(Author's Note: Sorry this is late, to be frank: stuff happens. However, I've worked out the plot from here to the end of the series, which will definitely be anything but a short and brief ending. I will try harder to keep the updates closer together, especially since this one is short.)
Chapter 16: The Midnight War
Menacing storm clouds covered the entire skyline, unleashing pouring rain onto the fierce battle below that filled the city streets. In the inner city, there were no flashing lights or dazzling signs, those were far off, and barely visible in such a storm. The rain was at times coming down so hard that a misty haze covered the ground from the sheer blowback of water. Then, just as the storm was at its fiercest, hordes of moaning Husks and screeching Abominations materialized out of the growing fog.
"We must press on to the central tower! Whoever is controlling the husks is inside!" Shepard pointed to the ominous centerpiece of the city, a blackened skyscraper whose jagged top was far above the cloud line. This gesture was a simple one, but consumed a length of time that Shepard could have spent firing his weapon. A husk broke through the lines and lunged at him, moaning its harrowing and terrible moan. He countered by grasping the Revenant with both hands in an aggressive stance and swiftly cleaved through the soft and frail skin of the husk's brow with the bottom corner of the Revenant's grip in a single, vicious sweep. Cybernetics and clumps of dried grey goo scattered from the husk's injuries, which collapsed to the ground immediately after being struck.
"You heard Shepard! Onward to the tower!" One Tactical Squad Sergeant commanded to his squad. Across the street from where Shepard and his squadmates were making their stand, ten Space Marines heroically yet slowly made their way up the street. Their Boltgun barrels flashed bright orange with each shot, and with the storm clouds hanging completely overhead the only light that could be seen for miles was from the barrels of rifles. Each bullet from a boltgun quickly flashed a light that illuminated the Space Marine wielding the rifle, casting light that brought out their signature outline as well as casting intimidating shadows. The sound of other Marine Squads and their bolter fire, as well as the roar of the Captain's Land Raider Redeemer's engine, could be heard in the distance over the husk moans, indicating many other squads had been engaged.
The sergeant of the nearby Tactical Squad charged past his men to meet a pair of Abominations in combat. Grasping his Combi-Melta firmly with his left hand, he fired two bolts into one Abomination, causing an instantaneous explosion that caused the demise of three Husks adjacent to it. The other Abomination croaked and screeched, but continued charging at him, the blood red veins and wires now literally ablaze. The sergeant immediately sheathed his Combi-Melta and moved the chainsword in his other hand in a swift sweeping motion until his other hand grasped the lower part of the grip. With another sweeping motion the sergeant effortlessly struck the Abomination in the side, throwing it into the wall of windows nearly ten feet above him. The Abomination's dying wail was immediately with a small and silent explosion, just like every other of its kind upon their expiration. Paying it no further mind, the sergeant activated the chainsword, letting the beastly roar of the razor teeth speak for him. The soft flesh of the husks disintegrated with every swing, with grey and blue goop splashing everywhere with every husk the stood in the way for the lethal weapon. Charging through nearly two dozen husks in mere seconds, the Tactical Squad made their way to a spacious intersection, and across from them was another squad being led by Shepard and his two comrades.
"We need to get everyone to a centralized rally point, work our way to the tower as a single force!" Shepard yelled as loud as he could over the rain, gunfire, and guttural shrieks. He pulled away from a trio of husks as they came at him with shriveled fingers tipped with scalpel sharp talons Shepard pulled on the trigger of his Revenant rifle only and fired the last rounds the thermal clip could handle. Miranda immediately intervened by summoning a churning sphere of biotic energy and hurled it at the growing crowd of husks, this pulled in dozens of them like a vortex, twirling and shaking them violently around the sphere. With a violent, jolting arm motion, the sphere detonated and instantly incinerated too many to count.
"This is definitely fine training for the assault on the Collector Base!" Miranda jammed a fresh thermal clip into Shepard's rifle, saving him the short yet irreplaceable time he would have had to spend reloading. Then, with lightning speed she holstered her Locust submachine gun and grabbed the Phalanx pistol on her other hip, promptly inserted a new thermal clip and activated the blue laser sight in no time at all. This gun was not as easy to hold in the clenched robotic hand then the other weapons she had been using in the past months, but its recoil was almost nonexistent, and she found the laser sight far too useful to simply disregard the weapon. "You know, the mission we are supposed to do when we get back."
"If I remember properly, we came here while halfway through the Omega-4 Relay…" Shepard sarcastically replied, supporting himself with one knee on the pavement as he fired bursts down the street in short arcs. "Dammit! When this is over, all I want to do is pass out on my bed!"
"Stay on the sidewalk Commander Shepard! Our Land Raider is making its way to you!" The barely familiar voice of Captain Kagetono was slightly garbled by the feedback caused by the rain. Shepard could hear the water bounce off of the outer hull of the tank as it moved, and his own helmet was not entirely soundproof either, but neither made the transmission inaudible.
Soon the fiery light of the Land Raider Redeemer's colossal Flamestorm Cannons were visible from a few blocks away. The tank's engine roared as it plowed through the endless horde of husks with impunity, free of the concern of such insignificant creatures being able to damage the hull, or even find a way inside to meet an even more painful demise. It rolled closer and closer to their street in a manner fitting the powerful war machine, but Shepard felt this was the exposition to a far more dramatic entrance. The tank only seemed to slow as it reached the center of the small intersection, and was now in full view from Shepard's angle. This was the first time he had a sense of the vehicle's scale. The Land Raider was a titanic machine, comparable in size to no other craft he had come across before. Having to utilize the scanners hard-wired into his HUD, Shepard measured the Land Raider to be approximately ten meters long, six meters wide, and four meters high. While he scanned it, the sensors also picked up subtle heat signatures within the tank. The assault ramp flew down, squashing two husks and an abomination instantly, the abomination exploded soon after, concealing the interior of the Land Raider with a plume of black smoke. "Whilst we draw breath, we stand. Whilst we stand, we fight. Whilst we fight, we prevail. Nothing shall stay our wrath!" A voice echoed in the back of Shepard's head, almost as if this quote was a memory, told to him by a far wiser mentor long ago. They were also the same words the Captain was proclaiming as he charged.
"And we shall know no fear!" Shepard bellowed at the top of his lungs, in unison with the chorus of identical replies from other Space Marines in earshot of the Captain.
Captain Kagetono and his Assault Terminators cleaved and butchered through scores of husks with the grace of true warriors. More and more of them shifted their focus onto this one squad, ignoring all other enemies. A tide washed over the squad from all sides, nearly engulfing them and hiding them from the view of onlookers, and none could count the true amount of attackers. However, it was clear their peerless skill was beyond necessary to smother all attempts of attack. Even when surrounded by an unending horde, with no reprieve from the lethal claws trying to tear their armor asunder, such blows were futile. With every strike of the Captain's mighty Relic Axe, every butchering slice of the Terminator's Lightning Claws, and every ground-shattering swing of their Thunder Hammers, a score of husks fell. In the dark and the pouring rain, Shepard's view of the combat was aided by the lights of the Land Raider, but he ignored that as he watched the Captain and his retinue obliterate the husks. The glowing edges of their energized melee weapons shimmered in the lightless space as the Husks clouded the lights of the tank as they crawled on top of the holy machine. The entire area around him was lit by the unending barrage of bolter fire since the combat began, but in the epicenter of the dramatic combat there was a sight to behold. The faint glow of the many weapons flew with the motions of the Space Marines in perfect harmony, allowing the Commander to make out the weapons rather than the grey armor of the wielders. Energy cracked and danced along the surface of the weapons, sizzling in the rain, itching for a chance to leap from their point of origin to the unholy cretins that clawed at them.
Shepard could only stand and watch the mighty titans do their work, for he could only do so much when surrounded by an army of men beyond his scope of skill and power. He came to his senses when the fight ended, which was a mere forty seconds after the Land Raider had made its entrance.
"Fate Breakers, rally to me! Form up on my flank and push towards the tower!" The Captain bellowed into the insignificant earpiece on his left ear, raising his colossal Relic Axe into the air for those nearby to see, which was followed by the Space Marines quickly forming line after line of troops and vehicles, block after block to the left and right of the Captain wherever they were deployed or dropped.
"We march for the Emperor!" The Captain exclaimed.
"We march for more than that, not just the Emperor, not just humanity, we march for every sapient man, woman, child out there. We march for life itself!" Shepard added, barely yelling over the storm, catching the Captain's attention. He looked to the Commander, moving his sand-colored cape to the side with his axe haft dramatically, but it was not a look of anger or annoyance, it was a stare of true respect. "It is up to us to stop the Reapers, and thus our banner does not carry your seal alone, the flags of a million worlds are raised just as high, and march with us until our enemy is slain. These Reapers will be the death of everything we know and care about unless we stop them!"
"Aye! We march -for life itself!" The Captain raised his axe again, yelling even louder than before.
"And we shall know no fear!" This reply was screamed by the entire contingent of Space Marines on the ground around them, and exclaimed even louder by Shepard. The reply echoed in the darkened city streets and endless rain, igniting a fiery zeal that only fueled their efforts to eradicate the tides of undead husks.
It was then Miranda began to realize the reasoning behind Shepard's tenacity and hunger for combat was not out of a poorly kept temper or an unhealthy bloodlust, but rather he fought for a purpose more noble than anything Cerberus was fighting for. The fate of humanity was one thing, but to him the fate of all sentient life rested in his hands, and the weight of his task only pushed him further and harder…
At the top of the tower…
"We have unleashed all of the husks from the containment shells and cryo-bunkers, as well as the storage units in the sewer sub-storage units. The Scions and the Praetorians are moving in as well."