Primed to Defend the Universe

by LawrenceSnake

Shepard is a guardian of life from an alternate stream of history. She's the hero this Galaxy deserves but not the one it needs right now. She'll fight for us all, whether we like it or not! WARNING! Contains pure awesomeness!

35. In the Base In a Heartbeat

A/N: Rematch time! And a revelation long in the awaiting...

This is the stuff I listened to while penning these sections.

Today, We Will Hold the Line / Strive For God Inside - 'Superhuman - Where It Ends' from 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' Final Trailer

Panther Approach / Breeding Ground Melee - 'Sins of the Father' from 'MGSV: The Phantom Pain' Red-band Trailer

Implacable Fury / Arterius Goes To Work - 'Legion' from 'Brand X Music'

Dance With The Devil / Saren Boss Battle - 'It Has to be this Way' from 'MGR: Revengeance' Final Boss

"Forget about winning and losing; forget about pride and pain. Let your opponent graze your skin and you smash into his flesh; let him smash into your flesh and you fracture his bones; let him fracture your bones and you take his life! Do not be concerned with escaping safely - lay your life before him!"

"If you try to remember you will lose! Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water. Now if you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or creep, or drip, or crash. Be water, my friend."

(Bruce Lee)

In the Base In a Heartbeat

"Either of these two would be more than acceptable, Commander," Kirrahe announced sternly. "Both seem ready and willing to lay down their lives if necessary. Hopefully, if fortune smiles on us today; such sacrifices will not be required."

Aran turned and looked both of her highest ranking birth-race comrades deep in the eyes one after the other. Both of them couldn't keep their eye-contact level ahead for very long. For some undefinable reason, the huntress could feel a tingling premonition of significance centering around this decision...

"Williams," she announced in a clipped tone. "You'll accompany these fine men. No. Heroics. Do I make myself clear?"

"Aye, aye, Commander!"

With that proclamation, both groups began to adjust armour, modify weapons and break camp to ready themselves for the impossible sortie.

"Shepard," Kirrahe approached Aran as she sharpened one of her many emergency weapons, (a folded Denzium golok machete), with a fossilized Black Phazite whetstone. He made to hand back her flask of first rate, hyper-nutritional liquor. Any being who could stomach it would be fighting fit for at least six hours straight.

"Keep it, Captain. There's plenty more where that came from."

"Much appreciated," he replied, attaching the canteen to his belt. "Anything to finalise?"

"Shadow is clear enough, what will your teams be designated?"

"Aegohr, Mannovai and Jaëto. They were the initial settlements on our first three colony worlds... they are at the heart of Salarian territory to this day."

"I always knew it wasn't just the boys back on Earth. You men do love your patriotism."

Kirrahe spread his interlocked palms idly; a refined shrug. "These names will remind my men what they are fighting for. They must have a personal stake in the fight if we are to have any chance of success."

"Let's have one last rundown then," Aran said, lowering herself onto the balls of her feet and staking the short blade in the centre of Kirrahe's holo-blueprint schematics.

"Terrain and architectural data?" she posited.

"Of course," Kirrahe knelt beside her. "Our reconnaissance drones are, were some of the best in the Galaxy before Saren's patrols wiped them out, but we have full mapping of enemy topography and the element of surprise. We'll use your sonic charges to breech the perimeter at this point here and engage the enemy with covering fire from your Mako. Once the battle is joined your team will infiltrate up through the cliffs along the West-side and fight your way to the breeding grounds. You can disable one of the AA guns from there, we'll fight as hard as we can to reach you but the last gun may be your next objective in the end. Once the Normandy lands. Your people will place the nuke at the geothermal taps, here. After that, if we all move quickly enough, we should be able to escape on-board with acceptable casualties. If not... then our memories will live on as martyrs to a greater cause."

"You speak as if this will be our last fight, Captain. I disagree. I hope it's the first of many."

"As do I, Commander. I see we're all nearly prepped to go."

"I'm ready when you are. Let's do this."

"Excellent. Then if you'll excuse me, I need to prepare my men."

Aran blessed his leave and made her own way to where her soldiers were lined up in two neat facing columns, benches behind them. She walked between the simple formation, stopping to listen to every endearment and playful cajoling from her N7 brothers and sisters, along with warrior clasps from Gabrilan and Wrex. An almost hug-worthy declaration from Tali 'to fight with fire' for her was followed by similar verbal promises from Garrus, Liara and Jamie. Before she reached her seat of honour at the end.

Williams and Vakarian flanked her, with the Turian on her right-hand side. Liara followed, with Kaidan opposite, then Tali and Wrex standing beside them.

"Well..." Ash declared breezily. "This is it. Don't do anything stupid while I'm gone, LT... you too, Commander."

Aran didn't dignify her with a response, leaving Kaidan to mop up for her. "We'll be fine. You'll see," he said strongly.

"Yeah, I just... good luck."

Liara, considerate as always remarked: "is there something you wish to say - Gunnery Chief?" The afterthought address sounded unbearably cute to Aran's ears. No! She couldn't be thinking such thoughts now!

"I - I don't know, it's just, weird, going under someone else's command. I've got use to working with you. All of you."

"Don't worry," Vakarian maintained, "we'll see you safe and sound when the dust clears, Ash."

"I know, I, huh..." she sighed, usually more eloquent and looked to Aran with unmistakeable fondness. "God knows we've had our difference, but. It's been an honour serving with you, Skipper."

"This is not the end. We're a team," Aran stressed. "It doesn't matter if we aren't fighting alongside those closest to us, today. We are still - one unit. Watch each others' backs, keep your eyes open and fight like I know you can. We go in hard. Hit them harder. And we will be the only damn thing left standing that comes out on the other side."

"You bet, Commander."

Everyone else then sat down to watch Kirrahe gather his troops in line before him. They stood at rest as the Captain drew himself up and began to speak.

"You all know the mission, and what is at stake. I have come to trust each of you with my life. But I have also heard murmurs of discontent... I share your concerns. We are trained for espionage, we would be legends. But the records are sealed. Glory in battle, is not our way. Think on our heroes. The Silent Step, who defeated a nation with a single shot. Or the Ever-Alert, who kept armies at bay with hidden facts. These giants do not seem to give us solace here, but they are not all that we are! Before the Network, there was the Fleet. Before diplomacy, there - were - soldiers! Our influence stopped the Rachni. But before that, we held the line. Our influence stopped the Krogan! But before that, we held the line! Our influence will stop Saren! In the battle today, WE WILL - HOLD THE LINE!"

Aran stood first, along with all of her own troops in silent respect for the impassioned speech.

Kirrahe turned to face her. "Good luck, Commander. I hope we meet again."

Samus was suddenly aware of her own people's desire for a rousing recitation, as they looked to her hopefully. Kirrahe and his men had turned to witness it as well. Aran placed her hands on her knees and stood surely, feeling anything but. What to say, what to say...

"Er... you all know the mission. And what is at stake -"

This earned a few good natured chuckles from around the camp, though Kirrahe raised a loose eye ridge at the copy-cat routine.

"No, seriously... I don't think I could possibly outdo our Captain's valedictory on what it means to fight for more than yourself... so I won't ask you to."

Everyone's curiosity was piqued at that.

"Saren Arterius. You know the name. You know what he's done. If we fall today, the Galaxy is lost. On Eden Prime, the people of Constant were not only nearly butchered to the last man, their lives set alight, but their children were placed on spikes, impaled, tortured, turned into abominations!" She had their full attention now.

"Corporal Richard Liam Jenkins died at my hand when he rose again as a Husk, our brothers and sisters have been turned against us by the teeth of the dragon! Aboard Sovereign, he mutilated and killed three of the finest men I ever knew! Private Josh Walter Fredericks, executed. Private Russel Emmanuel Craig, decapitated! Private Wahib Bakhsh Singh, quadruple amputated! In war... we become demons. On the field, we must become more terrible than Arterius could ever dream of being behind closed doors! So fight today, not for anyone else's validation. But for your own! Not for any nation. Not for any ideology. Not for justice. Not for honour. Not for power. Not for the future. Not for love! Not for peace! Only! For revenge... everybody wants to rule the world, but nobody lives forever. So my question is this. For one day: DO YOU WANT TO LIVE, FOREVER?!"

Aran's people spun their rifles at parade rest as they stood at attention as one. A true speech left those who heard it too stunned to even think of doing something as crass as applauding. Samus marched down the centre - and to a date with destiny...

---

"You need to tell me where you get some of that material," Wrex badgered Aran as they climbed down over the slopes and steppes alongside her platoon. Gabrilan and Kaidan led the other two groups of, appropriately, seven spec ops Alliance marines. Samus got Liara, Tali, Wrex and Jamie as well. The three squads of 8,12,8 where dubbed Team Aether, Team Shadow and Team Tallon.

"Not a chance," she replied.

"Hah. Speaking of which, since everybody else is too afraid or enamoured to question you. I read about what you did on Earth in a matter of hours, while we were cooped up in Geneva? Don't try and deny it. Why not put on the suit and lay waste to Saren's base and his mother-ship in a minute and a half?"

"... Let me tell you a story, Wrex."

"I hate stories."

"Well this one is about an Alliance marine who was infected by Husk nanites on Eden Prime. His Commander, trying to save him from a horrible fate, used her abilities to siphon off the neutrino stream energy invisible to nearly all upper life forms. It worked. The Commander in question tried to utilise this strategy again while in personal combat with Saren Arterius. Its application was completely nullified."

"So... what? The Reapers have some kind of adaptive protection?"

"I wasn't immediately aware of Sovereign's scanning capabilities, or that of the nanites themselves. They recorded their own demise and the method therein and sooner rather than later, Saren had a perfect counter-measure in place. What do you suppose would happen if I used other alien technologies in plain view of a Reaper ship's uncharted scanning capabilities?"

"... This war would be over before it's begun."

"You're on the fucking money, Wrex. I've already lost one advantage and a possible avenue of victory to them and they can have me on the ropes in any engagement with their goddamn infra-sound assaults. So keep your helmets on, all of you! I developed some auditory filters to counter-act it. You lose them I can protect you, but the more I have to, the more I'm going to be off my game. Understood, grunts?!"

"YES, MA'AM!"

"Comm-check. Do you read me, Commander?" Kirrahe's voice came over her sub-dermal transceiver.

"Loud and clear, Captain."

"Good. We'll start our push. We'll try and make it to the AA guns but it might be up to your men to finish the job. And Commander, if you see any way to undermine their defences, we could definitely use the help."

"Roger that, over and out."

Aran cocked her HMW battle-rifle, "alter between tungsten and polonium clip load-outs! Shield-synch formation 3597! ECM's are our primary objectives, ladies and gents! Alenko, to the East and circumnavigate, Gabrilan, angle round West! We'll meet up in the centre, hit em' hard!"

"Aye, aye!"

"Come on, princesses! Let's bring the pain!"

"With me! Now!" Aran roared as they leapt into the low-running stream. "NOW! WITH ME!"

They moved up, using fallen boulders as cover to flush out Geth platforms. They fell like chaff with the fire-power Aran commanded. She, Liara and Wrex could quite easily tie up snipers and rocket troops with their biotics, leaving them sitting ducks for the N7's who gunned them down with lock-step precision and consummate flexibility.

"Shadow is on the ground, repeat, Shadow is on the ground. Chief Williams, with Aegohr Team! Mannovai, with me! Jaëto, follow Vakarian's lead! Bring up our tank support, it's time to get some attention!"

The low but unmistakeable boom of an M35 rover's main gun echoed over the ravines, the battle was now well and truly joined as a chittering swarm of Geth platforms crawled out of the crevices or burst from the water-logged sand where they had lain, bunched up and inactive. Tali and her helping hands laid into them with a fury bordering on apoplexy. The emotional and technological gap between discipline and protective measures clearly not in the Geth's favour.

"Mannovai is under coordinated cross-fire," Ashley squawked over radio-chatter. "Check for long range turrets auto-assisting the Geth targeting!"

"Three o'clock! Commander! Geth Communication Tower!" Ramirez shouted.

"Bring it down!" she ordered, firing controlled bursts of destruction at the portable Hex shield formations, drilling three of the mechanical menaces through the eyes. Wrex warped the permacrete support columns into spongy sandstone, while two of her troops assisted by using a PN-24 chemical-free bazooka to level the outpost's barricades and a good deal of its troop contingent with a single shot.

"Cover me!" the Hunter ordered, sprinting across the open wide river-bed vista faster than her men could perceive, even as the ground was eaten up around her by a mounted 'Spitfire' machine gun's superconducting toroids, sending little fountains of water and pebbles into the air. Tali hacked a sniper to turn and place his bullet grain right in a Juggernaut's central processor, while Liara pulled others into the open to be picked off as they hovered helplessly.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!" Aran projected for all to here, tossing three EMP-cased grenades with a tasty titanium ball-bearing centre up and high over the balcony. Each one had a miniature 360 degree camera that fed into Aran's visor, she used expert-timing and pin-point biotic push manipulation to send each one hurtling straight into the machine-gun nest and twin Primes that were waiting for them upstairs. Everyone braced themselves near the ground, while the triple detonation obliterated any resistance inside.

Rubble chunks and Geth parts rained down on Shadow Team, Liara even broke one particularly large piece of debris apart with her mind to stop any injuries. The squad quickly secured the area and manually shut down the Geth's triangulation and communication protocols from atop the ruined look-out station. Something that Kirrahe immediately took notice of.

"Something scrambled their optics. We've got a shot! Officer Vakarian, take the heat off Aegohr!"

"My pleasure." ... 'CRACK-PHOOM!' echoed through the gorges... "Hah! Mannovai, you are clear to advance!"

Aran accessed their secure channels. "Tallon, Aether. Sit-rep."

"Clearing up hold-outs, Commander. No casualties!"

"Same here. Nothing but drones and lone platforms out here, Shepard. Can't wait to get to the good stuff!"

"Be careful what you wish for, fellas..."

They made their way further through the canyons, the sounds of gunfire nearly drowned out by the falls rushing down on either side, the refraction messed up laser sights and omni tool reticules so many of Aran's troops switched to retractable iron sights and stayed prone on their bellies, driving their way through the paltry resistance like a hot knife through butter.

Kirrahe was fighting a much more pitched-battle by the sounds of things: "they're calling in sat-strikes! Jaëto, watch for comm stations! Williams, can you see anything?"

Within seconds after that, Aran had met up with her other teams and laid waste to their minor attackers at the base of the satellite up-link tower. Not even the five man party of Krogan mercs could stand against them when they pulled their shotguns out against a force with greater range, heavier caliber weaponry that deactivated their regeneration and the fact that they were facing a platoon with nearly six times as much dakka to expend. It wasn't fair or honourable. It was a packed up and prepared slaughter that painted the bunker brown and orange until there was nothing recognisable left of the mighty alien warriors.

"This is my kind of vacation," Wrex examined. "Lots of scenery and lots of killing," he finished happily, as he and Gabrilan put aside ingrained evolutionary hostility to boost each other up to the roof and buckle, rip and push the communications dish clean off the building. With that, long range artillery was also off-line. A fact that pleased Ashley no end.

"They're letting up, start heating up the Mako's gun, Rentola! And keep her hot! ... Then slap some omni gel on her hurts! She's gotta' outlast them!"

Aran moved up to the front as the three squads ordered themselves for a breach and clear on the stone cat-walks that signified they were approaching the base proper. Kaidan tapped her shoulder as she took point and they were moving as one mobile unit again.

"Swarms have backed off, heading to perimeter fuel stations. Bunker up before they come back," Garrus warned his team.

The Krogan troops on the gang-planks failed to put up a stiff resistance either, as Aran and company caught them with their pants down and ripped them asunder, sometimes knocking them clean off ledges to fall into the plunge-pools below. Samus again split her forces, but this time she sent Gabrilan up the middle along with Kaidan to provide back-up, while she and her troops planted C9 on the drone landing pad, sending the structure into the sea.

"Let's see them harry our friends now..."

Kirrahe concurred only a few moments later, as Aran led her men deeper into the weaving path complex of bridges.

"Air threat has not re-materialised. We must be getting some help from Shadow!"

Geth Flyers were the least of Aran's problems though, Krogan veterans were spaced out over the side entrance to Saren's lair. Accompanied by dozens of freshly armoured raw recruits from the labs, Samus could smell the cloning juices clinging to them and she knew Wrex could too.

It was the first grueling fight of the mission, they lost a man as he was brought to the ground and pulled limb from limb before T'Soni and Aran turned the Krogan 'new-borns' to liquid with their biotics. Sniper fire from the other N7's definitely served them well as they perforated their enemies to the wall.

"Shadow Team must be getting close. Hold the line, men! Hold the line!" Kirrahe cried, trying to bolster their resolve.

After the fierce fire-fight, Aran sent Aether and Tallon Team into the underworks of the facility to root out any other surprises, sending Liara with Gabrilan's squad to allow them more biotic joule power per person.

Tali cracked a master control panel in as much time as it took to prise open the panel with her knife.

"We've got access to base security," she informed her Commander as if it was the simplest thing in the world. The girl made hacking look effortless and Aran felt her heart swell with pride. "We can cut the alarms from here, maybe even trigger alarms on the far side of the base. It'll clear the guards out for us. But they might be too much for Garrus, Ash and the Salarians to handle..."

"Just disable the alarms, Tal. We can handle anything they have inside."

The Pilgrim from the Rayya did just that.

Aran's forces threw grenades into the warehouse interior before storming the place at full force. Wrex led them this time, running down Geth, stripling Krogan warriors and even indoctrinated STG members of Kirrahe's company without a care. Samus was certain he'd give into his blood rage sooner than later and forced him back.

"Are you trying to get more of my men killed, Wrex?"

"This is a cake-walk, Shepard! Not a challenge in sight! Don't even think of getting in between me and Saren when I flip over whatever rock he's hiding under!"

"I wouldn't dream of it, perhaps you'll listen to me more in the future when you see where it leads you..."

"You told me you killed him, looks like you didn't try hard enough!"

"I smashed his brains in, Wrex! He was up on his feet ten seconds later. The nanites in his body can regenerate all his living tissue. And those regenerative abilities are being exercised, conditioned, like any muscle!"

"So I exhaust their power source," he shrugged without a care. "Blunt force trauma isn't the only way to kill a man."

"You're a damn fool, Urdnot Wrex! We'd be better off restraining him together. Take him back to the Council alive. Until we can separate him from that ship and the Reaper signal influences on board, he's virtually immortal!"

"Not - going - to happen, that, motherless bastard, as you call him, is mine. Biotics will do the trick, they're only limited by the user's imagination. And believe me. I can be very - creative..."

They stormed the labs, indoctrinated workers throwing themselves at armed soldiers; Aran's squad gave them the only mercy left to them before investigating the captured 'specimens'. They uttered mindless whispers along the lines of:

"It calls, and I must follow..."

"I am only what it wants me to be..."

"It never sleeps! IT NEVER SLEEPS!"

"It is - emptiness..."

"The darkness comes... the darkness cannot be breached, they'll eat my eyes, eat my soul, eat me, eat -"

Of them all, only one had still retained his mind, Samus decided to free and escort him to safety, since he had first-hand experience of witnessing indoctrination effects.

"We'll be out of here soon, soldier," she assured him as they made their way down sterile hallways.

"Thank you, Commander. I'm Lieutenant Ganto Imness, 3rd Infiltration Regiment. You must be here to destroy the base...? I still can't quite comprehend it. My entire team - altered, indoctrinated. The Captain knew about the breeding grounds, but the indoctrination is the greater threat and far more horrifying... they made me watch as good people were reduced to empty shells. There wasn't anything left. Others died in the experiments... I envy them."

"What kind of - experiments?" Samus asked him as she checked a corner and saw no hint of enemy presence.

"I was, lucky, just part of a control group for comparison, the others were subject to indoctrination exposure through alien markers. They - studied it: its symptoms, progress, duration of mental stability before degradation. Saren uses it to control his people but I don't think even he fully understands it..."

"That's more than enough for now. You'll get home for a full-debrief, Imness. I promise you."

"Thank you, Commander."

Aran keyed in the Normandy's frequency. "Still performing full evasive maneuvers, Joker?"

"I know the drill, Commander. All's clear out here, not a nasty squid ship in sight and I doubt it can use that tractor tech within a planet's atmosphere."

"Good, keep me up to date and inform me straight away if the Leviathan makes a move for us. That part is critical, Jeff."

"You can count on me, Sam."

"I know I can, Jeff. Out."

Soon, Shadow regrouped with Aether and Tallon, who had sliced the interior cameras and all other automated security, they were forced to dispatch more raving STG personnel before heading into the depths of the complex in a large freight elevator. The lift stopped at the lowest floor to reveal the primary laboratory. A steel and chrome nightmare fun-house of Husk analyzer experiments, cloning tanks and one very crazy chief researcher.

Droyas was babbling uncontrollably. "What is going on?! Where are the guards?! Where is Saren?! NO! STAY BACK! THIS IS IMPORTANT WORK! THIS IS THE GLORIOUS SALVATION OF MY SPECIES!"

Wrex and Gabrilan shot him both at the same time, while the rest of the platoon decimated every other possible hostile, the insane Asari assistant, inanimate Husk Humans, Salarians and even some dried up, stitched-together, mutated Krogan.

"Did I really sound that demented on the beach?"

"You sure did, old man," Gabrilan ribbed. "I knew this was a pile of crock. This place is just about growing disposable, strong bodies for Saren to throw at us and all his enemies."

"No! There must be something else in here!" Wrex cast already burning and shredded papers aside, overturned tables, grabbed vials of liquid only to shatter them in his hand when they were revealed to be urine samples or some other embryonic fluid culture and fruitlessly searched through a nearby computer database that turned up nothing as well on a visible tangible Genophage cure. Aran really wished Kirrahe had used his words more carefully back on the beach. he'd got Wrex worked up for nothing but at least there was a silver lining in that he was coming out into the open with his grievances of being under someone else's leadership.

"Wrex! We don't have time for this!" Aran snapped sharply. "The Salarians are counting on us! Ash and Garrus are counting on us! Get your act together, now!"

The Battlemaster had just finished tearing an entire fuming cabinet off the wall to get a look at the petri dishes inside. He swiped them, and the shelves they were on, into so many pieces with his massive forearm before raising both to the ceiling and bellowing in frustration and defeat:

"I'M GONNA TEAR THIS WHOLE PLACE DOWN!"

"YES! THAT'S THE SPIRIT!" Aran roared in his face. "Now clear us a path to the next check-point! Solo! If you please!"

"RIGHT AWAY, MA'AM! AH! HA! HA! HA! HA! HAAAH!"

Kaidan did not seem to think much of such blatant manipulation when Wrex was nearly unstable. But Samus didn't give a damn. Alenko could stuff his childish pretensions regarding this matter, she'd give Wrex his shot at Saren, she just hoped he would still be alive to eat humble pie after... or else suck it through a straw.

---

Rana Thanoptis was having a quiet, relaxing morning. She looked out on Virmire's beautiful scenery and sighed happily with a mug of coffee in hand. The Asari found herself especially glad of the sound-proofing in the magnificent sprawling building. The Geth or Krogan sentries wondering the place would never disturb her work, no matter what heavy maintenance or drills they were getting up to...

The same could not be said for silence when a swathe of automatic fire sent her personal guards to pieces and her crawling underneath her desk as jack-booted thugs smashed her door down and flooded the office with military precision. Along with a motley collection of aliens, who wore differing hard suits. Their olive drab and bronzen coat, black and white war-stripe armoured leader with the scary blacked out V-shape visor helmet pulled her out from her hiding place and pressed a pistol to her face, she recognised it as similar to Saren's and knew this to be the Spectre hunting him. She looked like one of those Earth predators, a Sumatran Tiger in Human form; with a hand-cannon.

"Wait!" she pleaded, crying and streaming all over the place. "Don't shoot! Please! I'm not a threat!"

"Really?" answered the masked soldier with the Devil's voice. "Every other support staff member here has just tried to kill us. What makes you so special Miss...?"

"Thanoptis, Rana Thanoptis, neurospecialist, but this job isn't worth dying over, or worse! I just want to get out of here before it's too late!"

"And why would that be?"

"You think the indoctrination process only affects prisoners?! Sooner or later, Saren will want to dissect my brain, too!"

"I'm of a mind to let him! Now tell me what this department is! Where are the breeding grounds!"

"Adjacent to this section! Please... don't hurt me... but this level... we were studying Sovereign's affects on organic minds. At least, that's what I assumed. Saren kept us in the dark as much as possible!"

Liara looked at her countrywoman with loathing. "You helped that, sociopath with this demented research and you didn't even know why?"

"I didn't have the option of negotiating! This position is a little more permanent than I'd like!"

"You're not helping your case, sister," Wrex grumbled. "Give me one good reason not to eat you in one bite."

"No! Keep him away from me!"

"No can do, Rana. He's a hungry one," Sam manhandled her straight in front of the facially scarred old warrior. "I don't know how long I can keep him in check..."

"Okay! Okay! I'll help you! We're right next to Saren's private lab. I can get you in!" Thanoptis tried to placate her captors.

She stumbled over to the inner, reinforced door with Aran following her every move, pistol jammed into the back of her neck to ensure no treachery. Thanoptis entered her security pass code. The red indicator light switched to green as the door unlocked with a hiss.

"See?! Full access! All of Saren's private files! Are we good? Can I go?"

"Go?" Aran brought her to her knees by lightly stamping her hamstring inwards with her boot. "I'm going to blow this place to hell and gone. If you want to make it out alive. You better start running."

"What?! You can't - but I'll never... ohhh!" Thanoptis tried to flee but Liara cleaned her clock with a right cross and let her fall across Vasquez's shoulders in a fire-man's carry.

"Take her and Imness onto the Normandy as soon as she comes in to land and make the drop-off. Our STG man goes to Chakwas. The neurospecialist can go to the brig."

"Aye, aye, Commander."

Wrex laughed deep from his chest at the show. "I've said it once before and I'll say it again. I like the way you think, Shepard."

"You could have fooled me... boys and girls, stay down here and secure the overpass bridge. T'Soni, Gabrilan, Andrews, Zorah, Wrex, Alenko: you'll accompany me."

Saren's private laboratory was a labyrinth of metal gantries, bloodied operating tables and expensive scientific apparatus. It also housed numerous cloning tanks with equally twisted specimens inhabiting each. Evidently, Saren had also been trying to refine his mass-produced Krogan shock-troopers.

"He needs to pay for what he's done to my people..." Wrex whispered, hand resting on the glass surface of a tank which contained a split-plate with a head twice the size of his body. Arterius seemed to collect the failed ones as some sort of perverse hobby.

"Samus! Over here!" Liara called suddenly, gesturing for the team to follow.

"What is it?"

"It's a Prothean beacon! Like the one from Eden Prime!" she gushed excitedly, Aran rounded the corner with her to see the unmistakeable mint light of the monolithic computer, situated amongst a battery of monitoring equipment and haptic interfaces.

Slowly, the Hunter neared the ancient device, gesturing for everyone to stay a safe distance away. She activated some of the protocols and quickly navigated the extensive security, all the while, checking that this beacon didn't have some kind of psionic trap waiting for her when she did remove her helmet, clip it to her belt and lower her automatic mental shields.

At last, Aran stepped up to the beacon and placed both arms into jade green haptic circles, her twin omni tools were recognised thanks to her tampering and at once she relaxed utterly into a meditative trance, she would have fallen backwards had the ME field not burst from the device with incredible power, lifting her above her comrades as the beam etched memories onto her neurons: Aran found herself much more consciously aware of the visions than she ever had been in the past.

Once more she saw through the titian-tinged eyes of an alien race. A forest garbed cityscape in ruins. Though stone sky-scrapers still stood against the end. People flash-incinerated in the grass-covered streets by streams of molten metal. Organic and synthetic elements enmeshed together. And both screamed in despair... burrowing into the ground for safety, burrowing into the soul for subversion. Substituting, evolving, transcending. Or so they would say. You have nothing, Shepard. Nothing to do - with all your strength. YOU WILL LOSE! The voice promised. A voice she had heard before...

Aran's eyes slowly opened wide, blazing at this new unveiling adumbration. She'd heard that voice before! The link broke off and sent Aran collapsing to her knees. Liara was beside her in less than a second.

"What did you see?"

It took Aran a moment to compose herself before she looked to her partner with something akin to terror.

"The true threat... I was so foolish... I've been so blind!"

"I don't understand. What do you mean?" Liara cupped her cheeks lovingly as Aran stared at a place the Asari couldn't see. She helped the Commander to her feet. The other members of the crew were beginning to lose their cool too, considering their leader was nearly shaking, her teeth gritting so hard her gums bled.

The lab darkened oppressively. Though the lights still shone.

A vermilion holographic control panel stood out in the gloom...

"I have a feeling something bad is about to happen..." Wrex said forbiddingly.

Although Samus looked for an instant as if she wished to flee. The episode was gone as quickly as it had arrived, she stepped up to the plate and past her allies to reach the unique interface on the top floor. They assembled behind her as she examined it. But physical proximity was all that was needed.

A blood claret 3D representation of Sovereign faded into being. There was silence for a split second, then a deep voice that could chill even the Hunter's Chozo blood crackled through the air, mechanical, bestial, unknowable...

"You, Are Not Saren," it almost accused the Spectre before him. But it was more of an empty clarification than a meaningful rebuke.

"What is that?" Tali wondered out loud for the group's benefit. "Some kind of - VI interface?" The hologram's answer gave them all pause. And it was an answer they would remember still when the veil of years fell upon them and their graves lay open to await them.

"Rudimentary Creatures Of Blood And Flesh. You Touch My Mind, Fumbling In Ignorance, Incapable of Understanding."

Andrews and T'Soni spoke for everyone at the same time. "I don't think this is a VI."

"There Is A Realm Of Existence So Far Beyond Your Own, You Cannot Even Imagine It. I Am Beyond Your Comprehension. I, Am Sovereign."

"Well, I'll be a Turian's uncle," Gabrilan uttered quietly. "It's not just some Reaper ship, Saren found. It's an actual Reaper!"

"Reaper. A Label Created By The Protheans To Give Voice To Their Destruction. In The End, What They Chose To Call Us Is Irrelevant. We Simply - Are."

Kaidan spoke up next: "the Protheans vanished fifty thousand years ago! You couldn't have been there! It's impossible!"

Samus covered her face with one hand. "Oy vey," she whispered.

"Organic Life Is Nothing But A Genetic Mutation. An Accident. Your Lives Are Measured In Terminable Spaces. Years, Decades. You Wither, And Die. We, Are Eternal. The Pinnacle Of Evolution And Existence. Before Us, You, Are Nothing. Your Extinction Is Inevitable. We, Are The End Of Everything."

Aran had had enough. "Whatever your plan is, it is going to fail. I'll make sure of that. And on the day you fall you will curse the day you heard my name."

"Confidence Born Of Benightedness. The Cycle, Cannot Be Broken."

"Cycle? What cycle?" Wrex asked, playing dumb.

"The Pattern Has Repeated Itself More Times Than You Can Fathom. Organic Civilisations Rise, Evolve, Advance. And At The Apex Of Their Glory, They Are Extinguished. The Protheans Were Not The First, They Did Not Create The Citadel, They Did Not Forge The Mass Relays. They Merely Found Them. The Legacy, Of My Kind."

Liara now addressed the Reaper. Samus nearly laughed out loud at Liara's open bookish curiosity when speaking to an eldritch being. "Why would you construct the Mass Relays and just leave them for other races to find?"

"Your Civilisation Is Based On The Technology Of The Mass Relays. Our Technology. By Using It, Your Society Develops Along The Paths We Desire. We Impose Order On The Chaos Of Organic Evolution. You Exist, Because We Allow It. And You Will End, Because We Demand It."

"They're harvesting us!" Tali moaned in panic. "Letting us advance to the level they need - then wiping us out!"

Liara was quick to posit another question: "what do you want from us? Slaves? Resources?"

"My Kind Transcends Your Very Understanding. We Are Each A Nation. Independent. Free Of All Weakness. You Cannot Even Grasp The Nature Of Our Existence."

T'Soni was undeterred. "Where did you come from? Who built you?"

"We Have No Beginning. We Have No End. We, Are Infinite. Millions Of Years After Your Civilisation Has Been Eradicated And Forgotten. We, Will Endure."

"Where are the rest of the Reapers?" Liara continued, then, somewhat hopefully. "Are you the last of your kind?"

"We Are Legion. The Time Of Our Return Is Approaching. Our Numbers Will Darken The Sky Of Every World. You Cannot Escape, Your Doom."

It was quite safe to say that Samus Aran was not about to take such a one-sided argument lying down.

"You know... you claim, to be beyond mortal comprehension. Yet you - treat with us, using words. You threaten us, with, rather Lovecraftian, psychological warfare. You employ mind slaves to manage the tasks you cannot; due to your rather bloated size. These all imply similar limitations to us poor, lowly meat-bags. None of us are free of them. But you know what we are free of...? No? Control. I, we, the Galaxy have a choice to face you -" Aran suddenly blew up, nearly frothing at the mouth such was her rage. "and by the Mother of all Creation, I'll see you burn! You will beg me for your miserable, blinkered existence; before I've wiped, every last miserable Reaper from the face of the Universe! You will know fear, at my hands! Because all creatures feel fear... and you are tiny, no more or less than us, or me, but I can assure you... you and your kind will break under my heel first...!"

Sovereign only paused for a fraction after listening to Aran's tirade.

"Your Words Are As Empty As Your Future. I Am The Vanguard Of Your Destruction. This Exchange, Is Over."

A screech of formidable infra-sound shattered every window in the lab and blew out almost every other electronic device in the area as well. But the crew were protected by their auditory filters and the panes of refined silicon broke harmlessly against their armour.

"Touchy, isn't he?" Wrex muttered, trying to ground everyone after such an unpleasant surprise.

"Garrus would have had a one-liner much better suited to the situation, I think," Tali replied.

Joker took the opportunity to beep his superior officer.

"Commander, we've got trouble."

Aran grinned madly. "Lay it on me, Joker. I love bad news..."

"That ship, Sovereign. It's moving! I don't know what you did down there but that thing just pulled a turn that would shear any one of our ships in half! It's coming your way and it's coming hard! You need to wrap things up down there, fast!"

"What do we do now, Commander?" Liara asked, slightly scared by the nearly wild glean in Aran's profound eyes.

"We make for the breeding grounds, dispatch everything in our way, take out those guns, rendezvous with Mannovai, Aegohr and Jaëto Teams. And then... I'm going to show you how to kill a Reaper."

---

On the course-way, Aran's platoon was confronted by a similarly numbered force of Krogan warriors.

"Now this day is just getting better and better! Take them!" Samus roared, exploding into their midst.

"It's Kruul Laak! What are you waiting for, you morons?! Kill her!" their Battlemaster vociferated.

"How?!" another yelped.

And indeed it was so. Sovereign's true origins and words of inevitable failure had put the Raging Devil in one hell of a battle high. She activated her hydro-crank under barrel chain-saw attachment with one hand, drew her HMW shotgun with the other and began to lay them out like so many corpses. Flash-step blinking out of their clutches when they tried to dog-pile her and unloading ammunition point-blank into their faces and vital organs.

Wrex, Liara and Kaidan had enough biotic power to punch through their own combatants as well and even the N7's managed to bring some of the Krogan down together and put a storm of bullets in their heads. Vasquez even pulled a Leng and killed one with his non-standard issue bowie knife and a bit of well placed ocular application.

"Is that all?!" Aran howled as she confronted the leader and his first biotic attack skated harmlessly off her barrier. She was about to advance to CQC range, then thought better of it and with a flick of her wrist sent him headfirst into the curtain wall across the bay at a hundred and twenty miles an hour.

"What a waste of breath..." she mused, her death-craze satisfied for now.

"Shadow must have a kicked a soft spot! Draw them out Williams! Don't let them gain ground - "

Her platoon pushed on, fighting their way around the side of the facility to reach the generator room at the bottom of the ground to orbit cannon.

"That turret could punch some nasty holes in the Normandy..." Wrex observed.

"Not for long. Kaidan, Tali. Take it offline, quietly. We're going to roll them into a nice neat package."

Even Aran had lost count of the number of Geth and Krogan soldiers she'd killed or made defunct, the Anti Aircraft battery was soon powering down as the Quarian technician and Alliance Sentinel deactivated its primary systems.

"Kirrahe. It's Shadow. One down, one to go."

"Good work on the guns, Shadow Team. Now it's our turn," Kirrahe informed them over the comms.

"That's it, guys! Clear the Geth out and set those charges!" Garrus also hollered along the secure channel. The sounds of whizzing grains, explosions and the crack of Garrus's trusty rifle sounded for a few moments more until...

"Get down everyone, it's going up!" Kirrahe yelled.

A massive plume of smoke and fire billowed into the clear sky from the far side of the base. Accompanied by the deafening rumble of collapsing masonry.

"Aw, ho! Alright!" Joker cawed. "Nice work! That's one less thing to worry about. Commander, I'm bringing us in. I'll get as close to the site as I can."

"Hold off, we might have to clear the landing zone of hostiles."

"No can do, Commander. Sovereign is on my tail and he's looking pretty pissed."

"... Excellent, make sure he sees what we're packing."

"Commander?!"

"It thinks it knows everything about Human nature, Joker. It thinks we'll use the nuke at any cost. I'm counting on it thinking that, otherwise we're all going to die here today!"

"Uh, sure thing, Shepard. I'm coming in hot. Get ready!"

"Double-time it people! Stop for nothing!" They stormed the drainage canals leading to the geothermal taps where chemicals from the labs collated in the oily water banks for siphoning and catalytic cracking inside a massive furnace silo. Samus wagered all her scientific acumen that the volatile location would turn the bomb into a bunker-buster / continent-leveler and at the very least triple the yield output of the subsequent nuclear reaction.

The Krogan had finally cottoned on, they made their way up from the drift-works in the hundreds. Though most were heading to the very edge of the facility to otherwise engage Kirrahe, Williams and Vakarian. Samus would not allow that.

Aran shoved her men and allies forward in a dead run, as countless warriors burst from their surroundings and some even out of the piping, or so it seemed. It also looked like a lot of them had been flushed from their synthetic wombs too soon; as many were naked and unarmed but still no less dangerous.

"Leave them to me!" she ordered.

"And me!" Wrex thundered, "We do this together!" he demanded of Aran, turning around and covering her flank. He stepped back until his hump collided with her bandoleer and combat harness. The touch reassuring them both that they were not alone.

Samus roared her last instructions. "Bolster our friends from the Union! Establish a rearguard and get our troops down here to the rendezvous! NOW! NOW! NOW!"

The Hunter and the Battlemaster, exchanged ammunition clip varieties for each other. Readied themselves as their friends departed with looks of concern and longing - and let the wave break against them.

---

Liara and Kaidan made short work of any Geth Sappers clinging to the overpasses and they were soon joined by a Salarian contingent led by Garrus.

"Great work guys! We're coming back through. Ashley's dug in up there under the AA tower's ruins with what's left of Aegohr Team and is kicking the Geth's collective asses. She ordered me along to pave the way, says I don't work as well entrenched! Can you believe it?!"

"Is Kirrahe making his way back along our lines?!" Gabrilan requested of him.

"Sure is, he'll be here in a couple of minutes. In the meantime, what say we make the LZ fit for habitation when Moreau and Shepard see fit to grace us with their life-preserving presence?"

---

"RAAAAAARRGGHH!" Aran sounded nothing close to Human as she drove her newest invention, a double-sided chainsaw mount on her carbine deep into a Krogan's face, spraying herself with orange blood before yanking it up hard, it felt like splitting a rind. And Samus found herself savagely wishing she could taste it on her tongue. Wrex was blowing off heads left right and centre, tearing out chunks of flesh with his teeth and spreading toxic buck and incendiary tipped high precision rounds through multiple opponents back to chest so that they toppled together in a heap.

Samus sliced off one's arms, his entire jaw, then impaled him straight through the chest before commando rolling over in the filthy brine with her meat shield, absorbing enemy shots even as she gunned down three more with rapid-fire bursts through the body until it was set alight such was the thermal clip's heat discharge.

She allowed the tide of bellowing animals to press her back into a corner, using the stuck corpse to keep them stemmed in as she dispatched one after the other with pointblank handgun grapples or omni tool blades repeatedly jabbed into their still soft prenatal skulls.

Wrex was body slamming his smaller kinsman into the canal bed, gleefully cracking their bones under his greater girth and weight and utilising crowd-control to the max with his biotics. Aran stuck to the ground also, lashing out with such force that she was soon crawling through a pile of severed limbs and steaming offal that would have choked slaughterhouse workers.

Aran knew the only way to allow their squads to fully re-group was to break what was left of Saren's test tube army here on the ground. To make them flee and lose the will to fight. Well she would see to that and in good time to. Aran turned several of the 'babies' skins inside out, launched tendrils of biotic seeker arms filled with stasis expansion bubbles, flares, warps, dark channels, annihilation flames and polarising lash partitions. Their heads burst asunder from outside or collapsed from within, some had massive spherical chunks disappear from their bodies, others fell apart under their own weight while others still were liquidated or torn in opposite directions as her soldier had been.

It culminated in Aran unleashing a biotic reave lock repulse field detonation of such magnitude that a score of Krogan tank-grown were reduced to ashes as they were cast back and thrown at speed into the collapsing walls and imploding machinery.

Wrex was still wrestling and head-butting with the Warlord sent to bolster this section of Saren's army. Both trying to line up a shot with their assault rifle and light machine-gun respectively. Aran took a split-second to see how he was faring, then acted.

She fired an overload pulse into the water, setting the stinking flammable liquid alight and roasting the dozens of amputees where they lay inside their armour, what little reinforcements were still trickling in could only stop and stare at what came next.

Aran telekinetically yanked their automatic weapons out of their straining arms to palm their grips clean and smooth before power-sprinting right at them. Omni tools coalescing around their heat-sink ejection ports and spreading liquid nitrogen into a fresh thermal clip matrix as she revolved them back twice, reloading them instantly. She vault-jumped through the fiery wall, loosing a chilling battle cry like a demon of the deep, and unloaded both two-handed rifles into the rival Krogan's torso and face as she compensated for the nearly non-existent climb.

The Warlord was extirpated on the spot. Ceramic, bone and matter splattering all over the place until he was just gone. And all the while Samus found drawn-out vocal release for her self-induced combat high in her helm, spreading her arms to both sides to cut down his minions. This was too much for the clones. Who turned tail and fled but not before Aran planted both guns, removed their boiling clips with levitation, primed them with overload mines and sent them at their backs.

Searing hot lithium shards were driven into them, bolts of lightning rendered them spastics and the rest unlucky enough to survive her final parting gift were engulfed in sticky, toxic napalm as they lay helpless, screaming and pleading to die. Wrex could only watch in silence as the Raging Devil walked right past them and through the flames...

---

Normandy swept into land atop the cove's water-stream ramp and every team except for the whole of Williams' turned to greet the Commander entering from the river-way. Bathed in fire and blood. Rifle cocked over her shoulder as if she were merely on a damn stroll. Garrus had a hard time stopping his jaw from staying agape and Liara hesitated only for a moment before running to embrace Aran. Who picked her up with one arm.

Wrex was re-evaluating once more as he helped the N7's carry the nuke down the SR-1's cargo ramp and the prisoner and rescuee were loaded on-board.

Aran was scanning the skies, she pointed out a black hand that shifted behind a large piece of cloud cover kilometers up to Dr. T'Soni as it began to rain a slight wind-swept spray of precipitation that came at them sideways.

"There. It's watching us... Saren must be here. And as long as we have him among us and our ace in the hole, it won't dare get too near."

"I hope you're right..." Liara murmured.

Observed closely by Samus: Kaidan, Jamie, Vasquez and Wrex planted the four hundred kilo nuclear device against the spring-well and allowed its drill feet to embed themselves in the base's hydro-power supply and actinic / enzymatic waste outtake. Priming cores projected out of the dome and he and Tali efficiently stacked overload tech mines into the cylinders.

"Bomb is in position! We're all set here!" Alenko shouted to Williams over the radio. Her voice came through soon after, soft and panicked.

"Commander! Can you read me?!"

"Affirmative. What's the hold-up Williams? You've sent all but three STG men out of there. We've got Garrus, Captain Kirrahe and seven of his surviving boys down here with him. Get your ass along to the party, Ash!"

"Sounds like fun, Skipper. But I don't think I'll be able to make it."

"... Chief, what do you mean? Get to the rendezvous point ASAP! The nuke is set and we're bugging out!"

"Negative, Commander. Drop-ship reinforcements have us pinned down, I even saw Arterius! He killed Corporal Iziz like it was nothing! And he's on the war-path straight to the bomb site!"

"Sit tight, Williams! I'm sending some of our people to get you!"

"Negative! It's too hot! We can hold them off until you guys are away clean!"

"The hell you can! I'm sending Gabrilan, Tali and eleven of our guys from the Villa! We have a plan, Ash! I am not going to let you martyr yourself after what we spoke about! We're going to have many more conversations like the one we had... do you hear me, Ash?"

Silence crackled on the line.

"Chief... you are not getting away from me that easily, eh? Now prepare to receive reinforcements!"

"... Yes. Commander."

"That's my girl. Valhalla's not going to prepare your place at the table just yet."

She turned to the rest of her assembled troops as Gabrilan led his contingent to the AA tower. "Dig in, everyone. Arterius is dropping by to say hello! Joker... take to the skies and survey Sovereign."

"I'm on it!"

Her N7 boys along with Kaidan guarded the bomb, who was working fast on a fail-safe revolving around an uninterruptible countdown sequence.

"Captain," Aran rested a hand on Kirrahe's shoulder. "You did a magnificent job."

"Without your intervention throughout the battle today we would have been long defeated. Vakarian and Williams are two of the finest soldiers I've ever had the pleasure to fight alongside. But I think it's past time you and I held this line as one."

"I wouldn't have it any other way, Captain. Hold the left wing, I will be giving you my personal biotic support."

"Excellent. I can't wait to see you in action, Commander. ...Shepard, if I don't make it back... I'd like you to - "

"GETH DROP-SHIP INCOMING!"

"HIT THE DECK!" Aran bellowed as she heard the unmistakeable humming burr of heavy weapon projectiles racing through the sky. "BRACE FOR ARTILLERY SIEGE PULSES!"

Impact detonations sent pillars of dust and water above, coupled with the still huge smog tower from the toppled Anti-Aircraft tower. It all served to occlude the Spectre's vision and that of her comrades.

"CONTROLLED FIRE!" Samus ordered, as they began to take out the Geth platforms that rained down on them. Soon enough, heavy troops like Juggernauts and Primes came in too large numbers to account for precision shooting and Aran quickly switched to: "FIRE AT WILL!" Bolstering shields with biotic barriers, switching up and replenishing ammo in a support role and deflecting missiles with her mind was not helping them drive the Geth off, though. Her place was in the thick of it. In the middle of the battlefield, her cradle and her home.

Wrex, Liara and Aran combined biotic fields for astonishing fluctuation effects that reshaped the battleground. The Salarians also threw their mastery of tech into the mix, reshaping every threat to suit their needs and pitting foe against foe. And the N7 marines seemed almost completely unstoppable when locked in with their STG counterparts. Pure ingenuity and technical mastery combined with merciless discipline and flawless improvisation resulted in a nearly perfect fighting force. At least, until he intervened.

Saren's first biotic orb struck Servicewoman 2nd Class Gina Curtis in the chest and crushed her armour inwards by a fatal eight inches, sending her allies toppling in every direction. Kirrahe's men were likewise scattered when another sphere of dark energy crushed Corporal Duxn into green paste and Kaidan just managed to stop Saren's third assault from snapping every bone in his body. Instead being hurtled into the silo and denting the brown metal.

Aran looked up from where she'd slain a Prime to see Saren Arterius standing in the open side-hatch of another Geth drop-ship as it made its first pass-by.

"Garrus! Jimmy! I'll give you both suppressing fire when he comes around again! PUT A BULLET IN THAT SON OF A BITCH!"

"Consider it done, Commander!"

"On it!"

Soon enough, the lines had devolved into a free for all. Everyone spread out and fighting for their lives. Vakarian yanked off his helm and tried to pull off several eye-balled shots on the rogue, but his shields and barrier flared into existence without fail and Arterius continued to bombard them with impunity.

"There!" the Turian renegade spat, pointing out Samus to his Krogan General as he leaned out of the deployment door. "Aran's down there! She's the one! Give me three nine point bores. I'm going to end this...!"

As Samus engaged several more Primes in close quarters, the Battlemaster passed Saren his unique Geth interchangeable rifle. Arterius had modified it to switch seamlessly between automatic fire, charged shotgun, Javelin sharps and even a bio-hazard rocket launcher. He tucked the impressive Swiss-army weapon as his Krogan right-hand man loaded the three specialised stretch-spherical ammunition blocks into the disposable heat-sink pathways. Saren charged up the super-conductor cyan-flamed inferno chamber. Then pressured it into the extending AP module as he lined up the holographic sights; his ship circling over the war-zone below...

The newly minted Corporal Jamie Andrews had been serving alongside Samus Aran since the Normandy's maiden voyage and the subsequent shakedown in the Exodus system. When he saw the man who had killed his brothers-in-all-but-blood aim down the scope at his Commander. There was only one thing he could do.

The three conjoined jets of cobalt lucent ferrofluid split the sky and traveled straight at Aran's back.

Jamie interposed his entire body between his friend and leader.

He was parted nearly in twain.

Aran felt the surge of heat penetrate through two layers of shielding and a burning in her side. Then she was rolling through the drainage ditch on her back with Andrews laid across her; covered in his life's blood and whimpering for his mother.

"Jim... Jimmy, no!" she grasped him in her lap, what was left of him muttered deliriously and shook with soon-to-be short-lived PTSD.

"Shepard... Sam... fighting by your side - has been the greatest - honour - of my life... I - take my leave..."

He breathed his last, cradled in her arms.

It took a few seconds for Aran to realise her life's greatest and ultimate irony, once more. This was her fate. But that didn't mean she had to like it.

"... a ... aah... aaaahhhhhAAAAAARRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!" The red-stained ghost went Rambo on their asses, never letting up her continuous caterwaul of grief and fury.

Her first attack was sent at the man she loathed more at that very moment than Ridley himself. A detonate orb that shook his craft.

She crushed Primes into garbage cans, beat Krogan to death with her bare hands. And sprayed bullet walls of death into their ranks. Every foe fell before her as she cleared a path across the inlet yard single-handedly before reaching the embankment.

Arterius was making another turn above. Aran timed it perfectly; though she was lost behind a crimson veil.

A Battlemaster took her entire rifle's worth in his mouth until the clip overheated. She cast him down. Pulled her HMW pistol and fired rapidly into the massive hydrogen fuel tank, peppering it with holes and releasing the contents in clear jets. An overload pulse followed.

The explosion was such that the towering mushroom holocaust of burning star ship petrol disabled the Geth drop-ship's ME thrusters and began to pull the massive attack craft down in a spiral, the thick black smoke dragging it towards the earth and a deadly crash-landing.

Even as it seemed that Saren was completely undone. He jumped vertically to grab an overhead railing and flipped up, out and onto the curved roof. Running up the wasp tail of the vessel as it pitched, yawed and slanted downwards. He reached the very edge, leaving sparks from his clawed feet as he braced and leapt into the storm-swept sky with a fearsome growl.

His ship went up in a blue electric arcing fire-ball that propelled the rogue thirty feet through the air. The shock-wave carried him into a roll off the running water slope to land in a crouch and come up fighting.

"COME ON!" he snarled at the closest STG Operators, who rushed at him together.

Arterius swept his clawed right hand through one's heart and face-planted the other straight onto the stretched out nails of his one-legged squat. Destroying the Salarian's face. Kirrahe jumped to engage Saren as his men were butchered. The turncoat allowed him three blows before reversing the Captain's elbow joint lock, snapping his arm, spin-stomping his biceps femoris to the side and rabbit punching the Salarian Leader to his knees, who clutched his crushed wind-pipe, gasping in agony.

Garrus shoulder-barged Arterius aside before the cyborg Turian could rip Kirrahe's head from his body. Aran tried to reach them but was blocked by eight more heavy Prime-class platforms. The last thing she saw of Vakarian and Arterius before her reflexes took over was of them spitting the exact same single word at each other.

The former C-Sec Officer swept his rifle stock up and across Saren's jaw. The rogue let the whip-lash momentum revolve him around on the spot to elbow pop Garrus in the temple, sending him flying into the drink. Vakarian raised his rifle while prone on his back but only managed to get one failed shot in before Saren kicked the sharps from his hands. Garrus helicoptered his own legs, hooking Saren's hamstring in to bring him up close and into a cross-choke. Saren broke the strangle-hold easily, dug his fingers into the gaps of his foe's armour and nutted Aran's right-hand man on the nose, his second head-butt cracked Garrus' Kuwashii visor against the ground as he tried to turn his head to the side with the heavy impact, pushing Saren's face away with a braced arm to foil a repeat attack.

Snarling, Saren yanked and threw the nearly insensate Vakarian away by his neck and arm in an arcing motion, splashing him down in a heap ten feet away.

Garrus scrabbled in the watery muck as Arterius bared down on him, removing two talon karambits from his dual forearm holsters... Vakarian scooped up a handful of muddy waste, turned and threw the glob into the rogue Spectre's eyes.

Arterius was only distracted for a moment, as his biotics evaporated the foul substance, but a moment was all Vakarian needed. He dived in, two burst assaults stopping Saren's knife attacks cold. He kneed Arterius in the liver, heel-struck him under the chin, elbow slashed him in the temple and double punched him in the armpit and right carotid. Hits that would have floored any ordinary Turian.

Such emphasis didn't apply to the Prophet of Their Return.

Saren's wrist looped Garrus's and before Vakarian could retreat, the monomolecular metal hissed into life with its ultra-sonic generator and sunk into his flesh.

Vakarian gasped in shock at the stab wound but he screamed in torment when Arterius cut his arm to the bone from pulse to shoulder and released a spray of blue mist.

But the Council's traitor wasn't done yet. He rolled Vakarian's other arm out in a downwards loop and sunk the second talon into his countryman's femoral artery straight up to the hilt. Vakarian fell over his spine and Saren surged upwards, punching Garrus in the cup and lifting him over his multi-spiked head to crash onto his front. Defeated.

The disgraced ex-Spectre took a moment to savour Aran's second cry of rue and ire. But she was still held-back from aiding her protegee by trying to take down three of the Geth's walking tank platforms that were harrying the wounded Salarians.

Garrus was a credit to his kind though, not a disgrace. And tried his best to rise, Arterius placed a foot on the base of his neck and shoved Garrus's head below the water line; suffocating him. He ground Vakarian into the sewage estuary's mucus-coloured bile until he was bashed off his feet; carted along by none other than Urdnot Wrex.

The Krogan Battlemaster surged back and butted Saren with all his might, sending the Turian renegade smashing into a wall.

"Pick on someone worthy of you, Arterius!" he thundered.

"Wrex..." Saren pulled himself loose from the rubble, his mechanised exoskeletal armour having protected him from the bulk of the damage. "Thank you for giving me the - opportunity to clean up a loose end..." He biotic blinked past the son of Tuchanka to the very tip of the embankment.

"You're going down, Saren!" Wrex bellowed, charging after him.

"What are you waiting for then?! I'm standing right here!" goaded Arterius.

Wrex's hands glowed as they were sheathed in biotic warp sparks; sprinting at full tilt. Arterius removed his collapsed cane from a secret compartment on his hard-suit and activated his maxe sword mode; sheathing it in a dark energy annihilation field with an experimental twirl. Wrex roared as he closed the gap and proceeded to try and batter the rogue Spectre to death. It was a test of speed, barrier strength, brute power and telekinetic manipulation. With Wrex coming off the better. He shrugged off any build-up swings of Saren's sword with his heavy Mercenary branded armour and formidable size, getting in close. Pummeling him around the head until his brains leaked from his ears, unfortunately, Arterius could be made physically deficient many times thanks to his healing factor; Wrex's just made conventional injuries less of a danger. He biotically assist slammed Saren into the permacrete multiple times by his ankle, ripped out the tubing of one of his cranial implants and throttled him to death with it, even disemboweled the turncoat through the snaking cybernetics in his side.

Arterius soon retaliated. He put a new deep gash in Wrex's crest, severed choice tendons, tore away armour plating, (and stripped away a good layer of flesh), stabbed him several times in succession, set him alight, crushed redundant nerve sacs, tore two of his kidneys out and finally ran him through the Axilla and opposite Trapezius.

Wrex vomited blood over Saren.

"Is that the best you've got, you pansy?!"

"Forgive me, old friend. I'll see you to your proper accommodations!" He ripped his maxe free and biotic palm-struck Wrex above and off the cove's cliff, before pulling him through four pin-point lash terminal spots. Wrex was dashed against the rocks below, at three hundred miles an hour.

Before Arterius could even consider gloating over his victory. Aran barreled into him from behind. Dimly. He realised that he'd been stricken with over a dozen fatal gash wounds from her dual omni blades, one in the shape of a free-revolving trowel wedge, the other a three-pronged forearm vambrace. He spiraled through the air to land in a bloody mess while Aran knelt in her finishing position of lower gravity; one arm outstretched behind her with obscene grace having sent him flying with a lever throw to his resting spot.

Saren rose again, testing his back muscles before cricking his neck and pivoting to meet his rival. The wind and rain now picked up the pace, the storm was nearly above them now; whipping the trees and island vegetation. The smoke tower highlighting his blue glowing cybernetics.

"I applaud you, Shepard. My Geth were utterly convinced the Salarians were the real threat! An impressive diversion... of course it was all for nothing. I can't let you disrupt what I have accomplished here. You have proved to me you can't possibly understand what is at stake."

Aran had deactivated both omni tools and she instead unholstered Euxenite.

"We have nothing more to say to each other, Arterius. But I swear by the soul I don't have I am going to kill you."

Arterius planted his maxe in the thick stone and drew his own Spectre handgun.

"Strong words, Shepard. You promised as much before. Now let's see you truly enforce them."

They stood stock still. Aran used the slightest bit of her hidden power to begin a slow full-body scan of the bio-form before her... then they raced to impact.

Both went for instant close-range head-shots, resulting in a cyan blazing cross-counter. Until both thermal clips were spent. Auditory combat filters protected their ear-drums from bursting. Arterius was stronger than she remembered, considering she was still relatively fresh and unimpeded. He swept her gun arm down to crack across his thigh and spring the pistol loose from her hand to spin across the slick granite.

Arterius brought his own gun to bear and Samus thrust her palm over and into the barrel, slamming the slide back forcibly and jamming the heat sink magazine in place, preventing a transition to manual cool-down; before adroitly manipulating his flexor and carpus joints to pluck and toss the pistol from his hand as well.

She slashed him with her crown, controlled the distance and allowed her reversed grip of Argyrodite, which she'd palmed without him noticing, to slam into his belly before pulling the trigger twice.

The Chozo hand cannon blew twin holes in Saren's tube patched torso. He punched desperately with his cybernetic arm but Aran moved him like a marionette. The Paralyzer transformed to its knuckle duster configuration and severed both of Arterius' robotic fingers as she countered his left cross, brought him nearly to his stomach, buffeted him with a standing knee dip slide. Revolved back, revolved under, her hips twisted with every iota of her magnificent suppleness as Aran launched from her lying position, spun full circle while twisting and shattering Saren's arm twice more to catch him across the face with both heels at full swing.

Aran's double kick sent Arterius helicoptering across the plateau to smash straight into the low lying quartz skirting. That made it an even three times the Hunter had ended the renegade's life. One more method of demise and Jamie would be avenged.

"Why carry on, Arterius?" she asked simply. "Surrender. This is my war..."

"You've seen the vision from the beacons, Shepard!" He implored her from where he lay, propping himself onto all fours. "You, of all people, should understand what the Reapers are capable of. They cannot be stopped!"

"Now who lacks the courage of their convictions. I suppose we shall see what becomes of such short-sightedness, won't we?"

Saren arced his back and rose to stand tall on his ankle strength alone, shouting across the arena at Samus. "Do not mire yourself in pointless revolt. Do not sacrifice everything for the sake of petty freedoms! The Protheans tried to fight! And they were utterly destroyed."

"You - first!"

Aran power-sprinted but Arterius rocketed from his corner with a biotic charge that clothes-lined her. Aran allowed herself to lift off, then rebounded off two individually summoned biotic vectors to deliver a twirling axe kick atop Saren's head that smashed his skull in. She walked calmly away as Arterius regenerated once more.

"Futile..." he sneered as he crawled upright. "As long as the might of Sovereign flows through the frailty of my uplifted flesh, I cannot be killed."

"No matter how many times you stand..." she uttered. "I will slay you each and every time. And you can tell yourself that mantra a thousand times. And I will put you down a thousand more."

"The Reapers were right to be intrigued by you, Aran. But for all your prowess, what can you hope to accomplish where an empire failed? Trillions dead. But what if they had bowed before the invaders? Would the Protheans still exist? Is submission not preferable to extinction?"

"... Never."

Aran rained blows down on him as much as the drops plink-plunked against their striving forms. The lightning now straight above them. The Hunter's scan was at a measly 31% and Arterius was beginning to resist and counter Samus' attacks in earnest. Reaper nanites honing his reflexes as they learned from experience.

Samus had yirked Saren in the cavity under his arm, slashed his throat and even driven Argyrodite's variable Denzium blade up into his skull before they began to grapple and wrestle towards the edge of the inlet. Neither of them cared as they hurtled off the cliff, locked together and crashed down across the roaring surf and the relatively even ground, drenched with sea spray. Finally, flinging them apart in an explosion of brine liquid droplets.

"Now you see why I never came forward with this to the Council," Arterius said as he spat out sea water; pulling himself to his feet while Aran removed and shrugged off the thermal clip bandoleer he'd managed to seize and pull her over the edge with. "We organics are driven by emotion, instead of logic. We will fight even when we know we cannot win!"

"Speak for yourself. I've seen into your heart, remember? You've unjustly hated mankind. You were angered at being supposedly manipulated. And even now you're afraid the Reapers are controlling your thoughts. Small danger as that is to a petty little man such as you."

Arterius engaged, throwing several jab tests that Aran batted aside.

"I joined with Sovereign knowing the risks! And I know more about indoctrination than you ever will!" He tried a right hook and Aran blocked, counter-struck and pushed his stance back along the tide polished surface before grabbing his follow-up fist and smashing it up into his face. Her greater height an advantaging factor. Saren staggered back and started rambling once again.

"The more control the Reapers exert, the less capable the subject becomes! That is my - saving grace. My mind is still my own... and though the transformation from ally to servant can be subtle, I will not let it happen to me!"

"It already has," she rejoined, moving in for another submission-hold. Saren managed to butt her in the sternum and execute another throw, Aran tore him off his clawed feet with her as well. But she landed half upright on her toes. Quite suddenly, he moved faster than ever as she rose and sunk a drill knuckle beneath the back of his rib cage. His witch-fire blue and purple glowing clawed right hand caught her across the helmet, shattered the tempered glass-steel and piercing the several layers of Non-Newtonian absorbent ceramic canopy before the kinetic force caught up and sent it flying off her head and into the rock pools below.

The blow whipped Aran to the ground but she was regarded as being able to turn every circumstance into an opportunity and took Arterius' stance out with a full x-wing leg sweep that brought him to the deck. Their ground fight continued until a wave broke them up again.

"Whisper one more secret in my ear, traitor. What is the Conduit?"

"The Conduit is the key to your destruction. And my salvation. Sovereign needs my help to find it! That is the reason why I have not been indoctrinated!

"I hope it bothered to fit you with insulation, as well."

"What?"

Samus channeled three terrawatts worth of accumulated static electro-ball lightning through her hand, the water and straight up Saren's trunk. There was a flash like the sun, the smell of burning ozone and the rogue Spectre was smote against the landmass.

The Hunter didn't have long to rejoice, Saren leapt out of the horizontal impact crater, enveloped and crackling in standard and even orange-shifting biotic fields. The incredible amount of juice seemed to have super-charged his nanites to untold levels, shifting incandescent veins ran beneath his skin and his now fire-rimed, blazing cybernetic eye prostheses' gleamed with triumph and scorn.

"No. It didn't, just several very efficient internal power conductors. Thank you, Shepard..."

"... Oh. Shit."

Arterius crossed the distance between them with ridiculous speed, leaving after-images behind. His first punch carved a swathe out of her armour. Aran was faster yet, a flurry of counter blocks, diversions and strikes with all the points of her arms, head and shoulders laid into him - and Saren stood stock still.

She disengaged and fell back.

Arterius ran his thumb along his effulgent mandible-line. "Is that all you've got left, Sam?"

Aran inwardly bristled at him using her nick-name, realising he must have heard it when she comforted Jamie in his last moments.

"You're not the only one with tricks."

Argyrodite morphed from a set of iron knuckles to a basket-hilt broad sword. The straight Denzium blade turned hypersonic, the fuller white hot, the inner to outer patterns transitioning from bright yellow to cherry in a matter of seconds. With her other hand she pulled the HMW Spectre-issue assault rifle over her right shoulder and activated a home-made protocol. The stock split, slid onto her omni tool's fabricator mooring and became an honest to god arm cannon, the rifle de-compartmentalised along numerous hidden ridges, the twin hydro-crank chainsaw teeth belts growled to life along two planes and were subject to thermal friction at fantastic speed; rendering them ultra-heated as well.

She whirled the sword and what was effectively a nun-chuck chainsaw around thrice; sending up rings of steam as they struck the water.

"Impressive... most impressive," Saren acknowledged with a cursory tilt of the head. "Now... show me a good time, Sam!"

Bouts between consummate death-dealing professionals were often short and sweet. They passed multiple times, sometimes Saren got the better of his opponent, more often it was Samus. But for every strike gained, Arterius either absorbed more kinetic power, healed his injuries, or nullified her ministrations completely. While Aran's armour began to be gouged, scorched, cracked, sliced and blackened.

What was once a mortal contest filled with grace, poise and even some curious honour: quickly devolved into Samus killing her hated foe again and again, no matter what it cost her to achieve.

But Arterius was nowhere near as easily dispatched as before. His body covered in glowing battle grooves.

"Why won't you die?" Aran gasped slightly. The sheer amount of energy she'd been expending the entire day and much of the night before finally getting to her.

"Nano-machines, Sam!" Arterius gloated as he clenched his fist, molten hexagons alighting under the bulging flesh of his Geth arm like some sort of mockery to a naturally growing crustacean's shell.

"They anneal and ossify in response to physical trauma! After all, it was your people that were often attributed as saying... you can't kill the Messiah."

"That is debatable. What isn't is whether the Reapers will let us live."

"Sovereign is a machine! It thinks like a machine! If I prove my value, I become a resource worth maintaining! There is no other logical conclusion!"

"You were a Spectre!" Aran condemned with every drop of righteous rage that roiled within her breast; striking out again with her chainsaw whip three-section staff and defending with her sword, Arterius' hands were marked further as he parried them. "You were sworn to defend the Galaxy! You spat on and stood up to be counted against everything that duty stands for! And worst of all... you desecrated that vow to save yourself!"

"I'm not doing this for myself!" he screamed, grabbing her heat blade with help from his biotics while the buzzing chains wrapped around his other arm. "Don't you see, Sam?! Sovereign will succeed. It is inevitable! My way - is the only way any of us will survive! I'm forging an alliance between us and the Reapers. Between organics, and machines! And in doing so - I will save more lives than have ever existed! But you would undo my work! You would doom our entire civilisation, to complete annihilation! And for that - you must die."

This time Arterius didn't play with his food, he broke the blade-lock and came at Aran with everything he had. The inflicted fissures on his arms occasionally burst out with accumulated kinetic power, knocking her off her guard, cracking her armour to the extent that he scored several lethal blows of his own for the first time during their skirmish. Aran was forced to telekinetically apply a trauma dose of medi gel to staunch her injuries, then proceeded to fire both gun blades at close range, while simultaneously swinging them; managing to kill Saren once more. Not letting on how horrified she was when his grey matter, flesh and bone healed within milliseconds. When she tried to duplicate the technique, Saren deflected the stream of hailing bullets off his empty claytronic protected palm, ricocheting them in every direction before pushing the stream back so close that her HMW was totaled into so much scrap metal; leaving Aran with the nugatory measure of breaking the gun against his head.

For a second their combined speed was so great neither touched the other with their weapons. Until they came close and drove them through each other's abdomens.

Their grapple intensified, both stuck on sharp implements as they sallied back and forth. Saren manged to drive an ME lengthened shard of metal from his truncated robotic finger straight into Aran's right eye. She didn't even flinch, much to the former Spectre's dismay, pushing both of his stickers free from her stolid musculature and stomp punting him in the chest, flinging him off her sword to flip over and onto his dorsum as he slid away.

In answer, he biotic lashed Argyrodite out of her hand and up to the geothermal drainage pool above as she raised it for a jump attack, then flash-stepped; pushing four inches of filed nail into her chest to touch bone once more. Samus' only complaint was an aggravated grunt, then she drew him close, gripped the base of Saren's skull and tried to rip his brain-stem out, her crushing, probing fingers like steel rods finding much more success; since the Reaper nanites reacted to intent and not to speed. Arterius slammed her elbow crook with a hammer fist, rattling but not breaking her grip, then he tried an overhead double-fist smash, Aran weaved and pulled a tripartite Chozo technique that resulted in an upper nasal strike, clavicle chop and elbow to ear slam in the same time it would take anyone else to jab once.

Saren was rocked back and around by the blows. But Aran was far too experienced a warrior to fall for his elbow wheel rebuke, catching his triceps and loading said arm. The renegade's other repeated elbow strikes backwards over his shoulder freed him from the pressure-point clinch and he responded in kind.

He believed he'd snapped Aran's wrist as he reversed the joint manipulation then tried to jab both thumbs into her temples. But Samus had baited the injury, burst knocking him off balance then twisting his arms under from the front with her own and gripping his skull in both hands, she proceeded to stave in both his mechanical eyes with her own thumb pads. Arterius screamed as she did so, kneeing her in the fork of her legs, slamming her crooks, Aran replied by bashing him with her head, launching his guard high, then bringing both her knife hands to chop down into his carotid arteries on both sides of his neck with twin meaty thumps.

Arterius shrugged off the death blows once again and then he charged and lifted her off the ground, trying to pop Aran's vertebrae with a bear hug. His strength unbelievable. Samus spasmed under his constriction while the rapidly approaching invulnerable sadistic maniac laughed cruelly at her helpless plight.

Aran tore the top of her ruined cuirass off, then she bobbed her torso down to Saren's jeering death-mask of a face with that same uncanny flexibility that was her's alone to employ and managed to curl her digits over both rows of fangs to prise his open jaw further apart, ignoring how they sunk into her flesh. Arterius gurgled and twisted as Aran pulled his masseter muscles in opposite directions so wide and hard that his cheeks began to rip from their metallic moorings. The sound he made was indescribable.

Samus bobbed her head down and fastened her teeth onto his wriggling tongue. Then she bit down and tore it up and out by the root.

The gurgling turncoat drowned to death on his own greyish blood as Aran forcibly held his head angled back. A shame he lurched up moments later after releasing Aran to writhe in the seaweed. Samus spat the giblet of meat into the ocean and checked her scan. It was at last complete. She absorbed the information in an instant but was disheartened to notice that her retinal HUD displayed the total energy reserves of Saren's nanites. They were still at fifty four percent power.

The Hunter attempted a rear-naked choke as his maddened assault lumbered past her. But Arterius unfolded her right hand, grabbed her pinky finger and snapped it. When that failed to free him; he managed to dislodge the first three metacarpal bones running from it instead, causing Aran to utter a short exhalation and release him. Saren ripped her arm away, loaded it, and a cyan blue, double-pronged Geth omni blade sprang to life on his right hand.

Although he aimed for her spine. Aran twisted and his heat daggers plunged into her palm instead. Aran did the unexpected and maimed her own hand further as she pulled away, disintegrating the sinew and nerves between her fingers and allowing her to roll the momentum around so that Saren stabbed himself straight in the wiring of his own cyborg arm's humerus gap and disabled it momentarily. The look on his face was priceless.

Aran drew on her reserves, sealed her crippled hand in a stasis bubble and laid into him with all her might. A never-ceasing set of chain punch volleys that would have toppled a Krogan War Droid and made the haruspex of the Geth's plates glow red with friction, not to mention splintering what was left of her gauntlets and vambraces into ceramic ruins.

She got his 'health' down to forty three percent after a good thousand blows. Aran wound back then swung up and between his guard. Saren was pitched back by the ungodly L-uppercut, only his clawed feet digging into the rock stopped him from flying into the air. She grabbed his omni tool and turned it inwards, splitting his own organic hand in two vertically. He grit his fangs, hissing in agony while he exclaimed in fury and his arm chose just that right moment to come back online; smacking her away like chaff with the accumulated kinetic power she'd been foisting him with.

He ran flat out and spun her around to drive a biotic knee into her face, smashing her nose in and throwing her on her back. He hoisted her up by gripping her around the head and by her arm, claws scraping across her skull and leaving two flayed rivers. He crushed one omni tool into gelatin before extracting the other from under her flesh with his red-shifting nails, allowing him to carve out her other hand's ligaments as she'd inflicted on herself. Then he brought her down with an anaconda suplex, delivered three equally forceful punches to alternating sides of her groin, before bringing his knee up into her throat; reeling her with a one-two hit combo and finally laying her down in the rainy puddles with a power swing to the temple.

"It's over, Sam. Don't fight me any longer..." he breathed heavily, looking down on his weary foe. Or was she...?

"... Hee, hee, hee, hee, heee," Aran giggled deadpan through the streams of blood running down her face. She struggled up to rest on her calves, maimed arms lying on her lap passively. She looked a fright as she looked up at him with a certain cheeky cleverness as if she were privy to a hidden joke.

Arterius was mildly unsettled to say the least.

"I'm getting tired of besting the best. Aran - " he began to say, but her voice of iron could always cut across him.

"A pity. These scrapes aren't even your victories. They're your Master's. And even better..." and she grinned through bloodied teeth. "Is the fact that it doesn't even matter if I die here today. The cycle of extinction will end. My friends, my people - will carry on the fight. They know what I know. And I can see it all once more with clarity. While you... you will die knowing everything you fought for was a lie."

"What madness do you speak? You can barely stand."

Saren summoned his free-floating plasma push dagger set once more. He was about to seize her by the hair to deliver the fatal blow when she stood before him. And not just stood, she made it to her feet as if the punishment he'd dealt out to her over the last few minutes was as nothing.

"Perhaps... perhaps I was sitting there because I simply lacked the strength to stand. Then again... after some consideration - maybe I can stand after all. And when it comes to hurting people; you're not the only one with an imagination... look behind you."

Arterius did no such thing. And suddenly he was dying every second.

Liara subjected him to a certain rarely taught rapid burst miniature stasis bubble field technique. Inside of his own head.

She'd killed him fourteen times before her implant shut down due to her own caloric exhaustion.

A grain entered through the delicate adjoining filaments of Saren's right eye as he lurched about and the round bounced around inside his skull. Garrus stood above on the cliff, patched up, rifle in hand; watching with grim satisfaction as Arterius' own enhancements killed him eight times over again.

Flickering St. Elmo's fire engulfed the renegade from the inside out, detonating multiple times until he looked like Guy Fawkes on the 5th of November. Wrex emerged from the sea, battle-ravaged, hump crushed in at one spot and broken all over but ready to do his part nonetheless.

A massive explosion shook the facility and Samus knew that Tali, Gabrilan and Ash must have taken down the second of the three drop-ships. Her heart nearly burst with that same honest pride in their abilities.

Saren floundered without a paddle. His nanites' energy pool at a measly three percent. Samus rushed him, caught him in an intricate grapple and revolved through the air like a Catherine Wheel. It was a move she'd mastered when she was merely six years old and unlike any time before, this time she abandoned all restraints. Much of her early training and conditioning had been about overcoming increasingly difficult body-weight strength exercises. To this day, Aran felt like she was walking across the surface of Zebes, courtesy of a now deeply intrinsically deep-seated Psionic block that had been instilled in her since childhood. This had kept her lean and tapered for greater challenges. And then there were the times when she just needed to cut loose and show her true power.

Samus broke his spine into a fusilli strand such was the force she applied with her revolutions. Her finisher resulted in her spin hurl planting him against the pumice stone edge of the rocky cove and crunching his exoskeleton's rachis partitions straight inwards in an echoing back-breaker that echoed the length and breadth of the cove.

The four warriors had brought Sovereign's Prophet low. But even then. Arterius would not be allowed to die unless his body could be removed from the Reaper's sphere of influence. Which even then, might include long-wave communication from his assorted brethren...

Wrex and Garrus stepped up, Aran indicated her forlorn hands. "I'd do it myself but... hah... cuff him boys."

A scarlet beam split the clouds even as the rain died. It appeared to be some four miles off. The sea churned, swelled and headed towards them.

"... No," Samus moaned. "You - clever - bastard."

T'Soni and even Aran were far too biotically exhausted to protect themselves from the sun drenched tsunami as the rain stopped and Hoc shone down on them once more. It swept everyone present back up into the breeding ground's artificial fjord, now filled with draining water and washing what little troops still stood off their feet and around the massive sluice bank.

And Arterius, he was given more than enough kinetic reimbursement from the violent wave surfing trip to unleash it all in a sphere of brilliant orange-shifting telekinetic power; sending his enemies to his feet in a shock-wave of sea water and his nanites' power supply burgeoning up to single digit percentiles once more.

He pulled his crumpled armour plates back into shape biotically and drew his unique Geth rifle from his armour's, undamaged, hidden compartment, executing downed disoriented N7 marines and STG Operators as he wondered. Then he saw who he'd been seeking.

Aran was stunned, brain-fizzed from swallowing too much water and sweeping her useless hands through the murky machine-made lagoon to locate one of her lost weapons. Through a haze, she could just see Vasquez, bleeding from a mortal wound and one arm severed, leaping onto a grenade, then for good measure, rolling into the last pocket of Primes with all of his grenades on manual detonator and wiping them out in a gory suicide strike.

Arterius strode forth, enjoying her seemingly growing dread, aiming at her prone form.

Bursts of auto-fire flared his barrier. Saren transitioned his rifle one-handed in the offending direction and shot Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko through the chest, shredding his shields and hard suit and causing him to flail back to land spreadeagled on top of the bomb.

Saren now peppered Samus with toroid grains, the pulse round shots cracked her barrier and the last burst broke through and slammed straight into her skull, burning clumps of her hair off and knocking her down with greater force than any punch had; before his lithium sink timely overheated.

Snarling, Arterius cast the gun aside; skipping it across the surface, another useless tool. He marched in close and swept his right arm down in a scooping motion as he moved, dragging his enemy by the throat. Aran regained consciousness with a start, she flailed, trying to find purchase on the slimy drainage ditch but found none. The rogue clutched her nape with both grasping, hateful, atavistic hands and with a whirl of sea spray and water droplets; Arterius hoisted Aran into the air with elephantine strength. The clawed talons of his organic appendage wrapped around her powerful support column like a living hang-man's noose.

He flexed his tightening, gibbous arm, trying to sever her spinal cord in one fell swoop. She pressed down on his wrist with both ruined hands, trying to alleviate the pressure as the pillar of her neck now supported her entire weight. Arterius glanced around in glee, none of her compatriots had recovered from the tidal wave to aid their Commander.

Samus couldn't quite believe this was how it was going to end, she knew her platysma muscles would soon cramp under the strain and then Arterius would kill her like an alligator would a gazelle. Unless... one last trick...

She Psionically severed his link from Sovereign, just for a split second. He didn't know she could only do it temporarily and her psychometric grip on his joint helped in the abruptness of the endeavor.

Arterius whipped his head madly, deranged at the silence and relaxed his elbow joint for just a moment, bringing him within range.

The Hunter reared back even when trapped in the jaws of death and did much more than spit in its eye. She lost her Psionically weighted and therefore prohibitively weakened arm's restrictions and by doing so; increased her swinging power eightfold.

Though it was a messy brawler lob. The punch was far too fast for even the Reaper nanites to see coming. And had the raw strength of the last child of the Chozo behind it.

The Prophet was smote to the ground. Dead but for an instant before his masters dragged him from the depths of whatever hell he'd been plunged into.

And then he knew doubt... then he knew fear.

He ran.

The freed Devil found one gun, then the other as she knelt in the waters of the soon to be doomed base. Garrus was by her side, helping her hold Argyrodite upright for her, to load in a feeding belt of thermal clips while he activated the cooling program on his omni tool, knowing instinctively what she wanted to do.

As Arterius fled, his enemies rising to face his evil and his ignorance, encircling around him. He punished his body for all it was worth while Vakarian helped his Commander to steady on her knee and aim at his fleeing back.

The first overclocked round found his spine and shrapnel-blasted straight through.

The second found his cranium and sent one of his unique head spines flying away as it grazed along his face.

He leapt forty feet up to the deployment door of the last Geth drop-ship, the waiting Krogan Warlord grabbing his hand as he fell short and pulling him up into the surviving transport.

The last would have penetrated his brain-stem through his larynx and knocked him sailing out of the bird if he hadn't pulled his erstwhile ally into its path in his place; letting the ruined form drop from the carrier like dead meat. He affixed his line-of-sight against Aran's pitiless gaze before the ship turned and jetted into the sky.

A klaxon alarm blared through the base, signaling a full retreat of all still inhabiting forces. Garrus supported his Commander, though she was soon keeping him from falling. She hauled an unconscious Kaidan up and over to lay against her shoulders with one arm and kept her men close as they, Liara, Wrex, Kirrahe, five surviving N7's marines and two STG operators still standing made for the Normandy as she swept in and hovered at the top of the embankment. It was a long, arduous climb for most but they made it none the less; clambering aboard.

"Joker," Samus rasped. "We have one minute, pick the others up. Now."

"Secure and aweigh!"

Normandy pivoted on her wings and raced to the ruined tower. Where Tali, Gabrilan, Ash and seven, two, survivors on the Alliance, STG equation awaited. They scrambled on to the stealth frigate post haste.

Then Sovereign's pulse beam rays were erupting around them.

"Fly, Jeff! FLY!" Aran yelled to the heavens.

The stealth frigate hared away from the Nuvese Archipelago. The Old Machine was far too slow in the atmosphere to remain on her tail at speed and even as the Hunter raced up an emergency ladder to get the wounded to sickbay - she was already running to the cockpit.

And then she saw it.

The nuke impact horizon lit the northern hemisphere as they tore free of the planet.

"Alright everybody! Hang on!" Joker warned.

The fusion detonation swept the seas for what must have been a good three hundred miles.

"BURN IN HELL! AH!HA!HA!HA!HA!HA!HAAAAAAA!" Aran cackled in triumph, certain that nothing could have survived an impact centre of such total despoliation.

"Commander..."

"WHAT?!"

Joker's voice came out in the tiniest squeak.

"There's something on LADAR."

Aran paused, frozen like a statue with a very unflattering look on her face. Then she rushed over to the co-pilot's chair and took in the readings.

"... Get us out of here, Joker... nearest port of safety. And take the Relay... sorry about the whole, crazy blood-lust thing."

"No problem!" Jeff said shakily. "Hope it doesn't happen too often!"

"Hm... ah, Gray, if you could... heh. Look at me, I must be scaring you to death right now."

"Not at all!"

"You can stop that, Jeff."

"Stop what?!"

"That... I have to... to go."

"Did? - " He swiveled the chair and stood for his Commander. "Did everyone make it?"

No answer was forthcoming. Then.

"... No."

Aran began to discard what little apparel she had, covered as she was in slime, petrol and blood of her own and others, leaving her holsters, belts and weapons scattered behind her as she walked along the Command Centre. Her crew shrinking back at the sight of her. She didn't stop until she reached her quarters, peeled off the ruined Spectre armour and turned the shower on hot full blast, standing there isolated from the world. Only the ball chains of the men and women who had fallen were wrapped around her forearm. And the links that bound her to their fallen spirits...

---

A/N: They did their duty. Soldiers live and soldiers die. And no-one. Not even Aran, can change that. Next week. Fallout, team comfort and re-affirmation, every squad member will get a check-in. Saren's Achilles heel revealed. Reaper anatomy lesson, this Cycle's accumulation accelerates, the Hunter is poised to reveal all to the Council and the true magnitude of the threat. But first, the Keres Cell approaches The Raging Devil and the Shadow Broker steps forth...