I'm on fire. Almost wrote this in one sitting.
Appreciate all the reviews, all the readers. I'm getting over 1000 hits per day. That's...crazy.
Got a question: I've been working on a system, that would let me take all 11 squadmates with Shepard during his missions. Too crowded? Shepard would act as a platoon leader, with Garrus and Miranda as his squad leaders.
The door opened and the team charged in, weapons ready. They quickly searched the room for possible enemies, and when none were found, came the all-clear.
"All clear", Garrus reported through the radio.
The room had two three exits, including the door they came from. There was also a window, showing the bridge to the other tower. The bridge they had to cross.
"Tali, block that other door like you did before", Shepard ordered, and the quarian ran to the door on the left.
"Everyone else, stack up on the door. We are going outside"
The team took their positions around the door and after a while, Tali joined them.
"You detecting anything?", Shepard asked her.
"Very weak signals of few mass effect fields. Powerful ones"
"Snipers..", Shepard muttered.
This was not what he had wanted. The bridge was a natural bottleneck and those snipers were waiting for them, with them an unknown number of mercenaries.
"All right. Watch where you walk out there. What we gathered from the blueprints, this place is still in the middle of construction"
"Open and clear", he ordered, and the doors opened.
Shepard could feel intense wind and rain on his face, as he ran through the doorway. The area was a small ledge, working as an attachment point for the bridge between two towers. They quickly cleared the ledge, and positioned themselves along the bridge's head.
"Take cover where ever you can, and watch out for snipers", Shepard ordered.
"Garrus, Miranda. Come with me", waving them to follow.
They walked towards a small pillar, away from the rest of the team's earshot.
They knelt behind the pillar, and Shepard summoned a small holographic miniature of the bridge from his omni-tool.
"All right, any thoughts?", he asked, glancing at both of them.
"There's no way we can get over that bridge Commander", Miranda answered.
"The bridge is pretty bare", Garrus chimed in. "There is not enough cover"
"I can aid you", a fourth, raspy voice spoke.
"Who th-", Shepard began, turning towards the voice, pistol drawn.
"Identify yourself!", he ordered, pointing at the shadow. Miranda and Garrus also did the same.
A green faced figure clad in long leather coat stepped out of the shadow, his hands up.
"Krios", Shepard muttered.
The assassin's eyes narrowed and he tilted his head.
"You know of me?", Thane Krios asked, with a monotonous tone.
"You're the reason we're here", Shepard retorted, his pistol still pointing at the drell.
"Indeed?", Krios asked, tilting his head even further.
Shepard lowered his pistol, and is companions did the same.
"You are Shepard", the drell stated, lowering his hands.
"You've heard of me", Shepard answered, crossing his arms.
"Yes" The drell began to walk aimlessly hands behind his back.
"The savior of the Citadel, the first human Spectre",
His eyes narrowed.
"The butcher of Torfan"
He stopped for a moment, looking at Garrus. His head tilted slightly.
"You are the Archangel"
Garrus chuckled, before answering.
"It's just Garrus"
"Very well", the drell answered, still speaking with the same monotonous tone.
There was a short silence, before Shepard broke it.
"I'm on a mission, and I need your help"
"With Cerberus?, Krios was now looking at Miranda.
"We are on the same side, and I hope you are too", Shepard paused, narrowing his eyes. "Because on the other side are only corpses"
The drell tilted his head again.
"Indeed?"
He turned towards the view of Illium, rain falling down on his face.
"What is your mission?", he asked, still staring at the view.
"The Collectors are kidnapping entire colonies. Thousands of people have vanished. We are going to stop them", Shepard answered with a steely tone.
Krios turned his head towards Shepard
"Attacking the Collectors would require passing through the Omega-4 relay", his eyes narrowed again. "No ship has ever returned from doing so"
Shepard grinned.
"We're special"
The drell turned to the Commander.
"It would seem so"
The drell looked as if he was deeply in thought, and for a moment, they all stood in silence.
"If Collectors are abducting innocents, they must be stopped", he paused, offering his hand to the Commander and Shepard shook his hand.
"Now. May I ask something of you?". Krios asked after they had shaken hands.
Shepard crossed his arms.
"Nassana", he muttered.
"Yes"
Shepard sighed.
"Well we're here already, so we might just go all the way. That still leaves the bridge though. Any ideas?"
"Yes. I can flank them"
"Well, why haven't you?"
The drell narrowed it's eyes again, before speaking
"I cannot do it alone. I need a distraction"
"This is so not good", Garrus muttered, shaking his head.
Shepard, Garrus and Tali stood at the bridge's head. The plan was simple: They distract the mercenaries, allowing Thane to flank them.
That was what Shepard, Garrus and Tali stood there for. Their job was to run to the bridge, distract the mercenaries and try not to die.
After Thane had drawn the mercs' attention, they would assault their positions.
It reminded Shepard of the plan the mercenaries on Omega had used to try and kill Garrus. The problem was, it hadn't worked. Shepard could not even use his whole team, since there was not enough cover.
"Shepard. I am in position", Thane reported over the radio.
"Let' go!", Shepard yelled, and began running down the bridge, with Tali and Garrus at his flanks.
They reached the half-way point, and the firestorm began.
"Take cover!", Shepard yelled, diving to the ground.
He crawled towards a large pillar and took cover behind it. Tali was right next to him, while Garrus was on the opposite side of the bridge, behind a similar pillar.
The firing of the mercenaries was extremely intense, and it kept the three of them completely pinned down. On occasion, Shepard lifted his rifle out of the cover, firing blindly at the mercenaries. He could see Garrus doing the same.
"Goddamn it! I hope Krios does his damn part!", Shepard yelled to Tali, who nodded.
Tali summoned her combat droid, which was disabled in seconds.
"Oh, poor Chikktika", she said sadly.
"You named your droid?", Shepard asked, grinning.
"Sure. Chikktika vas Paus", she tilted her head before asking "Don't you have names for your guns?"
Shepard wrinkled his brow.
"It's a gun. Why should it have a name?"
She merely shrugged.
The mercenaries began firing their heavy weapons, and the rockets crashed loudly on the pillars Shepard and his companions were hiding behind.
As one of the rockets hit the pillar, a thought hit Shepard.
What the hell was that with Tali before?
Why had he...touched her?
The thought of them being together kept crawling into his mind.
The idea was...intriguing, to say the least.
But she was not even a human.
Neither was he a quarian.
He did want her to be happy, however.
He just was not sure how to do that.
His trail of thought was interrupted by his radio
"I am beginning my assault", Thane reported.
"Good", Shepard answered dreamily.
He shook the thoughts from his mind, noticing that the firing of the mercenaries decreased a great deal.
Time to begin.
The battle would dull his mind. He would like that.
"Miranda, begin the assault!"
He could see the Jacob, Miranda and Mordin running down the bridge.
When they arrived at Shepard's position, his team joined them.
The team of six raced down the bridge, firing their weapons without aiming.
They had just reached the foremost positions of the mercenaries.
Mordin fired a burst at one of the mercenaries, dropping his shields. Shepard finished the job with the butt of his rifle. The helmet of the mercenary shattered from the impact, and he fell to the ground. The rest of the mercenaries were eliminated as well by a combination of small arms fire, and hand-to-hand attacks.
There was only a one way to continue deeper into the tower, a staircase. It would greatly favor CQB and even the odds against Shepard's heavily outnumbered team.
Mordin was the first on the staircase, and immediately a mercenary ran towards him.
He tried to swing Mordin with the butt of his rifle, but Mordin dodged the blow, while at the same time pulling his knife from the sleeve. The mercenary tried to swung again, and this time Mordin ducked under the blow, while slashing at the merc's achilles' tendon. The merc roared in pain, staggering forward. Mordin ended his life with a shot to the head.
The whole team was now fighting at the staircase.
Shepard could see Garrus fighting two mercenaries at the same time. He had been a hand-to-hand specialist in the turian army, and it showed. Despite his injury on the shoulder, Garrus was going through his opponents with a terrifying pace. He growled and roared like a cornered lion.
The two mercenaries at once were proving to be a little more of a challenge however. The batarian one tried to punch Garrus, who dodged the punch,
and countered by thrusting his sniper's barrel to the mercenary's face. The batarian staggered backwards, and Garrus hit a combination of rifle thrusts, kicks, and elbow strikes to his upper body, toppling the merc over. The other merc, a human, attacked him now from behind, taking a choke-hold with his rifle. The turian opened the choke by twisting the merc's wrist, then ducked under his arm, and kicked the merc to the back of his knee. The merc fell down on his knees, and Garrus broke his neck.
Shepard had just hit a mercenary to the chin so hard, that the merc actually rose up to the air, when he saw Miranda hitting one mercenary with a biotic high kick to the head. She was obviously an experienced kick-boxer, and Shepard could understand now why she wore her ridiculous outfit. It was obviously very flexible. She delivered another kick, this time to some other merc's midsection, who fell down.
The mercenary, the one Shepard had struck, grabbed Shepard and took him down. The merc began swinging his rifle's butt, and Shepard could barely shield his head. The mercenary's swings were ended with a knife to the back.
Tali.
"Dashing Commander fell down?", she asked, smirking.
Shepard grinned at her as she offered him her hand, and pulled him up.
The battle was chaotic. Members from both sides staggered around, punching and shooting at everything on sight. Shepard felt like being a part of those ancient medieval battles with swords and shields. It was actually very ironic. In a world where you had faster-than-light travel, artificial intelligence and enormous space stations, they still fought with sticks and stones.
Jacob tossed one mercenary aside with his biotics, and slammed another to the wall. One turian mercenary tried to grab him in a bear hug, but Jacob quickly dove to the merc's legs, and took him down. He ended the fight with a gruelling biotic punch.
Shepard raised his pistol, and fired. IThe shot hit the asari mercenary between her eyes, and she fell down. The fight was over.
It had been a massacre. Tens of mercenaries laid on the ground, dead or incapacitated.
Garrus was still gasping for air, growling silently. The violence still burned in the turians dark eyes.
It was extremely distorting to see such a calm and collected man transforming into something primal. Disturbing.
"You okay there champ?", Shepard asked him, placing his hand on the turian's shoulder.
Garrus' demeanour changed immediately.
"Yeah. That felt nice", he answered quietly, looking at all the corpses he had left in his wake.
Turians were naturally pretty aggressive, so they probably had kept more of their primal nature, than the humans.
"What are we going to do about the wounded?", Miranda asked, again with a cold tone of voice.
Shepard thought about the decision for a moment. He had never executed so many of his enemies at once.
"Kill them", Shepard said coldly.
They began searching the battlefield for the wounded, ending them.
Shepard felt his jaw bulging, as he pulled the trigger.
Again, and again.
One word kept crawling back into his mind.
'Dashing'.