Shepard and squad 30 minutes after Fireteam Black arrived
Shepard and her squad had scanned the bodies of the dead batarian and his detail. Miranda nearly threw up at the stentch of the still smoldering brain matter of the turians. Whatever weapons they used seemed to pierce their armor with ease. The scene rubbed Jacob the wrong way, wounding then performing an execution was not agreeable to him. From the evidence, what really caught their attention was the large human handed imprint that was left on the batarian's neck.
The team left the bodies alone after Jenna saw a batarian approaching them. He had armor on and a weapon on his hip. Shepard and her team didn't pull their weapons on him, they were waiting for him to make the first move and instead of being fed grain sized slugs they were given an order. "Aria would like to speak with you."
It didn't sound like a request.
Shepard looked away from the courier and gestured to the dead on the floor. "What about them?" The batarian courier just shrugged. "What about 'em? They'll be food for the Vorcha or the clean-up crew will take care of it but either way you better get moving quick. There's a crowd near Afterlife forming up and chatter going around about hunting two large humans for their loot."
Shepard had her interest piqued and jestured to Miranda and Jacob to follow her. Looks like this might be something worth looking into and maybe recruiting some more crew. As they entered the city of Omega it seemed busy with different races with weapons in hand and claw moving about in armed groups and began heading for a specific location.
"Omega, paradise for the scum of the galaxy. I did a few ops here and everytime I set foot on this hunk of a station I'd wish for a shower to sterilize myself."
Miranda had entertained them with one of her missions on Omega and how she had to seduce a batarian for information. If Shepard had been forced to do such a thing then she'd rather be chained upside down while slowly dying of acid burns than do that. From the looks of things and the loud mumbles heard as the trio passed through the crowds the hunt had already started because a crackle of gunshots followed by intense howls of pain could be heard from a distance and anyone holding a weapon that was not guarding Afterlife was heading to the source. The armed scum that had occupied the front of the club had now dwindled as they rushed for the fight. The Commander and her team took their weapons out from their mag-plates and were about to follow the rabble before being stopped by two people covered in brown rags and hoodies that stood in their way.
The trio stood still and analysed their blockade. One tall man and the other whom Shepard thought were a man if it weren't for her womanly curves to give her away.
The tall 6 foot man spoke and his voice was rough as if he had swallowed sand.
"Commander Shepard, we've been expecting you."
Shepard raised an eyebrow under her N7 helmet and while curious, Miranda and Jacobs were carefully bringing their weapons up to the possible threat before them. The woman of the two-man team faced Jacob and Miranda. They couldn't see her face, the ragged hood was long enough to block anything they could make out. The woman spoke this time, her slavic accent was very thick.
"I suggest putting your weapons away before we relinquish them from you. Biotics or not if we wanted you dead then you'd have had melted skulls the moment you stepped foot from those hangar doors."
That bit of information helped the trio to connect the dots. They now knew that these two were responsible for that disturbing scene in the hangar. Shepard signalled her team to holster their weapons as did she and decided to question them. She had a feeling that these were the people the Illusive Man had told her about. But just incase these people aren't who they really are and are just gung-ho idiots like she expected then she'd make quick work of them. She was fast on the draw with a handgun.
"Are you the ones that the Illusive Man had told me to meet?"
The two figures before her simply nodded. The big one spoke again.
"Did the Illusive Man give you our callsigns?"
Shepard nodded and made an educated guess. The big one was callsign 'Oscar' and the small one was callsign 'Sierra'. She pointed to the big man. "Oscar" she then pointed at the woman "Sierra."
The two looked to each other before chuckling and got a reply from the woman.
"Negative Commander. Both of us are 'Oscar'. My callsign is 'Oscar 1-2'"
The woman held up a fist with her thumb jutting out and gestured to the man next to her.
"This is 'Oscar 1-1'. Sorry ma'am, but the rest of the team isn't here. They were 'supposed' to be hiding. Looks like those two don't know how to stay out of trouble."
The woman glanced in the direction of where the group of armed mercenaries went. Shepard furrowed her eyebrows while Jacob felt a small sense of relief that he got to meet a couple of professional soldiers. Miranda just shifted her weight and folded her arms before scoffing.
"You military types and your "callsigns". No wonder no one gets you seriously."
Shepard just lowered her head and pinched the position where the bridge of her nose would be if she didn't have a helmet on while the two troopers just looked at her. Shepard regained her senses and mentally kicked herself for bringing an uptight person such as Miranda with her.
"Where are the rest of your team? And what do you mean that they're supposed to be in hiding?"
"We were attracting too much attention to ourselves, something no one wants on Omega. Tried to lay low till you arrived but a Krogan got trigger happy. Not a good idea for him because the next thing i knew, our Commander had ripped the plate off his skull."
The man responded, following up on him teammate.
"Next thing we know, shit went sideways and to make matters worse, that krogan was part of the Blood Pack. A leftenant at that. Soon enough a bounty went up and anyone who wasn't after Arcangel was going after our guys. Mind you this happend just before you arrived. We just got here nearly an hour ago too. Not a good start for the day."
Shepard first cringed at the thought of seeing a Krogan's underplated skull but it also surprised her. A person in hand-to-hand combat with a Krogan. That gave her a small gauge of their combat abilities. She was also impressed at the fact that they were able to get in trouble pretty quickly on Omega.
"Sounds like they could be of use Jenna. Hurry up and find them."
Her brother had chimed in on her helmet radio. She nodded asked the duo.
"Mind taking us to your team? We could use some real soldiers."
Shepard turned to Miranda and Jacob.
"No offense."
Jacob just shrugged while Miranda folded her arms, clearly in her 'Dominatrix' mode. The Commander then noticed the absence of gunfire. Something seemed abit off.
"Understood Commander but there's no need."
The one speaking and placed his black gloved hand to where his ear would be.
"They'll come to us, eta 30 seconds."
The duo split off from each other and did a 180 degree turn. The entire group now stared at a smoke screen covered pathway to the inner parts of Omega. In the smoke, two dark figures appeared and as they got closer they grew larger and more detailed. From the mist of smoke generated from excessive pollution and overheated mass accelerators came a near 8 foot tall armored green giant wielding a silver, angular and alien looking rifle in hand that had complemented the parts of his dark silver combat armor. But that wasn't the only thing that made Shepard slackjawed. The monster next to the 8 foot armored rhinoceros was even taller and larger. At 9 foot 4 inches tall, his armor coloured in olive green and silver wielding a larger silver and angular handgun which might have been a shotgun in a normal human's hand. Both behemoths shook the ground with each step and their armored bodies had blood of many colours splattered on their metallic alloy plates. From yellow and blue to crimson they looked like demonic machines. The way they walked to the group was alittle frightening because all they could see were low-tilted, armoured, orange and gold polarised visors looking at them. As the two closed in on the group a shout could be heard behind the two walking tanks and Shepard had heard that warcry before. It was a Krogan in Bloodrage. A Krogan came charging at the largest walking superhuman while screaming at the top of his blood filled lungs. The supersoldier just stopped and stood still before turning around. The Krogan had bullrushed into the Spartan and hit him with so much force that it would have killed any being even with heavy armor on. But to him he felt as though he hit an immovable wall. A wall made of super dense metallic alloy, augmented muscle and unbreakable bone. The Spartan didnt move a millimeter and in one swoop, stabbed his fingers deep into the Krogan's skull plate ripping it off. There was a howl of pain followed by the sound of a body slamming into a wall. The Spartan roundhouse kicked him so hard that the ribcage of the Krogan caved in and pierced his hearts and the impact from the kick had cause several organs to fail instantaneously. The Krogan had died before impact with his brain exposed not realising what had happend or had the time to scream. It happened so fast and ferociously that Shepard and her team felt more cautious of the group. They were feeling nervous of the massive troopers. They looked heavy, sound heavy and were dangerous enough to take down a Krogan in Bloodrage, they had every right to fear them. Hands going for weapons out of fear and instinct but logic told them to hold off on the guns.
When the Spartans reached the group outside Afterlife they looked down. Their stature was purely intimidating. Now Shepard knew what the Illusive Man meant when he said to not be intimidated if they 'looked down' on her. She was going to have a long talk with the Illusive Man and Hackett after this. The tallest one spoke, his voice sounded orderly.
"Lieutenant Commander Shepard, I'm Lieutenant Commander Ambrose. My callsign is Sierra-051 and the one next to me is Gunnery Sergeant Buck, callsign is Sierra-011. Fireteam Black is ready to follow your lead. I assume that the Illusive Man has briefed you on our arrival?"
Shepard was still alittle shocked with her mouth agape. She had just witnessed a man, a walking tank, annihilate a Krogan without batting an eye. He did it as though it were an everyday occurance. The Commander collected herself and slowly nodded before speaking to him.
"Looks like we're of same rank Sierra-051. A proper tactical assessment would be that since you're with me on this mission then you'll be assisting me while maintaining operational command of your troopers. I won't be giving them orders. This ok with you?"
The giant man just nodded. He was close now that Shepard could see him in full detail. The weapon he had was mag-attatched to his hip. His armor was very angular with sharp edges and the blood of those he killed were dripping off the plates as though he were waterproof. The armor plates themselves looked very thick, thicker than any armor she had seen and the undersuit was dark grey with olive green. The undersuit looked like it had scales and a closer look at it seemed as though it resembelled the human muscular system. She was also able to see the very faint glow of what she guessed was a type of Kinetic Barrier but it looked more like oil both in colour and appearence.
Fireteam Black was having a discreet conversation through their sealed helmets. Buck was the first to point out Miranda and Shepard and designated them as quote "fine as aged wine" to which annoyed the team. Kurt couldn't trust Miranda and Jacobs. They may be human but they work for Jack Hopper and being a former ONI agent and now a leader of a persumed 'rogue organisation' wasn't painting a pretty picture. But he was still UNSC and Kurt knew that even ONI looked after UNSC members, even if they had other motives.
Shepard had told Fireteam Black that she had to go into the nightclub that they were standing outside of. She had to get information from an asari named Aria. That named caused the two Orions to stiffen slightly though only noticable to a spartan which caused Kurt to raise and eyebrow and asked them both "Vass, Alison, who's Aria and what's her threat assessment?" they were all having a conversation in their helmets so they didn't need to turn their heads. Vass chirped up "Commander, she's the head of Omega and a powerful Asari. She came to the station with nothing, took down the crime leadership and established herself as the pirate queen. I wouldn't mess with her if I were you, sir." Kurt just smirked under his helmet. He was planning to test out the capabilities of his armor and new augmentations on a biotic but he knew not to be overconfident because that is the lead downfall of many that he knew and learned from.
Shepard and her team entered the club followed by Fireteam Black from behind. They were greeted with booming music and bright lights. The people inside were still partying even though there was a blood bath not far from where they were but maybe they couldn't hear a thing from being drunk, surrounded by strippers, pole dancers or just not caring. They paid no attention to the heavily armed and armoured supersoldiers. As the got deeper into the club, Kurt had to decrease his helmet's audio receivers and filter out the music. The music was horrible and giving him a headache while Buck seemed to dance alittle with every step.
As they walked around in the club a group of batarians apporaced them. This annoyed Kurt and Buck, did every batarian just walk up to you just to insult you? The batarians, 10 of them, tried sizing them up not realising that there were giants with the group. The leader of the band of arrogant idiots who weren't even armored tried to pick a fight with Shepard. He started running his mouth.
"What the hell are you looking at human?"
The way his face looked at saying the word human and how he said it. There was disgust but before he could say anymore he got a reply from Shepard.
"A dead man."
Jacob and Miranda had their sidearms out and trained them on the batarain's leader. The blue dot lasers both dancing on his forehead while Kurt already had his weapon ready to fire. Vass and Alison had snuck behind the group and held two batarians hostage through a choke hold with their handguns aimed at the group while Buck had racked his shotgun. This surprised the batarians not thinking of a reaction like this. The batarians in the chokehold of two gen-1 supersoldiers tried to free themselves only to feel their throats being crushed by pure muscle even more with every struggle. The leader of the batarian group raised his arms up in a non theratening manner. The idiot spoke with a shaken voice, clearly he was close to shitting himself.
"Calm down alright? We'll go if you let us go!"
Shepard had folded her arms and thought for a moment before a voice came over her helmet radio. She recognized her brother's voice anywhere.
"Let them go Jenna. We don't need a fight with Aria from this."
She growled and knew that her brother was right. She ordered the batarian lot to be off and they did with the two commandos letting their prey be released from their grasp.
The heavily armed group made their way through the club before being confronted by a Blue Suns turian. He jestured them to follow him to the VIP lounge which oversaw the entirety of the club. As the group made their way up the steps, armed guards surrounding them with an asari at the top of the lounge, the asari spoke with her back facing them. Kurt had marked all the armed individuals on his HUD and they showed up on Fireteam Black's HUDs aswell. All the tagged targets were yellow meaning that they were a threat until presented with a weapon so unarmed takedowns. The asari at the top was tagged with red, maked for the first to eliminate with extreme predjudice. The voice belonged to the Pirate Queen also known as the Bitch of the Terminus, Aria T'loak.
"That's far enough."
As soon as she ended her sentence the group stopped their advance only to be held at gun point. To Shepard and her crew, they were at the disadvantage of not being able to react fast enough. To Fireteam Black, it was just another day at the office. Spartan Time kicked in and the world around them slowed to a near standstill. Vass and Alison quickly disarmed the mercenaries that had jammed their weapons to the duo's heads and stabbed their unsheathed combat knives into the unarmoured part of their bodies. Buck had kicked the closet armed batarian merc so hard in the chest that the armor bent inwards and cracked while sending him flying across the room before pulling out his sidearm and firing two rounds into the skulls of the two mercs holding Miranda and Jacob at gun point. Kurt himself grabbed the closet merc that held a gun to him so fast that his speed went beyond superhuman. Kurt tugged hard on the armed hand of the merc that the arm was ripped from its socket. He left the batarian screaming in pain. Time had fast forwarded back to real-time and a pissed off Aria was glaring at the group while her body glowed with bluish-purple biotic energy and folded arms.
"Just what the fuck do you think you're doing?! You think you can waltz into MY STATION, kill MY THUGS and TRY TO FUCK WITH ME?!"
Aria rarely lost her cool infront of anyone. The Pirate Queen was always level headed and it wasn't everyday that she'd deal with something like a dead Spectre and some inter-dimensional soldiers. Jenna saw the situation escalating and tried to calm Aria down.
"Aria, calm down. Let's just talk about this for a min-"
Aria lost her patience and launched a biotic throw at the group. No one fucked with Aria. Everyone was launched from their positions and began floating aimlessly in the air except for the two heavy set Spartans. They didn't budge because Kurt had guessed that Aria might try to launch a Singularity at them so he radioed Buck on a private channel to activate his mag-boots just incase. While not what they had expected, they were glad that they had their mag-boots active. In a split second, Spartan-051 sprinted across the room. The metal flooring below his feet bent and twisted from the force he placed his foot after launching himself. Going from 0 to 140mph in a split second was difficult even for a super Spartan like him that was pumped full of Forerunner augmentic cocktails but after reading through about biotics then he would need to eliminate the threat quickly. The biotic thought that with her powerful abilities that she would get a better advantage but before she could react to the moving giant she felt herself being lifted off the ground and could feel herself losing breath and she hung from her neck. A single large hand had held her by her throat and she widened her eyes at the man who's arm it belonged to. She stared not in fear but in anger. Her gaze at the helmeted spartan would have fazed most but not him. All Aria could see was her reflection from an orange, lifeless visor. No sound came from it, as it stared back at her like a silent predator that had melded with a cold and calculated machine.
"SIERRA-051 STAND DOWN!"
Aria tried to adjust her head to see if she could see Shepard behind the mass of armour that held her in a vice-like grip but in an instant she found herself on the ground gasping for air. Seconds later more of Aria's thugs came in and held their weapons pointed at the threats to Aria. She could see the greyish silver one trying to taunt one of her men into trying something to give him an excuse to kill. A second later Shepard was beside her and helped her up.
"Lay off boys. I'll deal with this."
The men disengaged their weapons and slowly left the room but not before Buck gave them the finger. Aria was gonna have to deal with the bigger one in the future for payback but business comes first.
She was helped by Shepard on the couch and she crossed her legs and faced Shepard who was now staring angrily at the armoured behemoth.
"What is your major malfunction Sierra-051?! We need information on Archangel and Doctor Solus from her! We do need her alive!"
That intrigued Aria, every merc faction on the station was out to get the bastard for weeks after heavily disrupting their operations in the forms of sabotage, assassination and just plain robbery. She had heard that he had a group to work with but they were all taken out after one of his own had backstabbed him and his team leaving Archangel all alone at his base of operations with no chance of leaving out of there alive. She wasn't interested in the vigilante. As far as shes concerned it was entertaining to see the other major merc factions working together for once. The doctor was another story though. Former Special Tasks Group and a fucking genius. Opened a free clinic in the apartment district which was part of the Blue Suns turf. When he refused to pay for protection they came to his clinic for some enforcement. Sad to say the ones that went in came back with so many holes in their armor that it made the merc band wary of the salarian.
"I'll give you the details on both of them Shepard. In exchage I want that walking tank of yours."
Aria just glared at the armoured man the whole time. She wanted payback for disrespecting her place in her own domain. But the walking tank just looked towards Shepard. Probably telling the Commander to give Aria a second option which would be to eat a Hardlight-encased, liquid plasma slug. Shepard just shook her head, this was not what she needed right now.
"Thats a no-go Aria. Sierra-051 would most likely tear you to pieces if I gave him to you. Besides, I need him on my suicide mission. If you want him dead then wait till after the mission is over."
Aria scoffed. But then decided to just let it be. If he was going to die anyway then there was no need to waste any effort on this. Aria gave Shepard the info she needed and went back to her own personal dealings.
Outside Afterlife (Alison's PoV)
"Commander what the fuck was that?!"
Welp Shepard is pissed. Couldn't blame her but it was really ballsy of Commander Kurt. Crazy bastard would have most likely ripped her torso off. Fuck, Imma get away from this shit storm.
"Vass! Lets step away from this for abit. Too much heat."
Vass just nodded his head and followed me. We didn't go far though. We just relaxed ourselves on the railings that overlooked the city of Omega. It was nice.
"Crazy shit happened."
"Yeah."
"Never knew the Commander could move fast like that."
"Me neither."
Seeing the Commander move like that. It was scary. Hell, I knew Cat-IIs moved fast but not like that. Shit.
I tured my head to see if the Commanders were done arguing with each other and true enough they were.
Kurt came up and said that we were Oscar Mike and ready to go after Archangel while Shepard and her team were going to grab the Doctor. Time to get some hazard pay.