The poll results are in and combined with all of the PM's and reviews I have received the count has come to 5(.5 as one person wanted red with black streaks) for Black hair and 6 for Red hair. I have decided with appropriate thought that I'm going to go for red with black streaks, if you don't like it please review your opinion but do know that if you don't like it the choice is either red with black highlights or pure red (Popular and personal choice)
Sup guys new chapter here, hope you enjoy it and please PM me your thoughts and ideas. Please leave me plenty of reviews telling me what I did wrong and what I could do to fix any issues that bug you in the story.
Well, this chapter is depressing but things happen that will shape the story for the rest of its life.
AN. M-39 - Earlier version of the M-73.
AN. M-50 - Earlier version of the M-100.
Two week's later...
"Are you sure this is the course of action you want to take? Mistress" She said calmly, watching her Mistress carefully and knowing that her question could be constituted as insubordination she bowed her head and tilted it sideways slightly as the habit of exposing her neck completely, even to her mistress, had been beaten out of her during her commando training by the other huntresses who saw it as stupid to have any sort of reflex that exposed your neck needlessly.
After waiting in silence for several seconds she heard a reply from Benezia's turned back as she stood there stoically, staring out of the wall length window that overlooked her compounds physical training area, "This is not about what I want, this is about what needs to be done. I cannot and will not allow the Shadow Broker to act as they have, they have become arrogant and believe themselves to be untouchable." She said in a stoic, cold tone, the inner Matriarch that she kept hidden from her children coming into full play.
"This Shadow Broker must be new, they would only make such mistakes if they were new at information brokering and were still pushing the boundaries of what they could get away with including how far their power could reach. This reeks of amateur or dare I say, childish behavior that no seasoned information broker would ever display. They should know when to cut their losses and stop trying at something rather than simply throwing more resources at the problem." Benezia was speaking with a hint of disgust at the lack of experience the Shadow Broker was showing, they had even slipped up and revealed a fairly important base to her inside the Horse Head Nebula, a mistake he would grow to regret, she would make sure of it.
"I understand Mistress." Ash'ara responded in a determined tone moving her head out of its, even if small, show of submission. And she did understand, the Broker had to pay for what he had tried and how he had disrespected her Mistress. As she pushed thoughts of torturing the Broker to the back of her mind, dismissing them as a silly fantasy, she moved over to her Mistresses side and observed the young Asari doing calisthenics below with a quiet adoration.
"Who do you wish for me to take to with me when I go." She asked quietly, not even having to ask to know what was needed of her as she looked through the window, enjoying the sight of younglings living their lives as if it was her last.
"You shall take yourself, Shiala and two commandos of your choosing." Was all of the reply she received, and after she calmed her heart of having to take someone so important to Benezia on such a dangerous mission she started running different ideas and ways different Asari could fit together on a team though her head "Support." She asked shortly, too distracted to take notice of her tone as she twisted plans through her mind.
"You will be going in with a group of eclipse I have hired just for the occasion, the leader of this company has a score he wants to settle with the Shadow Broker. They will help you blend in and even though I know the Broker will realize our true actions the Matriarchy will not." She took in the provided information without pause and smiled as a plan jumped to the forefront of her mind that seemed to fit the situation perfectly.
"I have several ideas and different combinations for the squad but I think I will bring El'ir and Aeora, they have been showing desire for a difficult mission lately and I believe that they will work together well." She said to her Mistress practically buzzing with excitement, even if she hid it, at the chance of getting back at the one that had threatened to harm the precious younglings. All children were precious to Asari as they were usually born so far and few between in families because of the lifespans they lived.
"I will trust your judgement on this Ash'ara. Now go, tell no-one what you are going to do and leave as soon as possible." Benezia said in a tone of steel from where she stood, making her unconsciously stand straighter with pride before she turned and moved from the office that she had been told to meet her Mistress in earlier.
She could feel them again, the feeling of a hundred souls being laid bare to her was just, indescribable. She started to slowly loose feeling of her body despite her best effort's as she became enamored with the souls, the way they moved and the light they emitted captivated her. The soul in front of her, she felt as if she should know it but the brightness it excluded that made her feel like she was being bathed in pure love was far too distracting as she reached out and gently cradled the soul with her own, instinctively connecting with it in a way that was beyond the understanding of mortals, sharing feelings of content and love to the other soul that belonged to her now just as she belonged to it with pure joy radiating from her before she was torn away from the soul, no matter how hard she pushed herself to connect with it again by a sudden feeling of unending darkness that seemed to encroach upon her from all sides.
As she came back to herself she went limp as for a long moment all she could feel was a void of emptiness deep inside of her that was aching to be filled by something that she couldn't quite grasp as it seemed to squirm out of her minds sight as soon as she brought her focus onto it. With the feeling of unbearable loss at loosing such a connection with another the grief she felt made her do something that she hadn't done for over twenty years, she released a uncontrolled biotic pulse, one that cracked the very ground around her and shattered things around the room she was working in, only being stopped before it demolished the walls by a gentle caress of another's biotics repulsing hers. After several moments of calming herself from the sudden loss of control as the feeling of emptiness, that she quickly hid from the prying eyes that watched, that was eating into her in ways that she couldn't describe.
As much as she wanted to rage and scream she suppressed those feelings and tried as hard as she could to ignore the gaping hole she could feel inside her even now before mentally swearing to never join with another and have to experience the pain of loss like this again, even as the hole inside her seemed to want to devourer her whole she fought down the depression she felt from the loss of such an... She didn't have words for the connection she briefly shared with the other soul and how in that brief moment it felt to be complete and content, the feeling of becoming one with another with no limits or borders.
When she opened her eyes to take in the room, the shining shock purple eyes that once contained happiness and joy now had a dull sheen and stared out at the world with a jaded look, all life seeming to have died within. As the others in the room got over their sudden shock of the Biotic pulse they looked over to her just a moment too slow to notice her eyes before she repressed the feelings she felt and stared out at the work with her once again shining eyes, that hid the darkness within, only a slight shimmer of the dull gleam that spoke of unbearable loss and pain now showed in her eyes.
"Asana, Asana!" Liara ran over to her in worry and threw her arms around her shoulders, ignoring the fact that her red hair now had streaks of its old black in it, Asana felt the feeling of deep seated loss slightly lifting with Liara's warmth, before she pushed her cheek into hers and tried to reach out into a meld to let her sister know that she was there for her. As she reached the point where their minds would connect the only thing she felt was a gaping chasm that seemed to want to devour her before she was pushed with great force out of her sisters mind, so much so that she was thrown to the floor as Asana scrambled to get away from her.
"No, please not again." She muttered to herself before with strenuous effort she calmed herself and looked over to Shiala as she moved across the room with a much slower pace, obviously trying not to startle her into causing an accidental Biotic release.
"Asana, what has happened?" Shiala said quietly to her, choosing her words carefully after the loss of control and Liara's unexplained collapse, the brief thought that she had been overtaken by the emotions of others quashed when she saw those sparkling eyes that she loved so much, but now they seemed... different somehow, they were hiding something that didn't exist previous, but before she had a chance to say anything she was cut off by Asana standing up and smiling to them sheepishly as she rubbed the side of her chin in the physical tick Shiala had come to recognize as embarrassment.
"I'm sorry, I just got caught up in the emotions of people around me, it was... overwhelming I almost couldn't pull myself away from them so I lost control of my Biotic's as I focused solely on severing the connection." Asana said with no hint of anything wrong in her voice, causing the other two in the room to subconsciously relax.
Liara was about to say something before a burst of static was heard and Shiala was seen holding a hand just under her crest on the side of her face as her face went through several different stages of emotion and she turned to the other two in the room "I am needed, I don't know how long I'm going to be gone but I want you to avoid using your empathy like this again Asana, Liara please tell Benezia if she does so, I wont have a repeat of this incident again."
"Yes Ada." They both responded in a despondent tone, already missing their father.
Three day's later...
"Locked and loaded, you girls good to go?" Ash'ara spoke over her squads private radio, checking her gun again while she glanced around the bay of the gunship she was riding in waiting for insertion to her drop zone.
"All good here Ash'ara." Came the response from El'ir Kyavus, the designated sniper she had chosen for this mission, as she watched her fiddle with her sniper rifle for a moment before she stood back up straight and held it in her arms ready to fire.
"All green Huntress." Buzzed from her left speaker as Aeora Nuari, the vanguard she and Shiala had chosen for the mission, spoke with a grin in her tone as she was checking over her dark blue armor for the last time.
"I am ready." Shiala spoke back to her in a sot tone that showed she was still doing mental pre-battle preparation, standing calmly in the corner of the transport bay not even flinching when the ship rocked during the entering of the atmosphere.
"May the goddess guide us." She spoke onto the line as she was dipping her head in prayer as was traditional before dangerous battles before she straitened out and moved the pistol that she had held in her hands to her hip before she pulled her trusty crossfire assault rifle from its resting place on her upper back and did a quick check over of the rifle as she moved to the closest wall to the exit.
There was silence for several minutes, only broker by the sound of the ship shuddering or the nervous ticks of the several lowly Eclipse grunts that had been taken along for the ride at the behest of their commander's but she knew they wouldn't do any good, cannon fodder she presumed, before there was an announcement over she ships intercom "Alright you lot we're two minutes out so get ready cause when the doors go down there ain't gonna be a pickup for you lot until you finish the job."
'Ah yes, and that is why I hate working with mercenaries.' Ash'ara thought to herself in a brief moment of sardonic humor before she hardened herself and nodded to her squad mates and they moved to gather together by the exit way, several meters behind the first group to be out of the door, somewhere you only wanted to be if you were either suicidal or a Spectre.
"And 3. 2. 1. Advance!" By the time the command to go had been heard she had already ran several meters and was halfway out of the ship when the shooting started, as she heard the 'Sssss' sounds of mass effect rounds being reflected off of a kinetic barrier she raised her rifle towards the now visible threats pulled the trigger sending a burst of metal shavings hurtling downrange at over a quarter of the speed of light in the general direction she felt the enemy were shooting from, while at the same time with a simple flex of her mind a barrier snapped into place around her and glowed a faint purple before fading out of the visible spectrum once more as she was diving for cover behind a piece of metal paneling that she recognized as a riot shield that one of the grunts were holding earlier.
'Oh, that's where the grunt is.' The thought came to her as quickly as she dismissed it when she saw the mangled corpse of a Salarian that had once held her new cover. Taking a second to catch her breath she took a quick glance at her HUD to check on how her squad was doing when she felt Shiala slide into the same cover as her in the midst of reaching over and throwing a biotic lift before dropping down into cover, before she could see her handiwork, as her barrier broker and her backup kinetic barrier started sparking at its low levels.
Muscle memory prompted her after working for so long with the other Asari as she stood up next to where Shiala was crouched, taking cover behind her reflexively erected barrier, and punched her fist forwards quickly throwing a warp into the group of floating mercenaries that Shiala had lifted seconds prior. The ensuing biotic detonation threw them back into the barricade behind them in a spray of multicolored blood and gore as the biotic explosion twisted and warped deep rents into their armor all the while turning their insides into a thick, gooey slurry that splashed out of the tears in their armor to coat the walls as the chaotic reaction finished with them imploding, momentarily stalling several of the Shadow Brokers men because they had to reach up and clear the slurry that was their comrades remains from their visor's before returning fire, causing several mech's to explode and killing a Turian sniper that had gotten caught out of cover.
Not even stopping to take in the macabre sight her biotics had caused she turned to the right and fired several bursts before a hail of rounds pinging off of her barrier and it breaking warned her to duck back into cover. After taking a brief moment to let her barrier recharge she poked her head back over the top, ready to stand but had to duck almost immediately when a three inch hole was ripped into her cover via a fingernail sized block of tungsten moving at a third of the speed of light, going straight through and further mangling the corpse of the Salarian she stood on, as the Sniper missed her slightly, hitting just to the right of their target and punching a hole clean through their cover, which was already pockmarked and dented from enemy fire and now being slowly torn to pieces by the Sniper.
As she realized her predicament she clicked her microphone on "El'ir we're pinned down by a Sniper, can you see them?" She spoke carefully over the channel, not wanting to jolt her snipers aim.
"Yeah, I see them." She heard back before the next thing she could hear was the crack of a high powered sniper rifle booming over the din of combat as she waited for the all clear "Scratch one." El'ir spoke back to her, the cold calmness in her voice not showing an ounce of expectation for potentially saving their lives.
"Aeora move up, Shiala stay with me, El'ir stay out of enemy sight lines and cover us while performing counter-sniping duties" Ash'ara spoke over the comm as she stood from her crouch, Shiala mirroring her perfectly as they made a dash the the compounds walls while taking potshots as they ran and when they were half-way there they saw a flash of bright blue that flew past fast them faster than their eyes could track it before it smashed into a lone gun-man who had decided to drop down outside of the base to get a better firing arc on the approaching Eclipse as they made steady progress forwards, taking cover behind their signature mech's as they advanced.
When she hit the wall she slammed her back into it while peering at the vanguards charge and already having a good idea of who the vanguard was, she only stopped to confirm Aeora's IFF pinging from behind the biotic residue that floated around the location she had charged into before moving her focus around the corner of the wall as Shiala arrived at her cover and tapped her on the right hip to tell her that she was watching her back, when she leaned around the corner she immediately opened fire on a Merc whose shields had been shattered, sending a hail of metal shavings that ripped apart her upper torso in a spray of blood before moving onto the next target.
As she was doing so she heard El'ir calling out for her to duck, which she did just in time to see a rocket flying over her former location before she grabbed a grenade from her belt and threw it in the general direction the rocket had been fired from, causing the rocketeer to jump for safety, ignoring the way the rocket had impacted an Eclipse squad behind her and sprayed the back of her armor and thew wall around her with purple blood as she let a burst from her rifle that dropped the rocketeers shields, and for a brief moment while he was still in midair she saw several other Eclipse turn and fire into his body while it was exposed, turning his chest into a ragged lump of flesh and blue blood as his M-39 was struck several times before a shot clipped the activated warhead of the newly reloaded rocket, making him disappear into a fine mist inside the explosion that shredded the cover he was behind while also crippling several other heavy's who were grouped up behind nearby cover, leaving them wide open to return fire that mowed them down.
Seeing that things were mostly in-hand she leaned back into cover to let her rifle run its cool-down cycle as it vented the heat away from her, while her weapon was cooling down she turned on her Omni-Tool and map quickly sprung up, showing the location of all nearby friendlies and any identified enemies on a 3D map of the area that had been recorded by her suit and Omni-Tool. Finding what she was looking for she tapped El'ir's icon and dragged it into a better over-watch position and and tapped Aeora's icon and dragged it to her location against the compounds walls.
After several seconds she saw their icons flash green once on her map telling her of their compliance before their markers started to move and she shifted to a different program as she raised her Omni-Tool to her mouth and switched her channel over to the Eclipse's open one "We have secured the outside of the compound and we are awaiting further orders" She said quietly into the mic, receiving only static in return before a voice cut back to her over the channel as she ignored the battle chatter.
"We're moving into the compound, hold there for two minuets before advancing after us." Was the calm but slightly strained reply she received as she was kicked from the channel, more than slightly miffed that they were being regulated into a backup force, despite her annoyance she leaned out of cover to make several bursts of fire and threw a singularity that was shortly detonated with a warp from an Eclipse commando, mauling all who were in range and opening the gap needed to advance into the compound.
"Confirmed." She replied back shortly as she flicked back into the channel before leaving again and deactivating her Omni-Tool while relaying the orders to her squad.
"What, are you fucking kidding me?" Aeora shouted over the channel making her wince at the amplified sound before she shook her head at her bloodthirsty behavior.
"Mistress handed our command to the Eclipse for this mission, they know better than to abuse Mistresses trust with such a gesture so hush your whining before I have you disciplined, I'm sure that Verada will be free when we get back." She called out to Aeora with a smirk, knowing that she was wincing right now as she imagined what would be done to her if she was going to be 'disciplined'.
When several minuets had passed in silence, only interrupted by the sounds of explosions inside the base, she leaned out of cover to take stock of their surroundings before she stood to start advancing forwards when she saw it still clear as she flicked her comm onto the Eclipse channel "Advancing." She called out to them as she moved forwards.
"Good, reinforce the left flank, they are getting pressed hard and need some support." Was the even shorter and most definitely voice of her commander for this mission.
After getting her orders she flicked her HUD's squad light green, signaling to advance and started jogging towards the base before in the middle of her stride she was interrupted by a screech that made her blood turn to ice and a heavy weight settle in her stomach. The second she heard the sound she turned and dashed to the nearest and thickest cover she could find while yelling out over the radio to all channels as loud as she could "THRESHER MAW!" The immediate response she heard and saw from her group was as good as it could be for the situation, they only seemed mildly panicked and automatically rushed to the nearest cover, just as she had and saw Aeora swap out to the heavy weapon she had been assigned, an M-53 grenade launcher, the only thing that they had that could even remotely damage a Thresher Maw, excluding exhausting themselves with biotics to just barely make a dent in it's armor.
Before she started panicking she settled down and habitually calmed her mind, something she did when stressed, knowing full well that she would need all of her experience to just survive let alone kill the Thresher Maw, no-one had killed a thresher on foot in over a thousand years and it had been a Krogan to last do so.
While she was prepping her gear she moved her hand to her Omni-Tool and flicked to her comm before changing over to the channel she had hoped not to have to be relying on today "Azedes come in, please come in!" She called out into the comm to her ship in orbit right now.
"We hear you, where do you need backup!" She could her the pilots voice and mentally cursed when she felt the ground rumble, something that told that the Thresher was near the surface, probably having been awoken by all the explosions happening.
"We need pickup NOW, there's a goddess damned Thresher Maw down here!" She yelled back up the comm while shifting so she could put her hand on the ground, the best way that had been developed to detect where a Thresher was going to emerge was to feel it as it burrowed through the ground, an old but still useful Krogan technique.
"WHAT! Oh goddess what is that doing there, I'm sending a shuttle down now, ETA three minuets!" She could hear the pilot saying something else but she tuned it out as unimportant as she focused on trying to hear where the Thresher had surfaced, as it had during the conversation.
"Squad, three minuets before pickup!" She said over the comm before falling silent and being as still as they could, Threshers were attracted to vibrations something that was attributed to it's way of life. As they stood as still as statues they could hear the Thresher screeching a horrifying sound, so close to them that it deafened them even through their helmets sound filters, that sent chills down her spine before the ground buckled beneath them and she was thrown to the ground by the maw just passing by, and as she took a stand she noticed that someone was missing, and with ice in her veins she slowly made her way to El'ir's last position to see that it had been directly in the middle of the Maw's path, something that made her clench her fists and scrunch her eyes as she repressed her grief. Despite knowing, she still looked to her HUD, desperately hoping that El'ir's light was still green, but despite the fact that she knew that she was dead the sight of the light blinking at her, solidly maintaining a black glow she still felt a tear trickle down her cheek before she steeled her spine and looked towards where the Thresher was going, and as grief turned to rage, she stood their hoping on it's death with all of the fury that she was repressing, so much so that her tightly controlled biotics flickered slightly before she regained control.
After standing there stone face for about a minuet they saw it, for a Maw it was fairly small, only clocking in at roughly 18 meters long above ground but even from here she could see the destruction that it caused, the acidic spit that it had become feared for, so strong that it could melt through a cruisers hull in a single shot, melting the building around it as its bulk smashed anything that came close when it lashed out with another bite that caused the compounds roof to crack and he ground to rumble before it collapsed with another hit. Making the roof fall onto the Maw and the Merc's beneath, the Maw just shrugged of the rubble and screeched again but those underneath were crushed even as their weapons were ignored, their shots simply bouncing off it's armor as it burrowed underground again, searching for another group to devour.
Silently stunned at the devastation that a Maw could cause as she had never seen the destruction it could cause up close, Ash'ara remained silent and stared in awe and fury as it re-surfaced again, closer to her this time, inside the compound and started laying waste to what sounded like an APC, something that she had no idea was stored here. Despite watching the chaos she was not unaware when the shuttle slowed to a stop with a thud, the pilot hurrying to land as best she could, and turned and ran as fast as she could to safety, not worrying about the vibrations as the Maw was thoroughly distracted with crushing another APC in its mouth, something that disgusted here as even from here she could see the pilots trying to crawl away but instantly being dissolved by the acid that the APC was being drowned underneath.
As she and what was left of her team buckled into their seats and the shuttle jolted off as fast as it could go, she never stopped watching the Maw even as an orbital bombardment from the Eclipse cruiser came from above, there was nothing left to salvage from the base so they had decided to destroy the Maw from orbit, something that was standard operating procedure whenever a Maw was discovered, along with marking the planet on the citadels records as a Thresher Maw zone. But even as she squinted her eyes as the barrage slammed into the ground shattering it and vaporizing what was left of the base, she could just about make out the Maw slithering back underground and she knew then that it would live to fight another day.
"What the hell is a Maw doing here!" She barked the question everyone was thinking, even under their grief at the loss of a comrade, Thresher Maw's don't just come from nowhere, they have to be transported even if accidentally and there was no way the Shadow Broker would build a base withing a thousand miles of a Thresher nest, something was very wrong with this picture and the only conclusion that she could draw was not one that she wanted to.
'They sacrificed the base to the Maw to keep something quiet, but how did they get a base there without disturbing the maw' She thought to herself 'Unless, they brought a Maw there on purpose after the base was constructed just to have something that could annihilate any evidence for invaders to find whilst leaving no clues, they know that not a single outfit in the galaxy would go ground side while a Thresher Maw is reported to be about'
'But what could they have been hiding there that is so important as to demolish the base in such a clear cut way, it was intended so that so-one would ever go down to the site of destruction, they ensured that with the maw, but why...'
'Why did she have to die' Ash'ara thought to herself as tears trickled down her cheeks and she leaned into Shiala's embrace as she sat there emotionlessly, the silence from Aeora was just as telling, she was so hardened by life to cry at the death of a friend but even she knew pain in that instance.
"Shadow Broker, the research outpost on Axtaria 2 had been confirmed destroyed, not traces left" The drone spoke in its faint buzzing tone.
"Scrap the project from the records" It ordered. 'It was a dead end anyway' It thought to itself, annoyed as to how an Asari had done what he and his limitless supplies could not.
Please Review to tell me about any grammar errors I missed or spelling mistakes that auto check skipped over. PM me any ideas you have for the story.
So, my first combat scene, what do you think. It was hard for me to write as I have to keep track of where everyone is and what everyone is doing but I think that its a pretty good first try eh? Tell me how to make it better though and I might update it to fix any little niggles and keep it in mind for future fights.
Yeah so, Thresher Maws huh? I always felt in cannon that they were hyped up as this super dangerous thing but then you can just kill them no problem (Kalros excluded, bitch please she is a boss), but here oh no, here shit is deadly, here Thresher Maws are the top predator in the galaxy, so dangerous that entire planets are prohibited from entry if one is spotted. Threshers are just an example of how this story will go, real life is dangerous and in this story with something like mass effect involved, people will die, squad mates will die and shit will happen.
Sorry about it being late, Christmas snuck up on me and stole Three days of writing time from me so I pushed myself to write this faster than normal just for you :D