Chapter 47

Kirby: Where'd you learn to fight like that?

Ryan Varrett: From fighting.

— Recoil

Day 5

"Christ, he's going to fight that thing hand to hand." Said the aging voice of Jonathan Serios, as he and the only other two occupants of the office-turned-sanctuary stared at a hologram, depicting the burgeoning battle between the SIGMA II and the Saltorian BattleVector.

"Is that even possible?" The Director for Quarian Affairs inquired, as he looked from the hologram, to the lone SIGMA, and briefly casting his eyes to the door, as if ensuring their secret service guards couldn't be privy to what was being discussed.

"I assure you, Director Zorah, it is possible, and he can do it. This is the same boy…" The SIGMA paused, catching himself, as the two opponents both postured for a moment, the SIGMA activating his hardlight weapons, and the saltorian transforming his gun into some kind of saber, both preparing for their fight. "The same man, that fought and killed two of the three Sixty Sixers, in hand to hand, on Manheim. Because we don't know a great deal about saltorians and their BattleVectors, if anything, this is him learning and experimenting, more than this is him conducting a mission."

Serios grunted, shaking his head from his position in his armchair, at the head of the desk. "I thought the Twos were supposed to be reserved. This… Is anything but reserved." He said, waving at the screen, as the two warriors briefly exchanged words.

"Permission to speak freely, sirs?" Said Ducard, his filtered voice showing the slightest amount of restraint.

"Go ahead. At this point, having a SIGMA curse at me is tame compared to what Trent will do." Serios groaned, "he was ready with a victory speech, and now he's going to be telling the Alliance public that we may be going to war again." Serios shook his head.

"I want it noted that if this ends anything like I think it will, that will be another war you fought before making a decision on the Veil. By this point, the resources and money we've spent on mercenaries, rebels and batarians could have funded two incursions." Zorah cut in, with a pointed look at every human in the room.

Ignoring the quarian, Ducard spoke. "Sir, he's pissed. He sought out this fight purposefully - to work out his rage the only way he knows how. Manheim shook his faith in us - in the SIGMAs and the Alliance. If he survives - and if we do nothing here, he will survive - he'll bring everything he has to his fellow Twos, and then we'll have over half a thousand super soldiers with little to no loyalty to anyone beyond themselves. This problem has gone on too long, his use outweighs his cost. I'm telling you, sir, there's a Hanar delegation on this station, and you know what they've been pining for this last half decade. We give them one favor, and they'll give us their Drell. Plausible deniability on our end, should it fail, and an unfortunate crossfire, should he succeed. And either way, we win."

"You're just saying that because you don't want to see the N7 do what they were made for." Serios muttered, as both he and Zorah forgoed the hologram to look at Ducard. "How do you figure? He survives, he'll know it was us." Said the elderly human.

Again choosing what to ignore and what to respond to, Ducard shook his head, "no. Our eyesight is better than an eagle's, and trust me when I say that that is better than you think it is. If he survives, he will see the shooter, and he will know it was a Drell, and if he doesn't, his AI will. He will conclude that it was here initially for one of us, but changed its mind when it saw an opportunity to advance the Hanar. Just one SIGMA death is an incalculable loss, proportionate to saving thousands of their lives on a low average. That is a risk many are willing to take, and is why few SIGMAs on their off hours ever leave Sparta, or if they do, why they don't wear fatigues and uniforms. It will show him that humanity has enemies that are as dangerous as us Ones, and it will drive him to fight them, and not us… Temporarily, at least. Long enough for us to find a permanent solution. And if the assassin succeeds, he becomes a martyr for the Twos, and we won't have to even worry about Captain Shepard anymore." He said, as the SIGMA and the saltorian clashed.

The two collided with the sound of steel striking glass, as John S2-15 swung his hardlight aspis around to block the eight foot tall, burly lizard's two-handed swing. It was by now that the saltorian determined that this tan-skinned creature was different from the others, stronger, faster, and that it would need a new tactic if it wanted to win. Before it could snap to its next attack, John bent down low and swung the hardlight blade covering his right gauntlet in a wide, upward arc. He cut through the saltorian's armored spacesuit with the sound of ripping, burning cloth, and the singed suit immediately started burning and smoldering as the saltorian hopped back. Given the density of its muscles and the gravitic environment in which it was raised, it practically flew backwards, covering several feet with what was, to it, just a small hop.

When it hit the ground, the saltorian's hand leapt for its gun, but John was too fast, throwing his right hand forward and covering it in biotic energy. He clenched his fist and then ripped it back behind him, the Pull yanking the saltorian off of his feet and sending it tumbling through the air right back towards him. The saltorian reacted with an unexpected speed, throwing its burning blade forward in a vicious jabbing motion. It slammed into the center of John's shield, and the saltorian swung its legs forward, turning its forward momentum into downward, circular momentum, and kicking the lower half of John's aspis, its strength slamming it against John's chest and sending them both careening towards the ground. The two slid across the ground for several feet, and the saltorian reared its left fist, keeping the burning blade and his feet on the human's shield, pinning it against his chest as it brought down his fist upon John's face.

The hardlight blade on John's right hand vanished with a light flurry of pale white light, and his hand opened up, catching the saltorian's fist and stopping it after a just before his elbow was forced onto the ground. With a scowl, John wrenched his shield to the side and it vanished as well, causing the Wraith's blade to slip away and bury itself into the metal floor. John reached up and grabbed at the nape of the Wraith's neck, and then yanked downwards, smashing the creature's rough, scaly forehead onto his own. It was barely for a moment, but the direct contact of the creature's thick, rough scales on his own toughened, leathery skin told John everything he needed to know about fighting this creature. He confirmed with finality that it was durable, thick and unyielding, meant to take hard hits and disperse the force, practically making it a natural layer of dragonskin armor. John couldn't beat it with strength alone, he needed to close the distance between him and it and hit it with enough force that it penetrated its natural defenses in such a way that it couldn't heal fast, he needed to keep it busy healing small wounds, so he could come in and create a major one.

As its head recoiled, the saltorian snarled and ripped its blade out of the slagged flooring, but John, his hand still on its neck, threw it to the side with all of its strength. The Wraith rolled several feet, and the two hopped to their feet, neither of them even short of breath as they both considered their combat strategies.

John's deep green eyes snapped over to the abandoned police vehicles, a plan forming in his head. "Cassidy… What weapons do the police vehicles have?" He breathed, as a small green flag appeared in his HUD, right next to the N7 callsign, and the air was filled with the sound of helicopter blades whipping at the air.

"The cruisers have shotguns in their trunks, the vans have assault rifles, submachine guns, and non-lethal gas grenades." Cassidy listed off, "but you won't be able to get in there without that thing following you." It added, as the helicopters with the N7 roared by overhead. "Even in your armor, you're not that fast."

John nodded, that, and the fact that even major wounds could be undone with relative ease, were both major flaws in his plan. "How long will my hardlight last?" He added, as he crouched down low and, with a burst of biotic power, leapt forward, surging for the saltorian.

The Wraith lifted its blade defensively and just as John threw his hand forward, he heard from Cassidy, "fifteen seconds!"

John's left hand closed around the Wraith's white-hot blade, and before it could burn or slag his gauntlet, it was enveloped in a layer of cold, defensive hardlight, locking his hand to it firmly. The Wraith growled, but John, with a neutral scowl planted on his face, threw his fist forward and into the angle of its jaw. Its dense bones barely budged under John's augmented strength, but its head did recoil long enough for John to wrench the lance's blade in a violent manner, his hardlight-cloaked hand twisting until finally, with a loud, metallic snap, it shattered. The top half of the blade stayed in John's hand, and the bottom in the Wraith's, but the middle shattered into hundreds of minuscule, searing hot pieces, which flew out in all directions, instantly burning and sizzling through John's fatigues, and lodging into the Wraith's armored spacesuit, causing small portions of it to instantly scorch and catch fire.

With his superior reflexes, John was able to yank his fist back and crouch down low and spin to his right, swinging his left hand, and the broken fragment of the saltorian's blade, in a wide upward arc before making a full revolution and jamming it into the side of its stomach. The Wraith seemed not even to register the pain, as it used John's circular momentum against him, throwing a wide cross right into the II's head. The child soldier grunted in pain, but quickly caught the Wraith's next blow and parried it away, as he dispersed the hardlight on his left gauntlet and launched several jabs, incrementally increasing the power in each one until, on the fifth blow, the Wraith grunted in pain and reacted with such a quickness that John knew, if only for a moment, he had done physical damage.

The Wraith swung upwards with its broken blade, forcing John to jerk his upper body backwards to dodge it. The titanic alien followed it up with a swerving kick to John's now unprotected legs, sweeping them out from under him and causing the SIGMA to fall to the ground with a loud grunt. Just as the Wraith jabbed downward with its hunk of blade, as if it were a knife, John slammed his palms into the ground and pushed backwards, sliding back several feet with the sound of metal grinding against metal. He threw both feet over his head and flipped back to a standing position, the burns from the shrapnel causing a harsh, throbbing pain in his left side. The Wraith dashed forward, its half broken blade still in hand, and the shattered top half still sticking halfway out of its gut, but as it thundered towards John, the SIGMA noticed a limp that, to any other eye, would have been indiscernible, it was so slight, but to John, it was as clear as an explosion at night.

Heat. I have to burn it. Thought John, as he dodged two furious swings and caught the Wraith's tail as it coiled outwards.

John wrapped his hand around the tail and then wrenched his hand back, spinning the Wraith around and giving John the split second he needed to plant his foot on the creature's back. He savagely pushed the creature forward, but its muscle power and thick legs kept it standing, and after a moment of struggle, it lunged forward and with a jerking, twisting motion, actually swung John around like a wrecking ball, hurling him across their battleground and skipping him off of the ground like a stone off of water. John bounced thrice, with a pained grunt and a heavy thwack of a body striking metal each time. He slid to a halt, his fists white-knuckled as he got to his feet.

Without my armor, this thing has a clear advantage in strength. Thought the SIGMA II, as he stood up straight and watched the Wraith wrenched the broken sword out of its side, filling the air with the smell of cooked flesh. My weapons are useless for anything except concussive shots. I can cause this thing pain, but I can't injure it. He blinked, as the creature tossed aside its half of the broken lance, now left with only its fists, its knife, and the enormous pistol strapped to its hip.

John narrowed his eyes, "Cassidy… On my mark, I need you to switch off the localized gravity."

"Wait, what?!" Cassidy demanded, before the Wraith bolted forward with a speed that belied its titanic, thickly built frame.

The enormous green alien crossed the distance between it and John in seconds, and threw its right fist around in a wide, powerful superman punch. In an instant, John went from a casual stance, to a defensive one, his left arm raised to intercept the Wraith's. The saltorian's forearm collided with John's and stuck fast, the SIGMA not even budging. In the split second it had before John countered, the Wraith saw John's body become wreathed in violet fire.

"Mark!" Roared the II, as he launched a massive, powerful uppercut into the Wraith's stomach.

The Wraith audibly croaked as the biotic SIGMA's mass-affected blow hit it with a force three times that it had been just a moment earlier. It felt John's fist actually press against its spine, and its entire stomach flare into pain as it was hauled into the air by the force of the blow. Its feet were ripped from the ground as it was forced higher, and higher, and higher, before John's fist reached full extension and it was finally launched upwards, hurtling through the air as the gravity in their immediate area had been completely nullified.

As per the third law of motion, John's action had an equal and opposite reaction, and in this null gravity environment that meant he was pressed heavily into the floor below him. Using this to his advantage, John crouched down low and the moment he felt the recoil energy get fully absorbed by the floor, less than a second after the Wraith had left the ground, he turned all of the downward energy into upwards force, and launched himself into the air to follow it. With a pulse of biotic energy, John soared into the artificial sky, but the Wraith, for its part, recovered quickly. The creature seemed to have figured out that something had happened to this fighter's paltry excuse for gravity and even managed to surprise John as, instead of flailing around or panicking, it reached for the only source of thrust it had: Its pistol. Its tail wrapped around the grip of the gun and the tip rested on the trigger, and just as John reached it, the titanic alien aimed its gun towards the ceiling and fired, bleeding off a great deal of its momentum, almost enough to halt itself in mid-air.

John collided with the creature, whose hands and feet were still free thanks to the creative use of its tail. The two tumbled and spun through the air, though still flying upwards, thanks to John's momentum. The Wraith snarled and threw a left at John's burned side, but John, with both hands, parried the move and shoved the Wraith's thick fist away, spinning the creature and himself like a top. John curled up into a ball and threw both legs back behind him, improvising a front-flip in zero gravity and swinging around, clenching both fists and slamming them onto the Wraith's back in a double axe handle strike. With a loud crunch and a blast of biotic energy, the Wraith was sent careening back towards the ground, as John was blasted upwards by the recoil of his strike.

By now, as the Wraith shrank down towards the ground, John slammed up against the ceiling. He cast a quick glance at the ceiling beneath his feet, and then looked 'up' towards the Wraith, which hit the ground with a loud bang and a pained grunt as it bounced off and flew away in the null gravity. John narrowed his eyes, knowing this would be the tricky part of his plan.

"Keep me appraised of the position of every cruiser and armored van."

"John -"

"Mute." He paused for just a second, as he built up his biotic energy.

Up his relative mass climbed, multiplying itself by multiple factors of ten. John, however, forced the biotic energy to remain inward, with a powerful barrier he capped it inside, allowing none to escape, not even as violet flame. He needed to build his mass up as high as he could for this to work, but it only took a second after he started this impromptu experiment to realize he had made a mistake.

It took Cassidy even less time, "John you -"

He threw his head up and locked onto the Wraith, who dug its boots and one of its hands into the ground as it prepared to launch itself back up to meet John. John, however, had to get rid of this mass - he had made a mistake, he could almost literally feel his mass increasing exponentially with every passing second, almost as if he had triggered some sort of cascade effect. He had no control over it, and the only way he could bleed off this mass now was to impact something with it. With his eyes wide, and a deep frown on his face, John launched himself down to the ground with all of his strength - the multiplied biotic force actually denting the ceiling and shattering the sky unit, leaving an ugly gray mark in an otherwise sterling blue series of image projectors. Amidst a shower of sparks and glass, John hurtled towards the ground far faster than he'd been prepared for, and with the biotic energy still building up in his body, he felt compelled by some primal instinct to close his eyes as the ground came upon him in just a few seconds.

John slammed into the ground with a huge biotic detonation, his titanically multiplied mass and the force of impact with the ground created an enormous shockwave that blasted out from the point of impact. The shockwave sent large plumes of dirt from the grass patches, ripped apart and threw multiple metal flooring panels, tossed up the Wraith, and even picked up all of the abandoned police vehicles, and sent them all flying into the air, as John bounced off of the ground and flew just above it, almost like a frisbee just before it touched down. It was a testament to his own endurance and pain tolerance that John still had the presence of mind to grab at the ground with his gauntlets and bring himself to a halt, even as his entire body smoldered, large chunks of his fatigues had been shredded or burned off, and large patches of his skin were red raw and throbbing, as if burned.

"John, you just triggered a cascade effect!" Cassidy reported in rapidfire. "Keeping all of that biotic energy inside you just meant it had nowhere else to go - it started feeding off of itself and increasing in power! That's why the violet flames -"

"Explain it later." Growled the II, as he bit through the pain, and threw away his shattered HUDGlasses. "How bad is the damage?"

"You burned through two thousand kilocalories - three quarters of everything you've eaten today - in the three seconds it took for you to reach the ground. The static discharge almost shut down your nanites. It's a miracle you didn't explode!"

John nodded once, as he looked up to the now car-filled sky. It may not have gone exactly to plan, but the desired effect had been achieved. Unfortunately for him, in those few seconds he had needed to recover, the Wraith had adapted to its situation in null gravity, and the new environment it found itself in, and had vanished, using the vehicles, dirt and metal flooring panels to hide it.

"How much longer do I have with Hardlight?" Asked John, as he realized that this had been the second time in less than an hour he had burned himself with an overcharged biotic attack. His stomach gurgled, physically informing him that it protested to what had just been done to it.

"Seven seconds on your left gauntlet, ten on your right. This suit wasn't designed to be able to operate independently of its primary and secondary power sources."

John grunted in affirmation, "can you get me the Wraith's location?" He asked, as he scanned the skies, noting with determination that they were not just filled with cars and armored vans, but also guns. The weapons from the vans had been thrown out when they had all been tossed into the air, and while that gave John instant access to ranged weapons, so too was it given to the Wraith. Even better, Arcturus Police, being Military Police on a technicality, had access to the Standard line, which meant they all took ammunition that the SIGMA carried.

It was just as John was considering that the Wraith had used its pistol as a means of thrust in this zero-G environment, that one of the vans lit up, its police lights and its siren filling the air with their bright blue glow and their shrill shriek. John instantly locked onto it and with a brief grunt, he pushed off of the ground with all of the power his doubly augmented muscles could muster. He hurtled through the air, climbing up towards the armored van just as the Wraith swung up and over its side, its tail wrapped around a doorhandle, its pistol in one hand, and its knife in the other. Just as it brought its weapon to bear, and its weight caused the entire vehicle to spin in John's direction, John threw his hand out and snatched a rifle out of the air.

John threw both legs over his head and reoriented himself such that the Wraith was down, relative to him, and that the only target the Wraith had was John's legs. The Wraith opened fire just as John ripped a magazine out of his vest, and had it loaded and a round chambered in less than three seconds. Between his legs the barrel of the rifle went, just as the saltorian's bullet blasted out of its barrel, making it just a few feet as John, still hurtling towards the Wraith like a cannonball, clamped his legs down on the sides of the rifle and pulled the trigger. The time passed incredibly slowly for John, who saw the Wraith's first bullet hit home and violently rebound off of John's biotic barriers, and could just barely see each bullet fired from his own gun as they trailed through the air and towards the Wraith, who seemed to be aware of its own durability, as it took the bullets head-on - literally - and kept firing as it swung over the vehicle.

With the force of impact from the saltorian's massive .75 caliber rounds, and the recoil from his own weapon bucking and barking, by the time he reached the vehicle and his weapon clicked on empty, he was no longer travelling fast enough to slam into it. Instead he gently made contact, straightening his legs out as he 'landed' on the vehicle's roof, and the Wraith swung around from its chassis. It was just as John got straightened up that the Wraith swung around and let out a loud, animalistic snarl with multiple rows of razor sharp teeth bared in anger, ready for the kill. John bobbed to the left and dodged a lightning-fast, reverse-gripped upward swing of the Wraith's knife, and then threw his upper body back to dodge a punch from the Wraith's gun hand. At the height of the Wraith's punch, the gun fired, its recoil actually sending the hand jabbing back down in a savage chop that smacked onto John's nose.

The bridge of his nose split wide open, and drops of bright red blood spiralled through the air; John was nearly thrown off of the van by the attack, but he threw his rifle up and over the Wraith's head, hooking it around the Wraith's neck. He used this position to yank himself back in range, and throw a wide elbow with his free arm, as he dug his feet into wherever they could find purchase enough to lock him to the van. With the van now rapidly spinning around width-wise through the air, the Wraith's head snapped to the side, and then back again. It swung its knife upwards at an angle, and John had to curve his body to dodge it, leaving him open and his head close enough to the Wraith for it to slam its thick skull into John's. John nearly lost his purchase on the roof of the spinning vehicle, the wind whipping at his ears as his head recoiled. John heard more than saw the Wraith bringing its gun around, and barely a second later he was made aware of the scent of earthy sweat just a few inches to his left. With these two senses moving faster than his eyes, John whipped his left hand upwards and backhanded the Wraith's handcannon away just before it fired.

As the van continued spinning and tumbling through the air, John's head snapped back forward and as he brought his left hand back to his side, he slammed his right fist into the Wraith's rough face. Just as the Wraith recoiled from the blow, John's left fist shot forward, smashing into the Wraith's throat. Now with both hands close to eachother, he locked them together again and swung them both to his right, smashing them into the Wraith's head, snapping it back and forth, left and right, from the strength and speed of his blows. He actually saw some dark red blood and a few scales fly off of the Wraith's face, but now, as the saltorian recovered, it was its chance to counter. With a growl, it chopped at John's head with the barrel of its gun, but this attack snapped John's head downwards, right where it needed to be to see the knife surging towards his gut.

As they made their several dozenth revolution, John kneed upwards with his right leg, knocking the Wraith's intended attack off course and causing it to miss. John, however, was the one who suffered as now he had only one point of contact on the rapidly spinning vehicle, and before he could lock his leg back to the van, the Wraith adapted and made a wide horizontal slide. John's shin was sliced open and blood instantly began leaking outwards; the SIGMA bent his good leg down and ducked below another swing of the gun hand, before he tried now to attack the Wraith where it was weakest: Its legs.

One wide punch to the crook of its right leg caused the Wraith to bend backwards, its balance wrecked. John used this and grabbed ahold of its smoldering spacesuit, wrenching it around and slamming it onto the van's roof, now kneeling over it. Eyes wide, the Wraith brought up its hands to cover its head just as John rapidly slammed his hands onto it, the drum-like sound of skin striking scales filling the air before John pulsed his biotics and smashed his fist into the Wraith's chest. What happened, however, he couldn't have predicted - as he knew the gun was a threat, he'd kept his barriers alive as he'd pulsed the biotics. Immediately upon his fist hitting the Wraith's stomach, the biotics detonated, burning both John and the Wraith, and inadvertently accelerating their spinning vehicle so much that the environment around them was now a blur of spinning colors, some blue, some gray, some green and brown.

The Wraith coughed once, and, upon noticing that John had taken a second too many to look between his twitching hand and its smoldering stomach, jabbed upwards with its gun hand. The barrel of the gun dug into John's forehead, and John had to overexxagerate the blow in order to thrust his head back fast enough to dodge the gunshot. He felt the heat of the muzzleflash lick across his face as the bullet soared past him. He stumbled backwards, giving the Wraith the time to get back to its feet. John had to use both hands to parry its next savage knife swings, before he elbowed the Wraith with a crack of skin against scale.

The Wraith's head snapped to the side, and he swung his knife in a powerful upwards stab, but John threw both hands down and caught the knife hand, his thick muscles bulging underneath his damaged fatigues as he struggled against the Wraith's strength. The Wraith, however, made an attempt to bring its pistol to bear, forcing John to let go of the knife hand with one of his own, wrench it upwards and catch the pistol. Unfortunately for John, this meant that he had to divide his strength between both of the Wraith's arms, one pressing upwards and the other pressing downwards, and that the Wraith, after just a few moments of no progress, began to win their struggle.

As the gun in the Wraith's hand slowly began to press down to John's head, and the knife in its other hand slowly began to climb closer and closer to John's stomach, he grunted and kicked downwards with his feet. In an instant, he was sent flying back from the van. Hurtling through the air in a wide, curving arc, John spun himself around and oriented himself such that his feet were facing the Wraith, and his head was facing a lone cruiser, a half dozen meters away and approaching fast. As he grew closer to the police cruiser, John heard the air zip and whizz as multiple massive bullets zoomed past him, accompanied by the thunderous cracks and barks of the Wraith's handcannon.

It was just as John was reaching the car did the Wraith get the time it needed to adjust its aim and wait for the van to spin around again. Somehow its reflexes were great enough to work around the rapidly spinning police vehicle. Another series of bullets flew through the air, three zoomed past him, one slammed into and rebounded off of his barriers, a second shattered the barriers entirely but didn't retain enough force to penetrate his body armor. The fifth bullet dug a deep wound across John's left thigh, spinning him around in such a way that the final bullet slammed into his chest. It shredded his body armor and cut open his chest, unable to pierce his augmented ribcage but still able to draw a great deal of blood. John grunted in pain, the wind nearly knocked out of him, but recovered the instant his back hit the hood of the police cruiser, causing it to spin around lengthwise, and take the last three massive rounds that bled through the air.

"John -"

"I know." John coughed, "get ready for my mark." His tolerance for pain great enough that he could fight through his heavily bleeding chest, even though, through the shredded armor and bloodstained uniform, he could actually see his augmented ribcage, the flesh around the jet black bones having been flayed from them by the impact. As the cruiser spun around lengthwise and brought John back within sight of the armored van, his eyes flashed as an idea formed in his head.

He regained visual contact with the Wraith and flooded his right hand with a minute amount of biotic energy, before thrusting it upwards. A baseball sized, bright blue orb of biotic energy blasted out of his hand and flew through the air, arcing upwards before springing back down and smacking into the Wraith. The saltorian was ripped from the van as John flipped around and planted both feet on the hood of the still spinning cruiser. He turned to its trunk and, with a light scowl on his face, pounded one foot onto the hood. The police car immediately flipped end over end, and John was given enough height from his kick to plant his higher foot on the rear bumper of the vehicle. He sprinted in place for several seconds until the cruiser was a blur, and he was just before the point where he could no longer touch it with his feet.

The world slowed down as John, his scowl deepening, kicked down once again and flipped head over heels, looking for a moment as if he were diving downwards. He twisted around so his front faced the same direction the car was tumbling, and with his incredible reflexes, he grabbed ahold of the cruiser's bumper and locked onto it with an iron grip, actually managing to partially crush it underneath his gauntlets.

"John, what are -"

"MARK!" Roared the II, as he bellowed out loudly and, with his doubly augmented muscles bulging thickly underneath his arms, he threw the vehicle.

With his single-digit millisecond reaction time and his incredible strength, John was able to time his throw perfectly. The world slowed down as he spun around, latched onto the back of the vehicle's bumper, his lungs tight as he pushed the air from them in a deafening roar. He saw, in the distance, the Wraith hit the ground and bounce upwards, attempting to recover at a snail's pace. As John reached the bottom of the cruiser's spin, his roar reached its crux and he pulled with all of his strength, managing to overcome the vehicle's circular momentum and act as a fulcrum upon which the vehicle spun around. The black and white cruiser was launched through the air, under its and John's power, hurtling towards the ground like a two and a half ton cannonball.

A split second later, Cassidy had the gravity switch back on, and John threw both arms out to his sides, his biotics flaring to life as he decreased his relative mass and floated safely to the ground. Unfortunately for the Wraith, it had a much rougher landing, and when it turned over to its back, it saw the tumbling car hurtling straight towards it. As fast as it was, the Wraith didn't react fast enough, and the car slammed into it with a loud metallic smash and the shattering of glass. The Wraith was dug deep into the imported dirt, but the cruiser hadn't been the only part of John's plan - the armored van had been spinning in a counter clockwise fashion, generating thrust in the direction required for it to tumble through the air and slam onto the ground. It bounced once in a shower of dirt before crashing onto the totalled police cruiser, flattening it onto the ground and spraying the area around it with mechanical parts and broken glass.

John dropped the last meter to the ground, landing with a light twang of metal boots on a metal ground. Without looking, he raised both hands and caught a rifle in each one, before, in one fluid motion, stuffing the both of them under his arms and digging out magazines to load them with. His shredded body armor dangled loosely, and his chest was covered in blood, and though his nanites were working wonders at creating clots and limiting the bloodloss, he still had a massive, gaping hole in his chest, behind which his pale white lungs could be seen expanding and contracting rapidly. His head was already spinning, his normally sharp vision growing blurry around the edges, and his already pale skin growing even moreso, as the rest of the abandoned police vehicles crashed to the ground around him, creating a veritable storm of crunching, multi-ton metal, shattering glass, and dying sirens.

"Five minutes, John - if you can't end this in five minutes you will not get to a hospital fast enough and you will die!"

"I'm right in front of a hospital." John rasped.

"My statement stands!" The incessant AI retorted, an urgency to its voice. "You have a hole in your chest!"

John, however, had his mind on other things. "It's still alive."

"I had assumed as such. Five G's, a couple cars will slow it down, but unless it's one of its cars, I don't think it will do more than injure it… Bad."

And with its healing abilities… John grunted, as he brought both rifles to bear, one in each hand. "That biotic detonation, earlier. It burned."

"Yes, I factored that -"

"If I created an Annihilation Field… Could you catch it in hardlight? Focus it around my right gauntlet?" John asked, as the toppled vehicles twitched, as if someone had slammed their hands into them from beneath.

If he could have seen its holographic form, John would have seen Cassidy blink. "Like tech armor? Why?"

"Could you?"

"If you can create an Annihilation Field, I would think it more useful -"

"Can you?!" John repeated, as the rear end of the cruiser slowly lifted up, causing the armored van to tip over and fall off of the cruiser's front end, the sounds of groaning, crunching metal, and cascading glass filling the still air.

"I fail to see the -" Cassidy cut herself off as John opened his mouth again, "yes. Why?"

"I want you to contact George S-Two Sixty Six, and Craig S-Two Eighty Two. If they're awake, tell them to suit up and get on a shuttle, get here. Tell them to not listen to anyone else, regardless of name or rank. That I need their help." Said John, as, from underneath the destroyed police cruiser, a large, bloodied, green hand, its scales having been sheared off and its raw, pale green skin showing, clawed at the ground, as another pushed up on the vehicle. "And if I die, send a mission report of everything that's happened since I woke up until now, to those two, Miranda S-Two One Oh Six, and every other SIGMA Two." His still strong, rumbly baritone barely floated a few meters away from him.

As the Wraith clawed its way out from underneath the cruiser, and John began focusing his biotic energy, but before the wispy violet blue aura could even form, he caught something at the edge of his vision. The world slowed down to a crawl as his eyes snapped upwards, and he saw it again - the glint of a scoped rifle, and the conical distortion of air rippling around a highspeed object. As it registered in his mind what was happening, John saw, hundreds of meters away, the Drell shooter slip his rifle back into the window and melt into the darkness of the building it had fired from.

Helicopter distant. Blades beat against air. Structural weakness on the axis, armor piercing round. The thoughts flashed through the lean Drell's mind before he was even consciously aware of them, as he watched through the thick window, one of the humans' massive rotary-wing vehicles lift off and tear through the air, towards the station's relative south, the area which had received the second most police units after the lockdown.

"Uh… Sir, please, I need you to step away from the window until the lockdown has been lifted. It's for your safety." Said a light, youthful voice.

The drell turned his head towards the speaker, she was young, as most humans were. Her dark brown eyes still had a shine of innocence to them, her fading tan indicative of a lack of time spent away from simulated solar environments. Her stance, and the stiff way she cradled her rifle, told the drell that she was new, inexperienced - likely very fresh from what the humans called 'boot camp'. She wore no armor, only the black and gray uniform of an Alliance Marine, leading the drell to conclude that her presence here, while fortuitous for the Alliance, had simultaneously been coincidental on her end, likely she had been here as a go-between for whatever planet her destination was.

The drell's deep, dark blue eyes flickered down to the nametag above her right breast, it read 'Rivera'. He cleared his throat, his low, rumbly voice clearing the brief silence of the air. "I stand by this window for your safety." He said, calmly, before he glanced over to the trio of Hanar, who hovered huddled in one corner of the room, far from the window. His ocular modifications picked up on what the human never could have - a brief bioluminescent flash from Bridges the Gaps Between Worlds. It, as did all of its ever generous kind, preferred he would acquiesce, if only to make it so the young human would calm herself, though a flash right after the first also told the drell that the hanar had something it wished to say, surreptitiously.

Without a word, the drell strode through the room, his black overcoat swishing gently with his stride, and his hands held politely behind his back. He reached the trio of hanar, and nodded once, before briefly casting his eyes over to Rivera, who went back to her comrades and resumed her conversation with them. So long as they remained quiet, anything said would not reach the humans' ears.

"Thane…" Quietly intoned one of the Hanar, "this one has just received a most urgent correspondence from the Alliance Director for Defence." He said in an uncompromisingly even tone. "A request for our assistance, personally."

Thane nodded once. "I would think that, for this assistance, they will grant the Illuminated Primacy its requests."

The speaker flashed briefly in acknowledgement. "More. Though this one daren't believe it, the Director has promised us that upon successful completion of this contract, the Alliance will give us the necessary resources to replicate and program their medical nanites."

Thane, through the experience and discipline born by two decades of service to his compact, maintained his composure, not even allowing his heartbeat to slow as the implications sank in. "I see." To say that this was important would be a massive understatement - Alliance medical technology was advanced enough to strengthen quarian immune systems, improving drell lives - to say nothing of its impact on Kepral's Syndrome - would be child's play in comparison. The Primacy had been negotiating for years to get even a fraction of what the Director now offered in its entirety. The trade contracts alone would cause a small economic boon to both societies, which was to say nothing of the easing of tensions and improvement of relations between the Alliance and the Citadel. If a life had to be ended, then so be it. "Would I be correct in assuming my target will be the person or persons that have caused this lockdown?" He rumbled, so lowly that his voice didn't even float a meter past him.

"This one regrets to inform you… No." Said his handler. "Your target is instead… A SIGMA." Here, was where Thane blinked, though he remained silent and still. "You must ensure that he does not survive his battle against the creature that has caused this incident. This one has been informed that he is an agent of chaos within his ranks, and his survival will only lead to death and destruction, in the short and long terms. The creature is of no consequence. If you can do this, this one shall personally grant you your freedom from the Compact."

Thane nodded once, "it shall be done." He said, simply. "I shall depart at once."

True to his word, he had vanished from the small office within two minutes. It had been painfully easy to slip by the guards, just a brief application of biotics on the windows had startled them all, and he had gone through the door without a sound. In less than ten minutes, the assassin, his collapsed rifle clamped to the back of his coat, was sprinting through the still, silent city in the stars. The application of martial law and the lack of foot traffic and vehicles on the roads beyond capitol square meant it was a simple affair to cover a great deal of distance in a short time. Even more fortunate was the dry nature of air on space stations, his lungs hadn't even begun to burn when he had reached a tall building, with a clear line of sight on the hospital from which a helicopter was taking off.

It took him four minutes to reach the second from the top floor of this apartment building, and silently break into the apartment at the rear of the building. He didn't even hesitate when he saw two humans in the apartment, he was inside before the broad-chested male human could turn around. As it was not his duty, or even his desire, to kill these two, he simply wrapped the male in what the humans called a sleeper hold, and used his biotics to throw the smaller human across the room. The both of them were unconscious in ten seconds, not having even seen his face, and he was perched in a window inside a small, darkened bedroom soon thereafter.

His rifle extended, Thane leaned into it and peered through the scope. He caught the tail end of the human and the burly green beast's zero-gravity brawl. They were more than half of a kilometer away, and as the human came in for a landing, and Thane adjusted for aim, he instantly found his target. The SIGMA had a gaping hole in its chest, which was freely leaking blood, though it seemed as if a sea of gray goop was bubbling up from its veins and stopping the wounds from bleeding. The SIGMA, in a feat of dexterity, caught two out of the sea of rifles and had them loaded with great efficiency.

Take not the first, most available option. Wait instead for the moment of opportunity, when your target cannot possibly, even at their best, most alert, avoid your blade. He recalled, though he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself from slipping into those old memories. A SIGMA's skeleton was rumored to be impenetrable - there were stories from the Human-Turian war of SIGMAs losing their helmets, and still not flinching after being shot in the head. Fortunately, their organs were not as invulnerable, and the green goliath buried beneath the crashed vehicles had seen to give Thane a perfect opening on them, in the form of a gaping, bloody hole on the human's chest. How it wasn't freely spraying blood, Thane attributed to the SIGMA's hyper-advanced augmentations, and as such he paid it no more thought, knowing that they had to be tasked beyond capacity just to keep the SIGMA from bleeding out. They would not be able to handle that, a burst lung, and a perforated heart, at the same time. The youthful-faced human would die.

I cannot… I can… Not… Fail this. For the Compact, for the Primacy, for his people, for her, the Alliance held veritable deliverance, absolution, even. For their kind and the Alliance, all could benefit from this trade of life for favor.

"Amonkira... Lord of Hunters." Began the assassin, as the distant SIGMA brought both rifles to bear, and pointed them at the crashed vehicles to his front, almost as if he expected his opponent to still be alive, after that vicious assault. "Grant that my hands be steady…" He prayed, before a deep inhale, and an equally deep exhale. He felt his nerves calm, and his heart slow. "My aim be true…" He adjusted the rifle, his plan forming as he continued his prayer. "... And my feet swift." The vehicles the green beast had been crushed under shuddered and shifted, and Thane saw a hand claw at the dirt. "And should the worst come to pass…" He prayed, resting his finger on the trigger. "Grant me forgiveness." He pulled the trigger once, and a split-second later, snapped the rifle down just a few inches, and fired again.

With all of his injuries and the stresses of this battle stacking up, his reflexes had dulled just enough that he couldn't do anything to react in time. Two tiny, sand-grain slugs closed the final few dozen meters one right after the other - one slammed into his head and snapped it back, throwing him backwards as the other soared right towards his chest, hurtled past the shredded armor, slipped between his ribs, tunneled through his lung, and dug right into his heart.

The saltorian seemed to almost instinctively know that something had happened, even before the distant thunderclaps reached their ears. It tore itself from underneath the vehicles, multiple deep gashes in its back and its upper and lower body covered in blood. It and John were mere meters apart, and in the half second it took for John to fall to his back and slam onto the ground, it had already covered half of that distance.

Whether it be due to shock, pain tolerance, endorphins, or blood loss, John felt no pain from the multiple sniper shots. He hit the ground and slid back an inch, before his biotics flared, and he raised both assault rifles. "Mark!" He gurgled, as a fiery, violent annihilation field formed around him, like a raging bonfire.

Just as his bullets left his guns, the gravity again switched off and the Wraith propelled itself into the air. John's bullets slammed into the flailing Wraith and sent it flying backwards. John threw the rifle in his right hand to his side, just as Cassidy covered it, and as much of his body as it could, in Hardlight, capturing the rapidly oscillating warp fields inside their impenetrable shell.

"Mark!" John choked, as he saw a spurt of blood literally fly out of his chest.

He forced himself onto his feet as the Wraith arced through the air and slammed onto the ground once again. John, without even a moment's hesitation, enveloped the portions of his body that weren't covered in hardlight in a powerful biotic barrier. Instantly the annihilation field vanished, and he felt that growing, burning feeling inside of him as his biotics once again focused inwards and started feeding on themself. He felt his mass grow, and grow, and grow - he even saw some of the lighter pieces of debris begin to slowly get dragged along the ground towards him, as his relative mass produced a greater pull than the station around them. As the Wraith scrambled to his feet and charged at John again, John brought his right arm to bear, holding his hardlight covered hand right in front of him.

"Break it!" Roared the SIGMA, as he clenched his eyes shut and hoped he hadn't been wrong. A microsecond later, the hardlight surrounding the armored portions of his body vanished, and the annihilation fields exploded outwards. The air rippled with heat, but it paled in comparison to what came next, as John let go of his biotic barrier.

There was a flash of pure white, blinding light, and the sound of fire burning everything around it. From John's extended hand burst a huge flare of biotic energy, and when the cascaded biotic energy from within met and clashed with the warp field he'd detonated, the sheer heat generated flashed the air around it to plasma. John detonated as if he were a biotic bomb, plasma exploded outwards in a large dome, scorching everything in its path, burning the grass and dirt to cinders, melting the metal flooring units, and when it reached the Wraith, it burned it black - charring half of its body before the plasma field petered out, leaving a Wraith that was half burned to its core, and half bright, burning, throbbing green.

In the center of the brief, brilliant explosion, was the SIGMA II. Almost all of his skin was bright red and throbbing, his clothes were scorched and smoldering, his hair smoking, and his most of his armor was radiating heat into the air. John fell to his knees, his eyes glazed over, and both of his hands stiffly fell into his lap, the two impacts causing a small shower of soot and ash to cascade down his twitching, smoldering body. How he, at ground zero of a biotic detonation able to generate enough heat to create plasma, managed to survive without being turned to ash himself, was a miracle that could only be attributed to his heartiness, and his AI's imperceptibly quick thinking. Had it not detected the heat spike, and John's second idiotic mid-battle biotic experiment, and used the last of his armor's charge to coat him in hardlight and extend those barriers as far as they could go, he would have been a corpse of fourth-degree burns, disintegrated bones, fried technology, and boiled, blackened flesh.

"John - it's -" Before Cassidy could even finish, the Wraith lumbered over to the unmoving, smoldering SIGMA and grasped John's throat in its massive, meaty hand.

It hefted John into the air, the un-scorched half of its face livid and bristling with rage, both of them radiating thin plumes of smoke. It unsheathed its white-hot, glowing knife, not even seeming to realize that its hand was sizzling like bacon as he held the metal object, or even that the scorched half of its body - including the hand grasping John's throat - was cracking and crumbling apart, exposing the raw muscle, tendons, and even bones underneath. However, as the knife slowly slipped out of its holster, the vertical pupil in its single functioning eye dilated, as if in realization.

"Vos…" It uttered, with its deep, injured hiss.

Cassidy realized that this split second, whatever was causing this delay, was her chance, her one chance to try and snap John out of his state. His earpiece had been fried, so she couldn't try and talk to him. A great deal of his nanites had been either crushed, fried, or temporarily deactivated by his biotic stunt, so she couldn't try and shock him out of it. In her vastly accelerated time frame, she was able to see through John's eyes and perceive the very instant when the Wraith's pupils ceased dilating, and instead began constricting back to their killer gaze. Desperate, Cassidy took thirty nanoseconds to take inventory of all of the augmentations in John's body that she had some kind of influence over, and after the passing of a half of a microsecond, she found the only thing in John's body that could potentially snap him out of this half-conscious burnout. Deep in the pits of his mind was the augmentation that neither of them had recognized, and when paired with his positronic brain, allowed Cassidy to read the flow of neurons through his brain, but more than that, it allowed her to exert some control over these neurons, and even show him what it was she saw.

It took three tries. The first time, she sent memories of John being in pain in an attempt to jolt him to full consciousness. She saw the belly of a turian ship, a SIGMA on the opposite end of a flaming battleground, a batarian moon, and a great many images of dirt, sweat and blood under the angry gaze of an augmented soldier wearing a golden visor, his armor adorned with the number 1-99. The second, she tried memories he had during which he felt great distress and fear, in an attempt to snap him out of his daze and focus his attention on the eight foot tall beast holding him up by the throat. New images of a dark night on Earth, with dozens of mercenaries bearing down on a lone boulder, of floating out in the void of space just above mankind's cradle, of going under the needle not once, but twice in his life, and understanding that, for his entire life, he had been lied to. Finally, she tried giving him visions and memories of when he felt calm, in an attempt to take his mind away from the pain just long enough to kickstart it and bring his tolerance for pain back to where he could fight again.

She showed him memories of disassembling and reassembling guns, pouring through textbooks in a wide and quiet classroom, the gray nothing of the Warp outside of a ship's window, but none of it worked. Even bringing to the forefront of his mind the image of a five foot tall teenage woman, her flawless raven hair tied up behind her head, her lithe body covered in familiar black and red fatigues, the number 106 on her chest, it too failed - even so long ago, he had been too far gone, too resigned to his fate and too guarded to ever calm his mind.

It wasn't until she found the faintest of neurons, the most distant of memories in the darkest reaches of his subconscious. It took even the AI a few microseconds to realize who the six foot tall woman with blood red hair was, even as the woman stooped down low and scooped the tiny, infant John out of his bassinet. In the dim darkness of the small, cramped room that John occupied in these distant, nearly two decade year old memories, Cassidy could still clearly make out the woman's strikingly powerful green eyes. Through John's experiences, the memories even he didn't know his mind had recorded, the AI could feel the woman's hands pressing at John's infantile back as she brought the babe close to her chest and cradled him with care, through his ears she heard a light white noise from an air conditioning unit, and through his nose that she smelled the distinct, hot metal smell of space. It was as the woman cleared her throat and began singing did Cassidy, through the infant's peripherals, notice the numerous bottles - some glass and some plastic - scattered about the room. Once the woman's slightly slurring voice graced John's ears from nearly eighteen years in the past, did it finally happen - did his brain receive that 'kick' that Cassidy was so desperately trying to provide.

"Rock-a-bye baby, on the tree top." Sang the woman through the eighteen years that separated then from now.

Just as John's brainwaves spiked, the Wraith reared its glowing knife, but before it could utter a word, or even twitch a muscle, John blinked, and his eyes, previously dull and glazed over, instantly snapped back to alert and focused, and then made contact with the Wraith's one functioning ocular organ.

"When the wind blows, the cradle will rock." The neurons and memories flashed through John's head in real time, practically numbing him to everything and sending phantom sensations of giant hands on his back.

In a flash, John's hand snapped down to his pistol, it, like the knife, glowed from the heat, but not nearly as bright, and he ripped it out of its holster. Just as the knife went sailing upwards and into the SIGMA's stomach, the human shoved the weapon underneath the blackened part of its long chin and without a word, pulled the trigger.

"When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall." As the child supersoldier's bright red blood poured out over the blade and his skin as it was cauterized by the glowing metal, the bullets blasted through the Wraith's charred, weakened flesh and into its head, unable to penetrate the top of its skull and bouncing back and all around, blasting apart its brains with each thunderclap.

"And down will come baby…" Once his gun clicked on empty, the Wraith's limp hand let go of him, and it fell back, slamming onto the ground with a wet smack. "Cradle and all…" A moment later, John fell to his feet, and then crumpled up onto the ground with a heavy thud, his entire body still smoldering from the detonation. He lost consciousness barely a second later, his mind plagued by visions and dreams of the past, of memories new and old, of a warmth in his chest, of a kind, womanly voice, and the hot metal-smell of space.

Ten seconds passed - an eternity for her - before the AI realized that, with the trouble and tension between John and Ducard, he may not get the medical attention he needs, in the time he needs it. She had to be the one to act, and it only took her a picosecond to use her SIGMA clearance to lift the lockdown of the hospital behind them, assume direct control of all of the surgical mechs inside, and have them rush out to evacuate John and get him inside. But, even as her number of hands grew from zero to six dozen, she realized that even if she could get John inside and stabilize him, even if she could start cloning his flesh, muscle and sinew, even if she was capable of downloading everything she needed to save his life and get him to combat readiness, there still lay the problem of the Ones. It was now as clear to her as it had been clear to John that this fight was a thinly veiled attempt on his life - the Ones wanted to matryr John to preserve their lie, and even if she could save his life, she couldn't protect him forever. She could certainly delay them, she had the required security clearance to take over the station's security mechs, but that wasn't a permanent solution and it would hardly work long enough to bring John back into shape. These facts in mind, as the surgical mechs poured out of the building and surrounded the nearly comatose SIGMA II, Cassidy made her judgement call:

She contacted Titan Med.

A/N:

Yeah, I had a loooot of fun with this fight.

As I've said with regularity, the WarVerse started out and has been my proving grounds for concepts that will eventually make their way into my own original stories, and as such I've been putting a loooooooot of time, effort, and research (and god knows how many hours talking these things over with a guy who's waaaaay smarter than I am, you know who you are) into figuring out how to use the established canon of Mass Effect to do this.

The biotic stunts in this fight (and even a few of the bits in the SIGMA fights) are just the beginning, and I've got justifications and explanations for everything.
Trust me, things will only get bigger from here on out.

But, more to the point: I had a looooot of fun writing this fight, and I was adding and tweaking things right up until the moment I put it up. To give you guys an idea of how it started and where it is now - originally, the craziest thing that happened was my playing with zero gravity.
But then I decided I could do something better, something bigger, and that's when I started going deep into what I could have John do with his biotics. After all - they're the reason he got inducted into the program in the first place. He's gotta start experimenting and getting good somewhere.

And then there was the ending - which, in the first draft, had been much more straightforward.
But here's John making a big ol' climactic entrance into the public eye, as not just a SIGMA, but a SIGMA II. He's got a reputation to set up!
So I had him blow himself up. Should set the tone quite nicely.

There's definitely more - including what can be said about John's mortality - but I don't want to be rambling too much.

It was a fun time and a half writing this fight, and there's only more, and bigger, to come.

And before I forget, I put this on Twitter a while back, and made mention of it on my blog, but The First War passed over one million goddamn views about a month ago, and this story is rapidly closing on on half of a million.
AND! As of this posting, they're both in the top twenty (#2 and #11) most favorited stories in the Mass Effect category.

This boggles my fucking mind, and I cannot stress hard enough how appreciative and humbled I am of the fact. Every chapter I aim to outdo the last one, to improve even more than I have before.
I could go on, but I'll save the 'it's been a hell of a ride' rant for the end of the story.

So... 'Till next time!

-PFB