A/N: Whew! That last chapter took a lot of energy to write! And now I have to write another action-filled chapter. -_- This chapter isn't very long because it's just a lot of repetitious fighting. If I wrote the ending for the game, I'd say the player could choose to help out the ground troops, or skirt around the edges and just fight a few enemies. Because, you know. The player's choices matter. GRR.

Chapter 5

"Wrex if you breathe any louder the entire Reaper army is going to know where we are," Ashley quipped. Shepard couldn't see any of her team since they were all cloaked, but she could most certainly hear Wrex, too.

"Let them hear me," he barked. "I'd much prefer an all-out ground assault to all this sneaking around. Krogan don't sneak!"

"That much is abundantly obvious," Shepard agreed.

A dozen geth ships flew overhead, landing close to Harbinger and geth primes began unloading to join the battle. A chill ran up Shepard's spine. She was glad they were on their side. She hated fighting those terrifying, huge red geth. They laid waste to the first wave of husks that exited Harbinger's ship without any trouble. Then the second wave came - a platoon of brutes. The battle escalated quickly, but the geth fought on bravely, for A.I.

"Damnit, Shepard, we should be in this fight!" Wrex growled.

"This is what ground troops are for, Wrex!" Shepard snapped. "I didn't bust my ass all over the galaxy to single-handedly beat the entire Reaper fleet by myself! They're doing their part and we're doing ours. Once we're inside you'll have more than enough Reaper parts to spill."

"It would appear you'll get to spill Reaper 'parts' sooner than both of you thought," Miranda said casually. "The only way in is through that."

Shepard looked ahead and saw what looked like two hundred Reapers guarding the gaping hole of the downed ship. At least thirty were banshees, twenty five or so brutes, a hundred or so husks, and the rest were a mixed collection of marauders, collectors, and cannibals.

"Okay here we go people. Javik, Wrex, Ash, Jack, and Tali, flank them to the left. James and Grunt I want you firing off so many grenades they'll think they've just entered a minefield. Garrus, I want you to watch our backs and snipe anything that gets too close. Liara, Miranda, Jack, and Samara, you're with me on point. I need you to work together; create biotic shockwaves to carve out a path for the rest of the team so we can get inside. Questions?"

"Who wants to try and beat me for number of kills?" Wrex piped up.

He received a resounding "Me!" from most of the team. The two asari in the team simply sighed patiently.

"Let's go old man," Garrus said. "Just like old times. I beat you then, I'll beat you now."

"You didn't beat me!" Wrex said indignantly. "I had three more kills than you when we fought Sovereign!"

"Yeah but who went with Shepard to the Collector base and killed a thousand more Reapers?" Garrus shot back. "Was it you? Oh right, you didn't. That was me."

Shepard popped the thermal clip out of her assault rifle then laid waste to four cannibals. "And I bet I could beat all y'all combined!"

The sound of immense gunfire and biotic explosions filled the air. Samara provided a barrier around the team on point while the other three biotics blasted away at approaching Reapers. Shepard swapped her assault rifle for her shotgun and picked off stragglers who were getting too close for comfort. They picked up the pace as Harbinger grew closer and closer, and reaper after reaper fell to their weapons. Shepard grabbed an extra thermal clip and was just about to load it when she heard the horrible, earth-shattering scream of a banshee.

Looking ahead of them she saw that it was not one, but ten banshees.

"Liara! Jack! I need their barriers down!"

"On it!" Jack shouted.

Liara didn't bother saying anything, instead she sent off a wave of biotic energy at the banshees. Their screams grew louder as Javik's team closed in and pummeled them with crossfire. Shepard lobbed off two frag grenades, followed by the biotic power they liked to call "carnage." Three of the banshees lit up like a Christmas tree and screamed even louder.

"Shepard! Garrus is in trouble!" Liara shouted from next to her.

She looked back and saw Garrus getting swarmed with husks. She grabbed two more frag grenades from her armor, used her thumbs to pull the clips, and lobbed them in his direction as hard as she could. "Garrus! INCOMING GRENADE!" she bellowed.

He looked up in time to see them flying toward him and launched himself as far from the proceeding explosion as he could. Grunt made his way to Garrus and annihilated the remaining husks with his shotgun.

"That counts as ten for Shepard. HAHAHAA!" Grunt taunted.

Garrus sent off an area concussive shot to a group of cannibals. They all exploded messily. "Let's go baby pyjack!" Garrus shot back.

Still laughing maniacally, Grunt helped Garrus catch up with the rest of the group. The banshees launched everything they had at them, screeching and howling the entire time.

"Yeah, this won't give me nightmares at all," Vega shouted as he struggled to shoot past a banshee's biotic barrier.

"Man up, Princess!" Wrex bellowed, charging at a banshee fearlessly.

"Shit, you're crazy!" Vega shouted and did his best to provide cover fire for the overzealous krogan.

"Commander, how close are you?" Hackett's voice came over her communicator.

"Close, sir, but we could use a few more ground troops if you can spare them," she replied, picking off two more cannibals.

"There's a platoon of Elcor tanks on their way right now. Let me know when you're inside."

"Harvesters!" Liara shouted, pointing to the sky above them.

"Great, and I was just starting to feel good about my day," Shepard snarled.

Three harvesters dropped from the sky around the team, dropping more Reapers on the ground with them.

"Fuck this," Shepard said under her breath. She grabbed her M-920 Cain from her pack and aimed it at two of the harvesters. She'd been trying to save the shot for Harbinger once inside, but at the rate they were going, that wasn't going to happen.

"Cain!" Williams shouted the warning, then covered her eyes. Everyone quickly followed suit and Shepard closed her own eyes as she fired the shot.

A surreal moment of complete silence fell over the battlefield as the gun powered up. Shepard thought she even heard her heart beat twice. Then a deafening BOOM ensued, followed by a flash of light so bright Shepard swore she didn't even close her eyes. She threw the gun down and prepared for the next onslaught of Reapers. When her eyesight returned to normal, she saw two of the harvesters were dead and the third was getting pounded by the Elcor tanks. They weren't actually tanks, merely Elcor with really big guns strapped to their backs, but she found the term appropriate.

"Time to go!" Shepard shouted, ignoring the remaining harvester.

"Out of the fire and into the demon's shithole?" Jack asked sardonically.

"You know it," Shepard replied.

They plowed easily through the remaining Reapers standing in their way with renewed vigor. Then they scrambled up the side of the fallen reaper ship, and, as Jack had delicately put it, into the demon's shithole.