Author's Note: Merry Christmas! If you don't celebrate Christmas, then take advantage of the holiday anyway and enjoy yourselves. I may not update for the rest of the month but I'll sure the hell try. If anything here confuses you, look it up on the Halo wiki. This chapter highlights two things: one, that Alex is not always nice; and two, that the Mass Effect races seriously underestimate SPARTANs. Now then, the Spirit of Fire awaits…
Onboard the UNSC Spirit of Fire
There was a loud "crunch!" as Alex slammed a salarian's head against a nearby wall. Another mercenary dropped on the other side of the mess hall followed by another being launched across the room with biotics. Alex drew her pistol and put a round through the last asari's head.
"Done. Observation deck's this way," Alex said.
The other two followed her as the SPARTAN led the way toward the observation deck.
"Be advised, SPARTAN. The group's apparent leader is currently on the observation deck. She appears to be in a bad mood and have a lot of friends," Serina told them.
"She's in a bad mood? You do realize that Alex looks like she might tear them apart with her bare hands and has done so?" Garrus asks.
"Bad mood? Oh, I'm not in a bad mood. I am so fucking pissed off the Reapers themselves would be shitting themselves, then trying to run before committing suicide when they realised I would follow them. Every single one of them is gonna die and if I can, I'll ensure it's real painful and real slow," Alex growled.
"I think I will be going that way. To, errr… make sure there are no mercenaries in that direction," Garrus said, pointing away from the observation deck.
"Oh no you don't, split-cheeks. We're going to take these motherfuckers down and then I'm going to show them a level of pain so high, they'll be begging me to kill them. Who knows, I may even do so, depends on what mood I'm in," Alex snarled, the manic glint in her eyes going unnoticed due to her helmet.
"Alright, calm down Alex," Shepard ordered.
"Calm down? You want me to calm down? These fucking assholes not only have the false belief that they own this ship, they have the fucking gall to try threatening me. Not only that, they want to murder the crew while they're all in cryo sleep. Including three SPARTAN-IIs, over 2,000 crewmen, a few thousand soldiers and my uncle! Well I got news for them: not happening while I'm breathing and that, Commander, is final!" Alex shouted.
"SPARTAN-0704D! Stand down!" Shepard ordered, to no avail.
The door to the observation deck opened as Alex approached. Everyone in the room turned to face the sound. The twenty or so mercenaries drew their weapons whilst the leader of the group stepped forward, a cocky smirk on her face.
"Surrender, a live SPARTAN is worth more to me than a dead one. Although you'll still fetch me a lot of cash dead," the asari captain said.
"Better idea. I'm in a generous mood so I'll give you one chance to run. Don't waste it," Alex warned, with an air of forced calm.
"Kill her, but try and leave her body intact. If you can't, never mind," the captain said.
With the order out, the mercs opened fire. Rockets, bullets and biotics converged on the SPARTAN's location. There was a series of large explosions, large enough to ensure that no personal shields or armour would have protected the target.
"Well, that was easy," one of the salarians remarked.
"Agreed. We're done here," the Captain stated.
Then the smoke cleared revealing the SPARTAN crouched inside a golden dome, apparently unscathed. Alex looked up, the cold golden visor staring at the Eclipse mercenaries.
"My turn," Alex muttered, just loud enough for everyone to hear.
Scooping up the generator and deactivating it, the SPARTAN sprinted forward. A human engineer made the mistake of not moving out of the way fast enough, promptly being crushed between a wall and half a ton of metal, muscle and bone. Alex turned, light machine gun raised in her left hand and her pistol in her right. Grinning madly under her helmet, Alex opened fire, allowing her M739 to cover the room with bullets whilst firing precise shots with her pistol.
Only a dozen mercenaries were left by the time the SPARTAN paused to reload. Returning her pistol to her thigh, Alex slammed a new drum into the SAW, ignoring her flaring shields. This time, Alex began unleashing short, accurate bursts from her LMG. Those that didn't die from her shots were forced to duck down behind cover.
In the space of two minutes, Alex had taken the team of twenty-odd confident mercenaries and turned them into half-a-dozen terrified mercenaries. With the remainder too scared to move, Alex was now systematically going around the room and killing them with a single pistol round through the head. When she reached the hiding place of the leader, however, she lifted the asari up by her scalp crest.
"PLEASE! LET ME GO! I'LL NEVER COME NEAR YOU AGAIN, I SWEAR! I'LL NEVER GO NEAR ANYTHING OF THE CONFEDERACY'S AGAIN!" the asari cried between screams.
"Good, I'm glad to hear it. However, seeing as we're here, how about you answer some questions?" Alex said, dropping her.
"Okay okay, what do you want to know?" the asari whimpered, massaging her crest in pain.
"Eclipse bases, where are they?" Alex asked.
"I don't know where all of them are, but there's one on Omega and on Illium and Lorek. That's all I know of, I swear," the asari pleaded.
"Were you hired to come here and if so, by who?"
"We weren't hired. We noticed the ship, as did half of Omega. We were just the first ones to get here."
"Thank you. You have been most helpful. The Confederacy can make use of this," Alex said, standing up.
Alex walked off toward Shepard and Garrus who were standing in the door, still trying to process what they had just seen. As the door closed behind the SPARTAN, she turned to look through the window at the asari still lying on the floor.
"Serina? Decompress the observation deck," Alex ordered, before turning to walk down the hall.
"Aye, SPARTAN. Decompressing observation deck," Serina responded.
"WHAT? But that asari did exactly as you told her," Shepard shouted.
"That asari is also the enemy, a smuggler, a murderer and willing to help anyone with deep enough pockets, Shepard. As a SPARTAN and an officer of the CUFSAF, any hostiles are to be terminated unless the mission parameters state otherwise. Standard protocol. And to be honest, I'm not looking for your approval. I'm just doing my job by accompanying you. If an order from you goes against orders from a CUFS officer or CUFS protocol, then I am not doing what you say, Shepard," Alex stated coldly.
With that, Alex turned and walked away from a stunned human and an equally stunned turian. With one last glance at the now-blue spattered window, Shepard and Garrus followed her.