Tau Volantis, Coral System
Unitologist Base, Corridors
18:26
"How do we deal with these guys?" Stevens snarl was clearly heard over the speakers of his helmet. Just as the former marine leaned into cover behind a plasteel support-beam, a fireteam of enemy Templars further up the hall turned their attention fully on him. They fired in disconcerting unity, the intense staccato of eezo propelled fire chipping away at exposed metal, sending the operative scrambling further away in the hopes of finding more reliable cover.
His only reprieve came in the way of Thomas and Hillary, both of whom took the opportunity to lean out of cover and return the favor, Compact Assault Rifles belching out dangerously powerful rounds. "And how the hell did they get those barriers? That's supposed to be our design!" He hollered in protest a moment later, fumbling with a fresh thermal clip.
Further down the hallway, their issue was presented clear as a Sur'Kesh day. Whatever remained of the Church's security forces had been busy setting up defensive points and killzones, one of which the trio had just ran into headlong.
Despite the fact that the checkpoint was clearly not designed as permanent, wholly lacking in reinforced points or elevated positions -unlike what you would have found at a Cerberus or Alliance military installation- it was formidable nonetheless. A series of deployable barriers had been erected, linked in such a way that the defenders could move to fro with relative ease. Further back, a pylon hummed away steadily, recharging the barriers of friendly soldiers almost as quickly as they were drained in the first place. There was even a defensive turret set up, the mobile kind that could be deployed by engineers via backpack. They were nasty little buggers, indifferent to incoming fire, and equipped with their own shield generators. Tyr was extremely grateful that they had only deployed one- so far.
"Just goes to show how trustworthy your organization is." Thomas didn't even bother to hide the venom in his words as he leaned back into cover, the muzzle of his CAR glowing softly as it cooled.
"I thought those drug in you worked only because someone in the Alliance sold you out?" Stevens barked back, glowering at Thomas from behind his visor.
"Go fuck yourself." Fisher spat in reply. The Cerberus operative couldn't help but grin just a little at that one as he observed the Alliance soldier. There was a flicker in his eyes. The Demon knew that he had been sold out, whether he wanted to admit it or not. Looking over at Hilliary, he grunted. "Hill?"
"I am thinking, okay?" The blonde growled back, before leaning out to to depress the trigger of her rifle. A heavy slug shot forth from the barrel a moment later, reverberations filling the air as it soared towards the enemy position further ahead. The round smashed against a Templar's barrier, his hexagonal shield rippling in fierce defiance. But alas, that was about the extent of the damage. As blue energy lanced out, refilling the targeted soldier's shield, another Templar turned to face her. Oversized Revenant in hand, he dispatched a stream of hot metal flechettes back in her direction, forcing the corporal back into cover. "Either of you happen to have a Cain?" She questioned, blonde hair -soaked in crimson, metallic blood- flowing around her head as she turned to look at her compatriots.
"Do I look like I have a Cain?" Thomas snapped. The stress was clearly getting to him, more than it already had been when he was floating in a stasis. Danik was somewhere on this base, maybe making his escape since there was no way in Muspelheim's fiery pits that man didn't know they'd escaped.
"Okay...okay, I think I have an idea then."
"I'm ears." Stevens called back among the gunfire. He took advantage in the shift of attention, pivoting on his heels to vent his Phaeston rifle towards the enemy's defensive line. As the weapon jerked in his hands, barely seeming to phase the enemy combatants, the VI in his helmet worked its magic. Lidar pinging rapidly, six red dots appeared on his HUD's minimap. "Because clearly this isn't working." He grumbled, reassuming his cover as the enemy shifted their attention towards him once more. Now more than ever, he wished that he would have grabbed a heavier weapon's loadout.
He had been told that this was supposed to be a low simple, low profile investigation operation.
What a load of bullshit.
No wonder Miranda had been worried about just sending him and Val.
"Thom, I need one of your ammo-clips, the ones we got from Boss' armor." Hillary called, even as the turret in the distance seemed to focus primarily on her, and her alone. The only times it stopped firing at her cover was when it was when the VI forced it to vent heat, lest it suffer catastrophic damage to the barrel. The support-strut keeping the corporal alive looked very much like Swiss cheese already. Wordlessly, he obliged and tossed her one of the clips for Boss's DC-15 blaster rifle. "Alright, so I have no idea if this is actually going to work…"
"...Hill?" There was something about Fisher's tone that made Stevens wince. If even he was unsettled by whatever she was about to do, than little to no hope was being inspired in the Cerberus operative.
"Hey, I improvise, okay?" The blonde retorted, unsheathing and activating her vibro-blade in one fluid motion. Thomas and Tyler both watched her with horror in their eyes as she carved into the canister of contained, ionized gas.
Gas that, if the science was correct, needed to remain in containment so that it didn't kill whomever was around it. "Alright, you may wanna cover your eyes."
Stevens didn't hesitate. The marine in him knew that this was the rough equivalent of a battle-buddy yelling 'incoming,' and the additional training Kraken had put him through had broken any shreds of mental resistance that there may have been. Hunkering down and against his cover, Stevens dropped his visor's sensory input level to its lowest setting, before quickly covering his faceplate with one of his large, gloved hands a moment later. He had a rather good understanding of what was about to happen next, and no part of him was particularly keen on witnessing it firsthand now that he had gotten a good taste of what war was about.
The comprised canister flew through the air, lobbed by the Alliance soldier like one would toss a hand grenade. When it landed and came in contact with something of a remotely higher temperature, a deployable barrier in this case; essentially compressed-plasma-in the making, the ionized gasses became literal plasma, and ended up flash boiling everything within a ten foot radius.
The temperature was so high, and the field of its detonation so concentrated, that when the plasma dissipated into the air, it left behind a vaguely spherical hole in the checkpoint. Half the Templars were gone altogether, while those who yet remained physical weren't exactly intact.
"Jesus on stilts…" Stevens breathed, moving from cover to better view the aftermath. Only two Templars had survived the plasma-blast. Neither of them were in good shape, having suffered significant weight loss in the process. One was now a pair of legs shorter, the other lacking his right arm. They both received the mercy of a slug through the foreheads. Neither tried to surrender, and nor were they asked as Thomas drove his Vibro-blade through one's visor, while Hillary did the same on the crawling torso; "What the fuck was that?" The operative questioned breathlessly. He had seen some brutality at the hands of his fellow squad mates, but nothing even comparable to this scale.
"Me." The blonde grinned up at him. "Innovating."
Jesus fuck, Alex, why didn't you warn me that these people were insane? It was a rare occasion where the Aspect didn't dignify a question with a response, but Tyr swore that he heard snickering somewhere in the back of his head.
"...and here I thought Val was scary." Tyr muttered, kicking idly at what little remained of the turret that had pestered them only a few seconds earlier. It was little more than a support base and some exposed wiring now, the barrel twisted and mangled somewhere off in the distance, and the ammunition block simply gone.
"I'll take that as a compliment." The corporal replied with a grin, putting on a mock-bow for Stevens, even as Thomas frowned in disapproval to her side.
The Cerberus operative couldn't help but chuckle in reply, tilting his helmet in her direction, chocolate eyes filled with mirth. For a moment, he could imagine her as something else than what she really was. A friend, battle buddy, squad mate, or whatever else one may have preferred. Not someone who would be looking to put a bullet in his head the next time they encountered one another.
"I…don't think a compliment from a terrorist organization is a good thing, Hill…" Thomas said, presumably without thinking twice about it, as he glanced at the blonde, regardless of the fact that Stevens stood only a few feet away.
"It's a compliment from the person who saved our asses, Thom." She gave Fisher a stare so flat that Stevens could see it through the polarized visor she wore. "'Sides, he said he was sorry about Ashley."
"He shot her."
"And then you punched him across the sidewalk."
"Hey, listen-" Stevens offered meekly.
"Because he broke Jane's nose!"
"And then you chased him down and nearly killed him. Again."
"I'm still-" Tyler tried to protest.
"He kicked me in the face."
"Maybe that was because you threatened to burn his innards?" Hillary offered casually; "I was on comms, you know?"
"Look-" the operative tried again, only to be ignored.
"Then he shot me six times and kicked me out of a speeding car."
"Wasn't that kind of in self-defense too?" The corporal offered with a shrug as she rummaged the ammunition from the dead Templars. "Honestly, Thom. It's done with, Ashley is fine and nobody died. So just, you know, stop being such a prat about it, m'kay?"
"…you…are taking his side in this." Thomas muttered, sounding aghast and slightly more pissed off than he had moments before. "Gods…"
"Hey, can I just-"
"WHAT?" The Dane bellowed, turning turning towards the American operative. Despite his taller and bulkier frame, Stevens winced at his shoulder as he took an insistence step backwards. The pressure was clearly getting to Fisher, who decided to press onward rather than give Stevens the chance to speak his peace. "What do you possibly have to say that can excuse you opening fire on my fiancé, whom, if I might add, is currently five months pregnant?"
"Thom, for fuck's sake, we're done with that already!" Hillary hissed, grabbing his arm. He shook her off though, almost throwing her back against the wall as he did so. "If you jeopardize the mission because you couldn't act like a fucking grown up, Jane will rip off your balls with a meat-hook."
Thomas, however, had worked himself up too much to just stop. In retrospect, this was hardly one of his finer moments, but the combination of lingering drugs, frustration at the current company, aching wounds and having to realize that someone they'd trusted in the Alliance had sold them out to the Church…it was all threatening to crack open his skull as everything hit him at once.
Stevens could see it in his eyes. The anger, the hate, and practically everything other emotion that ran through him. Thomas was, apparently, not one good at keeping everything in, apparently.
"And how about when you stole hundreds of children from their homes and tortured them on Teltin?! 'Humanity's Advancement' my balls! Did you ever actually take a look at the mirror at some point? Did you ever try erasing bar-code from a little girl's shaved head, like she was some kind of fucking convict?"
"I didn't do any of that shit!" Stevens yelled back, stepping forward. The sound of his own voice shook the operative to his core. It was loud and angry, perhaps even scathing as his helmet's speakers projected his voice. "I wasn't even in Cerberus until last Christmas, okay? I didn't partake in the assassination on Kahoku, you or the abduction of those kids. I didn't do anything wrong! So pull that stick out your ass, because I'm pretty fucking sick of you treating me like a criminal!"
That apparently left Thomas speechless, the Alliance soldier only able to stare back into Steven's visor, neither men looking keen on yielding anytime soon.
The blonde-bitch wasn't nearly as phased, however. "And thus, we can agree that you do not agree." Hillary called out, getting in between them like some kind of disapproving parent. "And can we then now, for the love of God, get a fucking move on? Thomas, you're acting like a vengeful little brat, and it's not becoming of you. Ashley would cringe if she saw you right now."
Behind his helmet, a little grin creased Steven's lips. It was nice, seeing Fisher brought down a peg or two. The bastard certainly deserved it, after the way he had been acting this entire time.
In retrospect, Tyler should have probably smothered it, as Hillary turned on him next. Despite her shorter stature, the operative only felt about a foot tall under her fiery gaze.
"And you, Stevens." The corporal growled, turning her ire at the operative; "While I am grateful that you and Val saved us, I still trust you about as far as I can kick a Mako. Your organization's as rotten as any merc band, so if you even look like you're about to pull some sort of shit, I won't even hesitate to shoot you in the eye-socket."
"Son of-"
"Are we clear?" She snarled, cutting the American off before he could finish his swear. Both men, even as she looked between them, nodded in affirmation. "Good. Now you kids behave, and we stick to the plan, which is quite fucking simple. We kill the Bad Man."
"…who the Hel are you and what did you do with Corporal Moreau?" Thomas, in spite of the severe and scathing admonishing she'd just dished out, found himself more proud of her than ashamed of himself. Not to say he wasn't ashamed – not of his hatred for Stevens and Cerberus, but the way he'd gone about it – but somehow, Hillary had matured in the blink of an eye. And somehow, that meant far more to him than wanting to snap Stevens legs and leave him to die
While Hillary might find it odd for him to address her with Joker's last name, it was entirely deliberate.
It was also worth noting, at least he thought so, that while Hillary didn't immediately react to her middle-name instead of her surname being used – Thomas didn't dare give Cerberus her surname since they only knew his– , Stevens seemed to snap from whatever stupor he'd been in, and visibly stared at her. That much at least was clear, even through the polarized visor.
"Moreau?" he hesitated before asking; "Your surname is Moreau?"
Surely she can't be…
Though it had been some time since Tyler had seen an Xbox, much less picked up the controls to one and played the Mass Effect series, at this point; he did his best to remember what was to come in the near future, in this galaxy at least. The fact that Joker had a sister was a distinct memory. He remembered an Asari huntress who had served on Tiptree, speaking of how she had been forced to kill a young woman named Hillary so that she could survive and escape the planet…
Someone ain't a fifteen year old dirt farmer, Tyler thought, almost absently as he looked at Hillary for a long moment.
More memories came to the precipice of his mind, wanting to spill forth, but the operative bit his tongue as he shifted awkwardly. "Oh yeah, glad to see you're not dead, ma'am. Because the Reapers are supposed to fuck you up in just a couple of years."
Despite the uncertainties in life, Stevens was pretty sure that she'd turn his ass to paste with that fancy rifle of her's if he said anything even close to that. Or neutralize him so that they could haul him off to an insane asylum. Neither sounded like a desirable option.
So he held his tongue.
"It's…just…never mind, it's not important, I just thought…" He trailed off, glancing down at his feet so that they at least couldn't look him in the eyes, or read his facial expressions. Tyler didn't have to glance up to know that they were looking at him with even more scrutiny now, his poor choice of wording making him look even shiftier than he already was. "Forget it, I'm just...a bit tired."
At least that part was true. Lugging through the snow, repeated engagements with the church, and sleeping on a cold stone floor -regardless of how blissful morning had ended up being, Tyler found himself growing weary. At least, mentally speaking. From what he understood about his cybernetic upgrades, he could push his body for several more days without rest before it collapsed and shut down on itself.
"…Yeah, I'd bet." Hillary muttered, unbeknownst to Stevens, even as they continued forward. The corridors ahead were exact copies of each other, and only the different signs gave any indication that the trio wasn't just walking in circles. Otherwise the place was a damn maze of hallways, corridors, and stairwells.
And Templars lying in wait around almost every corner.
The first real ambush had happened when they'd passed through a garage meant for snow-vehicles. Most of them seemed meant to hover above the snow, instead of actually plowing through it, but a few also looked like beefed-up Mako's without the middle pair of wheels, or just tank-treads instead of them altogether.
The entire room had been basically empty, devoid of any signs of human life whatsoever. This, of course, was in retrospect a clear indication that something was wrong, yet it wasn't until grenades started going off around them that the ambush was actually revealed. Up above, on the catwalks, Templars and technicians were lobbing grenades and firing launchers at the kill-zone down below.
And then it just…stopped. The group had been prepared for a fight, but when they brought their weapons to bear on the cat-walks above, the entirety of the ambushing group were already dead. They all lay slumped against the railings, necks twisted around or holes punched through their torsos.
There hadn't even been screaming.
"What…the fuck?" Hillary gave voice to the rest of the group's thoughts. "No, seriously, what the fuck? What just…happened?"
"I think…maybe we're not alone in here." Thomas muttered, scanning the room. Aside from the mutilated templars, nothing was to be seen. A panicking note in the back of his mind kept imagining Necromorphs appearing from nowhere, yet, again, there was no sign of anyone or anything else moving in the garage. "Scans aren't showing anything else either…"
"This is seriously fucked up…" the corporal grumbled, taking slow steps through the room as she swept the upper walkways with Boss' DC. Compared to her Draganov, it packed a bit more of a punch. "But…as long as who- or whatever did that doesn't do it on us…"
"Let's hope." Stevens muttered uneasily, hurrying ahead ahead of them, Phaeston kept at the ready. Between his battle vision, and hardsuit marketed by Kraken and Loki as better than anything the Alliance fielded, once aftermarket upgrades (like secondary plate overlays and secondary shield generators) were installed, that was; Tyler was rather certain that he should have been the one paving the way for their advance deeper into the base.
Reaching down for a moment, the operative keyed his radio. "Val, stay frosty, we got weird shit going on out here. Specifically, people dying without any rhyme or reason, as far as we can tell anyways."
"Acknowledged, Tyr. I'll be on the lookout. Valkyrie, out."
The shortness of her reply made him frown, but he didn't have time to think on it long as Hillary returned, Thomas hot on her heels. "So, we find Danny-boy, and we kill him a few times. Shoot him in the leg first, if I might suggest." She rehearsed as if for a play when they caught up to the waiting Stevens. "First, however, we have to actually find him."
"No shit?" The operative replied with a breathy laugh.
"Shut it." she snapped, not appreciating Stevens' snark. "Now, I managed to hack through and download a map of the base's interior from one of the dead goons…"
From her raised arm, a projection sprung onto the wall. It was a plan over the entire facility, which turned out to be pretty fucking huge. As far as he could see, it involved outdoor transition-areas, bridges and even lifts. There also seemed to be an overtly large amount of security-checkpoints, secured bulwarks and decontamination-zones, as well as a grayed-out zone simply labelled as 'Authorized Staff Only'
"Okay, so we're here." Hillary used a small target-painter to point out their position on the plan. It wasn't actually all that far from the entrance towards the cliffside they'd fallen from, or from where Tyr and Val had rappelled for that matter. "Which means we'll have to go through quite a few of these checkpoints. We're not going to win anything by trying to find another route outside the facility, because there's bound to be Necro's running around out there."
"Necro's?" Stevens mused, fiddling with his helmet for a moment.
"Undead, simplified." The corporal explained with little evident interest; "It's kinda like a Husk, only they're entirely organic, reanimated corpses. Far as we know, the Church somehow controls them. They can range in sizes from human infants to a fucking elephant-sized monster. Imagine a Husk twice as fast, strong and hard to kill as the usual, and you'll have the humanoid Necro's."
"Holy shit…" Stevens breathed. He had never gone toe to toe with such a creature, besides when he and Val had trouble with a couple of them a few hours ago, and needless to say, he was quite happy avoiding them as long as possible. They sounded...scary as fuck, for lack of a better term.
"Yeah…That's kinda the common reaction. Problem is, these things don't need Dragons teeth to spread. One of them can mutate into this…flying thing, and infect every single corpse it comes across. Abraca-fucking-dabra, and where you had ten corpses you now have ten Necro's."
"So…they're like zombies, then?"
"'cept they don't die when giving your shotgun a blowjob." She confirmed with a grim nod.
"…Fuck me sideways." Stevens groaned; "And…how do you know all this?"
"Ever heard of the Ishimura-incident?" Hillary didn't even bother trying to conceal the malice as she spat out the ship's name.
"The Planet-Cracker that crashed, right?" He replied with a small tilt of the head, confusion evident in his tone. His memory of the news article was vague at best. Some mining ship had gone down, all hands lost. Not exactly something that he cared much about these days, compared to the problems he often ended up having to juggle.
"Crashed?" The bark of laughter Thomas let escape was anything but happy. "That's what they're calling it now? Crashed?"
"I suppose they did aim it at the colony before putting a brick on the accelerator…" Hillary mused; "But the damn thing didn't just crash. It was infested with Necromorphs shortly after we arrived to escort a repair-crew to fix the comms of the ship. Then in less than six hours, a few thousand people were slaughtered like cattle and transformed. We…barely escaped, really. Hardly any crewmembers did."
"That was…and…and you thought we were working with these people?" Stevens exclaimed with clear disgust and disbelief, sounded indignant as he wholly missed the fact that Thomas had gone very still, and quiet as a mouse. I may have worked for a government that have carried out some dark actions in its day, but this? This was just revolting.
Of course, they didn't know him well enough to actually understand, but it wasn't something his mind could simply get over.
"We're always suspecting a lot of things." Hillary answered off-handedly. Stevens realized with a small pause that she was watching Thomas intently, almost as if she expected some kind of grandiose reaction out of him. "Come on, we need to get a move on if we wanna kill Danik anytime today."
As it turned out, even as large as the map made the facility appear, it was even bigger in person. Thomas honestly couldn't see how the Helheim those bastards had managed to get something this massive constructed without the Alliance finding out about it. The sheer credit cost and materials needed should have risen more than a few red flags, for starts.
"How old do you think this place is?" Hillary mused, breaking the silence that had fallen over the trio.
"Dunno…maybe like, ten, fifteen years?" The American operative with little interest, metal boots clapping against the floor as he kept his rifle at the ready. Belatedly, he glanced at the clock of his HUD, and found himself surprised by just how long they had been advancing unopposed. In the lull of conversation, he had slipped into battle vision so that he could watch the on-goings on the base. Though the range was not all that great at the moment, he could make out the forms of Church soldiers moving about, setting up defenses and digging in for a fight.
"Why do you ask, Hill?" Thomas enquired a moment later.
"'cause of that." She gestured at an old, almost erased insignia on the walls they passed by. It looked a bit like the Alliance insignia, and then again, different. The Earth was there, alright, but instead of the Alliance arcs and stars, a white eagle hovered at the center of the image, carrying a downwards-pointed dagger. Or, maybe it was a sword. The letters S.C-F were still somewhat readable. There seemed to be maybe an 'A' in there as well, but no one could have really told for certain.
"...what is that, then?"
"Looks like this was an old SCAF-base, but…Shit, that'd make it at least, what, seventy-eighty years old?"
"SCAF?" Stevens, for the first time since the ambush, seemed openly curious. "What's that?"
"Honestly…Thomas I could understand not knowing this, but most people should at least know their military history. S.C.A.F, Sovereign Colonies Armed Forces?" Even through the helmet, it was clear to all that Hillary had put on an irritated scowl; "I swear, if this is how it's gonna be, I'll end up chucking a grenade. The two of you might be on opposite sides, but you're equally fucking dumb."
"That isn't very nice to say," Stevens grumbled as he walked ahead of the pair.
"Deal with it, I'm not here to be nice." She scoffed, holding her rifle at the ready as she followed Thomas after Stevens.
Hillary leading the way now -she had the map, and Stevens wasn't about to work her up again- the trio slowly worked their way through the base; Thomas having taken up right behind her, while Stevens kept their flank and rear secured.
Reluctant as he was to overuse it, Thomas had found that the Compact Assault Carbine delivered far more devastating punches than the Mattocks used by the Templars, or the Phaeston Stevens used. Such as in the current firefight, where shield-bearing Templars filled the corridor, advancing with a mix of shotguns and drawn Vibro-swords.
"Demon! Make a hole!" Hillary yelled, leaping to cover as the first spread of pellets bit into her shields. Thomas' linked-HUD displayed the status of her shields as having dipped to 75% from that one shot alone. It meant getting close wasn't an option, especially considering the bastards carried swords as well. "Those guys really adopted the name, didn't they?"
Thomas had long-since stopped bothering to remind her of the chain of command. Really, there wasn't even a point anymore. Plus, it was what he was going to do anyway.
Leaning out of cover as the guns were drawn to Hillary and Stevens, Thomas took aim and allowed his Carbine the second it needed to ionize the interior of the canister, then pulled the trigger the moment his HUD gave him the go. The recoil would have sprained an unarmored shoulder – which his luckily wasn't– as the weapon vomited out a burst of ionized gas-turned-plasma the rough size of a human thumb.
The shot raced across the corridor and impacted before he'd even registered it leaving the barrel. When it did, there was no sound of a projectile hitting metal. Instead it was like flash-boiling water as the plasma boiled and ate its way through the shield. Despite being more than bullet-proof, the shield barely stopped the attack from eating its way through both itself and the man behind it. He fell back with a strangled scream, a clean hole evaporated through his chest. Another immediately took his place, and the firing shifted towards the Service Chief instead.
"Oh…" Thomas couldn't quite contain his grin. He had just killed another human being, but never before had it been done with such…tidiness; "Oh fuck the Hel yes!"
"I want one of those!" Hillary exclaimed, even as she fired her Dragunov from the hip, clearly using her HUD to aim at the feet of the approaching Templars; "Wanna swap with my gun?
"Not on your life, Corporal!"
"If the two of you are done feeling all awesome over killing someone, could you maybe keep doing it?" Stevens yelled, grimacing behind his helmet as enemy shots continued to slam into his cover, sounding like a hailstorm sent personally from the heavens.
Glancing over to regard the pair for a moment, Tyr's lips pulled in distaste. Perhaps he was comparing them to someone he actually enjoyed spending time around, but no one on M-6 had ever bragged or been downright happy about killing someone. Except for maybe Kraken, and even then, that was only when he was talking about one time or another when he had wasted Batarian slavers or raiders. "I'd like it very much not to get killed over here!"
His upgraded body would help him little on its own. His shields were down to 35-percent after taking several hits during the opening barrage, and he was pretty sure that he had lost a plate or two near his right hip, which suddenly felt...strange, more vulnerable and exposed. If his armor couldn't take enemy shots like this, than his bodysuit certainly wouldn't.
"Yeah, that'd be…bad, I guess…" Thomas groaned, charging the Carbine again to put more Churchies down "What happened to that super-strength you seemed to have on the fucking Citadel?"
"Are you serious?" the American yelled back; "Those shields are reinforced fucking titanium! If I can't shoot through, what the Hell makes you think-" A spray of pellets dug into his cover, and the top of his helmet got caught in the blast. The American's shields flared and he hit the ground with a metallic clatter. "Fuck! Just fucking use that Blaster and shoot them!"
Thomas obliged, but not because Stevens told him to. It was a simple matter of having to clear out the entrenched, yet mobile Templars. He charged a fresh burst and aimed at who he suspected was the leader; a Templar with a bright, white shield and the symbol of a twisting Marker emblazoned on it. Huh…he's gotta be the first I've met to call these things blasters… The Dane thought absently as his finger began to press against the trigger.
When he fired the shot, the leader seemed to have known he was being targeted. It wasn't all that hard to figure out, really, seeing as the heavy dust in the air made the ionizing laser quite visible. Even as the shot hit his shield, he'd angled it downwards, and some sort of shimmering film appeared in the split-second contact was made, before the sphere of plasma instead ricocheted into the floor.
"Oh fuck me…" so apparently, those shields could also reflect plasma. In hindsight, that was almost a given, seeing as the technology more or less came from the Church weapons found on the Ishimura. Thomas didn't even know if the DC-84 Anna had presented to Parliament was reverse-engineered from the DC-15 or the plasma-cutters they'd found there. "Okay, don't try to shoot the Markers."
"I kinda fucking noticed!" Tyler hollered back, prepping a concsuccive shot. At this point, it was looking to be the only thing in his arsenal that might put a dent in the enemy soldiers.
"What's the plan, Chief?" Hillary more or less demanded over the comms, her voice brimming with mounting uncertainty and frustration. She slung the Dragunov over her shoulder and yanked out the DC-15 instead, then leaned from cover and hosed an entire clip into the approaching shield-wall. Only two Templars fell, the rest having managed to activate the same kind of shielding as their leader; "Because that shield-thing's not really limited to their boss-man!"
"Can't you throw a fireball at 'em?" The operative yelled, copying Hillary's attack with his Phaeston. Slugs pinged and ricocheted back from the impenetrable surfaces, only a few managing to even crack the glass-slits. It was followed by his concussive shot a half-second later, which didn't failed to produce any more than had already been accomplished.
Thomas snarled, more at the Unitologists than at Stevens, and only because he wasn't the one who'd drugged him. "I can't!" He yelled back over the comms, unwilling to let the Templars listen in. Or maybe they already were, and it really didn't matter at all. "The drugs haven't worn off yet."
"Well fuck all kinds of Duck!" The operative was learning firsthand that the quality of his curses degraded when he was high on adenraline and under fire.
"I'm not really into that!" Hillary yelled back, sounding as if her reply was more adrenaline than anything else; "Guys, I might have an idea…Follow my lead"
I'm- shit! – I'm ears!" Stevens yelled back, wincing from where a spray of pellets caught him in the face. He only kept said face because the shields managed to absorb the damage before shattering. He didn't panic, however. Getting hit by Miranda and Val's combined biotic attacks had to have hurt more than any bullet would have, right?
"RUN AWAY!" Hillary screamed, very real-sounding fear in her voice. Thomas and Tyler only had half a second to process what was happening before she took off, sprinting back down the turning corridor. "We have to get the fuck out of here!"
"Thors' testicles!" it was the first swear that came to Thomas', even as he realized – he hoped – that this was what she had meant by a plan. Retreating wasn't going to get them where they needed to go, but…then again, neither would being dead.
Besides, Stevens had already taken off as well, running faster than Thomas could even hope to mirror without his powers.
Further down the hall, Tyler was sprinting as if his life depended on it. And given how many times that he had found himself in similar situations during his tenure at Cerberus -both at the hands of fellow training partners that took his education seriously, as well as true enemies like the Shadow Broker's Army- he had gotten rather good at it.
"I hope you have a damn good plan, Moreau!" He barked, not even breathing heavily due to exertion, as he caught up with the blonde-haired woman, not even caring to look back and see how Thomas was faring. He would have been lying if he said that he cared about Fisher's well being.
"Not really! But this is better than dying!" She hollered back at him. If she was phased by the fact that he had put an Olympic athlete to shame, in terms of endurance alone, than she didn't seem to show it.
Tyler's mind raced as he ran. His time in the Corp had taught him many things, beyond how to shoot a gun and deal with getting the piss beat out of you, anyways. They had taught him how to think fast and on his feet. How to not just survive, but thrive. Similarly, his squad-mates had promised him that he was 'ready' to handle any challenge the galaxy threw at him. He just needed to stay calm, and think about the arsenal of weapons and skills he had on hand…
And then Stevens remembered.
It was may have been half-baked at best, but they didn't have time for much else.
"Fuck!" He cursed, more at himself rather than Hillary, as he glanced down at his utility belt. Reaching down, even as he sprinted, the operative grinned as he found a satchel like box still attached to the side of his hip. It had survived the crash, but he hadn't thought twice of it when he had assessed his gear. "I've got -shit- enough explosive gel and brick on me to take these guys out, and then some maybe, if we use it right."
"Better than nothing!" Hillary replied with a grunt as she gripped her CAR, which was in the process of recharging. "Here!" She hollered a half-second later, more or less yanking him around the corner and into an adjoining corridor. Thankfully, it was abandoned. "Hurry up cockskull, we don't have all day!"
Stevens didn't even dignify that one with a response. Slinging his rifle over his shoulder, one hand went to the cannister on his belt. There was stamped, black lettering on the back, but he ignored it as he yanked the cap off and tossed it aside. He had used this stuff so many times in training that it had become like second nature to him. Boys and their toys, Miranda had jokingly said moments before he and Kraken had all but shaken the training floor of the station with a controlled blast.
As he moved further up the wall (while still in a crouch position, thanks to his long arms), applying the gun-metal gray gunk to the wall, Tyler was vaguely aware of Hillary pulling Thomas into cover, and her motioning towards his general direction in the universal 'hurry up' fashion. The operative ignored it, working as quickly as he could to apply the whole bottle. They were going to need it if they had any chance of surviving this. Fished with that, he unceremoniously slapped a brick of plastic explosive to the gel-covered wall. A grin creased his lips as it all hardened, signalling that it was now ready to be deployed.
When Stevens finally stood up from the impromptu job – and to his credit there was actually very little to see – Hillary simply legged it, not even bothering to signal for it or resume her screaming. Actually, this time she seemed to do it as quiet as possible. Beginning to understand her idea – he hoped, otherwise he had no clue at all what her plan was – Thomas followed, allowing Stevens to run past while he himself had the CAR aimed at the corridor.
Already he could see the shadows on the opposite wall, yet it seemed as if the Templars weren't even in a hurry. Why aren't they running after us? Why aren't they pursuing us with guns blazing? I don't get it, I don't get it! He mentally panicked as he moved, more silent on the tips of his toes, rather than the flat bottoms of his boots.
Still, the doubt didn't stop him from opening fire. At this angle, the plasma-bolt managed to strike its target in the side, killing the man before his shield had even been shifted around for the new course. Naturally, this was the only such luck Thomas had, as the rest all activated whatever made their shields impervious to the plasma, and he could only watch as it ricocheted off angles or simply dissipated when hitting the shield head-on.
They were more than ten meters from him, yet when the entirety of their arsenal unleashed on him, even distance stopped mattering to a shotgun. His shields were screaming, even as he launched himself into the nearest cover, only to find Stevens already there, holding a tiny cylinder with a red switch at the top. Hillary was next to him, peeking around the corner before clapping the American on the helmet.
"I see dead people..." The operative whispered under his breath, a grimly amused grin creasing his lips as he pressed down on the trigger.
AN: And here is the newest chapter of IIT for all y'all, hope you liked it; feel free to let me know in the review section. Also, if you didn't notice, I went back and updated chapter 2. Long ago, I thought first person was the best way to write...but I've changed a bit since then, lol. As a result, I've been rewriting quite a bit. Chapter 3's rewrite is about halfway done at the moment, but I can give you guys a timeline for when it will be done. So all I can say is...stay tuned!