A/N: Only a couple more chapters to go! This chapter is relatively short, because I'm simply pants at writing combat scenes. Anyways, I hope you like it. Jack and Andy are ridiculously powered, as you would have noticed if you've read this far - and that feature will be highlighted quite noticeably in this chapter.
Andy and Jack strode towards the Cargo Bay with grim determination on their faces, though everybody that passed couldn't fail to notice their intertwined fingers of life in their eyes. The Reapers had finally come, but both of the biotics now shared a bond and promise that transcended that. Jack looked across at Andy and sent him a small smile, and he returned it warmly before punching the button for the elevator. "Which front are we taking?"
"Earth," he replied without hesitation, "mostly because it's important as hell. The majority of the human population live there, and considering they know that you and I have destroyed at least one of their number they will be looking for revenge."
"Are we taking anybody?"
"Jacob and Morinth I believe. Liara, Shepard, Legion, Samara, Miranda, and Mordin will be stationed on Illium; and Garrus, Kar, Tali, and Grunt will be taking Freedom's Progress."
Jack nodded her head in understanding and walked out with her love onto the Cargo Deck. The Normandy crew was swarming around doing their duties, while the combat team were all stood around three drop ships looking anxious. The pair quickly made their way towards the group and received drawn greetings as their morphic armour interfaced to their nervous and sensory systems and ran checks. "No speeches," Andy interrupted when Shepard made to step forwards. "Everybody here knows what's on the line, what they have to do, and we'll be alright."
Shepard looked around and got determined nods in return, and he gave a small sigh before sending Andy a wry smile. "Well then, now that I've been relegated to the 'no inspirational speeches' bucket, good luck - stay safe, all of you. No heroics here. If you're facing certain death back down; it's better to fight another day than to give it all up because you feel like a pussy for backing down."
Andy nodded his agreement and quickly joined the others in shaking hands, exchanging hugs, and saying their 'good lucks'. Within mere minutes Liara, Shepard, Legion, Samara, and Miranda were flying out of the cargo bay in one of the Normandy's drop ships and John seemed to slump slightly before sending them all smiles. "Now that Andy isn't looking over my back I can make my speech." Liara stifled a chuckle, and both Miranda and Samara were sending their Commander small smirks of amusement. "We've come a hell of a long way since we came together on this mission, even with you Legion, and it's too damn late to back down now. When we hit Illium we're going to go in hard, and without any mercy. I talked to Andy on the way down to the Cargo Bay and he told me that the morphic armour we're wearing - Legion excluded - has just been upgraded with a new feature.
"It provides a direct feed of a synthetic stimulant into our bloodstreams, and although we'll crash badly afterwards we should be able to power through this mission without any breaks." Getting nods in return he opened up a program on his Omni-tool and quickly analysed the battle schematics provided by Daniel and Faith; created mere milliseconds after the warning came in. It was changing before their very eyes as it updated with real-time data, and Shepard pointed out the swarm of blue dots over the simulated Illium. "Asari and Turian dreadnaughts are providing support from above the atmosphere, and they're sending fighters down for close air support. They're doing their best, but even with the new tech Reapers have gotten through their protective net and infiltrated the planet. Casualties are already estimated at three million, and that's an hour after the first one arrived."
John saw a look of horror pass over his lifemate's face and drew her to his side before gently kissing her temple. She snuggled deeper into his embrace, ignoring the fact that they were en route to a potentially lethal mission and in front of company. Miranda seemed to understand if the compassionate look on her face was anything to go by, and Legion simply didn't comprehend why Liara was seeking such physical closeness. Samara looked almost wistful. Shepard pointed to another swarm on the main city - also coloured blue and interspersed around the red dots that were the Reapers. "Alliance forces as well as several Turian and Asari battalions are groundside, and the only reason Alliance ships aren't in orbit is because their forces are centred on Earth... which is also being attacked right now. Andy is leading a squad there, so I have no doubt that Earth is in good hands." He spread his fingers over the hologram and it zoomed in to give a more defined look at how the allied forces were spread. "We'll drop in here," he pointed to behind a building in front of which a Reaper was stationed, "and then come around the front and assist." He tapped one of the blue dots and second later a live video feed appeared; sounds of guns, screams, and loud thumps flooding the small area they were in.
"My god," murmured Miranda with a disgusted look on her face as she saw one of the mutated abominations get incinerated by a stray round, "what the hell are those things?"
John likewise was looking at the swarms of disfigured and gruesome creatures, and shook his head with a scowl on his lips. "I don't know, and I don't care. They're going down with the rest of the murdering little fuckers."
Liara looked up in surprise, not ever having heard Shepard swear before, and blanched when she saw a look of intense hate and fury on his face as he stared at the screen. It was nowhere near as violent as what she had seen with Jack and Andy on the Cerberus base, but it was enough to scare her. It took a couple of seconds for John to realize that the woman holding onto him had stiffened, and he broke his gaze away from the live feed - blanching himself when he saw the raw worry in his lover's eyes. He sighed after a moment when he realised what the problem was, and leaned down to kiss the crown of her head. "Sorry," he murmured, "just... seeing that makes me so angry. The Reapers are nothing but a disgusting, immoral, murdering race of bastards that need to be erased as they have done to others."
Liara nodded slightly before pulling away and twitching her fingers in a pre-programmed motion, and the armour entered its full battle mode; bulking up slightly and slowly fading out of the visible spectrum until all that was left was an empty seat. Shepard followed a second later along with Miranda, Samara, and Legion, and within mere moments they found themselves all looking at each other again; their suits encoded with the encryption algorithms rendering them invisible. Everybody quickly ran through their start up tests, and stood when their pilot Sophie's, voice came over their communications informing them that they were about to land.
Their trip to Illium had taken so little time due to the wormhole travel that five minutes after stepping foot into the shuttle they were blasting through the atmosphere. The ground rapidly approached, and with control that perhaps only Joker could match the drop ship came to a standstill mere centimetres above the surface of the planet. Shepard twitched three off his fingers in quick succession, and a second later had his assault rifle pressed hard into his shoulder as he stepped out of the small cabin and into the warzone beyond. Liara stepped quickly out from behind him and squeezed her trigger twice; both shots blasting the heads right off two Scions and dropping them.
Liara heard the camouflaged drop ship hiss away as it left, but was too focussed on the war before her very eyes to turn and see just how visible it was. She heard Shepard's rifle click quietly beside her as he took out more hostiles, and the same from Miranda, Samara, and Legion behind her, but once again only focussed on her range of sight. She trusted Shepard to cover her side, and the two teammates behind her to cover her back. Less than a minute later they came into the main arena of battle around the Reaper, and attention from the allied forces was quickly on them; their invisible forms outlined in purple on their HUDs, identifying them as commanding officers.
None of the four even paused to give their comrades the slightest bit of attention; their entire beings focussed on decimating the forces that surrounded them, as well as the huge Reaper above. A huge, blinding beam of light suddenly burst through the cloud cover and hit one of the legs of the huge machine - atomizing it into nothingness and causing it to loose balance. Everybody saves the Normandy crew watched with wide eyes as the Reaper tried to readjust its other legs to try and regain some semblance of stability, but its huge bulk and the gravity affecting it soon dictated its destiny.
Unfortunately its destiny coincided directly with theirs: on a collision course. The four immediately joined the throng of marines and allies in sprinting full-tilt away from the rapidly falling machine, but could easily see that they didn't have enough time. The shadow fell across the entire park where they had been fighting and Shepard grabbed onto Liara and curled protectively over her despite the futility of the action - he knew full well that his body wasn't able to withstand such a crushing impact.
He faintly heard a beep over the crunching and groaning of metal and yells around him, but put it off to somebody's weapon emitting an alert - or his armour.
That thought was quickly discarded when a huge, rumbling roar of an explosion tore through the entire block, and everybody's heads snapped towards the sound before quickly shielding their eyes and cringing as an earth-shuddering thump juddered underneath them. When they next looked the entire area was covered in a huge cloud of dust, and nobody knew just what was going to emerge from it. Shepard slowly unfolded himself from over Liara and looked around, catching sight of Miranda and Legion tentatively walking to join them among other soldiers and Miranda coming out from behind cover nearby; all outlined in glows that allowed people to know where allies were in the near-blinding dust.
"Commander." Shepard looked down to his arm in shock, and his eyes widened when he saw the smiling face of an attractive blonde with blue eyes; one of their pilot AIs- the one that had dropped them off. "The explosion was caused by me," she informed him with a sheepish grin, "when I saw the Reaper coming down I knew you wouldn't make it in time, and I knew that if I detonated the jump-core inside my ship I'd be able to redirect its decent so it would miss you. I've sent a requisition order back to Ellie on the Normandy to build another drop ship that I can pilot with the nanobots we prepared for situations like this." She paused for a second and then grinned, "Ah, it's ready. I'll see you back on the battlefield, or the Normandy... one or the other. Sophie out."
Her face winked out of existence and Shepard blinked before placing his finger to his ear and tapping twice to patch himself into the comms of all nearby allied forces. "That explosion was a kamikaze by one of our AIs to divert the fall of the Reaper. She's okay and is piloting another ship as we speak, but... well there's your proof people; treat AIs like people and they'll save your life just like your team."
Murmurs of agreement and surprise came into his ear a moment later, and then a slew of 'thank yous' to Sophie, whom Shepard had no doubt was grinning her head off at that moment as she listened in. Shepard and the rest of his team moved forwards and around the fallen Reaper with an efficiency that many soldiers could only stare in wonder at; not even pausing or hesitating for a moment as they passed into enemy lines and bunkers that they decimated with brutal skill. They advanced onto other enemy grounds with nary a single break; fighting the Reapers until one of the ships in orbit was sufficiently charged to send down one of their Lancer attacks to decimate the sentient machines before clearing the area and then moving onto the next battleground.
It was completely fluid, and even Shepard had to stop a moment after their seventeenth Reaper to marvel at the way they all worked together seamlessly. After their twenty fifth Reaper however, the accelerants and steroids being pumped into their bodies begun to take its toll, and Legion was reporting low energy levels as well. After their thirtieth they were running on fumes. There were still several outbreak areas however, where the Reapers had been defeated but where the creatures they contained hadn't, and so the team of four wearily travelled to the zones via Sophie's drop ship to save energy. Finally, nearly twenty hours after their first battle the four collapsed down behind a barricade made by the contingent of mixed Marines, STG, and Asari Commando squads who were also hunkered down with them, occasionally popping over and around the concrete to knock off more of their enemies. "I'm fuckin' shagged," breathed Miranda, and Liara cracked a wry smile while John let out a tired laugh.
Legion and Samara just looked confused. "We do not see how or when you engaged in sexual intercou-"
"It's a human expression, Legion," interrupted the irritated Miranda, and Legion's flanges flickered a couple of times before he nodded.
"Added to data banks."
John rolled his eyes and popped over the cover before expertly executing twenty headshots in quick succession before the abominations even realized where the shots were coming from and centred their fire on him. He peered down at him Omni-tool, glowing pale green in the darkness, and quickly scrolled through the request calls that were coming in. "There aren't any more Reapers inbound, and only two more are left on the surface. Two Lancer Class ships are coming in and will destroy them in the next five minutes. The rest of the battles are much like this one; tedious, but not as dangerous and destructive as the Reapers themselves. Medi-vac operations are running smoothly, and transfer of forces from completed battles to ones in progress is being assigned by Faith and Daniel. This'll be the last fight for us today."
All three of his companions let out breaths of relief and the atmosphere lightened considerably.
For the next ten minutes they helped the allies they were with clear the area, and exchanged 'good luck's and 'thank you's before they headed towards their waiting drop ship, almost dead on their feet. Sophie allowed them to doze on the way back to the Normandy which was waiting in orbit after destroying the last Reaper, and regretfully had to ask them to wake up and leave as she still had duties to perform on the surface of the planet. Joker met Miranda the second she came off the transport and gave her a hard kiss before embracing her looking more emotional than anybody had ever seen him, and Shepard and Liara followed the pair tiredly to the elevator where they punched their appropriate floors. Miranda bade the two a quiet goodnight before leaving to her quarters that she now shared with Joker, and Shepard gently helped Liara stay standing as he guided her through their room and into the bathroom.
Their armour quickly slid to the floor in liquid form and slithered back into the bedroom to await them for the next day, and Shepard quickly got her out of her underwear as well as himself before pulling her into the shower and punching the decontamination button. A wonderfully hot spray burst from the shower head and cascaded over their bodies, and both could feel the waves of cold and slight sting as the nanobots within the water entered their pores and cleaned them. Thirty seconds after it had begun the shower stopped and the water pebbling on their skin evaporated as the last nanobots atomized themselves to provide the necessary heat. John, with half-lidded eyes, helped Liara to the bed where she collapsed and let out a deep sigh of relief. She frowned and gave a mumble when she saw Shepard pull up the final results of the Illium attack, and her eyes saddened when she saw his face become even more drawn. "So many," he murmured as he stared at the death count with pain in his eyes, and Liara forced herself to reach up and rest her hand on his arm.
He looked down at her and she shook her head; tired blue eyes staring back at him. "Not your fault," she slurred tiredly, "did all we could. Come to bed."
He stared at the figure one last time before exiting the terminal and lying down, and wrapped his arms protectively around the love of his life, thankful above all else that, unlike so many today, he had his reason for living to come back to and hold onto.
Jacob had been a soldier for the Alliance for years before being asked to take on the responsibility of being a Corsair; the Alliance's black-ops division that performed wet-work that was illegal. He'd seen battle upon battle; the worst of the worst; the vilest of vile. He'd worked alongside the most talented soldiers in the entire Universe, and fought some of them as well, and yet looking across at Jack and Andy he was infinitely thankful that he hadn't ever had to face either of them.
Because the pair was busy playing I-Spy.
"Okay, I spy with my little eye something beginning with..." Jack peered around for a while before grinning and looking back to Andy triumphantly. "W."
Jacob watched with completely unveiled disbelief as Andy simply rolled his eyes with a grin and lifted up her left hand. "Wedding band," he smirked at her small scowl that was having trouble not morphing into a giddy look of happiness. "I had a feeling you'd pick the most obvious thing." As she pouted further Andy looked over to Jacob and Morinth with a small, reassuring smile. "We'll be fine out there," he said firmly, no room for doubt. "Since we're facing the Destroyers, and they're smaller than the big fuckers, Jack and I can offer assistance at any time. If you're pinned, or if you need a few seconds to catch your breath, just call us no matter what. Don't let embarrassment or a sense of 'they're busy' get you hurt."
Jacob smiled and gave a thankful nod to his superior; recently promoted to vice-Commander unofficially by Shepard. He saw Morinth do the same, and it was at that moment they came out of the wormhole and arrived just short of Earth's atmosphere. Everybody peered out the window, and Jacob felt a shiver run down his spine when the temperature in the cabin lowered by several degrees. When he looked up at Andy and Jack he saw the reason for the sudden change; waves of pure black energy rippled off their skin in swarms, and he couldn't blame them. Earth was alight with destruction, cities on the night side clearly burning, and those on the day side covered with a layer of smoke that distorted the details of the countries.
"Put us down in London," Andy growled coldly, and the AI pilot didn't comment, simply angling the ship towards the specified destination. As it got closer and closer the scope of the destruction became clearer through the smoke, and Jack let out a muttered curse of anger before watching Andy bring up his Omni-tool and quickly access the real-time battle map. After he'd located a cluster of red he sent the co-ordinates off to the pilot and then turned to Morinth and Jacob with ice-cold eyes. Jacob had to force himself not to shiver. "What you see down there will scar you for life," he warned lowly, "because even with all the new technology... the innocents have suffered. You'll see children mutilated in the streets; victims of the enemy... but unless there are confirmed signs of life I must ask you to move on - respect the dead by making sure that few more join them." He looked to Morinth especially as he spoke next. "Jack and I are not treating this as a game anymore. This time we will not be holding back, and many of the powers we will use will shock you, and likely frighten you in cases. We only ask that you obey orders and think of the innocents we're saving by acting so ruthlessly."
Jacob felt a shiver run through him at the look in his two friends' eyes. He'd seen the same look in the eyes of Corsair and N7 burn-outs; men and women that had seen far, far too much death in their lives. To those that couldn't recognize the look, civilians mostly, seeing such expressions and emotions usually made them escape in haste, but Jacob was a soldier. The looks in their eyes showed complete iciness; an iciness that only people who had killed hundreds of people could project. He found it almost impossible that the two people in front of him had been joking around mere minutes earlier - every other person he knew who had the same look as they did seemed stuck in a perpetual state of detachment and wariness.
That, and within two years of leaving the service at most they committed suicide or went on a mass killing spree.
The ship came to an abrupt halt and Andy stood up as the side door slid open to reveal the smoke-ridden battleground beyond. They stepped out into the sounds of warfare, and both Jacob and Morinth consciously stayed behind the two biotics, who didn't even look back as their shuttle departed. Glass crunched and squelched as they strode forwards; the ground covered with puddles of blood, and within a minute the four emerged into the square within which two Reaper Destroyers were relentlessly attacking the troops dug in. Jacob and Morinth had thought they had seen power before, but they hadn't been able to comprehend it until now.
With a mere wave of the pair's hands both Reapers collapsed in on themselves; sparking with dark red energy as they fell to the ground defeated. All noise ceased in the immediate area as the troops all stared in shock, at least until the first cheer rose up from a nearby Turian. It quickly gained momentum, at least until Andy sparked dangerously and a wave of cold rolled over everybody. "There are innocents still being murdered whilst you celebrate," he growled, but his voice carried to everybody listening, which was everybody. "Now is not the time to lose focus. Once this planet has been cleansed of the Reapers then you can cheer, and laugh, and congratulate yourselves... but for now, move the fuck out and kick some ass."
And with that he closed his eyes, searched for the tainted presences of Reapers around them, and then slashed his hand downwards. Everybody watched as a fissure of darkness split into existence mid-air, and Andy walked straight through it, followed almost immediately by Jack. Morinth and Jacob didn't know what to think, but took deep breaths after a moment before stepping through after the couple. They emerged into yet another battleground; to more Reapers already twitching lifelessly on the ground, and whips of blackness warping fatally around their enemies before disintegrating them.
Jacob quickly pulled his assault rifle to bear and started firing, and Morinth was not far behind; decimating the forces behind them with powerful biotic attacks. The two handling the brunt of forces in front however, were the main focus of everybody and everything on the ground. They tore ruthlessly through the swarms of reaperized Batarians and Turians - even the Brutes and Harvesters were torn asunder by the whips of energy like a hot knife through butter. It took a couple of times jumping through the black fissures in space until it hit the two lower ranked soldiers that Andy and Jack were literally creating wormholes with just their own power, and they silently agreed with Andy's earlier words.
They were terrified of the two biotics.
Such power in two people was petrifying; the ability to tear apart the space-time continuum by mere will alone, and waves of hands. As they continued fighting the reality sunk in even more as Morinth and Jacob watched huge mechanical-organic hybrids towering kilometres above them were crushed by waves of choking black nets of energy; waves of hundreds of enemies decimated by yells that simply exuded dark biotics; beams of light shooting upwards occasionally whereupon huge, blinding spots like stars would burn down upon them as Reapers, fully sized Reapers in orbit, were decimated. Neither of them could fool themselves that they were simply there for anything more than support, and in most cases it wasn't even in combat-capacity - rather taking a moment here or there to calm the allied troops and reassure them that the two beings in front of them were on their side. By the twelfth hour Jacob had seen things that he had thought impossible occur more than he could count. His two team mates were not in any manner, shape, or form human saves from appearance. They were cold, ruthless, impossibly powerful trained killers, and seeing them move as they did, interact as they did, and kill without even the faintest flicker of emotion... it rattled Jacob more than he had ever thought he could be.
They hadn't paused for over fifteen hours when Andy and Jack finally stopped their fluid, lethal movements, and both Morinth and Jacob stared warily at the pair, as did every single solider on their current battlefield. Not a sound came from anywhere, saves for the creaking and crunching as the recently-crushed Reaper Destroyer collapsed further in on itself - even nature itself seemed to pause with halted-breath. Everybody watched as Andy tapped at his Omni-tool for a couple of seconds, and then, for the first time since touching down on the ground, a flicker of emotion zipped across his face. Slowly the flicker solidified as the edges of Andy's mouth twitched upwards, and then continued climbing until he was beaming down at whatever the holographic overlay was telling him.
He raised a hand to his ear, eliciting flinches from everybody saves Jack due to the fact that such small motions had been seen to kill hundreds, and with a small bleep every single soldier on, above, and stationed around Earth found themselves listening to the man himself. "This is Andrew Kronos speaking. As you can probably tell right about now, there's nothing left to fight. Earth is currently secure, and any medical teams in orbit should get groundside as quickly as possible - we may have won the fight, but now we need to rebuild." He could hear cheers in the distance, and continued speaking - effectively cutting off the whooping mid-yell. "Before celebrations begin however, will everybody please take a minute's silence for those that gave their lives for this battle - one billion humans; one thousand Asari; five hundred Turians; seven hundred Salarians..."
Earth had never before observed such silence. All surviving civilians noticed that the soldiers were all standing with bowed heads and followed their example, most of them understanding what was happening even without hearing the military broadcast. Finally Andrew raised his head and gave a small, tired smile before pulling Jack into a hug. Just as the world had never observed such silence, it had never before had such noise. The roar of victory was overwhelming, and in many cases had one country silenced they would have been able to hear the celebrations in those surrounding them.
A drop ship dove down before hovering in front of the pair, and Andy hauled Jack up into the hold before sitting down himself and sinking into the chair. He looked tiredly out at Morinth and Jacob, both whom were still staring at him with distrust, but contrary to looking hurt Andy nodded his understanding and closed the hatch before ordering another transport for the pair. He wouldn't hold it against them; had he been in the same situation he would have been terrified as well. He had to force himself to stay awake for the three minutes it took for the drop-ship to blast open a wormhole and come out by the Normandy, and with the last scraps of energy his fatigued body possessed he picked his sleeping fiancé up in his arms and carried her to the elevator - helped by smiling and welcoming crew members.
He found himself helped into his room by Kelly Chambers and Kenneth Donnelly, and both congratulated him before promptly leaving the pair alone. He activated the clean cycle on both his and his lover's armour, and after several seconds felt all dirt, sweat, and dead material pull itself free of his body to be absorbed by the suit, which quickly fell off of him and Jack leaving them both as naked as the day they were born.
Even completely exhausted he couldn't help but marvel at the beauty of the woman in his arms for a moment, but the thought quickly fell out of his mind when his eyes landed on the bed. As soon as the side of his leg touched the mattress he was asleep; collapsing haphazardly sideways with Jack still cradled in his arms. They were lying completely the wrong way on the bed, and the sheets were in no way covering them, but to both of the warriors it was soft, it was safe, and they were home.
