Chapter 3: The Chase

"Hang a right! No wait, left!"

"I'm on her" Shepard said in the voice a parent gives a child when they've said something more then once and been answered the exact same way every time. The two sky-cars swerved past a building with a picture of a volus and then kept going from there.

"Hang a left!" Liara urged. Shepard did so, boosting forward once again to keep up with Vasir's faster vehicle. They sped through several sky-scrapers and then swerved around the corner again.

"We're not going into the construction sight are—oh goddess"

Racing through the half-completed building, Shepard kept up his pursuit of Vasir's sky-car, zig-zagging through more buildings and doing his best not to crash into any other sky-cars in the process, silently cursing how rusty his driving skills had become due to years of neglect.

Where's Joker when you need him?

Finally, they went through a tunnel, going around the corners and Shepard again trying desperately to avoid crashing into other cars. He almost swerved too late and nearly slammed hood-first into another sky-car, earning him a middle finger from the sky-car's passenger. Shepard ignored it and kept going forward.

Finally coming out of the tunnel, Shepard kept up pursuit, finally managing to adjust a little bit better to the workings of the sky-car and consequentially being able to keep up with Vasir much more easily, until the chase took them into…

"Traffic, incoming traffic!"

"We'll be fine" Shepard reassured Liara as the sky-cars kept up their chase. Then glowing red spheres started showing up.

"She's dropping proximity charges"

"I noticed" Shepard deadpanned as he swerved to avoid them. Then, as they were entering another tunnel, more sky-cars flew in.

"She's got reinforcements!"

"What kind of guns does this thing have?"

"It's a taxi!" Liara said exasperated. "It has a fare meter!"

"Wonderful" Shepard deadpanned back as he kept up the chase, now having to avoid Vasir's allies in addition to the proximity mines and other sky-cars. Not exactly a great position, and it was made worse when one of the aforementioned proximity mines detonated under a truck, sending it straight into the path of Shepard's sky-car.

"Truck…"

"I know"

The now out-of-control truck came tumbling towards them.

"Truck!"

"Could you please shut up for just one moment?" Miranda snapped.

Shepard narrowly avoided the truck, along with the other sky-cars now tumbling out of control into their path. As their sky-car continued to surge forward unhalted Shepard said: "I'm kind of agreeing with Miranda on this one"

Liara huffed indignantly but said nothing in response as they kept up their pursuit out of the tunnel.

"There we go"

"You're enjoying this"

As they kept going, they could see another sky-car zig-zagging erratically near them before colliding right into a building in a fiery explosion that sent the sky-car's remains hurtling in all directions.

"A head-on collision at this speed…"

Shepard chuckled humorlessly. "Yeah, I hear those can be bad for you"

"Truck!" Liara shouted.

"Again?" Shepard and Miranda asked in unison. But sure enough, a large vehicle that Shepard would equate more with a shrunken battle-cruiser then a simple truck was now in their path. Shepard forced the sky-car to soar up over it, then circling around and zooming forward after Vasir's car, now headed in the direction of a particularly fancy-looking building. Zooming forward once more, Shepard finally brought his sky-car right up next to Vasir's. Vasir responded by trying to force Shepard's into the path of another oncoming sky-car. Shepard narrowly managed to avoid crashing right into it and then zoomed after Vasir once more, retaliating with some ramming of his own, managing to knock Vasir's sky-car into the path of one of her reinforcements.

The results of the impact were nothing short of spectacular. The sky-car went spiraling out of control until it crashed down on a fancy-looking building. Seeing the impact sight, Shepard directed his sky-car down to it. Upon lading and exiting the sky-car, Miranda and Liara both took in deep sighs of relief.

"Well, I'm certainly never letting you drive us on any of our dates" Miranda said.

"Ah come on" Shepard said grinning. "I wouldn't say I did too bad"

"Oh really?"

"Yeah. We're all still alive aren't we?"

"Well thank G-d for small miracles I suppose" Miranda deadpanned

"They're dropping in reinforcements to slow us down!" Liara shouted, interrupting the banter. Sure enough, a sky-car swooped in at that moment and out of it came a squad of four Shadow Broker goons. Shepard immediately let loose with his Revenant, shooting down the Engineer while Liara, Miranda, and Legion killed the other three.

More Shadow Broker agents were dropped off behind the four, and Shepard and company whipped around to meet them. Like their fellows, they didn't last long against the vicious assault of biotics, a tech drone, and the combined firepower of four guns. Two more drop-ships came down with similar payloads. Shepard tossed a grenade into the first one, the blast knocking them all down to the ground. Shepard then finished them off while they were down, with the exception of the Engineer squad-leader who conjured up Tech Armor to protect himself, only to be gunned down anyway by Miranda and Liara's combined firepower. The second drop-ship's group managed to force Shepard behind cover, but Miranda and Liara's combined biotics were more then enough to down them all, save one Batarian agent who Legion managed to finish off after he attempted a thrust with his bladed shotgun only for it to go harmlessly through the hole in Legion's chest.

After fending off the Shadow Broker reinforcements, Shepard and company raced through the parking lot and up to the fancier area of the building. Entering one of the rooms, Shepard could hear someone's voice: "Please let me live, please let me live. I'll do the mantras every week. I'll give to charity. I'll go back to the Citadel and get a good job, I swear!"

Seeing that it was just a scared Asari occupant of the hotel, Shepard investigated another one of the rooms and saw what he recognized as some kind of pornographic video.

"What...kind of hotel is this?"

"Azure." Liara replied matter-of-factly. "It's a luxury resort with an…"exotic" edge. Azure is slang for a part of the Asari body in some areas of Illium."

"I always thought Azure meant blue" For a moment, Shepard considered asking Liara what "parts" she was referring to, but as Miranda was there with them he thought better of it. Leaving the room, Shepard finally came to Vasir's crashed sky-car and noticed what he recognized as Asari blood.

"A blood trail…" Liara mused. "Vasir got hurt in the crash"

"That should slow her down."

"She's lost a lot of blood…"

"Well, she's tough, I'll give her that much"

"She's a spectre"

"True. Of course if I'd lost that much blood I'd probably either be in the emergency room or a graveyard."

The group kept moving through the admittedly fancy Azure resort, continuing to follow Vasir's blood trail, which went on for a surprising while. As they continued to advance, Shepard saw that there was a dead asari in addition to all the shot LOKI mechs that they had found lying around. Finally, they entered a larger room that was filled with people, apparently in the middle of some sort of party. Shepard saw that Vasir's purple blood was present on the wooden floor, letting him know that she was in the room somewhere but apparently hadn't been outed yet. He was going to change that.

Following the trail, Shepard and company soon came upon Vasir, who in spite of being armored, limping, and trailing blood, had gone completely unnoticed by everyone else.

Until now.

"Vasir, its over!" Liara said, her gun aimed at the spectre.

Vasir said nothing in response, only turning around…and doing a biotic speed charge over to a middle-aged woman with red hair and grabbing her as a hostage, which sent the whole room into a panic. Everybody else bolted for the exits while Shepard, Liara, Miranda, and Legion all drew their weapons and aimed them at Vasir.

"So tell me…" Vasir said to her hostage in a deceptively soothing voice. "What's your name?"

"M…Mariana"

"Mariana, you want to live don't you? Tell those people that you want to live"

Shepard found himself completely disgusted at how far Vasir had fallen, having stooped to the human shield tactic. The kind of thing mercenaries and slavers did but not spectres.

Mariana looked at Shepard with an expression of pure terror and also pleading.

"Please…don't shoot…"

"We'll get you out of here safely Mariana" Shepard reassured her.

"Well" Vasir said. "That's good to hear" Her tone was laced with smugness, almost suggesting that she was enjoying the position she was currently in. Shepard had seen this before. Where before Vasir seemed like Nihlus in reality she was just another Saren, which was the last thing he ever wanted to deal with.

Vasir continued, now sounding quite angry: "All you had to do was walk away. Now it gets ugly." Vasir put the barrel of her Hand-Cannon to Mariana's head, causing Mariana's panicked state to get worse.

"Please" She said desperately, tears streaming down her face. "I have a son"

"A son? I hope he gets to see you again. I've heard losing a parent is just horrific for children. Scars them for life"

Shepard could see Miranda's expression become frosty cold, her pretty face taking on the look of anger and contempt laced with coldness that he had seen on her after she had killed Wilson back at the Lazarus station. And he knew why too. Miranda's relationship with her father had been dysfunctional to put it generously. So for her to see a parent who actually cared about her child being held at gunpoint…Miranda's expression told Shepard what he needed to know concerning her feelings about that. In fairness he felt the same way.

"I'm going to end you Vasir…" Liara said darkly.

"It's okay Liara" Shepard reassured her. "We'll handle it. The usual way." He turned back to Vasir: "Vasir, be reasonable: its four against one. Its over."

"No." Vasir said simply but darkly before adding quite smugly. "Now its fun"

"You want Mariana's little boy to grow up without a mommy Shepard?" Vasir asked, tone dripping with both sadism and mockery before becoming cold and commanding: "Thermal clips on the ground now. Power cells too"

"Go to hell Vasir"

Vasir's face took on an expression of confusion as Shepard's defiance sunk in. Shepard continued: "Vasir, I sacrificed hundreds of human lives to save the Destiny Ascension, I re-unleashed the Rachni on the Galaxy. So your sake, I hope your escape plan doesn't hinge on me hesitating to shoot a damn hostage" Shepard growled that last part in anger.

"You're bluffing" Vasir said simply.

"Just figure that out?" Shepard asked. "NOW LIARA!"

At this, the table Liara had discreetly levitated with her biotics slammed right into Vasir, disarming her of her hand-cannon and sending her sailing into the air and then into the nearby water. Shepard raced over to Mariana and told her to run as fast as she could. Mariana obliged and Shepard had his gun at the ready as Vasir burst out of the water surrounded by a biotic field. Then, she zipped over to another area with her biotics and drew her Vindicator Assault Rifle, panting deeply and glaring at Shepard.

"You deserved that by the way" he said simply.

Vasir snarled in response and began zipping around with the aid of her biotics. Shepard recognized this tactic. It was the most common, and arguably most effective, tactic employed by Vanguards, a term given to spectres, asari, N7 operatives, and the occasional krogan battlemaster who specialized in using biotics to speed forward and either dodge out of the way of attacks, or, more commonly, to get close to enemies and blast them to pieces with either a shotgun, biotics, or a mix of the two. Those that mastered it, (few ever did) were usually regarded as one-man, or woman, balls of destruction, and Shepard had a feeling that Vasir was one of those few. He decided to count himself lucky then that she used an assault rifle and not a shotgun.

Knowing that snipers would probably be useless against someone who could zip around so quickly, Shepard ordered Legion to change to his own Vindicator and started shooting at Vasir with his Revenant, but only managed to land a few shots before she sped away again. Shepard swerved around and kept up the pressure, but each time he pinned her down, she quickly zoomed out of the way again, all the while peppering Shepard and company with shots from her Vindicator. To make things worse, a lot of his shots didn't even seem to be penetrating Vasir's barrier. That was something that needed to be taken care of.

"Miranda, Liara, Warp on Vasir's barrier now!"

"Understood" the two biotics said in unison and used Warp together on Vasir's barriers, managing to weaken them a good bit before Vasir zipped away again, shooting at Shepard relentlessly with her Vindicator and keeping him behind cover where his options were limited. There was no special ammunition that was effective against biotic barriers, and until Miranda and Liara fully dispelled Vasir's barrier with Warp, his guns ammunition as were were doing little to no damage to it. It was then that Shepard came upon his solution: re-shouldering his Revenant, Shepard drew the gun of his old nemeses and leaped out from behind cover, unleashing the Collector Particle Beam's relentless beam of energy on Vasir's barriers, taking care to stop firing every time she sped away again. The particle beam only had so much power, so he couldn't waste it.

Finally, Vasir retreated to the upper levels of the room, now out of reach. Then, a pair of Shadow Broker engineers rappelled down, intent to finish Shepard and his crew for their boss. Shouldering his collector particle beam and redrawing his Revenant, Shepard took to gunning down the Engineers while Liara and Miranda handled the Rocket Drones that also flew in with overload.

Her minions defeated, Vasir re-joined the battle and unleashed more assault rifle fire on Shepard's allies, forcing them back. Legion continued to shoot at her, and Vasir responded by zooming right up to him and shooting at him mercilessly until Shepard regained her attention by shooting at her several times with his Viper sniper rifle.

Vasir zoomed towards him and unleashed a shockwave attack that knocked Shepard down. Seizing on her chance, Vasir sped forward and began unloading her Vindicator's ammo into Shepard's armor and shields, the latter taking only so much before dispelling. But this attack left Vasir stationary, allowing Shepard to retaliate with his Collector Particle beam, which, coupled with Miranda and Liara's continued usage of Warp, finally managed to destroy Vasir's biotic barrier.

Cursing, Vasir fled to the safety of the upper levels again and shouted on her comm.: "Get down here and kill Shepard dammit!"

Hmm…it would seem I'm starting to get on her nerves Shepard mused as more Rocket Drones and Engineers joined the fray. Shepard took potshots at the Engineers from behind cover with his viper while Liara detonated a rocket drone with overload and moved out of the way of the other's shots. Legion and Miranda then destroyed the second drone with a mix of overload and assault rifle fire as Shepard finished off the Engineers.

It was then that Vasir leaped back down into the fray, creating a small biotic shockwave as she landed, but nothing like the one she had hurled at Shepard earlier. She turned to look at him and smirked.

"Miss me?"

She received a torrent of Inferno Ammo fire from Shepard's Revenant as her answer, along with Shepard's quip: "Not particularly"

Vasir sped out of range again, her armor now badly damaged. Shepard re-loaded his Revenant and prepared to shoot at her with it again, knowing now that her barrier was gone his weapons would stand a better chance of doing some actual damage.

Desperately trying to keep track of Vasir in spite of her constant zipping around, Shepard fired at Vasir only to miss more often than not, but he still managed to land a few shots here and there. Legion sent in a combat drone but Vasir destroyed it without so much as breaking a sweat and resumed fire on Shepard, again using shockwave to keep him down before shooting at him relentlessly with her Vindicator, forcing him back behind cover as some of the shots broke through his shields and left a spatter of blood on the floor.

"I hate being the meat-shield" Shepard thought as he stayed behind cover and waited for his shields to recharge. As he did, his allies kept up the pressure, but they too were hard-pressed to do much damage before she sped away again.

"I hate Vanguards…" Shepard could hear Miranda mumble as Vasir sped away yet again.

Finally, Shepard got a line of sight with Vasir again and fired once more, the flaming bullets striking with unrelenting power and punching holes in Vasir's armor. Shepard couldn't help but make a small smirk of satisfaction. Her barriers may have shrugged off his gunfire with ease, but now that those were gone, the tables had turned considerably.

And Vasir knew it too. And to make things worse for her, she was starting to tire, all of her physical exertion coupled with her many injuries finally starting to take their toll. Legion's next vocal observation confirmed it: "We have detected a serious drop in heart rate in rogue spectre Vasir, as well as a roughly 5.75% blood loss and growing fatigue. Her chances of survival, regardless of the outcome of this battle, have decreased by approximately thirty—"

Legion was cut off when Vasir unleashed a massive biotic blast that sent Legion soaring through the air before Liara caught him and set him down gently with her biotics.

"Shut up Geth! If I die its with you all dead at my feet!"

She was going all out with her biotics now, and Shepard could see clearly how she was now completely enraged and bloodlusted. That was causing her to lose focus, grow sloppy. Shepard decided to worsen that:

"So let me ask you Vasir!" Shepard shouted out. "…was your father a Krogan battlemaster or a trigger-happy drooling Vorcha? Its kind of hard to tell the difference"

"DON'T MOCK ME YOU SON OF A BITCH!" Vasir screamed, her biotics flaring up and making it look like she was consumed in blue fire. She began using her biotics to hurl anything within reach at Shepard, including several of the bodies of her own men at him.

"So sorry" Shepard said. "Can't wound your pride after all….so it was a Vorcha right?"

"I'LL KILL YOU!" Vasir roared.

"Mmm…meh" Shepard said indifferently.

Vasir screamed in pure, uncontained rage, the blue field surrounding her growing more powerful still, until soon it looked like she had been enveloped completely in a now mostly bright white light. The shockwave knocked Shepard and Legion down, shattered every window in the room, and sent objects flying in every direction. Shepard was glad everyone else had cleared out already.

Maybe pissing her off wasn't the best idea after all…

Shepard could see Liara and Miranda still standing, albeit barely, desperately trying to counter Vasir's biotic maelstrom together, a scene that reminded Shepard of Samara and Morinth's face-off back on Omega, only this seemed even grander in scale. He didn't dare intervene this time. At least not yet.

Instead he looked on as Liara and Miranda worked in unison, pooling their combined biotic strength together as they tried to stand their ground against Vasir's relentless rage, but they were both clearly struggling.

"This is REAL biotic power!" Vasir screamed, her biotic rage somehow worsening and making Jack's fits of anger and rage look like a young child's hissy-fit. Finally, Liara began to stagger, and Vasir seized on the chance to blast her back with all the force she could muster. Liara's body slammed against the nearby wall and she fell to the ground unconscious.

Now only Miranda remained standing. Shepard knew her biotics were good but she was completely outclassed here. Initially planning to charge forward Revenant blazing but thinking better of it, Shepard instead stealthily made his way over to the two…

He watched as Vasir easily overwhelmed Miranda's defenses now that she no longer had Liara's support and viciously tossed her to one side with her biotics, slamming her into the ground with such force that the left side of Miranda's head started trailing blood. Vasir walked over to Miranda with her Vindicator aimed at her.

"Your boyfriend's smart-ass remarks just earned you a slow and painful death Cerberus bitch…"

Seizing on his chance, Shepard activated his omni-blade and rammed it into Vasir's back with as much power and force as he could muster.

For a moment, Vasir just stood there as more purple blood continued to pour out of her body and her mouth until it formed a small puddle before Shepard yanked the Omni-Blade out of her body and Vasir collapsed.

"Always wondered if this damn thing would ever come in handy…" Shepard muttered. Seeing Miranda get back to her feet, he raced to her side, examining the side of her head that was bleeding and applying some Medi-gel to it.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes I'm fine. Thank you Shepard"

Shepard still held onto Miranda for a moment before letting go.

"You had me worried there you know"

Miranda chuckled lightly. "I'm not helpless commander, I can take care of myself"

"Could have fooled me…" a weak voice mumbled.

Shepard and Miranda turned to see that Vasir was miraculously still alive, but that obviously wasn't going to be the case for much longer. She spat out some more purple blood and gave Shepard a cold glare that easily rivaled any he had ever seen Miranda give.

Liara walked forward at that moment and grabbed the disc from Vasir. She held it up to her omni-tool.

"Sakat's personal datapad. This has what we need to find the Shadow Broker"

"You're dead…" Vasir growled with a mouth full of blood. "The Shadow Broker's been in power for decades. He's stronger then anything you've ever faced!"

"Lady, you're talking to the man who killed Saren and the entire Collector race. I think I can handle your boss"

"Yeah, Saren" Vasir said contemptuously. "I bet you think I'd betray the Council just like he did huh? Well let me tell you something: the Broker's given me damn good intel over the years. Intel that saved lives and kept the Citadel safe. So if the Broker needs a few people to disappear, I'll pay that price without hesitation! And you're no different from me! You work for Cerberus! With their biotic death camps for kids, and their assassinations of Alliance admirals…"

"Ah but see that's where there is a difference between us: the difference is I don't work for Cerberus anymore, and I only worked with them to stop the Collectors. You just stayed on as the Shadow Broker's own personal hitman. As it is, I think you're boss is about to be seeing some early retirement"

"Fuc—"

A shot rang out and a new bullet hole appeared between Vasir's eyes. Blood came out and she slumped over dead. Shepard turned to see that Miranda had shot her.

"I think she's talked long enough"

Shepard said nothing in response and turned to Liara, who was busy listening to an incredibly deep and groggily sounding voice over an omni-tool: "Eliminate T'soni and retrieve the data. Civilian casualties not a concern"

"Vasir's dead" Shepard said simply.

Liara didn't respond to that piece of information, probably because she already knew it to be true and said instead: "I'm putting the data through to the Normandy's computers. We can be at the Shadow Broker's base in a few hours. He'll know about Vasir's death before long. If he decides to kill Feron…"

"We'll get Feron out of there alive Liara" Shepard said, cutting Liara off. "I promise"

"I know" She said. You're here to help. Just like always" The way Liara said that last bit caught Shepard's attention.

"That's not a good thing?" he asked curiously.

"When we first met on Therum, you saved me from the Geth. You, Tali, and Wrex fought a Krogan battlemaster while I cowered. Now you're doing it again. And I'm still leaning on you for help"

"That's what friends do Liara" Shepard said simply. Liara nodded in response and then said: "I can get us there, based on Sekat's data. The Normandy's stealth drive will keep them from detecting us. The Shadow Broker's agents are still shooting their way through Illium. With luck, they won't notice we've left until its too late"

"That's a little cold. They killed innocent people"

"You know what I mean" Liara said defensively.

"Do I? When I hit the ground back at the trade center, you went after Vasir without a backward look"

"A little fall wasn't going to kill you." Liara said simply. "I had to stay on Vasir. I had to stay rational, make the call. Like I did with Sekat"

"That's Vasir's fault, not yours"

"Sekat had no idea what the stakes where" Liara said sadly as she looked out at the sunrise. "I put him in harm's way to get the data I needed. I got him killed. And I'd do it again. But from here on out things will be simple. Get in, get Feron, get out…and kill anyone who tries to stop us"

"That's it?" Shepard shrugged. "Sounds like a plan"

As Liara walked on, Shepard could see Miranda watching them with her arms folded and an un-approving look on her face. Curious, Shepard walked over to her.

"What's wrong?"

"I've been noticing how you interact with T'soni and I have to ask: where you…close once?"

Shepard shook his head. "Not really no. I recruited her late in my hunt for Saren, I got to know her just well enough to call her a friend, and that's it. But we never came close to getting involved romantically if that's what you're asking. Miranda don't you think I wouldn't have told you if I had been in a romance with her? Or anyone else?"

Miranda shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe you would have, maybe you wouldn't. I read up on you Shepard, but files only tell so much. I just…I'm sorry Shepard. I am. I just needed to know for sure."

"Miranda, I love you, and that's all there is to it."

Hearing such a declaration had obviously taken Miranda off guard. Of course the fact that he did love her had become obvious enough but for him to out and out say it…she was clearly surprised. Then she looked away, clearly embarrassed and maybe also a little ashamed with herself.

"I'm sorry Shepard. I am. Let's…let's just get back to what we were doing"

Shepard nodded. As it was, Miranda still hadn't told him whatever it was that was on her mind and involved the two of them. He found himself wondering when, or if, she ever would tell him…

Author's Note: Long chapter, but between the car-chase and the fight with Vasir I suppose it was inevitable. About the latter, I am well aware that many if not all of the fire-fights so far have seemed to be won too easily by Shepard and company, so I tried to make the fight with Vasir long and drawn out to compensate. How did I do?