Destiny Lost

by Twisted Fate MK 2

The Gods left remnant together, with the statement they would never return to it or influence it. Only, that wasn't true, was it? The God of light, ever the hypocrite and liar, didn't abandon Remnant. Instead, he reincarnated someone to do his bidding and bring Remnant to them. Cue, the now dead Pyrrha Nikos and the God of Darkness' ideas. / Supporter Requested by Espacole

37. A New Horizon - Finale

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Official Supporters:

Fanatical Fucking Reader, ScrubLord Yoda

Compulsive Reader, The Impossible Muffin

Adeptus Militaris, Wilger

Commissioner, Gib, Espacole

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Beta(s) :

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Requested by :

Espacole

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Pyrrha backhanded the Collector in front of her with her shield and then, as it staggered away, stepped in and thrust her sword up, into its guts. Hot, vibrantly colored blood spilled down her arm and she wrenched the blade free, shoving the alien aside with her shield and snapping a heel up, into the face of a coming Husk. It hissed and shrieked as it fell and she followed it, sinking to a knee to open its throat with Milo and rising in a single fluid motion that left her ready for the next attacker.

But as she stood and advanced, Garrus close behind her judging from the hiss of an ejected Thermal Clip and the chink of one replacing it, she found an empty path.

Here, nearer the center of the colony, the buildings were taller, most standing with a third or even fourth story to their prestige. Many of them had raised paths across the road she was standing on, some of which were even fully enclosed and might have been rooms outright. And many had balconies still filled by the furniture of the people who had lived there and, in some cases, even the food and drink they'd no doubt been enjoying before the Collectors arrived. One of the larger buildings, with a smoother front covered in panels of thick glass that let her see a foyer that made it look like some sort of administrations building.

Which was reinforced by the Alliance flag flying high over it.

But it was empty… Even of the frozen bodies and stasis pods that had become the norm for the last hour of fighting. Overturned tables, cars, furniture that had fallen from the balconies to break on the paved avenue below, yes. But not a single stasis pod or trapped colonist, watching them with all the fear the others had.

"If they start loading them up on one side of the colony and move towards the other, we've probably pushed them away from a third of the colonists." Shepard responded when Pyrrha said something about it, "But just a few streets to either side of where we are, they'd be safe to do what they want."

"So probably best to get the tower up and running." Garrus grunted, "So… Maybe we pick up the pace?"

"Miss Ashley is the only one whose pace matters." Pyrrha pointed out meaningfully, "We may take our time."

"You're not wrong…" Shepard murmured, flicking a look back the way they'd come and tapping her hand on the side of her rifle. After a moment, she nodded and said, "You two, keep on the way to the location Ashley gave us. I'm going to see what I can do about the colonists we passed a block back."

"But, alone…"

"I'll be fine." Shepard grunted, turning and striding away, "I've given my orders. See to them."

"Aye, Commander."

"As you say."

Pyrrha watched Shepard in silence until she slipped around a corner and into an alleyway, on her way to do whatever she could. Garrus must have been able to read her unquiet over it and clapped her on the arm, using the gesture to half turn her the way they needed to go, as he chuckled, "Don't worry about her. Back in the day, she did this kind of thing all the time. She can handle herself."

"If you say so…"

"Hey, I worked with her against Saren." Garrus pointed out, "Trust me, I know her, what she can do. She'll be just fine, and strut up at the end of the missions to smirk and make fun of anyone that doubted her. It's all a part of her charm."

"Her charm, eh?"

"I mean…" He shrugged, "Isn't that the right word?"

She only shrugged at that, slipping ahead of him to keep the lead as they made their way up the road. Now that the Collectors had, for whatever reason, backed down from attacking them, the settlement had fallen back into that eerie silence it had been swallowed in when they first got here. She could hear generators thrumming, lights humming and, occasionally, the squawk or shriek of animals in and around the buildings they passed by.

But no Collectors. Or Husks, or even just any real evidence of either.

It was like they'd vanished entirely…

The sound of gunfire, distant but near enough to hear the tell-tale crack of it, dragged her out of her own thoughts. She turned to face it, fingers flexing around the handle of her sword, but didn't move towards it. Instead, she only frowned. More gunfire cracked through the air, and she sighed, shaking her head for it.

"Do you suppose they are simply avoiding us?" She asked quietly, turning to go on their way. "They do not need to fight us, after all. And they have surely learned they can't defeat us, at any rate."

"Probably, yeah." Garrus answered from behind her, "And honestly, I'm not too hard against that. Aside from the colonists they've got…"

"Mhm." She hummed, "There is that…"

Finally, they came to a large sort of wall with prefabricated buildings that climbed it, and a large, reinforced gateway embedded in it. A long and thin piece of structure stretched out from the wall, with walkways to either side and, from the walkway, even more prefabricated buildings which reached out with bridges and pathways to the other tall buildings around it. The gate was large, and very clearly locked as she approached it and laid a hand on it.

"How do you suppose we get in?"

"I don't know." Garrus answered, turning and looking up at the buildings above them. "This is a checkpoint for… What was probably going to be a shuttle-pad. So the door on the gate is probably up in one of those buildings. The ones attached to the structure, I mean. When it was done, the prefabs stacked around it would have come off and…"

"Can you tell from here which it would be?"

"There's like… Seven buildings, built right into the structure." Garrus answered, cocking his head to the side. "So I'd need to spend some time looking."

Which would waste precious time…

Sighing, she laid her hand on the lower part of the two-piece door and turned, bracing herself against the ground. Sucking in a breath she reached out with her Semblance and pulled with every fiber of her being. Almost instantly, the metal of the gate groaned under the strength of her power, shuddering under her trembling hand as sweat began to bead on her forehead and she leaned in, pressing her weight against it for even the barest hint of leverage.

"Uh," Garrus murmured, "what, uh, what are you doing?"

"Opening. It." She grunted through grit teeth, eyes squinting shut as her adrenaline surged.

It felt like it took forever until finally, at long last, the metal screamed. And then fell in, clanging heavily on its own frame and then sagging back to slam down onto the paved ground beyond. She staggered forward without the support of the door and sank to a knee, sucking in a deep breath and grinning as she looked at her work.

"You good?" Garrus asked, stepping to her side and offering her a hand.

"Yeah." She grunted, letting her friend tug her upright and nodding curtly. "Come on."

Beyond the newly fallen gate was a long, open area around the size of a sports field, enclosed by the wall they'd seen from outside. The base of the wall was lined by squat buildings and webbed by walkways that climbed up to its apex and ran along it, between and through even more little buildings that peppered its top sporadically. Inside the wall, the ground was a flat plain of short grass, interspersed with the same tall structural starters they'd seen in other open areas around the colony.

And in its center, on a sturdy looking deplorable platform about three inches off the ground, was a hastily erected communications console with Alliance markings.

"That'll be the console." Garrus murmured, following along at her side with his rifle raised, trailing along the top of the tall wall around them. "Still nothing in our way, though… I don't like that."

"Nor do I." Surely, they knew what this console was for. So either they didn't care about it, which she couldn't help but find unlikely, or they had something planned… Regardless, "Haste is our best option, I believe."

"Mhm, you're probably right about that..." Garrus grumbled agitatedly, slipping by her and moving towards the platform. "I'll set the program, as soon as Ash is ready, it'll loop EDI in and she can handle the guns."

"I have my eyes open." She assured him, following the Turian up and onto the platform and turning, running her eyes along the wall as he'd been doing before. "And for future reference, teach me how to do this later."

"Why?" He asked as he worked, "You're not one of our techs."

"The wise man carries a sword into the woods a thousand times, and never has need of one. The fool never carries one, and is oft found by the first."

"So…"

"Better to have and not need, than need and die for not having."

"Uh huh, uh huh." Garrus chuckled, "What kind of hellscape were you raised in?"

"A good one, for all its faults." She chuckled, shaking off the wave of memories and pain as soon as it swelled up to try and wash over her. Pushing the thoughts aside and turning to more worrying, and immediate, ones, she asked, "How much-"

"More than you can afford, kid." He laughed, standing and turning to give her a nod and Turian grin. "Sorry, I had to, it was just too good a chance to let it run by."

She only stared at him, one brow raised unamusedly. It was hard to fight the chuckle that tried to bubble forth, but after learning to keep her face blank on Omega to avoid the annoying eyes of the Vorcha, she managed it. If only just.

"And, uh…" He gestured behind him with a jerk of his rifle and an uncomfortable fidget. "I put the program in so, uh… Well, okay, I hate this."

"Mordin did say this would be funny." She chuckled, looking around them yet again and frowning. "And even with our guard down, they still haven't appeared…"

"Nope." He shook his head. "They have to be planning something…"

"Shepard?"

"She can handle herself, Nikos." Garrus dismissed, narrow eyes scouring the wall fearfully. "And besides, a turret like this could shred even a Dreadnought's in-atmo barriers. No, no, it has to be something else… Do you hear that?"

"No."

"Well, Turians do have better hearing."

"I- The Extranet said it, Garrus, don't take the fun from me!" But seeing his serious face, she knew he wasn't joking, even for his needling her. "What do you hear, Garrus?"

"Some kind of-"

A sudden, ear-piercing shriek cut them off and they turned, Pyrrha sliding in front of Garrus as he leveled his rifle on the wall over the gate Pyrrha had opened for them. For a moment, she couldn't see anything but the gray wall, but all was silent. Then the shriek split the air again and a long, pointed leg appeared over the wall, reaching high into the sky and then curling over the top of the wall, hardened tip crushing through concrete like sand. The abomination pulled itself over, glaring down on them from on high like some sort of grey, demonic crustacean.

She could only watch in horrified awe as the technological abomination shrieked and snarled, leaping off of the wall to hover in mid-air and turning its gaze on her.

"Move, you moron." A sharp voice suddenly whispered, as if its owner were standing just behind her.

On instinct, she turned and leapt, slamming shield-first into the Turian beside her and driving them both off the platform and into the grass and dirt beside it.

Just as twin particle beams ripped through the console they'd been standing in front of, and then into the ground beyond it when the unarmored panels and circuitry gave way to the beam. Pyrrha rolled to her feet in front of the Turian and brought her shield up as another beam burst slammed into her, super-heating her shield so much it burned her arm through it, drawing a hiss from the woman as Garrus stepped close behind her and leaned around, using the cover she was offering to draw a bead on the creature.

His rifle cracked as the lasers died, and she watched the monster lurch to the side and down, dodging rounds that whistled away purposelessly.

Shrieking, the creature dove just as a swarm of a dozen Collectors surged up and landed on the wall, particle beams searing through the air and forcing the two of them to sprint for the relative cover the long structure profiles offered. The particle beams were hot, and focused on the cover they fell in behind, but the structure profiles were meant for a large building, and so were thick and hard.

"Damn it, I knew this was too easy!" Garrus snapped, standing and snapping off a trio of shots before the beams from the particle lasers slid onto him, sparking off his shields for the briefest second before he knelt back into cover. "Two down, but that big bastard is coming."

With a flick, her sword elongated and whirred as she stood, leaning the rifle-form of her prized weapon on her shield and sighting down another Collector. Its bulbous, ugly head snapped back and its throat exploded as it sagged back, over the wall, and fell. But then the particle beams slid to her, searing across her armor and forcing her, hissing, back into cover as her Aura flared.

"One more less, now." She snarled, earning a nod from the Turian. And then a groan and a pointed talon she followed to a trio of Collectors slipping over the far wall, toting something massive and blue. "Oh, what now?"

Before the creatures began to descend, she saw one of the Collector's heads explode in a shower of gore. Another lost its wings and fell, flailing, to splatter across the ground. The Collector left behind couldn't hold the creature, but wasn't smart enough to let it go, and fell with it, splattering across the ground in a bright splash of blue and sickly yellow.

"Well, at least that solved itself…"

"Yeah, courtesy of a deus ex Shepard."

"Mhm." Pyrrha sucked in a breath, "Cover me, I'll handle the big one."

"On your own?"

"Eh." She shrugged, "I've fought bigger."

"And badder?"

"Well, we'll find out, won't we?" She smirked, turning and sliding into a kneeling position. "On your go."

Garrus' 'go', as it turned out, was the thundering crack of his rifle when he stood, opening up in short, two round bursts. A glance told her the Collectors were falling, but she couldn't spare them any more time. The massive monster was nearly at their piece of cover, and turned to her with a chittering, warbling noise like nails on a chalkboard.

She felt her adrenaline scream through her for it…

The monster's eyes glowed a warning and she grinned, leaping high over the beam of pulsing fury that set the ground behind her alight. She hit the ground beside it and turned, sprinting at an angle to keep away from the line of literal fire and still close with the creature. Finally she got close enough and turned, leaping towards it with her shield between them and her spear held down and back, ready to thrust.

It slipped out of the way at the last moment as she came down, but Pyrrha didn't let it escape. Planting her heel she spun, slamming her shield into the joint of one of its forelegs to force it away and stepping in to thrust up, into the softer flesh around the joint. She left the spear there while the creature bellowed and spun on her heel, swinging her shield up with all the momentum she could build and using it to hammer the weapon through the joint.

The creature's bellow turned to a guttural shriek as it yanked away, one arm hanging loose and dragging along the ground, spilling a mix of black blood, oil, and a scarlet she was infinitely more familiar with.

Its mouth opened as she staggered away, exposing hundreds of decayed, metal-plated skulls that filled its gullet, and she flinched. Only for a moment, but that was all the monster needed to rocket forward, slamming its other foreleg into her and hurling her away. Her back slammed into one of the structural profiles hard enough to cave it in, and to make her already weak Aura flare brightly and shatter. She slid to a knee and spat her own red on the ground as she struggled to rise.

"Stupid." She criticized herself, glaring at the monster as it came for her. "Freezing? Really? Damn it, Nikos…"

As it came for her, its eyes glowed and its good leg came up, its hardened point aiming for her.

Then, its head jerked to the side, oil and ichor spraying as it went. It floated away and then turned, particle beams carving through the air towards the high wall until another round slammed into it, this time drawing another scream as the right side of its head detonated violently. Sucking in a breath she cast her shield aside and took Milo in both of her hands, pouring every ounce of energy she had left into charging the beast. It saw her coming from its good side and turned, shrieking and spraying its particle lasers along her chest and stomach, burning through her barrier and scorching her skin for the briefest, agonizing heartbeat.

Then, her spear slammed into its stomach and bit deep. Roaring for her pain, she twisted the spear in its guts and pushed it back and to the side, trying to flip it.

It warbled painfully and sank, legs thrashing on the ground as its internals failed, and she wrenched her spear free to thrust it up and into it again. And then a third time, pouring its multicolored lifeblood across the ground and down her arms.

Suddenly, she was thrown back again, and rolled across the ground. She sucked in a breath and then her skin screamed and she joined it, back arching as every inch of her roared like it had been set on fire. Still, she rolled over and forced herself up, looking down at arms only half-covered in melted, ruined armor. The rest was bare, red and burnt skin and she hissed, staggering upright and turning back to the monster as it lurched to and fro. It sank a bit on its legs and met her gaze, eyes flowing with a final fury, and she braced herself for the shot that had to be about to kill her.

Then, suddenly, the other side of its head exploded as something in it overloaded and gave way. Chittering, it collapsed, flesh and metal sparking as a current ran through it and atomised it.

"Nikos!" She heard Garrus' voice as the Turian sprinted for him and knelt, sliding in front of her and bracing her up. His eyes trailed up her stomach and chest and he froze, murmuring, "Spirits take me… I mean, you're fine, Nikos. Just hold on for a- Whoa!"

She sagged in relief and fatigue and he caught her as a thundering boom ripped the air apart. Pyrrha was exhausted, but she forced herself to turn, looking up at the massive anti-ship battery turning and firing on the Collector ship. She saw fire erupt from its side as it rose, slipping away before they could destroy it.

Then, something stabbed her and she looked down at the long needle Garrus had shoved into her collar, and she was gone, slipping into blissful sleep.

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TPoynt :

Don't get me wrong, she DISLIKES THEM, but her thing there was that they were at least sticking to their supposed goal of protecting Humanity no matter what. Which she liked.

Jahoan :

I… FUCK I wanna do that plot noooooooow~!

Joe Cola :

For whom exactly…?

Simply Christian :

'Nonsense' there is the way I'll refer to a cop stop I drive by as 'cop nonsense' or an ambulance driving past as 'hospital nonsense'. It's not derogatory, it's a statement of my - or in this case, Shepard's - inability to understand a thing and thus referencing it in totality as best she can. So that verbage would be entirely on me, and sorry if that confused you.

Also, for Ashley, I… Just disagree? In every ME1 run I did with her, she stayed the same racist, Humanity first, kind of gal. Sure, she was fine with helping aliens out, but only if it didn't endanger HUMANS. Or at least, Humanity.

That's my interpretation, though. *shrugs* Yours is equally valid.

G119 :

Oh, the Vorcha I mention was the same! Enough Rage and he was an unstoppable machine unless something one-tapped him down from full. I ran him with the Harrier a few times - it's a good gun, the Rookie in Once a Rook, Always a Rook ends up using it - but I needed the Viper for ranged head popping. So I dropped it for weight.