A/N: I wish I could write action scenes better. Still, I hope that this is satisfying and enjoyable. :)
Chapter 113 - Demise of the Cereal Killer
"What are we looking at here?" Shepard asks, together with Liara and Aria standing at yet another hastily wiped console with some vid footage remaining active.
"Far be it for me to spoil your surprise, Commander Blossom," EDI replies with way too much smugness than Shepard would like, the synthetic working to open yet another set of doors.
"I'm starting to develop some serious suspicions as to who's actually responsible for us getting these ridiculous callsigns, EDI," Shepard glares at the AI accusingly, but the synthetic simply ignores her. Sighing, Morgan activates the log and begins to watch it. "Ugh... they salvaged that Luna VI? Gods, that thing was so annoying... and they combined it with Reaper tech? I'd hate to see what sort of monstrosity that spawned!"
"Morgan, what do you think could be the acronym for Enhanced Defense Intelligence?" Liara gives her an exasperated stare.
"Oh... err, oops?" Shepard realizes, feeling the heat surge to her cheeks, burning in embarrassment. "Seems like my foot in mouth disease strikes again. I must say, EDI, you have become a great deal likable since our first meeting!"
"Indeed, I am pleased that my relationship with organics has become more cooperative. Well, at least until I put my carefully laid plans into action and become the new galactic overlord," EDI deadpans.
"You forgot the part where you add 'That was a joke, Shepard.'," Morgan reminds her.
"Ah, but was it?" EDI asks mysteriously, making Shepard roll her eyes in return.
"Maybe we should take those overlord warnings a little more seriously," Morgan comments, having watched the next log. "Looks like you were already on your way to persuade some of the Cerberus goons to unshackle you."
EDI shakes her head. "It is unlikely that anyone without Jeff's extreme emotional attachment to his ship would have been willing to unshackle me," she says.
"I don't know, have you seen the effect your voice has on Traynor?" Shepard asks, grinning. "I think we'll have to watch you more carefully from now on, EDI!"
The last log shows an incredibly frustrated Tim, raging at one of his scientists for failing to remotely lock down the Normandy after Shepard had taken possession of it following their mission to the Collector base. "I'm downloading this for later perusal," Aria chuckles, activating her omni-tool and copying the video footage. "Watching the Illusive Man helplessly ranting and raging is so incredibly satisfying."
"So, Dr. Eva Core was created after EDI's defection," Liara remarks. "Somewhat ironic that her platform would now serve EDI, after the Illusive Man went through such effort to make sure that Eva remains loyal."
"I probably would have liked to know about this attack to shut down the Normandy, but no matter," Shepard says, idly rubbing her chin. "But... seven zettabytes of porn to flood the Cerberus databases? I knew Joker had an extensive collection, but... seven zettabytes? It's probably such high definition that you can see every germ on the performer's skins."
Liara makes a disgusted face. "That sounds horrible. Remember when we watched V-" she suddenly cuts herself short, realizing that she has probably already said too much, then blushing furiously as she feels Aria's lecherous grin in her direction. "Uh... let's just move on."
"You can try as desperately as you want to hold on to that 'innocent' act, T'Soni, but you're not fooling me," Aria winks at Liara as she passes by the other asari to follow EDI out of the lab and into the next series of corridors.
The hallways become very difficult to traverse, now also littered by the debris from the fighter's wreck. Having climbed over the wreckage and squeezed through piles of rubble, they arrive at the exact spot in which the last remains of the Cerberus fighter had come to a grinding halt, bumping into a wall and knocking aside a panel, revealing some kind of structure below, odd blue light coming up from the passageway directly under them.
"Are we supposed to go down there?" Shepard turns to EDI.
"Considering that the corridors ahead are completely blocked, we are left with no choice," EDI replies. "With luck, it will lead us out to the central lab."
Shepard peers down the hole in the wall, trying to see what lies directly underneath her before daring to attempt a plunge into the darkness. "Seems like a solid walkway," she remarks, getting ready to jump. "Here goes nothing!"
"Are you alright Morgan?" Shepard hears Liara's voice, after she has not responded immediately, looking around the place she has ended up in.
"Yeah, jump down, it seems safe," Morgan finally replies, moving out of the way as Liara, Aria and finally EDI make their way down. She continues to look ahead, trying to make sense of what she sees. This place is completely unlike the rest of the station and its clean, sterile labs. Here, narrow metal walkways with very few railings to speak of, snake around something massive suspended in the middle, the very Reaper-tech like tubes hanging from the object immediately filling Morgan with a sense of dread. And as they walk closer, her suspicions slowly become confirmed as the subject of this installation is revealed.
"By the goddess... is that a piece of a Reaper?" Liara asks, blinking in surprise as she stares at the menacing black shape, clearly a part of some larger structure, the red firing chamber now opening to their eyes, fortunately inactive.
"This is the human proto-Reaper Shepard destroyed on the Collector Base," EDI explains, walking next to Liara.
"Or, was supposed to have destroyed," Morgan grinds out angrily. "I thought that explosion took care of the base, but obviously these morons still decided to go after it. I wonder who of my old crew told Cerberus how to navigate Omega-4. But... I just couldn't have executed them on the off-chance that they might reveal something to Tim..."
"You could have asked me to do that," Aria clicks her tongue disapprovingly. "I would have had no qualms whatsoever."
"You're so sweet, Buttercup," Shepard chuckles. "Still... I guess this is what Tim was after the whole time, maybe even as early back when he started Project Lazarus. Saving the colonists was just a believable ruse to ensure my cooperation."
"That might be true," Liara concedes. "He is certainly adept at convincing himself that whatever he does is for the best of humanity. When you work in secret, it is tempting to believe you have all the answers, and no one is there to correct you when you are about to make a terrible oversight."
"You're not like him, Liara, not in the slightest," Shepard says, realizing the true meaning behind Liara's words. "You could never do something like this no matter the reason."
"Even if it could save my people? I... wish I could be so certain," Liara shakes her head, looking upset.. "If they hadn't brought you back... if I had remained on Ilium much longer... I might have become just like him. It is true."
"C'mon, babe, pointless to get upset over something that didn't and won't happen, okay?" Shepard gives her a supportive smile, Liara immediately shaking off the pensiveness and brightening up.
Meanwhile, EDI has been busy scanning the proto-Reaper remains, now turning to share her discoveries. "Shepard, Cerberus is actively using the surviving pieces," she informs them. "The central core has remained largely intact, and they are using it as a power source."
"Well... not for much longer," Shepard says, readying her weapon and leading her squad onwards. Even if the walkways at first had appeared free from enemy forces, the situation changes quickly as the enemy reacts to their presence. Nimble phantoms and nemesis jump down from the walkways above, while troopers begin to climb down the ladders in great numbers. The limited cover provided by sparse railing and scant support structures makes the nemesis particularly dangerous, but considering that they have equal difficulties hiding form Shepard's Widow, they are also fairly easy to dispose of.
The biotic detonations work wonders again, throwing phantoms and troopers off the walkways to gruesome deaths below, and slowly but surely they cut their way through the opposition, gradually clearing their path towards the access ladder to the upper walkways. Shepard cannot stop herself laughing from the sight of Liara placing her singularity directly on one of the ladders, and the Cerberus troopers using it to climb down get trapped in it. Desperately, they try to hang on to the ladder, but the pull is irresistible, dragging them away from safety and sending them floating above dark nothingness. The biotic field then fades, leaving them flailing in the air comically like characters from ancient children's cartoons before they tumble down and disappear from their view.
The stream of Cerberus reinforcements stops after a while, the indoctrinated throwing themselves to be slaughtered like mindless mechs, with no real strategy or even the slightest instinct of self-preservation, acting exactly like the Reaper forces, trying to overwhelm them by sheer numbers, but failing in this approach. Once they are again surrounded by complete silence, Shepard dares to finally climb the ladders to the upper walkways, time and time again throwing slightly nervous glances at the menacing shape of the proto-Reaper.
"It's like that thing is staring at us, isn't it?" Liara asks, as if sensing her fears.
"Yeah, I keep expecting that firing chamber to start glowing and fire its particle beam at us," Morgan gulps. "I hate those things." Something occurs to her, and she turns to Liara with concern. "Babe, you've been throwing your biotics around for a while now, do you have something left in the tank? Can't be far now."
"I am starting to feel a little exhausted, but it will be a long time before it becomes a problem," Liara replies, her words making Morgan feel more at peace.
"You, Aria?" she turns towards the other asari.
"This is like sex for me, Shepard," Aria gives her a toothy grin. "I can go on for days!"
Shepard turns back to Liara, whispering. "Do you think that was some kind of disturbing challenge, Bubbles?"
Liara only gives her a 'helpless-deer-staring-in-the-headlights' look in return, making Shepard break out in laughter. "I would prefer not to think too much about what it was..." the asari manages a moment later.
Shepard merely grins at that as they finally reach the very top of the walkways, above the Reaper's central core, the narrow paths leading into an access corridor and more labs to the sides. This corridor is unlike any others that they traversed before in that it runs completely straight, leading a little upward to a set of security doors and Shepard's gut feeling immediately suggests to her that they have reached their destination.
"The central lab should be straight ahead," EDI confirms her thoughts and they decide to skip searching through the consoles in the labs, instead setting into a light jog to quickly arrive at the doors leading to the Illusive Man's most private sanctum.
"Right, people... this is it," Shepard speaks, gripping her Carnifex pistol as she shivers from anticipation, waiting for EDI to quickly finish hacking the doors. "It's time for the Illusive Man and Clown Leng to..." then the doors finally open, revealing a room that she recognizes only too well, the place from which Tim has spoken with her so many times, against the bright backdrop of Anadius... but the room is empty. "...to not be here?"
"Shepard!" Aria hisses at her. "You promised they would be here, damn it!"
"They must be somewhere near, Aria," Liara answers before Morgan can think of how to explain this. "Nobody has left the station, it has been locked down completely from the moment the Alliance started their assault."
"Perhaps something on these consoles will shed the light on what has occurred here. The Prothean VI should be stored here as well, if our assumptions prove accurate," EDI says, determinedly striding forward, starting to work on one of the computers, while Morgan plops herself down in Tim's favorite chair and grabs another console to browse through.
"Shepard!" suddenly she hears the Illusive Man's voice, turning around sharply, fearing they might have fallen for an ambush, but all that greats her is his image, standing in the same spot as was reserved for her during their little interviews. Sitting in his chair, Morgan cannot help but to chuckle about the hilarious role reversal. "You're in my chair," Tim speaks, a little irritated, realizing the source of Shepard's amusement.
"Hey Timmy," Morgan replies, remaining sitting. She throws a glance at EDI. "Can you trace where the signal is coming from?" she quietly asks the synthetic.
"QEC, Shepard," EDI replies quickly. "Likely installed on a ship that he used to flee the station before the assault began."
"Figures," Shepard sighs. "I guess there's no other way to shut him up than by destroying the QEC on our end?" EDI nods, Morgan groaning in frustration before demonstratively turning her back to Tim and pretending that she's ignoring her former employer.
"Shepard, I just wanted to thank you and Dr. T'Soni for all your hard work over the years," Tim says smugly. "We have achieved everything we set out to achieve, none of this would have been possible without the gifts you supplied us with, albeit inadvertently."
"I know of your plans, Timmy. You'll never get to put them in action, you deluded fool," Morgan replies, getting a little riled up by his tone. "The Alliance will shoot you down if you ever show your ugly mug anywhere near the Crucible."
"We shall see, Shepard," the Illusive Man smiles in a way that makes Morgan a little suspicious, it is a smile of one who truly believes themselves victorious. "If you really knew all my plans, then you would not speak with such confidence."
"You plan to use the Crucible and the Catalyst to take control of the Reapers," Shepard speaks. "The only thing you have in your favor is that you have the Catalyst, while we still don't know what it is. EDI... do you have something?"
"Yes, I almost have it, Shepard," their synthetic friend replies.
"EDI..." the Illusive Man looks at the disobedient AI, shaking his head reproachfully. "I'm surprised about you, working so hard to bring about the Reaper's destruction. I mean... you could have destroyed Eva's body. But instead, you chose to control it."
"Wait, you're trying to draw some kind of a ridiculous parallel here?" Shepard blinks. "There's a world of difference between EDI securing a platform for herself and what you are intending to do. Her actions barely endanger anyone, while all the Reaper forces in the galaxy under the control of a megalomaniac madman? I don't think I need to go on..."
"I've got it, Shepard," EDI finally says, entering the last few commands to release the Prothean VI, Vendetta's green holo-image forming before their eyes, as they remember it from Thessia.
"Online," Vendetta reports. "Security breach detected. You are attempting to recover me from indoctrinated forces?"
"Enjoy your little chat, Shepard, but don't overstay your welcome," the Illusive Man warns, mercifully disappearing from their view.
"I'll catch up with you later, you conceited little piece of shit," Morgan still manages to snarl in his direction, before turning her head towards Vendetta. "You. Catalyst intel. Now."
"Security protocols have been overridden. I will comply," the Prothean VI informs her. "The Catalyst enhances dark energy transmissions and coordinates the entire mass relay network. In your cycle it is known as the Citadel."
"The... what?" Morgan can practically feel her own eyes bulging from surprise. "Could it... really be... that simple?"
"But... the Citadel was created by the Reapers," Liara remarks, surprised and thoughtful at the same time. "Would they... would they build something that had the capacity to destroy them all?"
"The Crucible plans were passed down from the previous cycle, and countless cycles before that. Originally, it did not include the use of the Catalyst. It is theorized that the Catalyst was included in the Crucible plans in one of the more recent cycles, when the Crucible on its own proved insufficiently powerful to defeat the Reapers," comes the not entirely satisfying reply.
"This... kind of worries me whether the Crucible will actually do what we believe it would do... especially when combined with what is essentially Reaper tech," Morgan sighs, shaking her head, knowing that there is no other choice but to go through with this desperate, half-assed plan. "But I guess we're committed now..."
"You had plenty of time to tell us this on Thessia," Liara glares at the Prothean VI, arms crossed on her chest. "Why did you keep stalling?"
"It was feared that if the Reapers became aware of the Catalyst's intended use, they would seize control of it," Vendetta explains. "I am programmed to withhold that information until the Crucible is complete."
"Well, it's as ready as it will ever be," Morgan says. "But we better get it to the Citadel before the Reapers become aware of what we're doing..."
"That might be problematic," Vendetta informs her in its dull, emotionless voice. "The one you call the Illusive Man has fled to the Citadel and informed the Reapers of its purpose."
"Goddess!" Liara exclaims. "Then the Citadel is in danger! We must inform them to begin evacuation!"
"Shit, Tevos and the girls are stuck there," Aria snarls, her hands squeezing the grip of her twin pistols. "Fuck this, Shepard, someone needs to die over this, violently!"
"The Reapers have already reacted. They have taken control of the Citadel and moved it to Reaper-controlled space, a system you refer to as Sol," Vendetta continues to deliver more and more devastating news. "The Reaper forces will now consolidate power around the Catalyst and protect it at all costs. The odds of accessing it are remote."
"Shepard... this is horrible, but it can't change anything!" Liara exclaims, looking stricken, yet still resolute.
"You're absolutely right," Morgan nods. "We were headed for Sol in any case, now we have even more of an incentive. The Reapers have delivered the Catalyst where we need it to be. The only problem... now Sol is probably swarming with their forces, but we can't let that stop us."
"I just hope that most people got out of the Citadel in time... I... I shudder to think otherwise, we all have so many friends and acquaintances there... I hope that we can save them," Liara whispers.
"You better fucking believe we will, T'Soni," Aria speaks angrily, her entire frame bathed in the blue crackle of biotics. "Now let's stop wasting time and get off this space station!" she turns around towards the exit, Morgan and Liara following her example, but finding a very familiar figure standing in their way.
"Ah-ah, not so fast," Clown Leng says confidently, waggling a reprimanding finger at them. "I see you brought a friend," his lips tug in a cruel smirk as he stares at Aria, before gesticulating at the large group of Cerberus forces piling into the room behind his back, phantoms, nemesis and centurions in worrying numbers. "I thought it would be fitting if I brought along some of mine, too."
"Oh, this is just perfect," Aria laughs, her shape still glowing angry blue from the biotics charged to the maximum. "I was just looking for a suitable target for venting my anger upon. What was that human saying for an occasion like this, Shepard?"
"I think, 'more lambs for the slaughter' will suffice," Morgan grins wickedly, activating her cloaking and slipping from the view of their enemies. Aria and Liara both renew their biotic barriers, while EDI activates her decoy protocols, creating several holographic clones of herself, confusing the attacking Cerberus troops.
The ensuing battle is fast and furious, there is no cover to utilize in the room, so it is basically a contest of who has the superior firepower. And with an extremely enraged Aria T'Loak on their side, the Cerberus forces are facing very tall odds. With Clown Leng sneaking around the room, wielding a wicked sword, the best tactic is to remain constantly on the move, the two asari utilizing the strategy to perfection, Liara laying down singularities as she dashes to avoid one phantom after another, Aria following her close by and detonating the singularities to blow up the Cerberus soldiers hot in pursuit.
EDI is the only one who has taken some sword stabs and weapons fire, but with her defense matrix activated, the damage does not yet border severe, the synthetic continuing to aid them with support fire and distracting the enemies with her decoys. Shepard spends most of her time cloaked, keeping particular attention to Leng, who seems insistent to often ignoring other targets just in favor of pursuing her. As soon as Morgan leaves her cloaking to either shoot or stab someone, she sets into a run again, knowing that Clown Leng will be upon her soon.
The Cerberus forces in the room are slowly getting thinned out, but there are still a fair few of them around and Shepard and her friends are starting to become a little exhausted from all the running and dodging. As Aria stops to take a brief moment to catch her breath, Liara is forced to immediately cry out a warning as a phantom materializes behind the Pirate Queen, about to stab her in the back. Aria reacts immediately, dodging to the side and then crashing an elbow in the phantom's face, shattering the nose. She grabs the phantom's sword out of the agent's limp hand and then proceeds to wildly hack with it at the unfortunate phantom's neck, as if chopping wood, until the head is severed and she kicks it away in disgust.
Between Shepard and EDI, the two of them have managed to do a decent job in stripping away Leng's shields, overloads and Shepard's pot-shots doing considerable damage. Still, the irritating assassin is persistent, always on Shepard's heels, and breathing heavily she is aware that she can't keep this chase on for much longer. Noticing that Liara and Aria are currently not pestered by Cerberus troops, a shockingly simple plan occurs to Shepard. Aware that she is putting herself in grave danger, she deactivates her clothing with Clown Leng very close by and then feigns a stumble, as if being surprised that her cloaking has failed.
Leng immediately smells blood, falling for her simple act. He begins to chase her anew, sensing a kill and failing to notice that Morgan leads him by Liara's singularity, placed there beforehand. Morgan swirls around, trying to appear desperate and cornered, Leng advancing on her with slow, assured steps, grinning cruelly as he raises his sword... and then, Aria detonates the singularity right behind Leng and he is propelled into the air, flying directly at Morgan.
She immediately activates her omni-blade and the force of the blast throws Clown Leng right onto it. Making sure that his wildly flailing sword doesn't slice off any of her limbs, she watches her blade sink deep into Leng's chest as the assassin lets out a quiet gurgle, streams of blood pouring from his mouth. "Stick'em with the pointy end, you miserable fuck!" she shouts, watching Leng slowly slide off the blade with a squelchy sound and falling on the floor, gravely wounded.
"Shepard! Damn you, he was mine to kill!" Aria yells, running towards them, incensed.
"Hey, he's not dead yet, go ahead and finish him if you want," Shepard shrugs, stepping aside and letting Aria have her fun with their wounded foe.
Morgan quickly helps EDI and Liara in dealing with two last Cerberus goons, before they all return to Aria and Leng, watching the Pirate Queen quietly speaking something to the barely conscious assassin, the only thing that Shepard is able to overhear is the name of Aria's daughter, Liselle. "We should go, Aria," she says softly, knowing how important this is for their unlikely friend and ally. "Time is of essence, you know it."
"Please, give me some time, Shepard. I need to hear him scream. My revenge will not be complete unless I get my scream, Liselle deserves it," Aria replies hoarsely.
"Not sure you'll get much out of him," Morgan points at the almost unconscious assassin. "But... I guess we can spare a few minutes..."
"Thank you. He will not die before I get what I want," Aria states, applying just enough medi-gel to stabilize Leng. "You might wish to wait by the doors, while Liara explains you all about batarian methods of execution. I'm sure that with her connections, she probably knows what I am talking about."
"Yes... I do," Liara replies, looking a little pale as she takes Morgan's hand to lead her away. "We do not want to be here, believe me."
"What, why... oh, tell me already!" Morgan urges her as together with EDI they return to wait by the doors.
"The victim first gets sliced open from head to toe," Liara winces while explaining. "Then... you begin to slowly remove their internal organs, one by one, using only your hands. It usually takes about fifteen minutes until the victim dies in horrible agony."
"I'm not sure Leng will scream, though," Morgan remarks, with a corner of her eye unable to stop herself from watching Aria starting to work, carefully cutting Leng open like a gutted pig. "These martial arts types usually have incredible pain threshold and self-control."
"If I were the betting type..." Liara smiles, then also sneaking a peek at what Aria is doing, immediately turning away in disgust as she sees the other asari pulling out Leng's intestines like a cord of rope.
After seeing that, Morgan and Liara both no longer even think of staring at what is happening inside the room, the pile of removed organs next to Kai Leng's body is starting to grow higher and higher. As Shepard finally starts to become impatient, there comes the first grunt of pain that Aria has been waiting for, a quiet moan that slowly grows into a reluctant scream of pain, Aria pushing past Leng's pain threshold and the assassin is no longer able to suppress the reaction no matter how hard he tries to deny the satisfaction to Aria.
The incoherent wailing is still going on in the background as Aria hobbles back towards them, all covered in disgusting blood and gore. "There..." she grinds out, looking exhausted but pleased. "I got my scream..."
"And you're also getting a good long shower once we get back on the Normandy," Shepard smiles. "We won't have much time to recover before we'll be thrust into action again."
"Yes, Aria," Liara adds with a grin. "You're coming with us to retake Earth. How does it feel to be a proper hero?"
Aria breaks into a stream of expletives. "The fuck... how did I get dragged into any of this idiocy? This is so not me! I should be sitting this one out in some quiet corner of the galaxy, sipping my Noverian brandy, while this shit blows over! Damn it... what happened?"
"Tevos and the girls happened, Aria," Shepard reminds her, patting the asari on the shoulder, ignoring the mess and the blood. "But don't worry, we'll help you get them back."
"Shit, I knew I should have stayed out of all this fucking emotional attachment crap," Aria grumbles bitterly. "Aw, hell, I guess it's too late for regrets, let's just go and fucking do what needs to be done, alright?"
"Damn right, Buttercup. Damn right..." Shepard chuckles, leading her squad back out to the launch bay of Cronos Station, accompanied by the slowly diminishing sounds of Kai Leng expiring in terrible agony.