Thanks for all the positive reviews! I love you all so much! Love Vorbarra more though, without her none of this would be possible! Well here goes nothing, sorry about the late update, both Vorbarra and I have been quite ill ¬¬.

Chapter 25

The air was hot and acrid, she felt across the debris of their table for her purse and her gun. Theros pushed what was left of the table upright into a temporary barrier. Families were screaming and she had a sharp ringing in her ears from the explosion. An ache in her head began to throb, it must have been where she was thrown back with the impact; Theros had a large gash across his shoulder from a rogue glass shard that had flown past violently.

Troops began to climb over the window wall and let loose rounds. She didn't have time to think, she had to save the children. She loaded her pistol and pulled off a couple of shots, they hit one of the men in the chest and face killing him instantly. Theros covered her as she rose out from the safety of the table.

'Where's Feron?!' She shouted over the din.

'Couldn't say!' Theros replied, he kicked a soldier as he tried to pass their barricade, the man hit the floor and Theros shot him in the head.

She swore loudly. Luckily as they had begun to propose to be a threat, Cerberus were ignoring the frantic women and men trying to shelter themselves and their loved ones. A few had been hurt but not mortally so.

She used the rest of her clip and then threw the gun to the side. Alex shut her eyes and concentrated, biotically some of the men were forcefully hauled into the air, after what seemed an age they were then thrown into the floor with a bone snapping crunch.

'Alex we have to move there's too many of them!' Theros began to drag her, he handed her his pistol and grabbed a discarded rifle from a corpse.

'What the fuck are we going to do,' she replied, she was painfully aware that with no armour or high level shields that her usual tactic of running in all guns blazing was blown out the water.

'Survive.'

They ran toward the counter, Alex used her biotics to lift the coffee machine and throw it at a soldier that was trying to follow them. Theros lent over the side with the rifle and began to shoot. She could hear chatter in her ear but there was too much noise to hear what was trying to be said.

She yelled and emptied her pistol clip.

… … …

'We need to get to the surface now!' Liara screamed. 'Shepard! Shepard can you hear me?' She slammed her fist against the metal, 'damn it! Their comms are fried, she can't hear us.'

'How long?' Garrus asked, he was perched on the edge of his seat, his finger was twitching against the trigger of his assault rifle.

Liara listened to her earpiece, 'Three minutes until we're in the hotspot, at the moment there's just ground troops but they have no armour or real weapons unless they manage to kill a few of them.'

'It's Shepard, I wouldn't be surprised if we get down there and she's got them all,' Tali joked trying to liven the atmosphere.

Garrus could feel himself beginning to panic, Liara was as well, the thought that kept treacherously running through his head was what if they were too late?

… … … … … …

'FUCK OFF!' Shepard screamed throwing her empty gun at one of them. 'Theros! Time is seriously running out here, any bright ideas?!'

'Honestly? Not a fucking clue!' He smirked back.

'Then what fucking good are you!'

'Not a bloody lot.'

Theros butted one with his elbow, snatching the assault rifle from his fingers he threw it to Alex who caught it and let off a few rounds into his head, Theros grabbed the rest of the Cerberus troop's ammo and reloaded his gun.

A roaring noise cancelled out the commotion, a shuttle was landing in the street. Shepard recognized the insignia on the brow on the shuttle and she whooped with joy.

'Oh yeah! We're going to kick you're fucking arses! Pick on one of us, pick on all of us!' She hollered.

Theros laughed next to her.

Three figures jumped out the shuttle and the chaos returned, the air was filled with biotic discharge and people still screaming.

The troops began to split, sensing that they were being attacked from the front and the back, one of them chucked a grenade over to where Alex and Theros were crouched, they looked at each other before hastily moving over the counter into the line of fire.

'Shepard!' Liara yelled, 'are you ok?'

'I'm fine, just save me!'

Shepard could see Tali overloading someone's shields and then dropping them with a shotgun round to the torso. There was someone else behind her but she couldn't see through the fire and smoke.

Part of the wall began to fall and the family that was sheltering underneath it, screamed in terror and ran out the way, Alex heard the mother protesting, she whipped round and a little Asari girl had fallen and couldn't get up. Alex cursed under her breath and ran for her, Theros saw what happened and was giving her covering fire. She used her biotics to keep the wall upright while she pulled the girl out of the rubble that was trapping her.

She held her close as she ran toward shelter, as she ran she felt a sharp stinging pain rip through her clothing just above her kidney. She stumble but managed to keep upright. Reaching the shelter she handed over the young one to her mother who was in hysterics.

As she peered around the corner she realised who the third person was, Garrus.

She felt her heart skip a beat and her breath catch in her throat. He spun around killing an enemy instantly, he was slowly working his way toward her.

She tried to stand but the bullet had caused a lot of damage, with no medi-gel dispensers that she would usually have in her suit she had to deal with the full force of the injury. She adjusted her clothing so that the wound wouldn't show, and shakily got to her feet.

She lent on the counter, Liara had just killed the last trooper and they were making their way over to were she stood.

'Oh Alex, I'm so sorry-' Liara began, but she interrupted her.

'It's fine where's Feron?'

'I don't know, but we'll find him, he knows what he's doing, he'll be fine,' she said trying to reassure herself. Their conversation was stopped entirely by Garrus marching over to Theros, Tali placed herself in the way her hand resting on Garrus' chest plate.

'That's your idea of keeping her safe Ris'ono?!' He shouted.

'Shove it Vakarian! I did nothing wrong!'

'Like hell you did!' He replied pointing a talon at him.

As happy as Alex was to see Garrus she wasn't in the mood for this. A wave of dizziness overwhelmed her and she felt her legs buckle slightly. Their bickering wasn't helping.

She stepped unsteadily in between them.

'E...enough..' she said quietly.

They both silenced; she nodded satisfied.

There was a lot of mess but no civilians were hurt and all bad guys were dead. Sorted.

The agony in her ribs intensified, she bent over a bit when a flash of pain ripped through her. Both of them looked at her with concern, she was holding her arm over her wound trying to stop the bleeding but she could feel the blood on the inside of her elbow.

'Shepard... what's the matter?' Liara asked coming closer.

Shepard slid her other hand over the wound and she felt the warmth of her blood. Her fingers came away stained a startling red.

'Oh, oh fuck' she said weakly staring at the sight.

Darkness swamped her as she fell sideways, she could hear people urgently talking. She felt someone grip her around her waist careful of her wound, she could smell armour polish and heat clips.

'Garrus.' She barely whispered, opening her eyes slightly. He faded into view.

'Alex.. Alex!'

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