Chapter 10: Malediction

Disgusting.

The low hum and whirr of power armor and the steady clicking of Vargus' force staff meeting the polished tiles that made up the floor of the long hallway he and his Brothers found themselves in was all that could be heard as they made their way deeper into the heart of the xeno station. For those with no attunement to the Immaterium, the occasional distant explosion was the only thing that disturbed the seeming tranquility that was to be found here, the only sign that all was not right with this pict-capture.

For Vargus, however, who had been trained for decades and centuries to leave behind the frail limitations of his mortal shell in order to tread the uncountable and ever-changing tides of the Warp, he could sense the fear and bloodshed that permeated the station. The turmoil churned the relative calm that held sway over the Sea of Souls here, reminding the Epistolary of the multitude of war-torn battlefields that he had strode during his service to the Chapter.

It was, in a way, relaxing for him. He was made for war, and it was only natural to find solace within his purpose in the Emperor's designs.

Unfortunately, that also meant that a certain unwanted tagalong had been roused from where it had lain dormant within his mind since just before Tuchanka.

Disgusting, the Voice trumpeted within his head once more. The Lords of Destruction chose your race to be their scions, their rulers of the Materium in their stead. To be above all others. Such has it ever been since the Archpriest of the Primordial Annihilator bent the knee before the unstoppable truths that are Chaos. Yet here you are going to the aid of these beasts, these lesser creatures, debasing yourself ever further.

Vargus gritted his teeth as he coiled his ceramite-clad fingers tighter around his staff in a vain attempt to ignore the daemon. It was blasphemy to listen to it, and treason to consider its rambling in the slightest.

So why then did he find himself slightly agreeing with it, as much as such an action repulsed him?

In a way, he already knew, no matter how much it disgusted him to admit it. It was easy to throw around words such as necessity and concepts such as duty, but the fact of the matter remained the same no matter the justifications that he told himself and his Brothers: they were to save a group of xeno political leaders in the hopes fostering closer ties with the aliens.

For all of the lies that the Anathema spoke, and for all of his deluded dreams of ascending to godhood, there was one thing that he was correct in. Aliens have no place within a galaxy ruled by the gods and their servants. Your Captain is a fool for even considering an alliance, no matter how temporary.

This order went against everything that he had been taught about what it meant to be an Astartes. To be the bulwark of humanity, and the blazing wrath of the Emperor.

A hindrance to the plans of the gods. An order of deluded fools that serve a corpse that shriveled up and died ten thousand years ago. Stop lying to yourself, Vargus. You could be so much more.

And for a second, Vargus found himself wavering, if only in the slightest. Visions of him and his Brothers placing mankind in its rightful place in the galaxy danced in front of his eyes, and they were glorious.

"Epistolary?" came the voice of Brother Tenthul from beside him suddenly, shaking him from his reverie. He glanced to meet the eyes of the Tactical Marine and saw the unspoken concern that lay within them.

"I-I am fine, Brother," he lied, shaking off the lingering aftereffects of the apparitions as he did. "This station is affecting me strangely. The sooner we are off it, the sooner I will be happier."

It was not truly a lie, he supposed. Not truly. Rather a simple case of crucial omissions. But shame still crawled up his spine at his actions all the same. How could he even consider the lies of a daemon? Every word they spoke was deceitful, and every action that they undertook destructive. He knew this. It had been pounded into his mind by his instructors ever since he had been inducted into the Chapter's Librarius so many years ago.

So why had he listened?

From within his mind, the Voice snorted in dark amusement. Because it is the truth. Because Chaos is the Immutable Truth, no matter how much you may wish to deny it, it explained. And because despite all of these chains that you and your kind place upon yourselves, despite the delusions that you willingly submit to, you know deep down that you were made to rule, not serve.

Tenthul, for his part, remained blissfully oblivious. "I think, Epistolary, that you will be hard-pressed to find a Brother who disagrees with you, myself included," he chuckled softly. Concern found a place within Tenthul's voice once more as he continued. "Are you sure that you are well, Brother? You are not suffering from any sort of relapse from the injuries that incapacitated you during our transition here, are you?"

"No Brother," Vargus said, his tone more confident this time. "I am certain that I am fine. Should anything else happen, I will see the Apothecaries after the mission is over."

"Very well," Tenthul replied as he inclined his head slightly, before turning his gaze back towards the corridor, accepting Vargus' words at face value.

And there it was. That simple trust that dominated all Astartes bonds of brotherhood. Vargus knew that if he simply asked him, Tenthul would die for him in a heartbeat, trusting that his Brother knew best.

And Vargus was abusing those bonds and contemplating treason. The thought made him sick, almost violently so.

Liar. Weak. Pathetic.

Desperate not to dwell upon the matter any further, Vargus instead chose to send his consciousness outwards into the Warp, seeking out the individuals that they had been dispatched to find. While the Shadow's machine spirit had been able to isolate the general area within which the xeno Councilors had been transferred to, there was some strange property of the station that had blocked any more advanced scanning. Without the use of his sixth sense, it was highly possible that they would be wandering for hours down here.

His soul wandered purposefully through the meandering pathways of the Warp, blazing a trail on the ethereal twists and turns that any non-psychic would have been driven mad merely trying to contemplate. He ducked beneath a kaleidoscope of ever-changing colors that threatened to block his path before carefully stepping over an impossibly large gap with ease. Even here, in a Sea of Souls that was far less deadly than the one he had left, there was no telling what would happen should he stumble in the slightest.

Eventually he found the trio of souls that he had been searching for, and with a sudden shift of consciousness and the faint tang of ozone wafting on the stale, recycled air, he found himself back within his body once more, his chronometer helpfully informing that though it had he had existentially wandered for a number of minutes, only a few seconds had passed in the Materium. Apparently it was destined to be a universal constant that the Immaterium would forever be an odd and anomalous reality no matter where one went.

"This way," he grunted, gesturing down a side corridor as he did. His Brothers shifted behind him, following him unwaveringly as he changed course.

It did not take long to reach their destination, despite having to navigate a veritable maze of passageways. Vargus had little doubt that had they had been without psychic support, his Brothers would have wandered for hours on end before finding the hidden panic room that the Councilors had barricaded themselves within. Whoever had designed this section of the station had clearly been beyond merely concerned for their own safety, and more full-on paranoid.

They came to a halt before an automatic door that glared back at them with a balefully red-glowing display that indicated lockdown. To anyone else, the ingress would have appeared as just another entryway in a hallway filled to the brim with them, but Vargus' sixth sense could see the collection of individuals cowering within, fear and determination and more rolling off of their souls as they waited out the Cerberus invasion outside.

To his left, Tenthul placed his helmet back on, while behind him the other Marines tensed up. Though the other Astartes were bereft of the advantages granted to him by his sixth sense, they no doubt expected that trouble lay within. None of them wanted to be the first Imperial casualty here in this galaxy, laid low by an errant shot fired from one of the primitive autoguns used here by a panicked civilian.

Vargus nodded at the motions even as he pressed his hand against the door, power surging from the wellspring that was his soul as he did. Brother Manswell had already managed to decrypt the Cerberus order of battle from the captured warship and had transmitted their objectives to the Captain. The deaths of the xeno Councilors had been amongst the main reasons why the traitors had attempted to seize the station, thus their presence here. Troublingly however, there had been cryptic references to other, more veiled objectives.

There had been one unexpected anomaly, however, glaringly obvious in its absence. There had been no order, cryptic or otherwise, that had commanded the occupation of the station. Cerberus was seemingly here for a hit and run operation rather than a full blown occupation. But if such were the case, Vargus had found himself pondering, then why would the shadowy organization send a fleet? Surely such objectives would have been better served with operatives and assassins?

Vargus blinked once, refocusing his gaze on the entrance that lay beneath his hand. Such questions would have to wait until after the battle, when they had a clearer picture of the situation. Right now, he had a door to open.

A flash of eldritch power flooded into the obstinate portal, flash freezing it and reducing it to an oversized block of ice while the temperature of the hallway dropped due to the psychic phenomenon. He withdrew his gauntlet from his handiwork and balled it into a fist, before sending it crashing back into the ice with all the subtlety of a rampaging grox, shattering it and sending a hail of shards flying inwards.

"Forwards Brothers, maintain formation," he spoke into the vox channel as he drew his fist back. "If they engage, do not return fire. A bloodbath is the last thing we need right now."

Confirmation pings resounded back as he and his Brothers pounded inwards a moment later, their massive frames imposing in the light mist left behind by the psychic ice. Panic and determination swelled upwards and outwards amongst the souls waiting within, and a hail of mass accelerator rounds echoed throughout the enclosed space, unnaturally loud as they pinged off of hardened ceramite, but none of the Marines raised a weapon in return.

The fire dissipated a few moments later when the defenders realized that they were not Cerberus come to massacre them, but the weapons remained pointed in their direction.

"Enough," Vargus spoke into the tense atmosphere that permeated the room. "We have come to take you to safety."

"Bullshit," spat one of the soldiers, a human woman with brunette hair and blue armor. She had a shotgun clasped in her hands and firmly pointed at him, for all the good that it would do her should hostilities break out.

Vargus cocked his head slightly at the woman as he tried to decipher her response. "I'm afraid I do not understand Brother," came Tenthul's voice over the vox. Clearly he was not the only confused by the word.

"Neither do I. Perhaps Manswell's translation matrix was nowhere near as thorough as he boasted it to be," he said in reply.

What he did understand, however, was the waves of disbelief and doubt that were washing off the defenders in great waves. Choosing to ignore the initial response, he pushed onwards. "I must speak with your Councilors. They are not safe here on this station."

"And how do we know you're not with Cerberus?" asked one of the other guards. Asari, if the so-called 'codex' that he had skimmed after being provided it by the Alliance was to be believed. This one had a bulky pistol pointed directly at his vox-grill, even though the weapon still had a long way to go before it could be compared to a bolt pistol.

"If we wanted you dead, we would have already killed you all," Tenthul spoke in a flat monotone. Vargus could hear the other Marine's patience fraying with every syllable.

The temperature in the room plummeted as Tenthul's logic washed over the defenders, who promptly reaffirmed their aim on the Marines. If the atmosphere before had been tense, now it was only one ill-conceived breath from descending into warfare.

"Perhaps that was not your best decision ever Brother," Vargus spoke into the vox tersely.

"I would welcome it were they to open fire. The Brother-Captain may know what he is doing with our undertaking here, but it still goes against what we are as Astartes," came the reply.

Vargus' fingers coiled around his force staff minutely at the response…

Do it. Give the order, and they will be more loyal to you than that fool of a leader. All power begins somewhere.

…before untensing just as much. "Enough," he said. "We have our duty."

For their part, the defenders seemed to not notice the gathering tension, momentarily distracted as the blue-clad woman raised a finger to an earpiece. Whatever she heard clearly displeased her, her face contorting into a disbelieving snarl before she schooled her face into a carefully neutral expression.

"The Councilors wish to speak with you," she said acridly, her tone practically screaming exactly what she thought of that notion.

For his part, Vargus merely nodded in response before stomping over to the reinforced door that announced the presence of the Councilors' panic room, Tenthul right behind him. Despite whatever he or his Brothers thought, and whatever the Voice sneered and demanded, he would cling to his duty.

If only because it was all that he had left in this contradictory new reality.

"And how do we know that you are not simply waiting to kill us the moment we let our guard down?" challenged Tevos. "Your Captain certainly had no qualms murdering a Councilor in his own office!"

"If you are aware that the Brother-Captain killed Udina, then I have little doubt that you also know that he was a traitor. A traitor, and the reason why Cerberus is on this station in the first place," Vargus rumbled back.

Trapped between the two quarreling individuals, Sparatus could only sigh in despair. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Valern blink twice in rapid succession, a visual cue that he was just as fed up with the situation as Sparatus was given how unflappable the Salarian normally was.

"The only reason Cerberus is on the Citadel is because of you lot," Tevos snorted in response. "If you hadn't…"

"Enough, Councilor Tevos," Sparatus groaned out, desperately hoping to keep his colleague from doing anything foolish. "If the…Epistolary, was it?" he asked, looking towards the bulk that was currently occupying an inordinate amount of the panic room in which he and the other Councilors had been sequestered. Receiving an answering nod, and ignoring the betrayed look that the Asari sped his way, he pushed onwards. "If the Epistolary says that he is here to move us to safety, then I myself believe him."

"As do I," Valern said quickly, before Tevos could protest. "There's no telling what sort of information that Udina may have passed on to Cerberus, including the location of this room."

For a moment, it looked like Tevos still wanted to object, before deflating slightly as she gave in. "Very well," she conceded with a slight indignant huff. "Where do you plan on relocating us to?"

Momentarily, idly, Sparatus wondered if whether not he and his fellow Councilors would be the first to set foot inside the monster of a warship that these massive warriors utilized. Without a shadow of a doubt, it was currently the safest place to be within the entirety of the Widow Nebula.

"My Brothers have secured a series of landing zones, and are working in conjunction with this station's defense forces to expand outwards. We will take you to one of them."

Or perhaps they would not be. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Valern's face almost imperceptibly shift from hopeful to disappointed with those words.

"Councilors," said the Council's newest Spectre as she burst through the door, ignoring the reactions of all those within. "I just received a report from the C-Sec Executor. You're not going to like it."

"What is it?" boomed Vargus, interrupting him before he could even ask how Executor Bailey had managed to contact them in all of the chaos that was engulfing the Citadel.

The Spectre, Ashley Williams Sparatus remembered as his brain casually floated the tidbit of information to the forefront, shot the hulking super soldier a distrustful glare before turning back to him. "Sir, Cerberus has found where we are, and they're planning a major assault on this location. He said there was someone special with them as well, some Cerberus elite-looking guy."

"Did he say anything else?" Tevos asked, face pale as she digested this unwelcome news.

"No ma'am, that's all I heard before we lost comms again. Even that was choppy."

For his part, Vargus had one massive finger pressed up against his ear, where Sparatus could see the faintest hint of metal peeking out from underneath. He surmised this to be a comm bud, and was validated a moment later when the man straightened upwards.

"Our plans have changed," he said, nodding towards the other Marine that had followed him inside the room. "Right now, we are going nowhere."

"Brother-Captain, I assume you heard the report?" Vargus crackled across the vox.

"The Shipmaster just relayed it to me. A major enemy assault on your position. It corresponds with the initial information that Manswell retrieved from their ship. I assume you are requesting backup?" Nemros asked in reply. His eyes swept across the plaza that was laid out before him, the broken forms of Cerberus soldiers and machinery strewn haphazardly here and there, while a sluggish wave of dark red blood oozed towards his boots.

A macabre scene to be sure, something that would cause others to turn away in disgust, but nothing here was new to him. He had tread the gore-caked battlefields that the valiant soldiers of the Imperial Guard routinely fought upon, and those warzones put this to shame by a wide margin.

"It would be appreciated. I do not doubt our ability to hold, but with the handicap presented by our charges, I would feel better with more Brothers by my side."

"Acknowledged Brother," Nemros said before thinking over who he could send. He and Epsilon Squad had beaten back the Cerberus assault in their sector, while the other battle groups were still currently engaged with their own areas. Any reinforcements from the Shadow would take too long; his Brothers needed aid now.

"I'm afraid I can send no one else, Brother," he said as he glanced towards Epsilon's Brother-Sergeant.

"I understand Brother. We will make them pay until you can spare reinforcements."

"You misunderstand me," he said, a hint of amusement creeping into his voice. "I cannot send anyone else due to their duties, but I find myself caught in a bit of a lull."

Vargus momentarily chuckled in response. "If that is all you can send, then I suppose we can find a way to make do."

"Good, I will be there shortly," he replied, closing the vox channel before turning to Epsilon squad. "Sergeant! Hold this position until reinforcements reach it, our Brothers have need of me."

Without waiting for acknowledgement, Nemros turned and sprinted towards the nearest hallway, the machine spirit residing within his armor uploading the fastest path towards the Council panic room.

He could only pray to the Emperor that his Brothers would be able to hold out long enough for him to arrive.

"He's coming. I can see him on the security cameras," said the Cerberus trooper over the comm, voice unaffected by the jamming systems put in place by Cerberus advance teams at the beginning of the assault on the Citadel. "Bravo and Charlie squads are beginning their diversionary assault now."

"Good," replied Kai Leng as he paced back and forth in the square, trying to burn up the small knot of apprehension that was currently gnawing away at his gut. "All steps have been taken to ensure he must come through here?"

"Yes sir, all secondary passages have been either blocked or collapsed. The fastest way to the Council's panic room is through the square."

"Then regroup with the others, you're no longer needed there."

"Understood sir." With that, the comm feed went dead, leaving Leng alone with his thoughts once more.

He absently ran his thumb over the holographic projector, eyes fixed on tunnel that the Space Marine leader would be emerging from within a matter of minutes. The target was en route, the snipers were in place, and there was more than enough troopers waiting to bring down a single soldier, power armor or not.

All steps had been taken to ensure that everything went smoothly. So why did he feel so nervous? He never felt this nervous.

Doing his best to push the growing feeling aside, Kai Leng stopped pacing and turned to face the hallway exit. This mission was of critical importance to not just Cerberus, but humanity as a whole. And while Leng was not normally one to do anything for any reason beyond the exhilaration of the kill, even he could appreciate the gravity of the situation.

That had to be the reason for his nervousness. Had to be. Nothing more.

The pounding of feet drew his attention back towards the exit, and his hands dropped toward the sword and projector that were hanging off of his waist.

He had a date with destiny to attend to.

"Brother-Captain, Cerberus has begun its attack. Only light elements so far, but it is most likely that they will step up their assault soon," said Vargus over the vox, his voice interspersed with the sounds of bolters firing and a grenade detonating in the background.

"Understood," Nemros replied as he turned yet another corner, "I should reach your position in about seven minutes." With a silent snarl, he closed the link, frustrated at his lack of progress. The station was a winding labyrinth, honeycombed with passages that seemingly went nowhere. To make matters worse, he was constantly being redirected, the straightest paths to the panic room blocked by hallways that had been seemingly damaged sometime during the fighting and would take too long for him to clear on his own.

He turned yet another corner, leaping over a fallen support beam as he did. Artificial sunlight graced the exit of the hallway, where an automatic entrance was ajar, continually attempting to close itself despite the chunk of rubble that had fallen in-between the doors. Reaching it, he kicked the hunk of metal out of the way before making his way out into an open plaza.

It was clear that the square had once been an economic district. The presence of cafes and stores made that obvious enough, even in their varying states of ruin. Given the number of corpses that were strewn about on the ground, it must have been a fairly popular one as well before Cerberus attacked. Most had been gunned down as they fled for the exits, though there were a few broken bodies still by the shops where they had been caught out. One was even down face first in a plate of food, a gaping hole in his temple a clear indicator that he had most likely been the first to die.

And in the middle of all the silent carnage stood a black-clad figure, alive and obviously waiting for him.

He cautiously took a step towards the stock-still figure, finger ready to depress the trigger of his combi-plasma at a moment's notice. His eyes took in every detail: the yellow Cerberus symbol emblazoned upon his breast, the jet black armor that covered nearly every inch of his body, and the presence of significant amounts of bionics. But the two objects that captured his attention the most were the sword grasped in his left hand and the silvery orb in his right.

Before he could take another step further, the figure's head snapped up, gazing at him placidly. "Someone would like to speak with you, Captain," the man said before raising his right arm and tossing the orb towards him.

Nemros almost shot him right then and there, combi-plasma whipping upwards at the motion. It was only the sight of the orb suddenly coming to a stop and a holographic figure materializing in the air around it that stopped him from doing so.

The image clarified into a man wearing a black suit sitting in a chair with a lho stick in one hand and what was presumably an alcoholic drink in the other. But what caught Nemros' attention the most were the eyes that gazed back at him, shockingly blue even when put through a digital filter. As he sifted through the eidetic memory that all Astartes boasted, Nemros could not recall a single time that he had ever seen a pair of eyes that blue before. Not naturally at the very least. Either they were a cosmetic enhancement, or cybernetics. Given their similarity to some of the combat implants that Slenarr had carved out of the bodies of Cerberus troopers, he assumed they were the latter.

"Captain Nemros," came a very distinctive voice, one that he had heard before, back in Udina's office.

"The Illusive Man," Nemros replied, eyes narrowing as he focused on the sitting man with a new focus, questions running rampant through his head. What exactly was going on here?

"I'm most disappointed in you, Captain Nemros. With your group's technology and knowledge, and Cerberus' resources, we could have skyrocketed humanity to new heights. Untapped potential lay within our grasp…and then you went and pulled that stunt back in Udina's office." A fierce scowl crossed the hologram's face. "And for what? Some concept of honor? Some law regarding artificial intelligence? What are those in the face of humanity's survival and dominance over the galaxy?"

"I would not expect someone like you to understand the fact that there are lines that are never meant to be crossed," Nemros said in reply, a scowl of his own taking up residence behind his helmet. "You are faithless, and transgress upon territory forbidden by the Emperor Himself for a reason. It should come as no surprise that the Emperor's Finest stand against you, heretek."

"As I said, disappointing. Perhaps I was too blinded by the opportunities that you presented to see the dangers that your recklessness poses."

"If you cannot tell the difference between recklessness and duty, then I truly pity you."

"Really? Allow me to clarify the situation for you: there was no assault planned to kill the Council. But you charged off anyways at the first sign that your men could be in danger, not even bothering to verify your information before you did so. If that is duty and not recklessness to you, then perhaps I should be relieved you chose as you did."

"My duty is to stand with my Brothers, no matter what. They are not expendable pawns, like you treat those mindless husks you call your soldiers."

"A good leader knows when to make difficult decisions, including those that require the sacrifice of those under his command. You would do well to attempt to learn this simple fact."

Nemros clenched his fist, choking back his response. To an Astartes, brotherhood was all, and there was no point in trying to convince an oath breaker of that fact. "Why?" he instead asked, changing tack abruptly.

"What?" the Illusive Man asked, his tone making it obvious that Nemros had succeeded in throwing him off-track with one word.

"This." Nemros gestured around him, pointing towards the assembled Cerberus forces and the scarred and broken architecture that surrounded them. "All of this. You came here to kill the Council and take over this station. Why? You could never effect a working occupation, nor would killing this galaxy's highest political leaders gain you anything. So I ask again, why?"

The Illusive Man snorted at that, standing up from his chair and taking a few steps towards him as he did. "This was never about the Citadel, or killing the Council. This was about you. When you failed to see the reasoning behind my logic, I had to resort to other methods to get what I wanted. Those orders you saw? They were all fake, something you were designed to see. What I knew you would see. It was all simply a matter of playing my cards correctly…and a hefty dosage of luck, I will admit."

"And how, exactly, did you know that we would end up here?" Nemros pressed on, shuffling the information on how he and his Brothers had been tricked into the back of his mind. This Illusive Man would receive his payment in full for this insult later.

"Please, don't insult my intellect. A mysterious group of super soldiers with technology the likes of which this galaxy has never seen before shows up and ends a planetary occupation over the span of a few hours? Where else could you go after a showing like that? Earth? Palaven? Thessia?" The Illusive Man rolled his eyes, the condescending gesture causing Nemros' brow to twitch violently. "You were always going to come here sooner or later, whether you knew it or not. There was simply no other place for you to go."

Nemros said nothing at that, refusing to give the leader of Cerberus the satisfaction of an answer. Silence permeated the square, broken only by a platoon of Cerberus troopers that moved in from the hallway opposite the one that Nemros had exited from, taking up position around and behind the black-clad Cerberus operative.

"It seems that there is no more to be said then," the Illusive Man said after the silence stretched on for a few more moments. "Leng, capture the good Captain if you can. If you must kill him, don't make too much a mess of the body. I require it intact." With that, the Illusive Man turned, his hologram sauntering back towards the assassin before disappearing into the orb.

As the hologram powered down and flickered out of sight, Nemros sighed before opening a vox channel. "Vargus," he said, "Start moving the Council, there is no assault headed your way. I will join you in escorting them to safety in a short while."

"Understood. How long exactly will you be delayed, Brother-Captain?"

Nemros glanced to the right, taking in the sight of a pair of snipers with their rifles trained on his chestpiece, then glanced back towards the left, where the Illusive Man's lackey had just retrieved that holographic projector and reattached it to his belt before dropping into a combat stance. "Not very," he replied before whipping up his combi-plasma and opening up on the gathered Cerberus troopers.

The burst of shells caught two of the troopers before they could react, blowing the first one's head to a thousand fragments and leaving the second one futilely grasping at his now wide-open chest cavity, desperately trying to stem the flood of blood and punctured organs that streamed out.

The rest were still bringing their weapons to bear after being caught by surprise when Nemros exploded into action, charging into their midst. Defiance flashed out from its sheath, a white and blue blur as limbs flew and screams rang out. One trooper went down, clutching the stump of an arm before Nemros' boot found his head, caving it in and ending his misery. Another fell silently, two separate halves sliding in opposite directions before they hitting the ground simultaneously.

He was a storm of violence that killed with impossible and utter lethalness. The few Cerberus troopers that managed to back away fell one after another as his combi-plasma belched forth a series of shells that left ruined corpses scattered throughout the square. The pair of snipers opened fire, either desperate or simply uncaring as to whether or not they accidently hit their comrades.

It was during all of this that the Cerberus lieutenant finally made his move. Springing in from the side, Leng made for one graceful slash aimed directly for his neck, no doubt intending to end the mismatched fight in a single blow.

It would have been impressive, lethal even, if he had been a mortal. But Nemros had long since ceased being anything as simple as mortal. He leaned back, letting the blade swing harmlessly in front of his face. Before Leng could react, he lashed out and caught his wrist, twisting it sharply the moment he caught it. A grunt of agony and the twin sounds of bone and machine snapping from the force of the blow were the only sounds that he was rewarded with, but the move was enough to force the assassin backwards.

However, this was enough time for a trio of the few remaining Cerberus troopers to maneuver behind him and take aim. Likewise, the snipers had finally managed to attain a clear shot, their red targeting lasers pointed at his helmet, while Leng simply flipped his sword to his good hand and prepared to charge again.

Nemros spun to the side, forcing Leng to dodge the volley of shots that the Cerberus troopers had just fired, while bringing up his combi-plasma and emptying the rest of his clip in the direction of the snipers. While a crude and inaccurate attack, the nature of a boltgun's ammunition was enough to ensure that any sort of hit was almost guaranteed to be lethal. One of the snipers fell backwards, ducking beneath cover that was rapidly disappearing, while the other took a glancing blow to the side of her torso, leaving her rapidly bleeding out as crimson liquid poured out of the resulting gaping hole.

With the most pressing threat suppressed for the moment he spun back around, Defiance lashing out at the Cerberus troopers, eager to make them pay for their impudence. Two fell headless, while the third crawled backwards, drawing out an electro-baton as he did. Nemros advanced, ready to kill the man and finish the fight.

Right until Leng reappeared, blasting him twice with some sort of palm blaster and forcing him to step back. He cranked back Defiance just as Leng swung his sword downwards and the trooper lunged forwards with his baton.

Nemros saw his opening, and sliced upwards. The disruptive power field of Defiance met Leng's sword and critically weakened it at a molecular level, before the adamantium blade followed and shattered it into a thousand pieces. Unfazed by the momentary distraction, the blade continued on its course, slicing through Leng's arm as it did.

Leng screamed as his now former appendage fell to the ground and a mixture of blood and other fluids spurted out of the stump. Throne did he scream. Defiance carried onwards, uncaring of the agony it left in its wake, before finally coming to a stop in the throat of the last Cerberus trooper.

A high-pitched whine followed by the sharp crack of a sniper rifle firing were the dual heralds of a spike of pain flaring up in the back of Nemros' head as a high-powered mass accelerator round did its best to try to bore through hardened ceramite. Warning runes popped up on his visor's display, needlessly alerting him of the damage that his armor had sustained from the shot. With a growl that was a mixture of pain and irritation, he dismissed the alerts with a blink before turning around, leaving Defiance lodged within its new, bloody sheath, and drawing up his combi-plasma one last time. The sniper fired again, panic causing her to miss and the shot sparked off his breastplate rather than another blow to his helmet, while Nemros hastily ripped the sickle-shaped cartridge from his weapon and slammed a new one home.

In the end, they both ended up firing their last rounds nigh-simultaneously. The sniper's round bounced off his helmet with a series of sparks, coming dangerously close to smashing through his right eyepiece. For his part, Nemros' pair of bolts found their home within the sniper's left shoulder and head, leaving a mangled corpse tumbling backwards in the wake of their detonations.

Turning away from the now-dead sniper, he found himself faced with only bodies as silence reasserted its hold over the plaza once more. The Cerberus assassin had apparently taken advantage of Nemros' lapse in attention to flee, leaving his severed arm where it had fallen and a trail of blood marking where he had gone.

Nemros looked around, surveying the carnage that he had just wreaked, and the smear of blood that led away from the fight, as he yanked Defiance from where he had left it. Mentally he debated as to whether or not he should give chase, before turning and heading towards the panic room. Even though there was no actual Cerberus assault, his Brothers still needed him, and there was no telling if the Illusive Man had any more tricks up his sleeve in case his plan here failed.

As he ran, he muttered an oath beneath his breath. He would not let himself be so easily fooled again.

A/N: And with that, the longest chapter I have ever posted is done. All I can say about this is one word: finally.

I do have one question for you lovely readers however. Is there any character so far that you've particularly enjoyed reading? Personally I've found myself writing far more of Vargus and the Voice than I thought I would be doing. There's something about their dynamic that is just fun to explore.