A/N: Take notice of all those changes i mentioned in the author notes in previous chapter.

Disclaimer: I do not own halo or mass effect.

Chapter 10: The coup attempt

The normandy took off from haestorm. Shepard has only two more missions left. One is rescuing doctor Kenson from viper nebula and Tali's trial. Then the only thing that's left is acquiring the reaper IFF from a direlect reaper ship. Things were going smooth so far for the normandy crew. Shepard had to take rest before getting to his personal mission. Before departing from the spartan's ship, chief told shepard that he's going to citadel to meet with admiral Anderson to have conversation regarding the recent events and also try to get the citadel support for Shepard.

Tali' zorah was thinking a lot about those spartans who she found dangerous as well as interesting. She was very much interested in their technology which would help their people in many ways. Just as Miranda lawson planned, she gave all the footage to the illusive man related to the spartans. Now he must be planning how to engage them with causing an incident and getting them to side with the cerberus. There was always a talk among the normandy crew after seeing those spartans and learning their history. Each and every member of the normandy had their own views about them.

But not just normandy, The whole galaxy had learned about the spartan's presence through their encounter with the citadel council. The turians are very much intrigued with the level of technologies these spartans carry. The use of this 'slipspace' which totally eliminates the reliability on element zero and mass effect was both challenging and interesting. Also with the footage they showed to the councilors, the turians realized that humanity if given a chance, could over power everyone in the galaxy. The idea of creating super soldiers to tackle extreme level threats like civil war and extinction through mass genocide felt more needed among them in case a need arise in the future.

The asari on the other hand were astonished with the spartans's ship that dwarfed every ship in the galaxy and also never used a trace of eezo and the principle of mass effect. According to what the spartans had show everyone, this concept of 'slipspace' uses a new field in mathematics and also a lot powerful. The covenant race the spartans mentioned seemed to have built ships that even spans 10-25 kms which made the asari scientists feel dumbstruck. The next interesting thing was their weapons. The asari scientists found the ship's MAC guns, plasma torpedoes, energy projectors mind blowing. The power required for these weapons can easily drain the entire eezo core. But the UNSC uses a lot more weapons like these which they found more surprising.

The salarians on the other hand were very much interested in the place the spartans came from. The race they call forerunners were fascinating to them. The construction of artificial planets, halo rings which are insanely big were beyond what they could grasp. If the spartans ever share their technology with them, no matter how much time it takes, they can try something grand on that scale, at least one. Then the armors and weapons these spartans use were also intriguing to them. The idea of using personal shields was more challenging to them. The amount of energy needed to power the energy shields were beyond their grasp. It gonna take a lot before they could try.

Overall the news of spartans and their possessions spread like a wild fire.

Aboard the dawn...

This day wasn't the best day for the master Chief. In 30 years of war, chief had found himself at odds and many even overwhelming. But what he undergone today was unlike anything he ever felt in his life. Something he never expected from himself. Everything was fine since the day they arrived here.

"What the hell happened to me?" thought Chief in confusion.

Chief used to acknowledge fear as a mere emotion, but never felt it, even now. But he fears what it might mean to his friends. After losing Cortana in mantle's approach, he found himself mourning her loss, thus getting the feeling of the pain of losing someone he cared the most that exponentially grew more than he felt the loss of his fellow spartans.

Cortana popped up from the near by pedestal while his friends are on their way there.

"John" called out Cortana in worry. He suddenly turned to her and spoke without a break.

"Cortana. I don't know what happened, trust me" said Chief tensed a bit. His worst case scenario would be his very friends forced to take him down.

"John, If there's someone I trust with my life, it's you. But this isn't the issue of trust, is it? Clearly I can see a problem and you need help" said Cortana crossing her arms.

Chief never share his problems with the others and that's not due to head weight, but he don't want others to bury themselves with his burden. This time, Cortana's right. He need help even though not for him, at least for the sake of others safety. He gave a sigh and spoke.

"At that time, I felt like I was possessed. I don't know how to put it. But the weird thing is, I know I was possessed. I was aware of what I said but I couldn't control" now looking at Cortana in confusion, "Do you even understand what I said?" asked Chief. Cortana ran her fingers over her chin and soaked in thoughts.

"John, don't worry. We are here for you. I clearly understand your explanation. We'll figure it out" said Cortana.

"But after I said those words, I heard a voice and it was, familiar" thought Chief thinking of the incident. Then his friends finally came to the bridge to check on his friend.

"Chief, you had us worried there. What happened to you?" asked Kelly.

"You spoke like you were somebody" said Fred. Chief simply looked at him.

"People, Let's have this slide for now. He told me everything and I don't think it's a great problem than the one we should worry about" said Cortana trying to ease the three.

"But what happened there says otherwise" said Fred.

"Guyz, I assure you, Chief's alright and I'm aware of that incident and I'll take care of that" said Cortana pressing her voice.

The three exchanged looks and looked at Chief. They didn't know what to say. Even they didn't expect something like this. This brought everyone's attention to the matter at hand.

"Alright, we trust your judgement" said Linda.

"Speaking of which, Why are we still here? Let's get back to our base" said Kelly

"Actually, still 20 days are left to finish the base. It's only been 3 days since we arrived" said Cortana

"But we did a lot in this short time. Anyhow, we need to get out of this system, before the star consumes us" said Linda.

She was right, It might only been 3 days, but they made a mini revolution in this galaxy. Meeting the council, learning everything about this galaxy from the codex, learning the nature of mass relays and the citadel, meeting with this alliance on earth, fighting off the collectors, fighting of geth and saving the quarian survivors, meeting with the commander Shepard. That was lot and still they need 20 days to get to their finished base. until, then, they have no choice but to roam.

"You are right, Cortana, what's the status of the ship?" asked chief

"Huragok's have sent the reports. Fusion core and the dark plasma thrusters are reading good. Slipspace engines have been maintained well after our run and ready for another go" said Cortana. Chief went to his seat and the hologram came in front of him showing the status of ship. Others went to their respective terminals.

"On your word chief" said Kelly.

After all these missions they had so far, chief thought that it's the right time to visit the citadel to talk with admiral David Anderson of the alliance to discuss, what they had ran into so far.

"Cortana, take us to the citadel" said Chief

"Citadel? You really wanna go there?" asked Fred turning to him.

"Don't worry Fred, we're not gonna meet the council. We're going to meet admiral Anderson' said Chief in a casual tone.

"Anderson? yeah. He's a good person you know?...Reminds me of people like captain Lasky, lord Hood, captain Keyes. After everyone abandoned Shepard, he and select few never gave up on him" said Linda.

It's true. Admiral Anderson was and is still a soldier. And he's doing everything in his power to support Shepard though he couldn't do it by himself.

"Right. So cortana, let's vanish" said chief. Cortana gave a smile and engaged the thrusters. The ship moved away from the planet and then jumped into slipspace. The dholen system's left to it's fate.

Cerberus base, Unknown location...

The Illusive man was viewing the footage that Miranda sent him. He was really intrigued with their power. The illusive had seen a lot of things. Collectors, reapers, battle of Shanxi. But this, While it took a lot to finish off a geth fleet and one reaper ship, these spartans carry a power beyond imaginable.

"A weapon capable of burning the whole planet? Not even the reapers could stand this" wondering the Illusive man.

He was wondering, if the ship was indeed those spartan's vessel, because, though not native to this universe, human touch and aestheticism never changes. But this looked like an alien vessel and more majestic.

Then he suddenly got reminded of the alliance covert agent Gilbert's record. According to that, The spartans mentioned something to the alliance personnel regarding an ancient space faring human race and the forerunners in their reality. Both were dominating the milky way though forerunners were the main ruling force.

"If this is true, then humanity by no doubt could achieve a lot, no matter where" thought the Illusive man.

From what the spartans had explained, in their reality, humanity technologically rivaled the forerunners. The undeniable truth is that humans can grow, evolve and adapt on its own without relying on the others just like what every race in this galaxy does including the human systems alliance.

Illusive man always felt that unlike other alien races, humanity should always stand on it's own. That being the very reason why illusive man, a human himself hates the systems alliance. Even the covenant race who were technologically superior to humans feared the might of the spartans on the ground. In that way, the Illusive man admired the spartans and the UNSC. The spartans represented the best humanity could give, he admired theirwill to survive. But on the contrary, humanity here, fears the council for what it might bring upon them for each and every step they take in the galactic stage.

The next thing, he found interesting was their AI. EDI was in fact a rogue VI from luna base. After Shepard disabled it, cerberus captured it and used salvaged reaper technology to upgrade her to an AI. This galaxy had just one problem with AI, the geth. And because of that conflict, the council simply banned everyone from making one. But the place from where the spartans originate, AI had a special place among them even for many millennia. If he can get his hands on the life like AI they possess, he can create more powerful programs to combat the reapers efficiently in cyberwarfare.

It doesn't matter if you are a man out of time or not, but if you decide to take a stand on your own to face the odds, that's when you truly learn what you are capable of. Illusive man firmly believed that. The result of the belief is 'Cerberus'. The UNSC in the other reality had proved themselves time and time again that even when pushed to the brink of extinction, they are still capable of things on their own and believe they still got something to look up to. This made the illusive man to believe that the UNSC is a proof that cerberus is a right and the best thing for humanity's ascension. There was one thing running in his mind.

"Reliability is a plague. Cerberus is it's cure"

He finished seeing the footage. From the records and this footage, Illusive man has enough knowledge about who these spartans are, who do they represent, their history, their times of upheaval, reviving the lost, the wonders about these forerunners and ancient humanity and what they were capable of. Not only the illusive man had set his eyes on these 4 spartans, but also decided to extract more information about these forerunner and ancient human technologies after capturing the spartans. Speaking of which, he need to carefully plan and execute in getting these spartans by force if and all diplomacy fails. He saw what they were truly capable of in haestorm, so he didn't want any nasty surprise. As usual, he sat down on his chair and took a sip of his expensive wine.

But little did he knew about the spartans. He'll learn the hard way that they are called spartans for a reason. Then an agent came in see the Illusive man. He had a blue delumcore overlay in his face, had a small hair tied at the rear head. He looked chinese and wore a black cerberus phantom armor weilding a biotic charged katana.

"Leng" called the IM

"I take it you have an important work for me, sir" said the assassin.

"Yes. You need to infiltrate the citadel. Take 40 men with you. Most of all...Stay covered"

"Consider it done, sir" said the assassin and went off.

Citadel, 2 hrs later...

Udina was talking with Admiral David anderson in the human embassy. Udina still can't believe he failed to get the spartans to join the alliance. With all the powers they have, these spartans would have toppled the entire galactic stage in humanity's favor. But what did they do, simply chose non-interference.

"You know Anderson, It's been only 3 days and few hours since the spartans revealed their existence to this galaxy. But look how much way they paved us for change. In the council chamber, they showed what they got up their sleeve, a strange looking ship with no eezo and mass effect, genetic enhancements, A human like looking AI..It goes on..." said Udina frustrated.

"I don't know why you still dwell on this issue Councilor Udina. Clearly, the spartans mentioned that they wont take sides. But also they mentioned that they will help anyone when needed. You should understand that their authority lies elsewhere. We cannot invoke our authority over them" said Anderson. But deep inside, he felt the same. The spartans presence in the alliance would have favored them in a lot many ways. But their regrets aren't gonna buy them anything.

Outside the citadel...

The Imperial dawn exits the slipspace 100 kms from the citadel. Then it accelerates to hold its position at the defense perimeter.

The citadel command saw the dawn exiting the slipspace. The personnel working there rushed up to see the majestic ship facing them maintaining its position. The none of their flared up and came a voice.

"This is Master chief petty officer Spartan 117 to the citadel command. Requesting to enter the dock".

The command personnel replied to that. "Acknowledged, you can proceed to enter the docks." said the personnel.

In the dawn...

"So, lets get down there. But this time, we're not gonna fly in with the pelican" said Chief that made the others to share looks among themselves. Linda understood what chief meant.

"Shit! Chief not the portals " said Linda crossing her arms. Cortana simply gave a chuckle.

"It's easy you know" said chief with a slight smirk.

"Well, we're not gonna jump from here" said Kelly. The bridge is very big, but not a place to use teleportation.

"Well, we'll use the civilian deck 6 floors above. It's got lot of rooms" said Fred.

"Then let's go" said chief. He took Cortana's chip and inserted into his helmet. Then everyone left the bridge. They went through several turns and several doors, finally reaching the gravity lift. The 4 stepped over the medium sized circular platform. The platform started rising in the air with artificial gravity after chief used the holo panel and took them 6 floors above. Then they came out of the lift. To their right, they saw 2 sentinel major working on something. To their left, was a door. They went through the door and reached the big civilian deck.

"Right. Cortana, teleport us to the dock's surface " said Chief. The 4 were standing side by side with some gap between them.

"Be ready. Checking the coordinates...done" finished Cortana. Then a bright yellow energy field engulfed the four separately and in an instant, both the field and the blue team vanished.

Citadel docks...

There were 2 turian c-sec guards in front of the elevator.

"Check that. The spartans are back. I wonder what they got for the council this time" said guard one.

"Well, why dont you ask them?" said the guard two. Then suddenly they saw 4 bright light forming side by side in a place where the spartans landed their drop ship last time. The guard's eyes widened in shock and fear and raised their rifles toward it.

"What the hell is that?" asked guard one. Then in the next second 4 massive beings popped out of it and the yellow light disappeared. The turian guards lowered their rifles and shared a look of shock and disbelief. They were wondering what it was they came through. Then the spartans approached the officers.

"That was one hell of an entrance" said guard one with a smile.

"Thanks" replied Fred.

"We need to meet Admiral Anderson in the embassy" said the Chief.

"Well, take the elevator and I hope you already know where to go since your last arrival" said the guard two. They gave a nod.

"And don't mind the people staring at you. Even though everyone knows your existence, still they need time to get used to it" said the guard one.

"You don't say" replied Kelly with a chuckle. The 4 then moved towards the elevator.

The door opened and everyone entered. Then chief used a console and the elevator descended downstairs. Actually the spartans found these elevators faster than their UNSC counterparts though they weren't for comfort. The elevator touched down the c-sec academy. The spartans came out and everyone there immediately stared at the four like they have seen something weird. Then after few seconds, the people continued with their work. To their front, there was another elevator that will take them further down to the district. Then they walked towards that elevator and used it to get to the district. As they touched down, they exited to the place that had open environment. There were several pathways, gardens and different people from different races walking here and there. It was a pleasing view.

To their right, they walked the pathway. People took a step back when they see the spartans as they walk big occupying most of the space. They were walking in the alley.

"You know Chief, we should come here often" said Linda looking over the far side.

"Yeah. I started to like this place" said Cortana

"No covenant, no flood, no ONI, who wouldn't want to be in a place like this?" said Fred.

"This place is no different from what we have in ours. In a big place like this, anyone could try something on someone and people are a mile away from help" said Kelly.

"But there's C-sec here. They would keep the perpetrators away" said Chief.

"AAAAHHHHH!..." came a multiple repeated screams from where the spartans were walking. After hearing this, the blue team stopped suddenly. People were running here and there. It was a chaos.

"What the hell!?" said Fred in confusion.

"The voice came from there, let's go check it out" said Chief pointing out a spot in the front. Then everyone ran towards it.

They reached the embassy reception where the people crowded near something, talking among themselves. Chief and his friends moved into the crowd and came at the centre. The people warily looked at the spartans and disbanded away from them. Then the spartans saw a dead turian lying under a pool of his own blood in the floor. There was tension among the civilians. Chief immediately turned around to find no c-sec officer in the vicinity.

"Who's this poor guy?" asked Linda. Chief crouched to take a close look.

"Chief, look's like a clean head shot" said Cortana into his ears. Chief then tuned his sight to promethean vision. He then saw a complete skeletal profile with veins, nerves and silhouette of organs. He then noticed a hole in the skull forehead, but there was no bullet in there. He then switched to normal sight and scanned the turian and a 3D image was displayed in the visor. The complete biological profile was displayed then. He stood up looking for any clue.

"Chief, look over there" said Kelly pointing to the floor some distance away past the dead turian. The spartans walked up to look where Kelly pointed. There they saw a hole in the floor. Chief's visor zoomed the point to measure the hole size. It was same as the hole in the turian's head. They assumed it to be the bullet that killed him.

"Looks like the bullet pierced the turian's head. Must be long range high energy projectile. Someone killed him with a suppressed fire" explained Linda. Linda is a sniper expert in blue team. She knows a sniper kill when she sees one. Then they went again near the turian.

"Does anyone know what happened here?" asked Chief

"Sir?" came a man in his thirties. He was 6'1" tall.

"Would you like to say anything?" asked Kelly

"Yes. Actually, this turian's a C-sec officer" said the man.

"What? And what's a C-sec officer doing in a civilian attire?" asked Fred.

"I dont know. But I ran into him last week, that's how I knew him. His name's...uh...Barion, think so" said the man trying to figure out his full name.

"Chief, I managed to hack in to the C-sec database. This man's right. He's an officer named Maxtus barion. And from his records, it clearly shows that he's an expert in covert ops and was a former soldier in turian military" replied Cortana.

"Chief. What do you think?" asked Fred.

"Looks like someone wants him good as dead" said Linda. Chief nodded and talked to Cortana.

"The turian was shotdown while he was standing here and the bullet pierced his head and hit the floor there, Cortana. The turian stand 6'1" and he was here at this point. Can you simulate the bullet's path?" asked Chief.

"Got it" said Cortana. Then in the chief's visor, A bright thin red line appeared from the floor where the bullet hit. Chief then turned his head to see where the line leads. To the right, past the fountain, gardens and building in the far end, the line ended at the top floor almost into the vanishing point.

"There, someone shot him from that place" said Chief pointing to where the red line ended.

"Wow. The killer had a good vantage point" said Linda.

"What!? how do you know that? The place you point leads to the zakera ward" said the man.

"Then that's our destination. Let's go" said Chief. Then everyone ran towards the other side through the middle bridge like pathway. On the other side, they stood near by the elevator. They entered the elevator and it took them up.

"Cortana, can you bring up this zakera ward's schematics?" asked Kelly.

"Here you go" said Cortana bringing up the ward's complete 3D map in everyone's visor.

"Guyz, it looks like the ward is a cargo processing area. So be careful with lots of moving containers. Our killer could be anywhere" said Cortana.

"Fine. Team ready your weapons" said Chief. Then they summoned their respective weapons from the slipspace as they didn't bring any weapons with them to avoid C-sec from abducting it. Chief used the MA5D Gauss assault rifle, Kelly with type 55 DE rifle, Linda with 99C series-2 Gauss sniper, and Fred with M45E shotgun.

Finally the elevator reached the specific point and they exited to a pathway. The spartans moved carefully along the path. The path was straight for some distance, then it inclined and then straight again. Their visors scanned for any ambushes or traps, so far none. Finally they came near a door and it was locked.

"Let me interface with the door controls" said Cortana and the door control popped up green.

Chief was thinking about how to get the word about that turian's murder to the c-sec. Cortana picked up his thoughts.

"Don't worry John, I alerted the c-sec. They should be there anytime now" said Cortana to which he gave a mental sigh of relief.

After the door opened, they entered the huge cargo processing bay. They saw lots of robotic arms moving big containers from here and there over the rails in the roof. They slowly moved in, aiming their weapons ready. Suddenly a bullet hit Linda at a blinding speed but her energy shields simply took the shot.

"Whoa! where did it come from?" asked Linda

"Someone's got a mark on us. Get to covering positions" said Chief and everyone took cover behind containers.

"Team, I'm reading 40 hostiles in this area. I'll try to access their comm channel to see what they want" said Cortana. Others acknowledged it. The 4 were wondering who might they be. 40 armed rogue personnel in the citadel is not something they expected. They started to doubt how could these people had bypassed citadel security.

"Linda you see anything?" asked Chief. She noticed hostiles on the far end using her sniper scope.

"I happen to see 3 men in sniper" replied Linda.

"Guyz, I tapped into their network, these people are Cerberus agents" said Cortana which made the spartans eyes to widen.

"What?" asked Fred in confusion.

"How the hell did the armed cerberus agents get here? Does Shepard know anything about it?" asked Kelly. She started to doubt Shepard might have given any intel on them and took him for a backstabber.

"I dont think Shepard has anything to do with this. We'll deal with them and try to keep one alive for questioning" said Chief.

"First we need to lure them out and take them by force or it's gonna take a long time" said Cortana.

"Cortana's right. Linda, snipe the targets until everyone shows up" said Chief.

"Right" replied Linda. She started sniping the distant targets. She instantly killed 3 of them. This is when others started show up. 10 soldiers moved forward to have clear covering fire. The spartans did the same.

One of the cerberus soldiers try to shoot them with his assault rifle. Kelly spotted him and immediately started shooting the type 55 rifle. 6 plasma bolts ate his kinetic barrier and pierced his body and melted everything before he could hide. The soldier fell down with vapors from his body.

This is when two more started moving and shooting at the spartans. Chief killed one with his Gauss assault rifle in a matter of seconds. He cried in pain before dying. The other one was shot down by Fred with his shotgun in 2 rounds as he was far from him.

Then 4 more showed up in an order and started shooting, but the spartan's shields easily brushed off the ammo. Kelly and Chief open fired at them out of cover and all 4 four died in quick succession. By the time Fred took Kelly's position. Chief and Kelly took a new cover position. A soldier started shooting at the Fred. Linda immediately shot her sniper at a vertical hoist's hand that was carrying a container right on top of him. The container fell down straight over his head and broke. He died before could react to the falling container.

Then 5 more started shooting at them. The spartans took cover behind containers.

"Chief, you need to listen to this" said Cortana suddenly. She tapped into the cerberus channel and listened to their chatter.

"Listen! Try disarming the spartans. Do not hurt them or boss'll cut our head" came a soldier's voice yelling.

"These spartans are tearing us apart. Doubt anyone will make it alive to take them to the base" came another soldiers's voice yelling back.

"Stop whining and take them down. That's what we get paid for" came another yelling tone.

With that the channel was cut. Chief realized that cerberus was after them. They're gonna need answers when they get this over with.

"Team, these cerberus fighters are here for us. Looks like their leader is interested in us" said Chief.

"Huh, Then let's give them the taste of hell" said Linda.

The five soldiers started moving forward and chief saw the opportunity. He and Fred immediately came out and started firing at the five. Three of them cried in pain to death and the remaining two immediately took cover, chief and Fred likewise. Kelly ran forward and dodged front and threw a incinerator grenade at the two. The grenade exploded throwing a pile of 3000 degC flame over them, burning them to death.

Then 4 more came out of cover and started shooting. Linda took one with her sniper. Kelly took another with her rifle. The remaining two came too close to the spartans. Fred instantly took his hard light dagger and impaled it in the soldier's chest. It's passed easily through the kinetic barrier and impaled in his chest. The other was knocked down with the rifle by chief and then he shot 4 rounds that killed him.

So far, the spartans killed 20 cerberus soldiers easily while their attacks were simply shrugged off by their energy shields.

"Chief, still 20 more" said Cortana.

Suddenly, a group of 10 soldiers in a heavy armor came storming towards their position.

"Contacts! in front" yelled Kelly. Everyone went to cover.

"Looks like they are tougher than the ones we faced before. So be careful" said Cortana.

Linda and Fred switched to assault rifle. They saw the 10 soldiers evenly spread and took cover behind a vertical hoist and containers that are there. The blue team decided to ambush them by storming the soldiers with Gauss bullets because it's gonna take a while to kill them all. To lure them out, they decided to show themselves out.

"Team, out of cover" said Chief and the 4 came out with their rifles ready.

Then the 10 cerberus soldiers came out of cover and started shooting at the spartans thinking they could overwhelm them. But the spartans proved it wrong.

Chief immediately raised his left hand and summoned a force field that made the bullets to ricochet. This caused a valuable distraction for the spartans. Then they stormed the 10 cerberus centurions with their Gauss assault rifles. The centurions were fooled by the spartans to get them out of their cover.

The electromagnetically accelerated bullets hit the centurions at greater speeds, depleting their kinetic barrier and piercing their armor and body like paper. The 10 cerberus soldiers dropped dead and drowned by their own pool of blood. This makes a count of 30.

"Still 10 more left. Does anyone know where they are hiding?" asked Fred.

"Motion trackers show no movement" said Kelly. Everyone were aiming their weapons all around them.

Then suddenly a base ball sized object came floating with a hum. The spartans noticed that and turned to see it. The object stopped and then projected a holo image of a man in an assassin armor with shades that cover his eyes. His face looked Chinese.

"Well, greetings spartans" greeted the assassin. The blue team looked at him in confusion for a moment and then lowered their guard. Chief started to speak.

"Who are you?" asked Chief.

"My name's Kai leng, cerberus operative. Me and my men were sent here to talk to you". After sharing a look among one each other,

"Doesn't look much like talking" said Fred, referring to the 30 bodies.

"I don't enjoy you 4 killing my men. But before, you get into further trouble, you got one chance to come with us peacefully. My boss is eager to meet you" said Kai leng with patience as well as anger which he hid with in him and crossed his arms.

"Tell your Illusive man that we decline his generous offer" said Linda

"So you do know him"

"We've heard a lot about cerberus. Illusive man? We know nothing other than he's their leader" said Kelly. Kai leng smirked at the reply.

"As you can see, cerberus is the humanity's future"

"So we've heard. First, how did you get into the citadel with armed men with out getting spotted?" asked Chief.

"Do you think we're fools to run into this place just like that? We know what we do. Too bad I had to kill that turian to lure you here"

"So it was you who killed him! Clearly it shows cerberus is filled with thugs and brutes that kills other alien people for pleasure in the name greater good" said Fred that annoyed kai leng.

"You know nothing about cerberus! Dont try to play smart! If you come with us, we can end this blood shed" while talking, suddenly 10 ninja like people jumped from the roof out of nowhere and surrounded the spartans.

The ninjas then took their biotic charged katana in their hands ready to attack them. The soldiers looked slim in their armor. It was mainly to gain advantage in flexible, stealth and quick movement. The spartans slightly raised their weapons at them.

"Or...We can have this a hard way. Those soldiers might have not stood a chance against you. But these phantoms will get the job done" finished Leng. The spartans took a moment to talk.

"Where are you?" asked Kelly

"Did you take me for a fool to give you my location? Why don't you ask the...AI? you have?" said Leng which alarmed the others. The spartans shared a look of confusion.

"What th-...!?" said Cortana in Chief's head, equally confused.

"You seem to know a lot about us. Were you spying?" said Linda. The spartans though wary of this conversation, still kept their heads cool.

"That's no longer important" said Leng with a hideous smile.

"Chief, This Kai leng is not here. I think he fled. And these...ninjas...They work so speed. Their swiftness almost match a spartans reflex" said Cortana. There was a brief pause.

The 10 ninjas have their biotic charged katana ready to slice, surrounding them. The ninjas might be fast. But the spartan augmentations is not some ruse as some would see. They are for real fight. The spartans can match the reflex of these ninjas which means, fighting them wont be much of a problem.

"Let's say...We do it the hard way. I would like to know how this plays out" said Chief bringing up the energy sword from his right wrist. Fred, Kelly and Linda holstered their rifles and took their dual energy swords. The magnetically shaped plasma blade shown bright ionizing the air with smell of ozone.

"Nice blades...So be it!" said Kai leng and the hologram turned off. Before the fight started, Cortana asked Chief to keep one alive. The next moment the ninjas charged towards them.

Chief and Fred fought 3 ninjas each. Kelly and Linda were fighting 2 ninjas each. The energy swords can easily slice their katana, but the biotic field distorts the charges but couldn't prevent the plasma heat transferring to the blade. The heat transfer is great to a point that it will melt sooner.

Chief with his right arm energy sword was tackling the 3 ninjas attacks. From the left hand, chief used the force field to repel the attacks. Also the field causes the ninjas to stagger a moment due to its repulsive nature. Chief used this moments to attack them.

The ninjas dodge and perform somersaults in the ground and air to evade the spartans attacks. Chief also managed to block all the 3 sword attack at the same time with his energy sword and even toss them off. The ninjas had speed but lacked strength. But the spartans had both strength and speed.

Fred on the other hand being the most proficient in knife combat techniques easily brushed off the 3 ninja's attacks with speed and precision. With 2 energy swords, it was even more easier for him. The ninjas tried to dodge attack him, but he too was fast to evade those attacks.

Kelly on the other hand was fighting 2 ninjas with her 2 energy swords. Kelly was usually called as 'The Rabbit' by her friends because she's the fastest of the spartan II's. This speed was very useful in evading the ninja's attacks. Her legs were incredibly fast that she easily maneuvered their attacks and also used her strength to overpower the ninjas.

Linda was having fight with the last 2 ninjas. Linda was usually called the 'Lone Wolf' because she never relied much on others help. She's an excellent sniping sharp shooter. She could even precisely take out a banshee by shooting at its slit that can barely allow a bullet to pass through. Even john considers her deadly when it comes to precision attacks.

She was able to see the razor sharped edges of the katanas precisely such that she predicts where exactly it falls on her by seeing the direction of swing. With that kind of ability, she was able to easily evade the ninja's attacks. She could also block their attacks with little effort with her energy swords.

Overall, the spartans had the upper hand in this sword fight. Chief being a promethean had lightning reflex as the ninjas struggled to fight him. The 3 ninja's swords started to heat up terribly that the biotic field failed. Chief then easily sliced their swords to halves. The ninjas staggered for a bit as to what to do next. Chief immediately proceeded to impale a ninja to his/her abdomen killing her due to the heat followed by an arm swing that cut another ninja's head. The last ninja was knocked down unconscious for questioning.

Fred did the same. When their biotics failed, their swords were destroyed and he managed to kill one ninja by impaling deep into chest that it showed up on the other side. Another by decapitating him/her. Then last ninja tried to use the legs to kick, but Fred evaded it and immediately sliced the gut. The 6 ninjas lay dead.

Kelly used her fast legs to evade their attacks and after destroying their katanas, she killed one by piercing the energy sword into the middle of the breast and the other by cutting her head off.

Finally, the precision eyed Linda after destroying their katanas, immediately sliced one ninja's gut and another followed by a back elbow punch to his/her face and impaling the sword to her spine that came out of her abdomen. The last of the ninjas fell down lifeless.

The fight took place for 12 minutes and 20 minutes for killing everyone. When the katana touched the spartans armor, the energy shield managed to brush it off. Only a small portion of shields were drained.

Out of 10, 9 cerberus phantoms lay dead. Everyone shared a look to check if the others are alright. Everyone took a brief sigh and caught their breath for sometime. The fight was a great deal. Everyone holstered their swords back.

"Huh...goddamn ninjas were fast even if we managed to kill them" said Fred

"Guyz, let's check on the one alive. We need to know everything" said Cortana.

The spartans used their helmets to scan the ninjas. They were shocked. These ninja's neural links are extensively replaced with cybernetic implants as if they were programmed to fight like this.

"Jesus! Who would do that to these people. Looks like cerberus forced this into them or they must have volunteered to this in the name of humanity's greater BULLSHIT!" said Fred in anger.

"Fred, please.." said Linda trying to calm him.

"He's right" said Kelly who got a stare from the three. "Look at them! Their mind...simply indoctrinated to fight? I mean, if cerberus claims to help humanity, they shouldn't be doing this" said Kelly feeling slight anger.

Chief was listening to them without responding. Even he felt sick of cerberus with this.

"You know...this debate's not gonna help us anyway, but they are actually right" said Cortana to Chief.

"We have one alive. Let's pour him down some questions" said Chief trying bring their attention. Others nodded at him.

"Chief, those implants? Let me see if I cant access them" said Cortana. Chief was confused.

"What good comes out of that?" asked Chief

"Just put me out. I'll tell you" said Cortana. Chief opened his right palm and Cortana jumped out of his hand and grew to normal human size. Others were wondering why she came out.

The 5 went near a phantom who was struggling to get up. She saw 4 towering figures and blue girl hologram in a scientist dress. The ninja was terrified as if he/she saw demons from hell. The ninja groaned in pain and they identified it as female.

Chief grabbed the ninja by her shoulder and pinned her to the container wall by force. She was struggling to escape but to no avail.

"What does cerberus want's with us?" asked Chief

"I..I..If you th...think i would tell...you out of fear, th..then you are deeply deluded" said the phantom struggling to speak. Chief slowly turned his head right, gave a sigh and turned back again to look at her.

"Listen lady...Next time, try bringing the entire cerberus military to try and take my friends out. But still you are gonna fail, you know why? Coz they've faced powerful enemies in overwhelming numbers and got out of that. Now tell us why cerberus seek us? or atleast give us your exact location, so that we could talk to your Illusive man" said Cortana.

"Gh...go fuck yourself!..." said the phantom. Kelly immediately pulled out a plasma pistol and shot her abdomen. The plasma killed her instantly. Others were looking at her in a mocking fashion.

"What!...She's is annoying" said Kelly. Though she's dead, Cortana's still got tricks she could play.

"Cortana?" called Chief. She looked at Chief and then went near her. Then she touched the phantom's rear head. Cortana's AI matrix immediately found an interface spot in the phantom's implants. She immediately scanned her brain memories though the implants and found an important information. Then she immediately took her hands from the phantom's head.

"I scanned her memories through her implants and I found it" said Cortana with a smirk.

"What did you find?" asked Linda

"The exact location of cerberus" said Cortana which stunned the four.

"Where?" asked Fred eagerly.

"It's called Cronos station, located in the Anadius system in horse head nebula"

"Then's let's get there and finish them" said Fred in a hurry.

"Godspeed Fred!" said Kelly trying get him out of the excitation.

"Team. Shepard has nothing to do with this. Cerberus or not, but he worked hard to put a team together to fight the collectors. He need to keep his team's morale up to win this war. Remember what Chief Mendez said? 'You can't win unless your team wins' " said Chief where Cortana picked up.

"Chief's right. If we do anything about cerberus, this may in-directly affect Shepard's mission"

"So what do you suggest?" asked Fred in frustration.

"We'll sit this one out, for now. Then we'll talk to Shepard once he finishes hs mission" said Chief. Others understood his point and nodded in approvingly.

"Wait, how did cerberus got here without any alarm?" asked Linda. Cortana answered to that as she saw everything in the phantom's memories.

"Actually, someone tipped off the information about our arrival here to their leader"

"But how? How they knew we're gonna come here?" asked Chief

"I don't know. The cerberus soldiers came here with a fake identity to get entry in to the citadel. After that, they came to this zakera ward and scrambled all the sensors and control systems here. Then they tapped into the citadel command controls to check for our arrival. There's no way C-sec knew what happened here until they send someone to check for the sensor mal-functions" explained Cortana.

"Then let's get outta here and inform Anderson about this" said Fred

"Wait, Who could have given the intel, Cortana?" asked Linda in doubt. Before Cortana could answer, Chief replied.

"We told Shepard that we're gonna meet Admiral here before he left our vessel. But i know he would have never given the intel. I suspect the other cerberus agent with him, who was more interested in us" said Chief.

"You mean that Miranda lawson? But she couldn't possibly know that, as we told this only to him and that quarian." said Kelly.

"Guyz, she's cerberus and no one has to teach cerberus how to spy on someone" said Cortana crossing her arms.

"You mean she could've placed any bug on Shepard to listen to what we spoke?" asked Fred.

"Maybe. But what matters is we beat them." said Chief.

"Alright. Let the C-sec take care of this pile of bodies. We'll go to Anderson and notify this" said Linda.

Others nodded in approval. Cortana went back to chief's palm and disappeared. Then everyone left the zakera ward. They used the same elevator to get down to the alley. There they were greeted by C-sec captain Bailey who finished investigating the murder.

"Chief, I never expected you four from this side" said Bailey who saw the spartans coming out the building they entered to reach the zakera ward.

"We ran into a problem. There were 40 mercenaries tried to lure us to the zakera ward to kill us. But we managed it" said Fred.

"Managed!? I take it you killed them?" asked Bailey tensed.

"We had no choice. We acted on our defense" said Chief. Bailey and the c-sec guards were staring at the spartans.

"Who were they?"

"We dont know. But someone's really interested in getting their hands on our technologies. it might be their handy work" said Kelly.

"Well, I wont lie about that, from what I heard about your meeting with the councilors, you refused to share your techs with them" said Bailey with a chuckle.

"Looks like citadel's not a safe place for us" said Linda with a smirk under her helmet.

"Don't worry. We'll take care of that and find who's after you people" said Bailey. The spartans nodded at that.

"If you'll excuse us, we have to meet Admiral Anderson to notify this incident" said Chief.

"Sure. You may go" said Bailey

With that, the spartans went to the embassy building to meet with admiral anderson in the human council hall.

Don't forget to review.

A/N: After the blue team meets with anderson, there will a short notes on what the spartans do in the remaining days of base completion in the next chapter and as everyone anticipated, they will finally reunite with their universe's reinforcement. And, Illusive man's really gonna be pissed off after this loss and moves on to a new plan.