From Hell To Hell

by mcknight93

Set around the beginning of Mass Effect 2 timeline, the Normandy SR-2 finds the Forward Unto Dawn. How will the Mass Effect universe change when the Master Chief is involved? All chapters have been rewritten and reposted with much improvements. The awesome picture rightfully belongs to: KnytGrey on deviantart.

7. Chapter 7

I FINALLY FINISHED THE CHAPTER!

I can believe that I am finally done with this chapter, it took so long to write and perfect. Sorry for the long wait, but I have been incredibly busy with school, getting ready for college stuff, video games and other stuff. So to make up for the really long wait, I wrote a really long chapter. The chapter is huge and the longest one I have ever written, it is over 27,000 words! That is a big deal for me since I spent a huge amount time working in this chapter.

IMPORTANT NOTICE! I have set up a voting poll on my profile on who should Commander Shepard be paired up with in this story. So if you have a certain lady that you want to see with Shepard, go and vote! I imagine some people's vote might change since Mass Effect 3 came out.

Now I have been receiving some messages and comments on who should Master Chief be paired up with? Well, don't worry I have a few plans for our favorite Spartan to get paired up. It will most likely be a love triangle. If you have any ideas or suggestions then feel free to tell me, so we can discuss it about happening or something.

This chapter wouldn't have been possible if it weren't from the brilliant minds of these brilliant authors: Freedom Guard, PhoenixFanatic999, Kaijudospartan, and Sysero of Cain. They have helped me through so much through my stories. They are great writers with a lot of talent.

Now in this chapter I have told a few parts from the POV from a few enemy characters. I was wanting to experiment to write from a bad guys point of view (which is kind of fun) and write what it the character thinks or act like when they face tough, important characters like Shepard, Master Chief or any other squad member aboard the Normandy. I hope you like it and I would appreciate some feedback on how I wrote the characters and how they acted and if you would want to see more parts told from the POV of some more bad guys. I probably won't write from the POV from enemy characters a lot in stories though.

I did change a minor thing about Kasumi's loyalty mission. Instead of going through of the garage and fighting Hock, I made it where Shepard, Chief, and Kasumi have to have a huge battle against Hock's troops, mechs, and a super tough Asari Commando, before they fight Hock. So the fight and the size of certain rooms are all that is really changed. I hope you can read them easily and I hope you also like it.

Mass Effect 3 has also been keeping me busy. The game is extremely awesome! Unfortunately I need to start over because I accidently lock-in in a relationship with someone I didn't want to be with on the game, that is a huge fault in the game. Now I have not beat the game yet, so don't spoil it for me! I am one of those people that takes the game at a slow pace, achieve everything, get everything, and have the perfect ending of the game. Going slow on a game really gets me into the game and makes it a lot more fun and emotional. So I don't want no spoilers. I have been hearing that the ending is really disappointing though. If the ending is really disappointing then I am sure that Bioware will change the ending through downloadable content like what happened on Fallout 3. It just may take awhile for it to happen though.

Disclaimer: I don't own Halo or Mass Effect. Halo belongs to Bungie or 343 Industries now, Mass Effect belongs to Bioware. Enjoy the chapter.

Chapter 7: Master Chief and Master Thief

Zakera Ward, Citadel

The Kodiak shuttle descended in the Zakera Ward of the Citadel. It dropped off Shepard and three of his squad mates. Accompanying Shepard was Garrus, Master Chief, and their newest recruit; Grunt. They came to the Citadel to recruit a master thief for the suicide mission, the only problem was that she was nowhere in sight. All the squad could see were humans, Turians, and other species walking around.

Grunt growled.

"Shepard, I don't see the thief anywhere."

"She is a thief, she probably doesn't want to be found," Garrus pointed out which made Grunt growl a little louder.

Though on the surface of the team that Shepard had brought what looked like a power house team that was suited for an all out war, he'd actually he brought them to help look for the master thief. The ex-Spectre knew the thief would not easily be found so he brought some of his best reconnaissance commandos.

Garrus was part of the team because he was an expert sniper and had a targeting visor to help spot their soon-to-be new recruit. Garrus was trained to spot targets and eliminate targets from afar, even ones that were in-hiding and heavily camouflaged.

The Master Chief had his own training to spot enemy troops that were hiding and in cover. The Spartan has his advance heads up display in his helmet, which allowed him to see far better than any normal human in every way and, as an all rounded soldier, was also trained to search for targets in a crowd.

And Grunt… well, Grunt was actually brought along to determine his reaction to crowds, open places and general public. If all went well, Shepard would trust him enough to bring him out on more excursions in the future. Shepard sent a discrete look to his right to see how the young tank born Krogan was faring.

Grunt would turn his head left and right, keeping to his objective of finding the master thief, but at the same time, glares were pointed at seemingly random people, or growls were sent in their direction. Shepard could tell that Grunt would much prefer to shoot someone rather than talk to them, but all Krogan were like that.

The Spartan must have been faring no better than Grunt, because though the Commander could not see through Chief's polarized visor, he could sense or guess that Chief was very uncomfortable in the crowd full of non-humans. After fighting in nearly a thirty-year war with a religious faction full of non-humans that killed men, women, and children ruthlessly, then one would expect the super-soldier to be a little xenophobic. Shepard could not blame him, as with all of the nasty encounters with the Batarians such as the Blitz, he himself kind of disliked most of the Batarian population.

Hopefully after a period of time and a talk, then maybe the Master Chief could feel a little more comfortable with a non-human. Though Shepard suspected that would take a while, even if Chief made a conscious effort to get over his alien socialisation problem. Scars like his couldn't be mended in just a few days.

Shepard looked around more until he saw something out of the ordinary. The Commander spotted an advertising terminal, but it had a hooded Asian female's face on it. The terminal then spoke.

"Commander Shepard, enter the password and receive a free gift!"

Shepard and company walk up to the terminal to speak to it. Unbeknownst to them that a feminine figure in skin tight black and white clothes with a hood appeared out of thin air, above Shepard on a railing. She also had a pink/purple lipstick mark on her lower lip. She pulled up her Omni-tool, tapping several buttons to trigger the next phase of the programming.

Back with Shepard and his team. Garrus was a little nervous, after the last time he talked to a woman on a terminal he wound up being thrashed by a formerly frozen super-soldier.

"Watch what you say, Shepard. I don't wanna be jumped again by another war machine, I am still sore from the last time." Garrus then looked at Master Chief, who glanced back at the Turian blankly. "No offense."

The Spartan just shrugged his shoulders, while Grunt chuckled as he understood what Garrus was talking about.

"I wish I was there to see that." Grunt said with another chuckle.

Shepard shook his head and focused at the situation in front of him.

"Please tell me your password, Commander Shepard." The terminal said.

Shepard thought about it, but then remembered the password given to him by the Illusive Man on the email.

"Silence is Golden." He said in a monotone voice.

"Good to finally meet you, Commander Shepard. Kasumi Goto, I'm a fan." The terminal introduced itself with more enthusiasm.

"Has Cerberus filled you in on the mission?" The Commander asked wanting it to be clear to Kasumi to know what she was signing up for.

"Honestly, I'm surprised they didn't come to me sooner. My fault for being hard to find I guess."

While Shepard was talking with Kasumi through the terminal, Cortana made her own little discovery.

"Chief, look up sixty degrees at three o'clock. I think we found our thief." murmured Cortana in the enclosed environment of the MJOLNIR helmet.

John obeyed and looked up to see the face on the terminal on the railing above them. The thief must have felt his eyes on her, because she looked away from her Omni-tool and looked at him. Kasumi smirked and gave the super-soldier a wave. The Spartan doesn't respond to the wave, but merely stared at her.

"I wonder how she got up there?" Cortana said in John's helmet.

She hadn't noticed anything that would allow easy access to the railing.

"Commander." Chief alerted Shepard with his gravelly voice.

Shepard looked at the Spartan and then followed his line of gaze. The ex-Spectre spotted the thief known as Kasumi Goto. Kasumi then pointed at the terminal with her finger, gesturing to look at the terminal. Shepard reluctantly turned at the terminal once more.

"Sorry Commander, but I need you to look at the terminal. I don't want the civilians to see me." Kasumi said through the terminal.

Kasumi then looked at the Spartan. Miss Goto was struck speechless as she had never seen this man in armor before, and the guy was huge...about the height of a Krogan... if he was even a human. Or was it a human formed mech? She wondered just who was this guy.

And flanking Shepard was a Turian with some cybernetic implants on a side of his face, and a targeting visor over his right eye. The famous Garrus Vakarian, no doubt. The other was a rarely seen type of Krogan (the rest sounded messy, so I took it out), young and in very advanced and clean armor by Krogan standards.

"This will be interesting." Humming to herself, the woman keyed her omnitool to activate the next part of the terminal's programming.

"So big boy, I would appreciate it if you would stop staring at me unless you wanna come up here and give me a kiss," Kasumi teased the Spartan with a playful smirk.

John-117 did not want to compromise the recruiting mission by simply infuriating the thief, so he turned to look at the terminal once more.

"Thank you," the woman said

Shepard then started to question the thief, so he could get as much info as possible.

"What's with the password and the sneaking around? Are you in trouble or something?" The ex-Spectre asked.

"I'm the best thief in the business, not the most famous. Need to watch my step to keep it that way. I also needed to make sure this was all legit. And I have no doubts now – you're the real Commander Shepard," Kasumi said, as the terminal's image would flicker a little.

"What brought you to Cerberus?" Shepard asked the common question to most of his newest recruits.

"That's a bit of a story. Short version, they were looking for me, so I trailed them to find out why. Turns out they were looking for someone to join you on an important mission… and were offering a serious signing bonus. I had a thing I needed help with, so we made a deal. And here we are," Kasumi informed Shepard.

"I assume this deal is something I should know about." Shepard said as he was in the dark on the so called 'deal'. He was a little mad that the Illusive Man hadn't fill him in, but was not that surprised as the Illusive Man was not very trusting.

"Yeah, I guess it slipped their minds. I'm looking for my old partner's graybox. A man named Donovan Hock took it, and I'm planning to get it back."

"What's this heist you are planning?"

"Not here, Shepard. You'll get a briefing when the time comes, but I'll nail down the details, anyway. I've taken the liberty of getting you some evening wear, though. You'll want to look presentable."

"Tell me about this partner of yours."

"His name was Keiji Okuda. The best hacker and entryman I've ever known. Unfortunately, he slipped up and made himself infamous. He stole something he shouldn't. He warned me it was bad, something that could spark interstellar war if it got out. That information… got him killed."

"What could he have found that's so bad?"

"He wouldn't say what it was, just that it was dangerous. He said if it got out, humanity would be in trouble. He encrypted it, wrapped it up in his own memories. To decode the information, you have to sift through all the times we spent together. Now those memories are all that is left of him."

"I can understand why you'd want to get it back." Shepard said, as he now knew that not only was it a mission that could ignite a possible war, but also a personal mission.

"Getting it back will be easier with your help, Shepard." Kasumi said back.

"I assume a graybox is some sort of hardware." Shepard guessed, not knowing what a graybox actually was.

"It's a neural implant, illegal most places. Stores memories, thoughts… secret codes, illicit information. This one in particular belonged to my partner, Keiji Okuda. We worked together for a long time, before Hock killed him." Kasumi said with sadness in her voice.

"What do you know about Donovan Hock?"

"Mr. Hock is a well respected 'business man." Kasumi said with disdain. "Arms dealer, murderer, generally not a great guy. His mansion's famous for being hard to crack. But I have a way in, and I think you're going to love it."

"I doubt Hock is the kind of guy who takes kindly to people sneaking into his house." The former Spectre pointed out.

"I always expect trouble. That is why you're here."

"So she is basically always prepared. That is a good feature, she can come in very handy." Shepard thought to himself. "If that is what Cerberus promised you, we will get it done."

"It will be fun. And if we're lucky, you won't even have to draw your gun," Kasumi said, trying to be reassuring, though she had her doubts.

She would love to get revenge against Hock, for what he done to Keiji. Kasumi turned and disabled the advertising terminal. Shepard, Garrus, Grunt, and Master Chief turn back to the real Kasumi Goto above them on the railing.

"We should probably wrap this up. You look pretty silly standing there talking to an advertisement." Kasumi said as she looked at the group consisting of a human ex-Spectre in N-7 armor, a Turian with half a cybernetic mouth and a visor on one eye, a young Krogan with blue eyes, and a giant dark green armored human with a gold reflecting visor and mean looking weapons.

"Good, meet me back on the Normandy." With that said, Shepard and the Normandy commandos start to walk back to the shuttle, though the Spartan turned to look back at the master thief. He did not fully trust a thief when he turned his back to her.

Kasumi smiled and gave the Master Chief a wink,

"See you on the ship big guy."

For a normal human, it would be hard to see the wink under the darkness of Kasumi's hood, but with the augmentation's Chief has received and his visor, it was no problem.

She turned around and activated her tactical cloak, to meet the Commander at the 'Normandy' undetected by authority figures or civilians.

"She is a weird one, Chief." Cortana said inside John's helmet.

Back on the Normandy SR-2

Commander Shepard and Cerberus Operative Jacob Taylor were waiting in the Comm./Briefing room to debrief their newest recruit Kasumi Goto. Little did they know that the thief would be debriefing them on her own personal mission.

Garrus Vakarian and Grunt were returning to their posts or rooms as they would call it, and the Master Chief was just doing the same until Miranda Lawson stopped him before he entered the elevator.

"Chief, I believe I could use your help with something." Miranda mentioned, with her hands on her hips in front of the UNSC super-soldier.

The Spartan merely looks at her, but Miranda knew that he was listening.

"I don't fully trust having a master thief on board an important Cerberus vessel like this. I would like for you to watch her as we are debriefing her in the comm. room. I don't want her stealing anything that belongs to Cerberus, and I believe you wouldn't want her stealing any of your equipment either."

John thought about it, but his thoughts were quickly interrupted by Cortana.

"You might want to do it, Chief. She is right, we have our own equipment that is very valuable, and showing the thief how intimidating you can be will teach her to not to mess with our stuff. Besides do you truly have anything that needs to be done, other than rotting in that room?" Cortana pointed out inside John's helmet.

Cortana was right; he had nothing to do except assembling and dissembling weapons, which he had already done, several times. Luckily when playing security, nobody usually talked to a Spartan but really no one really talked to a Spartan in general. Ironically there was an opposite effect in this universe as quite a few people have tried to speak with him, and few have had gotten a decent conversation with him like Miranda. Miranda Lawson seemed to be the closest thing to a friend that Master Chief actually had in this universe besides Cortana.

"Alright," Chief finally agreed.

Miranda smiled,

"Thanks John."

The Cerberus operative led the Spartan to the Comm/Briefing room. Miranda actually surprised herself back there. She thanked Chief and used his name, something she usually didn't do. She pondered it for a second, but quickly shrugged it off as she had to focus on the event ahead. She would think about it later though as she knew that keeping an eye on Kasumi would be helpful and hopefully the presence of the Spartan would give the thief a good enough warning not to try anything foolish. She was aware that Kasumi had taken Cerberus data in the past and while she had nothing against Kasumi personally, she was not going to let her get the idea that she was going to be allowed to roam around and do who knows what on this ship.

As soon as the two of them entered the Briefing Room, Master Chief and Cortana spotted Kasumi, and John quickly studied the woman. There were all the trademarks of a thief on her, the clothing, while more than enough to turn heads, had the hues needed for urban stealth operations. There was also no doubt in his mind or Cortana's that Kasumi Goto was trained along the lines of not just a thief, but also as an assassin if needed...almost like a ninja, or an ONI field agent. The build also suggested that as she was not too tall, but had the body of an athlete.

He placed that aside as Shepard, Jacob, and Kasumi turned to face both him and Miranda. Shepard was surprised to see John there along with Miranda, Jacob raised his eyebrow a bit as while he was used to seeing Miranda come in when in a briefing was starting, this was the first time she came in with someone by her side.

As for Kasumi, she was awestruck as the green armored man she had seen at the Citadel was a little more threatening looking when he was right in front of you. She wondered just who was this guy with the woman, who apparently was Shepard's second in command.

Shepard then spoke to Miranda.

"Mind if I ask what are you and the Chief doing here, Miranda?"

Miranda decided to be truthful as she knew that lying was not going to help, when dealing with a thief who might be an ally, and a dangerous one. One had to make sure some boundaries were set to make sure that things were clear.

"I asked the Chief to help me keep an eye on our newest member of the team, just to make sure that her profession does not become a problem."

Miranda then turned to Kasumi and replied.

"It's nothing personal Miss Goto, but while your talents for information gathering, resource acquisition, sabotage, infiltration, stealth, and your brand of combat are welcome additions to the mission, you are still a thief. And I would like you to know that while you're here on the Normandy, you can't go around the ship and possibly...acquire...anything that strikes your fancy. This is a warship on a mission despite it not being in the military. And the last thing we need is personal items going missing for one reason or another, which could cause unnecessary friction and could make this mission a lot harder than it has to be. I respect your talents and what you can do, but you have stolen Cerberus data and resources more than once in your career and I would like that to end."

She then gestured to John.

"The Master Chief here agreed to my suggestion and he has his own reasons for keeping a close eye on you, which is why he is here to help me keep survelliance on you."

John then decided to speak next, prodded by Cortana.

"Operative Lawson is correct Miss Goto. While I have not met you personally, your resume as a thief is a cause for concern for me as well, so I will be here to keep an eye on you until then. Do nothing that can be considered a danger, then we have nothing to worry about...do the opposite however, and I think you can guess my reaction would be...less than friendly."

Kasumi smirked,

"All right; I will behave," the thief said in a teasing tone.

"Good," Miranda placed her hands on her hip. "But we will still be watching you."

"Fine,"

Kasumi looked at the Spartan then at Miss Lawson then back at Chief. The master thief had a hypothesis about the Cerberus Officer and she wanted to see if her educated guess would work. She eyed the green armored soldier with a sly smile.

"I guess that won't be so bad," she said in a flirty tone.

Miranda Lawson frowned and had her arms folded across her chest in an angry fashion.

"If you wouldn't mind Miss Goto, I would like for you to TRY to be a little serious. We would like to get your little errand done and over with so we can get back to the real mission." Miranda said. The Cerberus Operative tried to say her words in a calm manner, but she could not help to talk in a mad voice. She wasn't very sure why was angry.

"Interesting," Kasumi thought.

The thief went back to explaining her mission on retrieving her old partner's graybox from Donovan Hock at his mansion.

"The mission will require two parts," Kasumi explained, bringing up a detailed map of Hock's mansion on the holo projector as she spoke. "The first part of the mission will have the Commander to serve as our ticket into the party that Hock will be throwing tomorrow at his own private mansion."

"And how will I be doing that Miss Goto? I thought you said I might not even need my guns. Traditionally, my insertions are on the more… expressive side," Shepard frowned.

Kasumi failed to hide her smile behind her hood,

"Hence why I took the liberty of obtaining you formal evening wear Commander. I've managed to intrigue the interest of Hock with an invented man by the name of 'Solomon Gunn', whom you will be filling the role of at this party."

"This is a solo drop?" Jacob piped up, confusion and dislike evident upon his face.

Kasumi glanced at the stoic man, who merely glared back at her, with his arms across his chest, impatient for a reply. Miranda couldn't help, but smirk slightly. Apparently she wasn't the only one to harbor a dislike of having a thief onboard.

"No, I'll be attending as well, using some of my own personal talents to remain unnoticed," Kasumi explained patiently, though a hint of frustration at being interrupted was evident in her voice.

Shepard spared a brief glance at Jacob. Visibly chastised, Jacob dropped his confrontational pose, but his eyes remained hard.

Miranda was not as easily persuaded.

"What abilities do you have that we do not? Why can only you go along?" She asked, her face neutral.

Chief looked at Miranda and Shepard grinned to himself, as both were fully aware that Miranda simply didn't enjoy being told she was incapable of doing... well, anything.

"Unless any you can make yourself invisible, or have an extra invitation to this event, I doubt you'll get in unnoticed. Last time I checked, none of your Cerberus dossiers contained mention of any such abilities, nor an invitation," Kasumi replied innocently, a small smile and a twinkle in her eyes evident as Miranda growled at her reply.

"And how exactly did you get access to Cerberus dossiers? We hadn't granted you access to our network!" Miranda spat out, anger easily seen upon her face. Cerberus security was her domain, and she'd be damned if she let this woman ruin the reputation of Cerberus while she was on duty.

The Asian thief merely raised an eyebrow at her, the smile on her face staying in place. The twinkle in her eyes vanished though, replaced with a harder and more calculating look.

"I'm a thief, Miss Lawson. I believe how I had access should be rather self-explanatory. I just wanted to see if Cerberus was hiding anything from me on this mission or if they were able to help me steal from Hock. There was no way I was signing up on this joyride without knowing what I was getting into," Kasumi explained frostily. "I should also mention that your own personal files were quite an interesting read."

Miranda growled again and began to stalk towards the hooded thief, but Chief put his hand on her shoulder, which surprisingly stopped the raging Cerberus Operative.

"Miranda,"

She glared at the Spartan, her hands clenching into fists with anger at his intervention. They shared eye contact for a few moments, before Miranda sagged with defeat.

"Fine, John," Miranda sighed and glares back at Kasumi.

"This isn't over Miss Goto," she warned the thief, as she slowly returned to her original position of leaning on the railing.

Chief acknowledged her with a small nod of his head, before returning his attention to Kasumi, whose small smile had evolved into a much larger grin.

Shepard was surprised to see that the Spartan was able to stop a raging Miranda Lawson. Very few were able to accomplish such a task like himself and the Illusive Man. He actually thought he was going to have to stop her by himself and if he was able to cool her down, he knew Miranda would find a way to make it 'bite him in the butt' in the end. So, as a way of saying thanks, Shepard nodded his head at Chief and he recieved a nod back.

"Anyways, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, short of you having the capability to go unnoticed. It's just going to be Shepard and I on this mission," Kasumi explained, though in a much more gentle tone this time around.

The Master Chief was of two minds on this. On one hand, he could in fact use the active camouflage equipment he had brought from the 'Forward Unto Dawn' to remain invisible for a solid period of time, especially if he moved slowly. On the other hand, he did not want to fully disclose all of his suit's abilities, unless the mission was at stake. Cortana had different ideas.

"Chief, I think you should speak up," Cortana told him. The Chief merely waited in silence, waiting for her reasoning. "I don't trust this thief yet either, and the mission we are on requires Commander Shepard in the long run. If we lose him now, the mission is essentially lost."

Chief remained silent, as he played through several scenarios in his own mind. He wasn't exactly against the premise, but was still hesitant. He had brought an active camo with him to recruit the thief incase he had trouble meeting the her. He also brought a Plasma Pistol to stun and wound the master thief, in case she decided to be unfriendly.

"Plus, I believe Miss Lawson will be quite appreciative of any assistance you could offer," Cortana informed him, mirth dancing in her tone.

The Chief merely let out a long sigh, but let the joke slide for now.

"I can assist on this mission," he spoke, causing several people in the room to jump slightly.

Miranda was the first to confront him.

"I don't believe I remember you informing me of any such ability, Chief," Miranda stated, with a particular emphasis on his rank.

The huge Spartan merely stared at her, the silence in the room becoming quite awkward.

"You didn't ask."

Miranda threw her hands up in frustration, but decided to let it go. This briefing was becoming rather exhausting for her.

Shepard gave the Chief a questioning glance, but decided to trust the armored behemoth. He hadn't exactly betrayed his trust in any way so far. Jacob merely wore a look of appreciation for the MJOLNIR Armor.

"Prove it," Kasumi requested, her face blank of any emotion.

Before anyone could blink, the Chief was gone, the space he occupied previously simply empty. The room's occupants examined the space around them. He had to be there, as the door to the room remained closed. Kasumi was quite impressed, but kept her focus on trying to find the armored man by looking around quickly. It wasn't until she felt the cold steel of the barrel of a gun pressed against the back of her neck that she froze.

"Good enough?" An emotionless voice from behind her asked.

Kasumi couldn't help but smile as she turned around to face the giant man.

He pulled away his pistol, and clasped it back to the magnetic holding on his thigh.

"I think you and I are going to get along just great," Kasumi laughed, imagining the heists she could pull with another individual with her capabilities for invisibility.

"It's John, right?" She asked with a flirty smile.

The Chief nodded firmly before returning to his old position.

Kasumi couldn't help but admire his silent grace, especially for a man so large wearing so much armor. She was especially pleased to see a flushed Miranda Lawson once again.

Shepard cleared his throat, drawing everyone's attention back to him.

"With that out of the way, can we get back to business?"

Bekenstein planet in the Boltzmann system of the Serpent Nebula Cluster, the Kodiak shuttle heading to Donovan Hock's mansion/party

The Normandy's Kodiak shuttle flew over a vast beautiful ocean that captured a reflection of the sundown. The shuttle held three occupants; the former-Spectre Commander Shepard, the Master Thief Kasumi Goto, and the Spartan super-soldier Master Chief John-117. The three of them were heading to a party hosted by Donovan Hock, a weapons dealer and smuggler. The trio was to act as simple party guests but that was not the intended plan. The real plan was to sneak through the party and steal back what once belong to someone close to Kasumi - a graybox.

Inside the shuttle the squad was going over the plan of the heist. Originally the plan was to only have Shepard and Kasumi to attend but the Spartan had another trick up his gauntlet: he had his own camouflage.

Kasumi was sliding through images of the inside of Hock's mansion. The images were more than likely given to them by Cerberus as it was part of the agreement for the Master Thief's services. Kasumi looked over to a well dressed Commander Shepard.

"You clean up well, Mr. Solomon Gunn." Kasumi used Shepard's temporary identity to help him get used to the name. Kasumi then turned to look at the Spartan.

"I can't say the same for our green armored friend here." she said with a smile as she looked at Chief who was wearing his MJOLNIR Mark VI armor.

Master Chief was standing up rather than sitting down since he wanted to get a good look at the mansion ahead and maybe see if there are any interesting openings. He did not respond or even look at Kasumi but stared at the huge home of Donovan Hock. Since this was a stealth mission, John decided to go with more silent Covenant weapons though he did miss his UNSC weapons greatly. Chief was sporting a Covenant Beam Rifle on his back, a Plasma Rifle on his hip, an Energy Sword on his other hip, and a Needle Rifle. For equipment Chief brought the active camo as it was essential for the mission. Instead of grenades the Spartan brought extra active camouflages since the grenades would cause quite a racket and would surely cost them the mission.

"I thought I said to wear something formal?" Kasumi asked.

Chief did not say anything back to the questioning thief like the silent super-soldier he was. The question and the mission greatly reminded him of the award ceremony on Cairo Station above Earth. Sergeant Avery Johnson said something very similar to what Kasumi said, and the words made him recall the ceremony on Cairo station. John-117 received his MJOLNIR Mark VI armor in the Cairo armory prior to attending an awards ceremony in the station's command center. The ceremony was interrupted by the Battle of Earth when thirteen Covenant CCS-class Battlecruisers and two Assault Carriers attacked Earth. They'd tried to break through the Cairo's battle cluster by sending boarding craft to plant bombs on the stations to destroy them. Fleet Admiral Hood had commanded the UNSC forces from the station during the attack. Unlike the Athens and the Malta, Cairo had survived the Covenant attempt to detonate a Covenant Bomb on board. In an ironic twist, the bomb was located and used by Master Chief to blow up a Covenant Assault Carrier. This was during the Covenant invading Earth, but before killing Regret, before leaving Cortana on the Flood infected High Charity, before the Ark, before fighting side by side with his former enemy the Arbiter, before the death of Sergeant Avery Johnson and Miranda Keyes, ... before he left his universe.

"Well, I hear dressing like a tank is in nowadays. You can just pose as a bodyguard." Kasumi said as she then turned and faced the images of the mansion before her.

Chief was brought out of his thoughts, though he showed no sign of flinching or anything. He looked at the images that were of Hock's mansion to get a good understanding of the layout.

"Never the less, Hock won't know what hit him right, Mr. Solomon Gunn?" Kasumi said and then looked at Shepard.

Shepard looked back at her,

"I assume Solomon Gunn is my cover."

"You run a small but talented band of mercs in the Terminus Systems. Precisely the type of person Hock respects." Kasumi's hand touched a holographic file in front of her, and then holographic files popped up in front of Shepard. Each file contained information on Shepard's temporary identity. The ex-Spectre skimmed across the information to get a good run down on his alias.

"I took the liberty of giving you a reputation. Papers, witnesses, article in Badass Weekly. Just don't' start talking business with him and you'll be fine." Kasumi finished.

"She sure does come prepared. I am beginning to like her, Chief." Cortana said inside the Master Chief's helmet.

"Where did you find the suit?" Shepard asked.

"I have my ways. You look great! You should wear that stuff more often." Kasumi complemented which brought a small blush on Shepard's face.

"Do you have a plan ma'am?" John-117 was curious to know what the thief had in mind. She seemed quite clever as she was able to break into vaults, come up with authentic looking identities, and still had not been caught yet.

"You two have been waiting patiently." Kasumi touched another image in front of her that was of the main floor of Hock's mansion.

"Our friend Hock is throwing a party for his closest friends. A couple dozen of the worst liars, cheaters, and mass murders you'll ever want to meet, all bringing gifts as a tribute to the man himself."

Kasumi then scrolled the images that go to a picture of a golden statue that looked like an all too familiar Turian ex-Spectre.

"Our tribute is a lovely statue of your old friend Saren, rendered with loving detail and filled to the brim with our weapons and armor, excluding the Chief of course. You can keep your pistol, as long it's concealed. They won't hassle over your sidearm, but I am not sure about your bodyguard." Kasumi looks over to the Spartan. "I guess we will figure that out along the way," Kasumi then looked back at the images in front of her. "Once inside, we'll make our way to Hock's vault door, somewhere in the ballroom. Then we case the security and start peeling away the layers. The statue should be there, waiting for you to crack it open and arm up. Then we just waltz into the vault and take back Keiji's graybox. And I will finally get a chance to say goodbye."

A thought then hit Shepard. This Keiji must have had strong romantic feelings for Kasumi.

"You've worked really hard on this; Keiji must have meant a lot to you."

"Was I that obvious?" Kasumi asked, showing no sign of hurt or remorse.

"Keiji's graybox holds a lot of priceless, precious memories. It's all that remains of who he was. But the secret he discovered is dangerous. I wouldn't bring the both of you if it wasn't."

"What's in this graybox? The Spartan spoke up. John was fascinated by this graybox device. The ability to hold so much information and memories is something to be treasured. It could be an effective way of training new Spartans and look back at precious times. He definitely could have used it when he had to explain who he was to Shepard and Miranda.

"The graybox holds Keiji's memories. Everything from all of the codes and plans he stole to… all the time we spent together. Wrapped up in those memories is the secret he stole. Keiji never told me what it was, but the information got him killed." Kasumi explained.

"This should be interesting." Shepard pointed out.

"That's what I'm going for." Kasumi replied.

The Kodiak shuttle slowly descended to the landing port/entrance of Hock's mansion. The shuttle door opened up and the occupants inside got out, Solomon Gunn (Shepard), escort Kasumi, and bodyguard Master Chief.

"This is our stop." Kasumi said as all of them walked up to the entrance of Hock's home.

All three of them looked to the left to see an Eclipse guard in green armor, unloading the golden statue of Saren. Normally nobody would have liked a statue of a pariah like Saren, but going to a murder like Hock... it will fit in well with his collection of art.

John-117 has done his research on this 'Saren' character. Spectre that went rogue, tried to rally the Geth to take over the Citadel and kill the Council - or so said the Codex.

Miranda Lawson eventually explained the whole truth of the Saren conspiracy and the Sovereign plot. Chief could not help but to think that Saren was like the Sangheili in appearance and history; powerful and a skilled warrior, persuasive and good at rallying people, but also deceived in a plot to wipe out everything. Chief felt some pity for the deceased Turian Spectre but if'd he seen him in person, he would have killed Saren without hesitation. After all he'd been a huge threat to the galaxy.

"After you boys," Kasumi spoke.

The trio began to walk up the stairs to Hock's party but they were stopped by one of Hock's guard who was scanning the Saren statue.

"Just one moment, sir. There seems to be an issue with the statue."

"If they found out about the statue, then we will have to go in the party guns blazing. This mission might be disastrous." Shepard thought as his hand reached for the concealed pistol. Kasumi leaned against Shepard to act as an escort but also to hide Shepard's hand so the guards didn't see him reaching for his weapon.

"Is there a problem here?" A Caucasian man with a brown top shaved hairstyle, dressed in a pure white coat like suit speaking with an Afrikaans accent, walked down the stairs.

"No, Mr. Hock. Just doing a scan." The Eclipse guard replied as he scanned the statue once more with his Omni-tool.

The man known as Mr. Hock turned his head to the three guests.

"I don't believe we met. Donovan Hock." Hock introduced himself.

Shepard relaxed a little bit. He then tapped Kausmi on the side with his hidden hand, to let her know that she could stop leaning on him to conceal his sidearm.

"I've heard a lot about you. Name's Solomon Gunn," Shepard held his hand out for a handshake, though Hock did not shake the former Spectre's hand.

"And I have heard a lot about you. You've been very busy lately, if the extranet is to be believed."

The Eclipse guard called to his boss Hock.

"Sir, the scanners aren't picking up anything." The guard said as he tried to figure out the strange gift.

Hock walked up to the statue with his hands behind his back and studied the statue. He then reached a conclusion.

"I don't think our guests would come all the way here, from Illium just to cause trouble. Do you?" Hock questioned the Eclipse guard with a rhetorical question, though the guard was scratching his head to show his nervousness.

Hock shook his head at his guard's foolishness and looked back at Gunn and his crew. Hock studied the three person group in front of him. Solomon Gunn looked perfectly normal for the party as he was well groomed and dressed in a nice, expensive black suit.

The other two, however, were not quite the same. One was rather tall, easily as big as a Krogan. Hock couldn't figure out the hulking figure was since it was covered in strange bulky dark green armor. The golden visor didn't even give the slightest hint of any facial features under the helmet as it only showed Hock's reflection. And the weapons on the stranger were just as mysterious as it was. Donovan Hock could only guess that it was some sort of bodyguard for Gunn.

The other female companion was just as unknown as the bodyguard. She was dressed in skin tight black clothes like any consort or escort would dress as at a party except there was a hood that covered the top part of her face. The woman clung to 's arm, which hinted that she was a consort or escort, but she still gave off a shady vibe. The sly grin on the woman's face did not help Hock's thoughts of her. A thought then crossed Hock's mind on who this woman really was, but he would keep it to himself.

"You may pass through, Mr. Gunn with my apologies. But I will ask your companions to remain outside. You understand, I hope."

"Care to explain why my companions have to stay outside?" Shepard asked.

"I don't like the looks of your friends. I know you are well known for your deadly mercenaries, but having them inside the party will make the other party guests nervous." Hock stated as he eyed the other two strange companions of Mr. Gunn (Shepard).

Though this was an inconvenience, Shepard knew that Chief and Kasumi had other means of getting into the social gathering.

"No problem. You're the host."

"Enjoy the party." Hock then turned and left to join in on the celebration.

Shepard looked back to the Spartan and the thief. Both of them nodded their heads and walked off out of sight to activate their camouflages. Shepard then ascended up the stairs to attend Hock's party.

Inside Hock's mansion

Solomon Gun, a.k.a Commander Shepard, walked through the doors and observed the party. It seemed like a fairly casual affair, though everything from the elaborate evening wear worn by the guests to the prim tinkling of a piano in the background for ambiance dripped with the type of arrogant decadence that only the rich seemed to possess. As he wound his way through the crowd languidly, he let his attention drift between the swarms of easy conversation, most of it about suitably vile subjects ranging from murder to outright corruption of the political system - exactly what he would expect from a crowd as disreputable as this. Some even spoke of the rumours that the 'great Commander Shepard' had been resurrected from death and how the mysterious Archangel had all but ground their operations to a halt on Omega. Those made Shepard grin.

Hock had quite a nice home, a big home. There was bookshelves and stacked together like seen in libraries or archives lined along either side of the entrance. Ahead of the books were two sets of curved stairs that lead to the upper floor that held sculpture, art, and more books. In the middle of the room on the main floor, there was a fountain with a statue that looked like a globe of some sort. After all that there was a deck that had a beautiful view of a city, and a view of Hock's large bedroom.

Unbeknownst to Shepard, two blurred objects walk past him. One was thin and small the other was tall and bulky.

"We need to find the door and case the security. We'll figure out the next step then," Kasumi said over the radio attached to Shepard.

After a few minutes of walking through Hock's party, Shepard found a set of stairs that were behind the fountain. The stairs went down and led to an empty hallway and after that was another set of stairs that led back to the party.

"Commander, I am reading high energy levels on your position." the Spartan radio-ed.

"The vault should be down there. We will meet you there." Kasumi added.

Shepard casually walked down the stairs and stopped in the middle of the hall. Master Chief and Kasumi de-cloaked before the ex-Spectre. The wall that they were standing by dissolves, as it was a hologram that hid Hock's supposedly impenetrable vault. The trio examined the vault that was encased in an orange barrier, with all sorts of gadgets and locks by it.

"Hmm, very nice. There's more here than I expected." Kasumi walked up to the vault while studying it, with Chief and Shepard not far behind.

Shepard walked up to the golden statue that contained his weapons and armor. The Commander gave the statue a nasty glare as he reminisced about all of the trouble that the Spectre Turian has caused him and his old Normandy crew. After all of the anger, Shepard still pitied him. During the final confrontation between Shepard and Saren on the Citadel, Saren had shot himself in the head to end Sovereign's control over him. The Commander tore his eyes away from the statute and looked at the vault.

"Password protected voice lock, Kinetic barrier. DNA scanner—looks like an EX-700 series. Everything a vault needs to be impenetrable." Kasumi raised her hand up to her mouth in a thinking position.

"Is this going to be a problem?" The former Spectre asked, not wanting to abort the mission since the vault was truly impenetrable. All of the planning, and paper work for nothing.

Chief was thinking to himself about the vault door. He had a few thoughts on how he could get the door open but all had deep consequences. He could have Cortana to disable the security systems and unlock the vault door. Without a doubt, Cortana could accomplish all of this but performing such a big feat, may expose her to Shepard and Kasumi. The other thought was that he could activate his Energy Sword and cut through the door, but that would most likely set off the alarms, comprising their mission. So, Chief decided he would keep quiet and follow along with Kasumi's plan of opening the vault her way.

"Please. Remember who you are talking to." Kasumi turned around to face her other two male companions. "We'll need to get a voice sample for the voice lock. Shepard, you'll have to go chat up Hock for that. We'll have to find a password, too. DNA? Child's play. We should find plenty of DNA samples in Hock's private quarters. And the barrier? Cut the power. Never fails… if we can find it. Keiji could get through a system like this in his sleep. And I'm better. Let's do this."

Kasumi and Chief used their camouflage technology once more and walk out of the room, along with Shepard. Before they stepped out of the hallway, Kasumi noticed a power cable sticking out of the floor by a wall.

The thief walked up to the cable and examined it,

"It looks like the barrier's power cable runs under the floor here." she thought to herself. She then set her Omni-tool to scan for the electromagnetic fields.

It was there, that Kasumi contacted both Chief and Shepard on the radio.

"Guys, I will take care of the kinetic barrier. I think I found where the power is."

Kasumi followed the trail of the electromagnetic fields that took her across the party and into the right side of the main floor by some bookshelves, a mini-statue and strangely a lit fireplace. Kasumi saw that the trail stopped at the statue. She then had the thought that this had happened to on her another job before.

The thief pulled the statue down and the fireplace receded into the wall and was replaced by an angular, box-shaped generator. It was the power to the barrier to the vault. She cuts the power with an simple Overcharge. The electromagnetic field trail then disappeared from her Omni-tool.

"The power has been cut. The barrier should be down." Kasumi said over the radio.

"Good job. I am about to talk with Hock." Shepard replied.

"Great. All you need to do is keep him talking long enough for me to get a voiceprint. Pull out the charm on this one, Shep."

Shepard walked up to Hock, who was with a few party members already. Meanwhile, Kasumi secretly de-cloaked behind a shelf of books, away from party guests, and recalibrated her Omni-tool to get the voiceprint.

"After you," Kasumi gestured.

Hock noticed Gunn's presence and turned to face him.

"Mr. Gunn. I hope you're having a good time." Hock shook Mr. Gunn's hand. "That scene at the door hasn't soured our evening, I hope."

"I understand the security, but who would dare to break into Donovan Hock's home?"

"Gunn, in our line of work, we attract a certain element. Few understand the pains we take to keep the barbarians at bay. People these days want comfort, entertainment, love. They don't see that the galaxy is fragile." People started to notice what Hock was saying, though it switched to sound more like a speech. "They only have to worry about simple luxuries. Why? Because people like me—and you—are doing the terrible things that keep the galaxy spinning."

More and more party guests were watching and listening to Hock. Unknown to Hock each word he said, only helped Kasumi with her master plan.

"This party is for us. The cleaners. The support structure for the galaxy's delusions of peace. May there always be a market for the things we do!" Hock held his hands out for a big finish for his speech.

Party guest began to clap and cheer at Hock for his words that related to them all to well.

"I said get him talking and you got him talking. We got enough for a voice sample. Let him go," Kasumi said as she put away her Omni-tool and cloaked again.

"Enjoy the party, Mr. Gunn." Hock then turned back to address other party guest.

Shepard smirked at his handiwork, but then her the Asian thief over the radio.

"Once we get the password, we can get past the voice scanner." Kasumi said.

While Kasumi and Shepard were inside the mansion, John-117 was out on the deck using his own active camo. Chief was on the deck, to see if there was anything interesting. There wasn't much that there, just a few party guests and a view of a city. As he was walking along, he stumbled upon a datapad, on the edge of the decking. Chief picked up the datapad and read it.

Pvt. Reems:

No way we can sneak out of that party. The place is locked down tight, and Security Chief Roe's in charge. No way Roe would let that get past her.

I'd rather stand around bored on guard duty than risk her wrath. Sorry.

-Samuels

P.S. I am going to the store later. Daniel said we needed headlight fluid and elbow-grease, so I might be a little late to the party.

"I bet this is from the guards and I bet they have the password we need." Cortana said inside Chief's helmet.

"We need to get there." Chief replied.

"We past the security room, on our way in. I'll set a marker on your HUD." Cortana set the marker on John's HUD and saw that it lead back into the party.

"Just follow the yellow brick road, Dorothy. Instead of little midgets and flying monkeys there are crooks and murders." Cortana joked.

Chief then contacted Shepard and Kasumi over the comm.

"This is Spartan-117; I am going to the security room. They more than likely have the password there."

"Good, keep it silent." Kasumi said in a whisper tone, where he guessed that someone was behind her and she did not want to be found.

"Affirmative."

Master Chief walked up to the door to the security only to find it locked, but it was no problem for the Spartan for he had a trick up his gauntlet - or, rather, an A.I. Chief raised his hand to the door and instantly it unlocked. The door opened and it led to another hallway, but at the end of the hallway was the door to the security room. Chief walked up to the last obstacle, still in his camouflage, and found that this one was also locked. He repeated the process with the door like he had with the other door and the door opened.

Inside the security room were two Eclipse guards, one was on a holographic computer and the other was just standing around by the door. Both of the guards were looking were the door opened only to see that nothing was there. They stare at the door for a few seconds longer until the door closed.

"Huh? The door must be malfunctioning. We should report that to Hock later." The Eclipse guard at the computer suggested.

"Yeah, later though. Hey, you will not believe what I told Samuels today. I told him we need some headlight fluid and elbow grease, so he should go to the store and get some." The guard that was standing said as he laughed.

"No way!" The guard at the computer laughed, "What an id-."

The guard did not get to finish as a pink glowing needle was embedded in his forehead. The dead guard fell from his chair.

The other Eclipse guard was shocked at what had transpired, to which he quickly reached for his pistol on his side... but does not grab it in time. An invisible force was pressed against his neck that felt like an armored arm. Next, a hissing sound was made and an energy like dual point sword was sticking out of his stomach when then lifted him off the ground. The guard tried to scream, but it was of no use as he only emitted a sound that was like sucking in breath. The guard closed his eyes and died.

Chief dropped the Eclipse's body and let it fall to the ground. He holstered the Needle Rifle on his back and deactivated the Energy Sword and attached it back to his side. The Spartan walked over by the computer, but found another datapad beside it. He picked it up and read it.

Nance:

I have that problem, too. So many passwords around here, can't keep them straight. The password for tonight is 'PERUGGIA', so it's not even that easy to remember.

It's no big deal. That voice scanner means the password's only useful to Hock, anyway.

After I get back from the market, want to grab some beers? Let me know.

Samuels

The radio then went off and it was Kasumi speaking.

"Got something, Chief?"

"Affirmative. The password is 'PERUGGIA'."

"Huh. That's the name of the man who stole the Mona Lisa. Nice. Now, I just take the voice sample we got from Hock, and… Got it! Now we can crack that voice scanner. All that is left is the DNA sample. We can find that in his bedroom."

"I found a way to Hock's bedroom. Meet me on the deck." The Spartan said as he recalled seeing the ledge that led to Hock's room on the deck."

"Roger that. See you there, big guy."

John got off the radio and started to walk out of the security room, but Cortana stopped him.

"Wait Chief! Get me to that computer. I have an idea."

Chief obeyed the order and placed his hand on the computer.

Few minutes later on Hock's mansion deck

Shepard and Kasumi got to the far side of the deck and spotted the ledge that the Spartan must have been telling them about. Shepard took a quick look around so that no one would see what they would be doing. Then he and a camouflaged Kasumi, jumped over the balcony railing and landed on the ground. The area around them looked like a garden like area that was still under going construction. There was no grass, but gravel instead. A few hardhats were placed on the ground beside a few bushes. Pillars were lined up that held the floor above them, stabalizing the area. Fortunately, they saw a path that led to Hock's bedroom window.

There were three Eclipse guards that had not spotted Shepard nor Kasumi. Since this was a stealth mission, they were going to take them out quietly. It wasn't nothing that they couldn't handle.

Two guards were standing by pillars, and the other was by the window.

Shepard quietly snuck up behind the first guard by the pillar and pulled out his M-6 Carnifex heavy pistol. He aimed the pistol at the back head of the guard. After a few tense seconds, he pulled the trigger. The shot went straight through the guard's head and the lifeless body fell. It also alerted the other two guards and they brought up their weapons.

POV of the guard by the pillar

The other guard that was by the pillar was about to engage the intruder, but he suddenly got stopped by a woman that appeared out of nowhere in a skin tight black suit with a black hood. The woman struck him with her Omni-tool but it was no mere punch, but an attack that seemed to combine powers and tech. The attack went straight through his shields and armor and sent him a few feet, sliding across the ground, mortally wounded. The Eclipse guard opened his eyes, but could not move his body... or even feel it for that matter. A feeling in his gut told him he was dying… and he believed his gut.

His vision was starting to blur and he was feeling cold, but he did managed to see a couple of figures had sprinted by the pillar that he was once standing by. Through his blurry vision he was able to make out the intruders, a man with some scars in a nice suit and the hooded woman. They must have been taking cover behind the pillar to avoid the shots from his co-worker. The guard's hearing had to be failing him, for every word that he heard made echoed. Never the less he was able to understand the words.

The man turned to the hooded woman.

"What was that attack?" The words echoed.

"It's called Shadowstrike." The words echoed but he was able to hear the small chuckle.

The guard coughed up blood in his helmet. "Huh… Shadowstrike cough… cough… it fits perfectly for the attack. A silent attack that kills in one blow." The guard closed his eyes and then nothing.

Normal POV

"Nice move, but can you do it again?" Shepard asked Kasumi as both of them took cover behind a pillar to avoid shots from the last Eclipse Guard.

"Yeah, but it needs to recharge first."

The firing coming from the last guard stopped. Shepard poked his head out a few centimeters and saw that the guard was reloading his assault rifle and was foolish enough to not take cover. He stepped out and aimed his heavy pistol at the guard for a headshot. The Commander was about to pull the trigger, but stopped when the guard's neck suddenly twisted in one-hundred eighty degrees. Shepard was completely taken off-guard by the sight, but he did not lower his weapon.

The Eclipse guard's body fell to the floor and Shepard kept his aim. The second the body hit the ground a large object de-cloaked and it was a familiar object or rather a person. He pulled his gun up to see that it was none other than the Master Chief.

Shepard bore a smirk on his face, and lets his hands fall to his side with the gun still in his fingers.

"Good to see you, Chief."

"Likewise, Commander." The Spartan simply said.

Kasumi walked besides Shepard and pointed to the windows behind Master Chief.

"Look there. We can go through the windows and get into Hock's bedroom."

Chief, Kasumi, and Shepard snuck through the window and got into Hock's room. They were now in a perfect location to find a DNA sample of Donovan Hock. After a thorough search through Hock's bedroom, the team was able to find a few usable samples on one of the couches, a wineglass, and a datapad. They collected the samples and made their way back to the vault underneath Hock's party - though the Spartan and the thief had to turn on their cloaks.

Back at the vault

Kasumi walked up to the vault, which did not have a barrier around it anymore. She entered the password 'PERUGGIA', into the voice lock with Hock's voice. She then put Hock's DNA on the DNA Scanner 700. Both the machines accepted the entries that were not actually inserted by the owner, but Kasumi. With all the requested items accepted, the vault opened.

"I'll go ahead and check for security cams. Go ahead and get dressed, Shep. Chief, watch out for anyone that sneaks up on us." Kasumi said.

Shepard nodded his head, and walked to the golden statue of Saren that was placed in the vault with the other party gifts. The ex-Spectre opened up a secret compartment on the statue and inside revealed his N7 armor and weapons. He grabbed everything and started to suit up.

Kasumi walked inside the vault, while doing some work on her Omni-tool. She looked up at the camera inside it. The thief waved her Omni-tool at the camera. Though it looked like nothing happen, but she actually disabled the cameras.

Chief and Shepard walked into the vault with Kasumi. Chief pulled out his Needle Rifle in case of any surprise attacks as it had happened to him quite a few times unexpectedly in his universe. All three of them turned and watched the vault door close without anyone knowing that they are inside it. Before the vault could even close, Kasumi left a devious smile on her face, her plan was coming into place.

Inside Hock's Vault

The door to Hock's vault opened and the three commandos stepped out. It turns out that the vault was actually an elevator to Hock's true vault. The vault itself looked more like a museum or gallery, filled with expensive treasures all on pedestals.

"So this is Hock's vault. Very nice." Kasumi said and she then pulled out a scanner like object. "This scanner will hone to the graybox. It's not far."

The three member team started to walk and every step they took, the scanner would beep louder and more often to signify that they are approaching the graybox. Though the objective was to retrieve the graybox, the group could not help but to examine the treasures in the vault.

On the right side of them was the famous white statue Michelangelo's David though it was missing some limbs and it had cuts and holes around the whole masterpiece. The damage to the statue could have happened from age, accidents, or other people trying to steal it.

"Michelangelo's David! Just… wow!" Kasumi breathed in astonishment at the renaissance art. "Think we can get this out through the door?"

"I doubt it." Shepard replied.

"I gotta admit. Hock has good taste, I will give him that." Kasumi said while eyeing a Krogan statue.

Kasumi, Shepard and Chief looked at a Turian's art, but what it actually looked like is a ring cut in three pieces.

"I know it does not look like much, but that might be the most valuable piece here. Turian art is rare outside of Palavan and for good reason some say."

"Chief, does that kind of remind you of the Halos?" Cortana asked inside of John's helmet.

The Spartan does not say anything back, but he could not help to think of the Halo Installations he had been on and the deadly creatures that came with it… the Flood.

Shepard turned around and saw a mini-statue or sculpture of a Rachni Queen. This did make him think of what happen to the Rachni after he released the queen on Noveria. Shepard sometimes thought that releasing her could have been a mistake after the damage they have caused, but he did think that they were being controlled by the Reapers. The ex-Spectre does recall of hearing something about ships that had Rachni design. How much could have the Rachni have accomplished in two years?

"Ugh! A Rachni Queen. Guess everything is valuable to someone." Kasumi commented on the statue with disdain.

The group then walked to another display but this was in a glass case. They look inside and see that it is some tablets with writing on them.

"This looks like Quarian script! Wow!" Kasumi looked at the scripts in awe. "This has got be old. When was the last time the Quarians wrote on stone?"

Shepard saw a Prothean statue. "How the hell did Hock get a Prothean statue? The only ones I saw were on Illos." Shepard thought to himself. Beside the Prothean statue was an Egyptian statue of a Sphinx's head.

"I could still get money from something like this, even outside the Alliance. Asari go nuts for this sort of thing." Kasumi thought of all the ways to profit from the ancient piece from Egypt.

Chief, Shepard and Kasumi all three looked at the biggest and most valuable piece in Hock's vault… The Statue of Liberty's head.

"How the hell did Hock get Lady Liberty's head? Damn you, Hock!" Kausmi exclaimed.

Though it was a shocking moment, Shepard could not help to smile at the 'Planet of the Apes' reference Kasumi made.

"Maybe we can carry this out with us? Hey Chief, would mind picking this up and…."

"No." The Spartan simply said.

"Fine, ruin a girl's fun." Kasumi pouted.

The beeping on Kasumi's scanner went off, and they follow it the small box shape object that was known as a graybox. Besides the graybox… was a pair of small machine gun weapons. Shepard walked up the weapons and picked one of them up and examined it.

Kasumi started to inform both Shepard and Chief what they are, "That's a Kassa Locust. No, THE Kassa Locusts. The gun that killed two Presidents. Gorgeous and it even comes with a perfect copy too. I'm sure Hock won't mind if we borrow these." Kasumi smirked.

"We can use them. Once we get back to the Normandy we can have Jacob replicate them." Shepard suggested. Shepard attached the Locust to his back and threw the other to Kasumi.

Kasumi caught the weapon and examined it herself.

"Good idea. We can always use more firepower." Kasumi holstered the weapon.

The weapon did look interesting to Chief, but he preferred the weapons he carried with him as he had more experience with Covenant weaponry. He might study it later if he gets some time to himself.

Kasumi looked at the graybox that was once conviently close to Kassa Locust weapons.

"There it is!" Kasumi said as if she was out of breath. Kasumi activated her Omni-tool and tried to unlock the graybox and retrieve the data.

"Don't bother, Miss Goto."

All three commandos quickly turned their heads to where they heard the familiar voice.

"It's codelocked," Hock said. A holographic projection of his head appeared and covered the entire far wall of the vault near the other exit. His image reached from floor to the ceiling of the vault, which gave him a good view of the intruders.

Kasumi quickly checked the uplink and saw that the data transfer was still going strong. Whatever codes Hock used to try to lock her out was obviously lacking or he didn't know what he was talking about. Regardless, her blood boiled at the sight of him.

"I had a feeling that was you at the door. I knew if it was really you, you'd get through anyway." Hock said.

"You know me. I don't like to disappoint," Kasumi replied.

"I need what's in your graybox, Kasumi. You know I'm willing to kill you for it," Hock threatened. "I'll admit your skills are impressive. You got into my vault like I'd left it open. But you're still going to die, screaming, just like your old friend."

"Let's see you try!" Kasumi challenged with venom in her voice.

Hock's holographic head disappeared, but the door at the end of the vault opened. The second the holographic image of Hock disappeared, Chief pulled out his Covenant Beam Rifle and took aim at the door at the end of the vault. Master Chief has been through so many scenarios like this, he knew what to expect. The person would make some speech and then leave, but send out some troops to fight him. Guilty Spark did this on the first Halo he has been on and he used his Sentinels. The Prophet of Truth used Brute Honor Guards on High Charity. Gravemind used two Elite Combat Forms on the Ark when he and the Arbiter killed the Prophet of Truth. After each and every fight, Chief would come out on top in these scenarios and sometimes he would catch the leader and kill him and hopefully this time will be no different for him.

When the door at the end of the vault opened, eight Eclipse guards piled out and behind all of them was Chief Roe. Unfortunately for the guards, Shepard was carrying his Grenade Launcher and they were all piled together very closely. Shepard launched five grenades from his M-100 Grenade Launcher into the tight Eclipse group. All five shots collided with guards and the blast sent bodies flying in different directions. There was a large barrier of smoke from the explosions of the grenades. Once the smoke cleared, it revealed all of the guards were dead except Chief Roe. All the bodies of the Eclipse guards must have blocked some of the damage from the devastating Grenade Launcher. Chief Roe was badly beaten and bleeding from different parts of her body. Roe tried to get up, but when she was about to stand a long purple beam pierced her armor and went through her heart and out the back of her armor. Roe's eyes rolled back into her head and she exhaled her final breath. Chief Roe died before she even hit the ground. Everything was clear.

"I'm glad I brought you two along. Both of you are doing great." Kasumi complemented.

"I aim to please." Shepard replied.

"Checking blueprints. A landing pad is located the east of our location. We can escape there." Chief informed to Shepard and Kasumi.

Shepard reached up to his ear with his armored hand, "Joker, bring the shuttle in. Now!"

"You got it Commander. Sending the shuttle down." Joker said over the radio.

Meanwhile on the Normandy-SR2

Miranda Lawson walked out of the elevator and into the hangar bay, also known as Master Chief John-117's quarters. Miss Lawson stepped carefully into the Spartan's room while glancing all around the area to be on the look for some sort of security or traps that John has left behind to protect his valuable technology and equipment. As Miranda treaded cautiously inside the room, Miss Lawson could not but help to marvel at the sight of the strange unique and advance technology that the Spartan has kept within his quarters, even though she has seen the weapons multiple times and some of the deadly feats that each weapon is capable of.

After a few minutes of looking around, Miranda felt that it was safe to move on and examine some of the equipment that Chief kept. Miranda could see all kinds of strange weaponry, few that she knew and most that she didn't.

"Maybe he can show me some more of these weapons later on. Hopefully it won't be just on a mission." Miranda thought to herself.

Each weapon that Miranda saw was different and without doubt has its own special features. The weapons were in strange shape and color as some were black, blue, and gray, purple, red and some other colors. Miss Lawson saw one of the weapons that the Spartan has showed her on their alone time. She walked over to the gray weapon and picked it up.

The weapon was an Assault Rifle which was called an MA5C ICWS Assault Rifle and it seemed to suit the Spartan a great deal, the image of the Spartan walking into battle with this had an appeal to it, and the images she had seen thus far from his records showed that it was a deadly weapon. Still it was strange that people in the 26th century uses conventional gun powder propellant, that sort of technology would be seen as archaic here in this reality and finding anyone to make these rounds would be like finding a docile Thresher Maw. Miranda also was a bit curious about how it felt in hand. She hefted the weapon while being careful not to accidentally depress the trigger and found it to be a bit heavier than the M8 Avenger or the Vindicator Battle Rifle, and the Mattock and was rather beefy as well. Even though the weapon itself used actual bullets, it felt like when holding the weapon it demanded power. The fact that it was made unlike their weapons meant that it could not fold up and thus you could only carry one as well. She looked the weapon over and found a switch that activated some hidden iron sights...primitive but effective, namely when your HUDs and targeting system was online.

The attached flashlight was interesting with a built in power cell that could replenish itself and it seemed that it could be detached as well, the electronic ammunition counter was well made and the suite effective, along with the built in compass if needed when the map was offline. The woman looked over the weapon carefully, taking in more of the details. The weapon was apparently made with high grade titanium as well as ceramics, meaning that while it was heavier somewhat, it was well constructed and durable, as well as being water proof and made to work on a number of environments. The barrel appeared that it could be outfitted with sound suppressors, to make it a more silent close to medium range weapon, it could no doubt be upgraded with a grenade launcher module system or even a shotgun if she guessed it right. This meant that with the right systems and used in the right conditions, it would be a very effective backup weapon or main weapon.

And considering the information on John's reality, this could be made in bulk as well as the ammunition and with its durability and stability, it would be considered a workhorse style of weapon. The grip was also comfortable and sturdy to boot so it was not a problem to use in a fight.

She removed the clip and looked to see the ammunition, it was using 7.62x51mm NATO rounds which actually raised her eyebrow since before Mass Accelerator weapons were made more commonplace, this type of round was usually reserved only for battle rifles, machine guns, and sniper rifles...never for front line assault rifles. The recoil and size alone meant that such rounds were too powerful for conventional weapons which was why only a certain number of weapons for infantry were using these rounds. To make this round commonplace meant that the weapon had a very advanced recoil compensation system, which was rather innovative. She removed a bullet and studied it, surprised at the care and detail placed into the round, it had none of the flaws that went into making bullets like this, a trait that was surprising to her as this would mean that the round would actually be more accurate and damaging due to having no flaws. The clip was large to accommodate at least thirty two rounds and was not too heavy, made entirely out of high quality ceramic.

This weapon might be primitive to us here...but had this weapon been made in the 20th century at the time...this would have demanded cutthroat prices in either the regular markets or the black market. Even though it uses actual bullets this gun could still cause quite some damage, though not as effective like the plasma weaponry John has been using. Miranda thought to herself.

She then began to think something over...this weapon actually had promise and after running through a few calculations and theories in her mind, she hoped that this would be useful in the future. This weapon should not be left to rot away since it actually could be useful once upgraded with their technology. And she suspected that once they got rid of the older technology, this weapon could be used as a test bed for more radical technology and upgrades, which could be rather useful against the Collectors and whatever forces the Reapers might send their way.

Plus it would help make the Chief more...comfortable with the reality he was now part of. And to allow him to be more used to it would help him in the mission...though there was a part of her that hoped that this would make him a lot more open about working with not just Shepard and the others, but her as well. So far he had proven that he was all right in her presence and that was a good thing in her mind, but to show that she could help him get used to their reality more might be a good thing.

With that in mind, she spoke to EDI.

"EDI, can you patch me with Jacob and Zaeed, I need to talk to them."

"Right away Miss Lawson."

Back at Hock's mansion

Commander Shepard, Kasumi Goto, and Master Chief go through the door that the Chief Roe and her lackeys came through. The door opened and it took them down a hallway. They proceeded down the hallway into the security room and into an underground military storage area. It was your typical looking military hangar, it was grey with large and wide space. It was like a large hallway, but there would be doors on the side that would lead to rooms or other ways to access to certain places. Vehicles parked in various spots and had crates and boxes scattered around on the floor for unknown reasons. Suddenly, two of the hangar doors open and a few Eclipse mercenaries came through!

The three member team took cover behind some crates. Shepard and Kasumi both pulled out the Locusts that they just 'borrowed' from Hock. The Eclipse guards will be an excellent test for their new small machine guns.

And then as if Hock himself heard the thoughts of Shepard, three Eclipse guards were proceeding through the garage hall. They were pacing through the garage in a triangle formation. Shepard and Kasumi peer over the crates they were hiding behind to see a good way to ambush Hock's lackeys.

"Let's see how well these Locusts do in action." Kasumi eagerly said as she prepped herself for combat.

"Alright Chief, you take the one in the back of the triangle." Shepard ordered.

"Done, Commander."

Shepard looked over the crate to look at the Eclipse guards advancing on their position.

"Kasumi and I will deal with the two…" Shepard did not get to finish his strategy, for when he looked back to discuss his plan with eye contact. Unfortunately the Spartan was gone.

Shepard's eyes widen, "Wha? Where did he go?" The former Spectre exclaimed.

Shepard quickly looked over to Kasumi to see if she had an answer to their dilemma. When Shepard looked at the thief, she only shrugged her shoulders to show that she did not know.

The Commander let out a sigh in frustration.

Out of nowhere, there was a loud scream emmitting from the Eclipse guards. Shepard and Kasumi poked their heads out from cover to see the two Eclipse guards in front of the triangle formation staring at the guard behind them. The guard was screaming as if he was in a great amount of pain. Kasumi and Shepard then noticed something strange about the guard. His arm looked like it was being crushed or compressed with an extreme amount of force and it was the size of a large hand. Then an Energy Sword activated behind the screaming guard and went straight through him which stopped his screaming and his arm was no longer being crushed. The weapon was used with enough force and strength that the man was about nine feet in the air on the sword that was through his stomach. And as if the sight of the impaled guard did not freak out the other guards enough, the Spartan decloaked. Chief was holding the Energy Sword that was holding the guard in the air. Chief then grabbed the guard's arm he was crushing awhile ago, and tossed the Eclipse guard's limp body like a rag doll to the side.

The two Eclipse guards panicked and tried to aim their M-9 Avengers at hulking green figured before them.

As the guards tried to fiddle with their weapons, Shepard and Kasumi saw this as a perfect chance to take out the other two Eclipse guards. Both of them aim their Locusts at the back of the frightened Eclipse and fired away. The shots were quick, accurate, and very deadly. The eezo bullets hit the backs of their targets and quickly killed the two Eclipse guards and now the triangle was broken.

Kasumi and Shepard got out from their cover and walk toward the Spartan. Shepard closed his eyes and shook his head and let out a sigh of disappointment.

"Chief, you need to tell me when you are going to sneak off like that. It's good that you are following orders and taking out the enemy effectively, but those black op acts could get one of our teammates killed." The Commander informed.

"Duly noted, Commander." Chief said in a monotone voice. John was use to taking out the enemy without consulting with his comrades as Spartans were trained together so well, that sometimes they knew what they were going to do without informing one and another of their action. This will be no problem for Chief as he is a master of adapting.

Kasumi walked between Shepard and Chief with her hands by her side. "I don't know Shepard, I do love a man who is secretive and mysterious." Kasumi then looked at Chief with a smile. "It's very… appealing."

Master Chief did not say anything, but Shepard did raise an eyebrow.

Suddenly shots were coming in the Normandy commandos' direction, and few were making contact with their shields. The three member squad quickly ran for cover by the crates again. Shepard poked his head out once he felt that it was safe enough, and got a good look of the enemies ahead. What the former Spectre saw made him groan. There were seven Eclipse troops and an YMIR heavy mech, all with their weapons raised and making their way to him and his team. Five of the seven Eclipse guards were much closer to the Normandy Commandos while the other two were with the YMIR mech in the far back of the team. The heavy mech may have been an actual killing machine, but it was so slow. The two Eclipse guards beside the mech were more than likely guarding the mech to make sure it got to its intended targets.

"Heads up! Enemies incoming!" Shepard shouted as he looked at his team again and pulled out his Locust submachine gun again.

"I guess they are sending bigger guns to take us out." Kasumi said as she also pulled out her Locust submachine gun, but then a smirk grew on her face. "I told you this would be fun, Shepard."

John looked over to the mech and could see that unless they did something fast, they were going to be in for the long haul. That YMIR was in its element since there was not enough room for him to make a move to take it out and engaging it was not a viable option. The only way out was to somehow take out the mech or turn it against the Eclipse forces. That was when Cortana decided to get into the act as she spoke directly to John and due to her being able to speak to him through the neural link, no one else with him, meaning Shepard and Kasumi would know that his long time A.I partner was in on the action.

"John, I have an idea on how to turn that YMIR around."

"Attacking it is out of the question Cortana."

"I know, but I can hack into it and turn it around to take out those Eclipse right on the mark, all you need to do is get me close and allow me to download myself into it."

John covered as a stray mass accelerator slug passed overhead and he spoke as he fired his current weapon, a Covenant Beam Rifle and killing the Eclipse soldier taking the offending shot at him. And he casually replied to that suggestion as he let his weapon cool down from his recent shot.

"How do you propose I do that?"

"I've read up on the data concerning YMIR mech sensors, and I have figured out just what sort of wavelengths their scanners can work with and what they can't, even visual sensors to boot. If we tune it into that set of wavelengths, then have those wavelengths mix with your MJOLNIR's shields, then we can make you virtually invisible to said sensors and allow you to get close to that machine. There's two weaknesses to it though, obviously this stealth shield only works on YMIR mechs and as such, other enemies can still see you, and the second is that the stealth shield can only last for a full minute before it is broken up in the shield's energy field. I can do it again if we need to though I think that improved sensors on other YMIR models might be able to counter it."

Commander Shepard was getting quite agitated in his predicament. The enemies ahead were firing their weapons non-stop to obviously pin down him and his team. The Commander silently congratulated his foes as it was a smart plan. The Eclipse would keeping wasting their ammunition, but it would make him, Chief and Kasumi not move anywhere and with that the Eclipse would move up on them as they kept shooting and eventually catch up to them and lay them to waste. He was going over several plans and strategies in his mind to try and take out the advancing battle group before him, but none were good enough to succeed without anyone getting hurt or killed.

"Commander." John-117 said over the gunfire.

"What is it, Master Chief?" Shepard said while looking him in the visor.

"I have an idea to deal with the heavy mech, but I will need you to cover me."

"Is it like the last time you dealt with a mech?" Shepard mentioned as he recalled the brawl between Chief and an YMIR mech while recruiting Jack.

"No." The Spartan simply said.

"Well then, I am open to ideas."

"I believe I have the distraction you need, Chief." Kasumi said as she was listening in to the two soldiers' conversation. The thief then pulled out a yellow-white round object. "This is a flashbang grenade, it should blind and disorientate the trigger happy guards ahead."

Chief looked at the flashbang grenade in Kasumi's hand. If it was like the ones in his universe, then the grenade should indeed buy him some time to reach the heavy mech.

"Alright, let's do this!" Shepard declared.

Kasumi primed the flashbang grenade and threw it over the crates that they were hiding behind. In a few seconds the grenade went off and let out a concussive roar and a blinding flash of light that caused the Chief's visor to automatically darken to protect his eyes.

As soon as the grenade detonated, Chief quickly but quietly ran from the crates. The Spartan pulled out his Plasma Rifle from his side, just in case he had to dispose of any enemies very quickly that has detected him. Rounding a corner, the Chief ducked into an alcove to make sure no Eclipse guards would detect him. Poking his head out of the corner, he saw the YMIR Heavy Mech slowly walking towards Shepard and Kasumi with heavy mechanical footsteps. Two human guards in suits patrolled behind the mech, more than likely to use the mech as a shield. Neither appeared to be paying much attention.

Chief quietly slipped out of the alcove and crept to a point where the guards' paths overlapped each other. As soon as they met up, the Chief grabbed their heads and quickly twisted. Two cracks and both fell down.

Walking up to the mech, John smacked the back of it to gain its attention.

The YMIR heavy mech spun around but only to find a glowing blue gauntlet was place on the center of its face.

Time slowed down for John as he placed Cortana on the face of the mech. The familiar sensation of liquid nitrogen seeping out of his head assailed the Chief's senses but soon abated. The mech was frozen within its place. Then the red glowing marks that ran on the mech digitally, changed to a light bluish color. The YMIR mech turned to face the remaining Eclipse guards ahead. The mech moved its mini-gun and rocket launcher into ready positions.

"It's a little bulky, but I think I can make it work. A girl does have to accessorize." Cortana joked through the hacked mech that was now fighting for the Spartan.

Shepard rose up from his cover and unleashed a hail of bullets from his Locust sub-machinegun at a foolish Eclipse Guard that was standing up out of cover. The mass accelerator bullets quickly collided with the Eclipse and just as quickly killed him.

Shepard sat down behind his cover to reload his weapon with another thermal clip. As soon as the ex-Spectre put a thermal clip in the Locust, he took a deep breath to get himself ready for another move of getting out of cover to shoot at someone. But then he heard screams coming from the Eclipse guards.

"What the hell?" Kasumi spoke as she with no doubt heard the screams.

Both of them poke their heads out to what was the commotion.

What the commotion was that they saw the heavy mech shooting its own troops with its mini-gun arm. This mech looked different from the usual YMIR mechs. The red lines that ran along the inside of it were now some sort of blue color.

There was no cover for the Eclipse guards so it was a slaughter fest when the mech started to shoot its rapid-fire minigun arm.

The mech let loose a hail of bullets with its mini-gun arm on one of the Eclipse guards, which quickly killed him. The mech then switched to its rocket arm and aimed it at the Eclipse. It shot the rocket and then the rocket made contact with a guard. The blast radius of the rocket took out two Eclipse guards.

Shepard and Kasumi moved around to see the mess as John quickly holstered his Plasma Rifle and they were impressed as John's move had turned the mech to their side in no time flat. The machine in question was now offline and they were free to move, but Shepard had more questions in his head now concerning their companion. He had read enough to know that the Chief was invaluable as an ally, but to do that to an active mech was something he had never seen before.

Usually the only way to hack a Mech was when it was inactive, but somehow the Master Chief was able to hack it while it was ACTIVE and somehow managed to avoid not only catching the attention of the Mech, but the Eclipse forces as well. That was a feat that would have been thought of being only possible in a movie vid, but this guy without any active stealth and wearing an armor system that defied most if not all combat hardsuit designs did it.

And he wanted to know how it was done.

Kasumi likewise thought in the same lines though for a different reason than Shepard. She wanted to know just how he was able to avoid being shot by mechs while being out in the open. That was a very strange but interesting technique in the mind of the Japanese thief and could be a real aid in the long run, plus she had to admit that despite her being wary of the seven foot tall armored giant of a man, she would not mind having him watch her back...though she was curious just what he looked like underneath the armor he wore. While she was waiting for the Normandy ship to arrive at Hock's mansion, she was able to hear some rumors amongst the crew. She had heard rumors about how some of the ladies...even the XO Miranda had seen the Spartan in the buff, and they apparently LIKED what they saw, at least that was what she heard.

As both arrived to face the Spartan, Shepard spoke first.

"Nice work Chief...now do you mind explaining HOW you did that?"

"Yeah, that was one heck of a trick big guy, even I was impressed, and that does not happen often in my line of work."

John then decided to 'lie' as it were to Commander Shepard to protect Cortana. Lying to a superior officer was a serious offense in the UNSC and Chief Mendez would have his hide, but he was also taught by said Chief that in order to keep some secrets, lying was allowed as long as it was done with some grains of truth in it. Not to mention to protect vital data and he had done this before when he was asked by others about the Spartan II Program to keep details of it away even after it went public, namely the more serious details.

"One of my augmentations deals with an enhanced memory, reflexes and creativity Commander, I did some reading on how to hack mechs and computers back on the Normandy and did some reading on how YMIRs work so I would find alternative means to fight them should hand to hand combat or fire power not be possible. Besides, at least it was not a brawl this time."

Shepard was not all that sold, but decided not to go further in the conversation...yet.

"Come on, we have to still get out of here." Shepard said while running with Kasumi and Chief not too far behind.

As the trio was running down the garage, Hock's voice came on the intercom.

"They're out of the vault. Seal them in!" Hock commanded.

Normally a large hangar door would have activated and sealed off Shepard and his team in the hangar, but Hock's orders were not followed through. Shepard, Kasumi, and Chief did pause though, to see if anything would happen.

"What the hell is this? Why is the vault door not working? Someone answer me damn it?" Hock barked.

"Looks like someone is a little cranky when their toys don't work." Cortana spoke inside of Master Chief's helmet.

"How are you doing this?" Chief replied.

"Remember when I told you to place me in the terminal, when we were in the security room? Well I messed with their systems, reset their passwords, and lock them out of their own terminals and systems. Now nobody, not even Hock has control of the doors, lifts, and etc. I can re-activate everything, but you would have to get me to a terminal. I also downloaded the schematics of the mansion. I will display it in your HUD for when you need it."

"Good job."

"It's about time I get a complement out of you. Now before you proceed down the hangar, take a right through the door on the side. There is something that will help us get through this mansion a lot easier."

The Spartan was soon brought out of his talk with Cortana as Kasumi started to speak herself.

"I wonder why Hock's doors aren't working? I didn't do any sort of sabotage for the doors or anything." Kasumi then looked at Shepard. But Shepard nodded his head no. Kasumi then looked at Chief.

"Chief, do have anything to do with this?"

John had to lie again to protect Cortana, so the Spartan nodded his head yes.

"I was able to lock Hock out of his systems when I was in the security room. I thought it would help, though he is still control of the intercoms." John lied.

"Is there anything you can't do?" Kasumi teased with a big grin on her lips.

"Let's get moving. We still have to get to the shuttle at the landing pad." Shepard informed as he started to head through the hallway.

"Commander, I believe I saw something that will help us. It's a click on the right." Chief said as he pointed at a door that was beside them. (This is the door you go through, when Hock seals you off from the hangar.)

So the group went back and through the door, but once they got through the door they saw a scary but also a relieving sight. Before them was eight deactivated YMIR heavy mechs lined up in a row of four with one mech above each one. The Normandy commandos walked up to the non-moving mechs.

"John, if I am thinking what you are thinking then I love what you are thinking." Kasumi said with a hand on her hip and a smirk on her face.

"You were right Kasumi. This is fun." Shepard also smirked and folded his arms across his chest.

The Master Chief walked up to the heavy mech on the far right, and placed a glowing blue hand on the face of the mech and he did the same thing with the one on top and the next one on the left and so on and so on.

Each of the eight YMIR mechs then came to life with glowing blue lines on them, like the last heavy mech the Spartan hacked. Hock has no idea what is coming.

Aieran Vierokan an Asari Commando's POV

Aieran Vierokan is an Asari Commando in her Maiden years. Aieran is a spectacular marksman and a powerful biotic, as well as a born leader. She is very intelligent as well as resourceful and able to complete her jobs with satisfactory results. She is very is skilled with assault rifles, as well as moderately skilled with most other weapons.

Aieran has the soft, graceful curves shared with most of her race, with a delicately beautiful appearance with her light blue skin. She wears the traditional Asari Commando Black, unmarked Duelist light armor.

Aieran joined the Asari Commandos on Illium sixty years before, driven by a desire to see the universe. She has seen battle on countless fronts on countless worlds and won all of them. She is usually leading squads and teams with impressive tactics and clever strategies. She led an Asari Commando team, but eventually decided to abandon them since they don't see as much action as she would like. Aieran Vierokan is highly recommended by many people looking for a gun, and lately she has been working freelance at a high price for her services.

Donovan Hock caught wind of her reputation and has asked her to help with security at his mansion during a party. At first she did not want to do the job as simply working security for a party full of rich people. But when she learned the guest list was full of crooks and murders that was likely that a few people wanted them dead, she agreed since a party was a great time for someone to assassinate their enemies when their guard is down. So she agreed, hoping to see some action... and the pay wasn't bad either.

Aieran was currently in the garage, watching how Hock's guards were getting ready for the intruders. The Asari was sitting on a crate, with a bored expression on her light blue face. She was stationed towards the end of the garage. The garage was very large, capable of fitting tanks, aircraft, and more large objects in the room all at once. But in the room was numerous LOKI mechs that were deactivated and stacked up on racks and crates were also scattered around. The crates were excellent positions for cover, in case of a firefight. Behind her was a room with a few Mako Grizzly tanks (not the tanks from Halo Wars but from Mass Effect) and a large amount of metal crates for transportation on the landing platform which was behind that room. No doubt the gunships, tanks, and crates were used for Hock's smuggling operations and other illegal purposes.

The Asari Commando let out a sigh.

"Hock has an army under his control but he doesn't even use it. It's time I take control and get rid of these intruders." Aieran thought to herself.

She got off the crate she was sitting on and pulled out her assault rifle in her arms, the M-76 Revenant. She fired off a round from her gun, which caught everyone's attention.

"Alright everyone listen up! The intruders are on their way here! There is only one way out and that is through us!" A devious grin grew on the Asari's face. "So let's give them a good taste of hell before they leave!"

Aieran took a breath and let a plan form in her head. She then started to point at some of the guards.

"I want you guys to activate all of the LOKI mechs. From what I heard, we can't activate them remotely since the terminals are down. So we have to activate them manually. We are going to throw everything we have at the intruders."

The Eclipse troops nodded and said "yes ma'am" and got right to work.

Aieran pointed at another trooper.

"You! I need you to gather up everyone of Hock's personal. Not just troopers, but engineers, butlers and whatever. It's time they get off their lazy asses and help us out!"

"Right away ma'am" The Eclipse troop screamed out. He then ran to follow out his orders, but not without stumbling after hearing the Asari bark orders.

The Commando then pointed to two Eclipse guards.

"I need you two to gather up all weapons and arm the people that the troop is bringing! Some of them might not have training, but this will be a good first time for them."

Aieran pointed to another group of troops.

"I need you guys to go activate the Grizzly tanks in the room behind us. If they somehow manage to push us back, we will need a plan B."

The Asari then pointed to three Eclipse guards.

"I want you three to go on recon, and find where the enemy is! The second you see them report back to me! Don't get ballsy and try to take them out, understand!"

"Yes ma'am!" The troops said with a little fear in each of their voices from hearing the commanding tone.

Aieran then looked at all of the other Eclipse guards in the large garage.

"I want the rest of you whelps, to arm up and get in positions! That is behind the crates, or anything that you can take cover behind! Now get to it!" Aieran screamed.

"If any of you wanted to see the intruders up close, then this is your lucky break!" The Asari Commando barked. "We are ready for anything that the intruders can throw at us." Aieran thought with a smirk on her face.

Oh how wrong, she was.

Later…

The LOKI mechs were activated, the tanks in the back room were prepped and primed. All of Hock's personal were in the garage and armed with various weapons, and the Eclipse troops that were assign duties, were now back and ready to fight. All except the recon team.

"Where is the recon team? They should have reported back now! The enemy shouldn't even be that far from our position!"

Suddenly, Aieran got her answer. An Eclipse body flew through the front entrance and landed at Aieran's feet. The Asari looked at the body and saw that it was burnt all over, riddled with bullets that ooze with blood. Whoever this guy fought, he did not fight them for long.

"I told them not to be ballsy." Aieran thought to herself.

Then eight missiles came out of the entrance of the garage. One missile collided with a crate at the front of the entrance that was covering three Eclipse guards, destroying it to pieces. Another missile hit the three guards that were hiding behind the crate, sending their bodies flying and screaming in agony.

Aieran gritted her teeth in anger. Already the intruders are getting the drop on them, but the Asari failed to see a missile going straight towards her.

Aieran looked and saw the missile with a shocked look on her face. The missile made contact. Aieran's shields were gone and she was on the ground in a daze. The Asari Commando lifted her head to see what was going on. Her ears were ringing from the explosion of the missile, so all could hear were muffles and a ringing. Her vision was blurry at first, but she quickly regained focus. But the sight in front of her was pure chaos. There were eight YMIR heavy mechs out and slaughtering her forces. A few things were wrong with these mechs though.

1. Why were they attacking her and all of her forces?

2. Why were there blue lines on the heavy mechs, instead of the red ones?

Aieran got up with a grunt and picked up her Revenant assault rifle that fell on the ground when she fell. She was not wounded badly, if anything it would be a bruise. Her shields took most of the rocket blast, and her shields were now recharging. Time seemed to be slowing down for her as she saw the war that was commencing in the garage. It was one of those moments in a battle after a traumatic experience that time seems like it slows down for you to see what was going on around you.

Aieran looked around at the carnage that was happening before her. She saw a three man group of Eclipse Guards running from one of the strange YMIR heavy mechs, but their running was futile as they were gunned down by the mini-gun attachment to the heavy mech. The rounds piercing their armor and sending them tumbling to the ground only to never get up again.

Aieran looked around some more and saw that two LOKI mechs were shooting at the back of a heavy mech, but their mere side arm weapons barely did any damage to the corrupted YMIR mech. The heavy mech turned around and aimed its rocket arm at the two LOKI mechs. The heavy mech shot the rocket at the two mechs and blew them apart. The heavy mech then moved on, looking for more targets.

An Eclipse guard then tried to test his luck by hitting a heavy mech with the butt of his assault rifle. His efforts were in vain as it only slightly damaged the heavy mech. The heavy mech used its mini-gun arm and hit the Eclipse guard in the stomach. The mech then raised the Eclipse guard high in the air with the mini-gun arm and slammed the guard violently back to the ground with a loud thud. To make sure that the Eclipse guard was dead, the heavy mech fired its mini-gun arm that was still in the stomach of the Eclipse guard.

The Asari commando then saw a sight that surprised her, ahead were the three intruders. One was a woman in skintight black and white clothes with a hood, and what looked like one of Hock's Locusts weapons from his vault was in her hands. Aieran could only guess that the only lady in the group must be Kasumi Goto that Donovan Hock was talking about over the intercom. Hock said he wanted Kasumi alive, but with all the hell that was going on, that option might not be available.

Aieran watched as the hooded woman aimed her Locust and walk towards a group of five Eclipse Guards and a Loki mech that were shooting at a YMIR heavy mech. The woman fired a few rounds at an Eclipse guard, and then a few more rounds at another, quickly dropping them. The three remaining guards and the mech spun around.

"Shoot her!" One of the guards shouted.

The guards and the mech all released a burst of mass effect rounds from their assault rifles at the lady, but they all missed as Kasumi ran to the side and quickly disappeared out of thin air. The guards kept their guns up and surveyed the place while they slowly walk around to cover more ground. The mech just kept its aim where the hooded woman disappeared.

"Where did she go?" One of the guards whispered.

Then as if answering his question, Kasumi suddenly appeared behind a guard and hit him with a Shadowstrike, killing him instantly. She quickly turned around and sent a jabs a guard behind her and then Kasumi quickly kicked him at the left knee, the blow was enough to make him land on his knees in pain with Kasumi quickly grabbing his extended arm and landing a nerve strike on a bundle of nerve to make his arm go numb as she quickly launched an uppercut to the chin and followed it with a roundhouse kick to the side of the man's ribs, sending the guard to the ground. Once the guard was down, Kasumi pulled out her pistol with incredible speed and just as fast pulled the trigger and shot the last guard in the head. The mech finally started to shoot at Kasumi, but before he could actually hit her Kasumi turned and shot out an Overcharge from her Omni-tool. The Overcharge hit the mech and disabled it.

A smirk grew on the thief's hooded face. She then pulled out a flash grenade and threw it at another group of Eclipse guards. She pulled out her Locust and started to move towards the next unfortunate group of Eclipse guards.

Aieran hated to admit, but she was impressed by the thief Kasumi, hopefully Hock won't be too disappointed that she kills the thief instead of letting her live. She could just say that it would be cheaper to have the hooded woman to be dead than alive, and then Hock would probably understand like the selfish rich man he is.

The Asari Commando then looked to the right to see a man with short cropped hair, a few facial scars, and wearing an Onyx colored and red colored N7 armor. Aieran could have sworn that he looked a lot like the dead Commander Shepard, but she did hear some rumors of him being alive somehow. Some people have been posing as Commander Shepard for a few reasons, but this guy looked like the real deal.

The so called 'Shepard' was armed with an M-27 Scimitar Assault Shotgun and he was charging towards a group of four LOKI mechs and four Eclipse guards. Three Eclipse guards were lined up together and the other Eclipse guard was in front of the four LOKI mechs. All eight of Hock's troops saw Shepard and were shooting at him, though ran up and took cover behind a crate. Shepard shot out a biotic pull that went around the crate he was hiding behind and right at three of the Eclipse guards at a really fast speed. The biotic attack sent the three guards helplessly in the air floating and wailing their arms around. Shepard got out and shot each guard once with his shotgun, which caused them to stop moving all together.

Shepard then bent down slightly on his knees in a stance to get ready for what looked like the Biotic move Charge. The blue biotic energy enveloped Shepard, and then he launched himself with a blue streak behind him, at the Eclipse guard. Shepard slammed into the Eclipse with the powerful biotic power. The Charge sent the guard flying with his body going limp. Then with amazing speed, Shepard pulled out his shotgun and started to blast each LOKI mech at a very close distance. Each mech was on the ground with a few mechanical limbs missing from being up close to a shotgun blast.

Shepard then turned and released a Biotic Shockwave at three Eclipses who were shooting at a YMIR heavy and taking cover behind a crate. The shockwave hit the guards and sent them over the crate, but it did not kill them. Instead it left them lying on the ground in the open range of the corrupted YMIR heavy and its mini-gun arm. The YMIR heavy mech showed no mercy on the downed guards at it each one while they were on the ground continuously. The guards' armor was filled with burnt holes, and they never got back up.

There was no doubt in Aieran's mind that person was the real Commander Shepard, no poser could replicate those moves. Each accurate shot, technique, and move was all taught from the N7 Human Alliance Special Operations. Few were in it, but most knew that Commander Shepard was one of them. Shepard was the every bit of badass that she heard about. She did hear some rumors that Shepard was working with Cerberus. The question that Aieran was asking herself was,

"How is Shepard alive? What does he have to do with Hock? Why would Shepard be working with Cerberus?"

Suddenly there was an explosion nearby. Aieran frantically looked around to see what caused the boom but all she saw some pink mist that burned in the air and then vaporized after a few seconds.

"Now what could possibly cause some random pink mist?"

The Asari's question was answered when she heard another explosion that sounded similar to the one she heard earlier. Remains of an Eclipse guard were on the ground with a pink mist around the body. Aieran looked to see where the body flew but only saw another Eclipse guard but he was alive, limping but alive. Strangely there was a pink glowing needle object embed in the guard's side. Then two more needles struck the back of the Eclipse guard and he exploded in a pink mist.

That was when Aieran saw it. A tall heavily armed thing in dark green armor with a golden visor, that she has never seen before was using some sort of strangle looking rifle with pink needles sticking out of it. The green figure attached the strange rifle to its back and pulled out a small unknown blue curved weapon from its side. The green giant then sprinted at an amazing speed towards some Eclipse guards and LOKI mechs while firing some strange glowing energy from the small blue weapon. The rounds that the strange blue weapon shot were blue and energy like but looked not quite like eezo rounds. When the blue rounds made contact with Eclipse guards, it seemed like the strange energy just burn through their armor and into their bodies, which killed them quickly.

Who or what was this armored killing machine that was slaughtering her troops? Was it some sort of human as it had the human body shape, and it looked too bulky to look Asari? Maybe this was the merc leader named Soloman Gunn as the only male with them was the famous Commander Shepard?

The seven foot green armor thing rammed into an Eclipse guard, which sent the unfortunate guard flying with his body bent at a weird angle. The green thing then sent a kick to a Loki mech in the chest area. Instead of the Loki mech simply falling down and absorbing the blow, the mech's upper chest was ripped off from its legs and was flying the in the air in pieces. The green armored thing then turned and grabbed a Loki mech's head, and then crushed it while ripping it off from its body. When the green armor thing ripped the Loki mech's head off that caused him to elbow the Eclipse guard behind him. The Eclipse guard's helmet was shattered and no doubt that his jaw was shattered too after seeing how strong this thing was. The stranger pulled out its blue weapon and shot the nearest Eclipse guard with rapid fire. The strange energy that looked like plasma burned through the armor and into the flesh just like the others. The armored behemoth continued to shoot at more mechs and guards that were ahead.

Aieran was dumbstruck to say the least. She has never encountered a being like the green armored thing with a golden faceplate. The seven foot mystery object moved faster than any other Drell, was stronger than any Krogan, armor that surpassed than any Quarian, and had far more advance weapons than any Geth.

"Is it one of Cerberus's crazy experiments?" Aieran thought.

The Asari ran strategies and scenarios in her head, but she could not think of a way to stop a team that seemed … well unstoppable. Despite all of the deaths, explosions, and the losing, the commando smiled. Aieran loved a challenged that pushed her to her limit. She loved the adrenaline and fun of a tough battle that came with surprises of an unplanned battle. This made victory taste ever so sweet.

Six Eclipse guards ran up behind Aieran with their Avenger assault rifles in their aimed her Revenant weapon at the nearest YMIR heavy mech and started to shoot. The other Eclipse guards followed Aieran's action and started to shoot their assault rifles at the same heavy mech as well.

The heavy mech turned to face its oppressors, but its shields quickly went down from the hail of eezo rounds. The heavy mech shot its mini-gun arm, which successfully hit one of the Eclipse guards.

Aieran and the Eclipse guards kept firing their weapons, despite the fact they lost of their own already. Aieran started to run at the heavy mech. As the Asari was running, she started to glow blue and used her biotics to throw a large crate at the heavy mech. The crate made impact with heavy mech's legs which sent the mech on the ground with its back on the ground.

Aieran ran and jumped on the fallen heavy mech. When Aieran was at the head of mech, she aimed her Revenant at the head and pulled the trigger while letting out a scream with each round that was automatically shot. After hearing the satisfying sound of the heavy mech dying, Aieran leaped off the mech and walked away as the mech exploded. Happy with her kill, a smirk grew on the Asari's face. The Commando looked to her right to see a large group of Eclipse guards and LOKI mechs killing a heavy mech. They may have put a dent in the intruder's forces, but she knew that was not enough.

"Fall back! To the end of the garage!" Aieran shouted to the rest of her forces.

All Eclipse guards started to sprint to where their Asari Commando told them to go. Majority of the LOKI mechs followed as well, but some got shot and destroyed along the way as they were to slow. Aieran, the Eclipse guards, and the LOKI mechs all retreated back to their plan B room where the Grizzly Mako tanks, gunships, and other illegal treasures were. Aieran was just surprised that the intruders were capable of pushing her forces to their plan B room.

The plan B room seemed like an excellent area to holdout from the heavy mechs. There was a Mako Grizzly tank cannon aimed at the only entrance of the Plan B room. There were bombs and explosive coils lying around to use as traps against on approaching enemies or to simply throw at enemies with biotics. There were also large metallic grates that were being held high in the air by cranes that could be used to drop on unsuspecting enemies. Not to mention that there were excellent positions and cover ground that were excellent to take cover behind.

Aieran was happy to see Eclipse guards were behind some crates, boxes, and other positions for cover. Most of the Eclipse guards were up and had their weapons prepped and aimed at the only entrance while the LOKI mechs were simply standing around but still had their small fire arms aimed at the entrance. As soon as Aieran entered the plan B room, she screamed at someone to get at the cannon of the Mako Grizzly tank that was aimed at the entrance of the room.

When someone got on the Mako Grizzly tank cannon, Aieran herself got into cover. She was positioned alongside most of the troops but she had a great view of the entrance were she can pick off and damage anyone that passed through.

The passing moments on waiting for one of the enemy heavy mechs or intruders to walk through the entrance were stressful. Everyone was really tense and nervous as they heard constant heavy mechanized footsteps and cooling systems of the YMIR coming towards them. They were worried that if any of them would survive as YMIR mechs were pretty tough and the intruders just cut through the first few platoons like they were nothing. Their fingers were shaking on the triggers as they were eager to pull, so they could hopefully survive the deadly battle that was inevitable to miss.

The sound of the LOKIs' pistols going and the YMIR heavy mechs' rapid fire from their mini-gun arm going off, broke the tension. The LOKI mechs were being gunned down by the YMIR mechs as one by one they slowly walked in, but they served as an excellent purpose of being distractions.

"Everyone shoot! Shoot whatever goddamn gun you have!" Aieran shouted when she saw a great opportunity to take out the corrupted YMIR mechs. All of the Eclipse guards obeyed the Asari Commando and fired their guns at one heavy mech. The heavy mech they focused on did not live long as the shields quickly went down and the armor did not survive from all of the concentrated rounds. The heavy mech was soon looking like Swiss cheese as it was covered with bullet holes before it exploded from its automatic self-destruct.

All of the corrupted YMIR mechs aimed their rocket arms and fired at the Eclipse guards' positions. The rockets collided with some guards but most of them hit boxes and crates as the rockets were used to get the Eclipse out of cover and make them disorganized.

"Now! Shoot now!" Aieran shouted at the Eclipse guard that was manning the Mako Grizzly tank cannon.

The guard at the Mako Grizzly tank aimed the cannon at one of the heavy mechs. Once he was aligned with a YMIR mech in sights, he fired. The cannon let out a deafening blast and smoke from the barrel and also a deadly blast. The blast hit a heavy mech, destroying it instantly. The guard at the cannon let out a cheer for his kill, but it was short lived as an YMIR mech shot its own rocket. The guard did not know what hit him as the rocket killed him on impact.

"Dammit!" Aieran swore at losing a valuable resource in taking out the heavy mechs quickly.

Things were going from bad to worse for the Asari Commando as her troops and mechs were now scattered and being killed like the platoon from before and now she lost her guy on the Mako Grizzly tank.

"Well if you wanna do something right, you gotta do it yourself." Aieran muttered to herself as she got up and got ready to engage some corrupted heavy mechs.

Aieran looked ahead and saw a few LOKI mechs being killed by an YMIR heavy mech's mini-gun while a few Eclipse guards were shooting at the corrupted heavy mech. What the heavy mech didn't know that it was directly under a large metal crate that was being held in the air by a crane. The Asari smirked and aimed her Revenant at the crane. With a few rounds shot at the crane, the crane lost its grip of the metal crate. The heavy metal crate fell and crushed the YMIR mech.

Aieran mentally celebrated her victory over the deceased heavy mech, but that celebration was cut short when the Asari's shields were taking damage from another YMIR heavy mech's mini-gun arm. Aieran quickly rolled to the side behind some cover of crates. The Commando swore as she realized that her energy shields were more than seventy-five percent gone and the crate she was hiding behind was slowly being destroyed as the heavy mech fired at her position.

Aieran was getting nervous, the heavy mech continued to keep firing at the Asari's position and her crate was getting torn piece by piece every time a round hit the crate plus her shields have not fully recharge from the damage she taken. Aieran took a deep breath to calm herself and then looked to her left, her eyes widen at what she saw. There before her were a few highly explosive containers, and then a plan formed in her head.

The heavy mech stopped firing its mini-gun to let it cool down. Seeing it as a good opportunity, Aieran popped out of cover and shot the YMIR mech with a biotic Warp and released a hail of bullets from her Revenant. Luckily for the Asari, a few surviving LOKI mechs were shooting the heavy mech with Aieran so the shields of the heavy mech were going down faster. Once Aieran felt that the enemy was weak enough, she gripped the explosive containers with her biotics and then threw them at the YMIR mech. The containers flew through the air and then hit the heavy mech, exploding on impact. Once the smoke was gone, the heavy mech was only in parts.

"Five down, three to go plus three pesky intruders." Aieran muttered to herself.

The few Eclipse guards that Aieran saved earlier came running to Aieran's side. There were four of them.

"Nice job on the kills ma'am, but the enemy forces are still wiping us out." The Eclipse guard pointed at something in the hangar. Aieran looked to where the guard was pointing.

She saw the former Spectre Shepard leading two YMIR mechs. After seeing Commander Shepard kill a group of Eclipse guards and LOKI mechs by himself, the Asari was worried what he could accomplish with two heavy mechs. Unfortunately for Aieran, her fears were to coming to life. She saw Shepard point at a position where a small group of five Eclipse guards where hiding behind a small weak crate and that four LOKI mechs were standing at. Shepard did some strange hand signals that must have made sense to the blue lined YMIR mechs. The heavy mechs aimed their rocket arms at the Eclipse and smaller mechs. Aieran watched as the heavy mechs shot their rockets, and the rockets flew to their targets. The rockets blew up the crates and the LOKI mechs. The Eclipse guards did not fare any better than the LOKI mechs as their bodies were on the ground with their armor smoking and burnt.

The Eclipse guard then pointed to the other corrupted heavy mech, except behind the mech was the thief Kasumi Goto. Kasumi had Hock's Locust out and she was behind the blue lined heavy mech, using it has cover. The thief was firing her Locust and walking at the same pace of the mech, as the mech itself fired its min-gun arm mowing down many Eclipse and LOKI mechs.

"I think we are one of the last ones left, ma'am." The Eclipse guard said with depression, to the Asari Commando.

Suddenly a blue plasma bolt hit the Eclipse guard that Aieran was just talking to, square in the face. The plasma attack knocked the guard down, melting his helmet and face away. Aieran ducked to hopefully avoid any plasma fire that was heading her way. Fortunately for the Asari Commando, no plasma bolts were heading her way, but she did see the other five Eclipse guards that she was standing by get pelted with the blue plasma. Their armor couldn't hold out against the deadly heat of the strange blue plasma that melted their armor.

Aieran had a good hunch where the attack was coming from. Her hunch was correct as she traced who was shooting at her comrades: the giant green intruder. Aieran saw that the golden visor stranger smack down a LOKI mech and then stomped on its torso, crushing it in pieces.

Aieran was pissed, she has had it with who she guessed was Soloman Gunn. Her body started to glow blue from her biotics, her fury only made her biotics radiate more from her body. Aieran holstered her Revenant as she wanted to crush this threat with her powerful biotic strength.

Her glowing biotic form must of caught the attention of seven foot armored menace as it looked at her with its golden visor. It then started to aim its blue gun at her and walk towards her.

Hoping to stop the behemoth, Aieran used her biotics to lift up a metal box and threw it at the green armored thing just like she did with the YMIR heavy mech. Instead of toppling the stranger down like the heavy mech, the green armored being actually swatted the metal box with its arm which sent the box flying behind it with a rather large dent in the box. The large stranger then raised its mysterious gun and fired a few bolts at her. Aieran's shields went down after three shots. The fourth shot hit her armor, which the bolt started to eat her armor away with intense heat. The Asari was able to figure out that the green armor stranger with the golden visor was using plasma technology, something that was very effective and deadly against shields and armor.

Aieran placed her feet firmly on the ground and then released a wave of biotic energy at the green armored stranger, but what she saw next completely caught her by surprise. The green behemoth barely moved an inch when she hit it with her biotics. Aieran then let out a continuous stream of biotic energy at the golden visor intruder, but she got the same results as before. What shocked the blue colored commando even more was that the seven foot green armored intruder started to walk towards her with heavy footsteps even while she was using her biotics against it. With all of the energy built up in her, the Asari Commando let out yell and released all of her biotic energy at the walking green armored intruder. The intruder was actually pushed back a lot farther back, a smirk grew on the Asari commando's blue lips. The smirk on Aieran's blue face soon disappeared as the green armored thing did another surprising feat. The behemoth slammed its fist in the ground as it was sliding backwards and the fist embedded itself in the ground which stopped the green armored behemoth from moving. Once the strong biotic waves were over the seven foot stranger moved its fist from the ground and started to walk towards her once more though it looked like the stranger was having a tough time moving through the biotics. Aieran could feel her energy leaving her, her limbs were aching, her vision was starting to blur, her knees were starting to buckle, and she was having to take heavy breaths of air… she was feeling tired. Her biotics were getting weaker as well and she could see that the armored behemoth was able to walk through her biotics at a faster pace because of it. Aieran was a powerful biotic and she was completely shocked to see that someone like this thing before her was to actually walk through her biotics like if it was being pushed by strong waves.

When the stranger with the golden visor was getting closer to Aieran, she decided to use what little strength she had left with a biotic punch. When the green armored figure was in reaching distance, she primed her hand with her biotics which glowed brightly blue. But before she could even fully swing her fist, the green armored stranger caught her arm and then with amazing speed and strength, gripped her by the throat with the other arm and held her up in the air. Aieran grabbed the arm that was holding her neck to try and make it release her, but it was of no use as its gauntlet hand held onto to her with amazing strength. It was getting harder to breath for the Asari under the steel like grip of the behemoth.

Aieran knew that she was going to die, so as if to give her some justice somehow she looked down at the golden visor of her soon to be killer to get a good look at its true face but all she could see was a golden reflection of herself. Her golden reflection actually brought a little fear in her.

"Cough… Well, cough… what are you waiting for? Cough… Do it!" Aieran screamed at the green armored being as she wanted her death to be quick and painless.

Aieran was able to look at her golden reflection for a few seconds, but what felt like hours. The green armored being that was holding the Asari by the neck, seemed like it was thinking or studying her. It then reached for some sort of handle/hilt like object on its side by the waist. The stranger flicked its arm which must have activated the handle/hilt as an energy like dual point sword suddenly appeared from the handle/hilt.

Aieran had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen next, if her thoughts were correct that the thing in the armored one's was some sort of energy sword. The Asari commando always thought that she was going to go out with a bang in a giant explosion that would take out numerous enemies or get shot several times during a huge firefight during a high stake mission or heck even dying of her thousand year lifespan has crossed her mind. But getting impaled by some sort of strange energy like sword by a highly advanced thing with superb armor and skills that surpass anything that she has come across, while on a boring security job for a rich boy and his party was a new one for the Asari. Yet despite her current situation, Aieran smirked once more. Her life was more exciting than most Asari could ever hope for.

"It sure was one hell of a ride. I hope the Goddess gots something big planned for me." Aieran thought to herself in her final moments.

The behemoth then thrust the energy like blade into Aieran's stomach, with the tips of the blade protruding through her back. At first when the blade went through her, it was an incredible heated pain that left her breathless. Some of her purple colored blood came out of her mouth, from when her innards exploded because of the intense plasma heat from the sword. But then... there was no more pain. The Asari's body began to go numb, her vision started to blur, and she felt really cold despite being stabbed from a super hot energy sword. Aieran then started to feel very tired, she felt more tired than she did when Aieran strained herself with her biotics against the seven foot behemoth.

Aieran's life flashed before her dreary eyes. From the moment she was born with her Asari mother and Krogan father, learning basics of biotics in school, her training to be an Asari Commando, leading fellow Asari Commandos on exciting missions, becoming a freelance commando, and to this moment right now. A smile tugged at her blue lips. Aieran was quite proud of her adventurous life. Even as her body was going limp and numb, Aieran knew that she was dying... and this was what dying felt like. The Asari Commando's drowsiness finally caught up on her, and so Aieran Vierokan closed her eyes one last time. Then there was nothing.

Normal POV

Chief let the Asari's dead limp body fall from his hand when he took the Energy Sword out of her gut. The blue body fell on the ground with a thud. The Spartan stared at the first actually biotic that he came into contact with for a few seconds. The biotic gave him trouble as he was not quite use to fighting someone that had a ability to push things with some strange energy though 343 Guilty Spark used something similar on him when they were about to pre-mature fire the Halo array on the newly rebuilt Installation 04 on the Ark. The blue biotic energy felt like walking against an extremely powerful river current that was around his whole body. Chief knew he would have to be more careful around biotics as they were a potential threat. The Asari did look like she had a hard time pushing John, but that was no surprise since the MJLONIR armor itself almost weighed a ton. Chief would look up more information about the biotics on the Codex or talk with Miranda Lawson about them since she herself said she was a talented biotic. Jack could provide valuable information about combating biotics, though talking with her might only give John a headache as crazy as she is.

"Well that was interesting." Kasumi said as she walked up with the Spartan.

Kasumi looked back and saw Commander Shepard walking up to them with the three last remaining YMIR mechs following him. The YMIR mechs still had the blue outlines, so she could tell that they were still on their side. The heavy mechs were extremely helpful during the fight as they took the brunt of the attack from Hock's troops and the heavy mechs also wiped out a great number of enemies. Even though the three out of eight mechs that survived, they looked pretty damaged from the huge firefight. Two of them were covered in small round burnt holes from the Eclipse's weapons and they were missing some pieces of their white armor on some parts. The other one did not look too badly damaged.

"Our ticket out is just ahead of us. Hock must of really wanted us to not get away if he used so many of his resources to stop of us." Shepard said as he looked at the charred remains of a LOKI mech.

"Like I said, this graybox holds vital information that could spark intergalatic war."

"We should probably get moving then. Wouldn't want Hock sending anymore forces to hold us back. " Shepard said as he turned to face Chief and Kasumi, but then he looked at the two mechs behind him. "We should leave two mechs behind to cover the entrance so no one can sneak up behind us."

"Agreed." John-117 said stoically.

"Aw, I am going to miss the rust buckets." Kasumi patted her hand on one of the YMIR mechs, to which it stood there motionlessly.

"We can't bring them anyway, they wouldn't fit in the Kodiak. The other mech can follow us to the platform as we leave." Shepard said who then told the two more badly damaged YMIR mechs to guard the entrance.

The YMIR heavy mechs complied with Shepard's orders and made their way back to the entrance to stand guard.

"Oh well, I am just glad to get the hell out of here." Kasumi said as she made her way to the final hangar door which opened up automatically to reveal the outside.

Outside in the fresh air was a large landing platform with crates, boxes, trucks and cranes lying around. Kasumi walked out on the platform looking at her surroundings, but Shepard and Chief had their guns up and aimed while they surveyed the platform for any surprise attacks. The third YMIR mech that didn't go with the other two mechs to guard the entrance, walked behind Shepard, Chief and Kasumi like any normal heavy mech would.

It was beautiful outside. Nice warm weather with a cool breeze, the delightful scent of the ocean soaring in the air, birds flying around looking for food, the sun was setting displaying a exotic orange color in the sky of the evening time, no mercs or mechs to shoot at them, everything was quiet... too quiet.

Suddenly an A-61 Mantis Gunship flew up in the air from below the landing platform and into their line of gunship was different from the usual gunship as it was encased in a bright blue kinetic shield, flying low and swerving side to side in an aggressive flight pattern. The mass accelerator cannons rotated and pointed in their direction with a familiar hum emitting the cannons that signified that it was about to release a hail of mass accelerator rounds.

"Incoming!" Master Chief shouted.

"Move!" Shepard yelled

All three of the scattered for any available cover when the cannons revved up and started shooting. Bright orange bullets razed the ground where they standing on moments before. The only one to not dive for cover was the YMIR heavy mech. The corrupted heavy was far too slow to dive for cover and it was too weak from the firefight in the hangar to survive long. The mass accelerator rounds traveled along the ground and made contact with the heavy mech. The damaged shields went first quickly, and then the mass accelerator rounds tore into the mech. After a few brief seconds of absorbing the rounds, the corrupted YMIR fell to its knees and then self-destructed like all mechs do when they are defeated.

Kasumi, Shepard, and Master Chief poked their heads out of cover to look at the shield Mantis Gunship.

"You could have done this the easy way, Goto! Allow me to show you the hard way!" Hock shouted through the Mantis Gunship's speakers as he charged the cannons on the gunship to shoot it once more.

Well I hope you liked it, I worked on it for a very VERY long time. (Beta note: I second that) If you are reading this Phoneix well, I thought I put in the beta note because I thought it was pretty funny.

Next on the update list is Star Wars Hope From the Future. Then Tomb Raider: The Lost Get Found, though I may change the title but it won't be a big change, if I change it, it will be Halo/Tomb Raider: The Lost Get Found. So yeah not a big change, but I MIGHT change it so be on the lookout. I will probably post a trailer/teaser for this story and my Halo/Tomb raider: The Lost Get Found story soon, so watch out for that. I am working on a trailer/teaser for the next chapter of my Halo/Tomb Raider story but I am just having a hard time starting it, just wondering what I should write for the first part but I do have a plan for what the teaser/trailer is going to be about.

Remember to go and VOTE ON THE POLL on my profile bio page so you can decide who will be Commander Shepard's pairing for this story. This will greatly affect the story.

The next chapter will be mainly about Master Chief getting to know the Normandy crew and squad members better. Some of the Master Chief and Normandy crew bonding will be aboard the Normandy, but there will also be some interacting on Omega. Shepard will be going to Omega to do some side missions that are on Mass Effect 2 so the Normandy crew will have some leisure time on Omega. So, while Shepard is doing some assignments on Omega, Chief will run into some of his own trouble and assignments. Some of the missions will be apart of Mass Effect 2 while a couple might be added or made up. Don't worry Chief will not go on the missions alone as he will have some Normandy squadmates with him that. The squadmates won't be the same squadmates on all of the assignments as they will switch with other characters on some assignments. But for the first part of the chapter, there will be the Hock and Gunship boss fight. It will be weird starting a chapter out with a heavy combat fight but it has to be done. The Horizon chapter will be happening in a few chapters or so and I have a few plans for that chapter. I just need to make sure if there is anything that should happen before Horizon like missions, side missions, character interactions, etc. I might do one about the Citadel after the Omega chapter or just go straight to Horizon. If you have any suggestions feel free to tell me about them and I will see what I can do.