new. He has enough sense to keep his gun trained on Kai Leng. He and Liara flank Shepard. Guard her. Protect her. His fingers sweat on the gun. His finger touches at the trigger. One shot.
Just one.
Illusive Man dissolves into the ancient dust of the temple. His last words give James back his clarity.
"Leng –the Commander has something I need. Please reliever her of it and then bring me the data."
The assassin braces for action.
"Understood."
The world swings back into focus. James brings himself back to the present and widens his stance. He watches Shepard. Everythign is in slow motion now. He understands and retains the smallest details. He watches her come forward, waiting for her first move. Her armor gleams with the reflection of the falling world outside the temple's barriers. Her eyes are murderous. He's never seen a look like this before. Her arm sweeps up with her gun and she grits her teeth. The slender muscle in her jaw lengthens and tightens as she pulls the trigger.
The first shot explodes and rips apart the silence. Leng dodges it with an artful spin. James grunts and aims his own weapon at the cabron. No way in fuck are they letting Cerberus get away with this data. His gun pulses. It dances in his hand.
But Leng is a slippery mother fucker. James is a damn good shot but he can't get the guy to hold still for long enough to lodge a bullet in him. Thankfully, Shepard and Liara's combined biotics hit him good a few times. He pauses, hesitates, just long enough and James takes the window of opportunity. He lines up a shot with a grimace and makes contact. A burst of blood clouds Leng's shoulder.
They have him. They have him.
But the odds switch hands. Like a dirty move in poker. Leng ducks down.
"I've been hit! Cover me while I recharge!"
A hovering shadow swings into view. The inside of the temple lights up with gunfire.
"Cobarde," James hisses and ducks behind a pew.
"Gunship!" Liara warns. He watches her dive behind cover and then looks to make sure Shepard has enough sense to join her.
She doesn't. She's still shooting, and even through the haze of light he can see how heavy her eyes are. Electric blue. Volatile. She wants this guy dead. More than dead. She wants his head on a fucking platter.
"Shepard! Get down!" he screams, "Are you loco!"
A few jolts to her shields with the gunship's heavy cannons makes her come to her senses. She crashes back on her elbows, barriers crackling in a purple mess. Just as James is about to get up to aid her she manages to plant her feet and shove herself back behind cover.
The gunship cuts back and Leng is on the move again. The three launch their combined assault once more. They are methodic. Working like a well oiled machine. His gun is smoking. There's no time to replace the clip. Why won't this guy fucking die already?
"There's only one way this ends."
Leng's voice is startlingly low and clear in the midst of the crossfire. The assassin drives his sword into the floor and runs forward. Liara lines up a shot but before she can pull the trigger, he strikes her gun away from her and hits her in the throat. He shoves her hard in the chest and she goes flying. James barely has time to plant his feet and ready his arms to catch her when she crashes into him. They both tumble to the floor. He tries to protect her with his body as much as he can but they fall apart from each other.
Dazed from his head smacking the marble under him, he rights himself and watches blearily as Shepard runs forward, each of her steps harmonizing with reports of her shotgun. Leng holds up a hand and deflects the bullets with a barrier.
Next to him, Liara pulls herself to her knees.
"You okay, Doc?" he coughs in the brief moment they have before he grabs his gun and tries to slide hers back over to her.
But she's not listening. Her eyes shock wide in Shepard's direction. He hears the distinct whine of the gunship back at the mouth of the temple and dread swallows him like a wave.
"Shepard!" Liara screams.
It's a second too late. The missiles launch into the temple. He tries to scramble to get to his feet to get to her. She's running back, trying to dodge the direct path. The first one hits and the foundation explodes. The second one goes off right next to him and Liara. The explosion deafens him and throws him back. He flips over a pew and crashes into a console. He feels the ribs on his right side make clean, agonizing breaks. He slumps onto the floor, blood clouding his vision. He can't hear a fucking thing. He can barely see. There's smoke, fire and a glorious fog of darkness circling his vision. Liara is unconscious twenty feet away from him, blood pooling under her head.
Shepard. Where's Shepard?
He sees her armor wink in the darkness. A pillar loosens from the ceiling as another missile strikes. He hears a far away boom and a strangled noise that he comes to realize is his own voice, screaming her name.
She's agile. Her body moves in ways he can't imagine. She's a panicked gazelle over the crumbling infrastructure. She launches herself over a gap in the floor to avoid the tumbling pillar and grabs a hold of the chunk as it starts to slide away. James struggles to his feet. He gets halfway up and then crashes back to his knees and elbows. His head his pounding. Blood splashes on the floor in front of him. Get up.
Get up!
He raises his head, struggling to stay conscious. Leng darts effortlessly over the floor towards the beacon. Behind him, James gets a view of Shepard's dark head of hair and the iridescent armor across her forearms as they grip the cracking foundation. Then, with a thunderous groan, all the sound in the room rushes back to him and Shepard drops from sight.
"NO!" he screams.
He's crawling to get to her. His side is on fire. He tastes blood in his mouth. He calls for Liara, trying to rouse her. He can't get to Shepard fast enough. He's too late. Too late.
"Cerberus thanks you for all your hard work," Leng murmurs in the silence that follows the temple's withering.
He steps toward the console and James's vision goes black. His body falls. His mind withers.
But he fights it. He fights it for all he's fucking worth. He claws for the surface of his consciousness. Maybe he's not too late. She's not gone. She's not gone. They haven't come this far to lose everything. He fights and fights and tears his way back to the present and his eyes snap open, sticky with hot blood. He draws in a ragged breath and shoves himself to his feet.
Leng is almost back at the ship. How long has he been out? Fuck, James doesn't care. He half stumbles, half runs to the place he last saw Shepard's sleek head of hair. He falls to his knees at the edge of the dark abyss. Gracias a Dios. There right under him -she's fucking climbing up a dislodged piece of the floor. The gunship lifts off and the movement disturbs the last of the temple's fragments.
Shepard's pearly, armored fingers just manage to get the edge of the outcrop he's on before the piece she'd climbed up on unhinges and drops. He lunges forward, his body straining, bones resisting, and grabs the hand. He reaches down with his other arm to wrap around her shoulders and get a grip on her.
"Hold on," he pants, "I've got you."
He drags her up with all the strength he has left. Something snaps inside him. He ignores it and falls back with her. She's safe. Safe. He's so fucking happy for a moment he forgets what they just lost.
Shepard doesn't.
She shoves away from him and starts in a staggered run for the airstrip outside the temple. The gunship's shadow pulls off the ground. It gets smaller and smaller. James looks down at his hands. They're slick with blood. It's not his.
Shepard is limping for the gunship. Blood falls from her like rubies and leaves a trail. He follows it. Calls her name. But she won't stop. She leans down, nearly falls, and scoops a gun from the floor. She fires round after round into the air.
There's no use stopping her. He stalls ten feet behind her. Manages to help Liara to her feet when she regains consciousness. Up ahead, Shepard throws her gun to the ground and touches her hand to her earpiece. Her pearly armor is scarlet with her blood.
"Is anyone on this frequency? My squad is trapped!" a voice crackles through.
"This is Shepard, give us your location."
He and Liara approach from behind her. He closes his eyes and listens to her voice. It's low and full of blood and darkness. It doesn't even sound like her.
"I repeat, is anyone on this frequency?"
"We read you! Give us your location," Shepard is practically pleading.
Whoever is on the other line can't hear her. Just as well. Thessia was lost the minute Cerberus got the jump on them. There's nothing left on this world.
It'll burn –just like the others.
"The Liuetenant is down, the whole zone's collapsing!"
Another voice jumps in.
"What happened to Shepard? Did they make it to the temple?
Shepard's hand falls to her side.
"I've got a Reaper inbound!"
The fuckers drive the knife in and twist it. A dark, colossal and all too familiar figure drops from the sky. Another one follows it. He lowers his eyes and watches Shepard's blood drain onto the floor. A rivet of it slides and skims the edge of his boot.
"By the Goddess –NO!"
Shepard rips her earpiece out. Liara reaches a hand out to her but she wrenches out of the way of any comfort. She turns and she and James meet eyes for a moment. Her look is horrific. Bloodied, fearful, and defeated.
Then, all of a sudden it empties. Theirs is nothing in her face. No passion. No heat. No sorrow. Her visage goes cold as death. Her eyes fade out into frozen blue pools. Her face passes away from him but the memory remains. It shakes him to his core. Makes him sick. He reaches out to her but all he touches his blood. It grows sticky between his fingers.
They return to the shuttle in silence.
And for James, Thessia falls in a kaleidoscope of blood, smoke and Shepard's dead eyes.