M-Angel: *bobbing head and headphones*
Knight: ?
M-Angel: *turns music on* I LIKE BIG BUTTS AND I CANNOT LIE...
Knight: *facepalm*
M-Angel: *bursts out laughing* Okay, now that I've embarrassed Knight let's get on to the story.
Knight: Jerk.
Chapter 5: Time
"I think that a five minute head start is fair," Garrus said in his turian drawl. The shuttle touched lightly on the jungle clearing.
"Maybe ten is better," Jacob said.
"Against the three of us, perhaps ten will be sufficient," Thane said slowly. I gawked at them.
"You're insane!" I said. "I won't make it to the eleventh minute!"
"You've learned a great deal in a short period of time," Thane disagreed. "Stealth is far from your weak point,"
"Same goes for your marksmanship," Garrus said with a grin. "You're a natural,"
"In close-quarters, you're passable," Jacob said. "You aren't great at it, but no one is, really. There's a steep learning curve,"
"So, ten minutes should be fine," Garrus reassured me.
"Use every trick we've taught you. And know that Amonkira, Lord of Hunters, blesses your steps," Thane bowed his head as he spoke.
"Er…," I said. "T-thank you…,"
"That means get out of the shuttle," Garrus said.
"Oh! Ok!"
For the first five minutes or so, I just ran. There weren't any real paths, but I knew from Thane's lessons that there were other ways to track. I stepped around things that would leave an obvious trail-that meant dirt, long-bladed grass, and bushes. After a minute, I hit an area where the trees were thin. The ground was covered with shale rock-splintery, unreliable, shale. But it was sturdy enough to hide any footprints. The layer of dust covering them was difficult, it slowed me down, because one inch of foot drag would leave a visible trail. Visible to Thane, at least. Fifteen or feet into the quarry, I doubled back to where I'd walked in. They'd track me here.
I climbed up onto one of the weird spindly trees, going as high as I possibly could. Height confers advantages, I remembered Garrus saying. All sentient species look around for danger along one axis; it's instinctive. Looking up for threats isn't something that people do. And having a stable platform to fire from, at an easy angle, made it that much easier.
The trees trunk was thick enough to hide me entirely. A comfortable branch made it easy to prop up my assault rifle, a basic infantry staple that Garrus made me learn. Then… I waited.
Not for long. Within a minute, Garrus and Jacob exited the thick forest, right where I thought they would.
There were right in my sights. But I held back. Garrus's lessons. I had the advantage of a kickass spot to fire from. But at this range, they could fire back easily. My advantage meant little when they had the same. I let them slowly advance towards the rock outcropping, away from me. They were juking around trees, using the available cover, expecting a forward attack. They never suspected me behind them.
But Thane! He wasn't with them. He must've gone silent. The second after I made my move, I needed to run, or risk him sneaking up on my no-longer-stealthy position.
So… Jacob, or Garrus? There was no way I could take down Jacob if it came to a close-quarters fight. And Garrus had been the most fun learning from.
I shot Jacob. My blue paint balls smacked into his shoulders and the back of his head. I chuckled silently. Garrus whipped around, looking for the source of fire, but I was already behind the trunk of my tree. And he was looking for enemies at his elevation. I giggled.
When Garrus backtracked farther away, towards the rocks, I decided to climb down. I moved as quickly and quietly as I could. Since Garrus was too far away to hear, I snuck back into the brush and skirted left. The thick jungle pretty much disguised me, and gave me free reign to run around his position. When I caught up with him, he was surrounded by a dozen scattered stone pillars.
It was good cover. But it gave me new opportunity. I could come within ten feet of him, and he might not see it. So, I stepped as slowly as quietly as I could, into the maze.
Your opponents seek you by sight. Find them by listening, I remembered Thane's lesson.
I stopped behind a pillar and listened. Garrus was breathing heavily, probably jerking around his rifle to all the places that I could probably spring from. I smiled evilly. Then I snuck closer.
"Goddammit, Thane," I heard Garrus mutter on the other side of my pillar. I picked up a small rock and tossed it up, and over. It hit the top of the pillar opposite Garrus. He immediately shot up that pillar with pinpoint accuracy.
It was simplicity itself to shoot him in the back.
"Shit!" He cussed. "Thane did a good job making you a spook,"
"You know it," I laughed, before running out of the stone maze.
"I'm out. You got me!" Garrus called back.
Not you I'm worried about, I thought.
The thin area between the rock outcropping and the forest; that's where I was headed. Stealthing in an area with poor visibility was easy; doing it with great visibility and almost no shadows is nearly impossible.
Remembering my lessons, I looked everywhere for a possible threat. And I saw Thane.
Using his green skin and dark outfit to great advantage, the assassin was up in the canopy of a tree. I would have missed him, except that among the gently swaying treetops, he was completely motionless.
I whipped up my gun and fired just as he did, and we blasted each other with paint.
The three of us headed back to the shuttle and I couldn't help but smile. Sure it had been a pain in the neck to learn how to actually fight, hell, it hurt like, well, hell at times, especially when Thane would throw in an Asari way of fighting that resembled Ti Kwan Do. But it was fun, and in the end I was able to protect myself and others around me. When we got back onboard Commander Shepard called Garrus and Jacob to the operations/briefing room. While they did that I took a much-needed shower.
After my shower I put on my sweat pants, even though Lawson wanted me to wear that stupid Cerberus outfit. No way. She can shove that up her ass. I thought as I put on my t-shirt and headed up to the cockpit to talk to Joker. He was surprisingly fun to be around, for a guy who had a sour disposition. I smirked. What to talk about today? I thought as the cockpit doors opened.
"I'm tellin' ya EDI, I think I can get used to this," He said.
"You can get use to what?" I asked as I took the co-pilots seat. Why it was there, don't ask, because there were two pilots, but only one flew at a time. Joker said he didn't trust anybody with his baby.
"Nothing," He said defensively. "Well, how did you do at your test?"
"I'm sure you already know," I said.
"Oh, ha ha," He said.
"Mr. Moreau has been monitoring your progress in your training with Mr. Taylor, Officer Vakarian, and Assassin Krios," EDI said. "In my opinion, Miss Lavargus, you have done quite well in the last two months that you've been aboard the Normandy. Though you still make mistakes in the field, you often learn from them. You also did quite well on your mission a month ago in helping retrieve Miss Tali Zorah vas Neema. You cared for her injuries, assessed the situation, and took action quite quickly. My documentation of that and Mr. Zaeed's personal mission perfected. Do you wish to see the information for study?"
I blinked at the orb and looked at Jeff, who had a smirk on his face.
"Not right now," I said to her, "But thank you,"
"You are quite welcome Miss Lavargus," With that she blinked out.
"She likes to do that a lot, doesn't she?" I asked him.
He laughed. "Yeah," He said, "You should see her when she thinks I'm in pain. She'll actually lock me out of the control terminal!" I laughed.
"It's not funny," He demanded. "She's worse than my mom. Oh Jeffrey, you broke another bone! Oh Jeffrey you can't do that!" He said in a high pitched voice, causing me to laugh.
"I'm telling you if she her way I'd have been swathed in bubble wrap and covered in Styrofoam, so she'd never have to worry. You'd think I was her only kid the way she fretted about me!"
"What, you're not an only child?" I asked.
"Hell no," he said. "The youngest, yes, but not the only,"
"What about you?"
"Nope," I said. "Youngest, yes. Only child? No."
"Humph," He grunted.
"Joker," Came the Commander's voice from the intercom, "Plot a course for Horizon."
"Aye, aye, Commander," He said as his hands began punching in the coordinates in the console. "ETA one hour twenty-two minutes."
"Thanks, Joker," She said and cut the connection.
"This should be fun," He said.
"Ain't Horizon a human colony?" I asked. He frowned.
"Yeah," He said and looked at me. "It is,"
"I know you feel this,"
Garrus softened him up with his sniper rifle, and I finished him with a shotgun blast. The Collector General withered up into ashes and blew away.
"That guy is starting to get on my nerves," Shepard growled around the chatter of her assault rifle chewing up a husk.
"Ditto," Garrus said from the back. He was behind cover, far from the front.
I sat down on one of the crates and took a few deep breaths. Those last bad guys had drained me.
"Lasers charged yet?" I asked.
"Ninety-eight percent," EDI replied over the radio.
"Good," Shepard said, sounding almost as relieved as I felt.
"Incoming!" Garrus shouted. A massive object hit smack on the console controlling the lasers.
"Oh, shit," Shepard intoned.
"Praetorian! Take cover!" Garrus shouted. I leapt up and around behind a crate, just as a beam weapon tore up the spot I'd left.
"Garrus, Serena, you're on offense. I'll run interference!" Shepard shouted. She charged the Praetorian, slamming it's backside. It screamed defiance and wheeled around. While Shepard raced back to cover, Garrus and I ripped into its shields with sniper and pistol.
It wheeled around, choosing the prey that was fighting instead of running. I nearly shat myself as it glared at me-Garrus was far away, and I was two crates away.
It shot it's particle beam gun, tearing away half my shields in the time it took to dive back under cover.
"Serena! It's flanking!" Garrus hollered.
I glanced up. The massive crab-thing was floated quickly around my cover.
"Shepard!" I screamed.
The Praetorian's side exploded as Shepard's grenade launcher hit. The shields were almost gone. It shrieked with rage and fired at Shepard, who barely dodged. Garrus and I used the advantage to tear into it.
"Its shields are gone!" Shepard yelled. "Hammer it!"
I whipped out my shotgun, the heaviest thing I had. While Garrus shot round after round into it from his safepoint, and while Shepard shot it in the face with a grenade, I, like an idiot, ran up under it's legs.
Aiming straight up, I blasted it in the gut. The armor crunched inward, but held. I barely dodged a spindly leg. Another shotgun blast in the weakened spot tore through the armored belly, and I shot a third blast into the hole.
The Praetorian moaned in pain, and collapsed on me. Or seemed to, anyway. It dissolved into black ash and floated away.
A second later, the GARDIAN lasers fired, impacting the Collector ship. The ship flew up, trying to escape.
"They've still got the colonists," Garrus said.
"No!" The conspiracy-theorist hillbilly shouted, running up to Shepard. "Don't let 'em get away!"
"There's nothing we can do," Shepard said. "They're gone,"
"Half the colony's in there! They took Egan and Sam and… and Lilith! Do something!"
"Just what do you expect me to do?" Shepard snapped.
"We did what we could, Shepard," I said.
"Shepard…," The mechanic muttered. "Wait, I know that name. Sure, I remember you. Some type of big Alliance hero,"
And then an old teacher materialized.
"Let's give them a minute to talk," Garrus pulled me aside.
I looked between the Commander and Alenko. I could see something was going on between them. Must have history, I thought. I looked at Garrus, his grip tightening on his gun. He must have sharper hearing than me. Whatever Alenko was saying, it was pissing Garrus off. Great, just what I need in my sparring partner.
As I got closer I heard him say. "You're not only betraying the Alliance Shepard, but me too."
He shook his head and said, "I'll have to report this and you working for Cerberus."
That son-of-a… My thoughts stopped in their tracks when his eyes landed on me. Oh don't you dare give me that look Alenko because if we meet again, you'll wish you were dead. Unconsciously my lips curled up into a snarl and my grip on my gun tightened to the point that my knuckles turned white. I barely even heard Shepard call Joker for a pick-up.
As I walked into the training room to blow off steam I saw Shepard and Garrus fighting each other. It ended as she threw him on his back and she paused her final punch in his face. They were both reathing heavily, she leaned down to him and kissed his lips… or mandibles, or whatever.
That… was my cue to leave. As I walked to the elevator I had a smile on my lips. I won the bet!I thought as I walked into med-bay.
M-Angel: Well that's all for now everybody. Leave a review!
Knight: The next chapter will be around Friday.
M-Angel: *cheerful *Where's the enthusiasm, Knight?
Knight: It died when Ashley did. *break down in sobs*
M-Angel: This is a girl's story. It was her or Kaiden. I hate to say it, but she had to die!
Knight: *weeps*