Garrus had never seen Shepard this angry before. Had seen Shepard angry before, but spirits, it seemed like Shepard was absolutely crazy right now. He knew Shepard hated it when someone died under his command, or when he saw civilians get slaughtered. He probably still blamed himself for Ash's death, but now?
He was definitely losing it. He blasted through Cerberus squads like they were nothing with that Claymore heavy shotgun. He would somehow avoid all bullets that were being fired at him, while somehow managing to fire more then one shot of his Claymore before he had to reload, which was weird considering that the Claymore had to be reloaded after every single devastating shot. And since he had disruptor ammo loaded on his shotgun, most shields were broken simple because the first two pellets just destroyed any shields that came Shepard's way.
XXXXXXXXXXX
The rest of the squad struggled to even keep up with Shepard, Garrus opted to just snipe since he knew he wouldn't be catching up to Shepard any time soon. Kaiden tried his best to keep up with Shepard, but his barrier was taking too much fire, even when it was reinforced he just couldn't take the pressure like Shepard somehow managed to.
James was the only squad member that could sufficiantly provide support for Shepard from close up, since his style of fighting was extremely aggressive at best, and at worst he was just a flanker. He still had to break to cover occasionally though, because he didn't like doing it THAT aggressively. Shepard pretty much singlehandedly won the firefights they had from the Cerberus squads they encountered.
"We should be close to the executor's office now." Kaiden said as they entered the next room.
"Yeah, his room should be through that doorway at the other end of this hallway, overlooking the room."
"Let's get to it team." Shepard said as he down the hallway, only for another Cerberus squad to ambush him.
He pulled out his Claymore, shot one guy, rolled to the left and shot another guy while he was rolling, then he pulled out his Skorpion and shot two sticky bullets onto another Trooper who screamed before he exploded into a pile of red mist. And then he ducked under a swipe from the electrical baton that a centurion was wielding and grabbed the centurion's wrist which held the baton and then shot the centurion in the groin and then the head.
"If you keep going like this Shepard I think I might retire early, you destroyed them without any help from us." Garrus joked
"Well, don't count on it, we're almost there, let's keep moving."
"Stack up on the door gentlemen, I'll breach." Shepard said professionally.
"3...2...1...Breach!" Shepard shouted before opening the door and sweeping the room.
"Bailey, they got the executor, and two Salarian bodyguards."
"Any sign of the counciler?"
"Nothing yet."
"Then don't count him out yet! Tell me if you find a body but don't assume anything else."
Shepard looked out the window which had a nice view over the entire room, and he managed to see the Councillor just as he got out from under the table and de-cloaked.
"Bailey I found him, he looks relatively unharmed."
"Then get him someplace safe! We can't let Cerberus assassinate him!" Bailey shouted nervously.
Shepard looked back, only to see a Cerberus assassin standing there holding an energy blast to the Salarian's chest.
Thinking fast, Shepard broke the window and jumped down to a hostage standoff situation, and he knew this was over, 3 on 1 that assassin stood no chance.
"3 on 1 buddy, it's all over for you." Shepard said asserting himself as the dominant person in the standoff.
"No, now it's fun." He responded casually.
"Shepard, he's going to kill us all." Valern said, terrified.
"That remains to be seen."
"No! Udina, he's staging a coup, he's going to send the other Councillors right into a trap."
Leng, not wanting the Councillor to give out any more valuable information, was about to shoot the Salarian, but that's when he heard the distinct unfolding of a pistol right behind his head. He punched the Drell right in the face, but Thane had done a lot of exercising recently, and since he had been training he ignored the blow and punched Leng in the stomach before summoning a burst of biotic power and throwing Leng to the other side of the room.
Leng quickly recovered and grabbed his sword, and was about to charge at Thane, but at that moment Section did the one thing Tom had wanted to do, but couldn't since he was unconscious as the bullet in his shoulder was being removed. Section activated the virus Tom had planted on Leng's ocular implants, which blinded him and sent him writhing to the floor from the pain of his implants cutting into his skin from the implant's clamps squeezing really hard.
At that moment everyone in Shepard's squad got a message.
Shoot him! I've disabled his optics and made his implants cause as much pain as possible, kill him!
Gunfire immediately erupted after that as Shepard and co. opened fire on Kai Leng, and although his shields were ridiculously strong, they couldn't take more then 2 blasts from a Claymore with disruptor rounds at close range, and that was with other people shooting at him constantly. He went down in ten seconds since his shields managed to hold for 8 of those seconds.
Shepard, Tom planted a trace on Leng's ocular implants, it should show a history of where he's been, that should take you right the Illusive man.
"Thank's Section, I'll retrieve the data immediately." Shepard said before uploading it to his Omni-tool.
"Another AI?" Garrus asked quizzically.
"Hey, if it isn't homicidal like the geth, but helpful like EDI, then I could care less." Vega said.
"I was about to tell you guys about him on the Normandy, but Joker interrupted me again." Shepard confessed.
Kaiden sighed. "He does have the absolute worst timing, I don't blame you Shepard."
"Enough of that for now, Valern, will you be alright?"
The Counciller looked a little awestruck, but unharmed. "Yes, I'll be fine, but I think I should come with you." He said.
"Why? You're just endangering yourself if you come with us."
"The otherCcouncil members will need a little convincing that Udina has turned to Cerberus." His logic was actually pretty sound.
"Alright, come with us, but activate your cloak at the first sign of danger, I can't risk you getting hurt."
"I will, now let's hurry."
"Bailey, get word out that Udina's trying to seize power, can you get me a lock on their location?"
"Hmm, well I- Yes! Got it, I'm sending it to your Omni-tool, get to them before Cerberus does."
"Alright people, let's move!"
Shepard easily procured a 5 man air car and start making fast progress towards the councilor's location.
"Alright, we're almost ther-" Shepard was interrupted as a Phantom jumped on to the hood of the car.
"Garrus, drive for me, I'll take care of this." Shepard said aggressively as he took out his Carnifex and opened the door mid flight to shoot the Phantom as she attempted to break the engine. She formed a biotic barrier which reinforced her shields and stop the Carnifex from doing too much damage.
Her biotic barrier held up against the Carnifex, but after the very last shot in the clip the barrier and the Phantom's shields broke. The two stared at each other for 2 seconds before Shepard realized something.
"You don't have shields." He said simply before throwing her off the car with a concussive shot.
"Is she dead?" Garrus asked.
"Yes, she's done, how close are we to the councilors?"
"We're almost to the landing pad."
They made it there very quickly, in fact, the Councillors were still traveling up the elevator when Shepard stepped out of the car.
"What do we do now?" James said.
"Let's just wait for them to get up here."
...
About 5 minutes later the three councilors ran through the door, along with Jondum Bau who was shooting several phantoms that were attempting to kill the Councillors.
"Kaiden, James cover that door! Garrus, close it as soon as you can!" Shepard shouted before providing cover to Jondum who was taking heavy fire.
"Hold that door! Protect the council!" Shepard shouted before taking cover as the Phantoms tried to shoot him with their Phase disruptors.
The firefight was a bit longer then the other ones Shepard had fought in, due to all of their enemies being Phantoms who had better shielding then Centurions and having weapons that would force him into cover a lot more due to their high damage output. Eventually they managed to drive back the Phantoms far enough inside that Garrus got close enough to door controls to jam the door shut.
"That was too close." Garrus said.
"I agree, let's try to not cut it that close again, Jondum, are you alright?"
"I will be thanks to you Commander, I'm glad you came along when you did, I'm going to assume you came to protect the councilors, correct?"
"Actually that was one of the reasons, I'm also here for.." Shepard turned around and stopped talking as soon as he saw Udina holding the rest of the council at gunpoint.
Lightning quick, Shepard drew his Carnifex, and with one well placed adrenaline fueled shot, he executed Udina on the spot.
"Thank you Shepard, but why would Udina try something like this?" Tevos asked, clearly confused by Udina's turning traitor on the spot.
"It's just as I suspected, Udina was working for Cerberus, and as soon I proved that he was a traitor, he decided to gain leverage by holding us all at gunpoint, thank you Shepard for your quick reflexes." Valern said.
"Do you have any idea why Cerberus would do this, Shepard?" The Turian Counciller asked.
Shepard shook his head. "No, I don't, but with some intel I gathered today which points to his main base, I will know soon enough, just don't tell anyone else that, I don't want the Illusive man to know."
"Thank you Commander."
...
It took several hours before things were restored to normalcy in the Citadel. Shepard and several other Spectres had to mope up the last few pockets of Cerberus that were scattered around the station, and tons of places were secured before anyone went outside their apartments or homes.
The first thing Shepard did as soon as he got back to the Normandy was sleep, it had been a long day, and he was just done.
...
Shepard awoke in a cold sweat, it was that stupid dream again with the burning child. He sighed, why did that kid keep coming back to haunt him? Yeah he felt guilty, but even Ash's death had not given him nightmares like that, had he been indoctrinated? It was definitely plausible since this seemed like the way the reapers would try and indoctrinate him, but they were already too late, he was going to end this war before they could get any real leeway besides these stupid dreams. He still wasn't sure if he actually was indoctrinated so he kept a mental note to be aware of any symptoms, like hearing voices.
He got on his dress blues and sent the elevator down to the crew deck, he needed coffee, even though he hated the stuff, it was a more healthy way to get him up in the morning then by using a stim.
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It wasn't an enjoyable thing, doing surgery on someone, but she had signed up for it as a trauma surgeon, so these things needed to be done. Fortunately, being good at your job had perks, mainly being able to get it done faster than others in your area of expertise. Dr. Chakwas was no stranger to surgery, as she had done it many times, mainly on humans, but she could boast that she had fixed some aliens, but that wasn't her style, everyone was already thanking her for the work she did, so why rub it in?
She smiled in relief when she finally took that bullet out of Tom, and like she suspected it was an old sledgehammer round, bigger then most mass accelerator rounds, it was much easier to take out then most conventional ammunition due to it's large size. Now all she had to do was let the machines do their work in stitching up the hole.
And Shepard arrived, of course. He had a habit of doing this after all.
"Hello Shepard, have you come to check in on Tom again?"
"Yes, how is he doing?"
"I've just finished my surgery, he should be fit for duty again in one galactic standard day if no complications arise, and I doubt any will at this stage."
"That's good, I have on other thing I would like to talk about."
"Is it about Tom's AI?" That statement hit Shepard like a stack of bricks. "You know about Section?"
"Well, his Omni-tool kept firing up while he was asleep, and I decided to investigate, I must say he is a lot more factual then EDI, but I guess that comes with the cost of no dry humor."
"Many studies show that organics enjoy humor significantly more then they enjoy a factual and no nonsense attitude, Dr. Chakwas. I was simply trying to 'fit in' to make the crew feel more at ease."
"And I must say you did a good job EDI, although it is interesting to see the difference between two AI's."
"Well, I guess I'm glad this was settled peacefully, and without my intervention, I swear I'm going to have to be there for every diplomatic meeting ever after this, it seems like I'm the only one in this bloody galaxy that can solve disputes peacefully."
"Well, since both Legion and EDI were much more peaceful then what the galaxy thinks I've always decided to give an AI a chance before instantly shooting them up."
"Glad to see you have that sorted out, I'll be on my way, ask me if you need anything."
"Commander."
Shepard decided to introduce Section to Joker first just to get him out of the way, because he didn't want Joker to make assumptions because of the rumors that traveled around the ship at light speed somehow.
"Commander you've got a private message from the council at your private terminal." Specialist Traynor said.
"Right." Shepard said, and checked the message.
Dear Commander Shepard
Due to your exemplary performance protecting me and my fellow Councillors from Udina and Cerberus, we've decided to reward you with three Spectre grade weapons. These are free and shipping to the Normandy is pending.
-Councilor Tevos
The weapons are:
The Black Widow
M-11 Wraith
M-77 Paladin
That message made Shepard's day.
A/N: Hope you enjoyed this chapter, this is the part in my story where it gets significantly AU, so prepare yourself for that. Also, Cerberus is going to burn soon.
Reviews:
BrotherCaptainSheperd: Even as a full paragon, I must agree, Cerberus has to burn in hell.