Chapter 15: Heavy is the Head

For all of its pleasures and intoxications, the Afterlife wasn't just a mere bar or club. It was the capital of Omega, the palace of the queen. Hell, Aria wasn't picky; you could call her anything you like. Boss, CEO, Chairman of the Board, that cold hearted bitch, and so on and so forth, it was all the same to her. So long as at the end of the day, you understood that she was in charge. And if you didn't, well, you'd find yourself quickly removed from Omega.

Usually via the airlocks.

In pieces.

The pieces they could find, anyway.

See, Omega wasn't just a place, Omega was Aria. Now when this two-bit mercenary decided to raise his hand against hers, he wasn't just going against Aria. He was going against Omega. That meant war, and Aria was always happy to oblige a man who wanted to die. That man was right in front of her now, and she intended to make good on her obligations. Her hands crackled with biotic power as she rushed him, bringing them forward to send a wave of blue energy thundering towards Miller. "You son of a bitch!" she roared.

The Blue Suns commander smiled underneath his helm as he put away his sniper rifle and boosted high into the air, flipping backwards as the wave passed harmlessly underneath him. Having a jet-pack was handy, he thought. He landed in a crouch, just as Aria fell upon him.

"You're dead!" She said, throwing a wild haymaker.

"I love it when you talk dirty!" He mocked as he dodged it easily. She wasn't about to let up, however.

Aria assaulted him with a chain of punches and kicks that Miller blocked and dodged, steadily walking back as she continued in earnest. She kept the pressure up, and little by little, more and more of her blows seemed to be landing. Sooner or later she'll break through his defenses. Fuck that, she thought as her eyes blazed blue, she'll just power through him. There was a crackle in the air as biotic energy exploded around her, sending Miller flying backwards.

"Not bad… for a woman." Miller said to himself and laughed as he landed on his feet, the thrusters on his back stabilizing his fall. He pulled out dual carnifexes from his hips, idly twirling them in his fingers. She may outclass him in hand to hand combat, but he was in his element in a shoot-out. "Everybody stay out of it!" he announced grimly as several mercs were about to open fire on Aria. "I'm going to deflower this bitch myself, boys!" Bringing both guns to bear, he aimed at her and began pulling the triggers.

Aria crossed her forearms, causing a protective blue barrier to come to life in front of her. "I knew you were stupid, but I didn't think you were this stupid." She narrowed her gaze on him as the shots harmlessly deflected off of the field of energy. "You do know what this means, right Miller?" she said, reaching for her own pistol. "This means every Blue Sun on Omega will be dead within the day."

"Don't take it too personally, Aria." Miller replied as he reloaded and set his guns into warp ammo. "Besides, you were on the to-do list long before Shepard came into the equation." He shrugged. "It's just business, that's all."

"Really now?" She replied. "I heard being dead was pretty bad for business."

"Depends on who's doing the dying." Miller replied as he leveled his guns at her again. "Where is the man of the hour, anyway? The bounty said dead or alive, but I prefer not to have any loose ends."

"You won't have much of anything when I'm through with you" Aria sneered.

"You are so testy… Honestly, when was the last time someone fucked you right?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

"Hah!" He laughed. "Don't worry; I'll fuck you as you bleed out. And if you're still alive after that, I'll shoot you right in between those pretty eyes."

Aria jumped to the side as the warp rounds tore through her barrier, strafing across the dance floor as she fired back. Miller rolled to dodge and rose to a run, keeping pace with her, alternating his fire between his two guns. The two traded fire; each just narrowly missing the other as they tore up anything that came between them, causing both mercs and pirates to duck as they passed.

"Let's take this upstairs!" Miller yelled over the sound of gunfire as his jet pack boosted him upwards towards the catwalks high above, disappearing into the clouds of smoke that collected in the ceiling.

Aria merely growled as she coiled and pounced up after him, leaving a trail of biotic energy as she too vanished into the air.

Nearby, Thane sighed as Aria bolted on ahead, taking the Blue Suns commander one on one. He was crouched behind some debris, the battle raging beyond it. Aria was skilled, no doubt, but this Miller worried him. It was the way he had moved, able to keep Thane at bay during his pursuit of Miller earlier. He was brash and showy, he observed, as Miller twirled his guns while he reloaded, but this human had skill. Interrupting them now could prove fatal, so he'd just have to bide his time for the right moment to step in. Thane reloaded his SMG as he walked towards the heart of the chaos, keeping track of Aria.

"Shepard, this is Thane." He began, speaking calmly over his comm, "Aria has just engaged the Blue Suns leader. Where are you?"

"Closer than you might think." Shepard replied, "Moving in on your position."

Through the smoke, Thane saw the angled silhouette of what is undoubtedly Cerberus armor before Shepard emerged through its hazy veil. The armor was already riddled with bullet holes and black burn marks. The paint was chipping off in some places and blood splatters covered what dirt and debris didn't. "Thane, are you alright?" he asked him as approached.

The noticeably unscathed Thane smirked a bit. "Are you?"

Shepard crouched next to him. "Can't complain." He said as he switched his shotgun out to his assault rifle, eyeing the frenzy nearby and the mess of corpses around them. The fighting was now concentrated around the main hallway going into the Afterlife, with the pirate's berserker charge stymied by a fresh wave of Blue Suns. Both sides were holding their own for now, but a prolonged conflict would only benefit the mercenaries. "Well, looks like we have our work cut out for us."

"It would seem so. This Miller character seems to rile her up." Thane replied.

"He's good?"

"He's adequate." Thane corrected, "I do not see why further intervention on our part is necessary, Shepard. We should focus on regrouping with Miranda and returning to the Normandy. This is not our fight."

"This isn't just some shootout, it's probably happening all over Omega…" Shepard began. "This is a war zone, and we're in ground zero. It doesn't matter what kind of person Aria is. If she dies, this entire system may devolve into turmoil from the backlash in the underworld. And this is my fight."

"What do you mean?"

"All this started because of the Cerberus bounty on me. This chaos is on my head, Thane. I can't just leave knowing that."

"Shepard, you need to-." Thane suddenly spun around, aiming his gun at a new comer who was walking up behind them. "Drop the gun."

A batarian pirate put down his rifle and raised his hands submissively. "Easy! I'm with Aria!"

Shepard turned to see who was walking up to them. "Anto!"

"Friend of yours?" Thane asked as he put down his weapon, not recognizing the batarian.

"Long story." Shepard replied. "Thane, please, I need you to keep Aria in one piece."

Thane looked Shepard in the eye for several moments before nodding his head in assertion. "Understood." he said as he stood, looking towards the ceiling. "I shall keep her in my sights and intervene when possible." With that, he disappeared behind the curtain of smoke.

"And good riddance to that, your drell gives me the creeps." Anto added at Thane's departure, picking up his rifle and taking position next to Shepard. "Nice save on the boss, by the way."

Shepard waved off the comment. "Save the pleasantries, what's the situation out there?"

"Oh it's bad out there, Shepard. The bombing here was just the starting pistol." Anto replied. "They hit us everywhere all at once. Every warehouse and front in Omega are swarming with mercs and fighting for their damn lives as we speak. We've nearly lost control of the entire shipyard district and a third of the residential-"

"Wait, wait." Shepard raised a hand to interrupt him. "You've lost the shipyards? The Suns can't have much manpower on Omega!"

"Yeah, well it's not just the Suns; the Eclipse, Blood Pack and a number of small time groups are in on it too." Anto explained. "The shipyards fell to Tarrana Ionet's Eclipse, nasty piece of work, that one. She says she comes from some noble family in Thessia. Don't know how true that is but the boss hates her guts something fierce, that's for sure."

Anto kept talking but Shepard had stopped listening. Instead, he was listening to a louder voice yelling in his head, the one telling him to get his ass moving and get back to the Normandy. His grip on his assault rifle tightened, and his legs just wanted to start running. He just wanted to run back to Tali. Whether they were fighting or not, he didn't know what was going on between them right now. He didn't care. He just knew he wasn't going to lose her again. Not to this.

The only thing keeping him from doing just that was the calmer voice talking beneath the screams of the louder one. It was the voice of the soldier, the rational part of himself that told him it was irresponsible to do that. It told him that he was no use to anybody dead.

Sometimes he hated that part of himself, especially when it was mostly right. The urge to run died down, but his grip was tighter than ever. He needed to give his crew more credit than what he gave them. He had to trust Tali was alright, that everyone back on board the Normandy was alright. They could take care of themselves while he dealt with the here and now. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, slowly immersing himself back to reality just in time for Anto to finish what he was saying.

"Anyway, the boys Aria assigned here are some of the toughest sons of bitches in Omega." Anto declared, as several pirates rushed past them into the front lines. "If we can secure the Afterlife, we'll stand a better chance retaking this district. What's say you give us a hand kicking these bastards out the front door?"

Shepard cocked his rifle. "Let's just get this over with." With that, both of them walked towards the sounds of gunfire and bloodshed. Rushing into the smoke, they broke into a run as bullets started whizzing past them.

Anto growled as he ducked into cover. "Shit, I didn't think they'd push us back this much! What the-? Wait!"

Instead of ducking next to him, Shepard leapt over the overturned tables the pirates used for cover. His feet stomped the ground as he landed, rifle already trained on a target and pulling the trigger. The concussive round fired with a resonating thump, catching a merc in the chest and sending him and those nearby flying backwards. Staring down the barrel of his gun, his eyes searched for any twitch of movement, a quick burst of fire ensuring it didn't move any more. There was no survival instinct at play here. No tactical soundness. It was just a man who wanted to get from point A to point B as quickly as he can, in any way that he can.

Anto and the other pirates could only stare in disbelief as Shepard moved forward, a one man unstoppable wave of violence. He shook his head to snap himself out of awe, turning to the others. "Well? The hell are you all staring at? Go! Go!" He roared, before jumping over the barricade and following after Shepard, the rest close behind.

The battle had now turned into a grand melee as the two sides clashed in close quarters, many using their weapons as clubs for fear of friendly fire. Shepard growled as he unloaded his rifle point blank into a hapless batarian, before striking the still standing corpse out of his way with the butt of his gun. Before the corpse could even fall to the ground, he was already tangling with several other mercs who were quick to join their comrade in the grave. His rifle clicked empty and instead of reloading it, he gripped the barrel and swung it like a bat, cracking the skull of a man in front of him. Tossing the empty gun aside, he pulled out his combat blade from his pack and ducked a wild swing from in front of him. He buried the blade into the turian's gut, cutting through the merc's armor like butter and slashed sideways, spilling his entrails. Getting up, he used the dying turian as a shield as he charged further onwards.

The lower Afterlife wasn't spared any of the chaos of its counterpart above. On the contrary, those who were there would probably argue they were worst off. If they came out of this alive, that is. Jacob leaned against cover as an endless torrent of gun fire lashed against them. A fresh wave of Blue Suns had managed to set up a perimeter on the bottle neck, using the bodies of their fallen comrades as cover. Macabre as it was, the move proved effective. He lifted his gun out of cover to fire blindly in the enemy's direction, not daring to lift his head. After the mercs had reinforced their point, they had taken to pinning down their position, mostly to hinder Zaeed from using his LMG to the fullest. Jacob tried to contact Shepard through the comm, but his commander wasn't picking up. "Come on, Shepard, don't be dead…" He said as he tried to hail him again to no avail. "Nothing." He said as he gave up for now. Guy must probably be busy, he refused to believe anything here could take the man down.

Next to him, the veteran mercenary lit a cigar and puffed a thick breath of smoke. His casual expression about all this was unnerving at best. The older man cradled his revenant on his lap as he reloaded it, taking his time. "Mmm, nothing beats a Cuban cigar…" he mused, "Well nothing except maybe a Cuban cigar and a bottle of whisky." He took the cigar from his mouth and offered it to Jacob.

"Er… No thanks…" Jacob said, reloading his own weapon. "I didn't know you were such a heavy smoker."

Zaeed took another deep puff. "Nope, I'm not."

"You could've fooled me." Jacob replied, trying to look over the barricade, only to duck back down quickly as bullets ricocheted off the top edge. "So what gives?"

"I just figured that after all we've been through these past couple of months, well what're the odds of me still being alive?" The older man began, taking said cigar out of his mouth. "I'm an old man, most of the people I've known all my life are dead; some of 'em courtesy of me." He paused, taking another drag. "I've seen my share of wars, fought and killed some of the toughest men and women out there, and recently I just went through the Omega relay to kill off the Collectors. After all that, here I am, still alive." His eyes glazed with nostalgia as he said all this. "So I figured why not help fate along?"

Jacob looked at Zaeed, who was calmly taking another drag. "I didn't know you had a death wish." No words were said for a while after that, their cover proving sturdy enough to protect them from endless fire for this long. "Damn, Miranda's taking her sweet time…" The Normandy XO was currently crouching across from them, talking fervently with the several biotics among the pirates. The rest of said pirates were trying their best to contain the surge of Blue Suns to varying degrees of success. All in all, they prevented the Suns from taking a step further into the lounge. There were several wounded ones hiding further back, but so far there were no fatal casualties on their side.

Yet.

"Do you have any regrets, Taylor?" Zaeed suddenly asked him, breaking Jacob's grim trail of thought.

Jacob caught himself unconsciously looking at Miranda's direction. He turned away and leaned back on their cover, pretending to busy himself with his gun. "Now's not really the best time for soul searching, Zaeed."

"Now may be the only time we've got." Zaeed replied.

Jacob turned to look at him, but all Zaeed had on his face was the same mask of casual expression. "Everybody does, I guess." He finally answered.

"Sure we do." Zaeed leaned back, pausing in deep thought before continuing, the occasional shower of sparks coming between them as bullets ricocheted off their cover. "Well let me tell you this, there's only one thing worse than dying with regrets."

A couple moments of silence passed before Jacob egged him on to continue. "… And that is?"

Zaeed turned towards Jacob, giving him a knowing look. "It's growing old with them."

Jacob mulled the thought in his head, and then he laughed. "Considering how we're in a middle of a firefight with bleak chances of survival, I'm just surprised you can bring the mood down even lower."

"Eh, you're right." Zaeed replied. "Must be going soft in my old age. Hold on-" He paused, and then started to yell over the din of gunfire, his voice just barely winning out. "Oi! Sweetheart! Any day now!"

Zaeed's comm beeped, and when he answered it, Miranda's chilly yet professional reply came through. "Zaeed, you have a personal communicator integrated to your omnitool. Use it." She said casually. "And on that note, go die in a fire."

"Copy that, sweetheart, over and out." He replied before cutting off the frequency.

Jacob could only stare at the older man with wide eyed amusement. "She is going to kill you if and when we get out of here alive."

"Don't be so negative." Zaeed winked at him conspiratorially. "I was just trying to butter her up for you, Taylor."

"Yeah, go die in a fire." He replied sourly over Zaeed's laughter.

Miranda clutched the bridge of her nose, muttering something under her breath. As near as the other biotics could tell, she was debating on whether to put an old dog to sleep gently or just take it out back and put two rounds in its head. After a couple of moments, she sighed and said, "As I was saying…" she began, "Digging our way out of this mess could prove fatal, there's simply not enough time." She said, gesturing to the ruined path. "So instead, we're going to do something proactive."

An asari next to her tilted her head in confusion. "Like what? Blasting our way through the Suns? That's suicide!"

Miranda nodded. "Not necessarily." She replied. "Individually, our biotic blasts won't do much good in this situation, but if we work collectively, we can push through past the bottleneck and fight them head on in the lower bar."

"That's your big plan? Rush to our deaths?" a human male next to her piped up. "Listen lady, in case you haven't noticed, they outnumber us by at least 5 to one! Even if we manage to get past the hallway, we'll be overrun! I say we stay here, we've been holding out so far."

"There is no other option; this is the only thing we can do that gives us the highest survival rate. If we stay here, we will die, but out there, we can fight to survive" She looked at the men and women around her. "There will be casualties, but we can minimize that risk if we watch each other's backs."

"So how do we go about this then?"

"First things first, we need to push our way through that hallway towards the lower bar." She began, "Cover will be minimum, and so we will provide barriers and general support for the rest of the group."

"A head on assault?" another asari asked, raising her eyebrow.

Miranda nodded. "It's the last thing they'll expect.'"

"And just what will that accomplish?" another man asked.

"Right now, the suns are fighting a battle on two fronts." Miranda replied, bringing up a diagram of the Afterlife. "If we increase hostilities down here, they'll have to shift the focus of attack from the upper Afterlife to us. Same goes for vice versa." To demonstrate her point, tiny blue avatars were swarming into both points of entry for the upper and lower Afterlife while red avatars filled the interior. "If one side keeps the pressure up for long enough, it will alleviate the burden of the other side. Hopefully long enough for one side to penetrate past their defenses." At this, the red avatars were slowly going forward and destroying the blue ones. "It's not the neatest plan in the galaxy, but desperate times call for desperate measures." She looked at those around her. "We need to show them what happens to people who make us go for desperate measures."

There was a long silence, before one of the asari spoke up, addressing her peers. "This bitch is crazy." She began, causing Miranda to fluster in annoyance, only to see said asari smile at her. "I like her."

One of the men shook his head, "Surrounded by crazy… Fine, fine, you have a point. I'll coordinate with the others, when do we make our move?"

Miranda smiled. "ASAP." She flicked open her comms and hailed Jacob. "Sorry for making you wait too long, I trust Zaeed wasn't too much of a hassle."

"Just barely." Jacob replied, relief evident from his voice. "What's the plan?"

She told him.

Jacob rolled his eyes. "Well, it sounds fun, at least."

Meanwhile, aboard the Normandy.

The shuttle bay now teemed with people as Garrus coordinated with everyone to secure the breech. Smoke rose from the hole as a testament to the fiery wreckage below it, giving them some reprieve as the Eclipse struggled to put the blaze out before attempting to board again. It was no small favor that the life support system was able to vent out the smoke before they succumbed to poisoning, too. A number of cargo crates were slowly being maneuvered to at least cover said breech.

In an obscured corner, Kasumi sat down with her back to Mordin as the former stripped off the top of her suit, gingerly keeping the hood on her head.

Jack stood to the side, acting as the female chaperone for her currently topless friend. She stepped closer to get a better look, whistling as she saw the damage done. "You got thrashed around, good." She said in a hushed tone. The pale skin underneath was black and blue from the bruising as Mordin scanned her with his omnitool.

"Should've seen her coming…" Kasumi replied through gritted teeth as Mordin ran a hand across her back, palpating for any odd protrusions. "Let my guard down… If it wasn't for Tali…"

"Stop it. You're alive. Don't dwell on it." Jack said, cutting off Kasumi's train of thought. "How is she, Mordin?"

"No fractures. No injuries to internal organs. Multiple hematomas across the thorax and abdomen. Minor laceration on the lower lip. Suturing, fortunately, not required." Mordin listed off as he applied medigel over her skin. "Painful but negligible." He summarized, producing a length of bandages from his pack and proceeded to wrap it over Kasumi's torso. Afterwards, he stuck a needle into her arm causing Kasumi to squeak in surprise, quickly injecting medication into her bloodstream. "Should be able to provide temporary relief, would suggest avoiding physical strain for the time being. Regretfully, circumstances probably won't allow it." He took a deep breath. "Analgesics and long acting stimulants should do just the trick, however."

"Thanks doc…" Kasumi said through gritted teeth, the painkillers not working fast enough for her liking. "No rest for the wicked, right?"

Jack snickered, "I can vouch for that. Can you walk?"

"I'm hurt, not handicapped." Kasumi replied as she put on the top half of her suit. She had aches in places she didn't realize could ache, and the process was slow and unsteady.

Mordin noticed this and said, "Analgesics should take effect in under half a minute. I'll be taking my leave now; will attempt to look at Garrus again."

"Huh?" She arched an eyebrow, at this. "What's up with Garrus?"

"Minor burns, explosion related. Refused treatment, told me to treat you first." The salarian physician said as he started to walk away, pausing long enough to take a deep breath. "Suspect he has a phobia for needles."

"Typical." She smirked. "Thanks again, doc."

"Duty is its own reward, you're welcome." Mordin said, waving it off and leaving Jack and Kasumi.

Sure enough, Kasumi felt the pain slowly dull and float away, leaving her body just a little bit stiff. Zipping up her suit, she stood back up and pulled the hood a little bit more over her face. What with the hangover and a beating, she was definitely going to feel all this in the morning. "Ugh… Why didn't I just go to sleep last night?"

"Well, I don't know about being well rested, Kasumi, but you seemed to have a lot of… fun."

"And I'm paying for it now, apparently." She added, fiddling with the settings on her Locust SMG.

"Oh, you are paying for it." Jack said, waggling her eyebrows. "And I'm not talking about the thrashing."

"I know right, I mean- Wait." She replied, suddenly forgetting about her gun and turning her head in Jack's direction. "What?"

"Let's get back with the others and figure this shit out first." Jack said as she started to walk off. "I'll give you all the… Juicy details later."

"What are you talking about?" Kasumi called out in annoyance, catching up to her friend. "Seriously Jack, what are you hiding?"

"Me? Hiding anything? I don't know…" Jack replied with mock hurt, before grinning sadistically. "Why don't you ask Garrus? Maybe he knows."

"Garrus?" Kasumi tilted her head in confusion. "What about Garrus?"

"What about him indeed?" Jack asserted.

"I hate it when you're being a saucy bitch."

"You and the rest of the galaxy, honey."

The two bantered back and forth as they walked towards the hub in front of the elevator where most of the crew was gathering. Engineers were nearly pulling out their hair as they ran through the logistical nightmare of the hole in the ventral portion of the ship. It was a small blessing that only a small portion of the ship was left unarmored, but it still left The Normandy non-space worthy. Off to the side, Tali had her hands on her hips as Samara wrapped up recounting recent events to her.

"So let me get this straight." Tali began matter-of-factly, arms folding over her chest and dipping her hip. "Shepard got a heavily encrypted message from Aria T'Loak regarding information about Cerberus HQ. He left almost immediately after that with half the squad and no further instructions." She paused as Samara nodded. "Then a few hours after he left, we got hit by the Eclipse and now we're stuck here."

"That is a fair summary of it, yes."

Tali sighed, "Meaning that he's also probably dealing with problems on his end." She began to wonder if hiding was the wrong course of action to take. But she had to hide, for the surprise. She just hoped that the decision was worth it.

Samara's dead pan expression softened at Tali's silence. "He is a capable warrior, Tali'Zorah. I am certain he lives yet."

"I know, but I'm still scared for him, Samara."

"If I may ask, what were you doing down here?"

Tali nodded her head towards a nondescript case at her feet. "Just a little something for Shepard. I'll give it to him after I thrash the hell out of him for walking into an obvious trap, of course."

"Of course." Samara replied with an understanding smirk. Before anything else could be said, Grunt approached them, an urgent look in his eyes. "What's the matter, Grunt?"

The krogan smirked as if Samara just asked him what he wanted for Christmas. "Garrus is gathering the squad. He says it's time for a counter attack."

"Counter attack?" Tali asked as she tilted her head. "How?"

Grunt shrugged. "Don't know. But he'll explain the details himself, now come on."

The catwalks high above inside the Afterlife were generally reserved for dancers who twisted and gyrated exotically to an intoxicating tempo. But the lights and music were now replaced by chaos and the only dance being danced was the dance of death. The smoke had mostly cleared now as Miller tried in vain to shoot Aria as the frenzied asari rushed towards him in fury, closing the distance between them while practically dodging bullets.

Aria growled as she struck out with a glowing left fist, but Miller easily sidestepped the blow and wrapped his left arm around Aria's elbow. Twirling his pistol, he shoved it into the side of her stomach but was quickly knocked away by Aria's free hand just as he pulled the trigger, sending the shot way off mark. She followed this up with a series of vicious strikes to his ribs until Miller was forced to let go of her. With her arms now free, Aria spun on her heels as she delivered a spin kick, knocking the heavy pistol from Miller's grip. Before he could recover, she closed in again and elbowed him in the head with enough force to crack his visor.

Miller staggered back a few steps as he tried to recover his senses, but Aria wouldn't give him the luxury of time. She rushed into him again, drawing back her fist as it burned with biotic fury. Before she could make contact however, he shimmered and disappeared from sight, leaving her punching the air. She always did hate cloaking devices.

"What's the matter, Miller? Scared?" Aria taunted as she looked around for any sign of him. "You started out talking so big too." She walked around, keeping her guard up. "Shame you had to go limp."

"Whore!" Miller roared as he re-appeared beside her, holding a pistol to her head.

Too easy, Aria smirked as she twisted out of the way and took out her own pistol, unloading at point blank. Miller just stood there though, unfazed by the shots. Come to think of it, not even his shields were shimmering. It was like the bullets just went past him. Aria's smirk disappeared as she realized she was facing a holographic decoy.

"Boo." Miller's voice whispered from behind her. Aria's eyes went wide, but it was too late as he shot out the back of her knees.

"Argh!" Aria roared as she fell to the ground, blood coming out from the holes in her knees. The pain was excruciating, but she was used to pain. Death however, would be a bit more permanent. Knowing this, she tried to get back up, only for a heavy armored boot to stomp down on her spine. She screamed and tried to squirm free, but Miller pinned her down with ease. "You son of a bitch!" She reached for her pistol which had fallen in front of her, but Miller shot it and it exploded in sparks.

"This is the queen of Omega?" Miller taunted as he ground his boot into her back, causing her to scream even more. "This is the scourge of the Terminus systems?" He leveled his pistol and shot her left hand as she tried to crawl away, blood splattering as the heavy round mangled her flesh. "I haven't been this disappointed since I killed my dad!"

Aria looked at her mangled left hand and the puddle of blood growing around it, knowing full well that it would hurt like hell when the shock wears off. Her ring and little finger having been completely blasted off, and what was left was mangled and charred. Her eyes glowed as she charged up a biotic blast, but she felt fingers grab at the tentacles on the back of her head and roughly yanked her head up. A second later, before she could even scream in protest, she felt something cold and heavy clamp down around her neck before her face was violently bashed into the metal floor with a resounding thud. She tried to use her biotics as she tasted blood in her mouth, but to her surprise, she could not even muster a charge.

Miller kneeled with his knee on her back as he pulled her head back up again, her face bloodied, and leaning in close enough to whisper to her. "Biotic dampeners, top of the line batarian tech." His helmet hissed as the front panel opened, revealing a heavily tattooed face lined with multiple piercings. "Such a shame... To waste such a pretty face…" He said as he stuck out his tongue and licked the blood slowly off of Aria's cheek.

"I'll kill you…" Aria said, voice quaking in barely contained rage. She felt a chill of disgust go up her spine as he slowly ran his tongue over her cheek.

"Beg." He whispered into her ear.

"Go to hell!"

"Oh I'm going to enjoy breaking your spirit."

"You psychotic bastard…" Aria growled, gritting her teeth as her vision blurred from the pain. "You won't get away with this. My men are pushing yours back." She managed a defiant smirk. "You've lost!"

"Is that what you think?" Miller said, mildly amused. "My men aren't being pushed back; they're getting out of the blast radius."

"What?"

Rather than replying he pulled out a small cube from his pack, holding it next to Aria's face for her to see.

Aria's eyes went wide, recognizing the device as a specific detonator for a specific kind of bomb. "You're insane."

"I always did think this club was an eyesore. So I decided to do some redecorating."

"But if you had this all along, why go through with a full frontal attack?"

Miller chuckled. "Stealth and subterfuge is nice, but it's all about making a statement. After all…" he said, licking his lips as his eyes traveled down from the back of Aria's neck towards her generous backside. "What's the use of killing a goddess if you can't make her bleed first?" He was about to undo some choice panels from his armor when he sighed in disappointment. Dropping the detonator, his hands shot like lightning as it caught the hands from behind him, each trying to bury a slender blade into the sides of his neck. "I hate it when people interrupt my meal." He said dangerously, his grip clamping down on his attacker's wrists like a vice.

Thane brought his legs into Miller's back, kicking off and wresting himself free from his grasp as he jumped into the air, landing gracefully with a flip several feet behind him. He scolded himself inwardly for being detected at the last second. With his target too close to Aria, he had no choice but to put away his gun and break out his blades.

"Well if it isn't the hanar's trained blood hound." Miller announced as he stood up, turning to face the drell. "I thought I smelled fish."

Without replying, Thane flung both blades at the mercenary, giving him time to reach for his pistol. Miller ran towards him and ducked to a roll underneath the spinning knives, pulling out his own gun as he did so. He rose right in front of Thane, both men leveling their pistols at each other's face at the same time.

Like a synchronized dance, both men stood in front of each other as their hands grabbed at the other's gun, pushing and pulling the gun's line of sight away from them before the other could pull the trigger. Shots rang out as bullets whizzed by their heads, missing them by a hair's breadth as they continued to trade fire and grapple.

Click. Click.

Their guns clicked empty, and both men spared each other a quick glance of understanding before spinning on their heels and standing back to back, hastily reloading their weapons.

As the shots rang out again, Miller didn't notice Aria reaching out for one of the knives that had embedded itself on the floor in front of her, right next to the detonator he had dropped earlier. "Clever drell." She murmured as she fought through the waves of pain that throbbed all over, especially from her mangled hand. Grabbing it, she pulled it out and started to work on the dampening collar on her neck.