In a reflexive motion that had to be more instinct than thought, Athena sent another biotic wave blooming toward Mel, intending to throw her back. The energy, of course, vanished into the Cinch, the device now glowing faintly blue along its links with the energy charged inside of it.
With a slight bobbing motion, her speed not diminished, Mel reached down and scooped up the pistol that Athena had dropped when Beth had hit her the first time- the object that had gone flying from her hand.
Swinging it back up, she popped the thermal and slid another one into place with the same motion, and by the time it came to bear on Athena, she was already firing.
Athena dodged to the side, the first two bullets missing her, but the third hitting her shoulder pad. There was not enough force to punch through, but it was enough to shove her off balance. She tried to lift a rock biotically to fling at Mel, but her cousin was close enough now even that flare of energy was drawn away before it could materialize. Continuing her turn, Athena sent a punch sailing for Mel's face as Melara bodily tackled her.
The pair went careening madly over the floor toward the crumbling hole that had been taken over most of the room. As they stuck a block of debris, Athena managed to pin Melara beneath her. Melara had run into the Fold back in the prefab without the advantage of a hard-suit. Athena had not come so unprepared, though her hard-suit was a lighter, sleeker asari version that was less bulky than the heavier military issue Mel usually wore. That it was lighter was not much of a help-it still added a good amount of weight to Athena that Mel could not easily throw off- not without being able to use her biotics. As she struggled to get out from under her cousin, Athena slammed a sharp, targeted blow to her side.
Her fist bashed right into Melara's still healing wound. In the sudden, horrible flare of pain, Mel lost what leverage she'd managed to get, gasping for air. Athena used the distraction to her advantage, and pressed her forearm down on Mel's throat.
"I don't want to kill you," Athena said, but the glee in her eyes told Mel differently. She planted her hands on Athena's arm, trying to loosen the force cutting off her air. Athena pressed down harder with a growl. "Stop it! I don't want to kill you, but I will, Mel. I will if you try and stop me again! Any moment this room is going to be overrun. I sent the signal-"
She broke off at a sound, turning her head toward the broken hole, now only a few yards away. Mel's eyes shifted that way to.
For a moment, she rejoiced. Geth, hovering or flying thanks to rockets in their feet or on their backs, were sailing into view and into the room. Red and Daenys both were with them, the quarian using similar rockets strapped to the back of her boots while Dae used her biotics. All had weapons in hand.
Mel's relief quickly turned to horror, however. Other forms were flooding over the side of the broken hole as well, crawling into the room. Their bright, primary colors gave them away even before features registered on her brain.
"The Jabberwocks are here," Athena said with grim satisfaction, watching as Red, Dae, and the geth fired on the Jabberwocks, trying to pick them off before they got into the room.
Realizing her distraction, Mel wrenched, getting one arm free, and sent a punch crashing into Athena's jaw as her cousin turned to look at her. Athena half fell, half collapsed off of her, then scrambled away, grabbing up her pistol again as she did so.
Mel got to her feet as quickly as she could, but her healing muscles were on fire and made motion difficult. Athena could easily have planted a bullet in her brain but she seemed unconcerned with Melara suddenly- and for good reason.
The first wave of Jabberwocks that had torn through the geths' fire surged into the room and immediately went on the attack. Mel was weaponless, and thanks to the Cinch she was still holding, she had no biotics either.
She had no choice. Stumbling back, she unwound the Cinch with a quick flip of her arm and wrist, and threw it toward the inner rock collapse where the entrance had once stood. She turned back just in time to catch a Jabberwock in mid-air with her biotics as it lunged toward her face, teeth bared and claws outstretched. She flung it away from her, crushing its head against the ground.
The geth were getting decimated, and not by the Jabberwocks. As soon as she'd abandoned Mel, Athena sent out a blast that knocked half of the geth right out of the air, sending them tumbling out of sight or smashing them into the floor or walls. Dae and Red had already landed, both too busy with their own fight to notice that Athena was slaughtering their allies.
Red was unloading a shotgun as fast as it would fire, each blast of the modded weapon exploding a Jabberwock head, or ripping a gangly torso in two. Dae was relying on her biotics so far, but she had one of her curved asari nyto blades in her hand and a pair of extra pistols on her belt. She tore a path through three Jabberwocks as Mel headed her way, flinging back two more.
Dae caught sight of her, and immediately drew one of the pistols. "Here!" she shouted, and threw it toward Mel, who snagged it out of the air. It was one of her modded machine pistols, and she felt a hell of a lot better with it in her hand.
Barely had she gotten it than she swept a hail of bullets over the head of yet another Jabberwock that was lunging toward her wife. She was falling into the usual dance of battle despite the ache in her side and gut, but her thoughts had not gone idle.
Why were only Jabberwocks attacking this room? Where were the brasa, or those odd flying creatures? Why had Athena seemed to know the attack was coming, and what had she meant by 'I sent the signal?'
Did Athena call the Jabberwocks here? Mel wondered. If so, why?
That her cousin was taking out the geth seemed to suggest that Athena wanted the Jabberwocks alive…yet she was also killing the alien drones that moved in to attack her. She was wading through the fight, taking out friend and foe alike, like she was…
Like she's looking for something.
More of the Jabberwocks were pouring in on the right of the hole, closest to where Daenys stood. Mel focused her fire that way, trying to protect her wife. She still didn't know how badly Beth was hurt, and she was realizing there had been no sign of Liara either since just before the resin trap had released. The blast that Athena had sent out that had destroyed the entrance to the room and torn half of it apart, could have been enough to seriously injure or even kill Liara, if she had not been protected from it.
Now Daenys was in trouble as well. Mel felt like her universe was being turned inside out.
Dae swept away four more Jabberwocks with a biotic bitchslap as Mel's gunfire chewed through another that was closing in on her. Breaking into a run, Mel's fist lit with blue flame as well, sending two more sailing back out the hole they had crawled in through- and right into the hull of one of the passing alien fighters.
Fire lit up, the light so bright a moment that reflexively, Mel threw her arm up to block it, sliding to a halt. The fighter had clearly moved in on the building, perhaps curious as to why the Jabberwocks were congregating there, and had seemed to decide to just take them out. As it passed, one of the thrown aliens slapping into its side, it let loose with its weapons, incinerating several of the Jabberwocks and seriously compromising the floor. Mel found herself on a slant as the floor buckled and warped, holes appearing as part of it collapsed. Daenys was not hit by the weapons' fire but found the ground beneath her twisting and then vanishing. Mel saw her wife surround herself in a biotic bubble and throw herself backward off the ledge the moment before smoke and dust filled the air.
Another bark of the shotgun said that Red, at least, was still on her feet and fighting. Mel recovered her footing, swinging her pistol around to the still churning Technicolor mob of aliens. Much as she wanted to go after her wife, turning her back on the fight or abandoning it altogether might lose them whatever 'cure' Athena thought she had, or might lose them Athena herself. If her cousin succeeded in whatever it was she was trying to do, Mel had no doubt everyone- including Daenys- would suffer for it.
She had to trust that her wife was all right and able to take care of herself. Mel had to do what her father had always taught her to do.
Mel had to fight.
Taking down three more of the Jabberwocks, Mel saw Red erase another one's head. Athena was nearby, sweeping away two more with an almost idle flick as she broke into a run. That's when Melara saw the Queen.
As if to fulfill some odd sense of irony or to bring things full circle, this Jabberwock Queen was the same bright red and crimson as had been the one her parents had found on Rakhana all those years ago. Distinguishable from her drones by the tall crown of branches or appendages on her head, the Queen was only a few feet away from Red, lunging toward her as the quarian killed one of the drones. It was the moment the Queen lunged that Mel also saw Athena break into a run, one hand flaring with blue as the other swung up her pistol.
Mel called out a warning to Red, who spun around, lifting her shotgun toward the Queen's head even as the Queen swung her arm toward the quarian, massive and bristling jaws agape. Red had a small grin of confidence on her face and Mel felt a moment of relief. She had no fondness for the quarian merc, but neither did she particularly want to see her eviscerated in front of her, just for trying to help.
Much as Melara hated and distrusted her cousin- much as she had reason to- even she had never imagined her capable of what happened next.
At the same moment Red's finger tightened on the trigger of the shotgun and the weapon fired, a biotic bubble encircled the Queen and ripped her up into the air. The shotgun blast flared harmlessly against the bubble, causing no harm to the Queen. At the exact same instant- the bark of Athena's pistol hidden within the louder slam of the shotgun-the side of Red's neck exploded outward in a flare of bright blood that was almost the same color as the Queen herself.
Red's arms flung up a bit, the shotgun flying free of her hands and tumbling to the ground. She herself had a look of puzzled astonishment as she stepped back a pace, almost casually. Her hands, continuing their motion, clamped around her throat. Her mouth hung open in a confused gape, blood spilling in a stream over her teeth and lower lip, before her head bent forward almost elegantly. The second step backward faltered, and she crumpled to the ground.
"I told you!" Athena screamed toward Red as the quarian went limp. She was still holding the struggling Queen aloft in her biotics. "I told you I would hurt you!"
The look on her face was nearly as alien to Mel as the Jabberwocks themselves. It looked like a mix of fury and horror, both triumphant and heartbroken. Without even glancing at Mel, Athena turned and jumped off the edge of one of the holes in the floor and vanished from sight, her spitting, hissing prisoner following her down like a child's balloon tugged by a string.
Mel had no time to really process what she'd just seen. She was suddenly alone with the remaining Jabberwock drones, all converging on her with slaughter on their minds. Lighting up with her own biotics she sent half careening out into the open air past the ruined wall, then addressed the other half with her gun. At one point, she managed to pick up Red's shotgun, which was remarkably effective in close quarters. It seemed to take hours to finish taking the rest of them down, and her biotics felt all but exhausted by the time the last fell.
She'd used the last of the shotgun's thermal clips and had no spares. She dropped it with a clatter, holding her pistol tightly as she ran for the same hole that Athena had vanished into, leaping into the air, and dropping down after her.
It was surprisingly gloomy when she landed. Instantly, not wanting to give herself away, Mel let the rest of her biotics die. Athena didn't appear to be anywhere in sight. She edged forward as silently as possible.
The room she was now in seemed almost as large as the control room above. The ceiling collapse left it pitted and littered with piles of debris, and thin streams of sunlight were filtering in nearby from its own compromised wall.
It did not take her too long to find her cousin. Edging around one particular pile of broken rock atop a half-crushed Jabberwock drone, she saw Athena a few dozen feet away. The asari was on one knee, crouching over the limp body of the Queen. Her fingers were lit with biotics, and she appeared to be using them somehow on the Queen's head. Mel lifted her pistol, aiming it at the back of Athena's skull, then edged forward another few silent steps, trying to make out what she was doing.
She grimaced as she caught sight of the now dead Queen's face. It appeared Athena had peeled open her flesh and the front of her skull using the tiny biotic fields around her fingers, just above where the Queen's nose should have been. Black, viscous blood had flooded into a thick puddle around the pair, and as Mel watched, Athena dug her fingers in past the cracked open skull and into the creature's brain.
She drew out something small and metal, dripping with ichor. It looked like a thin chip or shard of metal, silver, about an inch and a half wide and two inches long. Even from where she stood, Mel could see the faint glimmers of threading or circuitry patterned over its surface.
Still apparently oblivious of Mel's presence, Athena reached in to a pouch on her belt with her free hand, pulling out another object Melara did not recognize. It was a smooth handle of silver metal. It appeared to be designed to be gripped in one hand, much like a brass knuckles, but the part that would extend over the knuckles was a fat ovoid of metal. There was no marking, feature, seam, or circuitry on it that Mel could see.
Athena took the object she'd extracted from the Queen's brain and touched it to the side of the handle. No slot appeared, but the 'chip' seemed to slide into the handle with a smooth motion, vanishing within it.
Whatever the handle was, whatever it was that Athena had taken out of the Queen's head, these were clearly pivotal to her cousin's plan. The temptation was so strong to pull the trigger, to end Athena's life right then and there, but Melara couldn't. If she shot her, she got no answers about what that device was or why Athena thought it so important. She got no answers about this possible cure. If she shot her, like this- in the back of the head without warning- it would also be nothing more than cold-blooded murder. As much as Athena deserved to die, Melara was no murderer.
At the angle she was, she had a clear shot at the joint of Athena's hard-suit, at the shoulder. If she hit her there, the surprise and the pain would be enough to delay her reaction a moment, allowing Mel to get her in a biotic bubble…
…but no. That wouldn't work either. Mel no longer had the Cinch on her. She'd thrown it away when the attack had started, so she could use her own biotics to defend herself and her wife. Beth had managed to get Athena into a biotic bubble as well, but Athena had used her own to break free of it. Mel had no doubt she could do the same with hers.
I may just have to shoot her in the head. I can't get close enough to render her reliably unconscious fast enough she can't react with her biotics. If she gets a chance to use them, I'm dead.
She grit her teeth at the dilemma. Kill her cousin and lose the answers- answers that may be their only hope to saving the Milky Way from destruction- or risk her cousin being able to react, which would result in Mel's death and the loss of the answers anyway.
Athena straightened from her crouch, the aim of Mel's pistol immediately tracking her upward, keeping its bead on her head. She still had the handle in her grip, and she shifted it around as if she intended to put it into her pouch. The moment the fat end of the handle aimed toward Melara, there was a sudden mental explosion of heat in her head.
Her fingers seemed to open of their own volition and she dropped the pistol as the heels of her hands shot to her forehead, pressing against her skull. She heard herself cry out but it sounded more like surprise than pain.
No, it doesn't hurt, part of her realized. It just feels-
Wrong, cousin?
Athena's voice seemed to ring through her skull. Mel stumbled back a step and crumpled. With the voice there did come pain, shattering and echoing and careening about her skull like an angry wasp caught in a bell jar.
Get out! Get out of my-
It is my head now, Melara, Athena replied. Mel curled tighter, hands pressing harder. She distantly heard panting gasps and realized she was producing them. Your mind is my mind. Your body is my body. Let's try that out, shall we?
One of Mel's hands shifted away from her forehead and then slapped sharply across her cheek. It moved outside her volition. It felt, in fact, like someone had slipped their own hand into hers like a glove, and directed the motion regardless of her will.
Good, it works.
Let me go! Let me go, Athena!
"What, and let you kill me?" Athena asked, this time speaking verbally. She walked over to her curled up cousin, the 'handle' still pointed in her direction. "You're a goddamn fool, Melara. All this time the answer was right in front of you- is right in front of you- and you are too stupid to see it! All of you, too stupid!"
"Tell me," Mel said breathlessly. "Athena, you don't have to do this. You didn't have to kill Red-"
Athena let out a snarl and the pain in Mel's head rocketed to the fore again, making her cry out. Able to move her own hand again, she planted it back over her skull, which felt about to split open.
"I told her! I told her I was no good, I told her I was going to hurt her! She should have stayed put, back in the prefab! That damned shotgun would have destroyed the Queen's brain- I couldn't let it, not even for her!"
"W-why?" Mel asked, hating how her voice was shaking. She couldn't help it. The pain had died down again but she could still feel her cousin in her head, echoes of madness and laughter and wailing tears. "What did you do? Wh-what is that thing?"
"This is indoctrination," Athena said. "This is the way it was first created, before the Reapers changed and perverted it. This is how the Queen controls her drones. This is how the brasa controlled the first gavoom. I needed the chip out of a King or Queen to make it work-"
"B-but wh-why? Who are you going to con-"
She saw it for a moment. She wasn't sure that Athena meant to reveal it, but this 'mind control device' was as new to her as it was to Melara. Athena meant to use the device to stop the crew of the mega weapon before it could reach the galactic core, buy them time to implement the cure. She had needed the chip in a Jabberwock's head to make the device work, but to get one she needed to get a King or Queen. The control room had been just that- an ancient system meant to help control, house, facilitate, and summon the Jabberwocks. She had set off an old signal using that ancient equipment to call every Jabberwock on the battlefield to her-like moths to a flame- knowing that would bring at least one Royal and allow her to get the chip.
She also meant to use the device as a way to bypass the Reapers around Andromeda and the other quarantined galaxies, so she could enter them safely and implement the cure there. Then the Reapers could be disabled without ever being a threat.
The cure…what is the cure?
Mel tried to open the 'crack' further, to take advantage of this temporary reversal of information to pull that answer out of Athena's head too, but all she saw was a brief image of Athena herself, before something seemed to slam hard inside her head, blocking her from Athena's mind again.
"You are not your father," Athena said with bitterness. "You're weak, Mel, and I think the galaxy has had enough of you."
She means to kill me, Mel realized, even as the pain suddenly and horribly began to grow teeth, which sank deeper and deeper into her skull.
Then, a flat and almost distant bang echoed through the chamber. The pain stopped as if a switch had been thrown. Blinking her watery eyes, Melara looked up at Athena as her cousin's hand lowered, the silver 'handle' slipping from her grip and clattering to the floor.
Athena dropped bonelessly to her knees, then collapsed into a limp heap on the floor. Behind her, one shaking hand clasped to her chest, fingers running with sapphire, Liara lowered and then dropped the rifle she'd just used to shoot her niece.
"Do not touch my daughter," she said, her voice a cold fury.
Melara weakly lifted herself up a bit, a trembling hand finding a spill of warm over her lip. Her nose was bleeding. She backhanded the blood away with careless unconcern, and pushed herself to her feet, hurrying past her dead cousin and barely catching Liara as the older asari reached toward her, and then collapsed.
"Mama!"
