Hey, chapter 22 is here and has that new chapter smell. I hope you enjoy it and remember, if it is important enough to tell me. Send it in a PM (it is also easier for those of you who don't want to be associated with an SI). I don't want reviews and I don't need them. Now sit back and chill because chapter 22 is coming at you.

Oh, and I thought I'd take this time to say I'm having a special poll. Everyone who has time, go onto my profile page and check it out. I have put several ways this story can possible end. Vote on which you think will be the real ending. It is a private poll and will not show your name to anyone.

Cody:

Cody sat on his new vantage point with his cross hairs pointed at the door. He continued to watch and scan for any movement. He almost fired a shot when he heard a long whine followed by the engine dying. Cody figured it was time to go and holstered his rifle. He stood and began traversing the rocky cliff

He stood up and walked over to his original position, watching the battle ground the whole time. He didn't know why but it was like battle instincts were now programmed into his brain. He was sharper, faster, and knew how to react. He would have to talk to the guys about this later but he was scared.

The game was doing something to him. He had been hypnotized in a show one time and this felt exactly like that. He was for better or worse a killing machine and he reacted without thinking. Only difference is that this time, there was no key word to set him off. He would just go into kick ass mode if anything went wrong. Not a bad thing but what if he couldn't turn it off? What if he became a force of destruction?

Cody shivered from the cold of space and the thought of being a monster. It was hard but he just pushed the thought out of his head and continued over the cliff. Rocks were giving way under his feet and the distance he crossed in his newly dubbed "Badass" mode was farther than he thought.

When Cody reached the half way to the point, he began to hear rocks crackling and saw pebbles shifting. He turned around and grabbed frantically at the rocks to try and stop himself but had no luck. He slid all the way to the bottom of the canyon and had no way to rescale the rocks. Cody face palmed and pulled Ty up on the comm.

"Hey, Ty?"

Ty came over sounding pleased with himself, "Hey, Cody, what do you need?"

Cody spoke dejectedly, "I kind of, fell down the cliff. I'm at the bottom of the canyon, on your level."

Ty kept a flat tone, "I want you to know that I am face palming right now. That's how bad you failed, a face palm over a radio frequency. Okay, walk over to the facility, we will wait for you."

Cody took a deep breath and began walking toward the complex. It took him about five minutes to cover the distance to the engine and was a much smoother walk then on the cliff. He got to the door and saw a gaping hole in the wall.

Cody just yelled in to the building, "Hey guys, I'm here."

Nobody answered.

Cody felt his mouth get dry, "Guys?"

Dead quiet.

Cody crept into the building and up to the hole. He hid by the edge and peaked over to see what was happening. What he saw was a figure in orange and red armor.

Cody jumped back and grabbed his pistol, "Holy mother of Frank Newgen."

He was about to pull the trigger when the armor dropped and Ty and Danny were laughing behind it. Danny was laughing so hard he tripped over the armor and fell to the ground. Ty couldn't even move holding his stomach and a crate near him.

Cody felt his cheeks heat up, "Shut the fuck up guys."

"We didn't say anything", Ty and Danny both spoke at the same time.

Cody let them go for a few more minutes, making him feel like a fool for the instincts. Eventually they quit but said nothing as they climbed through the hole and out of the complex.

Danny:

Danny and the guys exited the facility and saw the Mako. The front was smashed in where Samus had been but other than that, it was fine. Danny hit the button and opened that back, he was about to step on the ramp when Ty spoke.

"I don't think the Mako is really drivable in this condition."

Danny just waved at his comment, "Please, this is the Mako. Has it ever been ruined in run throughs?"

Ty walked over to the front, "Yeah, it can explode if we take too much damage."

Danny rolled his eyes at Ty's comment, "Fine, fix it. You are our engineer right?"

"That's what I'm doing dip shit." Ty kneeled in front of the Mako and began applying omnigel. Danny had other plans; he crawled into the Mako and looked for his bottle of scotch. The Mako was basically empty besides the seats and controls, yet he couldn't find the damn bottle. He checked under every seat and the cargo storage but found nothing.

He finally gave up and sat in the driver's seat while Ty did his work. Danny adjusted the controls for the seat so he could lean back and relax. He felt like Ty was taking forever and that was a good thing. He was completely exhausted from the last two weapon morphs. He figured even one and he would be out for the rest of the mission.

The launcher was way worse than the Spartan Laser from Feros. On Feros, he was oblivious to how the transformations were affecting him, but now he knew what it could do and he was really feeling the burn. He was finding himself over thinking each transformation. Trying to calculate how they would drain him.

Danny continued to relax and let himself fall asleep. He didn't know how long but he was woken up by Ty smacking him in the face, "C'mon Danny, we have to go."

Danny groaned and got up, he felt even more drained than when he fell asleep. The adrenaline that was coursing through him was running out. He walked over and sat in the third seat back across from Cody. Danny was letting himself drift off again when he snapped up after a loud power cord rang through the cabin.

Danny searched for the cause and picked out that it was coming from the speakers in the Mako. Danny thought something was happening but then he heard the opening to TNT start playing and he knew what had happened. Ty always had to have AC/DC play when he was in the Mako, probably figured some hard rock was going to keep Danny awake. Danny sat back in his chair and huffed, he hated when Ty was right.

The Mako ride was quick and Ty stayed on the level terrain as much as possible. They never really hit anything like you would in the game. They all knew that if they drove it regularly, lunch would come back for seconds. The unspoken rule was to stay on the flattest terrain possible.

They arrived at the second engine and stopped a hundred yards away from the complex. Danny didn't get why and climbed up to Ty, "Why aren't we going forward?"

Ty just rolled his eyes, "There is mine field in front of us."

Danny furrowed his eyebrows, "There is no mine field in front of us."

"Warning: blast cap field directly ahead", the on board navigation spoke.

Ty looked at Danny with an annoying smirk, "Win."

Danny just walked back to his seat, "Shut up."

Ty:

Liara and Wrex got back to the Mako and we were off to the final engine. They got in about the time that Danny had taken his seat and buckled in. Now, we were all headed for the final engine. I had to admit that this was exceedingly better than Feros. The only trouble we had was Samus and that wasn't too hard to take care of. Now, I just had to hope and pray that nothing more difficult came our way.

I travelled quickly to the complex and was greeted with cannon fire from turrets placed around the canyon. I evaded the fire barrage and fired a shot at the nearest cannon. When the dust cleared there was nothing left but smoke and rubble.

There were three turrets after that, I set the turret on auto and it began firing on each one. Now all I had to do was continue to dodge the cannons. I started by pushing the pedal all the way down and up the side of a cliff. I began timing the shots and right before the cannons could get an accurate shot off, I made a ninety degree turn left and I saw the turret take out another cannon.

That left us with two left, I switched back over to manual and drove directly at one cannon, unloading the Mako's rockets until that turret was gone to oblivion. The last one I took out with a mixture if rocket and turret fire.

With the last one gone, I drove up and parked by the complex. Checking my weapons I turned around and saw Cody was about ready to lose his lunch and Danny already had. This was a chance like no other.

"What's wrong guys? Can't handle a little turbulence?"

Danny looked at me with a fire in his eye, "I can handle turbulence. What I can't handle is drivers that don't know what way is up and down."

I clicked a button on the controls and opened a compartment holding new helmets, "Here you big baby, get out of that chuke filled helmet."

I grabbed one out and tossed it to Danny, "Thanks, jack ass."

We all got our equipment and climbed out of the Mako. We walked over to the door and took our places. I sat by the controls, Danny was around the corner with Liara and Cody, and Wrex was right next to me. I took a deep breath and hit the button. Wrex flew through the door and pinned one Batarian up to the wall. He had no weapons and raised his hands in the air in surrender.

Wrex let a deep chuckle and was about to kill the guy when a Batarian across the room spoke up, "Wait, we don't want to fight."

I came around the corner with my gun trained on the guy, "What do you mean?"

The Batarian walked over to us with his hands raised in surrender, "We don't want to fight. This was just supposed to be a regular slave grab but then Balak came and changed it."

Balak, something about that name rang a bell, "Okay, we can come to an agreement here. You said it was a slave grab, where are your hostages?"

The Batarian backed up a little bit, "They are in the main facility with Balak. He is there guiding the asteroid to crash into the planet."

I looked at the door into the storage area, "Anything we need to worry about in there?"

The Batarian paused for a moment, "There are two shock troops and eight infantry men."

I locked my rifle and went up to the door, "Wrex, they are free to go."

Wrex made a growling sound and walked over to the door with me. Danny and the others came in with their guns on the Batarians, "Danny and Cody, watch the Batarians in here. Do not kill them. Liara, you are with me and Wrex."

Liara took her place with us and I hit the controls. We were met with a stream of gun fire through the door. I looked over at Liara, "Liara, use a biotic push and slide me to some cover inside."

Liara looked me in the eye, "Got it."

I got down on the ground and Wrex chucked a grenade inside the opening. As soon as it went off, I was pushed into the room and slid across the floor and behind some boxes. Luckily, the Batarians didn't see me on account of the smoke from the grenade. I was able to sneak along the side of the cargo area and flank the enemy.

Once I was in a decent spot I shot around to corner of a box and opened fire on the Batarians. I caught most of them off guard and they dropped like flies. Others that were lucky enough to be on the far side of the group, were able to fall back and get into cover.

Their luck ran out when Wrex came into the room. He charged toting a shotgun and blowing them off their feet. Wrex was smashing skulls and throwing the crates around squashing some hostiles in the process. He had gone into a Krogan orgasm or blood rage.

Soon enough, the hostiles on our floor were taken out, "That accounted for ten people, everyone that the Batarians said was in here is dead."

As soon as I finished that sentence more hostiles opened fire from the balcony. It pinned Wrex and I down in place. We could have gotten out if they had shot a continuous stream but they fired in short controlled bursts that would keep their gun from overheating and us in our place.

I thought I was going to have to call in Danny and Cody when one of the Batarians flew from the balcony and to the ground. I looked from him back to the Batarians that were floating into the air now. I quick drew my pistol and capped each one off. I then looked over to Wrex.

"You do that big guy?"

Wrex looked at me and huffed, "No, she did."

I looked back up to see Liara at the balcony, "I have finished them off."

I gave a nod and a thumbs up, "Okay, can you turn off this engine and we can get the fuck out of here."

Liara nodded and stepped away from the balcony. Within seconds we heard the loud whine and the engine die. Now, all that was left on the list was to kill Balak.

Okay, I'm gonna call it quits here because I have writer's cramp and I need more alcohol. Hope you enjoyed that chapter.

ROAD HOUSE!