For the love of Cthulhu, Morgoth, and Sithis, this chapter was a pain in the ass to write. The last chapter was fun for a while, but eventually it got rather tedious. By the time I got to this one, it was really unfun to write. I seriously considered skipping it altogether, but remembered that my plans for the entire war depended on it, so I couldn't do that. Oh well.

Also, some of you will notice that Croom's plans are constantly changing throughout this chapter and the last. To put it simply, no fucking duh. The situation is changing, and he's coming up with new ideas that he hadn't thought of ten minutes ago.

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The escaping slaves quickly moved through the complex, following Jenna's instructions to meet up with the other three groups. They soon met up with the first group, about forty people, fifteen of whom were in fighting condition, three of whom were gagged and bound. Everybody in the party was carrying weapons, and one of them, a female Hulk, was carrying three large crates.

"Alright, Jones, put 'em down here for a moment," said a woman to the Hulk, who then turned to the larger group. "Who's your commander?" she asked sternly.

Croom pushed forward to the front of the group. "Captain Denver Croom, Infiltration Team Two-Bravo-Three, and designated commander of Operation Jungle Storm," he rattled off sharply. The woman and most of the humans in the group immediately snapped off sharp salutes, standing to full attention.

"Lieutenant Lauren Garza, sir. Inifiltration team One-Delta-Five. Empath, specializing in detecting and avoiding enemy forces."

"Good. There's a suppression force in here, and Jen and Enaliya are getting too tired to keep constantly scanning for them. Jen, from now on your job is solely to contact the psys in the other groups. Now, I assume those crates are the weapons you mentioned?"

"Yes sir. We grabbed what we could carry, and Essie here," she gestured to the Hulk, "smashed the rest to bits."

"Good." Croom turned to his party. "Everybody who can shoot straigh enough to hit the ground, grab a gun. There's probably a small army waiting for us outside this building, and we're gonna have to fight our way through."

Five minutes later, the party was on the move again, this time to meet up with the group of slaves who didn't yet have a psychic. The group had about fifty people, only ten of whom were in any condition to fight. After those ten were handed weapons, and a few others were given to the people who couldn't really fight properly, Croom turned to the group's leader, a Corporal Gary Willis.

"How come you don't have any prisoners?" Croom asked.

Willis scowled distastefully as a thin man with bright red hair approached the group. "That would be my responsibility, Captain. My name is Pete Roy. I'm one of five agents assigned to this operation. I respond directly to you, as the operation's commanding officer, but have authority to override any orders which I find detrimental to the mission. Due to the importance of this mission, I have taken it upon myself to eliminate anybody who poses a threat to the group as a whole. With so few fighters in our party, I decided that we could not afford to take prisoners."

Croom scowled. Damned sociopathic blackops bastards. "And what organization do you belong to, Agent Roy?" he asked.

"I am not currently at liberty to say. But I do have Her Imminence's personal mark of operation." The man showed Croom a tattoo on his wrist, in the shape of an ornate snowflake around a globe of the Earth. Damn. This guy was for real. And he wasn't just blackops, he was apparently one of those "organization without a name" guys. The Empress was really taking this op seriously, then.

"Very well, Agent Roy. What is your power?"

"I'm a vibrokinetic, Captain Croom. I'm able to produce and control vibrations in a target."

"Good. When we get out of the building, I want you, the hulks, and Rone to work together to bring the entrance down behind us, and trap the suppressors in here. Until then, you are to save up your energy. And I'm officially ordering you not to execute hostages for the forseeable future. We've got enough fighters that they won't present a problem, and they've all been neutralized anyway. Understood?"

"Yes sir," said the agent blithely, then fell to the back of the group.

Croom swore- he hated working with blackops agents. But if the Empress wanted the bastards there, it was his job to work with them. And at least they were marginally under his control for once.

It was another ten minutes until they ran into the last group of escapees. There were about twenty humans, most of whom could fight, and thirty or so aliens, a third of whom had guns. A large number of corpses lay on the ground, most of them alien and batarian, but quite a few of them belonging to humans. The commander, a Lieutenant Marco Byrd, gave Croom the situation.

"We've been holed up here since your psy told us not to break for it yet. At first, the batarians kept trying to take the building. If it weren't for Private Mack over there," he gestured to a woman lying on the ground, sleeping soundly, "we'd have been fucked, if you'll pardon my language, sir. She healed everybody she could until she passed out, nearly half an hour ago. About ten minutes after that, well, I guess the four-eyes gave up. Their commander announced that he was going to seal the building if we didn't surrender. Told us there were already two groups of guards and a suppression squad inside, and that if we didn't starve to death, the batarians would finish us off, unless we surrendered and offered up the 'ringleaders of this disgraceful opposition to the rightful order.' I told him he could go fuck a krogan, and, well, we haven't tried to get the door down yet. Figured we were safer with them unable to shoot at us. Unfortunately, the suppression forces found us. Again, the leader told us to surrender, and remove the spikes in the hallways, or we would be punished severely. We managed to take the bastards down, but we lost a lot of good people, since Mack was already unconscious. Since then, we've just been waiting for you to get here, sir."

"You did well, Lieutenant Byrd," said Croom when the man was finished talking, then turned to address the assembled slaves. "Okay, everybody," he said as Rey began translating for him, "Here's the deal. We're gonna head for the east side of the building, and bust our way through the walls. Once we're into the main slave complex, we make our way for the nearest city wall, and we bust that down, too. Then we head for the sewers. We'll probably meet up with other slave groups on the way. Once we're out of the city, there's a drop point about a kilometer into the jungle. It's got some basic gear, and instructions to a base that was set up for this escape. Any questions?"

One of the asari spoke up. "Those walls are half a meter thick, and the city walls are fifteen centimeters of solid steel. I can see how you plan to get out of the building," she looked at the massive Hulks for a moment, "but how do you plan to break down the outer walls?"

Croom grinned. "I don't. Miss Pollen over here is going to destroy them."

Kelly Pollen, the banisher, looked shocked. "Um, sir, I don't know that I could destroy that much material. That's a hell of a lot of mass to get rid of."

Croom shook his head. "We don't have another option, Miss Pollen. Trying to take the gates would be suicide- they'll have a whole damn army there by now. Our only chance is to bust through the walls, and not even the hulks could break them down. If you can't get through the wall, we're all dead."

Pollen's eyes widened at the amount of pressure being put on her, but she nodded silently.

"Good. Now let's go! Slaves have already started escaping from other buildings throughout the complex. We want to go while as many of us are still able to fight as possible."

The party moved through the building rapidly, making their way to the outer wall opposite the building's entrance. With Garza to guide them, the slaves were able to avoid the last group of Batarians. When they reached the outer wall, Croom stopped them. "Okay. Last minute plans. How many summoners do we have here who can still do us some good?"

Teeling and one other human raised their hands.

"All right. I need you two to make as many monsters as you can. I want them small, vicious, and damned fast. Then, as soon as the hulks bust down the walls, you let them loose to cause chaos and provide us with a little distraction. Hulks, as soon as you're through the wall, grab the prisoners and run for the nearest part of the city wall. We're opposite the gates, so there shouldn't be too many batarians outside. Rone, Agent Roy, you two are going to take out the guard towers along this side of the wall. Any aeromancers, typhomancers, or people with similar powers, create clouds of dust and smoke- keep us concealed. Everybody else, you know how to use your powers best. Just focus on distractions, chaos, and taking out large groups of enemies. Okay, you two. Start smashing."

The two Hulks grinned at each other. Fox cracked his knuckles, allowing Jones to get the first strike at the wall. With a roar, she charged into the building's wall and threw her full tremendous weight against it. There was a tremendous crash, and cracks appeared in the concrete building. Fox slammed into the space next to her a moment later,

A few minutes later, the Hulks busted through the walls with a pair of roars, to be met with gunfire from the batarian forces. Faced with attackers, the Hulks forgot their role in the plan and charged the enemy, Jones grabbing a massive chunk of concrete from the rubble to use as a club.

"Fuck, I should've seen that coming," swore Croom. "Okay, change of plans. Leave the traitors. Goliaths, grab the ones with stockholm syndrom. Everybody else, just run and shoot. GO!"

The three goliaths in the party grabbed the mentally unsound prisoners and started running, shielding their captives with their massive bodies, while the other slaves poured throug the hole and started running.

Outside, it was utter chaos. Slaves were escaping from every building in the slave center, led by forces of specially picked human infiltrators. Magic, biotics, and guns let loose in every direction, roars and growls from summoned monsters or melee fighters joined with gunfire and screams of terrror and pain to create a symphony of battle. Explosions rocked the air, and massive blocks of stone flew across the compound. Swirling tornadoes kicked up dust, and thick rain fell from the sky, occaisonally accompanied by lightning striking a batarian soldier. A small black hole flew from Rone's hands and impacted one of the guard towers, crushing, bending, and twisting the metal as its partner began to shake violently until its support gave, sending it crashing to the ground. Rone's and Agent Roy's bodies sagged from the energy they'd just expended, but they kept moving and shooting. A large cloud of choking ash shot out of one man's palms, forming a thick barrier between the escaping slaves and the nearest batarian position. Fires raged, burning batarians to a crisp, and buildings crumbled under heavy fire from the batarians, who had brought in tanks to deal with the uprising. Several humans vanished altogether, visible only by the outlines formed when smoke, dust, or ash pooled around them, and one shrank to six inches tall, to be scooped up by an ally. The elderly Willey lagged behind, and took a rifle to the chest, falling down. Diggle ran back, scooping him up into his arms beside the webmistress, and ran for the wall. A grenade exploded next to Hart as he was helping an asari struggle to her feet, killing them both. Carson blocked a rocket with a forcefield, falling to the ground from the energy required to stop the explosion. He was rescued by another Goliath, who slung him over her back as she ran. An asari fell to the ground as assualt rifle ammuntion tore through her chest. Lieutenant Garza was shot in the chest, but turned over on her back and began opening fire on batarians with her assualt rifle, trying deperately to draw enemy fire and buy the others time in their desparate bid for freedom. Rey lost an arm to an explosion from an RPG that struck a Goliath nearby. A salarian was shot down as Pollen finally reached the wall, and the Goliaths formed a human shield around her while she focused on the barrier, removing layer after layer of plated steel. Maverick's legs were blown out under him, and he melted into a pile of goo. Jenna scooped up the sticky gel and ran, only to be knocked down by a biotic push from a batarian commando, whose gun exploded in his hands before he could finish her off. Jermain Fox roared in pain as the combined fire of three Makos poured into him, bringin him to the ground on top of a squad of batarians, who he destroyed in his death throes. A krogan fell under concentrated grenade fire, growling as he fired into his enemies with his last breath. A batarian tank exploded as Croom overloaded its Mass Effect core.

Then, finally, Pollen finished the hole in the wall with her last ounce of energy. As she banished the last layer of the wall's reinforced steel armor, her heart burst from the strain, and she fell to the ground.

The hole she had given her life to create was five feet wide and seven feet tall, just big enough for a Golaith, but far too small for the surviving Hulks to fit through. As prisoners began pouring through the hole into the city beyond, while Croom and the other officers yelled for everybody to head for the sewers, Johnson picked up the fallen civilian woman's body and carried it in his arms, preventing the hero's corpse from being trampled by the desperate slaves.

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Codex Updated- Human Powers- Humans have a wide variety of "supernatural" powers. The use of these powers usually requires the expenditure of energy, but the energy required depends on the skill, practice, and strength of the human in question, much like muscle usage.

Powers Introduced in this Chapter

Empaths- Empaths are able to detect and, in some cases, manipulate the emotions of other beings.

Typhomancers- Typhomancers are able to produce and control ash, dust, and smoke.

Vibrokinesis- Ergokinetics are able to produce and control vibrations in targets. These vibrations can be so tiny as to be undetected, or so strong that the object disentigrates entirely.

X-Ray Vision- The ability to see through solid objects, x-ray vision does not, in fact, use x-rays. (This was actually used in the last chapter, but not mentioned explicitly)

Other Powers in this Chapter

Aeromancers- Aeromancers can control air and gasses.

Banishers- Banishers are able to cause nonorganic material to disappear entirely. They do not simply turn it into air, they actually destroy the matter through unknown means.

Beast-Masters- Beast-masters can control animals.

Communicators- Communicators can speak with any living creature. The communication involved is strictly limited to the intelligence of the creature in question- speaking with an ant is pointless, as it can't understand even the most basic of instructions, but an ape or chimp would be able to operate simple machinery if properly instructed. Likewise, the creature can only communicate back based on its intelligence and other factors, such as personality. A dog, for example, would be able to tell you how many people had passed a certain area, so long as there were no more than a dozen or so, and he hadn't been distracted at any point. A chimp would be able to communicate not only how many people had passed (as long as it could count that high), but whether any of them had had beards. A squirrel would be able to tell you only that lots of really big things had been there. Whether that referred to a pair of dogs or a stampeding herd of rhinos would be impossible to know.

Fireskins- A fireskin is immune to any kind of heat or burning. There are also lightningskins, frostskins, acidskins, etc.

Flesh-Morphers- One of the darker powers available to humans, a flesh-morpher can alter the flesh of any target he lays hands on, so long as he does not alter the target's mass or genetic structure. The process is extremely painful, and major shifts often result in death. Almost all flesh-morphers study biology extensively so as to be able to make the largest possible changes without killing their victims. Flesh-morphers differ from polymorphers in that polymorphers are able to turn any living thing into any other living thing. While it would be theoretically possible for a flesh-morpher to do this, it would require a great deal of finesse and biological knowledge on the part of the flesh-morpher.

Geolancer- Geolancers can create spikes out of the ground

Golaiths- Goliaths are true giants. They possess tremendous strength, as well as impressive regenrative abilities, and they can shrug off practically any injury short of decapitation or disembowelment (sometimes even that, depending on how thoroughly the goliath is disembowled). Despite their greater size, goliaths are actually slightly weaker than incredibles.

Gravitomancer- Gravitomancers are able to control gravity.

Healers- healers can heal wounds and injuries. As with many powers, the exact nature of the abilitiy varies with the individual. In some cases, an understanding of the biology involved is necessary. In others, no understanding is required, or the Healer's power actually grants him an understanding of the wound he is trying to work with.

Hulks- Hulks are even larger and more resiliant than goliaths (though they don't posess regenerative abilities), and stronger than the incredibles. Unfortunately, they are, like their namesake (an ancient human "superhero"), rather unintelligent.

Illusionists- Illusionists come in several types. A mind illuisionist is able to cause one (or more, depending on the strength and training of the illusionist) target's perceptions to change. A creationary illusionist can create images that anybody in the area can see. A disguise illusionist is able to change the appearance of things that are already there. They can be either mind illuisonists or creationary illusionists. All illusions require concentration and active control to move or change. For example, if an illusionist creates an image of a fire, he must concentrate on the flickering of the flames, the burning of the fuel, and the movement of the smoke. Most illusions are strictly visual, but some individuals have the ability to add sound or smell. Other kinds of illusionists may be added to the story later on.

Incredibles- Incredibles possess enormous strength. Unlike goliaths, they are of normal size, and have no special resistance to damage.

Lycans- Lycans are limited shapeshifters (a shapeshifter who can only take a certain form or list of forms) whose secondary form resembles that of a werewolf from human mythology (like the ones in Skyrim and such, not the ones who actually look like wolves). Unlike many shapeshifters, they are actually able to increasetheir mass, most of which goes into muscle. In their secondary form, they are much stronger and faster than a human, and posess keener senses than normal. Their hide also is also as tough as pre-dontrin kevlar. While it can block human bullets, it cannot block the fast-traveling mass-effected rounds used by the Citadel Races.

Paralyzers- Paralyzers can paralyze targets; some with a touch, some from a distance. This is a "magical" effect which cannot be reversed by chemical or biological means. However, it is temporary. The duration of the effect depends on the skill and power of the paralyzer, as well as the energy expended on the target.

Pyromancers- Pyromancers are able to create and control flames.

Scryers- A scryer can see things, locations, and events from a distance. In order to do so, the scryer must focus on a target which he has personal experience with. The target can be a person, location, or object which he has personally viewed. He is then able to see and, in some cases, hear, the events going on wherever the target is from an omniscient point of view- he can simultaneously see the target from all angles. Most scryers make it a point to learn to read lips, and to learn as many languages as possible.

Summoners- Summoners are able to create creatures or monsters out of thin air, which then obey their commands until slain or dismissed. Stronger summoners can create greater numbers of creatures and/or more powerful creatures. The creature summoned is entirely up to the summoner- the only limit is the summoner's imagination. Since the creatures are created "magically", no knowledge of biology is necessary to create them.

Technomancers- Technomancers are able to detect and control technology or arcaneotechnology with their minds. This requires a basic understanding of how the device works, but such an understanding can be gained by studying the device in question using the human's technomancy.

Telekinetics- Telekinetics are able to move nonliving, nonattended matter with their minds. The amount of force which the telekinetc can apply depends on the skill and power of the telekinetic in question.

Thermomancer- Thermomancers are able to control temperature

Vanishers- Vanishers can turn invisible.

Webmasters/mistresses- A webmaster can shoot strong, adhesive web out of his hands to entangle targets. They are very much like the ancient human "superhero" named Spiderman, but without superstrength, climbing, or a sense for imminent danger.