Chapter Seven: Archangel

Kenzo District was a complete slaughterhouse.

The Blood Pack and the Eclipse were fighting it out like it was the Krogan Rebellions come again. Salarian engineers and asari wannabe-commandos slinging tech and biotic attacks without regard for civilian casualties, mechs advancing in line against hordes of vorcha, krogan hulking around and firing weapons more suitably carried by gunships or light armour.

And Garrus found himself in the middle of it with his squad, stuck on the top floor of a building packed with scared civilians. It was like pretty much all the structures in the less secure areas of Omega, built from shipping containers and stolen colonial prefabs of varying vintage and origin.

Their building was a large prefab turian muster-hall with two more floors added onto it in the form of welded containers stacked on top of it. There was a hall in the centre of it that stretched up to the roof of the original structure, with each of the bottom three floors' rooms arranged around balconies looking down into it. The top two floors had windows facing outwards instead.

He had ordered his people to take up positions facing all directions, but not to fire on anyone unless they tried to get into the building. 'Keep our heads down, hope no one notices us' was the general idea he expressed to his people.

It had seemed so simple when he woke that morning. Sidonis had found a nice, soft target to hit. Kenzo was being used by the Blood Park to move weapons. Smuggling was a game almost everyone played, but the Eclipse were the arms smugglers kings.

The objective was obvious; make a ruckus around the Blood Pack warehouses, end the smuggling and get the Eclipse asking why Archangel would care about that part of the station. Aria wouldn't tolerate a full scale gang war, so the tit-for-tat killings that would result from the suspicion could keep civilian lives out of the deathly equation.

Or so Garrus had thought. The fighting happening four floors down on the streets below his shattered window wasn't something that Aria would have ignored.

"Is the Queen dead?" he asked no one in particular, as he scanned the street from the shadows with his rifle's scope.

"The Eclipse and Blood Pack better pray she is," Sidonis replied quietly, joining him, "Still no way out. Some battlemaster is going at a heavy mech with nothing but biotics out back."

"That's just great," Garrus replied, "Every minute we stick around here, the closer we are to being caught. And I doubt the Blood Pack are going to distinguish between us and our guests downstairs."

Garrus shifted his weight, leaning against one of the building's outer columns to get a better look down the avenue. The vorcha had broken through the mechs, but biotic singularities were floating most that got anywhere, while the krogan behind just shot.

"I think I've found the answer," came a deep, nasal voice from behind.

Garrus turned at the same time as Sidonis, making sure to move fully behind the column as his attention moved away from the street. It was Dhanakk, the batarian hacker. He was a pale shade of brown-green that always reminded Garrus of something Wrex had once puked up after they had beaten Saren, but the batarian was an escapee of his culture's ridiculous caste system and hated most things about it. Ideal recruit for 'Archangel' and his cause.

"You found a way out?" Sidonis asked, mandibles flaring with excitement. He always was a little more jumpy.

"No, I found out why Aria hasn't come and ended these idiots," Dhanakk replied, "The Shadow Broker was almost assassinated by some humans and a drell, and the humans are on the station. Zaeed Massani and some unidentified female. The reward being offered... it's not just money, it's information to crush your enemies."

"So everyone started fighting when someone got a look at the target," Sidonis deducted.

Dhanakk nodded, "The fighting is happening all over the station now, opportunistic shit, though Aria has quelled some districts already."

Massani was a familiar name. Mercenary, but not the sort Archangel would have needed to target. Through the Alliance, Garrus knew Massani was actually Cerberus, which would have changed things except the Hierarchy had given explicit orders not to mess with them.

The batarian showed the files he had found, including the initial report from the Blue Suns.

"So now it's a landgrab before Aria shows up," Garrus concluded, "We're pretty far from the docks where it kicked off, so I doubt we're going to run into Massani or his lady-friend down here."

"We sit tight and wait it out," Sidonis suggested, "No reason for anyone to come in here."

Garrus' felt his mandibles twitch with annoyance. His fellow turian was tempting fate.

"Well, actually, I chose the building because it has great sight lines," he replied, "The ones outside don't seem to care about that, but the moment anyone with a brain notices..."

Right on cue, the sound of the doors being blown off their hinges echoed up the stairwell, causing both Sidonis and Dhanakk to flinch. Garrus got that sinking feeling that he was about to see a whole lot of bodies stack up, and not those of mercenaries.

"Velan, we've got a breach, door 2," he said, "Get down down there and run interference while I reposition."

The Salarian acknowledged with a text-only reply, encrypted. As usual.

Definitely an STG thing, Garrus decided. But even salarian special forces weren't immortal. He checked his rifle, and began hauling ass across the floor towards the stairs. Instead of stepping down them, he vaulted the railing over the side; once, twice, three times, and he was at the top balcony overlooking the hall.

Below, on the ground floor, Blood Pack vorcha were boiling into the room firing blindly. Civilians were stumbling in a rush up the stairs. From the balconies, the squad was moving in to shoot.

And in the middle of it all, the Salarian began thumping away with his Venom shotgun, scattering micro-grenades among the vorcha. Anything bigger would've brought down the whole building, but it didn't matter. The explosions burst the vorcha like kids' water balloons, if they had been filled with blood, bone and guts.

But the problem with vorcha is that there is no shortage of them. More picked their way inside as the Salarian reloaded his shotgun, ducking behind a bench that wasn't large enough to truly protect him.

Garrus, fearing for his squadmate's life, quickly balanced his rifle on the balcony's edge, on top of the railing, and took aim at the open door below. A target presented itself immediately. The rifle barked, and the shot went through the head of the first vorcha through the door, through the gut of the second, and lodged itself in the shin of the third. They went like a wave had hit them, the former two writhing on the ground with pain.

Just in time for the next spread of micro-grenades to blow them up, along with a smaller number of others, as the rest of the squad got into the fight, laying down suppressive fire to let the Salarian reposition. The corpses were piling up.

"We can win this!" Sidonis said, finally shooting himself from beside Garrus, "We've got them bottled up."

Garrus suppressed a groan. Sidonis just had to say it...

The spirits, having listened to the premature assertion of combat superiority, immediately enacted what Shepard would've called 'Murphy's Law'. The wall by the door was pulled out of the supports it was attached to, floated and crushed. By biotics.

The battlemaster, having finished his battle with the heavy mech, had evidently decided to intervene personally. Him, another six krogan, and as many vorcha as had already been killed and then some. The krogan were all dressed in armour painted up in Blood Pack white and red, but the battlemaster had another twenty centimetres on the next biggest krogan.

The Blood Pack platoon roared and stormed into the building, one krogan getting his leg blown off by the Salarian firing on single shot, but the rest moving in to shoot their massive weapons at the squad firing down on them.

Garrus trusted his people to get the job done, to cover the Salarian's escape, but that left the hulking biotic to him. He activated his disruptor ammunition mod with a single tap on the side of his rifle, put the scope's reticles on the soft spot just below the krogan biotic's frontal plate and took a shot.

The battlemaster flinched as the sniper round glanced across the top of the plate, scoring it with a nasty deep scar. The battlemaster fell down, hump over ass, which would have been funny except he put up a bubble barrier around himself, by instinct.

Garrus exhaled the anger at missing the one-shot-one-kill, and took in another breath for the next try. The battlemaster had hunched down slightly just as he was firing.

"Archangel!" the battlemaster roared from behind his barrier, "That's you, isn't it! I knew it! You fell for the trick, didn't you! Come down here and face me!"

"What am I, an idiot?" Garrus murmured to himself, wondering what the hell the krogan was talking about.

He replied with another shot, the barriers only partially deflecting it, sending it into the shoulder of the battlemaster and causing a gaping, bloody wound. The fucker barely registered it.

"I'm coming up there to tear off bits of your face," the battlemaster continued, "Just watch me!"

With a shout, the krogan leader charged at the stairwell, deflecting a shower of micro-grenades with his biotics back at the Salarian, making it to the first step before anyone could shoot him again.

Garrus plucked his rifle off the railing, and moved along the balcony for a clear view of the entire stairway.

"Repositioning," Garrus said over the comms to the rest of the squad, "Everyone else, keep shooting the others. The battlemaster is mine." He came to a stop on the corner of the balcony.

The battlemaster was shooting at the civilians at random, hitting a few, but more or less concentrating on climbing up to his level.

"Slow down and relax, friend," Garrus muttered.

The rifle boomed and the shot hit dead into the krogan's left thigh. That got another roar out of the target, but barely slowed him down. Krogan regeneration was still working.

A second shot, directed at the head again, did a through-and-through of the krogan's hump.

The third, at his centre-mass, missed him due to his barriers but shattered the heavy rifle he had been carrying.

It was getting damn close to becoming a fist fight, the krogan only had another half-flight of steps to conquer, though he was much slower with a cratered knee and hump now. Worse, Sidonis was still back where Garrus had been before, directly in the krogan's path.

"Sidonis, move over here!" Garrus said urgently, "Now!"

"Huh?"

The battlemaster made it, with a rippling cascade of glowing dark energy, tossed Sidonis aside against the wall, hard and fast. The poor man fell down the wall from the dent the impact had made, and crumpled onto the floor in a heap. Unconscious or dead.

Garrus felt pure rage boil up in him. He put another round downrange at the krogan, centre-mass, definitely blowing out one of the hearts in the battlemaster's chest. It didn't stop anything.

He switched to his heavy pistol, snapping off precise shots at rapid intervals. The barriers held for most of them, but the damage had really taken its toll. But it wouldn't be enough.

Soon, the battlemaster loomed over him, blood-drooling shit-eating grin plastered on his face.

"Are you done, turian?" the bastard said, "Because now, I'm going to eat you. I don't care if it gives me the shits. It'll be worth it to say I did it to the mighty Archangel. What do you have to say to that?"

A knife appeared out of a scabbard on the battlemaster's back, a vicious thing with teeth along its side, as the creature advanced slowly to use it. He recognised it as something the krogan had designed for flaying turians during the Krogan Rebellions.

Garrus couldn't really think of anything to say, but things had gone quiet all of a sudden. Given the number of vorcha that should've been left, it was distracting, even with the battlemaster about to slice him apart.

A biotic field suddenly surrounded the battlemaster, pulling him off his feet, inches from Garrus' face. A pulse sent him spiralling over the edge of the railing, tumbling in the air before the field dropped and he fell three floors onto another of the benches below. Among a large number of corpses. He didn't move.

Behind where the battlemaster had been was an asari.

Matriarch, but as athletic as Garrus had ever seen. She wore light armour of an asari pattern, in a deep red, with matching biotic amplification nodes on her forehead. She cradled an older Vindicator assault rifle in her arms. Her eyes were sharp, and looking straight at him.

"Thanks?" Garrus said, getting up and bringing his own rifle back into his hands.

"My name is Samara, a servant of the Justicar Code," the matriarch said, "We wish to speak to Archangel, for we need his assistance. Are you who we seek?"

Garrus opened his mouth, but found he had no words for once, and closed it again. The asari continued to stare at him, waiting for a response. From the stairs behind her, the squad was regrouping, being led up by a drell he had never seen before, as heavily armed as she was, but favouring a hyper-modern Viper rifle.

"I am Archangel," Garrus finally admitted, seeing that the squad were not wary of the drell, "Or, I suppose it's more accurate to say we are Archangel. I couldn't do all of this alone. Learned that the hard way."

The drell came alongside the asari, as did Sidonis.

"How many dead?" Garrus asked his squadmate.

"None of ours hurt," Sidonis said, "Five civilians. The rest have run away."

Gratitude came second to survival on Omega, and everywhere else really. Garrus didn't blame the civilians.

"Your colleagues performed excellently," the drell croaked, "The Blood Pack were almost defeated when we intervened. It was no real effort at all to mop them up."

Garrus felt his face twitch. It hadn't seemed all that easy of a fight to him. Not that he'd admit it.

"I'm sorry, who are you?" he asked, directing the question at the drell but referring to both the newcomers.

"This is Thane Krios," the asari stated, "A former assassin who wishes to redeem himself from his sins, and repay his debt to society." She looked to Krios, and then back to Garrus.

"And I suppose you want the same from us," Garrus sighed, grabbing his water bottle, "Fair enough. Don't know much about justicars, but I don't think you disapprove of our activities if you're working with a former assassin of the Hanar Illuminated Primacy... What do you need help with, exactly?"

"There is an extremely dangerous criminal on this station," Samara stated calmly, "I want you to help me kill her."

Garrus considered this for a moment, the request quite obviously being more complicated than that.

"Must be some criminal," he joked, "An asari matriarch, a hanar assassin, Archangel and a squad of hard-hitters seems like overkill for one person. Is your criminal a Reaper?"

The Justicar's brow inched up slightly, perhaps at the Reaper reference. Not everyone believed that whole story. Especially in the Terminus, where it was considered by many to be a Citadel cover story for a military build-up and invasion of the 'free worlds'.

"She is a serial killer that has been taking lives for centuries," Samara clarified, "Enjoying and growing stronger with each kill. She has escaped me before through a mix of brute force and cunning. In this place, with this prey, I am no longer willing to take chances."

"Overkill is the only thing that will get the job done," the drell added, "Trust me... or trust my experience, at least."

Garrus nodded. He didn't detect any hint of a lie off of either of them. The facts added up. If it was a trap laid by some mercenary group, it was a ridiculously elaborate one and there would be ample time to react.

"Okay, we'll help you," Garrus said, "Sounds like a worthy cause... and I think we need to stay away from merc targets for a bit. Where do we find this mighty threat to the peace of the galaxy?"

"The Afterlife VIP section," the drell said, "You go in alone and find her. I'll be in the bar too, blending in and avoiding her gaze. She should approach you and invite you to her apartment. You're her … type."

Garrus' mandibles flared with amusement.

"Oh great, I'm her type," he said with a chuckle, "A serial killer that likes former C-Sec Agents turned vigilantes. A match made in heaven."

"She is attracted to the dangerous as well as the weak," Samara replied, "She had killed many who thought themselves powerful killers. Do not underestimate her. Last time I found her, she had turned a whole village into a sacrificial cult in her honour. I killed many trying to get to her."

Garrus and Sidonis both exchanged looks on that one. Asari sacrificing each other? How was that not news?

"Don't think underestimating her is going to be a problem any more..." Sidonis said, "But there's more to this. Don't think we should do this unless we know everything."

"Agreed," Garrus said.

"We can give you the full details on the way," the drell said, "We'll need to use your tech expert to track her omnitool."

"No problem," Garrus mused, "Let's move."


They were halfway down the stairs when Garrus' omnitool started beeping. A quick glance at the notifications on his wrist stopped him dead. It was from Chambers, his Alliance contact on Omega.

"Hold on," he said, "Gotta read this. It's from Chambers."

"The humans have something for us?" Dhanakk growled from up above, "Tell them we're busy."

Garrus' eyes scanned the contents of the message hungrily, twice. His heart slammed in his chest, like it was going to jump out. He couldn't believe what he was reading. After all this time, it was impossible. But if it was true...

"She's alive," he thought aloud, "After all this time."

"Is there a problem, Archangel?" Samara asked, "What does the message say?"

"No problem at all," Garrus replied, "It's just a small galaxy, is all. Looks like your target isn't the only supernatural killer in the Afterlife VIP section. Though personally I think I'm a better shot."


Dedicated to Martin Blue for being the first reader in a long time to favourite this story

I'll probably give this an edit at some point.